Chapter 25 Willow
WILLOW
“Willow! Shit, someone’s shooting at us!” Hughes is frantic.
“Really!” I cry. “That’s what that was?” I roll over. “I thought it was my ankle when I tripped over that branch.” I reach for it. It doesn’t feel broken.
“Holy hell.” Hughes scoops me up into his arms and cradles me against his chest. “Don’t ever scare me like that. I can’t lose you.”
“Because I’m your partner in crime-solving?” I joke.
He kisses me softly. “Yeah, something like that.”
Snow and ice-laden branches creak. Someone is coming.
Hughes crouches over me, sheltering me with his broad chest and shoulders as the dark figure approaches us.
“Maris!” I gasp when the elegant, svelte woman appears out of the trees.
She frowns at us. “You two need to be careful out here. You could have been hurt. There are hunters out, and not everyone is as good of a shot as I am. Next time, wear high-vis clothing.”
“Guess I should have worn the red coat,” Hughes jokes painfully.
Maris does not smile.
“Okay, she’s definitely the murderer,” I say, teeth chattering when we climb back into Hughes’s cold car.
He cranks up the heat.
“I didn’t ask her my questions.”
“She knows we know. She knows, and she had a big gun. We need to count ourselves lucky we got out of there.” Hughes takes my hands in his and rubs them.
“We don’t have evidence for the cops. We have to go back.”
“We’ll just take them what we have.” Hughes pulls out onto the road.
“She’ll get away.” I look out the rear window, wondering if I’ll see her there.
“If we go to the cops and tell them about everything very loudly in the lobby, then the whole town will know by dinnertime that you didn’t kill Taylor Grace or Dr. Merriweather, and isn’t that what’s really important?”
“I mean, I guess.”
“Maris did you a good turn getting rid of Taylor Grace. If she runs, she runs.” Hughes shrugs.
“She murdered two people. And I’m not completely convinced that Lenore didn’t have something to do with it. We need to review the timeline,” I say as Hughes parks on the street.
“Well, also, we only have the cottage for another few hours. Nana has tourists coming in at lunch,” he tells me as we walk down the path to the backyard.
“Can we move this operation to the storage room at the Jingle Bites?” I ask, taking off my coat and heading to the murder wall.
“I wasn’t really thinking about the murder investigation,” Hughes tells me, tugging my sweater over my head.
I shriek. His hands are cold against my bare skin.
“You want to warm me up?”
I turn around in his arms, pull off his shirt, and run my hands over his muscular chest. “I thought,” I gasp, grabbing his hair as he kisses my breasts, “that you wanted to—”
“Come down your chimney?”
I yelp as he slides his hand into my panties. “Yeah.”
“Well…” My panties and tights come down. My skirt comes up.
“The thing is that we’ll have to launder the sheets.” A condom packet rips. “And I don’t know about you, but I don’t really have time to do laundry and solve a murder.”
I groan as that huge length slides into me.
My back arches as I take all of him. All I can do is whimper as he moves inside of me, kissing my neck, nipping my jaw, squeezing my tits as he takes me over and over, thrusting into me more forcefully until it echoes like a shot every time he slams into me.
I hope this carriage house has been upgraded with insulation because I can’t stop the throaty moans as he moves in me until I’m gasping and begging to come, then I’m shuddering around him.
He curses, his hand tightening on my breast, fingers almost painful on my nipple, then he’s thrusting into me, erratic, as I milk his cock.
“Damn, Willow.”
“Merry Christmas.”
He pulls me back by the hair, twisting my head so he can kiss me forcefully. “I’d marry you just so I can fill you up like one of those Santa Claus doughnuts you sell.”
“Marriage?”
“Yeah.” He gives me a crooked grin.
“Sounds like someone’s been watching too many Hallmark movies,” I joke, because I don’t want to be the person to make this more than what it is—just a fun hookup.
“Mm-hm.”
His eyes slide over me as I adjust my clothes.
He’s got that glazed look. “I mean, if I got married, why not to my partner in PI?”
“Well, I don’t know how many more murders we’ll be solving together.”
“Come here.” He sits back on the couch, legs splayed. He hasn’t zipped up. “We still have another hour on the clock.”
“You gonna mess me up?” I straddle him.
“Say you’ll marry me, and I’ll fill you up with my—”
The front door is blown off the hinges. I scream.
Hughes stands up, cursing as he fastens his pants.
“Police!” The Harrogate PD blasts into the living room of the tiny carriage house, guns drawn. “Hands up!”
“Are you serious? You’re arresting me again?” I shriek.
“Oh, uh, I don’t think so?” Winston lowers his gun, confused.
The police chief sighs. “Hughes, you’re under arrest for the murder of Taylor Grace Glass.”