Page 90 of Traitor

I clapped my hand on his shoulder roughly and nodded. “Thanks, man.” It was as deep as either one of us was ever going to venture without growing a vagina.

“So, the handcuffs?”

I sighed. “What would you say if I told you that Lauren and I have been on and off since last June? Or that we’d been living together up until last month?”

His face screwed up in confusion. “What the fuck? Are you serious?”

I nodded and told him everything from the last six years—how I sold my soul to the devil the morning after meeting an angel. How I got her mom killed and ultimately lost her. It seemed like I talked for hours, finally feeling like I was coming up for air by the time I reached the end of it.

“Wow.” David kept shaking his head. “Jesus.”

I leaned forward until my arms were on my legs, matching his stance. “Tell me about it. I was actually dumb enough to believe that I could keep her cuffed to the bed until she started listening to reason.”

“Well, I would say you’re tied for the stupidity award with that and the fact that you thought now was a good time to propose,” David said with a grim smile.

The breeze whistled as it moved through the orchard, cooling our skin, yet not clearing my head one damn bit. “So, I just let her go?”

David bent down and picked a blade of grass, splitting it between his fingers, completely lost in thought. “I can’t answer that for you. If you and the club didn’t have anything to do with what happened to her mom, then eventually, she’s going to see the truth. What about the shit with your dad?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “My whole life, I wanted nothing more than to be Jamie Quinn’s kid. Now that I know I am, it just fucking complicates everything. So, I’m not the son of a sociopath. I’m just the son of a man who was too much of a pussy to acknowledge me. It’s not much better.”

“The one thing I can’t figure out is how Lauren knew.” He began twisting the grass around his finger like a ring, the carpenter in him building something out of nothing. If I tried, I’d just end up with grass stains on my hands.

“She said it was his mannerisms.” We slipped back into silence and I wondered if there was anyone else on the planet who knew me as well as she did—if there was anyone who would ever know.

“Well, I think you know what to do,” he said as he dropped the grass and stood up.

“I do?”

David nodded. “Yeah, you’re good at thinking on your feet—always have been. Let me just say that nothing is impossible to overcome. I’m living proof of that. Just give her some space, but don’t stop chasing her—even after you catch her. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”

I laughed. “David, I don’t think anybody’s stupid enough to make the same mistakes as you. Like how hard is it to not put your dick in her best friend?”

He cuffed me upside the head. “How hard is it to not keep kidnapping women and proposing to them?”

“Touché, asshole.”

I stood up and stretched before following him back toward the inn. I was going to give her the space she needed, while working to find the real killer.

David and I parted in the upstairs hallway as Elizabeth came around the corner. She gave him a small smile and nodded, before looping her arm through his, letting him lead her back toward their room. He winked at her in return and I found that I hadn’t understood a bit of their exchange.

“What’s with all the secret codes?”

“See you later, Mike,” she called cheerfully over her shoulder to me.

I stood in the same spot. “That doesn’t answer my question. Are y’all really just leaving like that?”

David paused and looked back at me. “I’m kid-free for the next two hours, so unless you have some life-threatening emergency, go the fuck back to your room.”

I flipped him off and rounded the corner toward the room. I knew that Lauren would be long gone, but I planned on spending the next few hours before check-out working on the case and trying not to think about all the ways I’d let her down.

Maybe it’d keep my mind off of Grey too.

I slid the key card in and waited until it flashed green before swinging the door wide open. Lauren was back in her dress from the night before, staring out the window.

“Hey,” I said quietly. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here.”

She turned around and nodded. “Yeah. I dropped a bombshell on you and I didn’t want to leave until I knew you were okay. I would’ve come after you, but I was cuffed to the bed.”

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