Chapter Twelve #2
“I thought you’d sleep longer.” Cyrus blatantly examined her from head to toe.
She forced herself not to squirm under the intense scrutiny, fought the urge to straighten her clothes.
She was still wearing the oversized sweatpants and the shirt she’d had on last night.
Washing her clothes was a priority. Wearing her own would help her feel more in control.
She was pale, the dark circles beneath her eyes still present.
He, on the other hand, looked good enough to eat.
This much bare skin on display was too much to handle first thing in the morning.
Like last night, he wore only a pair of jeans that molded to thick thigh muscles and cupped his perfect behind.
With his tousled hair and sleepy eyes, he looked as though he’d just rolled out of his lover’s bed.
And she would know, having firsthand knowledge, even if it was a long time ago.
A woman never forgot a lover like Cyrus.
She forced her gaze away, unwilling to go down memory lane. What had they been discussing? She replayed the conversation. “I thought I’d rest longer, but I woke and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
The need to check on Adam had been too great.
That, coupled with the nagging worry of how she was going to deal with all the problems hanging over her, kept her from falling back asleep.
“Can I get one of those?” She motioned to the mugs on the table.
A headache was brewing in the back of her skull.
One of the brothers filled a mug, handed it to her, and pushed the sugar bowl in her direction, remembering how she took it. “Thanks, ah...” She racked her brain to find his name but came up empty.
“Noah.” He deftly turned bacon frying in a pan.
“Sorry, I’m not quite awake.” Not true, but it was better than saying she just didn’t remember him.
“Don’t worry about it. There was a lot going on yesterday.”
She added sugar to the mug, took a sip, and faced Cyrus once again.
The impact hadn’t lessened. What was it about him that affected her so deeply?
His brothers were good-looking men in their own right, but none of them made her heart flutter or sent her blood rushing to sensitive parts of her body.
“So what’s the plan?” Better to focus on practical matters.
His lips thinned and his face hardened. “The plan is to eat breakfast.”
“You know what I mean.” Aware of their attentive audience, she had another swallow of coffee, needing the boost. Two of the brothers were missing.
Josiah and ... she thought about it a second .
.. Eli was his name. She remembered him only because he’d been the one with the woman beside him last night.
“Why the rush?” Cyrus prowled toward her, his movements smooth and somehow deadly. She strolled around the opposite side of the table. It wasn’t running away. More a temporary evasion until she was steady enough to deal with him.
The vista from the window was stunning. She’d been too preoccupied yesterday and during her first trip here to truly take note of the panoramic view of the mountain and the pristine wilderness.
The pure majesty, the peace it offered, seeped into her soul and centered her.
“Life hasn’t stopped. Not for any of us.
If Adam and I don’t go home, the sheriff will be forced to put out an alert.
” The last thing they needed was the authorities poking deeper into their business.
“Then call him.” Cyrus was behind her, the heat from his body seeping into her. “Or text him. Whatever works best.”
“And tell him what?” When he didn’t answer, she turned away from the window. He was close, forcing her to have to tilt her head back to see his face.
“We won’t know what to say until we see if he’s called or messaged you.”
Not only was he right, but procrastinating wouldn’t make things easier.
She’d spent the last week in turmoil and had hoped for a short respite, but that wasn’t to be.
Not yet, at any rate. “I need my phone.” She’d purposely left it in her knapsack, not wanting to deal with the outside world just yet.
“I’ll get it.” Before he could leave, she caught his arm. The muscles tensed, turning to iron beneath her fingers.
“No, I’ll get it.” It would give her a much-needed moment to catch her breath.
She set her mug on the table, aware all eyes were on her as she walked away.
Inside the bedroom, she dropped onto the side of the bed and took a deep breath.
I can do this. The lecture was forced to be internal since they all had acute hearing.
Aware that if she dawdled, she’d have company, she retrieved her phone and turned it on.
The alerts started pinging. There were three missed calls from Sheriff Kingman, as well as a text.
