Games of the Heart

Chapter One Hey, Angel

Darrin Holliday was dead.

Mike Haines sat in the back row in the large viewing chamber at Markham and Sons Funeral Home staring at the open casket at the front of the room.

Ten minutes ago, he’d gone up, done his duty, looked down on a dead man then chatted briefly with his wife. After, he gave his ex-girlfriend from high school, Darrin’s sister, Debbie a hug and his condolences. He then moved to Mr. and Mrs. Holliday, brushed his lips against the older woman’s cheek and squeezed the older man’s hand. And after that, he’d solemnly shook Darrin’s two sons’ hands before moving to the back to find his seat.

Looking at the casket, Mike thought Darrin would fucking hate that. Being on display. Mike was surprised Darrin’s wife Rhonda had done it. Especially with her two boys, Finley and Kirby standing in front, close to that shit. But it was easy to see that even though they were forced to stand close, they were doing their damnedest to get as far away from their dead forty-four year old Dad displayed for everyone in The ‘Burg to see.

And everyone was there. Folks had even come from out of town. People Mike went to high school with that he hadn’t seen in years. Friends of Darrin’s parents who had long since moved to Florida or Arizona. Folks who’d lived in The ‘Burg for a while after high school then moved to Chicago, Lexington or Cincinnati for jobs but took the hours long drive home to say good-bye to a friend who died way too fucking young.

This was because Darrin Holliday was a man people liked. Always had been from when he was a kid. A good guy, a good son, a good brother, a good friend, a good football player who turned into a good farmer and a quiet man devoted to his wife and family.

Heart attack. Shoveling snow and then he was down. Rhonda had looked out the window, saw him in the snow and ran out. It was his eldest son, Fin, who called it in. Mike, living a stone’s throw away, was off-duty but he got the call anyway. He took off out his backdoor, ran through his yard, out the back gate and across the field to the farmhouse. He then administered CPR while Rhonda kneeled in the snow next to her husband, sobbing, her hands moving over his shoulders, his face, through his hair. It was a fucking pain in the ass to administer CPR with Rhonda all over Darrin like that but he didn’t utter a word. This was because Darrin was dead before he arrived. There was nothing he could do.

When the paramedics arrived five minutes later, Mike did his best to keep Rhonda, Finley and Kirby back. Fin and Kirb were frozen stiff, easy to control. Rhonda was hysterical, impossible to control so he did his best not to harm her while he contained her. Then he held her when she collapsed, sobbing, in his arms.

Understandable but fuck, he hated that shit. As a cop in a small town, he didn’t see it often but he saw it more than anyone else. And he never got used to it. They told him he would but he didn’t. This was because witnessing loss was impossible to get used to. A cop had two choices. Learn to bury it and use the burn it caused to make you a better cop which was the only way to eventually let it go. Or just bury it, let it fester, turn bitter and make you a cynical smartass to the point nothing fazed you. Mike had known a few cynical, smartass police officers and they were shit at their jobs because they didn’t care about the people they protected and served. They cared about nothing but getting their paycheck. So he’d learned to use the burn.

What he experienced that day with Rhonda, Finley and Kirby was worse. He’d had that more than once in his career. There was no explanation for a man dying in his prime. There was no one for Mike to set about finding. No one to blame. No one who would pay. No justice to be done. Just a man dying in the snow twelve days after Christmas and it was done.

Mike saw George Markham, the owner of the funeral home, approach Rhonda and Mike, like everyone else in the room, knew it was time. Pastor Knox was moving toward the podium. Folks started shifting about the room, taking seats. George had brought in extra seating and still there were people lining the walls.

Darrin was liked but he was also young. Most of The ‘Burg would come out for that just for curiosity sake. This was fucked but it was also the way of people. Death fascinated them. So did grief. Mike never understood that shit but then most people didn’t have his job. He got his fill of death and grief even in a small town. So, unlike that day, when he could he was happy to avoid it.

As people settled, his eyes scanned the room. Colt and February were there as were Tanner and Raquel. Colt standing against the wall by Tanner because they’d given their seats to two elderly ladies. Their wives, Feb and Rocky, were seated next to each other and across from their husbands. Colt and Feb had a young son who Mike knew, since he worked with Colt at the Station, was being looked after by Violet Callahan. Vi didn’t know Darrin and her husband, Cal, who did, was out of town. Cal and Vi had a toddler of their own, a little girl, so Mike knew Vi’s hands were full that day.

George took the podium and started the proceedings, saying a few words then introducing Pastor Knox. As he did this, Mike continued to scan the room.

He knew he was looking for her.

But he’d already looked for her and she wasn’t there.

This surprised him and it pissed him off. Not a little, a good deal.

