‘You’ve been busy,’ he said, gesturing with his hat.
‘Yes. Everyone’s been so generous.’
‘They want you here.’ He took another step towards her. ‘I don’t blame them.’
‘Flynn.’
She was in his arms before she even comprehended that they’d both moved, lips and teeth clashing with the sudden need to feel, to touch, to taste. He moaned low in his throat, the rumble of it vibrating through her fingers, her chest.
A squeal from outside sounded and she tore her mouth away from his to say, ‘The kids.’
He kissed a hot trail down her throat, punctuating each kiss with a word. ‘They’re. Going. With. Mum. To. Watch. Reid. Break. Rebel. Then. Nat’s. Taking. Them. To. Her. Place. For popcorn. And a. Movie.’
‘Okay.’ That meant they’d be busy for hours. Hours she had to do whatever she wanted with Flynn. Except. ‘Cherry’s due here at four.’
He pulled back and smiled down at her. ‘Then I better make the most of the next hour and a half.’
‘Yes.’ God, yes.
***
Flynn drew himself back from the edges of sleep that beckoned with its silky, siren’s song. Cherry was coming and he couldn’t let her find him here with Prita. Certainly not like this. The woman wasn’t a gossip, but Prita didn’t deserve the speculation that would occur if people knew she was sleeping with him.
Although, given Barb told him Prita was by herself at the cottage earlier and Nat quickly suggested she and Barb take the kids over to watch Reid with Rebel and then do the movie thing at her place, he was pretty bloody certain they were aware of exactly what was going on with him and Prita.
He’d have to have a word with them, make certain they didn’t think it was more than it was. He thought maybe his mum would understand. He was pretty certain something was going on between her and Mac, had been for a little while, but both of them were so closed lipped about it and obviously weren’t interested in it being more than some comfort every now and then. Prior to whatever was going on with Mac, she’d shown no interest in being with someone, having seemingly never gotten over his dad. So she should get exactly what he and Prita had agreed on.
Nat on the other hand …
His old friend had become bloody happy-ever-after obsessed since marrying Reid. She was going to be a harder sell, but ultimately, she didn’t need to understand, she just needed to accept and keep her opinions to herself.
Prita and he knew what they were to each other. That was all that mattered.
He ran his hand down Prita’s side, his thumbs brushing against the edge of her breasts. God how he loved her breasts. Full enough to spill over in his hands with that dark nipple that he was pretty sure he might become obsessed with. And there was that little mole he’d discovered earlier on the underside of the right one—he really wanted to spend more time tonguing that, making her moan and writhe. He wished they had more time now so that he could explore her breasts further, but Cherry … They really needed to get up.
He was about to move when the tune to Buffy the Vampire Slayer ripped into the quiet of the room. He smiled at Prita’s choice of ringtone. She made an irritated noise in the back of her throat—he really loved all those little noises she made. They were so nuanced, like they were their own language. He looked forward to becoming an expert in interpreting all her little noises.
He watched hungrily as she rolled over and stumbled over to the chest of drawers where her phone was, picked it up, frowned at the screen then put it up to her ear. As she said her greeting, his gaze ran over the long, generous lines of her body, the fullness of her breasts, the curve of her hip, the taught roundness of her bottom. God, he loved her arse. His mouth was suddenly watering with the need to lick and nip his way around the globes, exploring that interesting little birthmark and pattern of moles near the dimple of the left cheek.
He suddenly became aware of a certain stiff wariness in the way she was holding herself. He was off the bed and over to her before he registered the shock and anger growing on her face.
‘Listen, you son of a bitch. Whoever you are, you’re not getting away with trying to scare me and run me out. I’m not leaving. But you will be. As soon as the police track you down and arrest you for burning down my house.’
Flynn wanted to snatch the phone from her hand, to reach down it and strangle the bastard putting that look on her face, making that angry-tense-fearful sound vibrate in her voice. But all he could do was lean closer to try to hear the voice on the other end of the phone, see if he could recognise it.
She pulled the phone away from her ear and hit the speaker function and the voice on the other end sprang into the room with them.
‘… you don’t deserve what you have. You slut. You stole it. Stole everything that was mine. I tried to give you a chance to make amends, but you didn’t take it and now I’m going to make you pay.’
Her gaze met his over the phone as the man spoke, her frown a deep groove as she mouthed, ‘Do you recognise the voice?’
He did, but he couldn’t place where. The person was whispering, speaking in a low tone that wasn’t natural, but there was still something about it that registered in his brain as something he’d heard before.
‘Doc Simpson?’
He shook his head, although he could understand why she might think that, given what was being said. ‘Maybe a family member? Keep them talking.’
‘What have I stolen from you?’
‘Everything that matters. Everything that should have been mine. And now I’m going to burn it all down and watch you go with it. You and that shit you call a son.’
Prita jerked, the phone slipping from her fingers. Flynn grabbed for it before it fell, hit the speaker function and put it up to his ear. ‘Listen, you bastard,’ he began, but the phone line was already dead.
