Kaleidoscope

  “What isn’t a big deal?” he asked.

  She looked him in the eye, sighed then announced, “I was sick for a while.”

  His gut clenched and his chest got hot. “What?”

  “It wasn’t a big deal, honey,” she said quietly.

  “You keep sayin’ that, sittin’ across from you, watchin’ you, seein’ you, I’m wonderin’ if you’re tryin’ to convince you or me.”

  He saw her mouth move as her eyes gave away that she was thinking about this before she admitted. “Weird. Maybe I am.”

  “Tell me,” he ordered.

  “Okay.” She shifted in her seat then leaned on her arms on the table to get closer to him even as she held his gaze. “I’ll admit, at the time, it was a little scary because the doctors didn’t know what it was. At first, I was just fatigued. Then, so tired, Jacob, it was wild. It got to the point I could barely get out of bed and I couldn’t wait to get back in. Then it got worse. I lost my appetite, and it’s good we’re talking about this now before the food comes, but I couldn’t hold anything down. Eventually, it was so gross and made me even more tired, I quit eating in order to avoid vomiting. I went in to see the doctors again and again. They ran a bunch of tests. Nothing.”

  “And?” he prompted when she stopped talking.

  “Well, they ultimately had to hospitalize me.”

  “Fuck,” Deck clipped and she leaned in further, her hand moving out to grab hold of his.

  “As you can see, I’m fine,” she assured him.

  “What was it?” he asked.

  She gave his hand a squeeze and sat back but did it still leaned toward him.

  “Just an infection, if you can believe that. Though a rare one. Actually, I’d lost even more weight than what you can see and was in the hospital for three weeks because, once they figured out what it was, they then figured out it was resistant to antibiotics so it kinda took a long time to beat it but I did. I got out. Started eating, sleeping, recovering, gaining back some of the weight. Took a while to get my stamina back but,” she flipped out her hands and sat back in her seat, “here I am.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Early last year it ended, started the year before.” She hesitated before she told him, “It lasted about a year.”

  “Fuck, it took that long to find an infection?” Deck bit out.

  “It was rare,” she repeated.

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “I’m fine, honey.”

  “Scared you shitless, Emme.”

  Her mouth shut.

  “Keep sayin’ it’s fine. Keep sayin’ it isn’t a big deal. It wasn’t the first but it was the last,” he told her.

  “You’re right about that for the then. But it’s okay now.”

  “I can see that,” he returned. “And you say it but you aren’t gettin’ it since you were sick for a year, had no fuckin’ clue what it was, which would scare anybody and it scared you. It ended well, but you don’t deal, you don’t get over it.”

  Her chin jerked back before she said in a tone that was an accusation. “I forgot how smart you are.”

  “Glad you’re remembering.”

  “I also forgot how annoying it can sometimes be.”

  It was then he burst out laughing and when he was done, she no longer looked peeved but was grinning.

  Their beers came. They both took a sip then set them aside.

  “So, you got sick, why was a new look necessary?” he pushed, and she again shrugged.

  “You’re exhausted like I was, you’re too exhausted to go out and get haircuts. Trust me, haircuts are the last thing on your mind when all you want to do is get to work, go home and go to sleep. And my hair grows fast, apparently. And I found I kinda liked it so I let it keep growing. Then, after it was done and I was getting better, but none of my clothes fit, my friend Erika… do you remember her?”

  Deck nodded. Erika was one of her limited posse. Elsbeth didn’t like Erika either. This was because Erika was beautiful and intelligent, both scarily so, especially for someone like Elsbeth.

  “Well, she wanted to make me feel better, and have clothes that actually fit,” Emme went on. “So she took me out on a day of beauty. She’s a personal shopper and she’d been dying to get ahold of me for years anyway. She took me to have my hair done, had a makeup artist teach me how to do my face, took me out and we tried on a bunch of clothes. Most of them don’t fit anymore because I put on twenty pounds since then but somehow, I got bit by the bug.” She leaned and whispered conspiratorially, “Don’t tell anyone in Denver. I put on my old clothes and wear a wig when I go home. I don’t want them to know I’ve turned into a fashionista.”

