Page 24 of A Love Like Candle Light

"I recently got divorced. I'm not looking to jump into the next relationship," I mumble staring at my coffee cup. I’m not sure what I expected. Sympathy? Pity? But the three of them thankfully don’t bat an eye at my admission.

"Neither were we," Lauren points out. “And yet I got here and fell in love with a certain Mr. Grumpypants.”

"Seriously. I'm happy to be single for a while."

"That's what I said." Nic shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee. "Granted, I left my fiancé, he wasn’t my husband yet, but here we are."

Lauren knocks on the wooden tabletop. "Thank God."

"But still, finding a boyfriend was the last thing on my mind.” Nic gives my forearm a friendly squeeze. “So never say never."

"I'm not sure if I should find that reassuring or scary," I mumble, pull a piece off my cinnamon roll and pop it into my mouth.

The three of them break into grins, which can’t be good. Even so, a part of me relaxes.

As much as I enjoy spending time with Abby and myself, it's nice to be on the same wavelength with people here. Who knows, I might just find the closest friendships I've ever had right in this little town.

Chapter 8

Erik

I hide a yawn behind my hand. It took years of consensually being woken by aunt Molly with figurative and literal buckets of ice to become an early riser, however I will never be this much of an early riser.

Thick ground fog hides grass covered in morning dew. The sun isn’t even close to rising yet, soft waves licking at the lake shore. Rick ordered me and what must be twenty guys with detectors to Kylie’s house. Now he’s standing in her driveway, lit cigarette in his mouth and exudes the friendliness of a rabid bear.

“You’re not going to find anything the dogs didn’t find,” I tell him, shaking my head.

“If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it,” he harrumphs and throws his cigarette butt on the ground, twisting it under the heel of his shoe before he walks off.

Seriously? I lean down, pick it up with a leaf and throw it into Kylie’s bin which is literally two steps away. What a dick.

Rick watches me with a smirk and sips on a paper cup of gas station coffee. There’s no more steam rising from the hole in the lid, and knowing his coffee is cold is enough to fill me with glee. Especially as I take a sip from my thermos cup and almost burn my tongue.

“You grab those ten guys and start from here. I want every inch of the property searched.”

“Sure.” I wave them over and I could swear relief washes over their face once they learn they’ll work with me and not Rick. His reputation sure precedes him.

Thankfully, the company that built all four lakeside mansions was able to provide paperwork of thorough ground checks they did before construction. I wouldn’t put it past Rick to tear up the basements for the off chance of finding more bones there.

“I want you to move in pairs. One searches the backyard, shore, driveway, and four of you scan the space between this property and the neighboring house. Do rock paper scissors for who goes where for all I care.”

“Got it boss.” One of them even does a mock salute, then they actually break into a rock-paper-scissor tournament to decide, backs facing Rick so he won’t see. Two minutes later, they’re off.

There’s not much I can do but stand somewhere I’m not in the way and drink my coffee. Again and again, I find myself glancing back at the hole in Kylie’s backyard and the heap of uncovered earth besides it.

Will I get a call one day when someone finds Lilith’s bones in a grave similar to this? Unmarked and not nearly deep enough to stay undiscovered? Buried so shallow, any animal able to dig can uncover her and carry her bones all over?

My heart pounds more violently with every possibility. After all these years of searching for her, I know how unlikely it is to find her alive.

“Hey! Quit daydreaming!” Ricks booming voice tears me out of my thoughts. I lift my hand in apology and defiantly take a sip of my coffee.

What exactly does he expect me to do? Breathe down their necks while they do their jobs? I don’t think so.

So I wander around Kylie’s property aimlessly, pretending to find interesting things on the ground.

Like this rock. Or that one. Oh, hey, and a heart-shaped one.

The ground squishes under my shoes as I walk the ten steps from my car to my porch. Maybe it’s the muddy ground. Maybe it’s my wet socks.