Color of Forgiveness (23 page)

Her phone rings. She picks it up and smiles
when she sees the number.

“Hi.”

“Hey. You weren’t asleep were you?” Dylan
asks.

“Nope… just doing some writing.”

“More cowboys?” Dylan asks with a chuckle.
“I still can’t get over you writing a story about cowboys. What’re
they doing now? Ropin’ some cattle?”

“No… actually, my lead character just killed
someone.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously...”

“That’s some crazy shit.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re just so… nice and quiet and
I don’t know, you just don’t seem like you’d write about a cowboy
murdering somebody.”

“Well, you just have a stereotypical view of
things.”

“Read some of it to me.”

“No.”

“Come on. Please?”

“No…”

“Don’t make me beg.”

Myra makes a huffing sound. “Okay… but you
have to promise not to laugh.”

“I promise.”

She takes in a deep breath and begins
reading.

“
Colton’s body dropped to the dust, his
hand still tightly grasped around the gun that he had aimed at the
murderous outlaw before him. A bright red color began to seep from
the hole that Colton just put in the center of the bastard’s chest.
This is the piece of filth that stole everything from him; murdered
his family in cold blood. His chest clenches as a hot wave of
intense pain burns harshly through him when he sees the pale,
lifeless faces of his beautiful wife and two innocent daughters
flash before his eyes.

“
Colton is pulled away from his painful
thoughts when the murderer falls to his knees and gasps for his
last breath as a dribble of blood begins to ooze from the corner of
his mouth. The bastard’s cold brown eyes stay on Colton’s until he
drops face first into the dust, death consuming him... wrenching
his wretched soul to the pits of hell where he belongs.

“
But Colton’s vengeance wasn’t over.
There was one more left. One more that needed to rot in hell. And
Colton was going to be the one to send him there.”

“That’s all I’ve written so far,” she says
nervously. “I just started on it a little while ago. It needs a lot
of editing, obviously.”

Myra frowns when Dylan doesn’t answer. “Are
you there?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’m here. You really wrote that?”

“Yeah…”

“Damn, Myra, that’s really good. You kind of
shocked the hell out of me.”

“Why? Did you think I’d suck?” she asks with
a laugh.

“No, not at all… I just didn’t know how good
you were. You’re really good at that shit.”

“Thanks.”

Myra can hear Dylan take in a deep breath.
“I miss you,” he says.

“I miss you too. Do you want to come over?
You could stay the night if you wanted.”

“You don’t know how much I want to, but I’m
supposed to rest my back tonight. And if I come over, there won’t
be any resting.”

Myra grins. “We can just sleep.”

“I won’t want to sleep. I’ll want to do
other things…”

“What things?”

“Dirty, filthy things that involve you being
naked…”

Myra moans a little.

“Fuck, don’t do that shit to me,” Dylan says
in a low voice.

“I’m sorry.”

Dylan clears his throat and takes in a deep
breath. “Well, I guess I’ll let you get back to your writing. I’ll
see you in the morning.”

“I’ll fix you some breakfast.”

“Pancakes?”

She smiles. “Pancakes it is. Good night,
Dylan.”

“Good night. Sweet dreams. I plan on
dreaming about you tonight, Myra.”

Myra closes her phone and holds it to her
heart with both hands as she leans her head back against the
headboard. She closes her eyes, a happy grin on her face and in her
heart.

* * *

Dylan groans when he hears his alarm go off.
Every muscle in his body protests when he reaches over to turn the
damn thing off. He’s most definitely feeling the effects of those
damn cabinets. It takes him awhile to get up, but he finally makes
it to the bathroom and takes a quick shower. He actually picks up
his clothes off the floor and puts his towel in the hamper. Ever
since he went to all that work cleaning his house, he’s been making
a concerted effort to clean up after himself. He plans on having
Myra back over to spend the night with him – hopefully very soon –
so he’s determined to not going to let his house turn into a
shithole again before that happens.

He pulls on his jeans and throws on a T and
a flannel shirt. After downing a quick cup of coffee, he lights a
smoke before he gets into his truck.

