Ride It Out Page 2

  Miah frowned, thinking. “He like animals?”

  “He’s good with our dog.”

  “Think he’d want to come by here? Help the ranch hands with animals?”

  “Probably not his scene. Plus I’d hate for him to get in the way. Thanks, though.”

  “Open invitation.”

  “That’s kind . . . Well, I ought to let you get back to your party.”

  “You’re welcome to join us,” Miah said, and as the words came out they felt nearly like a prayer. Please join us. “If you’re not on duty, that is.” He glanced at her car, but the windows were tinted so he couldn’t spot a partner who might be waiting in the passenger seat.

  He craved her company, her understanding. She knew what he was feeling as no one else did. Vince and Casey’s father was absent but not dead, and not sorely missed, either. Raina had lost her dad to cancer a few years back, but Miah couldn’t talk to her about his grief, at least not the way he needed to. She’d been there for him the first month or so, happy to listen but never one to share her own feelings. But Deputy Ritchey—Nicki—had let him know she understood the very first time they spoke.

  Maybe it was the party, making his emptiness feel all the more stark. He wasn’t allowed to miss his dad today, to feel sad about it when everyone was here for a break from all that heavy shit. Miah must be a selfish sad sack that he wanted nothing more than to run from it all. To be alone.

  Or to talk to this woman.

  “I’m off duty,” she said. “But I better pass, I think. Nothing changes the tone of a party quite like the arrival of law enforcement.” She smiled.

  “Yeah, fair point.” Already Miah felt his face heating anew, feeling stupid and desperate for having thought it was a good idea.

  “Sweet of you to offer, though. I’ll let you know if I hear anything about the investigation, of course, but I’ll be honest . . .”

  “Don’t hold my breath?”

  She shook her head, frowning her apology.

  He nodded, and a familiar feeling grew in his chest, a hot, black fist squeezing his heart, pumping thick hate through his veins. He’d been good so far, focusing on the ranch, on his mother, letting the pros handle the investigation. But if accepting that there were no leads, allowing this to become just another cold case, if those were the only options . . . Well, they weren’t. They couldn’t be. He wasn’t about to roll over. All these months he’d felt like a dog on a leash, holding himself back from getting involved. But the longer this went on with no new developments, the more tempting it became to imagine severing that tether.

  Nicki’s brows rose, her weary smirk cutting through the fog of his thoughts.

  “Yeah?”

  “I know the waiting game sucks, Miah. But don’t go looking for trouble.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “I know that face. I have a son—and an ex-husband, for that matter. I know mischief in all its male guises.”

  Miah mustered a smile at that, but the deputy only scowled. “This is serious shit. I don’t have to tell you that.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “There are leads out there waiting to be found, but if you go looking for them yourself, you risk compromising any evidence you might find.”

  He nodded stiffly, feeling castrated.

  She must have caught the change in his posture, as her own softened along with her tone. “I promise nobody’s giving up on this. These things take time. Same as grief.”

  His heart loosened some at that. “It’s hard. It’s fucking hard.”

  “I know.”

  “If I didn’t have a business to keep afloat, I don’t think I’d be able to stand it. The waiting.” He was a man who did, not a man who sat and deferred. He depended on people, sure, but he was used to being in charge, used to delegating, not deferring. All that waiting, it was turning him into an insomniac; a nervous wreck; a snappy, shitty boss and the sort of selfish lover he’d condemn any other man for being. “It’s eating me away from the inside out.”

  “The waiting and grief both,” Nicki said. “Trust me, I know.”

  “The guy who shot your dad . . . Was he ever caught?”

  She shook her head, and though the notion broke his already shattered heart, it also made Miah want to bury his face against her skin and breathe her in—whatever she smelled of. Whatever solace smelled like, surely.

  “How do you even go on?” he asked.

  “You just do. Because the alternative is to let my son down, or for you to let your mom, your friends, and your employees down. You go on because there’s no going back, and there’s no standing still.”

  He nodded.