His first reaction he understood. She loved her brother, always did, even when she went off the rails. He’d heard she came back to town, not with frequency but on occasion. Christmases. Thanksgivings. Her nephews’ birthdays. Darrin and Rhonda’s wedding which, for reasons Mike no longer remembered, he was invited to but had to miss. But he’d never seen her. Not for twenty years. She took off the summer after her high school graduation. He’d attended her party, even brought a gift, but she hadn’t so much as looked at him.

He couldn’t believe she wouldn’t come back for Darrin.

This was what pissed him off.

Obviously, she hadn’t changed.

Well she had, once. A major, fucked up change taking her from a sweet, hilarious, precocious young woman to a moody, troublemaking pain in the ass teenager. She went from daisies and rainbows to grunge but she did that with too much makeup, sulking and “the world doesn’t get me” teenage bullshit.

No one got it. Darrin was troubled by it. Debbie was ticked off about it. And their parents were baffled by it.

Mike was in Darrin’s frame of mind. He’d loved that kid. One of the best parts of going to Debbie’s house was seeing her. She was fucking hilarious and so damned sweet. She loved her parents, she loved her brother and she tolerated Debbie who always thought she was a pain in the ass even before she actually became one.

She also loved Mike and made no bones about showing him just as she didn’t anyone else. Debbie was two years younger than him, her younger sister three years younger than her. This meant when Mike was seventeen and eighteen and dating her sister, she was twelve and thirteen, gorgeous, loving and sweet as all hell.

Then when she hit fifteen she was none of those things. So much so, Mike was away at college and still, coming home, he heard all about it.

Darrin talked to her. Debbie yelled at her and got in her face. Her parents had quiet words. And Darrin even asked Mike to speak to her. Darrin knew his baby sister adored Mike. It wasn’t a secret. And he hoped, where they all failed, Mike could use the special bond she’d always had with him to break through.

And since they had that bond, he felt it and never lost that feel, he’d taken the time to find her and have a chat. This was a huge fail mostly because he treated her to gentle and open and she’d treated him to a teenaged bitch. It was like she wasn’t the same person. Gone was everything that was her and in its place was a person no one would want to know.

Their confrontation was over two decades ago and Mike still felt the pain from it. At the time he remembered he’d felt stunned at the depth of his reaction. And now, he still felt it like it happened yesterday.

He didn’t get it then, he didn’t get it now.

But over the years the pain had twisted and turned.

Sometimes, it made him contemplative. Wondering what was behind the change. Wondering if something had happened to her. Wondering if he should have tried harder. If they all should have.

Sometimes it just made him angry.

At that moment, he was feeling anger and it was manifesting itself as he sat there knowing she wasn’t going to show for her own brother’s funeral. Her brother who horsed around with her. Teased her until the light shone in her eyes and her smile was so big it looked like it would split open her face. Let her lie on top of him as they watched TV. Sat her in front of him on the tractor when he was out helping his Dad in the fields. Took her to school and, when summer started coming, swung by Fulsham’s Frozen Custard Stand to get her a cone before they headed home.

Oh yeah, he was angry.

Pastor Knox started speaking and Mike stopped scanning and looked to the reverend. The man knew Darrin, as did everyone, and his words were heartfelt. Then again, Pastor Knox was a good man. His church had recently suffered a stunning blow when he’d mistakenly hired a youth minister who was the worst kind of con man there was. But even as he dealt privately with his error in judgment, his strength of character was such that he’d hidden his personal pain and managed to guide his flock back to strong ground. And Mike knew why watching him speak about Darrin. His sorrow was obvious for Rhonda and her family’s loss, the loss to the community, the loss to his membership and he didn’t hide it.

Mike listened to Knox’s thoughtful words and he was handing over the podium to Ron Green, Darrin’s best friend since grade school when he sensed movement. He glanced over his shoulder and his body went still.

There she was, leaning against the wall at the back just inside the double doors.

Dusty.

Darrin and Debbie’s little sister.

Jesus, she’d changed again.

Completely.

No grunge. No heavy makeup. No hard look on her face.

She was wearing a tailored denim blazer over a black fitted turtleneck. Her lower half was covered in a full black skirt that hung heavy down to her ankles. Her feet were in black cowboy boots. She had a large, interesting silver and turquoise necklace that showed stark against the black of her turtleneck. Hanging close to the edge of the bottom of the turtleneck that was smoothed over her hips was a woven, black leather belt fixed at her hipbone with a silver disk set with turquoise. Black leather strands fell from the disk at her belt down her skirt nearly to her knees. She had long silver hoops set with little balls of turquoise in her ears. He could see more silver peeking from under the blazer at her wrists as well as huge turquoise and silver ring at the base of one of her fingers. She had a large, slouchy black suede purse decorated with fringe hanging from her shoulder. Her nails were tipped with wine colored polish. Her mostly straight but thick blonde hair was shining, healthy and very long, falling down her chest over her breasts. And she was wearing makeup but it was subtle.

