Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Monk stilled. Had his gut been wrong? How else would Gretchen know about the drugs? He doubted Roger ever bandied it about. Was she part of that whole scene?
“Drugs?” he said.
She sat back again, a look of empathy washing through her eyes.
“You and your father may not have been close, but I still hate to tell you this. Over the past year, it’s become clearer and clearer that he was using something.
What, I don’t know, but it wasn’t recreational marijuana.
Based on his manic behavior, I’d guess an upper of some sort.
” She paused, her gaze drifting to the window.
She sighed. “I have no idea what you plan to do with this place, but I’d hate for someone to find his stash, whatever it was, and end up in a bad situation.
I hear that it only takes one use for a person to get addicted to some drugs. ”
He studied her, his eyes—and his scientific Spidey sense—searching for any signs of deception. But he only saw a vague expression of sorrow. As if saddened by the impact drugs could have on people.
“Coffee,” Helia said, entering the room with Dulcie on her heels. She handed him a steaming cup with the perfect amount of milk while Dulcie passed one to Gretchen.
“Where’s Kelly? Dulcie said she was here,” Helia asked, parking herself on the arm of his chair.
“She needed to leave,” Monk replied. Dulcie arched a brow but took a sip of coffee rather than comment.
Only Helia noticed. “What was that look for?”
“There was no look,” Monk replied.
Keeping his eyes fixed on his coffee didn’t keep him from feeling the weight of Helia’s stare. He’d never had a mom, but he suspected this was what a “mom stare” felt like.
Dulcie cleared his throat. “Monk told her to leave. She was eye-fucking him, and he didn’t like it.”
Silence.
“Bitch,” Gretchen muttered at the same time Helia said, “Well, can’t say I blame her.”
All three turned to Helia. Her eyes skittered around the room, then she blushed, a hint of pink beneath her honey skin tone.
“Fine,” she huffed. “I’m not going to go so far as to say what Gretchen said.
It’s not as if Kelly knows she’s encroaching on my territory.
But I will concede it’s inappropriate as I’m guessing she came by for professional reasons. ”
Monk fought a smile at her possessive statement. From any other woman, he would have hated it, but an odd sense of pride rolled up in a warm hug wrapped around him at her words.
“She also implied that you were having a threesome with me and Monk,” Dulcie added.
Helia choked on her coffee. “That bitch!”
Gretchen cackled, Monk chuckled. Dulcie always did have the ears of a bat. That fucker could hear a sand snake slithering across a dune from half a mile away.
“I hope you weren’t friends,” Monk said.
Helia narrowed her eyes. “We didn’t get together and braid each other’s hair, but we were friendly acquaintances.
You know how small the valley is for us business owners.
And it’s not that I have anything against people who do that—so long as it’s consensual—but implying that about me to someone she doesn’t know?
And during a professional visit? What if you’d been a conservative client? She could have cost me business.”
“Well, you’re better off without her as far as I’m concerned,” Gretchen said.
“Never did like her. She and Roger were friendly—not in that sense, but as if they had a secret club only the cool kids got invited to. I tried to change over to Neil Vonhersh for our marketing—you know him?” she asked, looking at Helia, who nodded.
“Well, Roger wasn’t having any of that.”
“You have my permission to switch,” Monk said. “But let’s change the login and password to the site. I want her locked out before she learns her services are no longer required.”
“Give me five minutes and it will be done,” Gretchen said.
“In the meantime, I need to head home,” Helia said. “We have an event tonight and two tomorrow.” She paused, a flicker of a smile appearing. “And then we shut down for two weeks.”
“You don’t host New Year’s events?” Monk asked, somewhat surprised.
She shook her head. “They can be profitable, but they are also a huge hassle. People drink too much, do stupid things. We decided a few years ago that they weren’t worth it.”
Visions of taking her to Mystery Lake danced in his head like the proverbial sugarplums, but he shut the thoughts down. She wouldn’t want to leave her family for the holidays.
“I’ll drive you home,” he said, rising from his seat as Gretchen typed away.
“Why don’t I do that, and you can stay and talk with Gretchen,” Dulcie offered. “You probably have a few things to catch up on.”
