Chapter 12
Raeleen
Turning as I heard the shuffle of feet, I smiled at my friends as Harlow and Ainsley came into my examination room. “Hi.”
“Sorry to bother you,” Ains said. “This one couldn’t wait any longer.”
“Wait for what?” I asked.
“To see how your date went,” Harlow told me with a skeptical look.
Sighing, I sat down on my rolling chair. “It was wonderful.”
“Then why are you sighing?” Ains asked with a frown.
“Because it complicates things,” I admitted.
“How does liking the guy complicate things?” Harlow demanded.
I opened my mouth to answer, then shut it. How did I tell someone so sure of herself that I still wasn’t convinced they were right? Sure, he’d taken me out. That didn’t mean the man wanted more.
“Explain it to us, Rae,” Ains said, searching my face as though she’d find the answer there. “Please?”
“Yeah. We really do want to help,” Harlow added, softening her tone.
I knew that my friends loved me. They only wanted what was best for me and they knew I wanted to find someone to love.
Someone to spend my life with. It had been a hope I’d had since I was young.
I’d always pictured myself being a wife.
Having another person I could share all my accomplishments and adventures with.
I just didn’t want to sacrifice who I was, just to become a wife.
So I’d stopped dating about five years ago.
“We had dinner,” I explained.
“Where?” Ains asked.
Harlow waved at her. “Not important. How did it go between you?”
“The Copper Kettle,” I said, answering Ainsley anyway. Then to Harlow, I said, “It was perfect. He was a gentleman.” I made a face. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure if he would be or not.”
“Like you expected him to eat with his hands?” Ains asked with a laugh. And yes, I half expected him to eat like a caveman. “Or that he’d maul you at the end of the evening?”
“Maybe she hoped he would,” Harlow told her with a wink.
“What makes you think he didn’t?”
They both stared at me, silent in shock as they processed my joke.
“I’m teasing,” I told them as I laughed at their expressions. “You should see your faces.”
“You told a joke,” Ainsley pointed out.
I shrugged. “I do that sometimes.”
“Not often enough,” Harlow replied, then turned to Ainsley. “She has a very dry sense of humor.”
“I’m picking up on that.”
“Anyway. We ate, we talked, he walked me to my door, and that was it,” I told them.
Ainsley narrowed her eyes. “That’s it?”
My mind wandered back to last night. The conversation flowed so naturally.
There were no awkward pauses. It’d been mostly small talk.
He’d asked deeper questions but I’d steered the conversation to safer topics.
I hadn’t broached any of those supposedly taboo subjects that the internet said would chase away men.
And of course there’d been that kiss at the end, in front of my door, but I wasn’t ready to share that with my friends yet.
“I still want to know how any of this complicates things,” Harlow reminded me. Ainsley nodded.
“We really clicked,” I explained. They didn’t look any less confused. “There haven’t been very many men I’ve connected with, who’ve taken the chance to get to know the real me.”
“But the real you is awesome,” Ainsley said with a frown.
I smiled at her, grateful because I knew she meant it.
I wasn’t sure most of the males of our species agreed with her though.
My previous serious relationship had hurt badly enough when it ended that I hadn’t bothered to try again.
I’d just lived my life the way that made me happy, hoping—deep down—that a man would show up who liked who I was.
When it hadn’t happened after a year or two, I’d stopped thinking it could happen.
I wasn’t opposed to that man showing up now, I just wasn’t sure he was Pyre. I hoped he was, but building a fantasy around a man who may not be interested wasn’t smart. And I was smart. So my plan was to wait to see what his next move was.
We’d agreed on most things we’d talked about last night but again, it hadn’t been anything deep. Just enough small talk to begin to get to know one another. But that smile, the way he kept looking deep into my eyes, the laughs…
“Oh sweetie,” Harlow said, coming over and patting my shoulder. Her eyes strayed over my shoulder and she grimaced. “Why do I always forget there’s dead people in here?”
“He just came in today,” I told her. “Owen needs a cause of death.”