Darrin had told him she’d settled in a small town outside San Antonio and, by the looks of her, she’d absorbed the culture. She looked like a stylish white woman cowgirl who’d been adopted by Native Americans.

Darrin had also told him, not hiding the pride, that she’d done well for herself. Something artsy, pottery or some shit like that. Darrin said she had her own gallery on the River Walk in San Antonio as well as had her stuff in other places throughout Texas, the Southwest and the Rockies. Exclusive galleries, all top-notch. He also told Mike she lived on a ranch and owned horses.

Taking in her appearance, it surprised Mike that Darrin didn’t lie or even exaggerate. She was wearing a fortune in silver and turquoise. Her boots were not shabby by a long shot. Although long, her hair was cut in chunky, attractive layers that suited the shape of her face and the long line of her neck and Mike knew it was no hack job and likely cost a fortune. And her clothes, considering he understood this better than most men due to his ex-wife’s proclivities for shopping for designer shit, were the good stuff.

She wore it well, all of it, hair, clothes, jewelry, makeup. She was clearly comfortable in her style. She wasn’t tall nor was she short but a long skirt like that usually suited women who had couple more inches than she did. But somehow it also suited her.

His eyes moved from her body to her face. She was leaning back against the wall and had her head bowed to look at her feet. But she wasn’t looking at her feet and he knew this because her eyes were closed. He had her profile and, at first, he thought her face was blank. But he also noticed that there was a pallor under her skin. Her lips were soft and as he watched, he saw her little, even white teeth emerge and bite her full lower one.

Fuck, he was wrong. She wasn’t blank. She was feeling this. She was in pain.

Her head lifted, her teeth left her lips and her eyes opened.

Mike had always liked her eyes. Debbie’s eyes were blue. The rest of the Hollidays were dark brown, like Mike’s. When Dusty was a young girl they always held a warmth that was astonishing. The kind of warmth that could welcome you with a glance, making you feel like she missed you when you were gone and couldn’t wait for that moment you returned. They could also dance like no others he’d ever seen, with amusement, mischief, adoration.

But even with her face mostly in profile, he saw her eyes weren’t dancing. The warmth wasn’t there either.

They weren’t cold.

They were wounded.

Yes. She was in pain. A great deal of it.

He heard Ron finish up and looked forward. Pastor Knox came back to the podium to deliver the prayer and Mike bowed his head with the rest. Then he lifted it when Pastor Knox mumbled, “Amen”.

George Markham hit the podium to inform them the service was over and they’d be moving to the cemetery to lay Darrin to rest. People got up from their seats, shifted, moved and Mike stood too, turning immediately toward Dusty.

But when he did, she was gone.

“Thank you for coming, Mike.”

He was standing with Rhonda and Debbie on the porch just outside the door to the farmhouse and Rhonda was giving him her good-bye. There was a crush of people in the house. The dining room and kitchen tables along with every surface in a common area were covered in platters of food or bowls of snacks. He was holding Rhonda’s hand, squeezing it and looking into her eyes.

They were done, he knew, at least for a time. She couldn’t look at him without seeing him bent over her dead husband, trying to get his heart pumping again. She might never be able to look at him without remembering what they shared.

He would need to avoid her until she gave him the all-clear and he knew that might never happen. This happened to cops, not frequently, but it happened. You shared a tragedy, you delivered bad news; in a small town it was hard to avoid the man who gave it to you. But you did it all the same.

He wasn’t happy about this with Rhonda. Darrin was a friend, without him, Rhonda, in normal circumstances, probably wouldn’t continue to be. Not by either of their design, they would just drift apart without a common anchor. He liked her, she was a little flighty, a little oversensitive, but she was a good woman and now she and her boys needed all the friends they could get.

But it was not his choice and he sighed, squeezed her hand deeper and let her go.

She smiled a small, joyless smile and drifted back into the house.

Debbie moved to him and hooked her hand around his elbow, propelling him over the porch and down the steps to the walk.

“You doin’ okay?” he asked softly.

“No,” she answered honestly.

“Right, honey, what I mean is, you gonna be okay?”

She looked up at him, took a small breath and replied, “Yes. I’ll be all right.”

Mike nodded knowing even before he asked the question that she would. Debbie was like that. She loved her brother, he knew, but she was the kind of woman who sorted her shit in short order and moved on. She’d do the same after losing Darrin and she wouldn’t waste time with it.

