Splinters (4 page)

“So, you don’t remember
any
thing, or it’s just fuzzy?”

I look at Mia again. “Just vague impressions.”

“Impressions like what?”

“Mia, let the man eat.”

She frowns at Duke. “I’m just concerned…for him.”

I reach over and pat the back of her hand since my mouth’s full again. I need more butter. Actually, I need more things to put butter on. Muffins! Perfect.

“Oh,” Duke says, and gets his cell phone back out of his pocket. “Need to call Laughlin.”

“He called!” Mia thrusts her hands out like she wants to snatch Duke’s phone away. “I mean, I called him. While you were upstairs. Everything’s fine.”

Wow, this woman is high-strung. Or maybe this isn’t normal Mia behavior since Duke looks taken aback a bit, too. I watch them with my mouth full of bacon—
bacon
—and feel like I’ve landed in a sitcom.

Duke frowns at her. “You called Laughlin?”

Who’s Laughlin? Oh, my God, I think there’s butter in the eggs! Bless Mia's crazy little heart.

“Yes. I, uh, told him there’d be a delay.” She looks at me and smiles. “I didn’t want to say why, you see.”

I nod while buttering half of my blueberry muffin. It’s still warm and the butter’s melting all over it. It’s only mildly disturbing that this excites me so much. I feel like I’m on vacation.
Kidnapped to vacation, Allan?
Yes, I should be more concerned, but I haven’t had time off like this since I started modeling six years ago. And the food…
unf
. And the fact Duke gives me another smirk that says he may just think I’m adorable…
yeehaw
. This could be very good for me on many levels. I grin back at him and take a big bite out of my scrumptious muffin. Duke winks at me.

“Anyway,” Mia says. “Laughlin said he’d send one of his boys over with the strays sometime today. No reason to worry about it. Or bother calling him really.” She beams at Duke.

He squints at her like he thinks something’s fishy here, but puts his phone away again. I stuff another strip of bacon into my mouth while staring at the bulge in his lap. He chuckles, making me realize where I’m staring, and then reaches over to get his own cup of coffee. Forgot about mine. I take a sip. Oh, wow is it strong stuff. That’ll put hair on my chest. Well, hopefully not since I’d have to wax it off if it did, but this is real ass-kickin’ cowboy coffee.

Mia titters across from me. “I always thought models and actors ate like birds so they don’t gain weight.”

I look down at my plate. My plate that’s empty except for smears of butter and syrup. It looks like the end of an orgy, nothing left but the sticky stuff. How many pieces of bacon was that? Two flapjacks or four? A muffin the size of my hand. Possibly three-quarters of a stick of butter, too.

I belch involuntarily.
Oh, for Pete’s sake
. Duke snorts, and Mia giggles.

“I, um, don’t usually eat like that.” Then I realize what she said. “You know who I am?”

“I told her,” Duke says.

“When did you know?”

He grins. “Just before I gave you my shirt. Your pose was…familiar.”

Me standing in front of him holding my junk was familiar?

“Exhibit,” he says and winks.

Exhibit? Oh, Xzibit! Those underwear people last year. I’d worn a jockstrap with the front cut out—which made the thing just a bunch of artfully arranged elastic bands around my hips—and I’d had to cover myself with my hand for the photo. I only do artistic nudes, not porn. Well, not until this morning anyway.

Duke’s delighted laughter before he gave me his shirt makes more sense now. Oddly, it doesn’t bother me that he’s known who I am for a while. No screaming fan here. Him flirting just makes me want to flirt back.

Duke rests his big hand on my shoulder. “And besides, after your time out there, you deserve a hearty breakfast.” He massages me a little and looks down at me with a kind expression. Again, there’s something familiar about him standing over me, but the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside distracts me.

Mia pops out of her chair, and then scrambles to keep it from clattering to the floor. I smile at her—what else can I do? “No more coffee for you, Jumpy.”

She laughs breathlessly while, with a turn of his head, Duke looks out the window and announces, “Sheriff’s here.”

I take a fortifying breath and stand up. I’ve dealt with the law before—usually on the right side—but there’s always a chance this won’t go well. I don’t want to be prejudiced, but this is Texas, after all. I’m a gay man found naked in a field and can’t remember how I got there. Will this sheriff see a crime and a victim? Will he blame me? Might he encourage me to get the hell out of his very red state? I’d so like to have Elsie here right now; she’s much better at confrontations than I am.

Mia rushes off like maybe she’s going to head the guests off at the door, but Duke’s still standing there looking at me.

“What?”

“Got a little something,” he whispers, and steps up into my space.

He cups my cheek, making my mouth pop open, and then drags his thumb across my bottom lip. I can’t help swaying into him and putting my hand on his chest, on that thick pec, to hold steady. Time slows down as he moves his hand so he can stick his tongue out and swipe it up the pad of his thumb. Then it’s in his mouth and getting
sucked on
. I can’t breathe for wondering how it feels to have those soft lips wrapped around hard flesh with a bristly mustache ghosting along the top edge like that. I reach up to slide my fingertip along his hand toward his mouth to find out.

Mia's shout echoes through the house, “Hi, Sheriff Smoot!”

I flinch so hard I nearly poke myself in the eye while getting my hands away from Duke. Damn them all for their timing.

Duke chuckles, the sound promising another chance later. With a smile, I turn away. I bite my lip when I feel his broad palm at my lower back, guiding me from the room.

rotund, middle-aged officer stands in the front room like he’s braced for a stampede. A skinnier, younger version stands just a bit behind him. Duke introduces me to Sheriff Bob Smoot and Sergeant Vaughn.

