Wildly Inappropriate (25 page)

The officers exchanged uneasy glances. "Uh, when was this?"

Daniel was seething now. "My mother disappeared twenty-eight years ago. Yesterday, actually, was twenty-eight years. So you have an open case file you'll need to read and you need to get a detective involved. You can do that from my yard."

The pair continued to look at each other uncertainly. "I was nine, dammit," Dan roared. "Quit wasting my time. I've waited on you to solve this disappearance for most of my fucking life and when I hear my mother's jawbone might be on my back porch, and you're more concerned about laughing at a dog's name, then hell no, I don't want you in my fucking house."

"We don't know these remains are that old," one of them pointed out. "Forensics would have to determine that."

"I trust they're on the way? Or did you drop what may be my mother's remains into a plastic to-go bag?"

Cynda shook off his hand. "Gentlemen, let me show you out."

Dan felt Cammie would've been proud of her in that moment. She opened the door and stood there, hand cocked on one hip, tapping her foot until they filed past her. As soon as she closed the door behind them, he lifted her. Her legs went around him. He pressed her back against the door and kissed her until all he could feel was Cynda.

With regret, he broke off their kisses. Responsibility was warring with his personal desires, and he'd put responsibility first for so long he didn't know how to push it aside now, even though he wanted to. "I need to get Daisy to lead the police to wherever she found this bone, Cynda. She can do that as well as any cadaver dog, assuming this county has a cadaver dog, but she'll only do it for me."

* * * *

If he doesn't stop pacing back and forth in front of the sink, he's gonna wear a hole in the floor.
Cynda wanted to distract him. The garage wouldn't close for another three hours, meaning his brothers weren't around to help shoulder the burden of the wait. No matter whose skeleton they found, until it was identified, she knew what they'd all be thinking. That made her sad for Lila, to have her joyful announcement muted by the specter of Cammie's disappearance, but her immediate concern was Daniel. She knew the process of identification would take days, or even longer, from bitter personal experience.

Police personnel filed past the window, some carrying stakes and yellow crime scene tape. None knocked on the door and she feared that his taking up for her might cost Daniel something in the long run.

Cynda ached to be anything other than what she was. A young, black, unemployed woman in the South had no standing, no power at all she felt. She longed to be more to him than a sex toy, but how? She felt like that damn peach his grandfather had developed—tasty, but with too much downside. Her skin made it hard for her to fit into his world, but neither was she desirable enough to have some chance at making that happen, beyond their game. So, other than the fact that ten police vehicles had her blocked in, why was she still here? She'd found her phone in a kitchen drawer, lying beside a certain object he still needed to relocate.

Something more seemed to be weighting her feet than her signature on a piece of paper that gave him all rights and her none. She knew the easiest thing she'd ever done had been to sign that contract, because that piece of paper distilled her existence into a few short sentences. She only felt relevant with her legs spread. But—

He owes me an hour.
There was no point in wasting it talking about a piece of land he couldn't sell now. A portion of the exact piece of land she'd seen on the map Daniel had showed King was being taped off and put under police jurisdiction.

Which actually gave her a bit of hope. She could talk to King, point out that Daniel couldn't sell the land until the investigation was over and the scene released by the police. So maybe, just maybe, Daniel's treatment of the police would work in her favor. They'd be sure to stall things in retaliation for the way Dan had gone off on the two officers, because of blue solidarity, or whatever they called it. If King truly wanted that land, he'd have to wait, but if he kicked Grams out in the street, then she'd have no reason to continue to try and talk Daniel into selling it. At least, that was how she planned to pitch it to the disgusting man. Then she was going to talk Grams into going back to the bank.

Leaving her needing to figure out a way to lighten the heavy burden of dread she could see weighing Daniel down. She thought about Lila and the futility of confronting the Klan. Their nights in jail wouldn't stop the Klan from marching, or existing, for that matter. There hadn't been a single reporter waiting to interview them when they got released.

