Page 58 of Slow Burn
Cole was waiting near the desk, his arms folded, that steady gaze locked on her when she came out. He didn’t ask a thing, but the weight of the kiss still lingered between them, humming in the air like static.
She pushed past it. “I need to find Frank.”
His jaw flexed, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “Now?”
“When the hell else?” Her voice came out clipped, urgent.
For a beat they just looked at each other, the air charged, not with heat this time but with something heavier—determination, maybe even fear. Cole’s hand brushed along her elbow, light but anchoring.
“Then I’m comin’ with you,” he said.
The words should’ve steadied her. Instead, the mix of his nearness and the urgency burning in her veins left her even more off balance. Still, she didn’t argue. She couldn’t. Frank was the thread she needed to pull, and Cole had just tied himself to it.
twenty-two
“Her heart was tinder, and he the match.” - Unknown
“I’m drivin’,” Cole said.
She opened her mouth to argue.
“You know where to find him?” he challenged, tugging his keys from his pocket.
Her mouth snapped shut as she went to the passenger side of his truck.
“You said I could help,” he pointed out as they slid into their seats.
She didn’t like being reminded, but she sighed as she buckled up.
“So, why do you need to talk to Frank so bad?”
“Aside from the fact that my conversation with him the other day wasn’t that helpful?”
He gave her a wry smile. “Yeah. Aside from that.”
“Well,” she started, “when Ididtalk to him, he was very vague about that night, which—fine, it was traumatic for us all and a lotjust goes fuzzy—but he led me to believe he’d been out with my mama that night.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“Not according to Sally Anne. She remembered him at the bar whenhesaid he’d taken Mama out.”
He shrugged, deciding to play devil’s advocate again. “Could be he has a bad memory.”
She clicked her teeth, frustration a simmer between them. Probably could tell he was baiting her on purpose.
“Sure,” she ground out. “Except he said he couldn’t remember. He only agreed that he’d probably taken her out at my suggestion because he almost always did on Mama’s nights off.”
It seemed straight-forward to him, but there was a reason she was bothered. “You don’t believe that, then?”
“Sally said he was there, and I would tend to believe her. She was certain.”
“Alright.”
Despite the acceptance in his voice, she kept going, intent on the road before them. “Sally said he was upset about something, and she noticed that he didn’t take Mama out when he normally would.”
He considered that. “Maybe they’d had a fight.”
“That would explain some things, but if that was true, why wouldn’t he say that?”
