Page 24 of Lone Star Wanted
Barely a kiss.
But it knocked the rest of her breath right out of her.
When he pulled back, his voice was rough. “I had to get that out of my system. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else.”
Cassidy stared at him, her heart thudding in her chest. “Did it work?”
His lips curved into a slow, dangerous smile. “No. It only fired up things even more.”
It did for her, too.
She felt it, blooming low and fast like a catching flame. But she swallowed it down and shook her head.
“I can’t,” she muttered. “Not now. It doesn’t feel right to be feeling any kind of pleasure when Travis is still missing.”
Kincade nodded, and this time the smile faded into something quieter. “Yeah. I get that.”
With a sigh, they both turned and sank into the chairs across from each other, the food between them steaming gently, untouched for a long moment.
Because the hunger had shifted. And not just the kind a hot meal could fix.
Cassidy stood, walked to the fridge, and pulled out a cold beer for him. She grabbed a Coke for herself, then returned to the table and slid the bottle across to Kincade. He caught it with a nod of thanks and twisted off the cap.
They ate in silence for a few bites, the grilled cheese still warm and crisp, the chili thick and satisfying. Her stomach didn’t exactly settle, but at least it stopped growling.
“You take the meds?” she asked, watching him over the rim of her glass.
He nodded, taking a long drink of beer. “Yeah. They’re helping.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Helping enough you won’t regret not going to the hospital tomorrow?”
Kincade gave a faint smile but didn’t answer directly. Which meant no, probably not. She’d keep an eye on him either way.
He took another bite, then glanced up. “If your mom were still alive and someone took her to force you into committing a crime or two… how do you think you’d be? Describe your state of mind.”
Cassidy blinked, surprised by the question, but she went along with it. “Uh… I’d be a mess,” she admitted after a moment. “A basket case, probably.”
Kincade nodded slowly and kept eating, calm. Measured. “You think you’d remember to take out the trash?”
She stared at him, the spoon frozen in her hand. And then it hit her. Hard.
Cassidy set the spoon down. “You think Marlene was lying about her mother being kidnapped?”
Kincade wiped his mouth with a napkin, calm as ever, but his eyes stayed sharp. Focused. “I’m not saying she’s lying,” he said carefully. “Not yet. But the trash thing? It stuck with me. Something about it felt… off.”
Cassidy frowned. “People do things out of habit, even when they’re stressed.”
“Sure,” he agreed, “but add it to the rest of what we’ve seen. At the quarry, Marlene kept those sunglasses on the whole time, even in the shade.”
“So?”
“So I couldn’t see what she was thinking. And that bugged me,” he said, voice low. “She didn’t look like a woman desperate to find her mother. She looked… guarded. Calculated.”
Cassidy considered that, the image of Marlene standing by the patrol truck flashing through her mind. The way she held herself. The way she seemed tense but not frantic.
“She could be in shock,” Cassidy offered. “Some people shut down. And maybe she doesn’t have a great relationship with her mom.”
Kincade nodded. “That’s possible. Could be she’s just damn good at throttling back on her emotions. Could be taking out the trash was rote. Something normal to cling to in the middle of chaos.”