  “Lips are sealed, baby,” he said through a smile but watched her blink again, surprise lighting her eyes before she cloaked it and sat back.

  He let that go when she kept talking.

  “Anyway. Now that super-smart, see-into-thoughts-with-the-power-of-his-mind Jacob Decker has made me think on it, I’m wondering if maybe being sick like that didn’t wake me up somehow. Teach me to stop and smell the roses. And by that I mean pampering myself with visits to excellent stylists, spending mega bucks on salon-quality products for my hair, regular facials and way too many trips back to Denver to drop a load on clothes.”

  “Not a crime, Emme,” he noted.

  She grinned and replied, “Luckily, no.”

  “Elsbeth take your back?” he asked.

  Another blink, this one more surprised, and she asked, “Pardon?”

  “Elsbeth, through this shit, she take your back?”

  She held his eyes and she did it a long time before, slowly, she said, “Jacob, honey, I haven’t spoken to Elsbeth in nine years.”

  He felt that heat in his chest as he stared at her.

  His voice was gruff when he asked, “What?”

  “She, um… ended things with you, and I,” she shrugged, “ended things with her.”

  “No shit?” he asked.

  Her eyes unusually hit the table as she murmured, “I don’t like stupid people.”

  Jesus Christ.

  “Emme,” he called, and it took some time but she lifted her eyes to meet his. When she did, all he could get out was, “Babe, you two were tight.”

  “She threw away something good. I know you know that, Jacob, because it was you she threw away so I don’t want to bring it up and hurt you but I… well, I knew why. And like I said, I don’t like stupid people. I don’t have time for them. So I haven’t seen her in years. She asked me to her wedding. I didn’t go. Mutual acquaintances used to tell me about her but I moved up here about three years ago. I go home often but just to see my folks and friends, none of whom was really close with Elsbeth so,” she shrugged again, “I have no idea what’s happening with her and she definitely has no idea what’s going on with me.”

  The waitress came and slid the mozzarella sticks in front of Emme, Emme murmured, “Thanks, Sarah,” the waitress replied, “No probs,” and was off again.

  Emme shoved the plate to the middle of the table and offered, “Help yourself.”

  She took one.

  Deck took one.

  He ate it whole, swallowed and shared, “Elsbeth isn’t happy.”

  Her head snapped up from looking at the sticks, she chewed, swallowed and asked, “You’ve talked with Elsbeth?”

  “Fucked her in Denver last summer.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  Deck didn’t know why he said it and he further wouldn’t know why he kept talking.

  Then again, he’d talked open and honest to only three people in his thirty-seven years of life. His dad. Chace Keaton. And Emmanuelle Holmes.

  “Did it before I knew she was still hitched. Found out she was still hitched when I heard her talkin’ on the phone to her husband even though she tried to hide it. Told her she was a piece of shit, walked out. Before I did that, I had to get dressed so I listened to her tell me how her life was in the toilet and her h
usband was an asshole. Still left. First time I saw her since back when, and, I’ll admit, babe, I looked her up, she took me up on a get-together, chatted me up until we hooked up. Now I hope it’s the last time I ever see her.”

  Emme continued staring at him with lips parted. It was cute. It reminded him of the old Emme when they’d talk politics and he’d say something ridiculously conservative in response to something she’d said that was ludicrously liberal and he did it just to get a rise out of her.

  She finally got over her surprise and stated, “Okay, her husband being an asshole, not a surprise. He was that before she married him. He’ll be that forever. He’s probably trying to find ways to be that from beyond the grave, working with gypsies to do it or something.”

  Deck felt himself smile as Emme kept talking.

  “But, she went for you?”

  “Got played, Emme. She told me lettin’ me go was the worst mistake of her life.”

  Her shoulders shot straight and she replied instantly, “It was. But cheating on her husband with you without you knowing you were doing it isn’t the way to rectify that mistake.”

