Caught in the Frame (Ponderosa Pines Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) by ReGina Welling (novel24 .TXT) 📕

his mouth and hers. “No, Remy. I want all the ghosts cleared from between us before we take that next step. Please, tell me about your grandmother, what happened to her?”

For a full minute or more, he stayed silent, his posture slowly changing while she thought he battled the decision to tell her some part of the truth, all of it, or to continue with the facade he had built. When another pang of sympathy surfaced, EV gave in to it and trusted her instincts. “I can see you’re hurting,” she gentled her voice, surprised to note the modicum of truth in her own words. She waited on the edge of what felt like all or nothing.

His arms dropped to his sides ending in tightly clenched fists. EV took the opportunity to move into the seating area. Reluctantly, he followed to settle beside her.

At his first words, she knew she’d won. “My grandmother went away after my father died. Not physically, just somewhere inside herself where no one could touch her. It was like something inside her had gone with him to wherever it is people go when they pass, and nothing we did could make her live again.” His eyes, when they met hers, held the kind of pain that can suck a man under. Some small part of her felt sorry for him. “Grandfather couldn’t reach her, and when I couldn’t either, he blamed me for her falling into that state to begin with.” He swallowed hard, and she watched the pain slide back down to his gut where it fed the fiery rage always simmering there.

Okay, then what colossal leap of intellect did you take that landed an entire town on your revenge list? Blurting out her inner dialog wasn’t one of EV’s problems; her internal filters were, if anything, too strict most of the time.

“That must have made you feel awful.”

Red crept back up to color his face, “My parents walked away from everything to ‘give their child a chance to connect to the earth’,” he singsonged mockingly. “It was my fault they were there in the first place, and Grandfather made it clear that it was my duty—my family legacy—to make it right in the end.”

“Make it right how?”

“Sometimes the law turns a blind eye,” he spit out. “Some things you just have to do for yourself.”

“We’ll see about that,” Dalton’s voice hummed over the radio.

“What did you do, Remy?” An edge crept into her tone that, in his zeal, he failed to notice. “How can I be with you if you’re going to keep secrets from me?”

He wanted to tell her; the need to lay his sins out in a row before her was almost stronger than the ego-swollen thirst to finish what he had started.

The moment spun out in deafening silence. He wasn’t going to go through with it, she knew when the battle inside him finally ended when the smarmy look indicating he was about to move on her again came over his face.

“It’s nothing. I swear. Didn’t we come up here to have some fun?”

In her ear, Nate whispered the words she’d been waiting to hear, “Baylee’s evidence was in Chloe’s closet. We think he’ll try to retrieve it. You should let him.”

She let him think his distraction worked. “I need to freshen up first. I won’t be a minute.” EV made a beeline for the bathroom. The second she was gone, Remy launched off the sofa and silently pulled open Chloe’s bedroom door. The dry cleaning, shrouded in plastic, hung in plain sight. EV heard the rustling of the bag through the cracked open bathroom door; hurriedly closed it again when she heard him coming back. He was back in his place, a smug smile on his face when she entered the room.

He rose to meet her halfway, his intention plainly to lead her to her bed.

A split second decision lay before EV, and a wrong choice now could lead to disaster. Should she keep stroking his ego by making him think she would follow him anywhere, no matter what laws he had broken? Or should she go for the proverbial knee to the nuts and play on his extreme dislike of being bested at anything?

“You know what? It’s okay, you don’t need to tell me.” Feigned interest fell off her face to be replaced by a hard, speculative stare. She leaned back in her chair nonchalantly. “I already know most of it, anyway.”

An eyebrow shot up before he could catch himself. Quickly, he forced it back down while relaxing his facial muscles into a less shocked arrangement. No way she knew. No way. “What are you talking about? You always did have a vivid imagination. There’s nothing to tell. Why don’t we go back to my room and talk about us?”

“I don’t think so, Remy. Just out of curiosity, what did you have on Evan Plunkett.”

The name dropped like a boulder to land between them, and Remy flinched.

“That’s really the only thing I can’t get a handle on about your whole scheme. How did he figure into it all?”

“I don’t know any Evan Plunkett.”

“Oh, I think you do. You blackmailed him.” Remy cut his eyes toward the door—a sure sign he was thinking of bolting. He wouldn’t get far in any case, but she preferred to skewer him right here and now. “What on earth made you choose him of all people? A braggart—” she sent up a little apology for speaking ill of the dead, “—with a limited sphere of influence. You truly do have a poor sense of judgment when it comes to choosing evil minions.” EV pursed her lips and slowly shook her head.

Without giving him time to reply, she needled him again.”You actually did Ponderosa Pines a favor. While we’re not going to be annexed by Gilmore any time soon—ever, really—working closely with the leaders over there paved the way for a reconciliation of sorts. A new respect on both sides, if you will.”

His