Sweet Summer Sunset

by Delores Fossen

  “Damien and I are in a better place now,” Eden went on.

  Well, she was anyway. She thought about her meeting with Mimi and considered that maybe Damien wasn’t in as good of a place as he’d believed he would be.

  “Marriage is sacred,” Rayelle muttered, and she walked away toward the powder room.

  That brought on another silence. A very short one. Probably because pissing off Rayelle was a piece of cake and happened too often to dwell on. Rosy sure didn’t.

  “I’ll bring us some fondue in here while we look at more pictures,” Rosy said, standing from the sofa. “Anyone need a refill on wine? Oops. I guess only Eden and Cleo are working their way through that bottle of merlot since Shelby’s off the sauce for a while. Sorry that I spilled the beans,” she added before she scurried back into the kitchen.

  “Yes, I’m knocked up,” Shelby admitted, saluting her condition with her virgin margarita.

  “I’m so happy for both Callen and you,” Eden gushed, and she meant it, but it did occur to her that Shelby hadn’t been married that long. “How’d Callen take the news?” she asked.

  “He’s thrilled and can’t wait to tell everyone. But I’m sure everyone will start doing the math and will soon figure out I got pregnant about a month before our wedding.”

  The words had no sooner left Shelby’s mouth when Eden heard a throat clearing. Rayelle was standing there, only a few feet away, and she had an even sourer expression than usual. Clearly, she’d heard what they had said.

  “Really?” Rayelle scolded. She even clucked her tongue. “Do you think this is a conversation to have in front of a young girl?” She didn’t wait for any of them to attempt to respond to that. She took hold of Piper’s hand. “Come on. We’re going back to the cabin.”

  Eden groaned and was about to intercede. She wasn’t sure she could talk Rayelle into letting Piper stay, but she was willing to give it a try. But Piper shook her head, and she broke away from Rayelle’s hold long enough to hug all four of the other women.

  “Thank you for inviting me, Miss Rosy,” Piper said.

  Piper waved goodbye, and as she headed for the door, she looked back at Eden, their gazes connecting. The girl didn’t say another word, but Eden saw plenty in her eyes. Plenty that she recognized as bone-deep sadness.

  God, what was wrong?

  * * *

  NICO TOSSED HIS truck keys on the entry table at his house, hung up his hat and headed for the shower. One of the last parts of his business trip involved riding Silver Bells, a bull that he had considered buying, and he stank to high heaven. Not to mention that his jeans were covered with dirt and likely some bull shit.

  He’d stayed on Silver Bells a couple of seconds longer than he had BYB, but he’d still gotten thrown, which meant he now had fresh bruises on top of where the old ones had only recently healed. Having blue, purple and green splotches on his butt wasn’t usually a concern for him, but he’d wanted to be at his best when he saw Eden.

  And he would see her.

  No amount of self-lecturing had talked him out of doing this. As soon as he’d finished showering off the stench, he’d call her and ask her to come over when she finished at work.

  Going to her was out of the question. If he went over to her place and stayed late—which he’d end up doing—someone would see his truck. By morning, the gossip would be all over town about him making a booty call.

  If it were just his reputation, he wouldn’t mind, but Eden’s parents wouldn’t want to hear talk of their daughter bedding down with her cad friend. Nico suspected they liked him well enough, but that “like” wouldn’t continue if they learned he’d set his sights on Eden.

  Rayelle wouldn’t care much for it, either, and Nico feared the woman was already on the verge of considering an early return trip to move Piper back to San Antonio.

  Nico had heard all about how upset Rayelle had been when she’d heard Eden, Shelby and Cleo talking at the girls’ night. Rayelle had stormed out and taken Piper with her after hearing about Shelby getting knocked up before Callen and she had actually said “I do.”

  That scene had been especially bad since it’d come on the heels of the Davy incident. Thankfully though, a few calls from Nico had calmed things down. Enough so that Rayelle had even agreed to let Piper go back over to Rosy’s for the afternoon to ride horses and do more cookie baking.

