Chapter Eleven
Hunter
“My ass is numb,” Dylan says, fidgeting in the passenger seat next to me.
I smirk, but keep my attention fixed on Lyle Kirkland’s house, from where we’re parked on the narrow road, far enough away that he won’t notice us when he gets home, if he gets home.
I’m starting to suspect someone tipped Kirkland off that we’ve been asking about him and he won’t be returning home anytime soon.
A frigid drizzle falls from low-hanging clouds, pelting the sides and roof of the car, melting what’s left of the grainy, salt-stained snow clinging to the edges of the road. Droplets zigzag over the windshield and windows.
Kirkland wasn’t here when we turned up at nearly eleven this morning, and he hasn’t been back over the last five hours we’ve been sitting here watching his house. The stillness and boredom that come from sitting in a single location haven’t started to wear on my nerves the way they have on Dylan’s.
“I think you and your ass are going to survive,” I tell him.
He leans back in his seat, closing his eyes and stretching his hands over his head. “You joke, but we both know you’re going to want this ass tonight, once we’re back at the inn.”
He’s not wrong. After last night, I’ve been thinking of his ass entirely too much. Certainly, more than is wise.
Besides, it’s not that I don’t get it. Since I woke up this morning, my knee has ached steadily.
I’m not surprised. Since the damage caused by a gunshot, the screws and plates that held the joint together always caused me pain on cold, damp days like today, or after I exerted myself, and kneeling over Dylan on the bed last night, definitely didn’t help.
Not that I would change a thing. It was totally worth it.
I tried to keep him from noticing the injury last night, doing my best to distract him with my mouth and hands, and I think I was successful. He hadn’t asked me about the obvious scarring, so I assume he didn’t see it.
I’m not sure why him seeing my scars bothers me so much. Maybe because the injury impacted almost every part of my life, and I hate the idea of it impacting whatever’s happening between me and Dylan now.
Not that anything’s actually happening. I’m still not sure sleeping with Dylan again is the wisest decision I’ve ever made, but I can’t bring myself to regret it. The feel of him against me again, his touch, the taste of his skin, it’s both thrilling and achingly familiar.
The last time we were together, we’d been teenagers, clumsy and still figuring each other and ourselves out. Last night, we were experienced adults with a better understanding of what we liked, while still remembering exactly how to drive each other crazy.
I didn’t lie to Dylan this morning when I told him I didn’t regret sleeping with him again. But I knew I had to be careful. I couldn’t risk letting myself feel anything for him. Not like before. Last night made it too easy to slip back into old habits.
It would be all too easy. Despite how things ended between us, the last five hours stuck in my car with him had been surprisingly easy.
Sitting here talking and catching up felt good in a way I hadn’t expected.
I’d forgotten what a great sense of humor Dylan had, and how easily he could make me laugh.
“How’s your mom?” Dylan asks, interrupting my thoughts.
I’m not surprised he’s asking. He always liked my mom and practically lived at my place when we were together.
I wasn’t out yet, not to my family or any of my friends.
Dylan was the first guy I’d been with, and I was still grappling with who I was.
Back then, my mother believed we were just friends, which was mostly true. We were friends before anything romantic or physical ever happened between us. Maybe that’s why Dylan leaving had been so devastating. I hadn’t just lost the man I loved; I’d lost my best friend too.
It’s probably why it’s so easy to talk to him now, as if the years between us didn’t exist. Maybe we could be friends again. Albeit friends with benefits. I really hope I haven’t made a huge mistake, but I also don’t want to stop.
“She’s good,” I tell him. “She had some health problems a few years back, but she had surgery, and she’s been a lot better since then.” I also help her financially, which means she doesn’t work as hard as she did after my dad died while she was raising me and my two sisters.
“What about Ally and Hannah?” he asks.
“Ally works for an accounting firm, and Hannah’s at an out-of-state university. She wants to be a teacher.”
“It’s weird to think of them grown up,” Dylan says. “They’re still just kids when I think about them. Hannah was still in middle school the last time I saw her, and Ally in ninth grade.”
“Yeah,” I don’t know what to say. It feels like a lifetime since we were last together.
I shift my attention back to Kirkland’s place. Nothing’s changed. Nobody’s come; nobody’s gone.
