The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3) (28 page)

              When she could put it off no longer, she hiked up the hill to the house and found two foreign vehicles. A classic car of some sort she didn’t care about, and a black Dodge truck, parked in front of the garage.

              She’d forgotten all about Walsh’s friends, and glanced down at herself. Tank top spotted with water, gummy shampoo residue on her arms. Her boots were filthy and she had spatters of mud or something all over her shins. She could feel the hair sticking to the perspiration at the back of her neck and on her forehead, the tendrils come loose from her ponytail.

              What a picture she must make.

              Whatever.

              They were in the living room and Walsh stood and walked over to greet her. As he reached her, it was devastating to realize how strongly he affected her physically, and to know how wrong it was for her to feel that way.

              Hand on her hip, he leaned in for a quick kiss that tasted like cigarettes.

              “Hi.” His smile was small and said he was pleased to see her.

              Her stomach knotted. “Hi.”

              His arm slid around her waist as he turned to the men holding up either end of their new sofa. “Em, this is Eddie” – scary handsome and tossing her a lazy, bad boy grin – “and Sly” – God, the blue eyes and the blonde hair on a face that could turn people to stone, a little like Walsh in that regard – “guys, this is Emmie.”

              “Hi.” She gave them a scant smile and ducked out of Walsh’s hold. “I really ought to go clean up. I stink like a wet dog.” She didn’t check to see if they thought she was rude, just went, hurrying around the edge of the room, down the hall to the back staircase.

              Her heart was in her throat by the time she shut the door of the master bedroom and leaned back against it. Maybe she was having another panic attack, like at the courthouse. Or maybe, she thought, as she surveyed the very lived-in room, she was just a willing accomplice.

             
“Everything any of them ever say is a lie. They destroy lives, and they take what they want.”

              Was this a lie? His jeans slung over the bedpost and her flip-flops on the floor in front of the dresser. His razor and her makeup in the bathroom drawers.

              God, they were
living
together. Was that the lie…or was that what he wanted?

              A hot shower eased some of the tension in her muscles. And afterward, as she dried her hair, she caught sight of the little pile of stuff Walsh had dumped out of his pockets last night: a paperclip, a handful of change, part of a fast food straw wrapper, lint, and a Werther’s caramel.

              She smiled faintly. Whatever else he was, he was a man too. A human, with pocket change, who ate McDonald’s and liked old lady hard candy. Could he really be the stuff of nightmares?

              Dressed in clean shorts and a top, smelling worlds better, she headed down the stairs with the resolution to act more normal. She’d gotten spooked, it happened. It was undoubtedly going to happen again.

              She paused on the first landing when she heard voices below. There were more than just three of them in the living room now. A fourth voice, one sharp with authority, even when he laughed, one she’d heard before. Ghost.

              “Zel clocked him so hard, I’d be surprised if he didn’t have brain damage,” Sly or Eddie said. There were a few low chuckles. “That woman could find a way to kill you with a bottle cap. Give her a frying pan, and you’re talking frontal lobe damage.”

              “But they cleared him to go back to work,” Ghost said.

              “Oh yeah, but it was a big demotion. Throw in what you guys did to the poor bastard” – more chuckling – “and he’s one bad hair day away from being completely off the reservation.”

              “So this is personal, then,” Walsh said. “Vendetta type shit.”

              “That’d be my guess. Your guy said he wasn’t on assignment, right?”

              “Not my guy,” Ghost said, “but yeah, if Grey’s after us, it’s because he’s gone rogue.”

              Low murmurs she couldn’t hear at that point. She clutched at the bannister, heart pounding. She was eavesdropping, but couldn’t make herself stop.

              “Ego’s his thing,” Sly/Eddie said. “Without it, he’s got nothing.”

              “And becomes very dangerous, apparently,” Ghost said.

              Who in the hell were they talking about? Whoever it was, she most certainly wasn’t supposed to hear it.

              Emmie sat down hard on a step and waited, listening to Ghost thank the two newcomers and then leave.

              “There’s more beer in the fridge,” she heard Walsh say, and the voices seemed to move that way, growing more distant.

              She strangled a surprised yelp when Walsh appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her with a mild expression. “Had your shower?”

              He knew she’d been listening. He had to. But he was the picture of serenity.

              “Yeah.” She stood and brushed her shorts down to hide the shaking of her hands. “I was just…”
Totally spying on you
.

              “I told the boys you’d had a long day, so we ordered pizza. It’s on the way.”

              “Oh. That’s good.” She’d anticipated he would ask her to cook for his guests. Not that she really minded. Not that it would be unfeminist to do so.

              But she’d been searching for some sign that he was this domineering jackoff the detective had described to her, and he just wasn’t. Whatever else the other club members were, Walsh couldn’t be a killer.

              Could he?

              She had reached a dangerous point of self-reflection, one in which she couldn’t have been reasonable if she wanted to be. She wanted a drink. Hated that she had her father’s urge to drown her worries. She didn’t want to be worried about all this.

              But she was.

~*~

Sly and Eddie might as well have been furniture for all the attention she paid them during dinner. After, she left her dish in the sink and headed for the hallway.

              Walsh started toward her, and she kept going. “I’m going to take a walk,” she said, and slipped out the front door before he could say anything. She struck off at a fast clip, short legs working

double time to get her down the steps, around the bend in the walk and headed for the barn.