  Of course, Rayelle had a rule or two about the visit. She had insisted there not be any sex talk around Piper. Since it would only be Piper, Buck, Rosy and Cleo’s five-year-old foster son, Leo, Nico figured that was one rule that wouldn’t be broken. Rosy was more likely to gab on about her latest taxidermy projects than sex anyway.

  Nico stripped down, but before he could get in the shower, his phone dinged, and he smiled when he saw the text from Eden.

  Dear Naughty Cowgirl,

  My guy is a bull rider, and I have to say that seeing him in action gets me hot. All those smooth moves and power between his legs—and yes, I’m talking about when he’s on the bull, lol. I want to do something in the bedroom that fires me up the way it does when he’s in the arena. Any ideas to buck and ride the night away?

  Buckle Bunny in Bandera

  Nico wasn’t sure if that was a real post or one that Eden had written to make him hard as a hammer. If it was the last one, it had worked well enough that he would have skipped the shower if it hadn’t been for the bull stench. That aroma sure wouldn’t lead to too much bucking and riding once she got a whiff of it. So he hurried into the shower.

  He’d barely had time to lather up though when his phone rang. Obviously, Eden wanted to see him as much as he wanted to see her. He let it go to voice mail, rinsed off and got out of the shower to return what he was sure was Eden’s call, but his phone rang again before he could do that. And it wasn’t Eden’s name on the screen.

  It was Rayelle’s.

  Hell. What now? The only time the woman called him was when she wanted to complain about something. But since that “something” was almost certainly related to Piper, he didn’t want to put her off.

  Nico took the call, putting it on speaker so he could dry off as he talked. “Rayelle,” he greeted, trying not to sound as if he was dreading this, but he was.

  “Did you come to the cabin and take something?” Rayelle blurted out.

  That wasn’t the woman’s usual persnickety tone. She sounded, well, panicked.

  “No. I just got back from a business trip.” Which Rayelle knew since he’d texted her his schedule and an ETA for his return. According to that ETA, he wouldn’t be back in Coldwater for another hour or two. “Is something wrong with Piper?”

  “Piper’s fine. She’s with Rosy, and I checked on her not long ago. Did you take something from the cabin?” she pressed.

  On a heavy sigh, Nico repeated his “No” and finished drying himself so he could get dressed. “What’s the something that someone took from the cabin?”

  Silence.

  For a long time.

  And that silence cut through Nico even more than a shout or tears would have done. “What’s wrong?” he pressed.

  There was another stretch of quiet before Rayelle said, “Could you please come to the cabin right now?”

  Nico felt more of that cut inside him, and while he didn’t especially want to spend time with Rayelle—time that he wanted to be with Eden—the woman was clearly upset. That meant this was likely connected to Piper.

  “I’ll be right there,” Nico assured her, and he ended the call so he could send a quick text to Eden.

  Got in from my trip but Rayelle needs to see me. Headed to the cabin now and will call as soon as I’m done. Come over and we can work on advice for Buckle Bunny.

  He added a winking smile to the text and wished it could be something dirty. Something to keep her mind on sex with him. No time for that, though. The
sooner he found out what was bugging Rayelle, the sooner he could see Eden.

  Nico threw on some clothes and ran out to his truck, and while he would have liked to have kept his own mind on sex with Eden, it was impossible to think that way when he knew he would have to face Rayelle’s usual look and tone of disapproval. But it wasn’t disapproval he saw when he pulled up in front of the cabin and spotted her pacing across the little front porch.

  Hell. Had she been crying?

  If so, then this wasn’t going to be a quick fix. And whatever she had to tell him was almost certainly bad. Maybe she believed Piper had stolen some jewelry from her or something, but no way would Piper do that. His sister wasn’t a thief, and if she’d needed money, she would have come to him. After all, he knew the secret about the pregnancy panic that she’d kept from Rayelle.

  “Are you sure you didn’t take something from the cabin?” Rayelle asked the moment he stepped from his truck.

