How long had it been for me? I hadn’t had any kind of relationship in over five years, and other than a few one-night stands, which I wasn’t particularly proud of, I hadn’t had any sex either.

A quickie with Jonah Steel wasn’t the worst idea.

But not now. He was a patient. His brother was a patient. It was just all too wrong.

As he closed the distance between us, I crossed my arms over my chest again, wishing I formed a more imposing presence.

“You just stop right there. Don’t come any nearer to me. I swear to God, I will scream.”

Chapter Five

Jonah

I stalked toward her. “Who’s going to hear you? You said yourself the secretary is gone for the day.”

“There are people in the offices adjacent to mine,” she said, chewing on her lip.

I closed the distance between us with one more stride, grabbing her hand. I placed it on the bulge beneath my jeans. “You feel that? Feel how much I want you?”

Her hands trembled against mine.

“Tell me you don’t want me. Tell me you’re not wet for me right now, and I’ll never bother you again.”

She shivered against me, and her nipples poked out from the green silk of her blouse. I reached toward her and fingered one.

She groaned, closing her eyes.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a woman, Melanie. A long, long time. I want you. Tell me you want me too.”

She shook her head, still biting her lower lip. Her skin turned that rosy pink I had seen during our session.

I lowered my voice, moving to her ear. “Just tell me. Tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll go.”

She pushed me backward. “I can’t. Don’t you understand?”

“From where I’m standing, Melanie, we’re both consenting adults. You told me your age. So what’s so wrong about it?”

“I… I can’t do this anymore.” She grabbed her handbag from the corner of her desk. “Please, let yourself out.”

Within seconds, she was gone.

 

I met my buddy Bryce Simpson at Murphy’s Bar in Snow Creek later that evening.

“Who’s watching the kid tonight?” I asked, referring to his ten-month-old son, Henry.

“My mom and dad. They’re crazy about the little guy.”

“Are you still staying at the house with them?” Bryce’s father was the mayor of Snow Creek.

“Yeah, for now. I’m looking to find a place of my own. I think Henry and I might stay here for a while.”

“Really? That would be great. I was just telling—” Whoops, I had been about to say that I had told a therapist that I had very few friends. So didn’t want to go there. “I was just thinking that it would be nice to have you around.”

“I hear Talon has a girl.”

I took a sip of my CapRock martini and nodded. “Yeah, she’s very nice. Young though. Only twenty-five. Marj’s age.”

“Wow, that is young.”

“She doesn’t seem young though. She’s the city attorney.”

“Yeah, I heard. That’s crazy what happened with Larry Wade.”

I nodded. “News travels fast.”

Bryce’s eyes went glassy. “I’m sure sorry about what happened to Talon. I had no idea.”

I still didn’t know how to respond to things like this. I wanted to squirm and pretend I hadn’t heard Bryce. I could only imagine how uncomfortable it was for Talon. “No one did. It was very hush-hush.”

“Why? Why didn’t your parents try to find out what had happened?”

“That’s what we’re all trying to figure out. They had their reasons for keeping quiet, I guess. But at least one of those motherfuckers will come to justice.”

“Pretty scary,” he said. “It could have been either one of us.”

True that. It had haunted me since it happened twenty-five years ago. I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. “Yeah, it should have happened to me.”

“What the heck are you talking about?”

I cleared my throat. Bryce was my oldest friend. If I couldn’t be honest with him, I couldn’t be honest with anyone. “The day Talon was taken, he went out to the Walkers’ ranch to look for clues. He asked me to go with him, but I refused. If I had gone…”

“If you’d gone, they’d have taken both of you.”

I shook my head. “Ryan was with him, and he got away. He got away because Talon protected him. He protected his little brother, like I should’ve protected mine.”

“You can’t hold on to something that happened so long ago, man.”

If only it were that simple, but I didn’t think for a minute Bryce would understand. Then again, maybe he would. Luke Walker, the boy who had been kidnapped before Talon, was Bryce’s cousin. Talon had told Ryan and me what had happened to Luke Walker. Two of the kidnappers had chopped him up into pieces while they forced my brother to watch. I chilled to the bone. I couldn’t be the one who told Bryce that horror story. Still, he might understand my feelings about failing to protect Talon.

“Do you ever feel guilty about what happened to Luke? He wasn’t your brother, but he was your cousin.”

“I missed him, even though we weren’t overly close. We didn’t have a lot in common.” He shrugged. “But guilt? Not really. Maybe I should have. It was horrible that he disappeared and was never found. I was bummed when he disappeared, but nobody knew he was taken. We all thought he’d run away at first and that he’d eventually show up.”

“But then Talon disappeared.”

“But remember, none of us knew about Talon. It happened during the summer, and by the time school started up again, Talon was back. Then your parents covered it up, so no one knew.”

He was right, but then something shot into my mind. “You know, I never thought of this before, but after Talon, no one else was taken. At least not from around here.”

Bryce nodded. “You’re right.”

Larry Wade had been caught, but the other two hadn’t. Those two could have kept abducting kids. “My parents knew Larry Wade was one of Talon’s kidnappers, and they let him get away with it. I sure as hell don’t know why. Larry claims he helped Talon escape, and maybe he did, but I still don’t get why my parents let him go.”