Page 88 of Diamonds in the Mud

By the time I left that evening, I desperately wanted to swing by Jameson’s place. I wanted to stay with him that night. To fall asleep in his arms and make sure he was okay.

Seeing the cuts and bruises on his body had pained me. Knowing what had happened to him pissed me off. I used the anger to fuel my investigation into Mason’s murder.

I had details the cops in Madison County didn’t—that two large men had jumped Jameson. That Jameson was in the room. The time frame of his arrival. Knowing that whoever jumped him and killed the boy had taken off with his motorcycle, wallet, phone, guns, the drug money, and drugs.

Knowing this, I had tracked Jameson’s phone to a dumpster behind a bar in Madison County. I planned on staking out the bar that weekend. I would have gone sooner, but the place was only open on Friday and Saturday nights. I wanted to see if there were two very large men hanging about.

Crawling into bed that night alone, I stared at my last message to Jameson. He still hadn’t replied.

“How are you doing? Bruises healed? I miss you.”

My last three texts had gone unanswered. Was he avoiding me for a reason?

He’d told me he’d dropped his guard because of me. The guilt of that weighed heavy and had kept me up at night. I could have cost him his life.

Was he trying to pull away because he was afraid or because he’d come to his senses?

So much doubt plagued me, and by morning I was in a piss-poor mood. Deciding to face my fears head-on, I drove into town to Jameson’s building. I would grab a coffee and pastry at the bakery downstairs before I marched my ass up those stairs and gave the man I loved a piece of my mind.

Seeing Jameson sitting at the corner booth had me pausing and swallowing all my anger.

His head was bent over, a cup of coffee gripped in his hands tightly. He looked bruised, lost, tired, miserable.

When he finally glanced up at me, his eyes widened slightly and locked with mine. I could tell instantly that everything I’d questioned had been wrong.

He’d probably spent the last few days sleeping and trying to recover from the beating he’d taken.

I motioned with my head towards the counter and ordered my food and coffee. When I sat in front of him, putting a plate of pastries between us, he smiled up at me.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“Hey,” I said and sipped my coffee. “You look like shit.”

He chuckled, then winced. “Bruised,” he mumbled.

“More like broken,” I told him. “You should have gone to the ER.”

He shook his head. “Too many questions.”

“About that. What’s the story going around.” I nodded towards him. “What are you telling everyone that happened?”

“I laid my bike down in the rain the other night. Which is why my bike is MIA,” he said with a sigh.

“Smart.” The story would fly. He looked like a man who’d gone down on a wet road. “I found your phone,” I said.

He frowned at me. “Where?”

“The last time it pinged off a tower it was at a bar not far from the motel. I’m going to check it out Friday.”

“No,” he said firmly.

I arched my brows. “I thought we’d established how this works.” I motioned between us.

He sighed. “Yeah, right. Please don’t go.”

I smiled. “Wanna come with?”

He thought about it and then nodded. “Hell yeah.”