by Cara McKenna
But she really had to stop sleeping with him. Last night, he’d whispered to her as they were drifting off, about how she was the only thing that let him sleep. His lips had moved against her neck as he’d said it, and heat had trickled through her. Something in those words or the caress of his mouth had her thinking, Sooner or later, this need is going to turn carnal. He was going to want more from her—the things she’d taken away when she broke his heart, two summers ago. The things she was promising now, frankly, by coming back every night. Things she wanted, too, in her body . . . but not any place deep enough to make it okay. Because he wanted far more than Raina had in her to give.
As another dawn rose, staining the sky dark aqua through the skylight above them, Raina’s thoughts turned to another man. The near stranger who’d helped her friends find some truth in the shadows obscuring Alex’s murder. A man who presented like an entitled prick, but whose reckless actions had been those of a reluctant hero.
The stranger was tall, also. But where Miah smelled of the ranch—of leather and sweat and earth—the other man smelled of civility. Linen and soap, and a hint of cologne that didn’t cloy, merely flirted. A man whose jaw was as smooth as Miah’s neglected one was now bearded. Whose eyes were clear gray to Miah’s near-black ones; his hair light brown and styled, versus Miah’s overgrown black waves. His voice cultured and British and velvet-dark to Miah’s down-home, plain-speaking one. Their accents, their hands, their shoes, their jobs—everything opposed. The Churches were well off—they came from old railroad money on Miah’s father’s side, and were rarities in that they still managed their ranch; most owners were rich absentees. Though you’d never guess Miah was wealthy, to look at him. He dressed like the ranch hands he oversaw, whereas that other man oozed privilege from every pore. Everything about the two of them was mismatched, but for the way they roused Raina. In that, they were perfect equals.
As the sky grew lighter, her instincts urged her, Go. Miah would be waking soon to start his long workday. She always slipped out before he rose, worried he’d try to kiss her good-bye. Worried one kiss would be all it took for them to tear aside this flimsy barrier and find themselves clawing at each other’s clothes, hungry hands moving over familiar skin. And tempting as the sex was, it wasn’t fair. Because he was a good man, and it meant far more to him than it did to her. He was rare, that way. Sex was an expression of his feelings for a woman.
For Raina, sex was merely the scratching of an itch. And that itch was all she felt, for men. All she wanted to feel for them. It made her think of that other man, one too cold to ever get truly close to. A beautiful shell, too glossy-smooth for the creeping vines of attachment to take hold. Safe. The man at her back? Dangerous.
For long minutes she willed herself to wake Miah, to get her balls together and rip off this Band-Aid, quit leading the man on. But the morning air was cold, his body and the covers so warm. And she was so goddamn tired from not having slept properly in what felt like forever.
But it had to happen.
Miah’s arm was draped along her side, his exhalations hot and lazy on the back of her neck. She touched his wrist, stroking softly until he stirred.
“Hey,” he murmured, then yawned into her hair.
“I want to talk to you, before you have to start work.”
“Talk away.”
She took a deep breath. “These past few weeks have been awful.”
“Yeah.”
“But this has been nice. Us, I mean.” She could sense his hopes rising, and realized her wording had been cruel in its kindness. “But it has to stop. It’s been simple, but it won’t stay that way.”
He rolled her over, and suddenly she was losing her footing in this talk, that handsome face like a punch to rearrange her priorities. Even after a few hours’ sleep, his breath was sweet. “What do you mean?”
“You and me, pretending like we can just spend night after night in the same bed together, and not take things too far.”
He smiled faintly. “Would that really be so awful?”
Reckless, tempting logic. But she knew better than to trust it. “Not at first, no.”
“We both know what we’re missing, Raina.” His hand closed around her wrist, and her breathing grew shallow as she let him lead her slowly, so slowly, between their bodies, then cup her palm to the front of his shorts. She swallowed, head swimming.
