Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 101501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Silence.
“Jamie?”
“You think he’s dead, don’t you?”
“Nobody knows anything for certain until we find him.”
More silence.
“Jamie?”
“He was like a father to me,” she whispered in a rough voice. That knot in my throat turned into a tourniquet, cutting off my voice.
“I know, Jamie. He was like a father to everyone under the age of thirty. Logan will figure this out, and he’ll bring him home, one way or another.”
Dead silence.
“Jamie?”
“Figure out what? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Jamie . . . I—” It was an open investigation and the only reason I knew anything was because of Logan. If I told her the whole town would know within an hour.
“You’re saying it wasn’t an accident? That if he’s dead . . . Oh, my God.”
“We don’t know anything yet.” I tried for a calm voice, but she wasn’t listening.
“Who would kill him?” she wailed. “Duke never hurt anyone.”
Hearing her pain weakened my resolve to be strong and kick-started my own silent tears. I tried to get words out to comfort her, but it was useless, so I slid down the wall and listened to her grief until the phone was pulled from my hand.
“Jamie?” Logan sounded calm, soothing. “I need you to take a deep breath.” He waited a beat, looking down at me, so I took a deep breath like he’d ordered. “That’s it. Deeper.” I pulled more air into my lungs and my eyes stopped burning with tears. He listened for a moment longer, never taking his eyes off of me, then nodded and mumbled softly, “Good girl.” It was meant for both of us.
“I promise, Jamie. I’ll do everything in my power to find out what happened to him.” A promise to both of us I knew in my core he would honor. “Is the bar covered or do I need to head back with Skylar before I get started?”
“Tell her to call David and Rachel and have them open for me. I’m not leaving.” I stood as I spoke and dropped the sheet then grabbed my clothes from the floor to dress, so we could leave as soon as he was done with Jamie. When I turned, Logan’s gaze scanned my body with heat. I raised a brow at him while he listened to Jamie, and started to leave the bathroom. He snagged me around the waist before I made it through the door and pulled me back into his chest so he could nip my shoulder gently. Just the brief touch sent a shiver straight to my core. My cheeks heated at the memory of what his mouth and hands had done to me the hour before. I was sore in all the right places, and a few that reminded me I should have taken more time in between, but I couldn’t have turned him away. His eyes were haunted when he’d rolled onto me. I would have done anything to erase that look from his face.
When I looked back at him, he mouthed the word bath. My forehead wrinkled and I shook my head. I’d cleaned up after we’d finished earlier, I could shower fully when we got home.
Logan let go of my waist and stepped to the tub, then mumbled his goodbye to Jamie, restating his promise to her that he would find out what happened to Duke. I was pulling on my bra when I heard the bath start. Whipping around at the sound, I came face-to-face with Logan. “I don’t need a bath. We need to get going.”
“You’re soaking in the tub. I wasn’t gentle with you, so you need the heat to help with the soreness.”
I blinked, then flushed further. “How do you even know that?”
“Loverboy. He read any book he could get his hands on. Technical. Romance. You name it. He was shit with the ladies, but he knew more about your gender than most women knew about themselves.”
“Well, I’m fine.”
“I’m not arguing about this.” And to prove he wasn’t arguing, Logan pulled the lacy bra from my body and picked me up like a sack of potatoes and threw me over his shoulder. Resistance was futile so I didn’t fight him. He deposited me into the filling tub, then grabbed a towel for my head to rest on while I soaked. When I sank into the warm water with a sigh of defeat, I moaned audibly the moment my sore muscles relaxed. Loverboy wasn’t wrong about the bath. The heat helped instantly.
“Twenty minutes,” he ordered, pointing at me. “Then we’ll head out.”
I smirked at his order then saluted him. “Sir, yes, sir.”
His answering grin made me smile. At least his eyes weren’t haunted anymore.
Sixteen
Truce
“HOW LONG DO you think it will take them to process the hair?”
Logan glanced at me as we headed back to Ennis. After searching all morning, the only evidence we’d found was a long, dark brown or black hair caught in the seat belt mechanism of Duke’s truck. Spear and his officers had searched all night for Duke but found no evidence that would point us in the right direction. Divers were being called in so they could search the bottom of the lake, but that could take days. Since there was nothing left for Logan and me to do in Yellowstone, we decided to return to Ennis and wait for news. It was frustrating having no leads other than a single strand of hair. Tom Petty was right. Waiting was the hardest part.