She’d never thought of beer smelling good before, but here she was thinking it now, pulse tripping, gaze fluttering from his eyes to his mouth, parted again, that same caught-out, startled energy from the dinner table earlier.
Slowly, he turned her loose, and just as slowly she lowered her arm to her side.
He wet his lips, and her gaze followed the pink peek of his tongue. “Hey,” he started.
A tangled scuffle of footfalls coming in the mudroom had them springing apart.
She watched, pulse still high and fast, as Mercy, Tango, and Aidan guided a nearly-unconscious Reese into the kitchen. Mercy was doing most of the holding up, as Reese’s ankles turned and threatened to buckle, while Tango and Aidan steered him by the arms.
“Come on,” Mercy said, in the same gentle, fondly chiding tone he used on his kids when they were throwing tantrums. “Let’s get you somewhere flat.”
“And get you a bucket,” Aidan said.
Leah glanced toward Carter – and found he’d moved all the way across the room. He held his glass in one hand, the water rippling, betraying the way his hand trembled. His other hand was in his hair, raking through the golden thickness of it, his gaze trained on the floor.
Whatever she was feeling, whatever explanation existed for this strange new tension, he was feeling it, too.
Twenty-One
Eden had several laptops and several digital cameras, but she still liked to tackle some cases the old-fashioned way, an urge of which Fox approved. She’d printed all the relevant photos for the Allie Henderson case out on her home printer and pinned them up on the corkboard in the formal living room that she was slowly turning into an office. Rose-printed drapes still flanked the window, letting in soft, early morning light that gleamed on the sensible wooden desks and storage cabinets she’d picked up at Ikea.
She sat cross-legged and barefoot in her ergonomic chair, rim of her coffee mug pressed to her lips, steam swirling in front of her face as she studied the photo array with intense concentration, squinting faintly.
Fox stood behind her, one hand resting on the back of the chair, waiting. He knew better than to intrude upon these sorts of meditative moments.
After a while, she said, “Jimmy Connors was far too angry at the friend – Nicole, I need to talk to her today – for his attraction to Allie to have been sudden or fleeting. He’s been watching and wanting for a while, long before the party.”
“Yeah,” Fox agreed, winding a silky lock of her hair absently around his finger.
“He watched, and he wanted, maybe he’d made contact previously: just a passing remark here or there. Let her borrow a dollar for the vending machine; paid her a compliment when she got a new dress; borrowed a pencil. And all the while he’s been imagining.”
“Building up their grand romance in his mind?”
“Yes, it’s what people do. They plan the perfect relationship: holding hands, and sharing milkshakes, and all that sappy bollocks. Some even manage to convince themselves that, if only she would finally look at him, she would realize he was exactly what she’s been looking for all along.
“He made his move the night of the party. Just enough to drink to feel brave, and strip away all the inhibitions.”
“He shoots his shot,” Fox agreed.
“And she shoots him down.”
“How embarrassing.”
“Perhaps murderously so.” She sipped her coffee, and tipped her head to one side. “I don’t think he’s clever enough to have killed her and hidden her by himself, though.”
“He had that friend, the one the kids saw him with.”
“Whose identity I still need to pin down. My guess is it’s the same friend from the café.”
“A guy can have more than one friend.”
“Not this one, I don’t think,” she mused; didn’t mean it as an insult, but had gleaned something. A gut feeling. Usually, those were correct when they were Eden’s. “Any little wanker could get fixated on a girl, it’s true,” she elaborated, “but this feels different. This feels like he doesn’t have much, and like he took her refusal far, far too personally.”
“So he and Café Boy did it together.”
“And got back to the party before Mr. Henderson arrived?” He couldn’t see her face, but he could envision her arching a single brow well enough. “I don’t have that much faith in their stealth or cunning. Even if they left the party, and followed her; even if Jimmy Connors killed her – someone else left that yellow tag to be found. Someone else disposed of her.” She finally spun the chair a fraction, far enough for him to see that both her brows were raised. “If she’s even dead.”