All that had gotten them was two days of confinement, but it had been a long time since Cynda had laughed so much. There had been times she'd almost forgotten they were locked up, with Lila cracking jokes about being the oldest mother on the planet or speculating about what kind of diaper-changer Colton might be. They'd made the time go faster by being downright silly.

Which gave her an idea. Serious, responsible Daniel needed to be silly, too, if only for an hour. Quietly, she left the kitchen and climbed the stairs to the attic. A short foray through a few trunks and chifferobe drawers yielded several small bags of sachet, tied with ribbon. She found twelve that were about the same size then spied the last item she needed, an old gallon-sized glass butter churn with a wide mouth. Unscrewing the dasher, she set it aside. Dumping the bags of sachet into the glass bottom, she carried the jar carefully back to the kitchen. Daniel was no longer pacing. Through the kitchen window she spotted him on the far side of the garden, arguing with the officer stationed there.

The pantry had the last piece of her plan, a big bag of dried beans.

Chapter Twenty

Dan took the back steps two at a time, fuming. The police had a lot of personnel out here doing nothing, unless you counted rolling out some plastic tape. The forensics team wasn't even on its way, he'd learned, just more smart-assed kids with shiny badges and rednecks cracking jokes and acting like this was an inconvenience. Or a reunion. Reese Davies was conspicuously absent, although it could be his day off. Still, he patrolled this section of the county, and he'd always turned up before whenever he heard Dan's name mentioned over the scanner.

The kitchen was empty. So was the garden room. He found her on the sofa in his office. She was lying flat on her back, but her legs were in the air, bent at the knees and crossed at the ankles, her feet perched atop the back of the couch. The outrageously expensive purple shoes seemed starkly feminine in his masculine retreat. One dangled from her toes. The way the skirt of her sundress bunched around her hips caught his eye. Dan stared at her exposed thigh, pinned by stirring arousal and annoyance. Daisy was snuggled to her bottom, curled into a ball beneath her upraised legs. First she made the old setter into a house dog, now she let her lay on his couch. Good thing for Miss Avery that dog's working days were done; this treatment would've ruined a good hunting dog. Maybe later he'd have her strip and rake the dog hair off the couch. With her nipples.

Of course, Daisy had just proved she was still one of the finest hunting dogs in this county, leading the police and Dan straight to a portion of the ravine that had been eroded by rainwater, yet covered with kudzu vines. Dan blinked away the image of the toppled pine with bones tangled in its exposed root system.

Cynda lowered the book she'd been reading. He saw it was one of Cammie's diaries, and sharp pain laced the ache in his chest, pulling it so tight that his heart hurt. Each jolt of hurt said the same thing.
Please God, don't let Cammie have been killed and dumped in some shallow grave less than a thousand yards from the house all these years.

"You owe me an hour." Her smile seemed soft and sweet, but he saw determination in her eyes.

Yet another thing that was fucked up. He couldn't tell her he'd fixed her problem. Her grandmother wanted her and Dan to tell Cynda together. It was hard to say whether Dan or Miss Coralinne had been the most disappointed when Cynda hadn't been at her Grams' house earlier. She'd been here, prying Cammie's jawbone out of Daisy's—no, he wasn't going there.

Instead, Dan stared at her feet, enjoying the way the light purple color contrasted with her skin. At that moment, the cost of her shoes seemed ridiculously cheap. Looking at them let him remember her delight the day he'd bought them and that memory nudged aside the horror hovering in his head.

"I do, but I get to say when, remember?" He stalled, trying to decide whether Grams would be upset if he told her himself.

No, he knew better. His hesitation had nothing to do with Miss Coralinne's wishes and everything to do with the fact that he'd promised himself he'd tear up the contract when Cynda was told about the deal he'd made. Dan made it a point not to lie to himself. Not after watching Rafe delude himself for decades that any minute Cammie was going to walk through that back door, just the way she'd walked out.

Cammie might or might not have been found, but in the back of his mind, Daniel heard Rafe's bitter laughter.
One day, you'll fucking figure out why I hold onto her so tight, son.