I sigh. My knee has gone from a dull ache to a sharp throb. It always hits harder on cold days, and sitting still for hours never helps. I glance over at Dylan, elbow propped against the door as he bites at his thumbnail. He used to do the same thing when he was nervous. Some habits never fade.
“What was that bar Nancy told you about?” I ask.
“The Four Corners, I think she called it. She said our chances of finding him there were better than finding him at home. I’m starting to think she might be right.”
Me too. I pick up my phone and pull up the bar on GPS. “Let’s check it out. We can grab something to eat too, and if he’s not there, we can try back here later before going back to the inn.”
“Thank god,” Dylan says when I start the car. “I’m starving.”
***
The drive to The Four Corners takes close to forty minutes, and by the time we pull into the gravel lot, the place already has a dozen cars out front. It’s early for dinner, but neither of us have had lunch, and Dylan’s stomach has been growling the whole way here.
The Four Corners is a dive bar just outside Coldwater, aptly named for its location next to an intersection. With a gas station kitty-corner to the bar and thick forest hemming in both roads, there’s not much else there.
Dylan and I cross the lot to the squat, square building that looks as though it started life as some kind of warehouse.
“Are you okay?” Dylan asks. His gaze has drifted to my knee. My face heats. For some inexplicable reason, I hate him noticing, but I’m limping. The nagging pain is too much for me to pretend.
“I’m fine,” I lie, hoping he’ll just let the whole thing drop. I’m not sure if he believes me or not, but he falls into step beside me and doesn’t mention it again.
Inside, the light is dim and the warm air smells of beer and something surprisingly savory. Seventies rock thuds from an unseen speaker, and a TV mounted over the bar is muted and playing sports highlights.
Dylan drifts toward a bank of booths up against the far wall, but I freeze just inside the doorway, my gaze snagging on a man leaning against the bar. I recognize him right away, having checked out his social media before leaving the inn.
I grab Dylan’s coat sleeve, stopping him before he can walk away. He turns to me, frowning, and I nod toward Kirkland, who is sitting at the bar. Dylan’s eyes widen, and wordlessly, we make our way toward the man, sidling up on either side of him.
Kirkland’s gaze shifts between me, then Dylan, then he grips the beer bottle in front of him and takes a long drink. Kirkland is younger than I expected. My age, maybe a little younger, but his scraggly blond hair and thick beard make him look older.
“Lyle Kirkland?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“I figured you’d find me faster,” he says. A chill creeps through me. Someone warned him that we were looking.
“You know who I am?” I ask.
“I heard two guys were asking about me.” His gaze bounces between Dylan and me. “Which one of you is the cousin?”
“Me,” Dylan says, and Kirkland looks him up and down. It takes everything I have not to shove him away from Dylan. Given his reputation, I don’t want him anywhere near him.
“So what do you want?” Kirkland asks.
“We want to know what you did with Matthew,” Dylan says, and I can hear the anger tightening his voice.
Kirkland snorts and takes another swig from the bottle. “I didn’t do anything to Matthew. He split almost two months ago. Instead of saying anything, he took all the cash I had in my wallet. The little shit owes me two hundred bucks.”
“Do you think maybe the bruises you left on his throat had anything to do with him leaving?” Dylan demands.
Kirkland’s expression hardens, and he turns his attention back to Dylan. “Is that what he told you?”
“Are you going to tell me you didn’t do that to him?”
“Shit,” he says almost to himself, shaking his head. “He’s a fucking liar, you know.”
“If he’s a liar, why have you been avoiding us? Why not tell us what you know? Tell us the truth?” I ask, pulling his attention away from Dylan.
“I didn’t want to get mixed up in his shit.”
“What did he lie to you about?” I ask.
“Pretty much everything, but I wasn’t the only one. He was lying to everybody in town.”
“About what?” I ask again.
“His movie, mostly. He said he was a documentary filmmaker in Coldwater to make a movie.”
I glance at Dylan, trying to get an idea if he knows anything about this, but he just shrugs and shakes his head.
I turn my attention back to Kirkland. “He was making a movie about the town.”
Kirkland shrugs. “He never said, but I’m guessing whatever his movie was about would have pissed someone off, and that’s why he was so secretive about it.”
Kirkland smirks, his gaze shifting back to Dylan. I tense. “Seems like, as his cousin, you would have known what he did for a living. Just as you would have known that Matthew isn’t his first name. It’s his middle.”