Kaleidoscope (19 page)

“It’s important to me, Emme,” he interrupted. “It’s also important to me you have a new kitchen but you aren’t seein’ me rip out this old one to give it to you against your wishes because I know I shot my wad with the insulation. I pushed that, you relented, but it’s your house and I gotta be smart enough to know when to stop pushing. Insulation was a priority. You’ve got no stove, but you’ve got a man who does so that isn’t as big of a deal right now as it normally would be. This is give-and-take, you and me. You gotta learn to let me give so that means you gotta learn to take.”

“And when do I give and you take?”

“Every day, sometimes more than once, when you tell me you really like me when you mean somethin’ else and I know my future includes hearin’ you comin’ home sayin’ ‘hey, puppy’ to Buford.”

That got him a soft look and her eyes fired in that way he liked a whole fuck of a lot but he wasn’t done.

“Because of that, for the first time in a long time, that future looks bright. You’re not the only one’s been lonely, Emme, hoping the right one will come along so you don’t go home to an empty house and climb into an empty bed. So you give every fuckin’ day, and what you give, I like takin’.”

Her body melted into his again and she asked, “You’ve been lonely?”

“Watched my boy fall in love with a good woman, watched her give that to him in return. It’s a beautiful thing, honey. You don’t know what you’re missing until you have it or see someone have what you want. When Chace got that, I knew what I was missing.”

She held his eyes then dropped her forehead to his chest but almost instantly tipped her head back.

“Pizza, restaurant bills, bar tabs, they’re yours,” she announced. “Big stuff, we discuss, but I’ll have a mind to you being a protective uber-alpha just as long as you have a mind to me having taken care of myself for a while and being used to it.” She paused, then quieter, “And spanking and taking it up a notch, just so you know, I’m willing to explore.”

Yes. Fuck yes.

Emmanuelle Holmes had it all.

His arms tightened around her and he murmured, “Deal.”

She rolled up and touched her lips to his.

When she rolled back, she asked, “Will you sort the stuff on the stove while I call in pizza?”

“Yeah.”

She gave him a grin and a squeeze. He returned both and let her go.

She lifted her hand between them and said, “Credit card.”

He got it out, gave it to her, hooked her around the neck and pulled her to him for a quick, hard kiss.

When he let her go, he got her dimple.

Then he got to watch her ass in her tight jeans as she walked away.

*    *    *

Three hours later…

Emme was collapsed on top of him, her face in his neck, her knees in the bed on either side of him, straddling him, her chest pressed to his, near on dead weight.

He ran his hands down the heated, soft skin of her bare ass and whispered, “Tender, baby?”

She mumbled, “Mm…” and fell asleep in the middle of mumbling it.

Totally out.

Deck smiled at the ceiling and wrapped his arms around her.

Suffice it to say, Emme got off on taking it up a notch.

In a big way.

Yes.

Absolutely.

His girl had it all.

*    *    *

Five days later…

Emme’s arm tightened around his stomach.

“Mm… no, honey, read here. I can sleep with the light.”

Her words were muffled since her face was mostly smushed in his chest. She’d just felt him make a move to leave the bed.

She liked him to stay close.

He liked to give her the option.

“Sure?” he asked

She didn’t answer. She was gone.

He carefully shifted, turned on the light on her nightstand and looked back down at her.

She didn’t even twitch.

He grabbed his book from the nightstand, shifted up the headboard and took her with him.

She didn’t move or make a sound.

One-handed, his other arm around her curled into his side, Deck opened his book.

Buford got up, circled the bed then collapsed on it lengthwise, four legs spread out, his groan sounding only after he was settled in.

Deck watched this and smiled.

His eyes went back to his book, and he smelled strawberries so they tipped down to Emme’s hair all over his chest. Her body warm, legs tangled with his, arm still draped over his stomach.

He looked to his dog taking most of her bed then to his girl.

Even as the blood in his veins heated, something warm settled deep in his gut.

This time, he was not going to miss it.

This time, he knew exactly what it was.

This was because he knew he didn’t have it totally right.

His girl had it all.

And now he did too.

Two days later…

“Only you would grill chops in a fuckin’ snowstorm.”

