Better Off Dead in Deadwood (49 page)

We lay there in silence for a bit, his face buried in my neck, my hand stroking his back. Something had changed between us. Maybe it was just me, but that had been different, more potent. Sex with Doc was always thrilling, but this time it had knocked me for a loop. My brain was still stumbling around, uncertain which way was up or down.

Doc moved, shifting closer, not leaving me yet. “Violet?” He kissed my neck, making me smile at the shadowy ceiling.

“Yes?”

“You taste like soap.”

I laughed. “That’s your fault. You didn’t let me finish rinsing off.”

He lifted his head, his eyes still dark with passion. “I didn’t expect you to get all soapy.”

“What did you expect?”

“I just wanted to see you standing there all wet in your underwear.”

“I improvised.”

“You did more than that.” He leaned down and kissed my lips, teasing my tongue with his. When I teased back, I felt him begin to stir inside of me.

“You inspire me,” I told him.

He ran his finger down my cheek, tenderly skimming Caly’s scratch. “And you scare the hell out of me.”

“That’s kind of hard on my self-confidence.”

He chuckled. “I’m talking about what almost happened to you at the opera house. When Cooper called, telling me you’d texted and might be in danger, asking if I had a clue where to find you,
that
scared the hell out of me.”

“I dropped my phone in the toilet before I could tell him where I was.”

Tipping my chin toward him, he squinted at me. “I know you don’t think you need any protection, but could you do me a favor and just let me try to keep you safe anyway? It will help keep me sane.”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“You need to do something for me.”

“Not talk to Cooper?” he asked.

I thought about that for a moment, weighing what had happened tonight and whether Cooper could help find Caly, who I suspected was going to want revenge if I really did destroy her arm. She didn’t seem like the forgive-and-forget type.

“No, I think I see your point with Cooper. Not that I’m thrilled about spending any more time in his company.” I grabbed Doc’s hand and kissed his knuckles. They smelled soapy. “I want you to start coming over a couple of times a week for dinner with my family.”

“Your whole family?

I nodded. “And Harvey.”

“As your
friend
?”

“No. As my boyfriend.”

“Your kids?”

“They’ll know the truth.”

He nodded, all furrowed brow. Then a grin split his face. “You mean about how I like to watch their mom take a shower?”

Chuckling, I grabbed him by the hips and pulled him closer, adjusting to accommodate more of him. “You know, I never figured you for a watcher. You seem more like the doer personality.”

“Oh, I’m a doer.” He extracted himself from me, standing and hauling me up by the arm. I stood on the bed, smiling down at him. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the shower. You need to finish rinsing off so I don’t get soap in my mouth when I
do-’er
again in the shower.”

I wrinkled my nose, laughing. “Oh, that was just bad.”

“No,” he scooped me up, kicking the bathroom door shut behind us. “Bad is how much you’re going to want me when I finish rubbing you down with that slippery soap you keep whining about.” He lowered my feet to the floor and turned on the water, and then unhooked my bra. “Let’s try this again without your clothes on.”

I let the bra fall to the floor and tugged him into the shower with me. “Or yours,” I said and closed the curtain.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Thursday, September 13th

I woke up drooling. When I pulled my face out of my pillow, I understood why—someone was cooking bacon for breakfast. After hitting the bathroom, I grabbed one thing from my bedroom and headed downstairs to eat and face the music.

Harvey stood at the stove cooking eggs and bacon while wearing the “World’s Best Mom” apron the kids had bought me for Christmas last year in hopes that I’d be inspired to try to improve my cooking skills. I’d forgotten that I had brought it up to Deadwood with us. Most of my stuff was packed in boxes and sitting in a storage unit in Rapid until we landed somewhere more permanent.

At the table, Aunt Zoe was eating with two sullen faced children—mine. I’d spilled the beans about Doc being my boyfriend to Addy and Layne last night, and just as I’d feared, it had resulted in a lot of anxious questions and angry accusations. I’d expected all of this from Layne, since it threatened his self-assigned man-of-the-house status, but Addy’s explosive reaction had left me gape-mouthed. I thought she’d be pleased. She’d seemed to like Doc from the start. I hadn’t counted on her determination to expand our family with a husband, sister, and baby brother all with the last name of Wymonds.