He moved with his long since ex-girlfriend toward his SUV as he asked, “There a reason Dusty didn’t show at the cemetery or here?” He jerked his head back to indicate the farmhouse.

Debbie was looking at him and he watched her face get hard.

“Is there a reason she didn’t show at the service?” she surprisingly returned and continued. “Is there a reason she gave us such shit about this whole thing? Is there a reason Dusty does anything?”

Mike stopped them by his SUV, turning to face her, feeling his brows had drawn.

“She was at the service, Deb,” he informed her and he saw her brows draw together.

“She was?” she asked as she dropped her hand from his elbow.

He nodded. “She stood at the back against the wall.”

Debbie studied him a split second before she rolled her eyes.

“So Dusty,” she stated. “Silent rebellion. Nothing ever changes.”

This didn’t connect. Standing at the back of the viewing chamber in a funeral home during her brother’s memorial service, she didn’t look like a rebel. She looked like a confident woman who knew who she was but who was also in pain.

“What’s she rebelling against?” Mike asked.

Debbie’s head cocked irately to the side. “Uh…everything?” She asked just as she answered. “She’s Dusty, Mike. You know how she is. She’s a pain in the ass. She always has been even way before everyone saw it. Rhonda’s a freaking mess. Those boys are numb. Mom and Dad are close to losing it. And what does Dusty do? I’m hundreds of miles away, just like her, trying to deal with Rhonda, Fin, Kirb, set up a funeral for my freaking brother and she’s handing me shit. I didn’t need shit. I needed help. I have a job, a home, a life and I had a brother to put in the ground and she’s handing me shit. Same old Dusty. It’s never changed.”

Back in the day, Mike had not understood Debbie and Dusty’s relationship. Whereas everyone adored Dusty before she’d turned, Debbie hadn’t. She’d explained more than once how her little sister worked her nerves, not occasionally, often. They fought all the time.

But even with Debbie’s explanations, Mike didn’t get it.

At first, he’d thought it was because Dusty often pushed her way in when Mike was at their house to be with Debbie. He had to admit, this was frustrating considering the fact that, if he had his chance, he wanted to be making out with Debbie and feeling her up and he couldn’t do that with an animated twelve year old around. Strangely, Dusty, being Dusty, he always got over his frustration quickly and started teasing her to make her giggle, trading wisecracks, something Dusty was really good at, and just goofing around. Debbie liked attention and he figured she didn’t like her little sister taking his. Mike tried to stop it but he couldn’t. Dusty was that appealing.

Later, after he’d taken Debbie’s virginity, their relationship hit a different zone and he was far more capable of gently extracting Deb and himself from Dusty. He was a teenage boy so he had better things to do than goof around with a thirteen year old kid.

Even so, Debbie’s attitude toward her sister never changed so he knew it wasn’t that.

He never got it except to think that when Dusty changed, Debbie always saw something others had not until it came out.

Still, this time, it didn’t connect. The Dusty standing at the back of the funeral home was not the Dusty he last saw twenty years ago. And she had no anger in her face, no hardness.

Just pain.

“If she’s here, she’s protesting,” Debbie went on throwing her hand back at the house. “Leaves me, Mom and Dad, Rhonda, the kids all to deal so she could have her little drama. Well fuck that. We’ve got enough real drama to handle. She can have her own imaginary one. Dusty was always good at living in an imaginary world.”

Mike wanted to know what Dusty was protesting. He also wanted to know what shit she gave Debbie about the funeral. And he wanted to know these two things more than was healthy. He understood it immediately. And it annoyed him.

It also annoyed him because he couldn’t deny that Debbie was right. Dusty appeared at the service but disappeared before she even spoke to her grieving parents, sister, sister-in-law and nephews. She didn’t deign to appear at the graveside. And now, with a house full of people which would mean, in a couple of hours, a house full of mess that would need to be cleaned up, she was nowhere to be seen.

Evidence was suggesting she hadn’t changed. She’d gone from a generous, fun-loving child to a selfish, sullen teenager, skipped town the minute she could and stayed away as much as she could. Her brother was dead, his family, which was her family, suffering and she was absent.

“Sorry, honey,” he muttered. “Shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

Her smile was small but it was sincere when she whispered, “If you didn’t, I couldn’t bitch about it. So…thanks.”

“You know where I live,” he told her. “As long as you’re here, you need to bitch or anything, find me.”

Her head tipped to the side and she studied him again before saying softly, “And you haven’t changed either. A woman meets a lot of men in her life. They all have types so they all have titles. Sucks for me that when I was too young to get it, I met The Good Guy.”