Too true. I know exactly what I’m missing. She could feel precisely that, stiff and hot against her hand. If any other man on the planet tried that shit with her—took her hand and showed her where to put it—she’d have torn him a second asshole. But she trusted Miah implicitly, far more than she trusted herself. She indulged him for a single, incendiary stroke, then gently escaped his grip.
“I won’t lie,” she said softly. “I do miss that. I want that, or my body does. But you need things I can’t give you. And you deserve those things.”
“You mean love.”
Intimidated by the eye contact, she drew closer to speak below his ear. “Love, for keeps, whatever you want to call it. Dating, marriage, kids, forever—all that stuff any other girl on earth would die to give you. The most I’m willing to offer you is sex, and I know that’s not enough.” And that was the cruelest part, because she knew how good they were. She wanted him so bad right now her body was begging her mouth to promise him anything, just to feel him inside her again.
He sighed, the noise thin with annoyance, steaming against her temple. “You think I can’t be selfish, too? Can’t make this just about sex?”
“I know you can’t. Not with me, anyhow.”
“Wow. Think that highly of yourself, do you?”
She pulled back to meet those dark eyes. “I’m not blind. I see how you look at me. And I felt what I did to you, when we were together—both the good and the bad.” The wonder of their chemistry, then the aching, dogging grief that tailed the both of them well after she’d broken things off. She kicked away the covers and left the bed. “You’re the most eligible man in Fortuity, cowboy. You should have moved on ages ago.”
“You’re not that easy to replace.”
“Well, try harder. Because this is never going to end with you and me and a farmhouse full of brown-eyed babies, Miah.”
As she pulled on her socks, he asked, “It’s him, isn’t it? Welch.”
She sought his gaze, held it. “No, it’s not.”
“Don’t lie to me. People in this town talk, and I’ve heard from plenty of them, asking me how I feel about the way my ex has been flirting with the developers’ corporate mercenary. The public face of the casino that’s brought nothing to this town so far except death.”
“Those murders have nothing to do with Duncan Welch—he risked his job to help us.”
“Doesn’t change how people think of him, though. And his personality’s not doing him any favors. He keeps strutting around town the way he does, he’ll wind up with worse than the broken tooth Tremblay gave him. You’d be a fool to get yourself associated with all that.”
“Welch means far less to me than you do, so trust me—my ending things between us, it’s nothing to do with him. It’s about me, and you know it. It always has been. We had the only break-up in history where the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ bit was true.”
“I’ve seen the way you two talk, in the bar.” Miah sat up. His black hair was rumpled, his arms tan against his dark gray tee. So handsome she had to turn away.
“And he can no doubt see the way you and I look at each other,” she said. “But Welch is nothing to me beyond a customer and a curiosity. But you—you’ve been my friend since we were kids. You’re my ex.” She chanced a quick glance. “The past few weeks we’ve been each other’s therapy. But I’m stopping it, because deep down I know I’m using you, and as good as it’s felt up until now . . . it’s starting to feel shitty.”
Miah seemed to
hold in a reply.
“I hope you’re using me, too,” she added, and stepped into her boots, their leather cold and stiff. “Though I’m afraid I know you better than that.” He gave too willingly to possibly know how to exploit anybody.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, planting his elbows on his thighs. “Guess we’re going back to bartender and patron again, then.”
She took the elastic off her wrist and snapped it around a sloppy bun. “Bartender and patron—and hopefully friends, for both our sakes. And for the sake of the club.”
Before this summer, the Desert Dogs had been nothing more than the name they’d called their bygone gang of childhood friends. Back then, they’d spend long summer days hiding from the baking sun in the auto shop, dicking around on motorcycles, thinking high school would go on forever. They were in their thirties now, and life had lost its simplicity. Miah was married to his job, and Raina was tethered to her dad’s bar. Their friend Casey had disappeared to chase after shady money for close to ten years, earning himself a criminal record in the process, and not returning until a few weeks earlier. His older brother, Vince, had done time as well, for recreational felonies. Alex was dead. And the mysteries shrouding Fortuity seemed unlikely to lift any time soon, so the four of them—Vince, Casey, Miah, and Raina—had resolved to come together again, but with a purpose now. To protect their town from threats unknown, while the law was preoccupied with the more obvious ones.