Pasting a smile on my face, I stepped into the kitchen. “Morning,” I said, trying to sound chipper.

Layne shoved his chair away from the table. “May I be excused?” he asked Aunt Zoe.

She looked at me, her forehead lined. I nodded to her.

“Sure, kiddo,” she said. “Put your plate in the sink.”

I tried to ruffle Layne’s hair as he passed, but he jerked away from my hand, the little brat. I watched his retreating back, his shoulders stiff.

Why did everything in my life have to be so damned hard? All I wanted was a chance for us to see whether this thing I had going with Doc had long-range potential. At this rate, we’d scare him away by Halloween.

Alrighty then, one down, one to go. I looked back toward the table and ran smack dab into Addy’s brown-eyed glare.

“Oh, come on,” I said to her. “I’ve told you all along that I was not going to marry Jeff Wymonds.”

Addy stood, her expression pinched and accusing. “You didn’t even let him try out.”

“Hey, I kissed him once, if you’ll remember.” Technically, he’d shoved his tongue in my mouth for several seconds, and when he’d finished licking my back molars he’d attempted to woo me with words about his plow and his desire to plant his seeds in my fertile field. It was one of those romantic moments they showed on engagement ring commercials that I’d not forget anytime soon. “Besides, dating me isn’t a sport, Adelynn. There are no tryouts.”

“I wanted a sister!”

“You have a brother.”

She stomped over to me, leading with her chin. “He stinks,” she counted off on her fingers, “he won’t play dress-up-the-chicken with me, he’s afraid of snakes, and he sucker punches me in the gut when you’re not looking.”

“All boys stink,” I told her. “Get used to it.” Wait until she hit high school and was surrounded by guys who’d just come from gym class.

“Hey!” Harvey said from where he stood watching us while his eggs burned. “Some of us only stink part of the time.”

Addy’s eyes got all watery, her upper lip quivering. “Thanks for only thinking about yourself, Mother.”

Oof!
Talk about sucker punches.

She ran off in tears. I scowled after her. “Addy!”

For almost ten years, I’d focused on their needs. I’d worked my ass off to provide for them, raise them in a safe environment, put food in their mouths. Now, when I finally found a man who treated me nicely and didn’t have a prison record—at least not one that I knew of—my kids acted like I was hooking up with that big-nosed child catcher in
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
.

I heard her tromping up the stairs and yelled out through the archway, “You’re welcome! Get your glasses on your face!”

Only thinking of myself? I shook my hands at the ceiling and growled.

“Violet,” Aunt Zoe said, coming over to me, enveloping me in a sweet-smelling hug. “You did the right thing. They’ll come around, just give them time. They’ve had you to themselves for all of their lives. The idea of sharing you is probably pretty scary.”

I rested my head on Aunt Zoe’s shoulder, letting her make it all better just like she always did. “Addy needs to learn that sisters aren’t always a blessing.”

“I know, honey.” She pushed me back and kissed my forehead. “Now, how are you feeling? Back to your old self?”

“I think so.” After a full night in Doc’s bed and then two days “sick” off of work, I was ready to take up my sword and go slay some more dragons. Or rather albinos in my case. Which reminded me—I held out the book I’d grabbed from my bedroom. “Doc dropped this by last night while you were at the gallery.”

He’d been late for a poker game at Cooper’s at the time and my kids were glaring at us out the window, having recently found out about his being my boyfriend, so the exchange had been brief. I’d kept the touching to just a quick peck and a wave goodbye.

Aunt Zoe took the demon book that I’d “borrowed” from Lila a month ago in the Carhart house—the one with my buddy Kyrkozz in it. “This is the book you told me about?” she asked.

“Yep. That’s it, creepy illustrations and all.”

Harvey came over, holding a piece of bacon out for me. He looked over Aunt Zoe’s shoulder. “What is that? Latin?”

I nodded, grabbing the bacon and stuffing it in my mouth. The smoked meat incited a noisy riot in my stomach for more. “You make some extra eggs for me?” I asked him.

“Of course. Someone needs to keep you well-fed. With all of this crazy shit goin’ on around here and out at my place, we all need plenty of gumption.”