  “You do it because there’s no other choice, provided you’ve got something or someone worth living for.”

  She was right. Goddamn it, she was right and she was wise, and patient, and he was some kind of grasping, sad mess, spraying his grief and uncertainty all over her each time they met, like a needy skunk.

  She kept coming back, though, kept on caring. It only made him sad she’d never met the old Miah. The one he could recognize as himself, instead of this weak, hate-filled man who never stopped hurting . . . except for the fleeting moments when he was busy treating a valued employee like a whore.

  “Thanks for checking in,” he said, disgusted with himself, ashamed to even be standing before someone this good and strong. “I’ll let my mom know you came by.”

  “She hanging in there?”

  Miah nodded. “She’s leaning hard on her sister, keeping busy.”

  “And I’m sure you’re a huge support to her as well.”

  “I don’t feel like much use to anybody lately, but I’m trying. I’m still trying.”

  “And that’s all anybody should expect of you right now.” She touched his arm, a little up-and-down rubbing motion, then squeezed his shoulder. “Take care of yourself. Call if you need anything. Anything at all.”

  He pictured her card, with her cell number jotted in pen on the back, stuck to their fridge with a Brush County Wholesale Feed magnet. He hadn’t used the number yet, and he doubted he ever would. His pride was as low as it ever had been, but it wasn’t gone. Not completely.

  And he really ought to wrest a bit more of it back by ending his affair with Denny. Might not help him sleep at night, but it’d make looking in the mirror a little less painful.

  He thanked the deputy a final time and watched her climb back inside her cruiser and slam the door. He raised a hand as she started it up, and kept it there until she eased onto the highway, making a U-turn to aim herself back toward town.

  Too nice for this place. Too kind and too patient. Then again, she’d been tough enough for downtown Chicago.

  He only hoped he’d look back in a year and feel even half as tough as that woman was.

  Chapter Two

  The reception raged through the afternoon, until there was nothing left of the barbecue but bones and stained cuffs, nothing left of the beer but half a hundred spent Solo cups. Just after five, it was announced that the party was moving to the bar.

  Miah busied himself folding chairs and plucking stray napkins from the savaged lawn, hoping nobody would notice him in their rush to leave. No such luck.

  “You comin’?” Vince asked, shrugging into his leather jacket. Kim already had her helmet on, busy with her phone beside Vince’s old motorcycle.

  Miah shook his head. “Gotta work. This was a nice break, but no rest for the wicked.”

  “Just half an hour?”

  “Nah. I’m beat. I’ll tackle some shit now and I might get to bed by midnight.”

  “Suit yourself. Come out for a drink this week sometime.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Vince gave him a slap on the arm and headed to the lot. To his bike, to his woman, to the second half of the party. Miah m
ight’ve felt jealous, except fun sounded like the most miserable prospect just now.

  Some of the junior ranch hands had been charged with cleanup, but he helped haul the tables and chairs back to a storage shed. As he carried one end of a long folding table across the lawn, he eyed the spot where the old junk barn had stood until the fire. It should still be here. That should be where this table was bound. And not this table. This table was new, same as all the chairs, the grill, and everything they’d bought to replace what had been burned up or melted in the blaze. He shivered. He couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help the rage that rose inside him to imagine his father in there, swallowed up in those flames like so much old junk.

  Work can wait, he decided as he headed back to the house. In truth he’d cleared his schedule completely. There was always paperwork that needed doing, always a fence that could use a repair or a vehicle that needed a checkup. Always something.

  But the something that was calling to him now was a bottle. A clear bottle full of liquid the color of saddle oil—the whiskey he’d been working so hard to avoid. But his defenses were in tatters, his will broken. Without a sixteen-hour workday leaving him numb, he was itchy for a quicker solution.

  Inside, he found the kitchen all but spotless, no evidence of this morning’s party-prep chaos aside from the churning of the dishwasher and a dozen half-drained bottles of wine lined up on the counter. He stuck his head out into the hall. “Mom?”

