Long for Me (3 page)

“That’s probably it,” she muttered to herself.

But then she thought, mentally checking his schedule.

Unless he was picking up an extra shift, he ought to be off.

Maybe he needed some time to think. Or even deal with shit going on with—her lip curled—his father.

Rising from the bed, she eyed her reflection in the mirror, the faint outline of bruises on her hips, the marks on her breasts. She’d left more than a few marks on him, too, she’d bet.

She’d thought maybe they could …

“Could what?” Turning away from the mirror, she pushed a hand through her hair and grabbed the robe hanging from the hook by the bed.

Her room was meticulously neat and organized, almost brutally so, as was the rest of the house, and her workshop. Her head was sheer chaos and once upon a time, her natural inclination had been to just dump everything in a heap by the door as she came inside.

In the months before Mom had died, she’d started to see what was going on in Chris’s head so she’d started making … changes. Rules, lots of them. A place for everything and everything in its place.

Chris had coped with the loss of her mother by clinging to those rules, that structure.
Over
-coped was probably the right word and she sometimes spent hours pacing the house as she checked to make sure everything was where it needed to be.

The only time she didn’t spaz out about it was when her mind was otherwise occupied.

Like with Guy.

He had been a good distraction.

But now …

She made her way into the kitchen, hoping to find a note, or something.

No note.

No sign that he’d run out to grab some breakfast or anything.

Padding over to the window, she peeked outside, looking across the street to the little apartment where he’d lived the last four years.

If he was home, he’d probably be on the little balcony, either with a book or his laptop or with coffee.

But the balcony was silent and the windows were dark.

Melancholy, she leaned her head against the window frame.

* * *

He’d stayed until he knew her nightmares wouldn’t wake her.

That had kept him there until nearly dawn.

Now, as he pounded out his own nightmares on the pavement, he no longer had to fight to forget the night because something else had forced its way into his brain.

His fucking father had called.

Three times yesterday.

Guy hadn’t been home, but that hadn’t stopped the son of a bitch from leaving messages.

“Need to talk to you, boy. Get your ass out here.”

The next two messages weren’t quite so polite.

He’d deleted all three messages.

Go out there.

Like hell.

But now, memories chased him.

Those words, so similar to words Theo Miller had spoken one night, years ago.

“Get your ass out here. You hear me, boy? Get the fuck out of that bed!”

The summer sun, brutally hot, shone down, reflecting off the water, all but blinding him.

Sweat gleamed along his neck, his arms, soaked the battered gray shirt he’d pulled on. He was going on five miles now and the voices were still chasing him, the memories still haunting him. It fucking pissed him off. If he had to have memories eating him up right now, couldn’t it be the night he’d just spent with Chris?

But
no
.

“You son of a bitch,” he muttered, rage twisting at his gut as the memories battered him.

* * *

“You hear me, boy? Get your ass up.”

A hand, open and hard, striking him along the face. He stood with his head down because lately, when he looked at himself in the mirror, he could see the hate burning in his eyes and he knew if the old man saw it, he’d be ready to beat it out of him. Or worse, take it out on Mama.

“’Bout fucking time. Lazy ass piece of trash. Here.”

Guy stared at the wrapped bundle on the floor, not following. Blood trickled down his face.

“That fucking dog of yours bit me for the last time.” Theo Miller stared at him, his eyes overbright, gleaming with something that looked like madness to the fourteen-year-old boy in front of him. “I killed him. He’s dead. You’re gonna bury him.”

“He ain’t my dog,” Guy said sullenly.

“The fuck he ain’t!” Theo’s voice was a roar that all but shattered glass.

Bracing for the blow he thought for sure would come, Guy just stood there, his breath held.

But there was no blow.

When he finally looked up, Theo was panting, staring at nothing. Finally, he jerked his head. “Come on. We’ll take him out by the park. Bury him out there. Get moving.”

* * *

Stumbling to a halt, Guy bent over, his hands on his knees, a bellow of denial tearing up his throat.

He bit it back, swallowed it down.

But he couldn’t keep from sinking to his knees when he looked up and realized where he was.

It was here.

This was the spot where they’d pulled that car out of the river.

Numb, he looked at the torn-up piece of earth, searching for some other sign, but all he could see was the mud that had rolled off the car and the ripped-up bits of earth. In a few weeks, nobody would be able to tell just by looking.

Nobody would be able to tell that this was the spot where the sheriff’s department had helped pull out the car that had held the body of one Nichole Bell, missing for fifteen years.

Guy’s father had put her into the river.

Guy had unwittingly helped bury the evidence all those years ago.

Yesterday, he’d sat with the family, listened as Chris actually
defended
him in front of what felt like half the town.

But he wasn’t so sure she’d been right.

He hadn’t belonged there. He kept expecting to look at them, see the fury, the hate coming from any of them and they’d be right.

Chris had needed him there. He’d known it, and that was why he went.

She’d needed him, needed a friend—

“Fuck!” He straightened and spun around, driving the heels of his hands against his eyes, his shoulders straining against the shirt he wore, sweat dripping down his back. She’d needed him and what the fuck had he done? Taken the first chance he had to get her naked.

“You’re just as bad as he is,” he told himself.

“Son of a bitch.” He sagged against the metal railing, staring dully at the river. But this time, he didn’t know if he was talking to himself, or to his father.

He guessed it didn’t really matter.

The two of them had managed to destroy an entire family.

The family of the woman Guy had been in love with, for what felt like forever.

* * *

Tap-tap-tap
.

Chris drilled her nails on the surface of the table, checked her watch.

It was coming up on nine.

So he hadn’t been home, not that
she
had seen, all damn day, and she’d been watching, too.

