by Zoe Carter
“You are great. The Trevor I’ve gotten to know feels deeply. You took in CJ when he had nowhere to go. You brought in Mack, another lone wolf who needed a place to belong. And I see the way you pat Sundappled and the bulls and the cattle. You love those animals. I can see you teaching your little cowboy in his tiny Stetson and chaps how to ride a pony.”
He laughed, then reached over and held her hand and that was it. The feel of his warm, strong hand did her in. She wanted that hand on her skin, in her hair. She leaned closer, keeping her eyes on his. She knew the sum of everything she felt was radiating in her face—desire, need, want, lust, trust.
Trust.
She might not trust herself, but she did trust him. Could she let herself have this one night? Just one night, and then she’d go back to who she was supposed to be. Was she never supposed to feel a man’s arms around her? When would she know when it was okay to say yes?
When you can trust yourself, she realized. And she didn’t, not yet.
He leaned closer and lifted her face to his, looking right into her eyes. If he kisses me, fuck it, I’m going with it. One night won’t derail me and everything I’m working toward. Okay, I’m rationalizing again. I’ll make myself a deal. If he waits for me to make the move, I won’t.
He kissed her. And that was it.
She kissed him back, straddling him on the sofa. She heard him moan her name, and then her top was pulled off. She watched him take in her lacy fuchsia bra, heard the groan, felt him moving against the softest parts of her. She wrenched off his blue T-shirt, her hands and lips roaming the hard planes of his chest, the faint line of hair between his pecs traveling down toward his stomach.
She undid the belt buckle. Then the snap. He lifted her up in his arms and held her against him while he kicked off his jeans and settled her back down on top of him.
His hands in her hair, he kissed her mouth, her neck and across the swell of her breasts, his hands following. He pulled off her yoga pants, leaving the boring white cotton underwear.
“Very hot,” he groaned, eyeing the undies.
She smiled and pushed him sideways until he was lying flat on his back on the sofa, then raised herself on top of him and kissed him everywhere.
In minutes they were buck naked. Lauren reached into her tote bag on the floor and pulled out her wallet, then a foil-wrapped condom.
“Keep those handy?” he asked.
“Old habits die hard,” she said.
He turned her underneath him and kissed her. And then she felt him thrust inside her, and the hot, pulsating rhythm and waves of pleasure obliterated all thought. There was nothing but her and Trevor, the feel of him against her, inside her, the scent of his soap.
And how much she wanted this to go on and on and on.
When it was over, he held her against him, not saying a word, the only sound their ragged breaths. She could stay in this position for the rest of her life. But tomorrow morning, she would be business as usual. That was how it had to be.
* * *
Trevor woke up in the dark living room, Lauren sleeping on top of him, the throw half covering her.
Half of him wanted to keep her close like this forever. The other half wanted to ease himself out from under her and get away. For her own good. But he’d made a promise to watch over her, and so he’d lie here and let his physical comfort and emotional discomfort battle each other out until one lost.
He thought about what he had to offer Lauren. This ranch? Which she clearly liked. But what else? His heart was closed. He wasn’t ever getting married or having children, not when he had no idea what kind of father he’d be. The kind who couldn’t even protect his own kid sister.
There would be no tiny cowboy in a tiny Stetson and chaps riding a pony.
Lauren had been through so much and deserved the world. She deserved a man who could give her everything—a family, happiness, his heart.
He slowly inched away from her until he could slide off the couch with her resting comfortably. She turned and curled up and he pulled up the throw.
She was so beautiful.
And last night had been everything he’d fantasized about for so long now. But it shouldn’t have happened, and it wouldn’t happen again. Not if he really cared about her.
He wanted to go out to the barn and get on Sundappled and ride out fast on his property, but there was no way he’d leave Lauren alone, even with Mack and CJ at shouting distance in the cabins just a quarter mile from the main house.
He went into the kitchen instead and made a pot of coffee, but he was itching to get back to Lauren, to slide back onto that couch and have a do over.
He stayed where he was.
Chapter Fourteen
The moment Lauren woke up alone on the couch in Trevor’s living room, she knew he was “gone,” that everything they’d shared last night had evaporated with the morning light. That was okay. Better than okay. It was how it had to be.
Yeah, fine, it stung. In her fantasy, she would have woken up to him kissing her collarbone, his hands entwined in her hair, whispering that that she was beautiful and sexy and he couldn’t get enough of her. She’d see the depth of feeling in his eyes and she’d know his lust was backed by emotion, that she had his heart. Then they’d slow dance their way into the kitchen and make French toast and thick-cut bacon and feed each other purple grapes.
But this was reality, so she pushed all that from her mind and took a fast shower, grateful that her sister Nova had packed her an overnight bag just in case she’d have to stay in the hospital. She had a change of clothes and her toiletries. She looked around at Trevor’s stuff on the sink and the shelves, not going so far as to open the medicine cabinet, even though she wanted to. He was a no-frills guy, which wasn’t a surprise. If she was going to stay here for the foreseeable future, she’d need to bring her hair dryer. And sexier underwear than the white cotton Nova had packed her. Then again, the white cotton underwear had seemed to drive Trevor wild.