He didn’t know if he heard regret in her voice or not. He also needed to shut this down. He enjoyed Debbie in high school. But with her tailored, expensive suit, her sturdy, low-heeled not stylish pumps, her minimally made up face, her hair cut in a short style that meant she didn’t have to waste precious time to fashion it, time she could be using to make money and bust balls as an attorney, she was not his thing. He couldn’t say she wasn’t attractive. What he could say was for reasons he didn’t get and didn’t want to, she did her damnedest to hide it. He’d learned to pay attention, read the signs, weed out the red flags and move on. He’d learned the hard way. Twice. He wasn’t going through that again.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he muttered, leaned down, brushed his lips against her cheek then straightened away. Even as he moved back several inches, he lifted a hand to give her upper arm a squeeze before he continued on a mutter, “You take care.”

Debbie Holliday was far from dumb. She saw the brush off and he registered when she did. This meant her earlier comment held regret. She was hoping for reconciliation. Not, he knew, a real one. No, she wanted a reminder she was alive. She wanted to participate in the good parts of living. She wanted familiarity and nostalgia. She wanted her ex high school boyfriend to fuck away the pain of losing her brother.

And Mike had no intention of doing that. He had a good memory and he’d initiated her to lovemaking. He’d had one girl before her so he was no expert. Still, as their teenage sex life carried on, he’d used her to learn how to give as well as take. She’d used him to learn how to get whatever she could. She was into experimentation, which he liked. But in the end, she was a selfish fuck. It wasn’t a nice thing to think but it was true. And everything he knew about her now screamed she hadn’t changed.

He didn’t need that shit.

He released her arm, tipped up his chin, opened the driver’s side door to his SUV and swung in. He switched on the ignition and pulled out, navigating the dozens of cars that lined their lane, feeling then seeing Debbie standing in her black suit on the walkway cleared of snow watching him go.

And he went.

The drive to his townhouse, which was in a development right next to the Holliday Farm, was, at most, five minutes. And it was this because he had to drive to the entrance of the development and navigate the streets inside it to get to his place. If he could drive his 4x4 across the field separating his townhome from the farm, it would take around twenty seconds.

But he didn’t drive to his townhome. His kids were with his ex-wife, Audrey for the weekend.

And there was a possibility that Dusty Holliday was in town. Her brother dead, her sister in from DC, her parents up from Florida. And she was pitching her silent fit instead of standing with her family and helping them deal.

And this pissed him off. Too much. More than was rational. But he didn’t fucking care. He’d known her brother since he could remember. He’d gone to church with her family the same. He took her sister’s virginity. He’d given her his time and attention. And an hour and a half ago, he stood by her brother’s graveside watching his body lowered into the ground.

Someone had to pull Dusty Holliday’s head from her ass and with Darrin, a year older than Mike, under fresh dirt, Mike decided it was going to be him.

They had two hotels in town, both of them situated close to the on ramp to the freeway.

And he was a cop. A cop with a badge.

Seeing her and her clothes, he went to the more expensive hotel, gave her name and flashed that badge.

Without delay, they gave him her room number.

He used the stairs rather than the elevator. This was habit. With a job, a house and two teenage kids he had full custody of, he didn’t have the time he wanted to work out. So he habitually found ways to be active.

He’d played basketball in high school but was not near good enough to play at his alma mater, Purdue which had a rich basketball history and recruited the best they could get. Still, with his frat brothers, they played basketball as often as they could, three, four times a week.

After college, he’d stayed fit because he liked it and he stayed fit for the job.

But when he married Audrey, his life changed.

He worked his ass off to pay the bills she accumulated. He didn’t have time for basketball with buddies or to hit the gym since, until he made detective, he worked two jobs. When he made detective and the hours meant he had to let go of the other job then, later, when he got quit of Audrey, he took it up again. One-on-ones with Colt or Mike’s partner Garrett “Merry” Merrick. Or two-on-twos, Merry and him against Colt and his friend Morrie. And he played with his son, Jonas. He also hit the gym. But after the divorce, when Audrey didn’t look after their kids during her part of their joint custody, he fought her and got them full. They were teenagers and busy, social but still, they managed to take a lot of time. This meant his four-weekly visits to the gym and once weekly one-on-ones or two-on-twos got cut back to twice-weekly gym visits if he was lucky and once or twice a month basketball games.

So if he had the chance to do something physical, he did it as a matter of course.

This time he did it also in hopes of cooling his temper.

It didn’t work.

He hit the fourth floor, moved through the door and followed the signs to her room number.

Without delay, he knocked.

Then he waited.

It couldn’t have taken more than a minute but that minute was too fucking long and he was about to knock again when the door was open.

And there she was right in front of him.