“I don’t need an explanation for him,” Harlow replied. Her face was a little more pale than normal as she focused back on my face. “You can’t run away from love just because it’s scary.”
Was that what I was doing? It just seemed like I was being careful. What was so wrong about that?
“Trust me,” Ainsley added. “It’ll just chase you down and force itself on you anyway. Or hide in your back seat and pop up like a ripped Jack in the Box and scare the shit out of you when you’re driving.”
“What?” I asked, perplexed.
“Nothing.” She waved dismissively.
“Love will chase you down? Or a particular biker will?” Harlow teased, getting us back on topic.
“Is there a difference?” she asked. We laughed at that. “Warrant and Pyre may not be the same, but they’re both stubborn enough to go for what they want. He’s not going to walk away from you without a good reason.”
“What if he has a good reason?” I asked.
“Did you give him one?” she asked.
“I don’t…think…so?”
“These guys are insistent. And possessive. He already considers you his. You’d have to convince him you really don’t want him to get him to go away.”
“Maybe,” I told her, not convinced that he was as invested as they suspected. I liked him enough that I wasn’t really sure I wanted him to go away, though. The thought made my heart thud hard in my chest. I hadn’t been this interested in a man in a long time.
“Maybe you need to make sure you show him you like him,” Harlow suggested as she and Ainsley shared a look.
“I’m not saying I don’t want to get to know him. I’m just…” I shrugged. Confused. I was so confused. I was worried that I wanted this too badly and I’d end up a year down the road with a man who I saw with rose colored glasses and he wasn’t who I thought.
“Pyre’s a good guy,” Ainsley told me, as though she could hear my inner thoughts. “All I’m saying is once these guys decide you’re theirs, they don’t walk away. They walk in, and install cameras.”
“Cameras?” Harlow asked.
Again Ainsley just waved a hand dismissively.
“He doesn’t consider me his,” I argued. “What if he never does?”
She bit the insides of her lips, looking like she was debating on telling me something.
“Spill it,” Harlow demanded.
“I don’t want to scare her off,” she said, waving a hand toward me.
“Well, I want to know. If it scares her, we’ll just tie her up and hand deliver her to Pyre with a pretty bow. He can deal with the fallout from there.”
I rolled my eyes at Harlow. “You wouldn’t do that.”
She gave me a flat stare. “Try me, Cupcake.”
Blinking, I stared at her in shock because I believed her now.
“Warrant told me that there was no way Pyre would’ve started dating you if he wasn’t seriously interested,” Ainsley said, cutting through our tangent.
“Why’s that?” Harlow asked.
“Most of those guys don’t get serious with women unless they’re planning to make them old ladies,” Ains explained.
“They might keep a woman around for a while for sex, but that’s about it.
” Seeing the look on my face, she hurried through the next part.
“He said Pyre’s basically been celibate for years.
When Pyre decides to get serious, he’s serious. ”
“How would he know that?” I asked.
She snorted. “Those guys are worse than old women with gossiping. And they keep close tabs on each other. They’ve been worrying about Pyre for a while now, I guess, because he’s been so withdrawn and uninterested in women.”
“Like that’s a bad thing. At least he’s not a man-hoe like some of them,” Harlow argued.
“True,” Ainsley said. “But I guess it’s gone on long enough they weren’t sure what was going on. At least until they figured out it was all because he was interested in someone.” She gave me a sly look. “That was over a year ago.”
It was my turn to narrow my eyes. “You’re telling me that Pyre has liked me for the last year?” I let out a scoff. “I wasn’t even sure he didn’t hate me until last week.”
“Oh, he doesn’t hate you, sweetie,” Harlow replied. “We all could’ve told you that.”
I almost wished they had. But that would’ve required me talking to them about the sexy biker and I hadn’t admitted to anyone, until recently, that I had a thing for him. “But a year?” I asked, skeptical.
“Actually, Warrant is pretty sure he’s had a thing for you for longer than that,” Ainsley said with a grin. “And we’ll leave you to think about that while you work on that body over there.” She grabbed Harlow, who’d been about to grill her, and dragged her out of the room.
