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“Thatch heard someone in Silas’s hotel room.”
She fumbled with the plate. Thatch hadheardthem? Oh God. She should’ve been quieter! “That’s strange,” she squeaked.
“Not really,” her brother argued. “This is Silas we’re talking about.”
Right. It probably wasn’t strange at all for Silas to hook up with a random woman he met at a party. But in those few hours it had felt like more than sex. At least to her.
“He’s been moody as hell lately,” Aiden went on. “And then just now in the office he was talking about needing to get away for a while.”
She spun, still holding the dripping plate. “Silas is leaving?”
“I don’t know.” He sipped on iced tea, looking all calm and collected while her heart was doing triple flips.
“I told him to go on a vacation,” her brother said. “Have a little fun, take a break, and get whatever this is out of his system.”
Tess turned back around and dried the plate. Did Silas really want to leave Star Valley? Was it because of her? She found the courage to face her brother again. “So you really think he’s upset over a woman?”
He shrugged. “It’s only a theory. But he did get pretty defensive when we brought it up.” His eyes widened. “Did you see him spending time with a woman that night?”
“No!” Oops. She tried to rein in her tone. “I mean, I had to step out early too.” Pure panic flowed through her veins now. “I had to call the girls before they went to sleep.”
“Ah.” Her brother nodded as though that made sense. “Well, I don’t know who this woman could be. Think it’s any of your friends who were there?”
“Nope.” The denial ended in a burning cough. Her throat might as well have been smoking. “Uh-uh. I haven’t heard anything about anyone hooking up with Silas.” She happened to be the worst liar on the planet. One direct look at her right now and Aiden would know.
“Maybe it’s Lyric,” her brother mused.
She almost agreed but she couldn’t sell her friend out like that. “I know for a fact it’s not Lyric. We talk. She would’ve mentioned something to me.” The woman was one of her best friends in Star Valley Springs.
“Well…” Aiden stood and threw the paper towel in the trash. “Whoever she is, this woman has clearly messed with our boy’s head.”
Had she? Had That Night messed with Silas as much as it had messed with her? Because he seemed pretty unaffected, in her opinion. Tess rushed to the refrigerator and started to rearrange things so she could cool off her face. “He didn’t say anything about hooking up with a woman. Or having feelings for someone. Right?” She had to make sure.
“No. He tried to deny hooking up with anyone but we know better.” Aiden grinned. “Hey, speak of the devil. Silas is headed this way.”
“What?” Tess dropped a can of pop, which split open and started to spray everywhere. “Oh no!”
“Here.” Aiden came to the rescue with some paper towels and nudged her aside. “You okay, Sis? You seem a little off too.”
“I’m great! I’m—”
The front door creaked open and Silas stepped inside, then hesitated at the threshold. “Hey. I was gonna head out soon. Wanted to see if you were still planning to go to the police station.”
“Yep! Sure am!” Tess was all too aware that the words had come out overly loud, but she couldn’t seem to regulate her volume or her tone today. “We should go right now, as a matter of fact. I’ll drive.”
The man studied her cautiously. “I could just meet you there…”
“It’s no big deal! We can ride together.” She swept past Aiden and grabbed her purse off the kitchen table. They had to prove to her brother that things were completely normal between them, that they could ride in a car together with no problem so he didn’t suspect that she was Silas’s mystery woman.
Or maybe she wanted to prove things were normal to herself. “No use in both of us wasting gas.” And they needed to discuss a diversion strategy so no one found out their secret. She traipsed past Silas and out the door, leaving him to follow behind.
He paused at her truck. “You sure you don’t want me to drive too?”
“I’m sure.” She watched Aiden walk down her porch steps and wave. “This way we can talk about our strategy… with thepolice,” she said loud enough for her brother to hear.
“Ooookay.” Silas got into her passenger seat.
Tess kept a smile pasted on her face until after they’d cleared the driveway and her brother could no longer see them. “Aiden thinks you hooked up with a woman at his engagement party,” she blurted. Oh God. They were going to find out. Everyone was going to find out about her and Silas and then they would all judge her for sleeping with her husband’s best friend. Tess peeled out onto the highway. “No one can know we were together that night.” Then nothing would ever go back to normal.
