Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
He didn’t say anything when she walked over to the filing cabinet and returned with the soft doughnut pillow for him to sit on. He’d forgotten about his sore ass, but she always knows when he needs it. “Will there be anything else, sir?” His eyes followed the line of her cleavage as she leaned over his desk to stir the creamer into his coffee.
CHAPTER 20
Gil and Bobby sat around his kitchen table, both staring unseeingly into the depths of the bitter black coffee they were trying to force down. The unlikely duo who seemed to have formed some sort of commiserating bond over the death of the woman they’d both had feelings for were now coming to terms with the happenings of the night before.
Now that the haze of lust had cleared, neither man was sure of how things had gone that far. Bobby cleared his throat for the third or fourth time. He felt responsible somehow, almost as if he should’ve been the one to call a halt to the night’s events before they had gotten out of hand. But quite frankly, the last thing he clearly remembers is looking at the woman’s ass with interest. What came next is all a blur.
“Do you think she drugged us?” Gil’s voice was scratchy and uncertain. He didn’t even pick his head up, so embarrassed was he. He was a bit dazed and more than a little sick to his stomach by what had happened. Each time he recalled a moment from their night of debauchery, his insides churned, and he wanted to throw up.
“I’m almost certain, but I’ve never heard of a woman doing that, isn’t it always the other way around? And besides, why would she?” Gil could only shake his head at the other man’s questions since he had no answers himself. He felt dirty like he’d committed a cardinal sin and couldn’t even bring himself to think of his dead wife. Looking at Bobby, he didn’t seem to be faring much better on that score.
He felt a certain kind of calmness that the other man was here to share in his plight. Not that he wished the feeling on anyone, but somehow it felt less grueling knowing that Bobby knew what he was feeling, and he didn’t have to put it into words. No matter how he went over it in his head, though, he couldn’t come up with a plausible explanation for what had happened the night before.
“You ever seen her before?”
“Not really, just out and about in town but not to say hi or anything. I mean, I knew who she was, everyone does. As small as the town is, who wouldn’t.” Bobby knew that Gil was just trying to find answers same as him, but they were getting nowhere.
“You don’t think she had something to do with what happened to Melissa, do you?” Gil’s eyes widened in disbelief. The thought that he might’ve fucked the woman who’d killed his wife made his guts turn. It’s bad enough that poor Mel’s body was still at the morgue, but that would just put him over the edge.
But Bobby was already shaking his head no as he lifted the mug of warm brew to his mouth. “I don’t think they even knew each other, and if they did, what reason could she have had for doing Mel like that? Besides, Melissa could take her in a fight, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, but isn’t it strange that her employer died not too long ago, and now she shows up here not long after my wife died?”
“But she didn’t have anything to do with that woman’s murder, remember? It could just be a coincidence… except for the drugging thing, which we’re not even sure about.”
“I’m sure. I never would’ve disrespected Melissa’s memory like that, and neither of us was that drunk that we can’t remember anything past her showing up here last night.” The two men went round and round in circles until there was a knock at the door sometime later.
Gil opened the door to see the lady detective standing there, and for some odd reason, his guilt over the night’s indiscretion showed on his face in a fiery blush. Detective Sparks quirked a brow at the unsettled man, wondering at the look of discomfort on his face.
“Good morning Gil, mind if I come in?” He stepped back out of the way to let her and her partner in. Officer Bailey exchanged a few words of comfort with the grieving widower before both law enforcement officers saw the room’s other occupant.
Detective Sparks wasn’t sure what to feel at finding Bobby still here in the Sherry home, but she wasn’t exactly surprised. After the way the two men had acted the day before it was obvious that they needed each other in a strange way, and after getting more of the details of the love triangle from Officer Bailey on their way here this morning she guessed she could see why things were progressing the way they were. It’s just another one of those small-town anomalies that big city folk takes time getting used to.