Deck looked from the built-in grill on his back patio to Chace. They were outside. They were wearing jackets. They were drinking beer and Deck was grilling chops. It was, in fact, snowing. However, they were covered by the patio’s overhang.

“Look at these chops,” Deck ordered. Chace looked to the thick pork chops on the grill then at Deck and he grinned. Deck grinned back and finished, “Now, quit your bitchin’.”

Chace kept grinning then his eyes wandered to the huge windows and he kept his grin but it changed.

Deck looked that way too and saw Emme and Faye sitting on one of his couches. Emme, unsurprisingly, was talking. Faye was smiling.

Deck had to admit Faye was all kinds of pretty. The mountain girl next door. Even prettier now, heavy with Chace’s baby, glowing, happy, expectant.

But Emme—in a form-fitting, stylish sweater, tight jeans and bare feet with her toes painted wine red, her hair gleaming, bangs falling into her eyes, face animated—was stunning.

He looked back to Chace. “Surprised you’re here, man. What is she now? Two days past due?”

Chace tore his eyes from his wife and looked to his friend. “Yeah. Two. But she got to talkin’ to Emme, Emme mentioned she wanted us over so you could cook food that makes The Rooster seem like Taco Bell, and they could bond. Faye said no time like the present. My girl,” he shook his head, “nothin’ fazes her. She says Jake’ll come when he comes, and she figures our kid wouldn’t want her hanging around doin’ nothin’ while she waits for that to happen. So she’s not gonna do that.”

That sounded like Faye.

And Deck loved that Chace was naming his firstborn after him. Loved it so much he was going to return the favor. It might make things confusing, kids running around with their names, but he didn’t give a fuck.

It said a lot.

It meant a lot.

So he was going to do it.

“I gave in,” Chace went on, and Deck focused on him, “mostly because your house is closer to the hospital.” Another grin before, “Her bag’s in the car.”

Deck smiled. “Good thinking. Give her what she wants but have what you need.”

“Yep,” Chace replied, taking a sip from his beer. When he was finished, he asked, “Things cool with Emme?”

Deck looked back down to the chops but he knew his lips were curved up. “Yeah.”

“She okay with your folks comin’ to town?”

This was the most recent news.

Deck’s mom and dad were coming for a visit.

Deck was born and raised in Colorado, just outside Aspen.

Years ago, when Deck was in college, Deck’s dad had declared he was done with snow and took a job in San Diego. After retiring two years ago, they stayed. They didn’t visit often, Deck normally went to them, and they never came in winter or spring.

But his mom had called and Deck had told her about Emme. Then his dad got on the phone.

Deck remembered they’d met her once, one of the many times Emme popped by Deck and Elsbeth’s place. He remembered but they didn’t. That said, Richard Decker heard how Deck was talking about her and decided they were due for a visit. In March. When they avoided Colorado until June, earliest.

Though he was worried she wouldn’t, Emme took this news in stride. She seemed completely unaffected by it. But Deck was keeping a close watch on her in case she was hiding nerves.

To all appearances, she wasn’t.

“Seems to be,” Deck answered Chace.

“Outside the norm, Rich and Karla comin’ out when snow’s on the ground,” Chace remarked.

Deck finished flipping chops and looked at his friend. “Didn’t say it, where I am with Emmanuelle, but you know Dad. He heard it. Then he laid it out. He’s thinkin’ Emme and me bein’ together less than a month and this bein’ where it’s at is too soon. So he’s settin’ up to check things out and offer a father’s wisdom.”

“If it’s right, it’s right,” Chace stated quietly, and he would know.

After his life turned to shit, when it made the turn back, he’d connected with Faye, gave her no space whatsoever from the start and from the first night he had her in his bed, he’d never slept another one without her at his side.

“Dad’s Dad, Chace. You know him,” Deck replied. “He sticks his nose in anything he can when it has to do with his boys. Or, for that matter, fuckin’ anything.”

“I know, Deck, but you’re not twenty-three and thinkin’ with your eyes and dick.”

Now he was talking about Elsbeth, and Deck took no offense. They both knew that was the God’s honest truth with what went down with her, and they both had a bent toward stating it plain.

“Elsbeth was sweet, when she wasn’t being a grasping bitch, but Emme, pure you,” Chace continued, his eyes drifted to the windows and he muttered, “Fuck, like she was made for you.”

