Rafe stood on the back porch, hislungs burning as he held his breath, his heart wedged somewhere in his throat.
He’d come to the B and B to talk to Rex, but when no one answered the front door, he moved around to the back. He heard voices coming from the kitchen, so he went to the back door. Finding it open, he expected to see his brother talking to Bailey.
Instead, he found Holt and Bailey.
At first, they’d been talking. When he heard his name, he’d been curious why he was a topic of their conversation. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, and he damn sure hadn’t meant to stand there and watch what happened when they stopped talking, but his feet wouldn’t move.
What happened next wasn’t what he expected. His reaction to it was even worse.
Sure, he was jealous. To the point his insides felt shredded. How dare Holt touch her when Rafe never had? All he’d wanted was to kiss Bailey, but his stubbornness had gotten in the way. Now there was a good chance he would never get the chance.
But jealousy wasn’t what kept him there, had him watching as Bailey wantonly gave herself to Holt, begging him to make her come. He’d never seen anything as sexy as her telling Holt to make her come.
All the fantasies he’d had of her had involved sweet, gentle lovemaking. Never had he considered she might need something more than gentle caresses. The version he’d seen a moment ago had brought something inside him to life. He imagined himself walking into the house, joining them. He envisioned making Bailey come with his mouth while Holt watched, then trading places so he could have the pleasure of tasting her sweet pussy.
Realizing he was still staring through the screen door, Rafe jerked out of his reverie, intending to leave. He hadn’t managed a single step when Holt pulled back, and Bailey’s gaze shifted to Rafe. Their eyes locked for a single heartbeat before Rafe put his feet in motion and marched off the porch.
How the fuck had he let this happen?
***
If Holt had his way, he would’vespent the rest of the day with Bailey. It didn’t even matter where. Preferably naked with his cock lodged deep inside her, but he could do casual, too. He simply wanted to be around her.
Instead, he managed to walk out of the house so she could deal with the chores she needed to tackle and so he could wrangle his fucking dick into submission.
Not so surprising, the distance didn’t help at all. He was absolutely useless. He only managed to walk to the bakery because it required no brainpower whatsoever. His mind was occupied with their encounter in the kitchen, the sound of Bailey’s muffled cry resounding on an endless loop. Touching her … feeling the heat of her … Holt had never known anything as precious as Bailey’s surrender.
How the hell was he supposed to get anything done now?
He made it to the bakery without incident. He ordered a black coffee, and Ramona chose a cranberry-orange scone for his daily pastry surprise. He ensured he gave her his high praise before he left to focus on the task he’d set out to accomplish today. The walk back to his truck gave him time to shift his mindset and plan out the questions he wanted to ask Sheriff Endsley when they met in a little while. But first, he wanted to make a trip to the cemetery to see Kylie Walker’s gravestone for himself.
By the time he arrived at Coyote Ridge Cemetery, his thoughts were clear. Mostly. He’d managed to tuck thoughts of Bailey away for a little while. He would certainly be pulling them out later to relive that moment again and again, but for now, there was something he was curious about.
Holt parked his truck on the side of the narrow road and got out, strolling through the perfectly manicured grass to what he believed were the plots dedicated to Curtis Walker and his family. Turned out he didn’t have to search. He merely headed for the fresh flower arrangements that seemed to be centered over one particular grave.
The gravestone gleamed as though someone polished it daily. Someone had placed a dozen roses in the small cylinder meant to hold flowers, and someone else had placed a magnolia flower on the edge. There were also daisies and sunflowers, and Holt suspected someone kept up with the decor on a daily basis.
As he stared, he had to wonder what it would mean to have a love like that. To know that when you left this world, there were people who would mourn you for not weeks, not months, but years. Not until recently had Holt even considered settling down and having a family, but something changed about six months ago. Something that made him realize life was fleeting, and he needed to find somewhere to go unless he wanted to be moving from one city to the next without roots to keep him in place. Funny, but his first thought had been of Rafe.
Holt had come to Coyote Ridge to validate those feelings, to confirm that what he’d felt that night had been real, and if it had, he’d intended to change Rafe’s mind. One night was all it had taken for Holt to fall in love, and the man he happened to fall in love with did not think he deserved love from anyone. Never in his wildest dreams would he have expected to encounter a woman who might’ve stolen his heart within the first minutes of meeting her.
Talk about complicated.
“I won’t lie, Kylie,” Holt said, talking to her headstone. “I want what you had. In more ways than I expected.”
He wondered whether Sheriff Endsley would have the same reaction that Bailey had when he brought up Kylie’s name. If so, how should he approach the subject? It was clearly not an easy thing to talk about for the folks in this small town. People were still grieving a year and a half after it happened.
Holt understood loss. He’d never experienced it to this magnitude, no, but his grandparents on both of his parents’ sides had passed away when he was young. He’d been close to all of them, so he’d been heartbroken. The difference was they’d died when they were older and not at the hands of violence. The same couldn’t be said for Kylie Walker.
Problem was, during his research, Holt had encountered a few things that didn’t add up. Not with Kylie, per se. She’d married Travis Walker when she was nineteen, and they’d gone their separate ways shortly after Travis joined the army. Later, they’d found each other again, and from what he could tell, that was partially thanks to the interference of Gage Matthews, also known as Chance Reed, a former undercover cop responsible for taking down some pretty severe government corruption.
Since this was right in Holt’s wheelhouse, he’d started digging deeper to understand. Curious, he’d started to pull on the thread, trying to unravel the story behind Chance Reed. Somewhere along the way, that thread led him to Meredith Prescott, Kylie’s mother, but he wasn’t entirely sure how. It would take some backtracking to figure it out, but he was curious whether he could get the lowdown from those who’d known Kylie. And the thriller writer in him wanted to understand exactly what led to her death because something about the whole thing didn’t sit well with him.
Figuring there was no time like the present to find out, Holt said goodbye to Kylie and headed back into town.
Chapter Thirteen
Rafe woke to the sound of hiscell phone. He rolled over and squinted at the screen.
