by R. S. Elliot
I took a sip from my drink to alleviate the tension welling within me.
“So, how long have you two been fucking?” Flynn asked suddenly.
I snapped my head around to see him, nearly choking on my drink. My first instinct was to smack him, so I did. On the arm. Nothing too hard, nothing even noticeable. But it sure made me feel better. “What the hell, Flynn? Why would you say that?”
“Because he looks like he’s ready to fucking impale me with one of these skewers,” he said, lifting the now empty meat skewer between his fingers.
I shook my head. We were not being very discreet. “You’ve met each other before, and you were both perfectly civil to one another.”
“No. The last time he just looked like he didn’t like me. This time he looks like he wants to kill me. A man can always tell when another man is beating his chest, laying claim to his territory.”
“I am not a piece of territory to be claimed.” I scoffed at the archaic idea. Hunter wasn’t like that. Was he?
“Men don’t see things that way,” Flynn explained.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I mean, we may say we trust you. We may actually trust you. But those other guys. Hell, no. We don’t trust them at all. And I mean, just look at me. I’m gorgeous. Who wouldn’t be intimidated by all of this?”
I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Yes, you’re so charming. How do women resist?”
“It’s a curse, really.” Flynn shrugged, doing another survey of the room before landing his attention back on me. “But my next question is, why would lover boy see me in particular as a threat? I’m not the only man you’ve ever talked to in front of him.”
Oh, God. Was I going to have to explain all of this mess to Flynn, too? It was a complete misunderstanding. It wasn’t even my fault really. “You said it yourself. You’re a real catch, Flynn. Any man would feel inferior compared to you.”
“Very funny. That’s not it.”
“Maybe he can sense how close we are.”
Flynn leveled an incredulous stare over me, cocking his head to the side. “Maybe you told him we were closer than we really are.”
“I didn’t tell him that...exactly.”
“What did you tell him?”
I hesitated. I could barely even remember all the details anymore. So much had happened in so little time, and I’d offered up more than my fair share of excuses. “I just told him I was seeing someone—not you. But he must have made the assumption after seeing us together all those times.”
Flynn swore under his breath. “Lynds. You’ve got to stop dragging me into stuff like this.”
“I told him you and I weren’t an item.”
“But you are sleeping together?”
Only once. And hopefully many, many times in the future. “Why does that matter?”
“Oh my god.” Flynn’s lip curled at one end. His eyes sparked of something mischievous and dangerous all bundled into one. “You like him?”
“What?”
“Your face gets all red, and you keep looking around for an exit.” Flynn’s brow furrowed deeper, as if he didn’t even believe the accuracy of his own assessment. “You actually like him. This isn’t just some little boy toy you’re messing with.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say.”
“Oh, come on, Lynds. Do you know how many guys’ hearts you’ve broken in the past ten years? You’re going to grow a conscience about it now?”
The accusation struck a nerve. Of all the things to say. I never intentionally hurt anyone. “I have not—”
“Billy Jones was so in love with you, he stole his parent's credit card to buy you a limo to the senior prom when you were just a freshman,” Flynn explained. “Then you spent the entire evening making out with his friend Mark because you thought Billy understood the two of you were just friends.”
My stomach did a tiny somersault. I didn’t do that. Did I? I was just a kid back then. How could I have known what Billy was thinking? “That wasn’t my fault, Billy never said—”
“That’s my point. You never realize how deep attachments go because you never look for the signs,” Flynn explained. “Every one of our friends knew how much Billy liked you. I even said something about it, but you blew it off saying I didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“I-I….” Ugh. This was hard. What did he want from me? “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“I don’t expect you to say anything,” Flynn said. “I just don’t want you to screw this up because you’re too afraid to open your eyes up to something real.”
“You’re one to talk to me about pursuing something real.”
“Lynds, if a woman and I exchanged a stare like the two of you just did, I guarantee you there would be no hope for me at that point. You like him. And he obviously likes you.” Flynn tugged on his coat sleeves to briefly reveal his gun in its holster. “Dude was ready to take me out, and I’m clearly armed.”
I laughed lightly.
“Look, I know your family has this crazy thing going on right now,” he said. “But I know you will figure something out. Especially for something important like this.”
The room spun around my head. All this stress, all these emotions, it was too much too soon. I needed fresh air. “I’m going to take a quick step out back.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, no.” I stopped Flynn in his tracks. “I need to be alone for a minute.”
“I don’t know…”
I pressed a hand against his arm. “I’ll be fine. I’ll go through the door in the kitchen. The catering staff is there. So, I won’t really be alone.”
He only nodded muttering something about coming to get me if I didn’t show back in a few minutes.
The night breeze cooled my skin the instant I stepped outside, despite the warm summer air. All those people indoors accounted for very sparse air and a sweltering heat. I made a note to turn the A/C down even further when I went back inside.
I wrapped my arms around myself and contemplated how I ever got myself into this mess.
Oh, right. I came home.
“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself.” Hunter’s voice filled the empty silence.