  “Well, unless you count the trash bag and roofing debris I took with me the last time I was here, no.”

  She actually looked hopeful about that. “Maybe something fell into the trash bag or you picked it up by accident and thought it was trash? Where did you take the bag?”

  “To the dump,” he answered almost idly. Right now, he wasn’t so much interested in giving her that answer as he was in finding out what the heck was going on.

  Nico stepped onto the porch with her, and he put his arm around her waist so he could lead her to a chair. She definitely didn’t look too steady on her feet, but he expected her to push him away. She didn’t. On a hoarse sob, she went straight into his arms and dropped her head on his shoulder.

  Oh shit.

  Had she found out about Piper’s pregnancy scare?

  Nico let the woman cry it out for a couple of moments, and then he got her moving inside the cabin. The AC was on in there, and the sofa would be more comfortable than the wooden chairs on the porch. He had her sit and went into the kitchen to pour her a glass of her preferred unsweetened iced tea from the big pitcher of it that she had in the fridge.

  “Thank you,” she muttered, taking the tea and gulping some down the way a person would a much-needed shot of booze. Nico nearly asked her if booze would help, but he didn’t want her tipsy. Not when she apparently had some big-assed troubling news to tell him.

  He didn’t say anything or prompt her with questions. That was mainly because he didn’t know how much she knew. Best not to blurt out both of Piper’s secrets when it might not even be that.

  “Something went missing from the cabin,” Rayelle finally said. Her voice was shaky and she downed more tea. “Something very personal to me. Very personal,” she emphasized. Then, she did something he’d never seen her do before. She blushed, the color rising bright pink on her cheeks.

  Nico didn’t like what first came to mind. Maybe it was a vibrator or dirty pictures. If so, then he might do some blushing himself. Or wincing. He didn’t want to think of Rayelle that way.

  “It was a silver box,” Rayelle added a moment later. “It was small.” She indicated the size with her trembling hands, and he estimated it was about the size of a travel package of Kleenex. “It’s silver with an etched scroll design on it.”

  Bingo. That was the box Piper had mentioned. The one that Rayelle locked up in her suitcase or carried in her purse. Nico had forgotten about it, but obviously it was important to the woman and she was upset about losing it. Despite Rayelle’s obvious distress, Nico felt some relief. For once, this wasn’t about Piper.

  Well, hopefully not.

  “Have you seen a box like that?” Rayelle was more begging than asking.

  Nico shook his head and sat down beside her. “You lost it?” And he hoped she wouldn’t say it’d been stolen and then accuse Piper.

  She nodded and paused for a long time. “I need to tell you something. I need to tell someone,” she added in a hoarse whisper. “And then I hope you’ll help me look for the box.”

  “Of course I’ll help you.” He would listen, too, but Nico was getting a really bad feeling about this.

  “Swear to me that you won’t repeat anything I’m about to tell you,” Rayelle insisted.

  He looked her straight in the eyes. “I swear.”

  Rayelle nodded, then hesitated again. “Years ago, I made a mistake. I got pregnant.”

  Nico bit off the “holy shit” that nearly leaped right out of his mouth, and he reined in the sound of stunned surprise that would have followed. If he’d come up with a list of a hundred, no a million, things that Rayelle would tell him, her getting knocked up wouldn’t have been on the list. He had always just assumed she was still a virgin.

  “My parents were alive then,” she went on, “and they were devastated. So disappointed in me.” Her voice cracked on those last words, and Nico could hear the hurt that was still there after all this time.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. He had some experience with other people’s disappointment. “What did you do?”

  “The only thing I could.” She wiped away fresh tears. “Shortly after I found out I was pregnant, I also learned the baby’s father was married. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t.” Rayelle waved that off as if it no longer mattered. “Anyway, when I told him I was pregnant, he said it probably wasn’t even his baby and that he never wanted to see me again.”