I stole another piece of bacon from a plate next to the stove. “What do you mean out at your place? What’s going on out there? Something with your freaky neighbors in Slagton?”

“Maybe. Or someone else. I thought I saw something hair-raisin’ last week out behind my ol’ barn.”

And he was just now telling me this? Something clicked in my brain. “Is that why you’ve been camping out on Aunt Zoe’s couch?”

He grunted in response, looking away.

Holy crap! What had he seen that spooked him out of his own bed? Something worse than that funeral director’s head in the old outhouse? “And here I thought you were staying each night to protect me. What did you see?”

“Violet?” Aunt Zoe interrupted us, her nose buried in the book.

“What?”

“Where did you say Lila got this book?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t say.” And she’d fallen on her knife before I’d had a chance to interrogate her further. I wondered if Prudence would know how Lila came to have it.

Aunt Zoe closed the book and ran her fingers over the cover. When she looked up at me, she had the strangest expression, like I had grown a set of antlers and a red, glowing nose.

“Do you know what this book is?” she said more than asked.

“Some kind of book on how to raise demons?”

“Not raise them. It’s more of a reference guide.”

I lowered the piece of bacon. “Come again?” She’d figured that out in thirty seconds of perusing it?

“It’s sort of an encyclopedia mixed with a how-to guide, covering one demon in particular.”

Kyrkozz.

“How do you know that by just glancing at it?”

Aunt Zoe scraped her nails down the cover. “I’ve seen books like it before, only they each have a different cover.”

“What do you mean by ‘a different cover’? Are you talking about the color?”

“No, a different skin.”

The phone on the kitchen wall rang.

“I got it,” Harvey said, reaching for it.

“When you say ‘skin,’ are you talking about the cover design?” Like a template of sorts?

“No. I mean skin.” She reached out and pinched my arm. “Flesh.”

I stepped back from her, pointing at the book as if it might grow talons and sharp teeth. “That thing is covered with human flesh?”

She scratched over it again, half of her face scrunched in thought. “I don’t think it’s human.”

What?!
I squinted at her. “How do you know that?”

“Like I said, I’ve seen books like this before, handled them.”

My squint narrowed even further. “Who are you and what have you done with my Aunt Zoe?”

“Violet,” Harvey said, his voice sounding like it came from far away.

I looked over at him in slow motion.

He held up the phone. “Cooper’s on the phone.”

Cooper’s words echoed in my skull:
When I call, you’d better answer it.

I took the phone from Harvey. “What?” I said into the mouthpiece.

“Good morning to you, too, Parker. I got the results back on that box of teeth you brought to me. Where did you say you found them?”

“The Carhart house.” Which was the same place I’d found the book of flesh in Aunt Zoe’s hands. “Why?”

“The lab says they look like human canines, but they aren’t. They are wondering if I got them from an archeologist, telling me they need the location of the damned dig site.” Even through the phone, I could hear the clipped tone in Cooper’s voice. It snapped me out of my stupor.

“And you’re mad at me about it?” I asked, my blood pressure shooting skyward.

Criminy, Cooper needed to get laid and mellow out. I spoke from experience on that one, with an inner head nod to Doc with his very effective hands and mouth. Tiffany must not be doing the job for the tight-assed detective.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am. You have made a fucked-up mess in this town, and I’m the one left trying to clean it up and smooth everything over with the bigwigs who are so far up my ass that I can’t see straight. So excuse me if I’m a little frustrated with you and your goddamned box of teeth this morning.”

He was barking at the wrong dog today. I bared my teeth. “Listen,
Detective
, it’s not my fault I have to keep doing
your
freaking job for you. Now is there anything else you need from me?” Like my foot up his ass along with those bigwigs he was whining about?

“Yes.”

“What? You need me to solve another murder case for you?”

“Stop fucking up my life, Parker!” he yelled in my ear and hung up on me. The big, fat jerk.

I hung up the phone and flipped it off for good measure.

Harvey laughed. “Damn, girl. I think you just might make that boy blow a gasket yet.”

“He started it.”

“I’m sure he did, but he’s also gettin’ reamed daily from the chief of police because there ain’t no murderer sittin’ in jail after all of these kooky deaths.”