“Circling the wagons,” I murmured.
“Precisely.”
“Can you tell me about the case?” I asked.
“I could, if I had anything to tell you.”
“But…” I started carefully. “You found her.”
“He wanted us to.”
“That easy?” I asked.
“For Dern? No. Even for Harry. Maybe not. For me. Yes, that easy.”
“And?”
This was when he finally allowed his frustration to come out.
Which meant I pressed closer.
“And, I’m running through every playbook I got, Larue. And there’s just not enough there to get a good read on him. I actually want whoever you saw to be him. I need more from him if I’m gonna catch him. What I don’t want is for that more to come in the form of bodies.”
I had agreed with him, and I would have liked to end the night with a make-out session, but I didn’t think that would help things for Bohannan.
So I got another squeeze and a forehead kiss before he went to his bed and I went to mine.
But that was why I was free to wander town, semi-stalking Celeste on her date, even though Jess, Jace, or the unknown Billy were out there somewhere watching her (and me), because before Megan gave me her warning, I was thinking the same thing.
I wasn’t fond of how Celeste described their first date as her being the dumping ground for Will Pulaski’s anger.
Of course, he needed someone to talk to.
Celeste simply wasn’t that person.
Sure, if she’d been his girlfriend prior to that, and they’d had time together, establishing history, a connection, where she knew all the players from more than just high school gossip, naturally, she’d be one of those resources for him.
But she hadn’t been his girlfriend, and she wasn’t mature enough to have the tools to deal with his emotion, or the ones it might stir in her.
So I wandered town—the residential part of which snaked into the hills and valleys, but for the business district, it was a pretty much one street that ran five blocks—taking in what I had sensed, but hadn’t yet been able to take in completely.
This place was strange.
It simply wasn’t normal.
Bear-shooting-hunter mural aside, as an example, they had a movie theater.
But the latest big release wasn’t playing.
Halloween was a few days away, and although it was apropos, I could not imagine with this small population it would be financially responsible to be showing a double feature of Carrie and Christine.
I also wasn’t sure, in the current climate, that a double feature with two horror films with female names was the way to roll.
But there it was.
There was also the fact that the Aromacobana was the only—and I mean the only—sign that anything beyond the new millennium had touched Misted Pines.
Example, they had a Five and Dime, capitalized because it was called Hoot’s Five and Dime. Glancing inside, I saw it had a pegboard wall filled with stuff hanging on miniature rods, a table at the front advertising a sale on skeins of yarn, and a soda fountain at the side. Therefore, I was mildly shocked it didn’t have girls in petticoats and saddle shoes sitting on the stools sipping cherry cokes while their ponytails swayed.
Honestly, as I walked the sidewalks, in looks and mood, it felt like I was traversing the outdoor location of Stranger Things.
And that was the earliest I’d date stamp this place.
The Double D being the perfect set piece for a new rendition of “Beauty School Dropout” was not an incongruity.
Truth told, there was something very wholesome about it.
Like, you wouldn’t blink if Marty McFly raced down the sidewalk on his skateboard.
That said, there was something…off about it.
Like, in seeing the tall, broad-shouldered, russet-haired young man talking earnestly to Celeste in the coffee house and looking exactly like the handsome, charming love interest who ends up date raping the innocent, sweet, open-hearted heroine…
Well….
Suffice it to say.
That didn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy.
Twenty-Nine
Maybe Fourteen
I got a text early that evening saying the men would be home for dinner.
I didn’t have a lot of experience with a house that was boy-heavy, but I was learning fast.
That meant I pulled out their huge family Foreman grill and had it heated up and ready to rumble by the time the parade of Yukon and Rams hit the Bohannan compound clearing.
I would learn in short order that something had changed.
I learned this as they all trooped in, Celeste and I were in the kitchen, me perhaps hopelessly crafting a salad, Celeste definitely more fittingly air frying some tater tots.
Regardless that food was openly being prepared, Jace and Jess went directly to the pantry and tore into the stash of chips that Celeste had curated for them.
Bohannan, however, came direct to me.
As I stood, head tipped back, staring at him in titillated shock, he slipped an arm around my waist, pulled me to his body, dropped his head and took my mouth.
Okay now.
This one was official.
There was no tongue, but his lips were firm, his beard was exquisitely tickly, the pressure perfect, and up close he smelled like mist and man, so those high school kids in his senior class knew what they were talking about.
He lifted his head. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I forced out.
His beard was stingy with smiles, but still, I was forming a catalog of them.
The one my breathy “hey” earned was a new variety and it made my vaginal walls contract.
He let me go, and as I came back into the room, I realized there was something about him doing that the first time in front of the kids.
Something nice.
What was not nice was Jess scarfing down Cool Ranch Doritos like he was attempting to win a contest.
“You do know we’re eating five minutes after I slap the burgers on the grill,” I informed him.
“You do know the men are here, so that grill is for sissies. Real men cook meat outdoors,” Jess replied.
Taking the Pringles cannister with him, Jace proved his brother’s point by saying, “I’ll fire up the grill.”
Jason went outside.
Mutely, I turned to Bohannan.
“Pick your battles,” he advised.
He then moved to his daughter and kissed the side of her head.
I watched this knowing there was already a battle I’d selected.
But I needed reinforcements.
Since I was now living there, that morning, before I drove up to pack and properly (if temporarily) move in, I’d helped myself to the Bohannan house.
I’d found there was nook nor cranny that had not felt the touch of Grace Bohannan.
Translation: Bohannan did everything in his power to make every inch of her environment something that made her happy, something that made it hers, so that she would settle into that home with her family and give as good as she got.
I had a life where I’d cruised on luxury yachts and stayed in castles as a guest of people who owned castles.
This was not that.
Bohannan was not a billionaire.
But everything was high-quality, if not luxury, and as mentioned, Grace had great taste. She put her stamp on things, but she did it with an eye to keeping her boys comfortable.