Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
TEMPERANCE
I’d been a wreck all night long. After Hayes left, I’d done as instructed, making sure every window and door was locked tight, and the lights were on. I’d even taken it a step further, turning on every light in the upstairs and braving the creepy attic to flip that one on as well.
The farmhouse was lit up like a Christmas tree inside and out. I knew I’d probably feel it when the electric bill came, considering the size of the place, but I didn’t care. Lighting my house like a beacon gave me peace of mind and helped ease a bit of the anxiety coursing through my system.
I’d tried to sleep after he left, but after an hour of tossing and turning, I gave up the ghost and headed downstairs. With each minute that ticked by, my stress level grew until I was nauseous with worry.
Nothing on TV helped me get out of my head enough to relax, so I wandered into my kitchen and began rummaging through the pantry and fridge.
An hour and a half later, I had a round, double-layer chocolate cake frosted and sitting on my kitchen island.
I’d gone through the whole process of baking a cake without ever really engaging my brain.
It was a task to keep myself busy, and for the most part, it worked.
But with nothing else to bake, I headed back into the living room and snatched up my e-reader, hoping against hope that I could lose myself in one of my romances.
I was three chapters in and couldn’t remember a single thing that had happened on any of the pages when I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel drive.
Shooting to the window, I threw back the curtain and lifted the blinds I’d closed earlier. The headlights of Hayes’s silver Sequoia beamed over the front of the house as it traveled up the lane.
Dropping the curtain back into place, I headed for the front door, unlocked and opened it, and stood just inside the storm door, watching as he parked in front of the house and killed the engine.
It was only a little after four in the morning, so the sky was still completely black, and the chill from the night air seeped in.
I was still in my nightie from earlier, but I’d shrugged on one of Hayes’s flannel shirts as a makeshift robe and put a pair of thick wool socks on my feet.
However, the added layers did nothing to ward off the shiver.
“Christ, angel,” he grumbled unhappily as he rounded the hood of his truck and started for the front porch. “It’s fuckin’ freezing out here. The hell are you thinkin’ standing in the door in practically nothing?”
I brushed off his heated words, pushing the storm door open once he was at the top step. “I was thinking my guy’s probably just had the night from hell and I wanted to greet him at the door, not wait for him to get inside just so I can stay warm.”
Hayes’s mouth was pulled into a thin line on his hard-as-stone face. His hand came up and pressed against my belly, gently forcing me back as he stepped into the house, letting the storm door slam shut behind him and kicking the front door closed.
“I told you to keep this locked,” he grunted. “That means not openin’ it and standing there like a goddamn bullseye.”
Something was very, very wrong. I felt it like acid in my belly, eating away at me. “I knew it was you,” I answered, my voice quiet and small. “I looked out the window first to be sure. I promised you I wouldn’t open any of the doors until you were home, and I didn’t.”
He shrugged off his leather jacket, tossing it haphazardly over the couch instead of putting it in the hall closet. Then he ran a hand through his hair and let out a heavy sigh. “Look, I’m beat. I need to catch a couple hours before heading back to the station.”
I wanted to argue, to push him to tell me what was wrong so I could try and fight back the shadows currently clouding his eyes, but he’d just spent the past four and a half hours dealing with a murder, and he looked exhausted.
He said he’d tell me what happened when he got home, but now wasn’t the time.
My man had crime to fight later today. I needed to let him rest.
“Okay,” I whispered, stepping out of his way so he could pass.
I followed after him, my heart heavy with each footfall as we climbed the stairs and went down the hall to the bedroom.
“Do you need anything?” I asked as he stripped down to his boxer briefs and all but collapsed into the bed face first.
“Just sleep,” he muttered.
Leaving him be, I moved through the house, extinguishing every light upstairs and down.
By the time I made it back to the bedroom, I could hear his small, chuffing snore and see the steady rise and fall of his back.
I turned out the lights and quietly moved around to my side of the bed, slipping off the socks and flannel before climbing in carefully so as not to disturb him.
I’d just gotten settled when the bed shifted.
I felt the weight of his arm as it looped around my waist, then the heat of his chest when he pulled me into him and tucked me tight to his body.
