Page 62 of Ly to Me (Devils of Alliston Springs #1)

“Aubrey’s aunt. Met her at the store I got these jeans from.”

Something else about what she was saying clicked. “Was Jamie there? You watched him bring the box?” She nodded slowly. I settled my hand over her stomach, pressing her back to my front. “Did he say something to you? Is that why you said it wouldn’t leave you alone?”

Another nod.

“He told me he had something for you in his truck, not that I believed him. I expected him to threaten me, but I didn’t…I didn’t expect what he called me to come out.”

“He threatened you?”

I could hear her throat working. “He…he slammed me up against his truck.”

“He did what?” My heart was racing erratically. I should have buried the fucker the first time it popped into my head. I should have—

“When I said I’d tell you he touched me, he backed away.”

Damn right he did.

“And what did he call you?” I gritted the words through my teeth, trying hard not to make her think I was angry with her, because as much as she might think it was, none of it was her fault.

And I needed her to believe that as much as I believed it.

“Nothin’ good.” Her fingers fumbled together, and I fought so fucking hard against prying the words from her. From asking her for the full story. Didn't matter anymore. Jamie was on a list he wouldn't ever have hope of leaving until his last breath.

“By meds, you mean cannabis?”

She nodded again.

“I’ll have Leo check the cameras. Ask if he’s seen Jamie come and go with something he shouldn’t have.”

“Nadine said it was your hybrid. One that’s been helping her husband for some time after a surgery. I don’t know if that helps.”

I settled my clenching jaw on her shoulder. “It does, sweetheart. Thank you for tellin’ me.”

“She believed you were sending Jamie with it. I don’t think she meant any harm in it.”

“What store?”

Lyra sighed, the tension in her back dissipating. “It just said ‘Thrift,’ in big black letters. Right in the middle of downtown.”

“I’ll talk to her, sort it all out. She’s got nothing to worry about.”

I kissed her neck and dropped my hand from her waist, taking up the other side of the reins once more, though her horse knew to walk the edge of the ring without any guidance.

“You got a name for her, yet?” I asked, hoping to pull her from her thoughts before she’d get trapped in them again.

“Not yet. How’d you come up with Bee?”

I chuckled. “Maybe if I tell you how I spell it first, you’d be able to guess. It isn’t B-E-E. More like…just ‘B.’”

Her head flicked over her shoulder, bright brown eyes dancing around my face. “You’re kidding.”

“Smart as a whip, you are.”

“Is it short for what I think it’s short for?”

“Butterflies everywhere, Ly. Can you tell I really fucking missed you?”

She burst into laughter. “I think I have a name.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Patting the horse's mane, she said, “Army boy.”

I snorted. “Try again.”

“Metal head. Or metal co—”

“Ly.”

“Nora.”

That funny thing with blue and yellow colors was happening again, flashing before my eyes like a hazy dream.

“Nora,” I repeated, letting my mother’s name roll from my tongue with ease after being left unspoken for so long.

“She was the kindest a mother had ever been to me.”

I breathed my wife’s sunshine in, thinking of that same tune they loved. The way they both lit up a room without trying. My thoughts possibly carried on too long, the crunching of grass and leaves beneath hooves and steady breaths the only sounds for several minutes.

“How…when…” Lyra’s words barely carried on the faint breeze.

“Did they die?” I finished.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”

“No, I do.” My thumb grazed her thigh. “It’s just been so long since I let myself think about them in that way.”

“Not bein’ here?”

“Yeah. I acknowledged it enough, but not the way that was healthiest.”

She turned enough to meet my gaze. “I’m here, Car.”

“Yeah.” I pinched my eyes shut, exhaling loudly.

“Not long after you left, I started spiraling. I’d stay out from early in the mornin’ ’til late at night, drive into different towns, searching restaurants, bars, churches…

really any building I drove by. Even abandoned ones.

I didn’t really have a clear head and it started making my parents real concerned.

” Her touch was subtle. Comforting along my arm.

I swallowed past the growing lump in my throat.

“One night, they’d had enough. Jared was in town visiting after bootcamp, but all I wanted to do was go find you.

Bring you back like I’d been trying to do for so long.

Searchin’ for you became second nature. I didn’t care that he was about to be deployed for the first time and was only visiting for two days.

“Jared tried hiding my keys, and the asshole I was—I fought him. Punched him right in the jaw, took my keys, and left before it got too dark outside. The stars burned so bright that night—the town I found myself in was so small, they didn’t have street lights.