“Nice young lady called me earlier.” Smoot adjusts his belt around that belly of his. “She’s got boys up in Houston sendin’ over a copy of the security footage from your hotel. We’ll see if anyone ’round here’s recognizable.” He nods at me. “I’m doing the preliminary questioning, too.”

The tension leaves my shoulders. If Smoot’s going through all this, then he’s on my side. Good. I can do this.

“Now,” the sheriff goes on, “why don’t we all have a seat?”

Duke sits beside me, legs splayed and arms relaxed on his thighs. Unsure of how out the man is, I cross my legs to resist any unintentional rubbing while clasping my hands in my lap. An amused sound leaves me when I picture in my mind’s eye what I must look like with a shaved head, clothes that don’t fit, and sitting like a priss. Duke gives me a grin and lays an arm along the back of the settee behind me.

Mia and Vaughn are across from us on another settee, and I suddenly realize this is one of those old-timey front parlors where you receive visitors.
How adorable!

“Now, Mr. Seville,” Smoot says from his chair beside Duke. “Why don’t you just tell me everythin’ you know?”

“Um… Where exactly should I begin?”

“Why were you in Houston?”

With him leading me along, I tell him the basics of traveling to Houston, how it’s for the movie’s press junket, and who might’ve known about my plans. It’s suddenly disconcerting how many strangers might be in that last set since there are plenty who follow Internet sightings and my own tweets. Also, the shows I was supposed to appear on had been advertising my impending arrival. The list of those who knew where I’d been staying was shorter, but the truly determined people always figure it out eventually.

I run out of steam pretty quickly after that since the rest of the story was just me getting bored and going down to the bar. Then
poof!
Nothing until morning and that damn altar.

The sheriff asks me about my physical condition. I explain about my hair without weeping and discreetly avoid mentioning the splinters Duke removed. “I feel like I should be more ill, or…have more evidence…” I tuck an arm around my stomach, grimacing as I shake my head.

Smoot pats the arm of the couch, possibly in lieu of patting me since I’m too far away. He’s a good man. I like him. I think he’ll see to it that justice is done, regardless of any personal feelings toward gays.

“Should get y’self checked out up at the hospital,” Smoot says.

“But I feel fine.”

He does this nodding shrug. “I know those drugs can mess up your breathin’, so you get to feelin’ any distress there, you get help, hear?”

I nod at him and can’t resist taking a few deep breaths. I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.

Duke wraps things up by sharing the coordinates he’d entered into his cell phone so Smoot and Vaughn can go take a look.

Finally, Sheriff Smoot looks at Duke with a calm expression. “Now, I’ll need your alibi for last night, son.”

Duke nods, still relaxed and looking confident. No big deal. Maybe he knows something in that I-didn’t-think-it-was-important kind of way. But he isn’t the abduct-and-torture type. It’s not like I suspect him of any wrongdoing toward me, but Smoot’s thorough investigating reassures me nonetheless.

Before Duke answers, Sheriff Smoot asks Vaughn to take Mia into the kitchen and talk to her there. Mia's wide eyes stare at me, then flick away as she leaves. Since no one’s said different, I stay where I am.

Smoot shifts, making his chair creak. “Where were you last night, Duke?”

“Here. I was home.”

“Anybody vouch for that?”

“Sure. Toby and Ray were in for supper ’bout seven till just after nine or thereabouts. Then it was just me ’n Mia.”

Are Toby and Ray ranch hands? Probably. I don’t interrupt by asking.

Smoot frowns. “Dean wasn’t here?”

Duke looks pained for a moment before he clears his throat. “No.”

Who’s Dean?
Again, I hold my tongue.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

Duke leans forward on his knees. “Wednesday night.”

“He’s living here again, ain’t he?”

“Yessir.”

Okay, now I just need to know. “Who’s Dean?”

“My brother.” Duke says it to the floorboards.

“He’s living here,” Smoot says, “but you haven’t seen him since night before last?”

Duke rakes a hand through his hair, still not looking up. “We had a disagreement. He ran off after.”

“What was the disagreement about?”

“It was personal.”

Smoot sighs and leans closer. He looks a little more menacing, but I’m the only one seeing it. “Son, we can talk here, or I can take you in and interrogate you officially as a suspect.”

I gasp, and Duke’s head snaps up. “Christ, Bob!”

“What was the disa—?”

“I told him I’m gay,” he snaps with a glare. “He didn’t take it well.”

I have to wonder how many people know if Duke hadn’t even come out to his family until a couple days ago. Will there be trouble for him? Will my being here make that worse? I am a little bit of a celebrity. Somebody somewhere is going to want to leak this story eventually.

The sheriff doesn’t even blink as he sits back again. “He say where he was goin’?”

Duke blinks, mouth slightly open. He looks as surprised as I am that his announcement didn’t get a reaction from the sheriff. Duke takes a slow breath, and then answers the question. “No, he just stormed off.”

“He got a cell phone on him?”

“Left it here.”

“D’he take a truck? Horse? Leave on foot?”

“Took my truck.”

Smoot shifts in his seat again and looks off out the window. “Dean takin’ his meds like he’s s’posed to?”

There’s a guy out there somewhere who needs to take medicine. Okay. That’s okay, really. It might just mean he’s diabetic or gets migraines.

But then why does Smoot care?

Duke sighs heavily. “He didn’t take ’em with him.”

“What’s he like when he’s off ’em?”

“Emotional. Paranoid. Fists, then brains.”