Page 9 of Perdition
“That’s what I thought….” He tipped his chin, his gaze sharpening. “You know, I looked into that cop you said was hanging out around Em’s shop, you know, that one who looked to be more interested inMrs. Flowersthan buying flowers?”
Nostrils, flaring, Frost barked, “What about him?”
He’d better not still be sniffing around my woman?—
“He has a type,” Red offered, a smirk curling his lips.
Confused, Frost furrowed his brow. “What?”
Red chucked again. “Yeah, Prez, I checked his social media…seems like his last two serious relationships…well…his favorite flavor is older women. Officer Copper is twenty-six, only tenyears younger than Em, but that wouldn’t be a problem for him; his last girlfriend was fifteen years older, and they were together for two years.”
Before Frost could unclench his jaw enough to speak, Locust drawled, “What would it feel like, you think, to share your wife with a younger man?”
Jaw unclenched, mind unhinged, he snarled, “I don’t fucking share!”
From beside him, Patriot tsked. “Neither does Em, Prez.”
The unspoken question there was,“So why does she have to when you don’t?”
Something like rusty barbs sunk deeper into his guts, and he wondered, not for the first time, where it had all gone to hell.
But hell had nothing on the question Red uttered into the heavy silence.
“You ever been tempted to fuck her?”
They waited.
He hesitated.
Fuck!
FOUR
Emily didn’t knowhow long she’d been sitting on the kitchen floor, braced against the back door, but it must have been a while since the sound of a familiar engine pulling into the driveway pulled her from her numbness.
A souped up ’79 Camaro, cherry red, black racing stripe, black interior, black rims, dual chrome exhaust, and all attitude. The woman took better care of that car than she did anything else—then again, the woman was a grease-under-her nails, coveralls-as-her-daily-wear, every-other-word-was-a-swear-word mechanic, and one of the best gear heads in the northeast US.
She was also one of Em’s oldest and dearest friends—they’d met in high school, got matching tattoos at eighteen, and had been faithful pen pals while Em and Mads were stationed at Fort Drum for Mads’s training. She’d been through most of everything in her life with Cheri Marks—the woman knewalmosteverything about Emily, Mads, and their epic romance. But not everything.
Not more than a minute after Em heard that throaty engine cut out, another familiar sound filled the air; theslap-slapof two-dollar Old Navy flip-flops on the feet of a woman whothought nothing of wearing open-toed shoes even in the dead of winter. Of course, for safety reasons, she’d wear steel-toed boots in the garage, but once she left the shop, her feet were as loose as her brain-to-mouth filter.
“Yo! Bitch!” Cheri bellowed from the living room. “Where the hell are you?”
“In here,” Em squeaked out through a throat gone dry and narrow. She sat forward, preparing to push to her knees and then to her feet, when her friend came through the arched doorway from the hallway leading from the living room.
Cheri, with her thick red hair pulled back into a sloppy bun, just barely held of her face by an American flag bandana on her forehead, came to an abrupt stop.
“What the fuck are you doing on the floor?” she barked, planting her hands on her ample hips. The woman had legs like a model, and the face of a doll, but the curves and attitude were all sassy pin-up.
Not like Em’s curves, which were born of unshed baby weight, her love of carbs, and poor genetics from her Scottish ancestry, when having ample fat stores was the difference between starvation and survival during a harsh, lean winter. Not that her body knew she wasn’t starving to death in the Scottish highlands, so she hung on to all that stubborn weight, no matter how many carbs she cut, miles on the treadmill she ran, or iffy diet pills she took.
“Did you slip and fall on all those tears?” Cheri asked, her expression now one of deep concern as her gaze took in Em’s face, which was probably puffy and red from her sobbing.
Em grunted in answer, not all that ready to start talking—she needed liquid fire courage first—she finished rising to her knees. Then Cheri was there, helping her to her feet. With grunting and moaning, Em stood, and met Cheri’s concerned green gaze.
“What the hell, Em?” she began again, this time her voice was pinched with worry. “You send me that text and then I come here to find the code on the door isn’t working, and you on the floor—thankfully you left the garage door open. I closed that for you, by the way. What the hell happened, baby cakes?”
Damn, she’d forgotten that she’d changed the codes and hadn’t given Cheri the new ones. Too much had happened too quickly.