Blood Moon (34 page)

It caught him slightly off guard, but he
recovered quickly. “Mrs. Leighton,” David responded. “Thanks for
having us.” He held out the wine and flowers. “These are for
you.”

“How sweet,” was her response as she
accepted them from him and ushered us inside. “And it’s Laura. Now
come on, you two. Dinner’s ready.”

I took David’s jacket and hung it with mine
in the coat closet before we followed my mother into the dining
room. The rich smell of her cooking infused the air, making my
mouth water as I inhaled deeply and pinpointed what we were having.
Roast beef…
I inhaled again, licking my bottom lip.
Mashed potatoes
… Swallowing the saliva that continued to
pool in my mouth, I took one more deep breath.
Steamed broccoli
in Mom’s homemade cheese sauce.

If I thought I was hungry before, it was
nothing compared to what I felt now.

“Is there anything I can help with, Mrs…”
David paused for a minute before amending himself. “Laura.”

Laughing, my mom graciously declined his
offer before heading to the kitchen, where I heard my dad moving
around. Dishes clanked together, platters hit the countertops, and
a cork was pulled from a bottle of wine while my parents were gone,
and soon they rejoined us, bringing a couple of items each to the
table. David took the wine from my mother and filled our glasses
while Mom and Dad finished setting the table.

“Everything looks and smells amazing, Mom,”
I told her, taking the seat David so gallantly pulled out for
me.

As we all dished up our food, passing it to
the right before taking the next item, my dad tried to initiate the
conversation. “How did things at the office go after I left? Any
progress?”

I shook my head, my frustration returning.
Ever since finding the abandoned nightclub, we’d hit a brick wall.
Donovan had been as much help as he could be, and we still checked
in often in case the suspects resurfaced there. I wasn’t so
optimistic given their reaction according to our witness. If they
truly did sense our involvement with the club, it was unlikely
they’d go back there looking for future victims.

“Nothing,” I replied, scooping some broccoli
onto my plate. While I still didn’t crave vegetables, they weren’t
as unappealing as they were a couple weeks ago. Plus, I didn’t want
to hear my mother complaining about the lack of green on my plate.
I might be twenty-eight years old, but that didn’t mean she’d
stopped mothering me. “Keaton and O’Malley are still digging
around, but—”

“Uh uh,” Mom interrupted in an admonishing
tone. “No shop-talk tonight. You know the rules, Keith.”

The rules.

Mom had always been proud of what my dad did
for a living—what I now do for a living—and even more so since
Bobby died. She knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end
of bad news, and while we never got closure after his death, she
appreciated that we worked hard to give others in similar
situations the chance to heal and move on.

But she didn’t like to hear details over
dinner. Ever, actually.

We never went into specifics, though,
because it actually wasn’t allowed. Having always been more of a
sensitive soul, Mom liked to look at the world through rose-colored
glasses. Especially after Bobby’s unexplained death. She knew what
happened in the real world, but she was so empathetic that it
affected her deeply. Occasionally she’d ask, but we kept details to
a bare minimum, glossing over everything enough that she wouldn’t
have nightmares or relive what we’d already been through.

Some days I struggled with the same thing,
but my need to stop it from happening again kept me going.

“Sorry, dear.” Dad was quick to apologize,
reaching over and taking my mom’s hand, giving it a gentle
squeeze.

It always warmed my heart to see those
little looks of affection they shared, and I looked across the
table with a smirk out of habit, only to find the chair there
empty. One would think I’d get used to that empty chair staring
back at me after this many years, but I didn’t. Bobby and I always
used to exchange a look during one of these moments between our
parents. Growing up with so many people whose parents split when we
were all younger made us appreciate the strong connection our
parents shared. It gave us something to look up to.

I shook off the twinge of sadness that
gnawed at me and picked up my fork, spearing a piece of broccoli.
It wasn’t easy to forget, and I didn’t really want to. Even though
Bobby had been gone for the last seven years, I still sensed his
presence in everything I did. Sometimes more than others. It used
to comfort me to think he might be watching over me in some
way.