Anyway, there wouldn’t be a next time. There couldn’t be, not for her. And she had no doubt Trevor would say last night had been a mistake, that he’d lost control of himself, sorry, and they’d awkwardly have some coffee while shifting the focus to Marcus Carlington’s daily schedule and habits.
Lauren poked her head out of the bathroom to see if Trevor was in the living room. No sign of him. Charlie was in some strange dog-yoga position as he gnawed on a bone. She went into the kitchen, and there Trevor was, sitting with his laptop and a mug of coffee. When he glanced up at the sight of her, he nodded with a strained smile as though he wasn’t sure how to respond to a woman he’d made mad, passionate love to but couldn’t handle now. She’d certainly called this one.
“Mmm, I feel amazing,” she said, stretching her arms high in the air with a satisfied sigh. “Thank you for last night. Better than a deep-tissue massage.” Keep it light, Riley, she ordered herself.
He raised an eyebrow. “I hope so.” He laughed. “I should be thanking you. You...took me away from everything and then some.” He glanced at her, the strain back in his expression. “I mean—”
“I know what you mean. And it’s okay. Everything is okay.”
I’ve got your back. And I know you have mine.
She couldn’t let herself have him and he wasn’t offering himself. What could be more perfect for a working relationship? If she didn’t think about how she felt about Trevor, really felt about him, she’d be fine.
“Why don’t we get to work going over what we have on Carlington and see if we can create a timeline on him from a month ago,” she said. “Maybe we should pay Mrs. Carlington a visit when her husband isn’t around and see what interesting tidbits she offers about his habits.”
Trevor nodded and pulled out the chair next to him, then got up to pour her coffee. He asked if s
he wanted some toast and strawberries, and that was almost like feeding her grapes, so her heart lifted just a little. She did want toast and strawberries, she told him. Five minutes later, they were both head down, sipping their coffee, biting into strawberries, poring over her notes and reading up on everything about Marcus Carlington.
And still getting nowhere. The man seemed to be as upstanding as his reputation. How could that be? Why had he relaxed when Trevor had said the friend must have been mistaken about seeing Tammy ride up to the mansion? They were missing something. What?
Trevor took a slug of his coffee. “So what are we going to tell the cops today about him? That someone saw her ride her bike to the mansion? That she didn’t see Tammy actually go in? That we spoke to the Carlingtons and they say they’ve never seen Tammy before except on the news? Lewton will laugh us out the door.”
Lauren grabbed her head in complete frustration. “But she did go to their house. Which is a lead. And good cops follow up on leads in a murder investigation.”
Her phone pinged with a text from her sister Jennifer.
Have something to show you and T re: Tammy. Good time to drop by the ranch?
Evidence? Lauren quickly typed back, Come over now!
“Jennifer’s on her way over,” she said to Trevor. “She says she has information about the case, something to show us.”
“Like what?” Trevor said. “About the shootout yesterday?”
“She didn’t say.”
He was staring at her, and she thought he might bring up last night again. “Let’s wait for Jennifer outside. You never got to see the herd of cattle I bought yesterday morning. Ten head. Mack and CJ have them grazing in the near pasture.”
Cattle. They were talking about cattle. Grazing. Okay. A pang of disappointment whacked her in the stomach out of nowhere. It was one thing to know something intellectually, to expect it; it was another when it happened. Trevor didn’t want to talk about last night. He wanted to forget it happened. Otherwise he wouldn’t have left the couch. If she’d woken up first, there was no way she’d leave that warm, cuddly cocoon. He was doing what she needed him to do. She had to remember that. He was making this easy for her.
“Let’s go,” she said with a forced smile.
They walked over to the fence, and Trevor launched into the story of how Mack had helped him select the right kind of cattle for his particular land and what he wanted to accomplish with the ranch. The bulls were big and brown and waved their tails a lot. Mack and CJ were near the barn, pouring feed into some kind of steel chute. Lauren raised a hand in greeting, and they both did the same.
I’m falling in love with you, cowboy, Lauren wanted to say, but of course she didn’t. Holy hell. She was falling in love with him.
She just listened, learning quite a bit about calving season, which Trevor seemed truly excited about.
Finally, a car could be heard coming up the drive, then Jennifer’s car came into view. She stopped by the white SUV, the security guard letting her pass.
Jennifer parked and waved them over, moving to the trunk of her SUV. “I borrowed your IT guy’s beagle, Techno, to do some more investigating in the woods,” Jennifer said, lifting the latch of the trunk.
“I didn’t know you were going to do that.”
“I didn’t either,” Jennifer said. “Until my younger sister turned my head around in her hospital room with some cold hard truths. Yes, the attack on you yesterday fired me up to investigate further. But it made me realize just how far Tammy’s killer is willing to go to make sure he or she isn’t caught. Dad realized it too, which is why he hired the guards.”
“Thank you, Jennifer,” Trevor said. “That means a lot.”
“No problem. Techno’s awesome,” Jennifer said. “We weren’t having any luck, but just when I was about to turn back and call it a day, Techno caught the scent of something a half mile off, and I followed him until he barked and lay down by a thicket. Took me a while to dig through the dead leaves and branches, but I found what Techno sniffed out.” She opened the trunk.