Monk caught and held Dulcie’s eye. He hadn’t missed Gretchen’s comments about Kelly.
Was she the woman Kendall heard talking the day Roger died?
If she and Roger were as close as Gretchen suggested, she would have had plenty of time to poison him.
Which meant Monk needed to take a closer look at her.
“My car is here, remember,” Helia said. “My coat’s upstairs, though.”
“I’d rather Dulcie drive you. Then he can walk back,” Monk replied. Her eyes held his, bounced to Dulcie, then landed back on him. Slowly, she nodded.
He let out a breath and set a hand on her hip. “I’ll head up with you. I want to grab something warmer, too.” He didn’t, but he wanted time alone with her before she disappeared for the day.
Dulcie shook his head and grinned at his less-than-subtle subterfuge.
Even Gretchen’s lips tweaked into a tiny smile.
He ignored them both and ushered Helia out.
He didn’t know what he wanted to say or why it felt important to have a few minutes with her, but none of that mattered when he closed the bedroom door and a beat later found his back against it and Helia’s body pressed to his.
“I wish I didn’t have to go to work today,” she said, her hands on his chest.
He speared his fingers through her hair, resting the pads of his palms against her jaw. He wished she didn’t have to go, too. “Will you come back tonight?” he asked.
“That depends,” she said.
“On?” he asked, his eyes locked on her hazel ones, now more green than brown.
“Give me a good reason.”
He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant, and the conflict that roared to life inside him would have brought him to his knees had he not been pressed against the door.
Did he want to kiss her? Desperately. Did it terrify him?
Completely. Not because he hadn’t kissed other women, but because this was Helia.
And because he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to let her go again if he did.
Visions of a life with her, one filled with laughter and love and, most of all, trust, teased his heart and mind.
In the deepest, darkest parts of him, he wanted it all.
He wanted it all and more. But the boy he’d never been able to truly leave behind—the one who’d been used, abused, and betrayed—still whispered in his ear.
Still told him there was much to be afraid of.
“Collin?”
His gaze had drifted to the floor, and he looked up.
“Kiss me,” she said. He hesitated. A look of understanding flashed in her eyes. He thought she might step away, and panic had him tightening his hold on her. Her eyes softened. “Take the leap, Collin. It’s just you and me, and you know I’m not going to let you fall. Not alone, anyway.”
Slowly, like a wisp seeping into his psyche and taking shape, he realized this moment wasn’t about the future.
It wasn’t about what he and Helia might become or what the next week or year might hold.
It was about the past. About reassuring that young boy that people could be trusted.
That he could be trusted to take back what had been stolen from him so long ago.
Helia must have seen the revelation in his eyes, because a flicker of anticipation lit hers, and her fingers curled in his chest. Lowering his head, he brushed his lips against hers. The touch wasn’t tentative, but it was new. A connection he wanted to draw out, absorb, savor.
Again, his lips slid over hers as she lifted her face, inviting him to take and give. She held him close, slipping her hands around his waist, her delicate fingers gripping his sides.
When his tongue touched her lips, she opened.
Desire rolled through him, but it didn’t take control.
Not at first. As the doubts and distrust and pain of his past slid away with each touch of their tongues, it grew stronger, though.
Not washing away the past, but quieting it, giving it permission to let go.
Angling his head, he deepened their connection, drawing a sound of need from Helia, triggering a primal need in him.
Sliding one hand down the curve of her shoulder, along the arch of her back, it settled on her behind.
Shifting his leg between hers, he pulled her body closer, her heat searing his thigh.
“Collin,” she said on a strangled whisper as he pulled away, kissing a line down her throat. He rocked her against him, drawing a gasp as her fingers dug into his sides.
The need to hear her come undone tore through him. To see her expression when she came. To have the scent of her arousal surround him.
Gripping her hip, he shifted his thigh, her short gasps telling him the angle and pressure was exactly what she craved.
She muttered his name again, but he covered her mouth with his. He was a man on a mission now. He knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it. Helia would have her reason to come back to the castle, to him, when her workday was done.