My last thought gave me pause.
Used
to? Before I could slough it off as one of those things you said or
did without much forethought, my mother’s voice filled the
room.

“So, how are things going, you two?”

Next to me, David shifted in his seat,
turning his head and smiling at me. “Really well.” A pause.
“Right?”

Offering him a smile that felt as genuine as
I was capable given what happened the other day, I nodded. “Yeah. I
mean, there’s definitely been an adjustment period, but things are
good.”

I saw something in my mom’s eyes—the very
thing that had me worried about accepting this dinner invitation in
the first place, and I tried to give her that look that told her
not to go there. She must have missed it.

“I’m so happy to hear that.” She pushed her
roast beef around her plate before picking up some potatoes. “It’s
been so wonderful to see Brooke ready to settle down again.”

And there it was. That one little word that
would open the flood gates of this conversation: “Again.” Prefaced
with the words “settle down.”

I didn’t need to look at David to know his
curiosity had been piqued; I felt it billowing off of him. I
gripped my fork so tightly, the metal bit into my palms, and I
stared nervously at my dinner plate, my heart beating unevenly.
When he didn’t say anything right away, I relaxed, thinking that
maybe he’d let it go since it was in my past and I’d proven my
efforts to move on. With him.

“Laura, sweetheart,” my dad began, his voice
low and uneasy as he poured another glass of wine, polishing off
the bottle. “Maybe we shouldn’t—”

Mom finally realized the potential for how
uncomfortable this conversation could turn out, because she nodded.
“You’re right,” she agreed. “I didn’t mean to suggest they’re ready
to get engaged…”

Beside me, David choked on a sip of his
wine, and my face heated as I clenched my eyes shut. And there it
was. David would finally know just how serious Nick and I were,
which would only add fuel to the fire of his hatred and jealousy.
He’d been pushing for us to come out as a couple for so long, and I
knew that he saw marriage in our future. But, after a failed
engagement to a man I honestly thought I would spend the rest of my
life with, I’d grown quite content with the idea of just living
happily ever after with the man I now loved. No piece of paper
binding us together. No gathering of friends and family at an
overly expensive celebration.

Just us. Living together. In love.

That was enough for me, and I figured I
could get David to be okay with that as well…until now, that is.
Now that he was on the verge of learning the one piece of my past I
deliberately shielded him from, all bets were off. He’d want more.
Or at the very least, he’d wonder why I didn’t if I’d been able to
commit myself to someone else before.

And he’d have a point. Why shouldn’t I
commit to another if it was something I’d done before with someone
else? Well, it all stemmed back to how my engagement ended, and the
one simple truth remained: I was afraid. I let Nick into my heart
completely and he stomped on it when he walked away from us. Yes,
he had his reasons, but that didn’t excuse the fact that I was left
behind, broken and destroyed. It wasn’t exactly something I wanted
to ever relive, so I vowed to never take that step. Why would I set
myself up for something like that to happen again?

Now, deep down, I truly believed that David
wouldn’t do that to me—he wasn’t Nick—but the fear still lingered,
keeping me from opening that small part of my heart back up. Did I
imagine what it would be like to marry David? Sure. More so lately
than the first year we were together—or up until a couple weeks ago
when my life irrevocably changed—but then those musings shifted
into my worst nightmare: David left me with no explanation. He just
took off. So I dropped it, burying it as deep as possible.

And now, there I was, sitting at the table,
awkward silence hovering in the air, my heart thundering and my
stomach clenching as I struggled to find the words to explain why I
hadn’t told him about my failed engagement.

I couldn’t, though. My cowardice reared its
ugly head, and I set my fork down gingerly before pushing my chair
back. The legs scraped against the tile floor, the sound
obnoxiously echoing off the walls. David stood beside me, and when
I met his eyes briefly, I found worry. Hoping to reassure him that
I was okay, I smiled. Like before, it didn’t work. But he let me go
without a fight. “I’ll be right back,” I said, my tone soft but
loud enough that they all heard me. “I’m just going to grab another
bottle of wine.”