Prita’s gaze moved wildly from one part of the room to the next as if she couldn’t concentrate on any one thing, as if her thoughts were skipping around from one horrible thought to the next. ‘Carter. He’s going after Carter.’
Flynn wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in tight. ‘He’s not. He’s not going to touch you or your precious boy.’
‘He already has. He already took our house, my business.’
He pulled back from her and held her face in his hands, looking deep into her eyes. ‘He has taken from you, but we aren’t going to let him take any more.’
‘He said I’ve taken what’s his. I’ve never taken anything I didn’t earn.’
‘I know, but this isn’t a reasonable person. It’s time to demand the police take these calls seriously and start a proper investigation. While they do, I’m going to stay here with you and Carter and we’ll have the men watching out for this arsehole. He’s not going to get anywhere near you or your precious boy. Okay?’
‘But what about school for Carter? Or when he’s by himself because I get caught up and he’s waiting for me? You can’t cover every moment.’
‘We’ll talk to the police. We’ll talk to the school. Nobody will get near Carter while he’s there. And Mum and Reid and Nat and I will organise a roster to drop the kids off and pick them up and for Carter to always be with one of us when you’re busy with patients. It’s going to be fine.’ He kissed her forehead and pulled her to him, resting his chin on her head. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t.’
He was holding her tightly, maybe too tightly, but then she wrapped her arms around him and held onto him just as tightly and he knew he had to protect her in whatever way he could. He couldn’t lose her. Couldn’t lose this. He needed it too damned much.
Chapter 22
The police arrived, Constable Bruce along with a Detective Constable Bryce Harrington from Trafalgar, and began to interview her and Flynn. As they talked, she realised that all the places fires had been set recently in and around CoalCliff, were places she and Carter loved to go—her gymkhana paddock, the dam on the top of the hill that was her special
place, the climbing wall where Carter spent so much time. ‘Oh my god. I can’t believe I didn’t see this before,’ she blurted out in the middle of the detective asking Flynn about the call.
‘See what?’ Flynn asked.
She told them.
They all nodded. ‘Flynn already called us and told us his theories about there being a link.’
‘You already thought of this?’
He squeezed her hand. ‘I was hoping I was wrong, but this seems to prove it.’
She tried not to shudder as the police asked more questions about who might know about these places—nearly everyone in the community, so not much help there—and when they’d last been there—multiple times over the Christmas period and after, sometimes with others, sometimes, in her case with the dam, by herself.
Cherry arrived halfway through and they questioned her as well.
Prita couldn’t help but shudder as more came to light. This person had been watching her for a while, biding their time. Carter and she were just lucky they’d gone to dinner at CoalCliff that Saturday night and weren’t at home like they usually were.
God, if anything happened to her little boy, she didn’t know what she would do.
Flynn squeezed her hand again and edged closer, the comfort of him just what she needed to calm herself down so the panic didn’t take over. The constable and Detective Harrington didn’t show any sign that they’d noticed but Prita knew that Cherry had.
Damn it. She wasn’t in a mood for answering twenty questions today, yet, she didn’t let go of his hand.
They finished with Cherry and let her go into the office to start putting things in place for their first clinic in the morning, and said, ‘Is there anything else you’d like to mention?’
Flynn looked at her, a strange expression on his face, before turning back to the police and saying, ‘Prita’s estranged husband is in town. He’s demanding she come home.’
‘You’re married, Doctor Brennan?’ the detective asked her, phone raised again to record her response.
‘Yes, I am, but we’re separated. It’s not a nasty separation. Chandra was just worried about me, that’s all.’
‘We might need to have a few words with him, regardless. Do you have contact details for him or know where he’s staying?’
‘He and his boyfriend are staying at Finchers B&B at Wilson’s Bend.’
She jerked in surprise as Flynn said that. How did he know that when she had no idea? Of course. Nat had mentioned Chandra and Vivaan had seen Flynn and Reid at her burned down house yesterday when they’d gone to find Maccy. She wondered why he hadn’t mentioned it.
‘Well, we’ll endeavour to catch him today too. We’ll be in touch if we have any further questions or find anything. You let us know if there are any other calls.’
Prita and Flynn walked them to the front door and watched them drive up the road, their patrol car leaving a cloud of thick dust from the road in its wake.
‘Why did you say that about Chandra?’ She turned to face him, arms crossed.
‘I know he probably had nothing to do with it, but at the moment, anything’s a possibility.’
‘It’s more likely to be someone related to Doc Simpson or Bob Thompson.’
‘You’re right. But I think it’s worth checking out every avenue.’
‘He wasn’t even here when it happened.’
‘That’s what he says. Best let the police find out for certain and make sure there’s no possibility.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘You trust him that much?’
Chandra might be afraid of his life imploding because of choices she was making, but he would never hurt her. Or Carter. Not on purpose. ‘Yes. I do. He doesn’t have that kind of nasty in him.’
‘What about his boyfriend?’
‘Vivaan? No, he’s a teddy bear. He’s even less likely to hurt anyone than Chandra. Also, he loves Carter and would have wanted us to stay if not for the fuss Chandra’s family put up about us obviously being ready to have children ourselves if we were ready to parent Carter.’