Pulling into Myra’s driveway, his mouth
drops open and his cigarette perches precariously on his lips at
the sight before him. Slowly, he turns off his truck and just sits
there, a sick feeling building in the pit of his stomach. He
finally gets out of his truck and slowly makes his way to her door.
She opens it with a smile on her face. “Good morning,” she says
before her smile fades and a worried expression replaces it.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Call Porter,” he says as he steps inside
her house and locks the door.

“Why?”

“Somebody slashed all of your tires.”

* * *

“Can you think of anyone who might be
responsible for this… anyone other than Derek?” Porter asks. “He’s
a given since you two have already had a run-in with him. But is
there anyone else you can think of?”

Myra swallows, her stomach churning with
nausea. She shakes her head.

Dylan clears his throat. “Ray was over here
yesterday. Ray Nolen. He helped me with Myra’s cabinets. He’s never
done anything, but he kind of has a thing for Myra. Then there’s
Myra’s ex…”

“It couldn’t be Trent because he was in
Philly yesterday. Susie actually got him on video.”

“Okay, well, that rules Trent out,” Porter
says as he taps his pen against his notepad, “so we’re down to Ray
and Derek. Is there anyone else?”

“I ran into Lucia at the store the other
day, and she made a threat towards Myra.”

“What?” Myra gasps as she looks up at him.
He pulls her closer to him with the arm he has wrapped around her
and gently rubs her arm.

“What did she say?” Porter asks.

“Something about how she had her eye on Myra
and that she’d better ‘watch herself’,” Dylan says with his eyes on
Myra’s.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” she asks
him.

“I didn’t want to worry you about it,” he
says as he brings his free hand up and touches her cheek
softly.

Porter clears his throat. “So we’ve got
three suspects,” he says. “Is there anyone else you can think
of?”

“Well, the day we got back from Philly,
someone was sitting in a car watching us,” Dylan says. He then
proceeds to tell Porter about the mysterious car they saw as well
as Jackie’s account of what she saw when they were out of town.

“We’ll run the prints that we got off of
your car, but I’m going to have to be honest here with you; we
probably won’t get anything from it,” Porter tells Myra. “You don’t
have to touch a car to slash the tires. We did get some good
footprints since we had a little rain last night. Looks like a
man’s size eight boot. We’ll try to track down the exact boot type
and see if that leads us anywhere.

“I’ll also need to get a statement from
Jackie and see if she saw anything last night,” Porter adds. He
looks at Dylan. “Can you come outside and show me where the car was
parked that you saw take off? That way we can look for any evidence
like tire tracks, cigarette butts, and such.”

Dylan nods then looks down at Myra. “Will
you be okay?” he asks her.

“Yeah… go ahead.”

He studies her face for a moment. “All
right… I’ll be right back.”

After the door closes behind them, Myra
takes in a deep breath and blows it out slowly. Who would do such a
thing… and why? Could it be Derek? That’s a good possibility. She
did stop his advances, and Dylan did kind of break his face. Myra
still can’t believe what Lucia said about her to Dylan. She’s never
done anything to her. And as far as Ray goes, Myra can’t imagine
that he would have had anything to do with it. He’s always been
overly flirtatious with her, but that’s about it. Unless he’s
holding resentment that she chose Dylan over him, which is
ridiculous because Ray wasn’t even in the equation.

She walks into the kitchen and pours herself
a cup of coffee. Sitting down at the table, she stares at the
patterns of the grain in the wood. The front door opens, and she
listens as footsteps approach the kitchen. Dylan sits down next to
her. “You doing all right?” he asks.

“Yeah… are you hungry? I made pancakes
earlier. I can warm them up.”

“Nah, maybe later... Come here,” he says,
tugging on her arm.

He pulls her into his lap and wraps his arms
around her. “I’m either staying here tonight or you’re coming to my
house so be thinking about it. I won’t let you stay alone.”

“But I—”

“This is not up for discussion.”

She sighs. “Okay. I guess I can stay at your
house.”

“Good. I won’t let anybody hurt you…” he
says fiercely as he squeezes her tightly against his chest making
her feel safe and protected in his arms.

* * *

“Do you want me to start some supper?” Myra
asks. “It’s after six.”

