Page 110 of Whiskey Chase
“What?” Cassidy slapped a hand on the table. My beer sloshed over the rim. “That girl is ass over head in love with you.”
“She said we wouldn’t work. Said she’d be a liability to my career.”
“Because of the sweater,” Cassidy sighed, connecting the dots. “She doesn’t want you to get dragged into the circus.”
“I think that’s why she didn’t tell you either,” I pointed out.
“Well fuck her,” Cassidy announced, picking up her beer. “I’m going to help the shit out of her.”
“We both will. Whether she wants us to or not,” I agreed.
44
Scarlett
Devlin’s house smelled like charcoal. All the first-floor windows and doors were wide open. Dressed in gym shorts and a t-shirt, he ushered smoke out onto the deck with a dish towel.
“Something sure smells good,” I drawled, eyeing him with amusement.
“Hilarious,” Devlin said dryly. But I noticed the way his gaze lingered just for a second on the scoop neck of my tank top. “Grab a towel and help me.”
I pulled a rooster towel out of the drawer and fanned from the front door until the smoke dissipated.
“What’s for dinner?” I asked, strolling back into the kitchen where blackened pieces of some kind of meat smoldered like coals.
“It’s Jonah’s fault,” Devlin said. “His handwriting is illegible.”
“Awh. Jonah’s teaching you to cook?”
He swung an arm around the wrecked, smoky kitchen. “Obviously it’s not working.”
I laid my hand on his arm, pleased at the muscles that bunched under my touch. “Maybe we should just face facts that neither one of us belongs in a kitchen.”
“I refuse to accept that,” he announced, giving me a perfunctory kiss on the forehead.
I poked my nose into the covered bowl on the island and found a yellow-ish potato salad. I plucked a potato cube out and popped it into my mouth. It was inexplicably crunchy. I swallowed hard.
Devlin seemed tense, a little moody. I could relate.
Nothing between us had been normal since that day at my father’s house. I’d stashed the sweater in a kitchen cabinet and tried to pretend it didn’t exist. In the middle of the night, I’d had a moment of pure insanity and wondered what would happen if I just threw it out. But I couldn’t do it. I knew I had to take it to the police. I had to pull the plug on my own life as I knew it, and it sucked.
Everything in my life had frozen at that moment. I couldn’t move forward in my father’s house knowing that there could be other evidence tying him to Callie. I couldn’t just enjoy my time with Devlin while he was here because the closer we got, the deeper he’d get dragged for this. But I wasn’t going to break. I wasn’t going to be selfish and spill my guts to him dragging him and his newly repaired reputation into this mess.
I needed to do what needed to be done. And I just wanted a few more days with him.
Devlin shoved the take-out menus at me. “Take your pick,” he said.
Our fingers brushed, and I felt that electric zing swim through my blood. It had been selfish of me to continue seeing him while he was here.
“You know, Scarlett, if you need help all you have to do is ask.”
I frowned. “I think I can pick take-out just fine on my own.”
He eyed me and rubbed a hand over his beard. God, I hoped he’d keep the beard even after he moved back. “You have friends who’d be willing to help you.”
I felt a tingle crawl up the back of my neck. He was talking like he knew something.
The take-out menus fell through my limp fingers, and I bent to pick them up. The front door opened and shut.