  A faint “In the office” came in reply.

  “Just checking.”

  She’d be drowning her sorrows in work. Miah crossed to the cabinet beside the fridge, eager for his own escape.

  He was spoiled for choice—business associates and salesmen and clients were always gifting the Churches bourbon and rye and Scotch. Miah’s dad had enjoyed a glass now and then, but his daily drink had always been a single bottle of beer after dinner. Miah preferred the same, and his mom drank wine, which left a vast array of spirits all aged two to ten years on top of whatever their labels boasted. His mouth felt dry as he eyed them, an unwholesome but magnetic thirst coming over him. He wanted to get drunk. He wanted to get obliterated, though he couldn’t afford a late start or a foggy head come the morning.

  Just a glass, maybe two.

  But that sounded so unsatisfying. Like a tease. Like a peck on the cheek to a man who needed to fuck like an animal. The emptiness inside him didn’t want a buzz. It didn’t want moderation. It wanted liquor enough to drown a horse.

  When’s the last time you were late to start? he asked himself. Not since just after the fire. Go on, make a terrible decision for once in your life. His gaze roamed the bottles. Then something drew his attention to the right. To the fridge. To a business card.

  Patrol Deputy Nicki Ritchey. He stared hard at that name, hard, hard, hard. His fingers stung and he looked to his fist, bleached bloodless from how tight he was gripping the cabinet door. He let it go. He slid the card from under its magnet and went to sit at the old trestle table.

  As he punched in her personal number, the one she’d jotted on the back, his fingers felt clumsy, as though he really were shitfaced. God help him if he sounded the part.

  The dial tone hummed. “Pick up,” he muttered as his brain chanted don’t, don’t, don’t. Christ, he felt about seventeen again. Ridiculous, when it wasn’t as though he was after a date or any—

  “Hi, this is Nicki. Please leave a message.” Beep.

  He nearly dropped his phone in his hurry to slap it shut. Shit. Fuck. He sighed, shaking his head at his own nerves and glancing back to the cupboard, contemplating that drink.

  Brrrzzzz. This time he did drop his phone, sending it clattering to the floor in his surprise. He scrambled for it, flipped it back open. “Hello?”

  “Hi, who is this?”

  Miah didn’t have to ask the same question—he’d know that velveteen voice anywhere. “Hi, Deputy, it’s Miah Church.”

  “Oh, Miah. How are you? Sorry I missed you—I ducked out to the garage.”

  That answered one question.

  “I’m all right,” he lied. “How are you?” Christ, this was so awkward. Why was this so awkward?

  “I’m fine. Just got home.”

  Miah could hear noises in the background, clanking and rustling. “You sound busy.”

  She laughed, that sound like sparklers. “Not really. Just putting groceries away. I’ve got a tween boy descending in three days, so the pantry needed some serious restocking. To what do I owe the pleasure, Miah?”

  “I, um . . .” Goddamn, but he didn’t even know what he wanted from her. Or he did, but saying it aloud was so daunting. He looked to the hutch on the other side of the room, then made his way over to it.

  “It’s okay,” she said softly. “You need to talk about your dad?”

  “No. Well, maybe. I’m not sure.” He pulled open a drawer full of Post-its and pens and batteries. He reached back, deeper, past the crap until his fingers found cool, smooth metal.

  The busy background sounds on Nicki’s end stopped. Miah thought he heard the squeak of a chair being pulled out, then quiet. “You okay, Miah?” She said it with the grave, earnest tone one might use to approach a man perched on a ledge, forty stories up.

  Get it together, Church. She thinks you’re fucking suicidal.

  “It’s not that,” he said, eyeing the pocket knife in his hand—his dad’s old knife, the wood of its handle scorched black. Nicki had returned it to Miah after the fire, along with a few other pieces that had been collected as evidence. “I’m okay,” he told her. “I called you on impulse, actually. I was going to . . .” He took an almighty breath and let the truth tumble from his mouth. “I was going to see if you were free. And if you’d like to take a walk.”

