Page 2 of Lone Star

Candy stared at him.

“You’re gonna cut a guy’s throat, you’re just gonna cut it, right? Dump the bodies in a hog pen or something. But you lay them out while they’re still alive, and then kill them? There’s a reason for that. And in Nevada, they were sedated first. Lab found Special K in their tox screens. My guess is this’ll turn up the same.”

Candy glanced down at Pacer, but the older man was still staring into the middle distance, lips faintly trembling on each breath. If he was listening to their conversation, he gave no indication.

Cultists my ass, Candy thought. He reached down to grip Pacer’s shoulder, and squeezed.

He hadn’t expected a response, but the lack of one was disturbing all the same.

Three

“Can you email me the spreadsheet? Thanks, Jeannie.” Michelle disconnected the call and set her phone aside. She meant to turn back to her laptop, open on her lap, its battery growing warm enough across her thighs as to be uncomfortable, but the TV – nearly muted – caught her attention. The nightly news was on, something mindless to throw flashing colors across the floor and keep her a cold kind of company. She was used to working late – often onsite at TLC, or here in the cozy living room of the sanctuary – but, usually, Candy was sitting beside her, providing unheeded commentary on whatever old Western he was watching, or bringing her a glass of wine, or urging her to shut the computer down before she went blind and come to bed already. The last part he usually sweetened with a skim of fingertips across her cheek, and down her throat; a lingering, promising kiss beneath her ear; a tickle at her ribs until she couldn’t hold in the laughter, and finally closed the laptop and turned to him.

“You work too hard,” he always told her, and maybe she did, but he did, too. It wouldn’t be fair to sit on her laurels and let the still-tentative business growth they’d established here in Amarillo go belly-up while she lazed about in bed with her husband – no matter how convincing he set out to be.

On the screen, a stern-faced reporter squinted against the sun – a story recorded earlier in the day. Behind him, yellow crime scene tape, and the crenelated edges of two pop-up nylon tents, fluttered hard in the breeze. Gloved men and women in FBI windbreakers moved around behind him, toting crates and cases; there were drapes on the ground, white-tinted-blue beneath the far tent.

She snagged the remote and thumbed the volume.

“…triple homicide being investigated by the FBI, now. We’re told there might be a possible connection with a similar case in Nevada–”

“Don’t you know watching the news before bed is the best way to have nightmares?” Candy’s voice asked behind her.

Michelle jumped – remembered her laptop, and set it on the coffee table – then twisted around so she was kneeling on the couch.

Candy stood just inside the door, leaning back against it, actually, shoulders pressed against the wood, thumbs hooked in his belt in that unconscious way that made him look every inch a cowboy. She thought it was adorable, but hadn’t told him so, afraid he’d get self-conscious and quit doing it. She’d always wondered if his dad had done it, too; if it was a learned behavior. She loved the way it emphasized the leanness of his waist, and the fit of his Wranglers, and the width and heft of his arms and shoulders.

Clearly, she was overtired if her brain went straight in the gutter.

She blinked, and focused on his face, thinking at first that her vision was just blurry, but then realizing that he did indeed look more troubled than he’d sounded on the phone earlier.

He’d tried to act like his usual carefree self.It’s all fine, baby, gonna make sure Pace is okay and head home.

That had been four hours ago.

“I just saw on the telly,” she said. “Love, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, jacket rustling against the wood of the door. “I didn’t know the guys.”

“But you know Pacer.”

He shrugged again, gaze flicking up and over her shoulder, toward the TV that she now wished she’d switched off before turning around. His throat worked as he swallowed, blue light catching the faint, golden grain of his five o’clock shadow.

Michelle opened her arms and wiggled her fingers invitingly. “Come here, then. A hug will help.” It was what she said to TJ when he was in the worst depths of toddler despair, when he’d scraped a knee or broken a toy. He always came lurching into her offered embrace, and pressed his hot, wet face into her shoulder with a quiet “Mama.” It always left her pulse skipping; always. She wasMama, and that twisted like the sweetest knife in the tender parts of her heart. She’d been too young when her own mother died to remember calling her Mum, but that was how her dad, and she, and Tommy, had referred to her when they paged through old photo albums. She’d assumed, when she was younger, that if she ever had a child, it would be with a British man, and that she’d beMumandMummy.

She hadn’t counted onMama, but shelovedit.

Candy looked at her, brows lowering, mouth tucking down in the corners, petulant and suddenly young-looking. TJ was the spitting image of him. “I’m not a baby.”

“Come on.” She gave her fingers another waggle. “You can be my baby.”

He resisted another moment. Then he blew out a breath, and took the few slumping steps into her arms. His own, thick and strong as steel girders, closed around her tight, tight, and he dropped his face into her hair.

She hadn’t thought she needed this, too, until they were pressed front-to-front, his jacket carrying the chill of the desert night, the skin of his throat warm against her cheek when she snuggled in close and reached up under his Carhartt to take double fistfuls of flannel.

He let out a deep sigh, lungs working like bellows, ribs giving to the press of her own. “Mama,” he sighed, breath tickling the top of her ear.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “Was it terrible?”

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