“There’s been no note, no phone call,” he reminded. “No proof of life.”
“Maybe that’s because whoever took her isn’t planning to offer it. Maybe it’s not a ransom.”
He lifted one of his brows in silent question.
“She’s a pretty girl, Charlie. And who do we know who likes to collect pretty American girls and keep them locked in barns until they can be sold?”
He felt a quick pulse of maybe. Her idea had merit, certainly, and Luis had told Candy they hadn’t seen the last of him. If that fed Maddox – ex-fed, he supposed – had been telling the truth, then this was becoming a trend within the broader outlaw community. Luis could have friends; could have resources.
“His calling card was a star, not a triangle,” he reminded.
“Hm.” She turned back to the photos. “I have a few more interviews to conduct. Ghost said he’d put me in contact with the police lieutenant.”
“You’ll be busy, then.”
“Most of the day. Dinner at eight?”
“Yeah. Keep me posted.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, to which she murmured a soft, wordless response. Then he headed for Dartmoor.
He was on Industrial, a quarter-mile from the edge of the Dartmoor property, riding along the river – glinting in the morning light – when he spotted a familiar figure jogging along the shoulder.
Tenny wore compression leggings and a compression shirt, the fabric black, and clinging. Unforgiving. Fox knew all its advantages, and Tenny did, too; this wasn’t a jog, actually, but a run. A hard one. His muscles would be screaming, his lungs burning. His face, when Fox pulled up alongside him, was red and streaming sweat, despite the mild morning temperature, and his scowl had pressed lines into his forehead.
Fox kept pace with him a while, but when it became obvious he wasn’t going to turn his head and acknowledge him, he rode on. Got to the clubhouse, went in for a cup of coffee, and was sitting on a picnic table out front, having a smoke, when Tenny loped across the lot and finally fell into an exhausted, ground-eating walk a few yards away.
Fox had brought a water bottle out with him, and he lifted it now, so the sun glinted off the stainless steel: an offering.
Tenny spotted him, and debated a moment, standing expressionless. He peeled up the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, and then finally approached. He took the bottle with a quiet, “Ta,” then sat beside Fox and drank it down in long, slow swallows, gasping after.
Fox nursed his coffee, and said, “I thought you and Reese ran together most mornings.”
“No. Sometimes. Not most.”
“Not this morning.”
“No.”
“Were you not invited to Mercy’s for dinner last night?”
“Mercy didn’t invite me.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Fox turned to look at him and found a perfect mask in place. He looked tired, and bored, and indifferent. But his long fingers tapped softly against the water bottle, betraying the amount of feeling that he’d so carefully concealed. “Why didn’t you go?”
Tenny’s lip pulled back into his familiar, scornful sneer. As manufactured as every other part of this performance, but it would have looked real to a civilian. “Why would I? I don’t want to spend time with those people.”
“What about Reese? He’s the
only one you ever want to spend time with. He went.”
Tenny met his gaze, and Fox could see the way his flickered, his control fraying. His tone was flat, still, when he said, “Why do you care?”
“Let’s call it brotherly concern.”
Tenny’s nostrils flared. “Let’s not. There isn’t that between us.”
Fox sighed – a bit theatrically, and the way Tenny’s fingers twitched again on the bottle told him that he knew it. “You’re regressing, Ten. I thought we’d gained a little ground. You have a name, now” – Tenny’s jaw tightened, a muscle in his cheek leaping – “and you actually speak when spoken to by people other than me, and you’ve been more cooperative. I thought you were starting to settle. That you didn’t hate all of our guts. Why are you backsliding? What happened with Reese?”
The façade cracked. A subtle shift, but one that screamed like neon to Fox’s eyes. Unchecked anger flared in his gaze, and tension stole through his body; even the flick of his lashes when he blinked was aggressive. “Why the hell do you think Reese has anything to do with it?” He put a nasty sort of emphasis on his name: overcompensating for a hurt he didn’t want to show.
“Because you care about him. Because he’s the only thing you care about, and the only thing capable of putting you in this bad a mood.”