Miah didn’t reply, looking more weary than annoyed. She sighed and stepped close; touched his dark hair, laid a kiss on the top of his head. “You always were too good for me, Miah.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone but you, I imagine.”
He caught her wrist, holding it until she met his eyes. “Whatever you are to me,” he said, “it counts for a lot. I ever hear about you going with some man who has the nerve to say that to you—that you’re not good enough for him or for anybody else—I’ll have more than words for him.”
She smiled sadly as he let her go. “I know you would. And I know I’m a fool for running from what you’ve got to offer. Again.”
His lips thinned to a tired smirk. “You always were good at running.”
She nodded, throat tight and hurting. “Watch me go.” She checked for her keys, grabbed her helmet off Miah’s dresser. As her fingers closed around the door’s cool knob, she heard words at her back, nearly too soft to make out.
“You know I will.”
The old farmhouse was quiet save for the muted sounds of Miah’s mom in the kitchen. She’d be starting the coffee, probably making pancakes or eggs and bacon or some other perfect, wholesome breakfast, fit for her hardworking husband and son. Some meal Raina never would have made as well, had she ever let herself get deep enough with Miah to wind up a cattleman’s wife. A Mrs. Church. She wasn’t built for that shit. For the softer sorts of nurturing. She’d been birthed by some flighty facsimile of jailbait, raised by a bachelor bar owner who’d needed as much caretaking as he’d offered. She had zero qualifications to be the woman Miah had coming to him . . . and zero interest in earning them. She slipped out the back, skirting the far side of the house like a coward, in no mood to run into the warm and lovely woman who’d never, ever be her mother-in-law.
Her little Honda growled to life between her legs in the cold dawn air, and as she exited the ranch’s big front lot, the grinding of rubber on gravel felt like the only noise in the world.
The wind bit, waking her quicker than coffee ever could. The closer she drew to downtown and home, the heavier the guilt grew.
Any sane girl who wanted something real, something good, would’ve taken what Miah had offered two years ago. Stayed with a man whose body roused hers and whose nature promised stability. She’d have fallen past lust and into love with him, got married maybe, had a kid or two, settled down for a life of relentless reliability. Raina had been given the chance to pick a guy worthy of acting as her anchor, and then what? Resent him for taking away her freedom? Or, worse—lose him, maybe, as she’d lost her dad? Care enough to cling, then lose him to an accident or another woman or a midlife crisis or who knew what? Miah was steady, but he was still a man.
“I can make you happy,” he’d told her once, back when they were lovers. “Why won’t you just let me?”
She hadn’t answered him. Hadn’t been honest and simply said, “I don’t want a man who’ll make me happy. I want to feel relief when things end, not grief. Why would anyone choose grief?”
Regrets were ugly, but they scattered like ashes soon enough.
It was attachment you had to look out for. Affection. Love. There was a certain line, where emotions were concerned, past which experiences ripened to memories, and it couldn’t be passed over lightly.
Love had bones to it. Solid, rattling things bent on cluttering you up long after the soft parts melted into the ether. You had to carry those bones around with you. Make room for them, dust them, trip over them.
She parked behind the bar and headed for the back door.
Sex and moments of easy companionship were enough—just don’t let those bones grow in. Keep it soft and shapeless with no skeleton, no means to follow you when the time comes to walk away.
Raina stepped across the very threshold where she’d been left as a baby, and into a thousand dusty memories of her dad. She shut the door behind her, feeling interred.
Good God, what was she doing here? She should have sold this place and moved on three years ago, after he’d died, quit surrounding herself with nostalgia for the only man she’d ever truly loved, and given these wounds a chance to finally heal.