Deck looked to the windows and watched his girl smile, her dimple appearing as Faye burst out laughing. He saw Buford, flat out on his side by the one foot she had on the floor. Her other leg was tucked under her. She was leaned into Faye, hands up, still gesturing even as Faye laughed.

Watching her, he couldn’t say he wasn’t thinking with his eyes and his dick. It was just that, this time, they weren’t disengaged from his brain.

“Right,” Chace stated, and Deck’s eyes went back to him. “Freezin’ my ass off and salivating just watchin’ those chops cook, might as well take this time to fill you in without the women around.”

He was talking about the case that the task force was still working to put the finishing touches on for the DA.

“Give it to me,” Deck invited.

“That crew we brought down, bein’ good. Not associatin’ with each other. Checkin’ in with their bondsmen. Keepin’ their noses clean. Dane McFarland, though, is also keepin’ his head down. Way down. He’s got a brother and sister tied up in that mess, but far’s we can tell, they’ve cut ties.”

“Glad you’re keepin’ an eye on him, but like I said, he’s a fuckwad creep, Chace, but he’s not the ringleader. His best friend, that dealer, Danny, called the shots,” Deck told him.

Chace nodded but replied, “I get why you’d think that. But the man McFarland had a meet with that night you searched Emme’s place the night before you were deputized by Kenton was not found for questioning. Nor was he implicated by anything you turned up. Plate I ran from his truck puts him in Carnal. Been by his house a dozen times since then. He’s not at home, boss says he’s on extended leave, family emergency, unknown when he’s comin’ back. That’s fishy, Deck.”

It was.

It was also a dead end Deck ran into weeks ago.

“Nothing led to another party being involved,” Deck reminded him.

“Seems odd this mysterious guy who’s since disappeared is takin’ a late-night meet with McFarland, don’t you think?” Chace asked.

“I do. But I also turned over a lot of stones. I don’t know who that guy was, just found nothin’ to tie him with that crew. Also found nothin’ hot on him, no record, no known associations. And last, I
did
find that he has a family emergency. Mom’s got multiple sclerosis and she isn’t doin’ too good. Maybe he was buyin’ fenced property, somethin’ you’d do during a clandestine meeting, and fencing that shit is likely all the mental capacity McFarland had to give that crew. Buying stolen property isn’t legal, but as it stands, you got no call to get a warrant to search this mysterious guy’s place. He’s a dead end, Chace.”

“I’m not feelin’ Danny, the dealer, as ringleader,” Chace replied, and Deck felt a moment of unease mostly because he wasn’t certain that was true either.

McFarland’s best friend, “Danny, the dealer” was a far sight smarter than McFarland. Danny had a jacket that was more than a few pages long but nothing on him the last three years since it took him time to learn how to be smart.

Danny was also good-looking in that dangerous way that might compel high school boys, who they expected were that crew’s chosen tools, to turn to the dark side.

But there was something off about him in a way that even high school boys would likely read and therefore not follow it. Danny had danger and danger could be intoxicating. He just had no charisma.

“You get anything on any kids?” Deck asked.

“Got three who are possibles, one in Carnal, two in Gnaw Bone. Other teachers say they had unusual bonds with the teacher McFarlands, Dane’s brother and sister. Also said the kids were often in their rooms when class was out, before school or after. Sat down and had chats with those kids at the school with the principals and their parents. They gave us nothing but they did it cagey so I figure they got something. Hopin’ the parents will feel the same and turn at least one to doin’ right. But days are passing, we’ve applied mild pressure, and nothing.”

“You still got enough to take that crew down,” Deck pointed out. “Direct links to the storage unit where they kept the stolen property. Fingerprints on that property. DNA in the stolen cars that were seen at the houses hit at the times the crimes were committed. Eyewitness reports of either the suspects or their cars in the vicinity of the houses when none of them lives anywhere near, indicating they were casing them prior to hit. This gets closer to trial, Chace, you know the drill. They’ll start pointing fingers and making deals.”

“Still not feelin’ good that whatever that crew did to induce high school kids to commit felonies is in the wind,” Chace replied.

“That shit feeds from a source, Chace. You cut off that source, it starves and dies.”