Moments later, those soft snores returned, his breath evened out, and his weight pressed into me as sleep took over.
It took me a few minutes to shake off the unease still resting like a stone in my belly, but I eventually managed to doze off as well.
Hayes
Harley’s naked, stab riddled body lay on the floor, surrounded by blood. Christ, so much fucking blood the air smelled like iron. Her lifeless blue eyes felt like they were watching me everywhere I stepped.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, crouching low. Lifting my hand, I brushed the matted hair from her forehead. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry,” I repeated, using my fingers to lower her eyelids, hoping it would help put her to rest.
Those eyelids suddenly popped back open, but they were no longer lifeless, and they no longer belonged to Harley.
The air around me began to shift and spark, and suddenly, in Harley’s place lay Tempie, her body broken and bleeding all over the floor.
“This is all your fault,” she said in a low, scratchy voice.
My blood turned to ice, and it suddenly became hard to breathe. “Tempie.”
“You should have saved me Hayes. You should have saved me!”
My eyes shot open and I pulled in a harsh breath, my heart pounding against my ribs so hard it ached.
The moonlight poured into the room, and I looked across the bed at Tempie’s sleeping form. Her face was soft and relaxed in sleep, her back rising and falling steadily.
She was okay. My Tempie right here with me, safe and alive.
Thank fucking Christ.
I rolled to my back, lifting my hands and digging the heels of my palms into my eyes to try and rid myself of the horrendous visions currently burned on the backs of my lids.
“Jesus,” I grunted, feeling cold down to my marrow.
“Hayes?” Tempie’s gentle, sleepy voice pulled me from my melancholy. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah, angel,” I lied. “Everything’s fine.”
Her warm body shifted closer and her arm wrapped around my stomach. I wasn’t sure when I’d moved in the night, disengaging from around her. In all the nights we’d spent together we’d fallen asleep and woken up tangled in each other.
She pressed as close to me as she could, holding tight. “You sure?”
I shifted into her, needing to feel her to shake off that terrible dream. My arms locked in place so she couldn’t get away as I settled back and tried to get comfortable.
“Yeah, baby. I’m good. Go back to sleep.”
She eventually drifted back off, but I wasn’t so lucky. Instead, I laid there, holding onto her as I stared up at nothing until the sun eventually started to rise over the mountains with the start of a new day.
Temperance
He’d had another.
He wouldn’t admit it or talk to me about it, but in the three days that had passed since Harley Madison’s murder, he’d woken up with a jerk, breathing hard and trembling uncontrollably.
There’d also been a massive shift in his behavior in that time.
If he wasn’t distant or distracted he was short and usually in a bad mood.
I’d let it slide by, knowing it couldn’t be easy dealing with not only two murders, but also the death of someone he’d been intimate with.
Sure, he didn’t care much for her, but that didn’t make it any easier knowing she was dead.
And to hear it around town, she’d died very badly.
When I woke earlier this morning he’d still been asleep. After so many nights of working ungodly hours, not to mention coming home and suffering through restless sleep broken by bad dreams, I knew how exhausted he must have felt, so I’d left him in the bed and come down to make him some breakfast.
The coffee was brewing, the biscuits were just about done, and the sausage gravy was bubbling on the stove when I heard Hayes’s muffled shout of “Fuck” come from upstairs. A second later I heard the thud of his feet hurrying across the bedroom, then the shower cutting on.
I’d only just gotten the biscuits out of the oven and his plate made when he shot into the kitchen like a hurricane a few minutes later.
His jeans and shirt were on, both unbuttoned, and his blazer was hanging over his arm.
He placed his gun, holster, and badge on the island, then worked on doing up his cuffs, water droplets falling from his hair onto his starched collar.
I barely had time to appreciate him in all his masculine glory when his eyes shot to me and he demanded, “Why the hell’d you let me sleep in? ”
At the anger in his words, I stopped short of rounding the counter to give him a kiss and froze with my mouth hanging open. “I—” My head swiveled to the clock on the microwave. “It’s barely eight in the morning, honey. You haven’t been sleeping well. You needed to a couple more hours, that’s all.”