Forbidden Fling (Wildwood 1)

“Oh my God.” Ethan’s angry words to her repeated in her head, and Delaney’s stomach dropped. She closed her eyes and combed her fingers into her hair. Collecting herself, she said, “Go on.”

“Well, Ethan—poor guy. I mean, Ian getting killed was tragic, but then his aunt trying to commit suicide? The guy was swallowed in guilt. He dropped out of Berkeley and stayed home to piece his family back together.” He shrugged. “Guess he did a pretty good job—they seem tight. But who ever really knows what’s happening on the inside?”

Delaney wasn’t processing anything past the word guilt. Her mind was spinning and spinning but going nowhere, a hamster on a wheel. “Hold on. Back up. Why did Ethan feel guilty?”

Traced huffed a sound that didn’t quite reach a laugh. “In the big picture, it seems so . . . I don’t know, insignificant, but I guess if I were in his shoes, maybe I’d feel the same way.

“Wayne and Ellen asked Ethan—the straight-A, varsity-letterman-four-years-in-a-row, class-president, exemplary child to go out with Ian and his friends for Ian’s twenty-first party because, as we all know, Ian was everything Ethan wasn’t. Ethan, I guess, tried like hell to get out of it, but you know how those families are tied by blood and money, so Jack and Beth insisted Ethan go.

“And Ethan, being the stellar kid he was, went. And he kept them out of trouble. And, crap, that could not have been an easy job. I’d take a handful of Folsom inmates over Ian and his buddies any day.”

“Amen,” Delaney muttered, rubbing her eyes to clear the horrible memories flashing to the surface.

“Well, I guess by the time they reached this place, it was the only bar still open, so you have to know how smashed they were.”

“I was here. I had to dodge their goddamned hands and ignore their disgusting mouths.”

Trace nodded. “But somewhere in between the last bar they’d hit and here, the diamond-encrusted golden child and Ian had an argument about coming here. When Ian said he was going with or without Ethan, Ethan went home.”

And Ian was killed.

The unsaid words hung in the air.

And Delaney’s insides crumbled.

“Oh, Christ . . .” She breathed the words, barely able to sustain the burden, the pressure, the wicked guilt this information wrought.

Her mind jumbled the past and the present. Pain swelled from her belly to her chest. Her chest to her throat. Ian—dead. Ellen—suicidal. Ethan . . . Christ, his whole future had been ruined.

“How’d you end up here, doing this? Did you decide you hated science or get someone pregnant or something?”

She’d known something wasn’t right about him in the position of building inspector. And now she knew why.

“Hey. You okay?”

Trace’s words cut into her misery. She pulled in a deliberate lungful of air and lifted her head, but she didn’t try to cover the distress swimming inside her. “I can’t believe I didn’t know. I can’t believe Avery or Chloe or at least Phoebe didn’t tell me.”

“Well, it was a long time ago. Seems everyone wants to put it behind them and forget it ever happened. Which is why I have to be honest, Delaney. It’s hard to imagine Jack Hayes or Wayne Ryan letting this renovation go through. But if you can get the go-ahead, I’m two hundred percent on board. I need the money, and I need to show everyone that I’m still together and I’m still dependable. I need people to know they can hire me and get the same quality work they did before my life went to shit.”

Delaney’s shock settled into a dull ache, and she forced her mind away from the tragedy to make sure this place didn’t ruin her. With Trace on her side, she even had a shot at coming out on top for once.

“Let’s not worry about that until it’s a reality.” She crossed her arms and looked around the room. If she’d been unenthusiastic about renovating this place before, now the thought sickened her. “I just want to get an estimate and line up my finances and budget to see if it’s even feasible. Can’t get blood out of a turnip, right?”

Trace stood, pulled a palm-size notebook and a pinkie-size pencil from his back pocket, and flipped it open to a blank page. He grinned at Delaney. “I’m ready.”

She returned his grin, wishing she felt even a fraction as confident.

“The question is”—a deep, authoritarian male voice pulled both their gazes around to the bar’s main entrance—“ready for what?”

The man was a cop. He was about Trace’s height with closely cropped dark hair. With the sun behind him, Delaney couldn’t see his face well, but she still smiled for Trace’s bro

ther, Zane.

“Coming around to check up on your big brother?” Delaney’s last word was barely out of her mouth when the light hit the newcomer’s face, and she realized she wasn’t talking to Zane. “Oh, sorry, I thought you were—”

She stopped midsentence when she glanced at Trace. His expression had turned to stone. Flat, hard, granite. Delaney’s smile fell. Her chest chilled. “Tra—”

“What do you want, Austin?”