“Those kids still committed felonies, Deck,” Chace returned.

“Eyewitnesses saw shadowy figures who they reckoned were young. In other words, we don’t even know any kids beyond the one who got intimate with his dad’s gun was involved.”

Chace held Deck’s eyes. “I get you. I also got a feeling.”

Deck knew that feeling. He’d had it. Hell, he had it now with this case.

“You want me to keep diggin’?” Deck asked.

“You ever finish an assignment knowin’ in your gut it’s not done?” Chace asked as reply.

He hadn’t. Never.

Fuck.

Deck drew in a deep breath.

Chace kept talking but did it quietly.

“Makes me all kinds of happy you found her, man. She’s it for you, written all over her but also stated clear every time her eyes turn to you. Glad you got a woman like that, looks at you, you light her world.”

Fuck, Deck liked that.

Chace wasn’t done.

“I get why you’d focus on her. But this shit is not done, man. You know it. You feel it like me. You just got good things in your life right now, so you don’t have the time to focus on it. You put a stop to that mess as it stood, but there’s more out there that has not come to light. It’s buried deep. So deep,
you
didn’t even find it. And where there’s deep, there’s dark. Our work is not done.”

“Got other jobs that pay as I charge, Chace, and shit I need to see to with Emme,” Deck told him, and Chace’s brows drew together.

“She okay?” he asked.

“Seems so,” Deck answered. “Just too okay. Too adjusted. Too together for a woman who disconnected from life for years. That shit went down with McFarland, she’s cool with it. She fell in with me…” He shook his head. “She hasn’t had a lot of men, Chace, but she’s let me in, and deep. Time spent together is good. She’s funny. She’s sweet. She pisses me off in a way that I like it. The sex is fuckin’ great. It’s like we’ve been together for years and she’s had practically zero practice with this shit. We talked about what happened to her when she was a kid, she’s totally okay with it.”

Chace cut in, his tone disbelieving. “Totally okay with it?”

Deck nodded once. “Completely. Forgives the guy. Even defends him. She came back into my life, I called a friend in Denver to look into things, just checkin’ up. The man who snatched her, clean. Lives a good life and does it honest. Still, got a bad feelin’ in my gut about that too, so he’s still on him.”

“What’s your bad feelin’ about this guy?”

“It isn’t so much about him. It’s about Emme. Things she’s said, I think she’s connected with him since he got out of prison.”

Chace’s chin jerked back. “No fuckin’ shit?”

“Had eyes on him and ears on his phone for weeks. Nothin’. Just a feelin’. But I get those, they’re rarely wrong.”

“She’s doin’ that, that would not be good, man,” Chace noted.

“You’re tellin’ me somethin’ I know,” Deck replied.

“Victims of shit like that, especially kids, things can get twisted.”

This did not make him feel any better.

“Again, you’re tellin’ me somethin’ I know,” Deck said.

“You’ve spent time with her parents, you ask them?”

“Barry brought it up, what happened. He’s not over it. Not even close. I reckon Maeve’s got dark memories too. So unless it’s more than a gut feeling, I don’t want to bring that back or make them worry.”

Chace nodded. “So, what you’re sayin’ is, lookin’ into somethin’ that important, you don’t have the focus for an ongoing investigation.”

“What I’m sayin’ is, funds put aside to contract with me were not enough in the first place. It sucks, what was goin’ on. Even so, man, that kid hadn’t taken his own life, wouldn’t have even considered that job. Emme involved, that capped it. But on the face of it, jobs’ done, contract’s done. Far’s the task force is concerned, they got their man, in this case, four men and one woman. I do this, it’s my dime, my time and you know it. Neither the county nor the town have it in their budget to keep me on so I can dig deeper.”

He drew in another breath, knowing there was something off, that puzzle was not solved and equally knowing, no matter how much he needed to focus on Emme, he’d still never be able to live with that.

So he made a split-second decision and finished, “But you’re right. I know in my gut we’re missin’ something. So I’ll do it.”

Chace smiled and murmured, “Freebie.”

Deck shook his head but it wasn’t in the negative. He had no choice. Chace was concerned and Deck knew that puzzle wasn’t solved. Deck didn’t like unsolved puzzles, the money wasn’t there, so it was a freebie.