  That bad feeling in Nico’s gut went up a notch. Hell. Was Rayelle about to tell him there’d been some kind of murder weapon in that box? Maybe a spent bullet casing from where she’d shot the married asshole?

  “I was in college then but was working part-time at a private school,” she explained. “A church school. And they told me to seek employment elsewhere, that they couldn’t have a pregnant unmarried woman working there, that I would be a bad influence on the students.”

  Of course, Nico found it ironic that Rayelle had put that same judgment on him. And Eden.

  “What happened?” Nico asked to break the next round of silence.

  Rayelle shook her head, letting him know this wasn’t going to be easy for her to say. “I didn’t have much money, and Brenda was busy with work and her foster children. I didn’t want to burden her so I told her I was going away for a while, taking a long trip. I went to stay with a friend, and after I delivered, I gave the baby up for adoption.”

  Now Nico needed some silence to process all of that. It was hard to see Rayelle in such a vulnerable position with no emotional support from her family or the baby’s father.

  “Brenda didn’t know?” he asked her because he couldn’t imagine Brenda not stepping up to help.

  “I told her years later,” Rayelle answered in a whisper. “Brenda forgave me for not going to her sooner.” She looked at him then. “I need to find that box. It has some things in it from that time in my life.”

  Crap. That didn’t rule out his spent casing’s theory. Despite that, Nico repeated his assurance. “I’ll help you look for it.”

  That would mean going through every inch of the cabin, Rayelle’s car and the yard. He’d have to cancel his evening with Eden and then come up with something to tell her that didn’t violate the vow of secrecy he’d taken with Rayelle. Maybe when he did see Eden, he could just jump right into sex with her and he could pleasure her enough that she would forget any questions he had.

  Maybe pigs would fly, too.

  Nico stood to send that text, but he stopped when he considered something else. “Do you want me to help you find out anything about the child you gave up for adoption? You know, maybe a computer search or something?”

  “No.” Rayelle didn’t hesitate over that. “She would hate me, I’m sure of it. I gave her up. She’ll think I didn’t want her.” A hoarse sob tore from her mouth, causing Nico to sit back down and pull her into his arms.

  Since there was nothing else he could do, he just
held her.

  “God, I wanted my baby,” Rayelle continued, “but my mother wouldn’t hear of it. She called me a slut and said I would bear the mark of sin forever. She said I wouldn’t be fit to raise a child so I signed the adoption papers.”

  Nico didn’t bother stopping the curse words he muttered. Rayelle and Brenda’s folks had passed a few years before Nico had been placed with Brenda so he’d never met them. Good thing, too, because he’d had enough mess in his life without adding a judgmental biddy like their mom. Rayelle had obviously taken on plenty of that judgment, and it explained a lot about how she acted the way she did. She was hurt, broken and still dealing with those shithead remarks.

  Rayelle wiped her tears again, eased back from him, and he could see that she was trying to steel herself up. He hoped she wasn’t doing that for him. Nico didn’t relish the sight of a woman crying, but he thought it was a good thing that Rayelle was letting out some of this pent-up emotion.

  “We need to find that box,” she insisted, her voice a little stronger now.

  Nico got up to get the search started. Rayelle did, too, but her phone dinged with a text. She blinked hard, trying to read it. Obviously, her eyes still weren’t clear so Nico had a look when she handed him the phone. Rayelle’s heavy sigh, then her groan let him know that she had seen what was on the screen after all.

  A text from Rosy:

  There might be a teeny problem. Jax showed up when I was upstairs and Piper left with him on his motorcycle. Hope that’s okay.

  No. It wasn’t okay. Neither was the rest of what Rosy said in her message.

  Piper left her phone here, but Buck saw her leave, and he said she was upset, crying, so I think you should check on her as soon as you can.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EDEN GRINNED WHEN her phone dinged. Finally. Nico had to be texting to tell her to come over, and mercy, was she ready to do just that. Too bad she couldn’t just arrive naked and jump him.

  Her grin faded, though, when she read the message. It was from Nico all right, but it certainly wasn’t an invitation for sex.