His fingertip stilled. “What do you mean?”
“Hell,” I said with a shrug. “You know, home sweet home. You grew up there. What’s it like?”
He sat back and stared into the fire. “It’s exactly like all the stories your mom told you when you were a kid.”
“My stepmom didn’t tell me stories, so indulge me.”
“The summers are hot. Winters are hot. Fall and spring are hot. Not a whole lot of climate change. We did get a scorching breeze every so often, though. It was almost refreshing.”
Fine, he wasn’t going to answer. I’d move on to more pressing questions. “What would it do to a human who was sent there, then escaped?”
His gaze darted toward me. “Escape is impossible. You know, in case you’re planning a trip.” Odd thing was, he seemed serious. Like a trip to the underbelly of the supernatural world was within the realm of possible vacation spots.
“I’m not. I thought I might write an article. Or a book. I’ve always wanted a Pulitzer. Or I could get really lucky and score a Nobel Peace Prize. I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.”
He’d gone back to staring into his wine, to running his finger along the rim of his glass. The movement mesmerized me. Without breaking his gaze, he said, “Come here.”
The butterflies attacked again. His arm corded and released as his finger tested the edge of the glass. His mouth, full and sensual, parted as he concentrated on the burgundy liquid.
“I should probably go.”
What if he were the arsonist? What would I do? On one hand, I had Uncle Bob to consider. He’d done so much for me, was always there for me, but so was Reyes. He could be an ass, but he’d saved my life more times than I could count. Could I really accuse him of arson and turn him over?
Maybe I should just ask him. Maybe he would be honest with me and we could figure out what to do, where to go from here, together. And maybe they would get air-conditioning in hell.
I set my glass on the coffee table and rose to leave. “Thank you for tonight, though. Thank you for everything.”
“That sounds ominous,” he said without rising. He arched a brow in question. “Planning on never coming back?”
“No, just… I don’t know. I need to check on a few things.” And get the image of him in a prison uniform out of my head. Earl Walker had done a number on him growing up. Torture. Abuse beyond imagining. Was he trying to erase his past? To remove any evidence that it had really happened by burning down the places in which he’d lived? My chest tightened.
I walked to the door and pulled it open. Then Reyes was there. Behind me. He didn’t just close the door. He slammed it, the handle jerking out of my hand. Then he pressed in to me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, and he sounded hurt. Confused.
I laid my head against the door. “I’m just going to check on a few things. I have some research to do for a case.”
“Why is every breath you release filled with pity? Why in damnation would you feel sorry for me when you know what I am? What I’ve done?”
Of course he would be able to feel my compassion. My sympathy. I turned to face him even though he gave me no margin. His arms were braced on the door above my head. His crystalline gaze hard. But just as he felt my compassion, I felt the cut it left, the wound.
“I don’t feel sorry for you,” I said.
He scoffed and pushed off the door to head back to his kitchen. “And once again she lies.”
Regret consumed me. I didn’t want to fight with him. “I’m not so much lying as trying to keep the peace.”
“Then you should probably walk away.”
4
I’m a virgin. But this is an old shirt.
—T-SHIRT
I glanced over at a message board he had on the wall. It had dark cork on it and silver pushpins, but only one note had been tacked onto it. I walked closer and recognized the handwriting. It was the bill I’d presented him a couple of weeks ago. The one I’d written on a Macho Taco receipt. The one that stated one Mr. Reyes Farrow owed Davidson Investigations a cool million. With interest. He’d kept it. That ridiculous bill.
And a new realization dawned. We were fighting. Well, we always fought, but we were fighting like real couples did. In an apartment with him flesh and blood and me flesh and blood and him so adorably sexy, he could melt the polar ice caps.
We were almost kind of sort of like a real couple. And he’d kept my bill.
The noise level rose in the kitchen as Reyes banged dishes. Slammed doors. Quite possibly threw a pan. It was enough to make my heart burst with joy. Walk away from him now? I would rather swim through broken glass.
He stopped what he was doing and though I couldn’t see him from my vantage point, he called out, “What?”
Could he feel my abrupt change of emotion? Did I give a crap? Not so much.
Whatever tomorrow brought, tonight he was mine. Sure he might be burning down half of Albuquerque, but he’d targeted condemned buildings and shoddily constructed cubbyholes that were eyesores anyway. Nobody missed the shacks he torched, and the owners were collecting a heap of nice coin from the insurance companies for their piles of rubble.
He was doing Albuquerque a favor.
He was a hero!
Okay, that might have been stretching it a bit, but still…
“Double or nothing!” I called out to him.
After a moment, he stepped around a wall, his forehead crinkled in mild interest.