Trevor sucked in a breath and stared at the huge, clear evidence bag. Something big and purple was inside.
“Is that Tammy’s sleeping bag?” Trevor said.
Lauren looked more closely at it. Next to the rolled-up sleeping bag was a gray backpack with the initials TGG monogrammed on the front.
Tammy Grace Gallagher.
Lauren turned to Jennifer. “You were specifically looking for her campsite?”
Jennifer nodded. “There was nothing to go on where Tammy was found. But I knew if I could find where she might have been killed, there could be evidence left behind even a month later. If you think I don’t care about Tammy, you’re very wrong, Lauren. I care. And not just because you’ve teamed up with her brother.”
Trevor stared at the bag. “Did you find anything else?”
“Just those two things,” Jennifer said. “I let Dad know, and he has a couple of crime scene investigators going over the area. But there is some clothing in the backpack, a bag of toiletries, a couple of books and a photograph.”
“Of?” Trevor asked.
Jennifer pulled on plastic gloves and reached into the bag and opened the backpack. She carefully withdrew a photograph, four by six, and held it up for them to look at.
The photo was of Tammy and Trevor. Tammy looked around thirteen or fourteen, and she wore a Santa hat. Trevor had his arm around her and was holding what looked like a shiny yellow vase with a strange-looking animal on it.
Trevor smiled. “She made that vase for me in school for Christmas. She had a photo of a white alpaca from a farm we visited in the country and she painted it on.”
Lauren looked at the animal, which looked like a cross between a poodle, a goat and a donkey.
“I put some things in storage before I deployed since I knew I could count on my mother to dump my stuff if she moved a boyfriend in or picked up and left,” Trevor said. “Good thing I did. I still have that vase.”
He probably hadn’t retrieved any of his personal things from storage. Based on what she’d seen in his house, there was very little that seemed personal. Maybe it would be too much, too heavy emotionally for him right now. But one day she would love to see that vase in the middle of Trevor’s kitchen table with a handful of wildflowers in it.
“She’s so young here,” he said, looking at the photo. He turned away and walked over to the pasture, his back to them.
Lauren glanced at Jennifer; the compassion she saw in her sister’s eyes was very real.
“You know what?” Lauren said. “The fact that the backpack and sleeping bag weren’t destroyed or taken tells me the killer wasn’t the one who’d buried them. Wouldn’t he have destroyed any identifying evidence, like the monogrammed backpack or photo? He gave himself time by making sure Tammy’s body wouldn’t be found for a long time, making sure she’d be difficult to ID.”
Jennifer nodded. “I think you’re absolutely right. I have to say, your investigative skills are good. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but they’re good.”
Lauren couldn’t help smiling. “It means you don’t have to worry as much as you think you do.”
Jennifer put the photograph back inside the bag, took off the gloves and closed the trunk. “You still ended up in a ditch with two hired killers after you.”
“And here I am,” Lauren said. “Still at it.”
Jennifer grabbed Lauren into a hug. Lauren almost burst into tears, but instead she just hugged her sister back.
“Thank you,” Lauren said.
“I’d better get back to work. I’m meeting one of the crime scene investigators at the boathouse to go over anything we might have missed when the skeleton was found.”
“Jennifer Riley,” Lauren said with a smile. “Did you just giv
e the press information?”
“What little information I can give at this frustrating point.”
Lauren wanted to pull Jennifer into another hug. She knew her sister was keeping things from her, but if Lauren wanted to build their relationship, she’d have to learn to accept her sister’s boundaries. Just like she had to accept Trevor’s. And her own.
“What’s on your agenda today?” Jennifer asked, so casually that Lauren had to smile again. Her sister was trying. To show restraint. To show she trusted Lauren. To show she respected Lauren.
It wasn’t like Jennifer had asked, “In what ways are you planning to almost get yourself killed today?”
“You said you were going to the station this morning to tell Dad and Paretti about a potential suspect,” Jennifer said. “That still your plan?”
Trevor turned around. “Yeah, but we were hoping our research would reveal more than our suspicions. But that’s all we have right now. Tammy was seen biking up to his house. We don’t know why. And when Lauren and I talked to him, he denied having ever seen her before.”
“What?” Jennifer said, staring from Trevor to Lauren. “And you didn’t mention this last night? After someone shot at you? I could have gone to talk to the guy. Who is it?”
“Marcus Carlington,” Lauren said.
“Marcus Carlington?” Jennifer repeated. “Doesn’t he bake first-place apple pies for the town fair every summer?”
“Exactly,” Lauren said. “His reputation seems above reproach. We don’t have any evidence. Just a report from a friend of Tammy’s that she was seen biking up the driveway of the Carlington mansion around the time of her death. And the bike the witness described sounds a lot like one Victor kept at the old office. A dark blue Trek with white lettering. And there’s no sign of the bike.”
“You said you saw Tammy talking to Victor behind the old office one night around the time Victor was murdered,” Jennifer said. “No idea what about? Could it have been about the missing girls? That’s the story he was working on at the time.”