Tenny wanted to lash out. Fox watched the urge to violence shiver through him. But then he turned his head, and stared out across the parking lot, jaw still iron-tight.
The drone of bike engines reached them, and Fox glanced up to see two approaching. One was Mercy, obvious even from a distance. But the other, he saw when they’d parked, and the helmets had come off, was Reese.
Yards away, Fox could see the dark circles beneath the boy’s eyes, the drawn, sallow cast of his face. His hair was never tidy, but was usually at least clean; today it looked dull and unwashed. His movements, when he set his helmet on his handlebars, were slow and too-precise.
Hangover, Fox diagnosed.
Beside him, Tenny vibrated with tension. A stolen glance proved that he’d pressed his lips flat, his stare fixed on the other boy. Even in profile, Fox could read the longing etched in every line of his expression. It startled Fox, a little. He knew there was a real, human boy beneath the government-built exterior, but he’d always imagined it being something muted and strange, much like his own inner workings. He’d anticipated want, or lust; a lascivious smirk. Truth told, he hadn’t had any concrete thoughts about Tenny wanting anything, until right this moment. It was a visceral, painful, shocking kind of yearning staining his cheeks red now. He was wholly, unreservedly in love with Reese, and it was clawing at him, killing him from the inside out.
Fox had the thought to look away, and spare them both the embarrassment of having noticed. But Tenny didn’t acknowledge him. Slipped off the table and away, quick and quiet as the ghost he’d been trained up to be.
Mercy and Reese had reached the table, Reese walking with his head down, curtains of his dirty hair falling around his face – shielding him.
Mercy clapped him on the shoulder, giving him one of those gentle shakes that, despite Mercy’s well meaning, always left the recipient stumbling. “Go take a shower, and you’ll feel better.”
“Yes, sir,” Reese mumbled, and shuffled to the clubhouse door.
Mercy sat down on the bench beside Fox’s feet and lit a cigarette.
“Did the couples potluck get a little wild?” Fox asked.
“Just Reese’s version of it.” Mercy exhaled a plume of smoke and sent Fox a guarded look, one that had a laugh building in Fox’s throat: the two of them both looking after their charges, all ready to bristle on their behalf. At least for Fox, that had changed in the last few minutes, after seeing Tenny’s – frankly sad – pining.
Mercy was still serious, though, almost stern with it. “Okay, I’m gonna say something, because I think you already know what’s going on, but I want it to stay between us for right now. Ghost can know about it when he needs to.”
Fox nodded. “The kids aren’t alright.”
Mercy nodded.
“Ten’s of no use if he’s this lovesick.”
Mercy frowned. “I was more worried about them, not how useful they are.” He sat forward, taking another sharp drag on his cig. “What do you mean: lovesick?”
Fox sighed. “Whatever’s wrong between them, it’s mutual.” He had a feeling he knew what, but he wasn’t going to share it with Mercy.
He had a reputation for being heartless, but, in some instances – this one, it turned out – he had a sense of fraternal loyalty.
~*~
A shower did help, marginally.
Reese had awakened that morning with a foul taste in his mouth, a splitting headache, and a shakiness the likes of which had only ever accompanied sedation.
Ava had been sitting on the coffee table, a steaming mug in her hands, and her head tilted, her smile soft. “Good morning.” When he’d pushed himself upright, more than slightly panicked that he’d allowed himself to drop his guard and become so useless, she’d offered the mug to him, and it had proved to be coffee with lots of vanilla creamer and sugar. That had helped. As had the cold crackers he’d managed to choke down at the Lécuyer table, while the children looked on him with curiosity – and, he imagined, judgement.
The soothing hot water of the shower, the fragrant soap and shampoo, being clean, left him hungry and something like eager to move past last night’s transgressions. He scraped his wet hair back off his face, wrapped his towel around his hips, and went out into the room to dress.
Tenny was sitting on his bed.