“Nah,” Dylan grunts as he finishes securing
the last screw in the cabinet he’s working on and sets his power
drill down. “We can just order a pizza or something when we get to
my house.”

“I can’t believe how much you’ve gotten done
today,” Myra says. “The cabinets look amazing.”

Dylan appraises his work and has to agree
with her. They do look pretty damn good. “You picked them out. I’m
just installing them.”

“Well, you’re doing a fantastic job. I can’t
believe you know how to do all of this stuff,” she says as she
wraps her arms around his neck. “Thank you.” She leans up and
places a sweet kiss on his lips.

“Mmm, you’re welcome. I need to do a lot
more shit around here if that’s how I’m going to be rewarded. No
need for cash… I’ll just take your kisses.”

Myra smiles and kisses him again. Dylan
deepens the kiss, running his tongue across her lips before he
pulls back. “I’m gonna call it quits for today. Do you have your
bag packed? I’m ready to go if you are.”

“Sure. Let me go grab it.”

Dylan puts his tools away while Myra gets
her things together. He walks into the living room and finds her
putting on her jacket. He picks up her bag for her. “You ready?” he
asks.

“Yeah...”

After she locks up her house, he opens the
passenger side door of his truck and helps her in. While walking
around the truck, he shoves his hand in his coat pocket and pulls
out a pack of cigarettes as he climbs in the driver’s side. “Do you
mind if I smoke?”

Myra’s face scrunches up. “Yeah, kind of...
My mom died of cancer. Not lung cancer or anything like that – it
was cervical cancer – but I try to stay away from stuff like that
since I’m at a risk for developing the disease.”

Dylan nods and stuffs the pack of cigarettes
back into his pocket. He takes in a deep breath. “I need to stop.
It’s a nasty fucking habit. I didn’t start smoking until about a
year ago…”

He clears his throat as he backs out of her
driveway. “So when is your car going to be ready?”

“It’s done but they’re closed now so I
figured we can pick it up in the morning.”

He frowns. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not a big deal. You were busy with the
cabinets, and I really didn’t want to leave it parked outside
tonight since I still can’t park it in the garage with all of the
boxes and the cabinets and everything. So I decided that we could
just do it in the morning.”

Dylan nods. “I don’t want you worrying about
all of this. We’ll figure out who is doing this shit and take care
of it. I’ll make sure you’re safe, all right?”

“I’m not worried. And I can take care of
myself.”

“Well, I’m sure you can, but I’ll feel
better if I’m helping.”

He looks over at Myra, and she just smiles
and shakes her head at him.

“I’ll get your door,” he says as he grabs
her bag and exits the truck. He opens Myra’s door and holds her
hand as she climbs down.

“We don’t have to order pizza,” she says as
he opens his front door. “I can cook us something if you want.”

Dylan doesn’t say anything as he helps Myra
take off her jacket and throws it on the couch. He swiftly picks
her up and tosses her on his shoulder. “Fuck eating,” he growls as
he playfully smacks her on the ass. “I have something else in
mind.”

Myra squeals and giggles. “Dylan! Put me
down!” she screams through her laughter.

“Not a fucking chance. I’ve got you in my
house, woman, and now I’m gonna have my wicked way with you,” he
says.

“But your back…”

Dylan ignores her protests and smacks her
hard on the ass before he tosses her on his bed. He practically
rips off his flannel shirt, and with one hand, he yanks off his T
and throws it behind him.

“I’m gonna strip off every bit of clothing
from your body and kiss every single inch of your flawless skin.”
He licks his lips as he crawls up the bed towards her. “And I do
mean every fucking inch.”

Myra giggles and screams and tries to get
away from him, but Dylan’s too fast and grabs her foot. He rips her
tennis shoe off and throws it across the room. Stripping her sock
off, he kisses and playfully bites the bottom of her foot, causing
her to jerk and shriek with laughter. Dylan has a lot of skin to
cover, and he can’t wait to taste every last bit of it…

* * *

“You have to be starving,” Myra says,
smiling, as she runs her hand through Dylan’s damp hair. His head
rests on her chest, and he has both arms wrapped around her. He
also has one leg possessively thrown over the top of both of hers.
The man is indeed a cuddler. “You sure you don’t want me to cook us
something?”