  “A walk?”

  Shit, what was that tone? Bewilderment?

  “Yeah, a walk. I suppose I would like to talk, and I know your son’s still out of town, and . . .” Fuck, fuck, fuck. Nothing to do now but own the awkwardness, he supposed. “Shit, Nicki, this sounds completely psycho, doesn’t it?”

  She laughed. “No, no. Of course not. I’m just surprised. Where is there around here to walk?”

  “Plenty of places,” he said, and a little buoy of hope bobbed inside. She sounded curious, not skeptical. “You could come out to the ranch, if it’s not too long a haul. Sunset’s not for a couple hours yet.” He prayed she was as frank as she was kind, and would make an excuse if she didn’t want to.

  “What kind of shoes should I wear?”

  He blinked, not quite believing what he’d heard. “Sneakers’ll do.”

  “Okay. Just give me a few to get this food put away and change. I could be out there in maybe forty minutes?”

  “Uh, yeah, that’d be perfect.”

  “Great. See you then.”

  “See you.” He waited until she hung up then closed his phone, staring around the big kitchen and feeling . . . what? Some nervous cousin of hopeful. Unprepared, but excited.

  He looked to the clock. What the fuck was he going to do with himself for forty minutes?

  Get busy remembering this isn’t a date, for starters. He wasn’t fit to feel for anybody right now. There wasn’t enough of his heart left for it. Not yet.

  I’m making a new friend, that’s all. If I’m nervous it’s only because I respect her.

  And he committed that lie to memory as he headed upstairs to change.

  * * *

  Oren’s contact was late.

  He was always late, Oren thought bitterly, and it wasn’t a character flaw, wasn’t disorganization or carelessness. It was a power play, and the thing that really burned was, there was no way the asshole would ever let Oren get away with the same.

  He thinks he’s my boss. The man certainly spoke as though that was the case, talked down to Oren.

  Well, fuck, he
gets to. His contact held all the power. He had the money, with the very real potential to score more—a multitude more. He had the plan, he had dirt on Oren, and, most crucial of all, he knew Oren’s weakness.

  I handed it all right to him. The potential payday had blinded him, twisted his better judgment, and with a few veiled threats thrown in for good measure, before he’d known it, Oren had gotten in way over his head, complicit in shit he couldn’t walk back. If the choices were to go to the cops and try for a plea deal—maybe get a decade in prison for conspiracy to commit arson and murder—or to see this plan through, keep his wife safe, and maybe even stand a chance at getting rich beyond his wildest dreams . . . He couldn’t go to prison. Hell, he was a pacifist. How he’d gotten here he could barely remember now. In less than a year he’d become a man he no longer recognized.

  Finally, a car pulled up around the back of the building, headlights unmistakable—those obnoxious, superbright xenon kind. Oren squinted against the blinding beams, hating himself for it, feeling like a bullied kid flinching as his tormenter appeared at the playground’s edge.

  Oren pushed his car door wide and stepped out. The night air felt cold; colder than it had a right to, and he had to fight an urge to hug his arms against the breeze. It was the man now exiting his own vehicle that brought this chill to his bones.

  “Hello, hello,” the man boomed, that smile so maddening in its believability. The warmth was fake, of that Oren had no doubt, but you’d never guess. Even he couldn’t spot the frost, and he knew better than anyone how cold-blooded this fat little psychopath truly was.

  “Evening,” Oren said, cringing inside. Much as he loathed this man, he could never bring himself to sound anything but grateful and compliant. He’d always been a goddamn coward.

  “Do pardon my tardiness,” the man said, and leaned on the hood of his car, dipping the vehicle with his considerable heft. “Busy day, busy day.”

  He always said shit twice. Drove Oren up a goddamn wall. If you got hit by a meteor tomorrow, he thought, everything would be so much easier. Sadly, he wasn’t capable of orchestrating a homicide himself. Only of middle-manning one, it would seem.