“Well?” Feet planted apart and arms crossed over his massive chest, Cyrus filled the doorway.
“Let’s talk in the other room.” She pushed off the bed but had to stop when he continued to block the exit. “I don’t want to wake Adam.” He needed as much rest as he could get. Plus, she wanted a plan in place before he woke.
Cyrus turned sideways, forcing her to squeeze past him. “You should put on a shirt,” she muttered. Swallowing a groan, she wanted to kick herself. She’d all but told him his walking around half-naked affected her.
Pleasure gleamed in his midnight eyes, the corners of his lips twitching.
Proving he was smart, he kept his mouth shut, but he did saunter into the room, grab a plain white t-shirt from the closet, and pull it on.
The thin material stretched across broad shoulders and clung to muscled abs. “Better?”
Ignoring him, she made her way back to the dining room. The three brothers around the table were trying to stifle grins and failing miserably. One of them winked at her.
“Ignore Levi,” Cyrus told her.
Filing the name of the winker away, along with the description of brash and bold, she did as Cyrus had directed.
The text was short and sweet. “The sheriff is insistent I come in to see him today. Wilkes apparently told him your SUV has vanished from the parking lot, and he fears I’ve fled, as Wilkes calls it, the scene of the crime. Idiot,” she muttered.
“Davis Wilkes. Thirty-eight. Single, never married. Engaged when he was in his twenties, but the woman—one Annie Gentry—called it off and moved to Tennessee. Joined the sheriff’s department at eighteen.
A few reprimands for excessive force on his record.
A handful of complaints, but the complainant always changed their mind and withdrew the charge before it went very far.
That’s not suspicious at all.” The sarcasm was thick.
Vinnie was openly staring at the Sin brother sitting at the table with a laptop open in front of him. His hair was pulled back in a short tail at his nape, and he was staring intently at the screen. Those complaints and reprimands weren’t common knowledge and were protected by heavy security.
Sensing her scrutiny, he glanced up. “Zach Sin. Resident supply guy. You need it, I can get it, including information.”
“That’s illegal,” she felt compelled to point out. She was an officer of the law, had spent her life upholding it. This had to be the same brother who’d hacked into the department files to discover what information they’d had about Adam’s disappearance and her suspected role in it.
“Only if they catch me, which they won’t.”
Cyrus was kicked back in his chair, not the slightest concerned that his brother was doing something that could cost him years in prison. While it made her uneasy to be on the opposite side of the law, nothing was more important than protecting her son.
And his father.
She sat back, stunned by the realization.
Oh, they’d pushed the boundaries, but that had been in the heat of the moment, during the search for Adam.
There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t have done to find her son.
This was a conscious decision to knowingly and willingly step outside the boundaries of the law.
She could justify the former—it had been a file on her and Adam, after all, and she was a member of the department—but not the latter.
As much as she despised Wilkes, this was an invasion of not only his privacy but that of the entire department.
If she took this step and withheld information from the sheriff, she’d never be able to pick up her badge again.
Maybe it had always been headed to this. After what Wilkes had done, she’d never be able to trust him, and a deputy who couldn’t trust the people around her...
There were enough members of the force who’d believe Wilkes. All her years of outstanding service would mean nothing against his innuendos and lies. She’d never be able to depend on them to have her back. If anything, she’d be waiting for one of them to stab it.
For as long as she’d worked there, she’d never felt like one of them, that she belonged.
Her pregnancy and subsequent refusal to name the father of her child had caused a rift that had never fully healed.
While the rest had bonded over after-shift beers, she’d been rushing home to take care of her young son.
Maybe it was as much her fault as theirs.
Blame didn’t matter, at this point. It was what it was.
She pressed her hand to her queasy stomach and swallowed heavily. The writing was on the wall. This was the end of her career.
Cyrus caught her hand in his. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head unable to answer. Whether it was a mother’s instinct or he’d made some sound, she turned and met Adam’s questioning gaze. “Mom, what’s going on?”