A Winter Wedding(78)

With a final, heartbroken glance at what he used to be so proud of, he and Lourdes got in his truck to return to the house. He’d tried to convince her to go back ahead of him. There wasn’t any need for her to be out so late in such cold weather. But she hadn’t been willing to leave him. She’d said friends didn’t leave friends in the middle of a crisis.

He was glad she’d clarified their relationship—since the line between friends and something more had blurred beyond distinction right before Warren showed up.

On the one hand, the timing of that interruption couldn’t have been worse, Kyle thought. Neither he nor Lourdes had obtained the physical satisfaction they’d been seeking. He was so upset by what had happened to the plant that a heavy dose of sexual frustration on top of it made him even more bad-tempered.

But it was possible that Warren had knocked at just the right time, since the interruption gave them a chance to step back and reconsider what they were doing. Kyle couldn’t imagine that having sex with Lourdes would make her life any less complicated—or his any easier when she left.

He needed to get into a good fistfight, he decided. He’d never been the type to throw punches, not unless he had no choice, but he needed some sort of outlet...

“Are you planning to tell the police about your suspicions, or wait and see what they say about how the fire originated?” Lourdes asked.

He slowed as he turned onto the road, leaving the remains of his plant behind. Chief Bennett had been there, along with two other Whiskey Creek policemen, but they’d been busy helping the firemen, then putting up barrier tape so no one would get too close or enter the building until it could be deemed safe. When he’d spoken to Bennett, Kyle hadn’t mentioned the Honda he’d seen. He figured there’d be time for that later. Bennett had said he’d call Kyle in the morning, so Kyle knew he’d have an opportunity to express his concerns before too long. “I’m not sure. If they plan on doing a thorough investigation, I might wait.”

“Your insurance company will probably insist on a thorough investigation, even if you don’t. Anyway, in the meantime, if you don’t speak up, are you going to let Noelle know you saw her?”

Kyle didn’t get the chance to answer that question. He’d just parked in his driveway when another pair of headlights glinted off his rearview mirror. Someone had pulled in behind him.

“Who is it?” Lourdes twisted around to look, but because of the glare, she probably couldn’t see more than the front grille of his stepbrother’s Chevy Tahoe.

“Brandon.” He assumed his stepbrother was alone—until he got out and saw that Olivia had come, too.

“Kyle, I can’t believe it, man.” Brandon slammed his car door and closed the distance between them with his usual purposeful stride. “What the hell happened?”

Kyle spread out his hands. “Wish I knew. How’d you hear?”

“Our neighbor’s part of the volunteer force,” Olivia explained as she joined them. “When he got home and saw that our lights were still on, he knocked. He figured we’d want to know.”

“It could’ve waited until tomorrow. You two certainly didn’t need to come out so late.”

“Yes, we did,” Brandon said. “You should’ve called me right away.”

“Why? So you could watch the plant burn like I did? I couldn’t save a damn thing from my office or Morgan’s. The computers, the files, the furniture—hell, even some of the walls are gone. I didn’t get there in time. But, by the grace of God and some great volunteers, the fire was extinguished before it destroyed my equipment and inventory.”

Olivia had no makeup on—proof that she and Brandon had been going to bed. She could’ve let Brandon come alone, but she hadn’t. She seemed truly concerned. “Do you have any idea what caused it?” she asked.

Kyle felt the weight of Lourdes’s gaze. She was wondering if he’d accuse Noelle. It was difficult not to. To his mind, there was no chance that fire had started on its own—or because of Warren smoking. He’d pretty well dismissed that possibility. Seeing Noelle pull into the parking lot at that particular moment had been too coincidental. “No,” he said. “Not yet.”

Singling out his house key, he gestured for them to follow him to the porch. He had too much adrenaline flowing through him to feel the cold, but Lourdes’s nose and cheeks were pink. She’d been standing outside too long already. “Let’s go in. I, for one, could use a drink.”

“I’ll take one, too,” Brandon said.

While Kyle unlocked the door, Brandon spoke to Lourdes. “I bet you weren’t expecting so much excitement when you came out here.”

“No. There’ve been a lot of things I didn’t expect.”

Kyle guessed Brandon wanted to question that statement. He wondered what she was referring to himself. Moving in with a stranger? Hearing Derrick admit his affair?

Or was it the fact that they’d stripped off all their clothes and nearly made love a couple of hours ago?

Briefly, the vision of Lourdes’s breasts flashed in Kyle’s mind—along with the memory of their taste and feel. He wanted to tell Brandon and Olivia to go home so he could drag her back into his room, wanted to forget everything that had just happened by losing himself in her. Only then did he think he might be able to sleep.