Her hair was no longer down but in a messy knot with thick, spiky locks shooting out of it everywhere at the top back of her head. She was no longer dripping silver and wearing black but wearing very faded jeans and an equally faded and beat up once burgundy now washed out tee. The deteriorating white decal on front had a cowboy in chaps and spurs being thrown from a bronco with western-style words that demanded you, “Eat it, cowboy!” underneath and in an arch over it, it said, “Schub’s Texas Saloon and Hoedown”. Her feet were bare, toes tipped in the same wine as her fingernails and he registered she couldn’t be more than five foot seven but was probably closer to five foot six. He knew this because, at six one, he had quite a ways to look down at her.

She still had on her makeup and silver bracelets on both wrists.

And she was staring up at him, eyes wide, lips parted, visibly shocked.

“Mike,” she whispered.

And that, again irrationally and again he didn’t give a fuck, pissed him off.

Dusty, comfortable, removed, sitting in her hotel room relaxing.

Yeah, it pissed him off.

So he pushed past her and walked in her room.

It was nice, clean, well-decorated. He’d been in one of these rooms once when someone had OD’ed in one two years ago. Other than that, never.

There was a beat up but stylish tan leather satchel on the luggage stand. A scattering of her jewelry with a cell phone and a keycard were on the nightstand. Her blazer, skirt and turtleneck were tossed, clearly without thought, on the chair. Her cowboy boots both on their sides were in front of the chair where they’d been dropped and forgotten. Her big, fringed, black suede purse looked like it had exploded on the desk. There was an MP3 player on the bed, the covers not smooth, the pillows piled against the headboard and depressed. She’d been lying there, enjoying music.

This, he saw, hadn’t changed. Not ever. She’d shared a room with Debbie who was obsessively tidy. Dusty had always been…not. In any way. She did her chores as given to her by her mother but her side of the room always looked like a tornado had been through it. Mrs. Holliday used to nag her about it but had given up. Debbie fought with her all the time about it. Dusty never gave a shit. Dusty had better things to do and she made this point clear when she found a plaque in a gift shop, bought it with her allowance and put it on her side of the room. It stated, “Boring women have immaculate homes.” It was a daily “fuck you” to her sister. Mike had always secretly thought it was hilarious. Debbie hated that fucking plaque, it drove her insane. And no matter how many times Mike explained that her getting angry about it was feeding Dusty’s glee, she just kept right on getting angry about it.

“What are you doing here?”

He heard her voice, soft, musical and he turned to face her.

She’d sung in the children’s choir at church in addition to both the junior high and high school choirs. She’d had a lot of solos. Her voice was pure and sweet, reminiscent of Karen Carpenter. Even when she had her turn, she never quit singing. She went to competitions with the choir all over the state, won ribbons and trophies and led the choir to county, sectional, regional and, in her senior year, state victories. She cleaned away the grunge for that, he’d heard since Darrin had told him about it, again proudly. She loved singing so much she gave up the grunge to do it. Her speaking voice, even when she was younger, was nearly as beautiful as her singing voice. He’d always thought so.

And it hadn’t changed.

And, fuck him, with maturity, it was also a lot fucking better.

“Your Mom and Dad, sisters, nephews, they’re all at the farm,” he informed her.

“I know,” she replied quietly.

“They could use your help,” he went on.

“I –” she started but, pissed, Mike talked over her.

“Rhonda’s a fuckin’ mess. Your Mom looks like she’s been hit by a freight train. Your nephews have both closed down. Your Dad’s usin’ so much energy not to unman himself in front of company, it’s a wonder he doesn’t collapse and you? You’re kickin’ back in jeans and a tee, listenin’ to tunes and maybe contemplating what to get from room service.”

Her face changed, he saw it and he understood the change. Even if he wasn’t a cop and his ex-wife hadn’t made an art of deceit to hide her overspending, both these giving him years of experience reading people, he would have understood the change.

She looked like he’d struck her.

Mike didn’t care. She needed to snap out of it.

So he held her eyes and kept going.

“I don’t get you, Dusty. I didn’t get your bullshit twenty years ago. I don’t get it now. No, strike that, I definitely don’t get it now. This is your family. These people love you and they just put your brother in the ground. Seriously, I wanna know and you’re gonna fuckin’ tell me. What in the fuck is the matter with you?”

“You’re joking,” she whispered.

“I’m not,” he returned.

“You’re joking,” she repeated immediately on another whisper.

“I’m not,” he repeated too.

Then, instantly, she leaned in, her eyes narrowed and she shrieked, “You’re joking!”

Mike opened his mouth to retort but Dusty wasn’t done.

“I don’t see you for twenty years, Darrin’s fucking dead, you walk up to my hotel room and give me Debbie’s shit? Have you lost your mind?” She threw her hands up, took the three steps that separated them and poked him hard in the chest. “You know her. You know her and her shit.” She threw both hands up again and asked, “Honest to God, Mike, honest to God? You think I’m kicking back?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. She leaned in and shouted in his face, “Well, I’m not!”