  And there she showed another something he forgot or buried.

  Emme had fire.

  It was cute. It had always been cute.

  Women like her, it was hard to be cute. She was not small. Elsbeth had been five foot six but teetered around on high heels every day, even in jeans or shorts, so she could be five nine or ten. Emme was five nine; now with high heels she wore with more naturalness than Elsbeth who’d probably put on her first pair at age three, she was six foot at least.

  Being tall, curvaceous, intelligent, women like that could be alluring, sexy, a lot of things, but not often cute.

  Emme pissed, was cute. When she showed her fire, he always thought so. During a discussion. In defense of a friend.

  Fucking adorable.

  And no less now.

  Shit.

  “Got that right, baby,” he muttered through his grin, her eyes again got that weird light before she hid it, shook her head and reached for a stick.

  “She’s whacked,” Emme declared.

  “Reckon she always was.”

  Her eyes lifted to his, held steady and she whispered, “She always was.”

  Deck stared into her eyes and his chest seized at what he saw.

  Just turn the dial.

  Jesus.

  She gave him that kaleidoscope and told him to turn the dial, find more beauty.

  And fuck him, she was standing at his door the day after Elsbeth dumped him for a rich man who could give her the life she grew up having and Emme had offered herself to him as friend, or maybe even lover. All he had to do was turn the dial.

  And he’d been so fucked up by Elsbeth, the promise of her, the beauty he thought he’d lost by not doing what she wanted and losing her, that he didn’t see it. He didn’t see he had something even more beautiful right in front of him.

  Until nine years later.

  Fuck.

  Him.

  Before he could capture that moment, she looked away, shoved more mozzarella stick in her mouth and grabbed her beer to wash it back.

  She didn’t want that moment. Maybe back then. Now she had a man. Her mind might not be going there. He might be wrong and it might never have gone there. Not where Deck’s seemed to be going every other second, her sitting across from him. But she had a man and fucking him over like Elsbeth fucked over her husband by using Deck last summer would never enter her mind.

  Which meant the next week would suck for her because, picture proof, McFarland was into her in a big way. He didn’t know how into McFarland she was, but in cases like this, she wouldn’t have a man on a string and keep casting her lures.

  She’d be loyal.

  But McFarland was also a dick, a moron and a criminal. And he was going down.

  He just wasn’t going to take Emme with him.

  “Babe,” he called, she put her beer down and looked at him. “You can’t drink too much beer because you gotta sink all your money in your house?”

  Again, her eyes lit, this time with excitement. She leaned into her arms again and smiled so huge, her dimple pressed deep.

  “Jacob, honey, I bought this house that… is… the… absolute… bomb!”

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Oh yeah. I’m fixing it up. Of course, I have no clue what I’m doing but I did manage to get broadband out there so I have YouTube and I work in a lumberyard… by the way, Dad bought the local lumberyard and I’m running it for him. Which proves what he always said. I could run a ship with a manual just as long as I can convince the men to go about their duties and that I know what I’m doing when I don’t.”

  She grinned and the dimple came out. Deck was dealing with how much he liked that dimple when she went on.

  “But, anyway, they also tend to know how to plumb stuff and fix stuff and other stuff so I pick their brains if I can’t learn on the Internet. It’s awesome. I’m having so much fun doing it. I can’t wait until it’s done. Which, if the current workload and schedule continue, should be sometime in the next decade and a half.”

  She shot back in her seat and her eyes lit even more.

  “You have to come up and see it,” she invited.

  “I will, babe,” he told her. “Soon,” he promised, though she wouldn’t know just how soon that would be—in other words, that night.

  “We’ll set it up,” she said, going for another stick.

  He let her eat it and take another sip of beer before he went for it.

  “Emme, that guy, McFarland, what’s up with him?”

  She tipped her head to the side. “What’s up with him?”

  “Where’d you meet him? How long you been seein’ him?”