No reason for him not to be here.

Tap-tap-tap
.

She checked her phone.

Nope.

No messages.

She looked around the table. Her sister was there, Dean at her side. Tate and Ali were there, too. It was Friday. Only person missing was Guy. She didn’t have to check the location—it was
Madison
. Only place to really get plastered around here, unless you went up on the hill, was Shakers, so it’s not like he could have gotten confused. They’d been doing this for years. Fridays in the summers were spent at Shakers, especially when it was close to …

Now.

Close to Mom, and the time she’d disappeared.

He ought to
be
here. He always was. But where was he now?

Tap-tap-tap
.

A hand reached out, covered hers.

She looked up, met Tate’s dark brown eyes. “Settle down a bit, Chrissie,” he said softly. “You’re about to come out of your skin.”

“Where the hell is he?”

Tate’s gaze slid away and he sighed, reaching up to shove his hair back from his face. “Maybe he needs to get away from…” He shrugged and looked around. “This.”

“This?” She shook her head. “This
what
?”

“People who look at him like Louise did.” Tate said the words without flinching and he met her gaze directly. “We love him and we know where his hard head ought to be.” He shrugged and looked away. “Maybe he needs to get away from it for a while.”

“But…” She bit it back, the words fading before she even understood just
what
she wanted to say. Emotion, confusion, anger, it built inside her, built and built and built.

Emotions
—such messy, ugly things, the kind she didn’t trust herself to get messed up in, not with other people—tangled inside her and she felt like a pressure cooker, one that might explode. That didn’t keep her from shoving them all down, locking them all up, and shoving them into a dark corner where she could ignore everything for a while longer.

“But what?”

She tugged her hand away, unable to explain it.

How
could
she explain it?

There really weren’t any words, she didn’t think.

Slowly, she reached out a hand and closed it around the bottle in front of her, pressing it to her brow, and focused on the chilly feel of it on her overheated skin. All around her, there was noise, too much noise and not just the music that was blasting too loud, not just the raised voices of people struggling to be heard over the chaos.

Everything was noise.

She couldn’t find any silence inside her head, not unless he was there.

But saying that would just make her seem … crazy.

Chapter Three

Dropping the phone in the cradle, Chris pondered her options.

Five minutes ago, she’d spoken with the sheriff—one thing about living in a town the size of Madison … when you had a best friend who worked for the county
and
a connection to an open case that had been on the books for years, the people at the station didn’t tend to bat an eyelash when you called and asked to speak to the man in charge.

The man in charge had just told her that Guy was taking a few days’ personal time.

Personal
time.

What the hell?

With her feet on the bare wooden planks of the floor, she pressed her hands to her face and tried to pretend she wasn’t worried, wasn’t upset.

Tried to pretend she wasn’t thinking about what had happened on this very bed, three nights ago.

She hadn’t seen him since.

It wasn’t connected. Couldn’t be.

He was just taking
personal
time.

Her throat knotted up but she managed to lie to herself.

She was tired. She was stressed.

She hadn’t been able to sleep, so last night, she’d gone into Shakers, dressed to work. She hadn’t been on the schedule, but she’d hoped against hope that Adam could use a hand and he’d taken one look at her and just jerked his head at her. She’d joined him behind the bar and he’d let her help him pull beers and mix drinks until the place shut down at two a.m.

By the time they were done, she was a hundred bucks fatter in the wallet, her feet hurt, and her head felt like it was going to split open.

Tired as she was, she should have slept like a rock, but instead, she’d lain awake, staring through her window, waiting for the lights to come on in the little apartment across the way.

They never did.

Today, damn it, she was going to find him.

Fortunately, though, she already had a good idea of where to look for the son of a bitch.

If he wasn’t here, there was only one other place he was likely to be.

* * *

The roughed-out log cabin wasn’t much. Perched on the edge of the Ohio River, nearly an hour away from Madison, it was Guy’s personal retreat. He came to fish or just get the hell away from people.

Too fucking bad,
she thought, kicking a leg over her bike and staring up at the cabin. Some people might have enjoyed the picturesque drive out here. It had just given her more time to brood, steam, and work herself up. She was probably as close to exploding as she’d been in a good long time.

The door swung open and she found herself staring at the very object of her wrath.

Guy, in the flesh.

Her heartbeat kicked up and she had to swallow the spit that had suddenly pooled in her mouth.

The very, very nice flesh. Curling her hands into fists, she used the bite of her nails into her palms to help get centered. It wasn’t much, but every little bit helped, she figured.

He’d just walked out.

After that night together, after him telling her how he didn’t want her to regret it and how he thought about her—okay, he thought about her naked, or her ass, whatever.

Still.

He’d kinda made her think … crazy things.

Then he ignored her.

He’d gone three days, completely ignoring her.

That slow burn of lust settled in her belly—it was a familiar ache, something she’d gotten used to ignoring when it came to him. She needed him for a friend more than she needed him for a lover.

Or so she’d thought.

But then they’d had that night—it had been as amazing as the first night and she needed him like she needed air and he’d just
walked away
.

She jutted her chin up as he continued to watch her.

Then he turned around and walked back into the cabin.

The door remained open.

Oh, hell. She was just going to have to kick his ass.

* * *

Weariness bore down on him.

He’d spent the past three days trying to come to grips with the sucker punches that had come his way over the past few weeks.

He’d loved Nichole Bell.

She’d been the mother he’d
wished
he’d had.

When she disappeared, he’d cried into his pillow, muffling his sobs because if his dad heard him crying, he’d beat the shit out of him. Not that Theo Miller ever needed a reason to whale on his only child, but if he had a reason, the beatings were that much worse.