There was still time. A flashy new bar and grill was coming to town in the next year, ahead of the casino, and only a block west of Benji’s, on Station Street. The outsiders would be tearing down the derelict old tack shop and building from scratch. They had big money, and big plans, and undoubtedly stood a better chance at attracting the future gaming tourists than Raina would. They’d serve food, with a side of clean, friendly, faux-rustic charm. That basically left Raina cornering the Friday night fistfight market, with not nearly enough profits coming in to fund the overhaul she’d need to put in a kitchen, hire more staff, and undertake the renovation necessary to stay competitive.
And why bother? This place had been her dad’s project, not hers. He’d opened it just before she showed up, and with Raina’s mom MIA, he’d struggled to nurture his child and his business in tandem. This bar had been her home her entire life . . . but now it was her burden, a constant reminder of how badly she missed her father. A reminder, too, that she was still cleaning up after him, still keeping his dreams afloat, and her own on hold. It was a haunted place, its heartbeat silenced. She could sell it, and handily. Developers would be scrambling to buy up commercial real estate as the Eclipse’s grand opening drew closer.
She could find a new place to call home. A new town. A new life. It wasn’t too late . . . Was it?
Maybe this is your home now, a voice in her head whispered. The boneyard itself.
Can’t you hear the clattering, girl?
Chapter 3
Duncan Welch eyed the vodka and tonic sitting before him on the bar. His second of the night, and the sun had only just dipped behind the mountains to the west and dunked the town in premature dusk.
A troubling development, one that had arrived right along with his recent professional worries.
For all intents and purposes, Duncan was on probation. He worked for Sunnyside Industries, the development company that was designing and eventually running the Eclipse, the casino slated to open in two years, here in Fortuity. He was Sunnyside’s legal counsel, and more to the point, their fixer. Up until six weeks ago, he’d been a model worker. Up until he’d met Vince Grossier, king of the local roughnecks, a man on a mission to prove that his friend had been murdered. Duncan had been drawn in to run
interference between Grossier and the people at Virgin River Contracting, but then circumstances had grown complicated. He’d exploited his position to uncover information that led to very real suspicions of criminal activity on the part of VRC. Sunnyside couldn’t in good conscience fire him, not when his trespass had resulted in the exposure of a murder cover-up. But they weren’t pleased. And Duncan had never been in this position before—never given an employer cause to chastise him. Having his reputation damaged made him deeply uneasy . . . had him wondering if the careful façade he’d built around himself these past twenty years might be showing cracks.
He took a deep drink.
At least he’d cut down on the Klonopin, in recent weeks. One vice was human; two was a crutch.
He eyed his bartender. Make that three vices.
Raina Harper. So not Duncan’s style, yet he’d grown all but infatuated with her. He was tall, and so was she—perhaps five foot eight—though their similarities ended there. She was dark—wavy dark hair, dark eyes, tan skin. Black tee or tank, always, and black lace tattooed over one shoulder, like a veil that had slipped from her face and caught there. Long legs in tight jeans and cowboy boots. She was probably thirty-one or -two to Duncan’s thirty-eight, yet in some ways she made him feel hopelessly childish. She’d probably shot a gun, ridden her share of horses, taken dares, placed bets, crashed a car, fucked more people than Duncan ever would, and with far more abandon.
She made him want things he’d never given much thought to. Noisy, messy sex; nails raking his back. Instincts he didn’t trust any more than he trusted his newfound two-drink minimum.
He shifted on his stool, trousers feeling tight.
Raina was the owner of this charming-cum-rabid establishment, Benji’s Saloon, currently Fortuity’s sole watering hole. An old wooden whale of a place, its thick rafters ribbing the high ceiling, a dozen world-weary Jonahs gathered around the jukebox in the so-called old-timers’ corner, swapping tales from the bygone golden days. They’d be off soon, replaced by the next generation—noisy, lively packs of ranch workers who drank, and presumably mated, with the boundless, indiscriminate enthusiasm of youth.