She took two steps away then pivoted and started pacing.

And, at the same time, she let it all hang out.

“Fucking Debbie. Debbie! God, if I didn’t know it would kill my mother, I’d get in a bitch-slapping, hair-pulling, rolling around the house, smackdown sister catfight with that bitch. God!” she cried, stopped and whirled on him. “Rhonda’s a goddamned mess but even as a mess, she knew what Darrin wanted. Does Debbie listen?” She leaned into him again and shouted, “No! Rhonda said Darrin wanted only family, a small service, no big thing, no one at the house. He knew Rhonda couldn’t deal with that shit. He knew, fuck, everyone knows Rhonda’s sensitive. He knew bad shit went down with him if he was forty-four or ninety-four, she wouldn’t be able to cope. So he wanted it easy on her. He wanted to give us the closure we all needed then get us to a place where she could help his wife move on. But not Debbie, no,” she drew out the “no” sarcastically. “It’s not seemly, Debbie says. The town will want to say their good-byes, Debbie says. Darrin is the fourth generation to work that farm, Debbie says, so we’ve got to keep up appearances, Debbie freaking says. Has Debbie been sleeping with my brother for the last twenty years?” she asked, leaning in then jerking back and shouting, “No! Has she given him two sons? No! Does she give a shit what he wanted? Does she give a shit about what would be easier on Rhonda, my boys and, frankly, Mom? No! She wants what she wants and fuck anyone else. So guess what, Mike? She pushed and she pushed and she bitched and she wheedled and she played games and we were all so fucking over her shit, she got what she fucking wanted.”

She stopped shouting and did it breathing hard, the pain stark in her eyes right alongside the fury.

But Mike had long since realized his mistake. He knew it. He saw it all over her at the funeral home, his instincts screamed it but he ignored it and now he felt like a dick. And he felt this because he’d acted like one.

So he instigated damage control.

“Sweetheart –” he started but she shook her head, stepped back and kept talking.

“That’s not the worst of it, Mike. He wanted to be cremated. Debbie said no. And Rhonda wanted a closed casket. And Debbie…said…” she leaned in, “no.”

“Jesus,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” she snapped back immediately. “Jesus. And Rhonda is sensitive but she isn’t stupid. My brother died and she called me right away. She knew she didn’t have the strength to deal with arrangements. She knew Debbie would be Debbie. She knew what Darrin wanted, told me and I sorted it all out. Every last fucking detail. Then Mom, being Mom and never able to keep her mouth shut, tells Debbie and Debbie loses her mind. Then she’s all up in my shit and wandering DC with that stupid thing attached to her ear calling me, Mom, Rhonda, Dad, George Markham, everybody. Now me, this is my brother, this is Darrin,” her voice cracked, the sorrow clogging her throat. Mike prepared to move to her but she pressed on and he stopped, “I wanted what he wanted. I wanted to look out for his woman, his family.”

Her voice was thick, her words were taking effort but she kept going, needing to say them so Mike stood where he was and let her.

“So I was ready to do what I had to do to make certain he got what he wanted and I had their backs. But Mom, being Mom, wanted peace and Debbie, being Debbie, would not shut the fuck up about it. And since I could fucking remember, the best way for Mom to make that peace was give Debbie what she wanted. So she talked Rhonda into that shit and she told me to lay off. Rhonda knew I was pissed way the fuck off and so did Dad. But me digging my heels in wasn’t helping anyone, it was just making a bunch of shit shittier. So I backed off. But I wasn’t going to be a party to that, Mike. It was enough to walk into that fucking, fucking,” her voice cracked again but she pushed right through it, “funeral parlor and see my brother fucking dead and laid out for everyone to see the same. And I wasn’t going to be a party to the rest of that shit Debbie orchestrated for whatever reasons Debbie does whatever the fuck she wants to do. And I know and so did Dad and Rhonda, that if I had to spend even a minute with that bitch, I’d lose my mind. So they told me to stay away. So I’m staying away. I saw them this morning when Debbie was at the funeral parlor doing what Debbie does best, bossing everyone around. When everyone’s gone, including my bitch of a sister who has some stupid-ass conference call she has to take on a Sunday, I’ll see them tomorrow. But now, so I don’t rip all her goddamned hair out and make a really, really fucking bad day worse, I’m here, kicking back and listening to music.”

She stopped talking and Mike gave her time. When it was clear she was done talking, he stopped giving her time.

“I was out of line,” Mike admitted gently.

“Yeah, you were,” Dusty returned immediately.

He held her eyes and she returned the gesture.

