Page 28 of Still Missing You

She returns to the kitchen, where I assume Jim is cooking, but arrives back at my table a moment later with a small glass of orange juice for both Hunter and me. She sets them down next to each of our plates, then asks, “How was your first night?”

For a split second, memories of Hunter’s hands and mouth all over me clutter my head, and my face warms.

“Great,” I tell her. “I slept great.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“This is a beautiful building,” I tell her when she makes no move to leave my table, and I have to fill the awkward silence. “You must love living here.”

She offers a noncommittal shrug. “It’s lovely,” she agrees, but there’s little enthusiasm in her voice. “I miss my children when I’m here.”

“You have children?”

She nods. “A boy and a girl. Eight and ten.” The house looks like the kind of place where kids would be running around.

“They must be well-behaved,” I tell her. “I haven’t seen or heard them.”

“They don’t live here,” Nancy says. “Jim thought it was better if they lived with my parents in town, closer to their school. This way, they don’t disturb the guests.”

Her mouth is drawn into a tight line, and her high-arched brows draw together. She makes no effort to hide her resentment.

“It must be difficult for you,” I tell her.

“It is,” she admits. “But sometimes you make sacrifices for the people you love.”

The conversation has turned tense and far more personal than I like, so I opt for a change of subject while mentally willing Hunter to hurry up and get down here.

“We tried to speak to Lyle yesterday,” I say. “But we didn’t have any luck tracking him down.”

“You’ll have a better chance of finding him at The Four Corners Bar,” she says, lips pursing with distaste.

“We’ll check it out. Thanks.”

She reaches out, grasping my shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “I really do hope you find your cousin safe.”

But something in her tone tells me she doesn’t believe we will.

Chapter Eleven

Hunter

“My ass is numb,” Dylan says, fidgeting in the passenger seat next to me.

I smirk, but keep my attention fixed on Lyle Kirkland’s house, from where we’re parked on the narrow road, far enough away that he won’t notice us when he gets home, if he gets home. I’m starting to suspect someone tipped Kirkland off that we’ve been asking about him and he won’t be returning home anytime soon.

A frigid drizzle falls from low-hanging clouds, pelting the sides and roof of the car, melting what’s left of the grainy, salt-stained snow clinging to the edges of the road. Droplets zigzag over the windshield and windows.

Kirkland wasn’t here when we turned up at nearly eleven this morning, and he hasn’t been back over the last five hours we’ve been sitting here watching his house. The stillness and boredom that come from sitting in a single location haven’t started to wear on my nerves the way they have on Dylan’s.

“I think you and your ass are going to survive,” I tell him.

He leans back in his seat, closing his eyes and stretching his hands over his head. “You joke, but we both know you’re going to want this ass tonight, once we’re back at the inn.”

He’s not wrong. After last night, I’ve been thinking of his ass entirely too much. Certainly, more than is wise.

Besides, it’s not that I don’t get it. Since I woke up this morning, my knee has ached steadily. I’m not surprised. Since the damage caused by a gunshot, the screws and plates that held the joint together always caused me pain on cold, damp days like today, or after I exerted myself, and kneeling over Dylan on the bed last night, definitely didn’t help. Not that I would change a thing. It was totally worth it.

I tried to keep him from noticing the injury last night, doing my best to distract him with my mouth and hands, and I think I was successful. He hadn’t asked me about the obvious scarring, so I assume he didn’t see it.