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“How’s that working for you?” Her slightly sardonic tone didn’t help.
“About as well as you’d expect,” he shot back dryly.
“I don’t know if this hurts or helps, but I’m not having an easy time of it, either. But I agree a thousand percent that to try to make something of it would be disastrous.”
It hurt. A lot.
And somehow, her acknowledgment of their mutual struggle helped, too.
But before he could attempt to find a reply he wanted to let loose, the door to Brenda’s house opened and out she walked.
Bundled up in a blue thigh-length winter parka with the hood up, lining her face with faux fur, she didn’t seem to notice anything but the car in the driveway as she made a beeline to it and jumped inside. She started the engine, and he put his idling one in gear.
Showtime.
Chapter 15
Everleigh was distracted from thoughts of sex with Clarke as they trailed her husband’s ex-lover from her home through the streets of Grave Gulch. Everleigh was aware of Clarke’s hands on the wheel, of his upper arm muscles when he turned, but mostly her attention was glued to the blonde woman driving the car a few vehicles in front of them.
Clarke changed lanes more than Brenda did. He signaled and left the road, only to do a U-turn and return to the lane before he’d lost her. He turned once, sped up and rejoined traffic once, too. All, she quickly realized, to make certain that if Brenda was watching her rearview mirror, she wouldn’t see them there right behind her. She wouldn’t know she was being followed.
In those few minutes, Everleigh realized how very good Clarke was at what he did.
And was thankful all over again that he was not only on her side, but on her case. She never should have pushed him to talk about personal things. She’d known she was making him uncomfortable. She wasn’t even sure why she’d done so, other than because her stomach really was in knots with the whole thing and she just wanted to confront it. Deal with it.
But the talk...whatever she’d hoped to get out of it...had fallen flat.
“She’s going to the new gym,” she said aloud as Brenda signaled a turn and then slid her vehicle quite adeptly into a parallel parking space out front of Grave Gulch’s newest health spa. “I wonder if she switched before or after Fritz was killed,” she mused. Interested, but not overly so. She felt no fear watching this woman. She just didn’t think Brenda was the o
ne who’d killed Fritz. Or tried to kill her. Just didn’t get those vibes. The woman seemed too caught up in her own world to be attempting murder.
But Everleigh was a barmaid. Not a cop or an investigator of any kind. If Clarke thought following Brenda would help solve the case, she was willing to sit in that car for as many days as it took.
“Maybe she’s got a new guy to fawn over,” she added a couple of minutes later.
Clarke seemed more intent, now that Brenda was on the move. Watching everything around them, as though their suspect could suddenly spring out from behind a tree, instead of the door she’d entered through. Which was good. Kept them safe from touchy subjects.
Twenty minutes passed, and Everleigh was still thinking about getting touchy. With Clarke. An idea was forming. It was stupid, inappropriate, completely unlike her...
And yet something within her pushed the thought forward in her mind. She’d been so good for so long and it had landed her with imminent divorce papers; a dead, cheating husband; in prison; and then with her grandmother in jail, with someone still trying to kill her.
“I don’t want to die without knowing if sex can be as good as that kiss promised it would be.” She knew all about promises, though.
In her world, they rarely came true.
Not if they were good ones.
And yet...even with all that had gone on...hope sizzled inside her. For Gram. For her future.
“You aren’t going to die on my watch.”
He’d relaxed back a bit, but was still watching outside the car the entire time. On watch, not just watching, she amended as her mind replayed his last statement. But he hadn’t addressed her suggestion...
“I was thinking more about having sex on your watch. Later.” She almost cringed as the words slipped quietly out. But she didn’t take them back. Or even regret them.
His lack of response was not encouraging. And with his coat open, but covering his crotch, she couldn’t tell if there was any other reaction from him.
She couldn’t see his gun, either, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one.