My eyes met my mother’s on my way out of the
dining room, and I recognized her remorse. She tried to follow me,
but I shook my head, telling her silently that I needed a moment
alone.

From the kitchen, I heard nothing. The
awkward silence continued to suffocate them all, and I placed my
hands on the countertop, holding myself up as I dropped my head and
closed my eyes. I took a deep breath, and the crisp scent of autumn
traveled in on a breeze through the open window above the sink,
filling my head. It wasn’t the only scent swirling around me,
though; with it, I picked up the one scent that still called to me
even though I kept trying to ignore its pull.

“You’ve
got
to be kidding me,” I
grumbled under my breath, pushing off the counter and silently
making my way for the patio doors.

I opened them as quietly as possible and
slipped out into the night. It was completely black out, the moon
hiding behind a cover of cloud, but I left the light off to keep
from alerting my parents and David that I slipped outside for a
moment. Plus, I picked up the ability to see better in the dark,
rendering the light unnecessary anyway.

The back deck was empty, but Nick’s scent
hung in the dry desert air. I descended the few stairs and walked
past the pool, and the minute my feet hit the grass, Nick stepped
out from the shadows, hair unruly, jaw more unshaven than usual,
black T-shirt fitted to his upper body, and his hands thrust into
the pockets of his purposefully ragged-looking jeans.

“Hey,” he greeted, eyes locked on mine, hard
yet concerned at the same time.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded
through clenched teeth, annoyed that he continued to pop up
unannounced like this. Sure, there was that small part of me that
was happy to see him, but I kept a tight leash on it. I refused to
give him the satisfaction. “You realize that stalking a cop
probably isn’t the best idea, don’t you?”

“I’ve been calling. When you didn’t return
any of my messages…” He sighed, and I didn’t need to be a mind
reader to know what he was thinking. He wasn’t just worried about
me, but about what I could have done. To David. “I was
concerned.”

“We’re both fine,” I informed him, my voice
cracking at the end, giving me away.

Nick definitely picked up on it, his
eyebrows rising. “Did you…?”

Unable to meet his gaze, I crossed my arms
in front of me defensively and averted my eyes to the left. “He’s
fine.”

Naturally, he didn’t buy it. “What
happened?”

Embarrassed to be having this conversation
with my ex about the man I was currently involved with, I buried my
reddening face in my hands. “It’s nothing,” I mumbled. “Everything
turned out fine.” I was starting to sound like a broken record.

The warmth of Nick’s touch on my upper arms
pulled me from my mortification, his hands moving up and down them
in a soothing manner. “What happened?” he repeated in a soft and
soothing tone, drawing my confession from me with ease. “Did you
lose control and hurt him?”

Peeking up at him above the tips of my
fingers, I shook my head. “Not the way you think,” I mumbled into
my hands before dropping them. “We…” I thought back to what
happened that night, and the skin all over my body warmed with a
blush that I hoped the dark would conceal. What it couldn’t hide
was the unexpected shift in my hormones, its heady scent alerting
even me, so I didn’t finish explaining everything.

Understanding and sorrow filled Nick’s
expressive eyes, and he took two large steps back. “Oh.”

“He’s fine, though,” I repeated, sighing and
rubbing my hands up and down my arms in an act of self-comfort.
“But I’m…struggling with the memory of it. I didn’t even realize I
was being that rough.”

A rumble escaped Nick, and he was quick to
quell it. But not before I recognized it for envy. It was obvious
that he wanted to tell me how he told me so, but instead, he
expressed it with the silent intensity of his stare. Then his eyes
turned angry without warning. “As much as I want to hear about how
kinky things are in the bedroom now, that’s not why I’m here.”

My annoyance flared when his concern melted
away completely. “Then what the hell do you want?” I don’t know
why, but he seemed taken aback by my reaction. “I mean, if you
didn’t come here to check up on me, which is kind of the impression
that you initially gave off, then what is it? What is so important
that you’d interrupt a
family
dinner?”