  “He works at the lumberyard so I met him three years ago. But we’ve only been seeing each other for about four months.”

  That coincided with the reports.

  “Why do you wanna know?” she asked.

  He studied her before he asked back, “Straight up?”

  He watched her face grow wary even though she answered, “Yeah.”

  “Don’t got a good feelin’ about that guy.”

  “Why?” she queried, her voice lower, softer but her eyes never leaving him.

  He couldn’t tell her why.

  All he could say was, “Got a feelin’ in my gut, Emme, I always follow it. He doesn’t give me good vibes. Four months, you must be into him. I’m sorry, babe. But I gotta tell it like it is.”

  “We aren’t serious,” she shared.

  At least there was that, and Deck didn’t allow himself to process how much relief he felt about it, and not just because of the investigation.

  “You exclusive?” he asked.

  “Well,” her eyes slid away, not embarrassed, evasive. She looked back to him. “He is. I’m unsure. Though, that said, that doesn’t mean he isn’t the only one. He is. It’s just that I’m not sure I want to make that official.”

  And there was that. She was loyal but she was unsure.

  More relief.

  “Promise me, keep thinkin’ on him ’til you come up with the right answer.”

  After that, she held his gaze and again did it direct and steady. “Okay, Jacob. I’ll keep thinking on him.”

  He hated doing it, and she found out he was working this, she’d be pissed he did it but he had to do it. For her and for the job.

  “Is there a reason you wanna share why you’re unsure?” he asked.

  Her eyes again lit with activity. She was thinking on this.

  Then she stated, “No. I… well,” she grinned, “I think it’s my gut too.”

  Dead end with that, McFarland was giving her bad vibes but nothing to pinpoint. But at least, when they brought McFarland and his crew down, she hadn’t shared anything with him not knowing why he was asking and he hadn’t pressed her to do it.

  Better, she was sensing the red flag
s and didn’t like them.

  “Always listen to your gut, Emme,” he advised.

  “Right, Jacob,” she said, still grinning.

  “No joke. Can’t say this guy is bad news, not for sure. But can say, I don’t like him with my girl. He’s yours. I been in his presence not five minutes. You gotta make your choice and I hope, tonight, us findin’ out we’re near, this won’t end.”

  He gestured between them and saw her eyes warm, her face get soft, the dimple come out even just through a grin so he knew, thank fuck, this wouldn’t end.

  He kept talking.

  “So you like the guy, your gut gets sure, he’ll never know I didn’t like him for you. That’s your choice. Just sayin’, careful.”

  “I’m always careful, honey,” she told him, and what was done to her at the age it was done, she would be. Maybe too much.

  He just hoped she stayed that way.

  For at least another week.

  “Good,” he murmured.

  She dipped her head to the plate between them. “You gonna eat the last stick?”

  “All yours,” he told her and she went for it.

  When she was done chewing, swallowing and sipping more beer, he again went for it.

  Leaning into his arms on the table, he grinned and demanded, “Now, Emmanuelle, tell me about this house you are no doubt totally fuckin’ up seein’ as you have no clue what you’re doin’.”

  Her entire face lit with her low chuckle, she leaned toward him into her arms and she complied.

  Chapter Four

  Two Days

  His flashlight lighting the way, Deck moved through the snow, dense pine and aspen. He had his gun at his hip, his flashlight in hand and a canister of Mace at his other hip.

  There were bears in those woods and if he encountered one, he wouldn’t want to put bullets in it. Not because he didn’t want shots heard, but because it would be a crime against nature to bring down such a magnificent beast.

  A bear would, however, survive a dose of Mace.

  His phone vibrated at his ass, he pulled it out and looked at the display.

  In place.

  Chace was set.

  He’d picked Chace up in town. Chace had dropped him at the road down from Emme’s place and taken off in Deck’s truck. They left Chace’s Yukon in town because they didn’t want to leave a vehicle on a road close to Emme’s house. If Chace managed to keep the tail, he’d send a car to pick up Deck when Deck finished his business.