Dexter speared his fingers through his spiky brown hair. “Everest was a pimp?”
Michael-or whatever his name was-placed his cards face down on the table.
“My guess is Everest stole the Sillin to use on the people… on the wolves he sent the girls to,” I said.
Lucas frowned. “Aidan Michaels keeping tabs on us is one thing-he’s a shifter-hater. But Everest? He’s… he was one of us.”
“I know. Look, I think we should try to locate the woman he was working with.” I unknotted my arms to dig through my handbag for my phone. My fingers trembled so hard the slick device almost slipped out. “Uh. I’ll forward the Red Creek Escort contact to you.”
“You already sent it to me, remember?” Lucas reminded me.
Neither Dexter nor the other shifter asked what I was doing with the number of an escort agency, so I assumed they’d heard.
I supposed all of Boulder had heard.
It didn’t matter.
Just like Liam sleeping with another girl didn’t matter.
Who was I kidding? It did matter. So damn much.
After I’d managed the impossible task of putting away my phone, I told them about Megan’s wooden cross. “I know we’re not a complete secret around these parts, but I just thought you’d want a head’s up.”
“Were you alone when this happened?” Dexter asked, gaze running over my legs.
I wished I’d had a pair of tights on. I felt so exposed in this dress.
He winced suddenly, dropping his gaze to the poker chips. Liam was glaring at him. Had the Alpha barked at Dexter through the mind link?
“I was with Sarah Matz. We were on our way to The Den.” I yanked on the hem of my dress. “She went to inform Julian about our run-in. Maybe you should call him, Liam.”
Liam just stared at me, seemingly lost in thought. Was he thinking about his father? About Everest? About Julian? Or was he thinking about me?
“Um, Lucas, can you give me a ride back to my place? I don’t really feel like walking.”
“I’ll give you a ride home,” Dexter offered, already rising.
“I’ll take her,” Liam snapped.
“No,” I said softly but firmly. I couldn’t ride in a car with Liam. Not when he still smelled like her. Not when I was feeling so emotional. “No.”
His Adam’s apple joggled in his throat. “Ness, please.”
“No. Lucas?” I blinked. My eyes felt so hot, but the rest of me felt cold. It was as though every ounce of heat in my body had converged into my lids.
Chair legs scraped, and then Lucas was next to me. “Let’s go.”
I nodded and turned away from Liam, trailing Lucas out. I prayed my tears wouldn’t tumble out until I got home, but my prayers went unanswered, as my prayers usually did.
“I thought you guys were over,” Lucas said after a long beat.
“We are,” I whispered raucously. “Still hurts.”
He touched my forearm. Briefly, but long enough to make me blink. “It sucks to walk in on someone.”
My brow furrowed.
“That’s what happened with Taryn. I found her with a Pine.” His blue eyes flashed to mine. “Justin Summix of all people.”
My mouth rounded, and for a moment, I forgot how deeply my heart ached, because Liam and I, we hadn’t even been together when I caught him rolling out of bed. Lucas and Taryn though, they’d been a couple. I’d misjudged him, I realized. I’d thought he’d wronged Taryn.
“I really hate those Pines,” Lucas murmured.
I didn’t try to argue that they weren’t all bad, didn’t try to console him either. Silence grew between us, a quiet, easygoing silence that bonded us in our misery.
Once he slid the car in front of my house, I thanked him. He nodded but kept his eyes on the darkened street.
“Just remember it takes half the time you were together to get over a person,” he said.
I paused with my fingers on the door. Liam and I, we’d been together for all of four days. If Lucas’s logic was accurate, my grieving period should already have been over.
“How long were you with Taryn?”
Gaze sunk on the obscurity, he muttered, “Too long.”
My heart went out to him. Which was crazy because I didn’t think my heart would ever have gone out to Lucas Mason. Then again, I never thought my cousin was a pimp, or that Liam would lead a girl to his bed so soon after almost kissing me.
On my way up the staircase, keys jingling in my trembling fist, I worked on coming up with a good lie as to the reason I was home early. I hated deceiving my uncle, but I couldn’t share what I’d just learned with him. It would shatter what little good memories he had of his son. I palmed away my tears and stepped inside.
The next day, I went to work and pretended everything was great when I felt completely broken on the inside. August and I didn’t cross paths at least, so there was that.
I spent Saturday in bed. On Sunday though, Evelyn called and said she was expecting us for brunch. Jeb made me drive to Frank’s house, and I did so without a single glitch, even though I hadn’t slept well and my eyes felt gummy. I’d believed my heart couldn’t possibly shatter more than it already had back at Tracy’s, but I’d been wrong. The shards had simply been crushed into finer ones. Just like the vase I’d knocked over in my house one of the first times I’d shifted. The glass had fragmented on our pine floor, and then the pieces had been ground to a powder under my father’s boots as he’d tried to corral me into his arms to calm me down.
“I phoned up the DMV and set an appointment for a driving test tomorrow,” Jeb said, whipping me out of my thoughts.
“I thought I needed a year before I could pass it?”
“The woman who runs the place, she owed me a favor.”
I glanced at Jeb.
He indulged my curiosity. “Her husband was using the inn to shack up with his mistress.” He shot me a jaunty smile. “I wouldn’t have tattled had the guy been an upstanding citizen, but he was a jerk, who at some point tried to get with Lucy.” His glee dampened a little at the mention of his wife’s-ex-wife’s?-name.
“Is she still locked up in Eric’s basement?”
He stared at the winding mountain road. “No. She’s back at the inn.”
“She’s working for Aidan?”