Page 37 of An Unfinished Memory

“See you then, Sutton.”

The low purr went right through the phone to the spot between my thighs. I hung up and went to the microwave above the stove to reheat my reheated meal. For two minutes while waiting, I let the fantasy of camping with Wilder play through my head.

If the camper’s rocking, don’t come a knocking.

I caught my smile in the microwave door. Then I watched it fade. A girl could dream, but my trip was only happening because I’d decided to quit waiting for a fantasy to become real.

Eight

Wilder

The din of the bar was as familiar as the house I’d grown up in. I’d spent many nights here as a single deputy on my nights off. Then I’d met Sutton, and occasionally, we’d go on dates here. Not often, which was likely my fault. Now that I was a single guy, I didn’t come for the same reasons I did before I was a married man.

The bar pizza with a cold beer hit the spot better than what I could cook at home.

Eliot was with me. I was off for tonight, but Sutton had a girls’ night on Thursdays. She was probably playing darts with my sister and Vienne and Tova. If she was getting hit on, I didn’t want to know.

Yet my hand was fisted around my mug, worried my phone would ring, and she’d tell me she had a date and I shouldn’t come tomorrow or ever again.

I took a drink, hoping to chase down the acid eating up my throat.

Eliot shamelessly snagged the last bite of pizza.

“You didn’t even ask if I wanted any, jackass,” I said after I swallowed.

He shrugged. “You’re eye-fucking your beer. Thought you two needed a minute.”

I was thinking of Sutton. Our phone conversation last weekend hadn’t made things better. I’d gone to sleep that night, all cozy in the knowledge she was jealous of me and other women. If that made me an asshole, so be it. I got chewed apart from the inside out thinking of her with another dude.

If I listened to Ray, I’d be working on my campaign persona. I’d be chatting with the bartender, slapping palms with the other ranchers in the bar, and being the consummate politician I had planned to be. But Ray was still in office, and I had time. I had other things on my mind.

Eliot chomped off half the slice of pizza. We were tucked into a high-top along one of the walls of the bar. “What’s on your mind anyway? You’re not usually this quiet,” he said around a mouthful.

I lifted a brow. Neither of us were talkers unless we were glossing over horse training regimens, feed requirements for whatever season we were in, or planning on when we were working or moving cattle or horses.

He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

Eliot acted like he didn’t care, but he’d keep bugging me. So I gave him part of the truth. “Did you know Sutton’s going camping by herself soon?”

He swallowed and stared at me, his gaze contemplative. “No. How doyouknow?”

Shit. How would I have found out if Aggie didn’t tell me? Did Cody know? I didn’t know how I’d explain aconversation with Sutton when no one thought the two of us had crossed paths in months. I gambled on Eliot minding his own business and not asking follow-up questions of my siblings. “Aggie.”

He narrowed his eyes for a heartbeat, then shrugged. “Sutton’s smart. She’ll be careful.”

She would take all the precautions she could, but the what-ifs were killing me. What if she went for a hike, and no one heard from her again? What if some obsessed maniac stalked her back to the campground and broke into her camper? What if she met another lone tourist, and they hit it off and had a sex-filled weekend, and she took him to the Black Hills? She might come back engaged. Hell, married.

Acid washed back up my throat. When would I learn to quit eating bar pizza this late at night? Add in the beer, and I was in for hours of heartburn.

Right. Because it’s the food, dipshit.

“Good for her,” Eliot added when I did nothing but glower.

“You used to be my favorite brother.”

He didn’t smirk like I thought he would. Instead, he turned serious. “The time to do something about Sutton has passed. Unless things have changed?”

Everything had changed when she’d let me inside her one more time, from the second she let me take off her panties and stuff them in my pocket. The pair was washed and neatly folded in my underwear drawer. Her drawer was empty, and I hadn’t been able to set one lone pair inside. So I tucked the white lace next to my Hanes.

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