They did this for a long time.

Then Mike, already having jumped to conclusions, unusually followed a knee-jerk reaction and commenced acting like a dick, went right on making the wrong choices and stupidly whispered, “Hey, Angel.”

He hadn’t called her that in over two decades. He used to call her that all the time. He thought it would be familiar and welcome. But, bottom line, that was who she was to him. Always.

She instantly dissolved into tears.

Then he was across the room and had her in his arms. She held on, up on her toes, shoving her face in his neck, her arms closing tight around his shoulders and she sobbed. He bent his head so his lips were close to the skin of her neck. He could smell her unusual perfume, hints of musk, lesser hints of floral, vaguely outdoorsy but undeniably feminine and he listened to her quiet weeping as he felt her body move against his, bucking uncontrollably with her tears.

“For…for…forty-four,” she stammered softly in his ear.

“I know, honey,” he whispered against her neck, her arms going tighter.

“He…he…he won’t ee…even see the boys graduate high school.”

Mike didn’t respond, just kept holding her close.

“He wanted to be in the fields,” she whispered then clarified, “his ashes.”

Jesus. Fucking, Debbie. Bullshitting him. Skating toward coming onto him. And doing that to Darrin.

“Now, he’s just rotting,” she went on.

“He isn’t doing that, darlin’,” Mike replied, she fell to the soles of her feet, her head went back, his went up and he caught her watery eyes.

“He is, Mike,” she told him quietly.

“No he isn’t, honey. He’s gone.” His arms gave her a squeeze. “It sucks, I know, it really fucking sucks but he’s gone. It doesn’t matter where his body is because he’s no longer in it.”

Her eyes held his for long moments. Then she nodded.

“You’re right,” she whispered.

“I am,” he agreed and when he did, the clouds in her eyes parted and her lips quirked.

Then her arms shifted but not to let him go. They moved from rounding his shoulders so her hands could wrap around the sides of his neck. Then her thumbs moved out to stroke his jaw. And as she did this, her eyes were moving over his face.

Shit. Fuck him.

Fuck him.

He knew immediately where her mind was turning. It was where her sister’s had turned.

Mike wanted not one thing to do with Debbie Holliday.

But Dusty…

This Dusty.

Fuck him.

“Dusty –” he started. What he was going to say he didn’t know. What he knew was, her face had changed, her body had relaxed into his and his arms did not move from around her.

Before he could say it, though, she spoke.

“Shocker,” she muttered.

Her word was unexpected so he replied, “Pardon?”

Her eyes left his mouth and came to his. “Shocker,” she repeated softly. “That you’re even more gorgeous than when you were high school. Total shocker.”

It wasn’t. If she took any time to look in the mirror she’d see the same thing every day.

“Honey –” he started, forcing his arms from around her, his hands sliding to the sides of her waist to set her away but her fingers pressed into his neck and he stopped.

“Good genes, Mike Haines,” she whispered, her eyes dropping to his mouth, her body sliding up his as she went back up on her toes. “You’ve always had them.”

Fuck.

Her lips hit his but not for a kiss. Eyes open and staring into his, her lips moving against his lips, she warned, “I’m gonna kiss you, babe.”

His fingers pressed into her waist and he warned back, “This is not a good idea, Dusty.”

Her eyes flared in a way he felt in his dick and her mouth moved against his so he knew she’d smiled.

“Yeah?” she asked then didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, I’ve carried through with a lot of bad ideas, gorgeous. And I’ve done all right.”

Before he could respond, her hands slid into his hair, holding his head to hers and her lips pressed hard.

Any other woman, bar none, made a play on him like that, he wouldn’t like it. Complete turn off. He made the plays. He initiated the moves.

But fuck him, her lips felt good. Her tits also felt good pressed tight to his chest. The soft flesh under his fingers felt good. And she smelled fucking great.

And there was the small fact that he’d had nothing but his hand for over two months. And the last woman who he’d shared a bed with was of the Debbie in high school variety.

It had been a while.

Too long. Way too fucking long for a man like him.

So his mouth opened over hers.

Her tongue instantly slid inside.

His tongue instantly forced it out and slid into her mouth.

She flattened herself against him.

Fuck, that felt great.

His arms closed around her and she felt good in them. Too good. She wasn’t too short.

She was fucking perfect.

He slanted his head and deepened the kiss. She tilted hers, let him in and did it on a sexy whimper that vibrated against his tongue and he felt straight to his dick.

His hands immediately went to her ass.

She immediately gave a little hop.

He caught her, lifting her, her legs rounded his hips and, kissing her the whole way, he walked Dusty Holliday to the bed.

Then he put her in it, joining her there.

And then Mike Haines proceeded to fuck away her pain at losing her brother.