“I’m really tired of people telling me what I should and shouldn’t do,” I said, looking over my shoulder to see him.
“We’re all just trying to look out for you,” he explained, and closed the distance between us in two quick strides. “Especially after the note.”
I shook my head. There wasn’t much else I could do. The warmth of his hand encircling my waist wove through me like a full embrace. He was just barely touching me, and already I was like putty in his hands.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, unsure why. I wanted him here, didn’t I? Why did it feel like I was already pushing him away?
“I let my sister get all up in my head,” he said, leaning into me. His lips brushed against my temple, eliciting a whole new string of sensations down my spine. It was taking every ounce of restraint not to turn around and throw myself at him. “I just...I wanted to be near you.”
“Are you sure this didn’t have anything to do with Flynn?”
A low growl rumbled from the base of his throat. I raised my hand up behind me to stroke his cheek. A small scattering of stubble already started to form along his jawline. The rough feel of it beneath my fingers encouraged those same naughty thoughts. Combined with the sight of the stubbly shadow on his jaw, it was enough to make any woman fall to her knees.
The throbbing ache at the center of my womanhood emerged, and I clenched my thighs together to stop it. Now was not the time. I couldn’t make love to him outside, with enemies lurking so close by. Especially when I was supposed to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior.
“There’s nothing, Hunter,” I said instead. “Flynn’s just an old friend.”
“It’s fine.” He bent down and kissed my neck. “You should have just seen the smirk he g
ave me.”
My body tingled with the rekindling spark of his touch. Every inch wanted to give into him there. I needed him now more than ever. Even more than I did before I knew what it was like to make love to Hunter. I would have thought the charm would wear off the way it always did. After the thrill of the hunt was over, there was little left to keep both parties entertained.
Only this time was different. Being with Hunter left me always wanting more. To the point that I worried a lifetime with him would never be enough.
“You should be nicer to Flynn,” I said sweetly. “He’s the one who told me to come out here and tell you…”
My voice trailed off. I meant to tell him how I felt. I really did.
But something nearby caught my attention.
The light to the storage shed was turned on. Why? Grandma normally kept a groundskeeper on the property, but I hadn’t seen him since they’d handed the house over to me. I hadn’t spent any time in the storage shed. I’d barely been able to go through the things in the house. And anything Aly or Zach would have needed for the house, they would have bought directly from the store.
So why was the light on this late at night?
“Lyndsey?” Hunter’s voice pulled me back.
I had even physically started walking toward the shed. I motioned toward it, just as a shadow drifted across the sliver of light peeking through the cracked door.
“There’s someone in there.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Hunter
She was right.
There was someone in the shed out back.
While a raccoon or opossum was still an option, they didn’t know how to operate the lights. Someone had been out there recently. And from the look on Lyndsey’s face, it wasn’t normal.
“Let’s go check,” I said, taking a step toward the shed.
She tugged me back by the arm. “What are you, crazy? What if the person’s armed? Or is here to do something horrible? Let’s just go back to the house to get Flynn.”
I suppressed my initial response to roll my eyes. “We don’t need Flynn.”
I moved toward the shed again, but she yanked me back even harder. “Flynn is armed. That’s why he’s here, Hunter. To investigate the arson. This whole thing was a setup to draw the person out.”
It took a moment for all of that to sink in. Not only was this an elaborate scheme to do something dangerous, I had not been informed of anything—not Flynn or the plan. And it irritated me much more than it should.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “What if you got hurt?”
Her eyes narrowed, and her lips pursed into a tempting, albeit irritated, pout. “Flynn knows what he’s doing. Now let’s go back and get him.”
The door to the shed opened and a man in dark clothes and a ball cap exited. She could go get Flynn, but if we waited any longer, the man might be miles away before he finally gets out here.
I tore off down the small incline leading to the shed. I made it about ten yards from the man before he realized someone was after him. He sped off toward the woods surrounding the property, but I tackled him to the ground within seconds.
We struggled for a minute or two. I wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed. All I remember was the look of pure confusion and terror on his face when he saw me. He muttered something in a foreign language, either frantically attempting to clear his name or issuing a prayer to the heavens.
I didn’t recognize him. Not that I would know everyone in Lyndsey’s life. The man appeared somewhere in his late forties, clean shaven, and wearing something closer to a uniform than a night-stalking outfit.
“Yehven?” Lyndsey’s voice sounded behind me.
Flynn stood beside him, along with Kyle and some other man who looked like a cop. Being a firefighter, you get a feel for those kinds of things after a while.
Yehven rattled off another series of incomprehensible rants in his language, appealing to people completely clueless about how to help him. I lifted up onto my knees, still holding him in place with my hand.
“Does anyone speak Spanish?” Kyle asked, looking from person to person with unfettered irritation. “I can’t understand a word the man is saying.”
“He doesn’t speak Spanish.” Lyndsey ground the words out between her teeth. She slid a sideways glare in Kyle’s direction before pinning Yehven with a softer, gentler gaze. “He’s from the Ukraine.”
