Chapter Thirty-Five #2
My heart was thudding against my chest. Now that I felt it, I couldn’t unfeel it. It lay atop his skin like a layer of dust, clogging up his pores, sinking into his body, his brain. “What the hell,” I murmured. “How? Why?”
“Kait,” Jared said. “Where did you tell me Beth went when she left Rick?”
My mind was only half on his question. “Beth? She went to Colorado.” Then I gasped and jumped to my feet. “She went to Colorado. Where her family lives.”
“Call her back in here,” Ben said.
I strode to the door, equal parts furious and afraid. “Beth,” I bellowed. “Beth!”
She ran back in, her face still wet, her eyes red. “What’s happened?” she cried.
I grasped her shoulders. “Was Gavin Voss inside this house?” I shook her just a little when her stare drifted back to the bed. “Was he in this bedroom?”
“Gavin?” She frowned, then pulled away from me.
“Yes, he was here. He’s a friend of my father’s.
I’ve known him since I was a teenager. He came to check on me before going back to Colorado.
I told him I’d introduce him to Rick but Rick wasn’t feeling well.
” She shrugged and glanced around at all of us.
“He wanted to make sure Rick was okay. He didn’t do anything.
He just stood at his bedside and looked at him.
Then he asked me to tell Rick he’d meet him next time he was in town, and he left. ”
“Why didn’t you tell us he was here?” I asked.
“Why did it matter that my friend came to visit?” she countered. Then she seemed to realize that somehow, we’d known Gavin Voss had been in the house. “How did you know Gavin was—”
“Did he touch Rick?” Ben interrupted.
“Yeah,” I murmured. “He touched him. He did this.”
“What?” Beth asked. “He did what? No, he didn’t touch him.
” Then she waved her hand impatiently. “Once he laid the back of his hand on Rick’s head to check for fever.
He’s really very sweet.” She frowned, and suddenly, she couldn’t meet my eyes.
“Rick stirred, when Gavin did that. And I thought, he’s going to freak out because someone he doesn’t know is in here, and he’s going to yank his gun out of the nightstand and shoot him.
” She laughed, as though it was a terribly funny joke.
“What does Gavin have to do with any of this?”
I didn’t bother asking her how Gavin had known she was back in town, how much she’d talked about us to Gavin when she’d been in Colorado, or if Gavin had encouraged her to come back to Jakeston.
None of that mattered, and honestly, I was sick to death of Beth.
I turned my back on her. “We need to get him to the clinic,” I said. “Gavin will be calling as soon as he realizes we’ve seen Rick. He’s probably having the house watched.”
“I’ll fetch the stair chair from the car,” Belinda said, already moving toward the door when Jared stopped her.
“I’ll carry him,” he said, and lifted him from the bed.
I tucked the trailing ends of the sheets around him, then walked ahead of him to lead the way.
Beth wasn’t happy. “Where are you taking him? You can’t just take him out of here. He needs to be in a hospital. What clinic are you—”
I stopped at the door. “Beth. Someone will call you when Rick wakes up. He’ll need an overnight bag. Can you start packing that? I’ll be back in to get it. Pack his gun and his wallet, as well.”
A couple of minutes later, Rick had been secured in the back seat of Ben’s SUV, and Jared and I stood and watched the car until the taillights had disappeared.
I shivered, abruptly exhausted and chilled, and Jared wrapped his arms around me. “Nell will have hot food waiting,” he told me. “You need fuel. Ride with me. One of the wolves will follow in your car.”
“All right,” I said. Unlike earlier in the night, I did not want to be alone with my thoughts. “I’ll go in and get Rick’s bag.”
“I’ll go with you.”
I didn’t argue, but I thought it was a little strange that he didn’t seem to want me to face Beth without him there. Maybe he was afraid she’d hidden Voss in a closet and he’d jump out and grab me when I went back in.
Beth, still pale, but with redness scraping her cheekbones, pointed at Rick’s packed bag. She watched wordlessly as Jared picked it up.
“Thanks,” I said, still not ready to forgive her for not only drugging Rick but allowing the enemy to hurt him.
Jared held the bag in one hand and took my arm, turning me toward the door.
“Kait,” Beth said.
Jared stiffened, because he’d known, somehow, while I’d remained oblivious, that Beth had some anger brewing.
I frowned as I turned to look at her. “Yes?”
“Did you fuck him in our bed?”
I stared at her, silent.
She gave a bitter laugh. “I mean, you knew the way to the bedroom, so obviously you’ve been in there.
I always thought it was one-sided. I knew Rick had a thing for you the first time I saw the way he looked at you.
But until I saw you sitting beside him, touching him like his body was yours to touch, and looking at him the same way…
” She shrugged, but her lips trembled. “So I ask again. Did you fuck him in our bed?”
Jared squeezed my arm. “Let’s go,” he said, but gently.
But I wasn’t quite ready to go. “I didn’t fuck him at all,” I told Beth. “Not in his bed, not in his house, not anywhere.” Then I smiled. “Yet.”
Jared sighed.
“You should go back to Colorado,” I told her. “This is not a good place for you.”
“You don’t care how bad a place it is for me,” she said. “You just want me away from my husband.”
“Go home, Beth,” I said, but tiredly. I really had no desire to argue with her.
“If he chooses me,” she said, “you will stay out of our lives.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I will.”
Then I left the house with Jared, thinking how odd it was that Jared had learned maybe more than he wanted to know that night, but the whole time, it seemed somehow natural.
But when we were in his car and he was driving us down the highway toward Shadowfield and Rick, I understood that my alpha had known all along how I felt about my detective.
“Jared,” I said. “You know that you’re the love of my life.”
He glanced at me, then lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my fingers. “I’m not afraid of Rick, or of your feelings for him. Rick is part of you. He loves you. He’ll take care of you if something happens to me. You need someone in the human world.”
I blinked back tears. “He said he knows you’re my supernatural world man,” I murmured. “And that he’s my human world man.”
He only nodded.
Finally, with my hand securely in his, I laid my head back against the seat and fell immediately to sleep. I needed my brain to go somewhere else, even if only for a little while.
And just before we reached Shadowfield, Gavin Voss called and woke me up.