Page 76 of Out of Nowhere

“Wait, Elle. I have something to tell you before you hear it from someone else.” She took a breath. “Jeff’s fitness queen had their baby last night.”

A question formed on Elle’s lips, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask it.

Glenda said softly, “It’s a boy.”

It felt as though an arrow had pierced her heart. How could God be this cruel?

“Elle?” Glenda said. “Sweetie? I hated like hell to tell you, but I—”

“No, it’s fine. But I have to go. I’ll call you back when I can. Love you.”

She hung up before Glenda could say more and dazedly passed her phone to Weeks when he approached her and extended his hand for it.

Soon after that, she and Dawn were shown to their bedrooms upstairs and instructed to settle in.

Elle’s room overlooked the front of the house and the narrow road that connected it to the two-lane state highway by which they’d arrived. Beyond the clearing in which the house was situated, there was nothing to see except for piney woods.

With nothing else to do, she stretched out on the bed, stared at the ceiling, and surrendered herself to a tide of sorrow.

Reasonably she knew that the birth of Jeff’s child had no relevance to Charlie’s death. But somehow this new life made Charlie seem more dead. The pain of it was so bitter, she couldn’t even cry over it. Her eyes burned, but they remained dry. She couldn’t produce one tear to mitigate her anguish.

Of course, she’d used up a lot of tears last night after Calder’s flight.

“Damn you,” she whispered. He’d robbed her of dignity; now he was robbing her of the luxury of weeping. Add that to the growing list of reasons to despise him.

And the staring. Every time she’d looked in his general direction, he’d been homed in on her, and, even when she wasn’t looking his way, she could feel his watchful stare.

After he couldn’t wait to leave her last night, what was the close scrutiny about? Guilt, perhaps? Did he feel remorse over his lusty seduction followed by his breakneck getaway?

She shouldn’t care at all about what the heartless, selfish bastard was thinking or feeling. She was belittling herself by giving him any consideration at all.

Nevertheless, as she drifted off to sleep, she was thinking about him, about his face above hers, flushed and taut, eyes hot, breath hectic, when the introductory contractions of her orgasm pulsed around him.

Chapter 23

Elle was roused by a knock on her bedroom door. Groggily, she got up and opened it to find Weeks. “I came to take your dinner order.”

“What are my choices?”

“Whatever extras you want on your burger.”

Forty-five minutes later, the carry-out was delivered by a third deputy, who was startlingly young. A bit bug-eyed, he gaped at Dawn, Calder, and her; then Weeks sent him on his way.

They gathered around the dining table in the kitchen where the deputies drew Calder into a conversation about the national baseball playoffs and each team’s chances of winning the pennant.

During a lull, Calder idly dunked a french fry into a puddle of ketchup in his burger basket. “How many of you are there?”

Weeks stopped chewing, swallowed. “How many of what?”

“Men,” Calder said. “Eyes and ears. Guns. Besides that kid who brought the food, how many of you are protecting us?”

“The kid’s just an errand boy. He’s deputized, but, you know, his uncle’s a city councilman. It’s just Sims and me on duty. We drew the short straws.” He guffawed. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

Calder smiled, but Elle thought of a wolf who’d spotted an unwary rabbit. He said, “I imagined tough guys in SWAT gear, crawling around out there in the woods, watching the house through night vision binoculars.” He stretched back in his chair and chuckled. “I guess I’ve seen too many movies about covert operations.”

The two deputies laughed with him. Weeks said, “Naw, just us.”

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