“Well, who the hell is he?” Flynn asked.
“Our groundskeeper.”
“Former groundskeeper,” Kyle corrected.
“A decision I clearly was not made aware of.” Lyndsey’s glare remained hot over Kyle, whispering warnings far too dangerous to be voiced aloud. She was pissed. And I made a mental note to never get her that angry. She turned her attention back to the groundskeeper. “Yehven, calm down. We just want to know what you’re doing here.”
Yehven inhaled a few calming breaths, before speaking in almost perfect English. “I have a call from Miss Lyndsey this morning wanting me to put in some torches on the grounds.”
“Right now?” Kyle snapped. “In the middle of a party? In the dead of night?”
“I did not know there was a party,” Yehven explained. “And this was the time she told me to come. I thought, this would be an opportunity to get my job back after…”
His eyes fell on Kyle, growing cold and anxious as if terrified my brother-in-law might harm with another word.
“Yehven, I never called you,” Lyndsey said.
His eyes widened, another burst of fear leaping across his already trembling features. “Miss Lyndsey, it sounded just like you. I saw the party, and I just left all the stuff in the shed. I did not want to bother anyone. I thought, I come back in the morning.”
Lyndsey remained silent, assessing Yehven’s rapidly shifting facial expressions with a hint of unease. Her chest hiked a notch higher, and she moved her attention from one person to the next. When she landed on me, the questions there broke my heart. Did she believe him? Hell, I was even tempted to believe him. Though, none of it was making any sense. Were you supposed to trust a supposed criminal on their word?
Though, if anyone were to be presumed innocent on the spot, it would have been this man. He wasn’t shaking because he’d been caught. He was just sincerely terrified, disoriented even.
The assumed cop and Flynn made their way to the shed and back, in a few minutes that seemed to stretch like hours. Flynn held up a small bottle of something in one hand and a bundle of cloth and rope in his other. “We found kerosene, matches, cloth, and some rope.”
“Yes.” Yehven nodded, reaching out to the articles. “For the torches.”
“Then where are the torches?” Flynn asked.
Silence.
No one spoke, everyone rapt and ready for the spectacular answer. Even Yehven didn’t seem to know how to answer that.
“They are...here. No?” he said finally.
“No.” Flynn shook his head, looking genuinely upset that the man didn’t have a better answer. He flicked a hand in the air, sending the cop beside him toward Yehven with handcuffs.
“No, no.” Yehven shook his head. “Miss Lyndsey ...please.”
The cop hauled Yehven to his feet and led him around the side of the house, away from the partygoers. Lyndsey grabbed Flynn by the arm, drawing him tightly to her. I ignored the stabbing sensation it caused in the pit of my stomach. Especially when I already felt sick from the entire ordeal.
None of this felt right.
“Flynn, you can’t,” Lyndsey said. “There’s no way he’s guilty.”
“You know this?” Flynn asked.
“It’s just a feeling I have.”
“Don’t listen to her nonsense.” Kyle waved a dismissive hand. “You can’t make a case on feelings. We fired the man right before Lyndsey took over the house due to stealing. He was siphoning money out of the budget. He would have probably bled my grandmother dry if we hadn’t noticed it when going through t
he records after her death.”
Yeah. It really looks like he’d done a lot of damage.
I examined the multi-million dollar property. How could Kyle say he was draining the funds when they all received more than their fair share of an inheritance?
Flynn peered down at Lyndsey, his eyes a meld of tough love and regret. “I’ve got to go with the evidence on this one, Lynds. I’m sorry.”
He pulled away from her, flashing a brief glance in my direction before following the path along the side of the house. I tried to ignore how close they still seemed, how he even had a nickname for her. How he seemed to know there was something going on between Lyndsey and me, even when it was meant to be a secret.
To my surprise, Kyle didn’t ask any questions. Not why we were out here alone, how we came across the man in the shed, nothing.
It bothered me. Though, I kept my thoughts to myself.
The party continued without much more excitement. Once it ended, everyone made their way to their respective rooms for the night.
Except me.
I couldn’t sleep. Not with all the questions still rolling around in my head. It didn’t make sense for Yehven to be the arsonist, or even the person threatening Lyndsey. He seemed to look up to her, to want to help her and get back in the good graces of the family. Plus, the method for how they suspected he would start a new fire was completely off. From my experience, all arsonists used a singular method close to a fingerprint on their work. They wouldn’t change strategies halfway through the game.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Lyndsey’s voice floated into the kitchen where I’d made my tiny refuge.
And there was another reason I couldn’t sleep.
How could I when Lyndsey was so close by? She wore thin cotton shorts and a matching pink camisole that exposed a thin sliver of her waistline. Her long blonde hair tumbled about her shoulders in soft golden waves.
Damn. My breath stopped. This woman left me absolutely speechless.
I struggled for a response, especially since I could barely remember what she’d even said. “Yes. I mean, no. I don’t know what’s going on. It was just a lot to take in for the night I think.”