The Girl in the Mist (Misted Pines 1)

My desk was set between the windows so my desktop monitor didn’t obstruct the view on either side of it, and I could look out at the lake.

The décor of the room was a mix of mid-century modern, old-school tradition, girlie, with unusual pops of color (for instance, a distressed turquoise table in a corner, which had no purpose but to hold a beautiful vase of dried flowers).

I loved it.

It was no Cade Bohannan Bedroom (and there was a reason the Bohannan clan picked that stretch of land to build that particular house, because my view was tranquil and stunning, albeit narrow and restricted in parts by pines, so it kind of felt, especially upstairs, like it was in a treehouse—but the expansiveness of their view was dazzling).

No, I wasn’t thinking of that either.

I was thinking that Bohannan had not thrown himself with gusto into finding Alice’s killer because he was keeping me safe.

Now that he wasn’t keeping me safe, he was throwing himself with gusto into finding Alice’s killer.

I knew this because, for the last four days, we’d texted, and once, he’d swung through his house to give his daughter’s forehead a kiss, mine as well (and I wasn’t counting that one either) while she and I were camped out on the sectional in their TV room in their basement (that had, Celeste shared, at one time been the boys’ domain, as their bedrooms had also been down there, but now it had been reclaimed). And then he’d swung right back out.

She and I were watching Russ’s comedy drama (I’d forgotten how good it was).

Bohannan had seemed distracted in the twenty seconds he was with us.

And then he was vapor.

So I guessed that warning he’d laid on me during his back-to-back “Relationships Are Feelings” and “I’m A Fan” speeches, which I took as an indication he was going to jump me when he no longer had to look after me, was a false alarm.

I knew that finding the man who did what he did to Alice was a priority level so high, there was no word yet created to describe it.

I still yearned to connect with Cade.

The thing was, I was celibate, and I had been since my second not-so-fun, not-very-long-lasting relationship after Angelo.

I did not hate men (as some claimed).

I very much enjoyed them in many senses. Their company. Their attention. Their penises (if they knew how to use them).

I’d just learned that I didn’t need them.

This was a thing that had been one of the controversies of We Pluck the Cord.

My heroine didn’t need men either.

Women were aghast (mostly conservatives), because…values. This idea could obviously not be borne because it might lead to breakdowns in traditions they held sacred. Namely marriage, and the insidious subtext therein of what they thought was a woman’s place in society.

Men were aghast (mostly all of them), because…well, honestly, it was rare I ever met a man who hadn’t had ingrained in him how crucial he was to just about everything, especially women, from practically birth.

I’ll repeat, I did not hate men. They couldn’t help the role they were cast in in the drama of life, and a large number of them understood that was bullshit.

Of course, in the end, my heroine finding love—with a man—but on unusual terms set by (Lord God, no) her, was ignored.

The fact she loved him but understood she could live without him, now that, somehow, was sacrilege.

Though, I will say the uproar was awesome for sales.

You write what you know, or at least you should, a reader won’t believe it if you don’t.

I wrote what I knew.

But as with my heroine, I always knew, even if I didn’t need a man, that didn’t mean I didn’t want one.

It didn’t mean I didn’t want company, I didn’t want attention, I didn’t want someone to share my time and life with.

It didn’t mean I didn’t want someone to love.

I loved loving people, and as far as I was concerned, the more people to love (who were worthy of my love), the better.

I just didn’t want to put up with the bullshit of a not-the-right-one.

I hadn’t known him that long.

But I sensed that Bohannan was the right one.

It didn’t matter if I wasn’t yet sure, though.

Because I wanted to find out.

I had a lot of strong evidence to many facets of his character with how he was with his kids, his job, me.

Not to be crass or anything, and not simply because it had been a very long time.

But I felt the time was nigh.

I wanted to know if he knew how to use his dick.

His hands.

At the very least his lips and tongue.

I did not have that.

Any of it.

Even after he walked me home after pumpkin carving, he kissed me on the forehead then shoved me in my house, closed the door for me, pointed toward the security panel, then waited outside until I locked said door and signaled off (my arrival) and on (secure windows and doors) to the alarm.