The Girl in the Mist (Misted Pines 1)
When I got to him, he just took my hand and held it as he led, and we moved with some effort in the limited space afforded by the end of the seating and the wall lined with bodies toward the exit.
“Cade!” Gary called.
We kept moving.
“Cade!” Gary shouted.
Bohannan didn’t even hesitate.
“You’re a civic leader whether you like it or not,” Gary, his voice now a shout, so I knew he wasn’t using the microphone, and he was standing. “And you leaving these proceedings in a snit does nothing to assist your community!”
A snit?
That was even worse than a hissy fit.
And thus, that stopped Bohannan and he turned.
He did not look at Gary.
He spoke to the crowd.
“I’m working with the FBI to find out who’s hurting our girls. This is their case, and Dern has no authority over their investigation. The two agents assigned are good men who give a shit. Harry is helping too. He hasn’t abandoned you. I haven’t either. I can’t make any promises except to say Malorie and Alice are in good hands, the hands of investigators who want to find who hurt them and will do everything they can to make sure no one else gets hurt.”
He shifted his attention to the front of the room.
“Meg, take your petitions to Olympia. If you need a ride, Jace’ll take you.”
Only then did he look at Gary.
“You’ll be dead, so it won’t matter to you that in your footnote in history, your tenure will be recorded at best, corrupt, and at worst, disastrous and life threatening.”
With that, he tugged my hand and we all walked out.
Forty
Romance Novelist’s Heart
A mixed bag of what it meant to be living with Cade Bohannan in Misted Pines during a crisis that involved the FBI, was that a good place for the FBI to set up their field office when they encountered a hostile local law enforcement agency was the house up the way that Bohannan kept as a rental but was empty.
Until now.
It was a good thing that more trained professionals were close, and anyone in their right minds would have added reason to steer clear.
The thing was, the person they were hunting was not in his right mind.
Nevertheless, it meant, when Bohannan was done for the night, he didn’t have far to drive to get home.
I was in his bed with Elizabeth Little’s Pretty as a Picture, hoping with my romance novelist’s heart that Marissa would get together with Isaiah, but with my thriller writer’s mind knowing that was unlikely, when Bohannan strolled in.
One look at him and I understood Dale Pulaski’s response to getting what you needed in troubled times (or any time).
If Bohannan tossed out dollar bills and ordered me to crawl to him on my hands and knees picking them up along the way à la Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger in 9½ Weeks, I wouldn’t have hesitated.
I didn’t hide this thought, which was probably why Bohannan’s gaze darkened, he changed course and entered the bed beside me, stretching out at a diagonal, up on an elbow at my hip, and his hand came out so he could trail his fingers up the back of my calf starting at my ankle.
It was the most sensual touch I’d ever sustained.
“Fallin’ down,” he murmured. “Made a promise, fucked you twice, three orgasms when you were owed six.”
“You’re forgiven that debt,” I told him. “Seeing as it’s about quality, not quantity.”
His beard grinned.
I put the book aside.
He wrapped his arm around my hips and pulled me under him.
I yanked the tail out of his hair, and it fell forward.
I ran my fingers through it, pulling it back.
“Is sucking cock like riding a bicycle?” he asked.
I trembled.
“I don’t know.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth. “If not, I’ll be there to coach you.”
Yes, he would.
But in the end, to my delight (and something else for him), he didn’t need to.
Forty-One
Hubris
Outside her shop on Main Street, I sat sandwiched between Kimmy and a life-size stuffed Santa, on a green painted bench abounding with gold fretwork and upholstered in bright red velvet button back.
She was in a voluminous Christmas sweater, I was in a thin wool heathered-gray crewneck with a slimline, dusky lilac puffy vest over it, and we both had fresh Aromacobana brews in our hands (mine decaffeinated, Kimmy’s with a triple shot) and our eyes to the passersby.
“What’re we lookin’ for?” she asked, then took a sip.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“What’re you freakin’ out about?” she asked.
“My daughters arrive tomorrow, one with her girlfriend who’s like another daughter to me, one with an unknown fighter pilot who’s stealing her jaded heart,” I answered, then took a sip.
“Not good timing,” she muttered, then took a sip.
“I had to call them both yesterday and share that there’s a good possibility there’s a serial killer hunting my new boyfriend’s patch, I’m not actually living in the house they’re going to stay in because he didn’t think it was safe for me to be there alone, and our neighbors are FBI agents running a command post out of a rental. Fenn called from the airport having just landed for the layover, one-night mini-vacation she and her fighter jock are taking in Hawaii, and thus getting the message I ill-advisedly left on her voicemail. She was so loud, I feared TSA would take her down. Camille started and stopped fifteen sentences before she gave up, hung up on me and Joan called back sharing that ‘she’s just worried.’”