Just a two-lane road. A blip on the map. ”

I clicked my tongue, though Nora didn’t need to be directed to follow the fenceline.

The burning behind my eyes batted away with a few blinks as I continued, “I didn’t realize my parents followed me.

” Lyra’s head landed on the crook of my arm, her warmth helping to fight away the cold thinking about that night blanketed me with.

“When I got back home that night, the cops were already there, talking to Jared. Some crazed part of me thought he’d called them from what I’d done—the bruise I’d left on his face or how I was deranged.

I was ready to fight him again until I heard words like, ‘hit and run,’ and ‘serious accident,’ then finally, the one that sent me to my damn knees, ‘dead on arrival.’ Their missing car and the way Jared was looking at me put the pieces together rather quickly. ”

I chuckled, feeling no humor. “I spent so much time blaming you for my actions. Blaming you for the way I couldn’t let you go.

Blaming you for the way someone slammed into the side of their car, sending it rolling.

” My palm fisted over her stomach, gripping her shirt.

“I know now it wasn’t your fault, or even mine.

Trying to hold onto whose fault it was only held me back.

Kept me trapped, spiraling on and on, never moving forward. ”

“I’m sorry,” Lyra whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

That was the second time she’d taken what I’d said about their death and just said those two words. Most tried to comfort me, understand me, try to get into my head. Ask me more questions. She just let me talk, listened, and used those two words.

I always knew love wasn’t the best word for how I felt for Lyra. It was an inexplicable, inconceivable feeling deep in my gut, twisting my heart, bending my mind—in all the best ways.

Whatever it was, there was no word for it.

I just knew, whatever it was called, was us.

“Is that why you didn’t enlist with Jared? Because I…because I left?”

“No. I’d already decided against enlisting before then.” When I knew I loved you. But she didn’t need that guilt on her shoulders, because at the end of the day, it had been my choice. I’d chosen a different path. “They’d love to see us now, like this. That will was no quick thought on their part.”

“How so?”

“They knew the only one I’d marry in this life was you, and they charted it like a goal to let the rest fall into place.

They never lost hope that you loved me just as much.

They all knew you’d come back to me.” I pressed my lips to the top of her head and murmured into her hair, “You were worth the wait, sweetheart.”

My arm grew damp, her tears splashing down it steadily. “If I hadn’t left—”

“You had every right to leave. Hell, I would have questioned your head if you’d stayed, knowing what I know now.”

She tapped my arm playfully. “I’m not crazy like this town thought I was.”

“This town has changed since you left. I bet half the people here won’t think twice about you bein’ back. And anyone who does have a problem with it will have to deal with your crazy husband.”

“You are the crazy one in this relationship.”

“Says the woman who destroyed my truck.”

“You’re keeping it so I can destroy it more whenever I want, ergo—you’re crazy. I’m just prone to lashin’ out at crazy men.”

She shifted, like those words were trying to pull her thoughts toward a man that deserved none of them.

I made a promise, right then and there, that if Chet Walker still lived, wherever he was, I’d find him, and his last breath on God’s green Earth would be pulled from his lungs by my hands.

Chet Walker was a dead man.

Red and blue flashing lights pulled me from my thoughts. They approached slowly, rolling up the driveway, no sound but the gravel crunching beneath tires.

I pulled back on the reins, stopping Nora before hopping off. “Stay here.”

“But—”

“Stay, Ly.” I kissed her hand before placing the reins in them, then tapped Nora to get her going again.

I pulled a cap from my back pocket, fitting it on backward before sticking a toothpick between my lips as I hopped the wooden fence no higher than my waist. A familiar shiny head of no hair lifted from the driver’s side as an officer left the vehicle.

“Mornin’, Henry.”

“Carver. Been a hot minute since I’ve had to make a house call here.” He slipped a hand into his pocket as he leaned against one of the porch posts.

I crossed my arms over my bare chest. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“You know, just business.” He spit into my flowers that were now noticeably void of cigarette butts. Come to think about it, I hadn’t seen her smoke in awhile. Not cigs, anyhow. Not since I told her not so subtly she was quitting at the bar.

So fucking obedient .

“You okay there?” He pointed at my wife’s handiwork on the center of my chest.

“New kind of tattoo.”

“Ah.” He shook his head. “Young folks these days, I swear.”

I smirked. “What business is it this time? The facility or the bar?”