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He heard the master bedroom door close and knew that she would soon be propped up in bed with her phone and laptop, avidly scanning every venue of social media, on the lookout for a breaking story.
Her nonstop drive had been one of the qualities that first attracted him to her. Second only to her tousled-blonde-knockout looks, of course. They had met at an engagement party for mutual acquaintances. Their chemistry had been immediate and fiery. They’d dated for six months before deciding to take the next step and move in together.
He’d known exactly what he was signing on for. Shauna was ambitious, vain, and self-centered. But he was like that, too, if not more so. That was why the relationship had worked so well. In any given situation, be it sex or choosing a sandwich condiment, each had known what to expect from the other. What he was now feeling—or not feeling—wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t changed—he had. He didn’t blame her. He wasn’t angry with her.
He was indifferent.
Which was worse. What she was sensing from him was apathy.
There was a basis for every slight she’d accused him of tonight. Most of the excuses that he’d offered up had been not only weak but flat-out lies.
When he’d come in tonight, he hadn’t been tired. He’d been despondent because he’d had to say goodbye to Elle.
He’d told Shauna he couldn’t enjoy anything, but he’d enjoyed that hour spent with Elle. Most of the subjects they’d talked about had been somber, soul-searing, heart-wrenching, but in her company he’d felt a peacefulness that he hadn’t experienced since the shooting.
No, even before the shooting, neither he nor his life could be described as peaceful. Had he ever felt content? Rarely, if ever. He’d always been in a rush to get somewhere, to start this or finish that. He’d been the go-to man, the problem solver, the whiz kid with all the answers, on call and in charge.
The shooter hadn’t cut down that Calder Hudson, but the experience had. It had humbled him. Shauna couldn’t accept that. She certainly wouldn’t want to hear that he didn’t want to return to being that guy.
He thought Elle would understand. She wouldn’t badger him to return to normal. She wouldn’t try to accelerate his recovery. She would be empathetic.
Or, that was, she would have been before tonight. Now, though, he wasn’t sure what she thought of him.
Because when he’d released her from his embrace, she’d looked stunned, a little apprehensive, a lot confused. Without a word, she’d climbed quickly into her car, pulled the door shut, and had driven away as though the devil were chasing her.
He’d had no business kissing her. Not that it had been a real kiss. After whispering against her hairline, he’d kept his lips there, that’s all. Only to demonstrate his earnestness. They may have been parted a little, but a guy had to breathe, and he’d kept them in place and unmoving. Not for very long, either. Just perhaps long enough for it to have felt like a kiss. Long enough for him to want nothing more than to relocate his lips to hers, which he’d been obsessing over since she’d taken her first sip of coffee. He was almost certain that they were as soft as they were pink and full and that when they separated invitingly, his tongue would discover that her mouth was luscious.
“Jesus.” He reached behind his head and drew his pillow over his face to stifle a groan.
He’d told Shauna the truth about one thing: He could still get it up.
Chapter 14
Shauna was in her cubicle in the warren of the newsroom, doing research on the current affairs story she’d been given to investigate. It was about how scamming the elderly had become epidemic.
She’d been flattered to have it assigned to her. The story could be told in a way that oozed pathos, which was always good for ratings. Everybody had a grandma with dementia.
But now that she was into it, she was looking for a hook or angle that hadn’t been used by ten thousand other reporters also seeking to engage and enrage their viewing audiences.
She was reading a newspaper story about a couple who’d transferred all the funds from their bank account into another on the promise that their life savings would be tripled in a matter of days.
Shauna felt more scorn than pity for the victims. “How dumb do you have to be?” she mouthed, just as her cell phone rang. “Hello?”
“You didn’t hear this from me.”
She recognized the nasal drawl of one of her secret sources within the sheriff’s department in the county where the Fairground shooting had occurred.
Billy Green’s face was pitted with acne scars, and he had chronic bad breath, but he was enough of a weasel for his information to be reliable, and he was in lust with her, which never hurt.
“Who is this?” she said, which of course made him cackle. “Whatcha got for me?”
“The woman whose kid died in the Fairground shooting? The baby in the stroller that got shot when your boyfriend—”
“Elle Portman. What about her?”
“I don’t know, but something.”
It irked her that the best story about the shooting had yet to be told. A child’s involvement heightened the drama of any story. This one also had a cosmic/karma/fate/divine intervention overtone that she could milk for all it was worth.
