Laid Bear by Eve Vaughn (e books for reading .TXT) 📕

another topic. She’d wanted to bring it up since she’d heard them whispering when they thought she wasn’t around. At the time, Zora hadn’t dwelt on it because they’d distracted her with a lot of heavy petting and kissing, but now she wasn’t going to be put off.

“So guys, what were the three of you talking about earlier today?”

To their credit, none of the men batted at eye, but she could still sense their unease, a testament to how well she’d learned to read them in the time they’d been together.

When they remained silent, she prompted them. “Well? Is anyone going to tell me? I thought we said no secrets, but this morning I find Gavin on the phone talking to someone rather rudely, and then the three of you are speaking in hushed tones when you think I’m not in the room. If we’re supposed to share things with each other, you guys aren’t holding up your end of the bargain very well.”

The three men looked at each other, silently communicating while Zora grew more annoyed by the second.

Finally Gavin answered. “Remember when you were telling us about those harassing phone calls you’d started to receive when you still lived in Covington?”

She nodded. “Yes, what about them?”

Gavin glanced at his cousins again before speaking. She could tell he was stalling to find the right words. “We knew you were worried about Dale coming back into your life and we wanted to go to the source. We hired a private investigator to find him and it was our intent to confront him.”

It took a moment to process what Gavin had just told her.

She was highly annoyed they’d gone behind her back without telling her, but she managed to hold back any harsh words because she knew they’d meant well. “So what did you find out?” she asked as calmly as she could.

“This morning when you walked into the kitchen, I was on the phone with the private investigator. I was upset because I got some unexpected news,” Gavin said.

Zora’s heart sped up at the thought of that maniac being free to do her and her men harm. Though she was almost frightened to ask, she did anyway. “What did you find out?”

Another long pause followed her question before Heath answered, “Dale’s been dead for the last three years. It seems when he was released from prison, he was in and out of trouble with the law, drug charges mostly. From what the investigator learned, he’d picked up a heavy crystal meth and heroin addiction. He was found dead in his parents’ home of an overdose.”

So many thoughts rushed through Zora’s head. She felt relief that she’d never see him again, yet also anger because she’d never be able to confront him to tell him what he’d stolen from her. And sadness because of the terrible way he’d died. She wouldn’t have wished that on anyone. And finally she felt trepidation. If it hadn’t been Dale who’d been making those calls, then who? She wanted to think maybe it was a random nut, but how would they know such intimate details about her?

“So if it wasn’t him, then who was making those calls?” she finally asked.

“That we don’t know, but at least we know who it wasn’t,”

Heath answered. “Zora, you said this caller said things only Dale would know. Exactly what did he say to make you believe that?”

Zora shuddered just thinking about the vulgar things the caller had told her. “He mentioned things on my body, like my birthmark, and moles on strategic parts of my body. Dale wasn’t my only lover, but he was the only one other than you guys, of course, who I’d been with more than once. He would have been the only one to know my body as intimately. Plus, he taunted me with some things I’d shared with him about my childhood. Remember I said he used to throw things back in my face? That’s why I couldn’t think of anyone it could be other than him.”

Gavin, Heath and Logan seemed just as puzzled as she was. Who would know all this stuff about her? “And you didn’t recognize the voice of the