The air was still hot and it felt good filling her lungs, chasing away some of that inner chill she’d carried since Lawson’s. Walsh had done nothing to her – well, save that whole tackling incident – and had given her no reason to be afraid of him personally. Then again, he’d turned her entire world on its end. Shouldn’t that spook a girl?

Shadows lay in long fingers across the pavement, collecting in tide pools between the trunks of trees, the breeze like the low roar of ocean surf.

Emmie walked faster. What sort of delusion had she been operating under? How could she have thought sex, a little cuddling, and what was probably pretend tenderness would somehow serve as worthwhile counterbalance to the fact that she was married to a damn criminal?

She was breathing in ragged gasps when she reached the doors of the barn, and she paused to collect herself.

It didn’t work. Especially not when Walsh materialized beside her, slightly winded from having followed her at her powerwalking pace.

“Just a walk, huh?” He propped his hands on his hips and looked down his nose at her. “Not, let’s say, a nice running away?”

“If I was going to run away, I wouldn’t do it on foot.” She patted her pockets, kicking herself for not going for a drive instead. She didn’t even have her truck keys.

Then again, she hadn’t truly meant to bolt. She was only thinking that now, as she saw the serious light in his blue eyes and was struck anew by the fact that she was married to this man. Who she didn’t know, and who had wed her on the pretense of keeping her from a shallow unmarked grave.

“Em,” he said. “What’s got into you?”

When his hand reached for her she sidestepped it, going into the shadowy interior of the barn. The urge to confide in him was overwhelming, and that frightened her. How quickly she’d become dependent upon him, leaning into his support as easy as breathing.

“Nothing, I just want to be alone is all.” She put her back to him and walked down the aisle, wanting some distance.

He followed her. “Emmie.”

She got halfway down, right in front of Apollo’s stall, and spun to face him. He was covered in shadow, his eyes shimmering like a wolf’s, the dark making him seem taller, more threatening than he’d ever looked. She could believe it, looking at him right now. Could he have killed Davis, forged the paperwork, worked some outlaw magic, and then pretended to care about her? Absolutely. It happened all the time.

“Did you kill Davis?” she asked, proud that her voice was firm though she was shaking on the inside.

“What?” The incredulity in his voice almost sounded real. “Didn’t we already have this conversation? Love, what in the bloody hell–”

“Answer the question, Kingston. I’m your wife, right? So no one can force me to testify against you. So tell me, for real this time. Did you kill my boss?”

He stepped toward her, boots scraping across stray bits of hay that had escaped the night’s sweeping. “I don’t know what’s got into you,” he said calmly, “but I already told you, I didn’t kill the poor bugger. He sold the place to me. Why would I pop him off?”

She swallowed hard; her pulse thundered in her ears. “Maybe he was trying to renege.”

“Or maybe his junkie fucking grandson did it.” A thread of steel creeping into his tone, layering in aggression. “You know me now. You know I wouldn’t have done that.”

“I know you?”

“I told you everything.”

“Or so you say.”

He dragged in a deep breath. “You’re right. There was one thing I didn’t tell you.”

She knew it.

She bolted.

Tried to, anyway. Walsh caught her by the back of her shirt and hauled her around, pushed her back against the metal bars of a stall and pinned her there with his body, his hands locked on her forearms.

“Let me go!” she gasped. “You said you would. You said you wouldn’t make me stay.” It was almost a sob, burning in the back of her throat. “Let me go.”

His breath was warm across her face. She could see nothing but the glint of his eyes, could only feel the shape of him pressed against her. “Don’t you want to hear it, though? The big awful secret I didn’t tell you before.”

She couldn’t swallow down her fear so she could tell him that yes, she did want to know, underneath the terror that he might be about to throttle her.

His head dipped low, his breath fanning across her throat. His lips touched her jaw, just beneath her ear. “I got a girl pregnant once,” he whispered, and she stopped breathing. “Her name was Rita, and she was the daughter of someone important, and I was a banned jockey.”

Her hands curled into the front of his shirt, and she tried to push him away…

“I bought a little hat, a little white lace thing, and I thought if it was a boy, I might name it for my grandfather.”

She froze.

“And Rita couldn’t stand the idea of being attached to me like that. So she had the doctor take it out of her. Like it was a tumor. My child.”

Her heart stuttered and then started up a slow, throbbing rhythm.

“That’s what I didn’t tell you, pet. That women think I’m a disease.” His chuckle was dry and bitter. “Guess you’re no different, then.”

She took a deep breath, and then another. She didn’t want to ache for him, but she did. It could be a lie, but the harshness in his voice told her it wasn’t.

She wet her lips. “A detective came up to me at the feed store today,” she whispered, and felt his hands tighten on her arms. “It was…it was like he was trying to scare me.”

“About us.” His voice hardened.

“I didn’t tell him anything.”

He sighed and let go of her. Stepped back. Shoved both hands into his hair and scrubbed hard. “Bugger all.”

“I don’t want to be frightened,” she added, “but I am. I don’t know what to do about that. I never expected…any of this.” It was a relief to be honest, but it filled her eyes with tears. 

Her phone rang, and she was almost glad for the chance to answer it, and break up this moment.

              “Hello?”

              “It’s Joan,” the bar owner’s wife greeted. “And yep, you guessed it. Daddy’s in the gutter again.”

              Emmie groaned and slid the phone back in her pocket without acknowledgement.

              “Your father?” Walsh asked.

              She pushed her hair back, pressed hard at her scalp with her fingertips, like she could contain the headache that was coming on. “Yeah.”