“Hey! Wait!” I called out, but they were gone before I could ask my own questions. “That was mean,” I muttered. Huffing out a breath, I stood up, pulled on gloves, and went over to the table where the corpse was laid out.
Owen was going to be back soon and he’d want a cause of death, so I needed to get to work. But Ainsley was right. I was going to stew over this as I worked.
Time flew, but it was about three hours later when Owen showed back up. I glanced up as he knocked and came in through the door. Motioning toward the table, I indicated for him to take a pair of gloves. “Just in time.”
His brows shot up as he put on the gloves. “You found something?”
“I did.”
“Good,” he said, relief heavy in his voice.
It was my turn to raise my brows.
“Sorry,” he said, looking a bit sheepish. “It’s just this guy dropped dead in one of my jail cells. Not exactly something I can explain when no one touched him. Makes his death look suspicious.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that would be suspicious if it wasn’t for this.
” I picked up a little baggie. “I sent samples to the lab in Cheyenne for tox screening, but I already know what they’ll say.
The cause of death is going to be an overdose.
” Frowning down at the corpse, I shook my head.
“When will these guys learn to keep their drugs in sturdier baggies if they’re planning on swallowing them? ”
He chuckled. “Pretty sure he didn’t plan on swallowing that shit when my deputies spotted him. Didn’t see him swallow anything, though he ran from them so it wouldn’t have been hard for him to do.”
“I can barely swallow one pill with water,” I admitted, “let alone a plastic bag with multiple pills in them.”
He grinned at me, then nodded at the bag. “You said pills.”
“Ecstasy would be my professional opinion, though you’ll have to wait on the toxicology report for one hundred percent accuracy.”
“I trust your judgement. Though, I’m curious why you suspect Ecstasy? Could be Oxy, Vicodin, Fentanyl, meth, or even LSD, though that last one is less likely.”
Handing him the bag, I pointed. “Like I said, I could be wrong, but the color and the fact that they bothered to stamp a logo on them is why I suspect Ecstasy.”
“What the hell color is that?” he asked, frowning. “Like a rust brown?”
“I think it’s a coppery color. The lights in here are a bit harsh. I bet if you took them outside they’d look more orange, or more like the shade they were going for.”
“Weird color. This shit is usually bright pinks, blues, and yellows.”
“Maybe the manufacturer wanted to stand out,” I offered.
“You sure this is a logo?” Owen asked, flipping one of the pills over.
“If it’s Ecstasy, it is,” I said with a shrug.
“Just looks like a circle. I don’t recognize it as one of the usual suspects the junkies get in Cheyenne.”
“You’ll probably want to keep a look out for whoever is making this stuff,” I suggested.
He sighed. “I’m hoping it’s a one off. Guy isn’t local. Probably picked this shit up out of state and thought he could make a quick buck. My guy caught him outside the high school.” He shook his head with a look of disgust written on his face. “Why do they always go for the fucking kids?”
“Have you gotten an ID yet?” I asked.
“Yeah. Lives over in Cheyenne. List of petty crimes, but nothing as big as drug dealing. Not that he’s been caught for at least.”
“Explains why he panicked enough to swallow that bag,” I replied. “Need any time with the body?”
His lip lifted in disgust. “No. Your report will be just fine, thanks.”
“Give me an hour and you’ll have it,” I told him.
“Thanks, Rae. You make my life damn easy. I couldn’t imagine how long I’d have to wait for one of the coroners in Cheyenne to get to something like this.”
I smiled at him. “It’s my pleasure.”
He gave me a respectful nod as he tossed his gloves in the trash and headed out the door. Owen was a good looking man. Blond hair, fit build, and a smile a lot of women went nuts for. And yet he didn’t provoke a reaction from me in the slightest.
It was the same with Pyre’s MC brothers.
They were all gorgeous in their own ways, and nothing.
Yet Pyre showed up and my heart started doing the tango inside my chest every time.
I needed to think about my conversation earlier with my friends.
What was that old saying? It was better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
I wasn’t so sure about that. And I wasn’t so sure I could trust myself or Pyre enough to potentially lose my heart to him.