Chapter 28 #2
“Yeah, we do.” He slipped his arms around my waist and pulled me tight against his body.
If the cabin hadn’t already felt like home, my nymph-hockey-player-lumberjack definitely did.
“Now,” he said, “how about you do some modeling for me?”
“Now?” I looked down at myself. I was wearing jeans and one of Sean’s flannel shirts with the shirttails tied in a bow at my midriff.
“Yeah,” he said. “Right now. You could start with the that silky halter dress I spotted in one of your new boxes.”
I laughed. “The dress that’s not much bigger than a handkerchief?”
“Yeah,” he said on an exhale. “That’s the one.”
A few hours later, after working up quite the appetite—so I was hoping the chicken divan would be good—I sat up against the pillows and bit back a smile as Sean sauntered—bare assed and hot as hell—into the kitchen where he’d left his phone.
My modeling had resulted in a handful of decent photos and an entire afternoon spent exploring each other even more than we already had. And not just physically. It seemed impossible, but I swore I knew Sean better than anyone I’d known in my entire life.
I wondered if he could say the same thing about me. He was now so willing to share himself that I’d opened myself up to him more and more. His bed had become my confessional, and he was never judgmental—only ever empathetic.
One of my confessions: that I’d discovered how bad of a liar I was when I was twelve and had been caught shoplifting pantyhose for Loretta. The police officer had easily discerned that my mother was the one behind the scheme.
Loretta had gotten a slap on the wrist for that incident. She’d given me a hell of a lot more than a slap when she got home.
Sean’s biggest share: that he’d paid a visit to my brother in prison, and while there would never be any love lost between them—and Sean wasn’t ready to tell me all that Braden had shared—he could see plainly that my brother did love me in his own messed-up way.
Braden had never meant to put me in danger.
He’d just had the limited foresight of a toddler. (That last bit being Sean’s addition.)
Sean picked up his phone and glanced at the screen before answering the call. “Yo, Rafe.”
Sean turned to face me—another fantastic full-monty view of his body—and whatever Rafe said made Sean’s eyebrows shoot up and his eyes darken.
I sat up taller, and the sheet slipped down around my waist. I snatched it up again. “What is it?”
Sean took his phone from his ear and placed it against his bare chest. “Rogue’s resurfaced.”
“Oh, thank God.” I hoped someone had thought to call Elli first. She was going to be so relieved.
Sean put his phone back to his ear and walked back to the bed. “Rafe? I’m with Kiera. Can I put you on speaker?”
I pulled on Sean’s discarded T-shirt, then crawled to the edge of the mattress so I could be close to him.
Sean gave a nod to Rafe’s response, then hit the speaker button on his phone and sat beside me. “Okay. Go ahead.”
Rafe’s voice came through the phone. “Caden Kelly spotted Rogue at the bank. He looked like he was making a large cash deposit.”
“How much?” Sean asked.
I glanced at him, confused by the question. Was the amount a big deal or something?
“It’s not like he could count it,” Rafe said. “But I already talked to Lukas. We’ve planned a meet.”
“When?” Sean asked.
“Now. Lukas is already on his way.”
The urgency in Rafe’s voice sent a shiver down my spine, and I finally realized what this was about. He thought Evan Rogan had been depositing my stolen money.
“Got it,” Sean said, his eyes on me. “Does Rogue know we’re coming?”
“Nope,” said Rafe.
“We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
Sean disconnected and set his phone on the counter.
“Evan Rogan has the money,” I said. “The one-hundred K. That’s what you’re thinking.”
“It’s definitely possible,” Sean said grimly.
“I still don’t understand the connection between him and my brother.” Maybe that was because I’d never been much of a mystery lover. As a kid, I’d never even read a single Nancy Drew. Any kind of puzzle scrambled my brain. Why couldn’t life be more straight forward?
“Which is why we need to back Rogue into a corner and get the truth.”
“But if the money was really supposed to go to him, and he has it now, does that mean my saga with Bleu de Chanel Man is over?”
Sean gave his head a little shake, still amused by my nickname for our would-be assassin, and zipped up his jeans. “I doubt it’s over. There’s still the matter of the missing gun.”
“Crap. Right.”
“I hate to say it,” Sean said, “but we gotta bounce. That meet is happening now. I know we worked up an appetite, but the chicken divan will have to keep.”
“It’s all right. I’m not hungry anymore.” I took off Sean’s T-shirt and pulled my own clothes on instead, then grabbed my new purple coat, preparing to leave.
The insides of the coat’s pockets were still damp from the lake.
“Oh, um…” Sean grimaced apologetically. “I was thinking maybe we wouldn’t take the bike. This late in the season, I usually have it put away already, and you were shivering the whole way here.”
I gulped, knowing what that meant. We were going to tilt.
“Are you up for it?” He pulled on a clean T-shirt.
“The tilt?” I asked. The last time had gone okay. So long as I was prepared, I should be fine. Or fine-ish. “Sure.”
“I was actually referring to all of it,” he said. “The tilt, going to talk to Rogue, learning the truth. You don’t have to go with me if you’d rather stay here.”
“No way,” I said, steeling my nerves. “We stick together.”
“It could get messy. I don’t know how he’ll react.”
I shrugged. “The last couple of days have been full of truth bombs. It’s about time we blew this whole thing up.”