‘Was that one of the reasons you left?’
She shook her head, uncertain of his meaning.
‘You weren’t prepared to have children with him to help him save face with his family?’
‘Oh. No. I never really thought I wanted children until Carter came along, so we were one there. Now I wouldn’t want to bring children into a relationship that wasn’t truly equal, that wasn’t truly loving. What kind of an example would that be?’
‘That’s true.’ He had a strange look on his face, but then he shook his head and looked down at her.
She met his gaze. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen him when you were looking for Maccy?’
He winced. ‘We had a few heated words.’
‘About me?’
He tipped his head in a funny kind of nod. ‘Not really. More about who I was to you.’
‘Really? What did you say?’
‘I might have told him that it wasn’t any of his business and that he should stop trying to control you.’
She snorted. ‘I bet he didn’t like that.’
‘Not really. But Vivaan arrived before things got too heated and they left to go have a look around Walhalla. I didn’t tell you because you’d already been through so much and I didn’t want you getting upset.’
‘You shouldn’t have kept it from me.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ He dipped his head and then looked up at her in a way that reminded her a little of Aaron when he’d done something wrong. ‘I’m also sorry that I brought him up to the police without checking with you first.’
‘Thank you for saying that.’ She sighed and rubbed her head. ‘Although, I’m probably going to get an irate call from him at some stage.’
He pulled a face. ‘Sorry about that too. Would you like me to go talk to him?’
‘No. That definitely wouldn’t be a good idea. Let’s just wait and see what happens. The police might realise it’s pointless to talk with him at all.’
‘Maybe.’
She could see by his expression that he didn’t think so. They had to look at all possible leads for something this serious, no matter how long that lead might seem to be.
Flynn reached for her, fingers curling gently around her arms. ‘I just want to make sure you’re safe.’ His fingers made circles on her skin.
‘I know.’ She smiled up at him, the sensation of his touch shivering over her like a warm breeze. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
He hugged her to him, but let her go easily when she pulled away to look up the road where the dust was just now settling, an icy sensation stealing over her. She’d been so caught up in the police being here that she hadn’t checked where Carter was. It wasn’t bad enough that someone had popped out of the woodwork saying he was his father and wanting to take him away, but now his safety was threatened by whoever was coming after her?
She couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear that something she’d done had brought danger to him again. She needed to see him. To hug him to her and never let him go. ‘Do you know where the kids are right now?’
‘I’ll call Nat.’ He put the phone on speaker so she could hear. The kids were sitting quietly, watching a movie.
‘Do you want me to send him down?’
‘No. Don’t disturb him.’ Just hearing that he was doing something so normal made her realise she couldn’t run up there and act like a mad woman. He needed to be protected from this. Couldn’t know something was wrong. But she still needed to see him. She just had to make sure she wasn’t clingy about it. Flynn was here. He could distract her. Make her think clearly. ‘Can you bring him down when they’re finished?’ That would give her an hour or so to calm down.
‘Sure. They’re nagging us about going down to see the damage to the climbing wall but I said they couldn’t until Reid’s looked to make sure it’s safe. He’s going to do that this afternoon.’
‘Mayb
e we can all go down together.’ Maybe she would see something there that would give her a clue as to who was doing this.
‘Sounds good. See you when they’ve finished the movie.’
‘Okay.’
As he hung up the phone, she said, ‘I hope the wall isn’t too damaged. Carter won’t want to miss his lesson with Reid this week.’
‘None of them do. Although, if it needs some work, at least it will keep me from having a fight with Aaron about keeping him grounded while his shoulder heals. I’m not looking forward to trying to keep him off that wall for another six weeks.’
‘I could always put his arm in plaster,’ she joked.
Flynn snorted. ‘I might take you up on that.’
He bent and kissed her and she moved into the kiss, even though Cherry could come out at any moment and see them. Right now, she didn’t care. She needed the comfort and thrill of his kiss more than she cared about people knowing they were together in this way. Whatever that way was. She wasn’t sure exactly what was going on but couldn’t make herself have that conversation right now either. None of it mattered. Just this and him and Carter and their safety.
A car pulled up outside. She drew away from Flynn reluctantly in time to see Barb hop out of the passenger seat. Then the driver’s door opened and Diarmuid Brennan was standing there.
Prita let out a little cry and let go of Flynn’s hand to run around the car, throwing herself at her papa. His arms wrapped around her, one hand stroking her hair like he’d always done when she was having a moment. ‘Prita, aingeal?’
‘I’m so glad you’re here.’
‘So am I, aingeal. So am I. I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long.’
‘You’re here now.’ She pulled back and looked up at him. He looked a bit travel weary, his usual five o’clock shadow more of a rough beard and he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt rather than the usual three-piece suit without the jacket and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up that had become his ‘look’. That wasn’t the only change. There was a greater dusting of grey in his hair and beard from when she’d last seen him and there was a worried, haunted look in his light blue eyes that she hadn’t seen since just before he’d sent her away. Oh god. What was wrong?
Blazing Fear Page 24