Reese froze, and his gaze, out of habit, raked the room, searching for the nearest weapon. There was an intruder in his room, and he was naked from the shower. Not defenseless, never that, even if still shaky, but the urge to arm himself was immediate and swift. When he settled – because he wasn’t under attack, and there was no threat – he glanced back toward Tenny, and saw him smirk knowingly; Reese thought he would have done the same thing.
Reese opened his mouth to speak–
And Tenny said, “You look like shit.”
He’d grown used to Tenny’s insults: they were as casual and benign as other people’s comments about the weather. But now, after yesterday, the snarl, and the hate, and the – rejection. It had been rejection. This insult didn’t feel like one of the usual teasing jabs. It felt pointed. Felt like it was meant to wound.
Reese had never cared about his physical appearance, or whether anyone found it pleasing or not. But he’d said, “I like your face,” to Tenny, and Tenny said he looked like shit.
He gripped the towel at his waist, and stood up straight. “What do you want?”
He watched – to his own shock – surprise, and then something almost like hurt flicker across Tenny’s regal features. In a blink, it turned to offense. Tenny leaned back on the mattress, hands braced, and crossed one leg over the other, foot bouncing in a show of casual indifference. But Reese could feel the tension vibrating through the air between them.
“Your eyes are red and puffy,” Tenny observed, and Reese tensed, remembering, vaguely, trying to wipe the ceaseless, unwanted tears from his face. He’d never cried before, and was stunned and ashamed that he had last night. He wondered if Tenny could tell.
But Ten said, “Did you get drunk?”
“Yes.” Almost breathless with relief. Yes, he had, and he hadn’t cried, certainly not over Tenny’s rejection.
Tenny snorted, and stood, unfolding his long, lean frame with his usual elegance.
Reese could read the fatigue in him, though, the drop to his shoulders. He smelled of a shower, hair still damp at the ends, and he wore a crisp, white shirt, and jeans, and harness boots – but he’d been running, Reese knew, because they always ran in the mornings, before it got hot, when the dew was still thick enough to soak their shoes. He’d gone running alone, because Reese was slow to wake, hungover and sick, and for a moment, he regretted
not being there with – for – his friend.
But he was still angry. Still hurt, truly. In the harsh, sober light of day, he could better identify the phantom pain behind his ribs. So, as Tenny gave him an unreadable once-over and turned for the door, Reese took a breath and said, “You look like shit, too.”
Tenny froze with his hand on the knob. Looked slowly back over his shoulder, his brows lowering, expression clouded. “What?”
The self-righteous asshole. Sometimes, Reese still hated him, and now was one of those times. Anger crowded out all of his hurt, had his hand tightening on his towel, had his breath quickening. Tenny liked to play with people, fool and trick them, and that wasn’t good, but it was tolerable when he was doing it to others. When he was doing it to Reese, it stung like a fresh burn.
“You’re a liar,” he said, and could hear the unchecked fury in his voice; he’d never sounded like this before, never so human.
Tenny turned. “I’m a what?”
“A liar. You said your problem was me. That you wanted me to stay away from you. But you kissed me first. You made me have sex. You invited the girls, every time.”
Tenny’s face went blank. His eyes widened.
“It was your idea, all of it. Stephanie. Mary. That waitress.” He’d never even learned her name, but she’d sucked him off behind Smokey’s while Tenny watched, smoking a cigarette, and, eventually, stroking himself. “You kissed me first,” he repeated. “It was you, not me.”
He was heaving for breath afterward, his pulse throbbing.
He saw Tenny’s chest lift as he took a deep, harsh breath of his own. Watched him attempt to put his mask in place. “You’re right,” he said, tightly. “It is my fault.” His throat moved as he swallowed. “I supposed I’ve molested you, then. Apologies.” He spun.
“Tennyson–” Reese took a step forward.
And Tenny was gone, the door shut firmly behind him.
Twenty-Two
“Kinda hard to run through a pass progression with only one receiver, and no tacklers,” Elijah pointed out, tossing the ball from hand to hand.
Homecoming (Dartmoor Book 8) Page 20