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I shook my head.
When he came back out to the porch, I was sitting on the swing trying to think of what to say to him.
He sat next to me on the swing but didn’t touch me. I reached for his hand and threaded our fingers together, which seemed to relax him a smudge. He looked over at me with a quirked eyebrow.
“What is it?”
I blew out a breath. “I… I have to take some time apart… from you.”
His face fell. “I understand.”
I reached for his chin and held it so he couldn’t avoid meeting my eyes. “Do you?”
Otto swallowed but then steeled himself. “Yes, I do. And I completely respect that. I hope you know I understand you’re in a tough spot.”
“If by tough spot, you mean not being able to make love to my boyfriend whenever the hell I want to, then yes. I’m in a tough spot,” I growled.
His face softened into a grin. “Your loss, Sheriff.”
“No shit.” I leaned forward and sipped from his lips for a few minutes. “I love you so much, Ottowa Wilde. You know that, right?”
His eyes sparkled. “I do.”
“And you know I will do anything, anything, to support you, right?”
“I know that too. But don’t be stupid. Promise me. Just stay out of it and do what Teri says. This will be over soon since I didn’t actually do anything.”
“Agreed. In the meantime I want you to promise me you won’t try and investigate this shit on your own.”
Otto just looked at me. I knew him almost as well as I knew myself, and there was no way he was going to heed my warning. But I also knew he wouldn’t lie to me or make false promises
“Otto… promise me.”
“We’re not going to talk about it, Walker,” he said.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Don’t be an idiot. Nobody wants an idiot for a life partner.”
Otto’s face broke into a smile like the damned sun. It was blinding. “Who said anything about a life partner?” he teased.
I leaned forward and kissed him again, hard and fast and full of tongue. When I pulled back, we were both hard and panting.
“I did.”
After pulling away from the Wilde ranch, I went straight to Jolie’s place. I’d talked to her briefly on the phone earlier in the day, but hadn’t had a chance to really explain what was going on. It was a Saturday, so she was at home with Tisha. They were outside in the driveway washing the car. Tisha had on a blue-and-white-striped bathing suit, and Jolie was in an old T-shirt and running shorts. They looked like they were having a ball.
“My two favorite ladies,” I called out as I stepped out of the vehicle.
“Uncle Seth!” Tisha yelled, racing for me. I grabbed her up and held her to me even though she was soaking wet from the hose. Her skinny arms and legs were all gangly angles and her hair was in wet strands stuck to her face.
“You helping Mama wash the car, Tishie-poo?”
“She said we could have ice cream after.”
When I set her down, she went back to the bucket of suds and picked out the huge sponge before going to work again on the car.
I met Jolie’s eye and nodded toward the front porch.
We sat on the steps leading to the front door before I turned to her. “Otto’s parents’ house is completely burned to the ground. They think the fire was set deliberately.”
Her forehead creased with concern. “Is he okay? The poor guy. He grew up in that house, didn’t he?”
I nodded. “After what happened here at the house and then over there… well, I’m just wondering if you’ve seen anyone or anything strange around here lately.”
She seemed to hesitate for a minute before looking away and tightening her jaw.
“Were you going to say something?” I asked. “Anything at all would be helpful, even if you think it’s irrelevant.”
“Tisha said she saw Otto over there last night after dinner, Seth.”
I felt my heart rate pick up. “What? When? How?”
She shrugged and picked at the edge of her shorts. “She, Cody, Hal, and Eliza were playing outside after dinner and asked if they could stay out there when the sun started going down so they could catch lightning bugs. They had a jar with holes poked in it. Well, I guess she went as far back in the trees as she could to find them. Later, she said ‘daddy’s friend Otto’ went into his mama and daddy’s house while they were all catching bugs.”
That couldn’t be right. He would have mentioned it to me last night.
“What time was it, do you think?” I asked, rubbing a hand over my mouth.
“Late. I think the sun didn’t go down until around nine and then it took a while for it to get dark enough to see the bugs. Beth was here for a couple glasses of wine so we just sat in the kitchen and let the kids play… I think by the time we put the kids to bed it was after ten. Beth didn’t want to drive home, so she crashed in the loft and Hal slept on the sofa. I asked Hal about it the next morning, but he said he didn’t go back far enough in the trees to see anything.”