Cynda swung her legs over Daisy and sat up. To his disappointment, she pushed the sundress down over her thighs. "Nothin' you can do about what's happening out there, so I want it right now. We aren't going to talk about selling King the land."

He kept his gaze on her feet, watching her walk toward him. The way she walked in those shoes was… prissy and careful and he fucking loved the way she did it.

"We're gonna play a game. You like games, right?" Her hand felt warm and impossibly small, but her grip on his fingers was tight. He let her tow him through the front room and into the wide hall, still looking at her feet. The metal heels on those shoes made sharp ringing sounds that echoed in the quiet house whenever they struck the wood floors. It seemed the sound was somehow an important message, but he had no idea what the hell that message might be.

He was trying to shake off the crazy thought when she shoved something into his hand. He blinked at the small fabric bag, squeezing it experimentally, still feeling like part of him was somewhere else and wanted to linger there.

She picked up a gallon-sized glass jar that had been sitting on the wide seat of the hall tree, next to the drumsticks he'd discarded. More colorful bags, tied at the neck with ribbons, half-filled the jar. Handing him five more, she placed the jar in the middle of the hall, and explained. "You're going to lie on your back and toss the bags over your head without looking. Whoever can toss the most beanbags into the jar, wins."

Fingering the bag, Dan scowled, still hung up on the notion he'd been about to figure something out he needed to know. Whatever it was felt as though it'd almost been in his grasp, but now it was gone. Reluctantly, he looked up from her shoes to meet her eyes. "Cynda, this is a kid's game."

"All I wanna hear is 'Yes, Cynda'," she informed him with a small stamp of her foot. Poking her finger into his abdomen, she added, "Oooh, I know what your problem is." She flipped her braids over her shoulder and drew herself to her full height—even in the heels, the top of her head was barely past his shoulders—and stuck out her small breasts. "You're worried because I'm genetically superior to you at sports, aren't 'cha?"

He stared down at her in surprise, but although his shoulders began to shake, he tried not to laugh. She was so small in comparison to his six-three, her statement was ludicrous. And racist, which made it even harder not to laugh.

Dan lost the battle. Laughing out loud chased away the weird feeling that he needed to figure out something important. "This is just about the craziest thing anyone's ever asked me to do."

The whites of her eyes were visible all the way around their dark centers when she made an exaggerated point of looking around the wide hall. "Nope, I don't see any forks or hot peach pits. Get your butt down on that floor, De Marco."

Still chuckling, he decided to humor her. When he was stretched out on his back, he craned his neck, judging the distance to the jar to be about four feet from his head. He wanted to take one more look at those shoes, but she knelt by his head and put her hand over his eyes.

"Okay, go!"

Dan tossed the first bag and knew he'd missed by the sound it made sliding across the floor. He only needed one hand to throw. The other he slid between her legs, giving her inner thigh a squeeze.

"That's not gonna help your aim." Her warm breath tickled his ear. Excitement curled in his groin. "And I gotta say, it needs help."

Feeling foolish, Dan chucked one bag after another into the air. One might've hit the jar, judging from the hollow ring, but the rest of his throws made her laugh. He felt as though the feminine sound sank into him.
How the hell can something so soft smooth out the roughness I feel?
It was as though he was being sandpapered with silk. She moved her hand, and the first thing he saw was her eyes. They looked warm and soft and the coil of resentment and anger in his chest loosed a bit so he could take a deep breath. Just one, because she stood and lifted a foot over his chest, straddling him and he couldn't breathe again, but his inability to draw in air had nothing to do with her butt coming down on his abdomen and everything to do with the way she smelled and the expression on her face when she grabbed a bag and lobbed it through the air. He didn't need to look to know it rang the jar.

"You cheated."

She bent, the beads in her hair striking the floor around him, and lowered her nose to his. He cupped her ass, pushing her dress up so he could feel her skin. "No, I just made the rules to favor me. You know all about that." She shifted until her cleft pressed against his growing hard-on. "One last rule. Loser has to kiss the winner absolutely breathless."