“Detectives first,” I said, holding my arm out. He drew a gun I hadn’t realized he had on him and stepped into the darkened warehouse with me right behind him. He looked to the left and then to the right, his eyes roaming over every inch of the building’s interior. I stepped around him and repeated what I said earlier, “This isn’t it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I think I’d remember a big ass rusty tractor sitting in the corner.” Micah rolled his eyes and holstered his gun. After locking the doors, we headed for the car and were on the road again. The towns that surrounded Flora were all farming towns so there were a lot of back roads with expansive distances between them. It felt like we’d been in the car for hours and I was beginning to go stir crazy when Micah slowed down and pointed to another building.
“What about that one?”
The building in question was indeed a warehouse of sorts but not the right one. It didn’t have any windows and the one I had seen had. I was starting to think the whole idea was dumb. We’d already been driving for two hours and had only spotted two warehouses that weren’t anything like what I’d seen. I didn’t even know what town we were in anymore.
“Nope,” I said with aggravation.
“Alright, how’s about we get some lunch and we’ll pick this wild goose chase up after I have a full stomach.”
I shrugged my shoulders with indifference. I wasn’t really hungry but werewolves ate all the time, so going two hours without eating was probably torture for Micah. We stopped at a small diner that looked like it should’ve been shut down. The paint was peeling off the wood siding and the inside wasn’t much better. It had a long counter with barstools lining the length of it while a few booths sat along the front wall, similar to a diner. Micah and I slid into a booth and waited for the waitress.
I only ordered a glass of iced tea while Micah ordered almost everything on the menu. The waitress looked shocked but was nice enough not to comment on Micah’s appetite; besides, it’s not like Micah was fat. Werewolves have a high metabolism rate that helps burn off their high calorie diets, something I envied.
While we were waiting for our food, I stared out the window but turned to face Micah when I felt his eyes watching me.
“Remember that little diner we stopped at in Illinois?” he asked. I released a heavy sigh and nodded, not wanting to comment further. Micah, Wyatt and I had gone up to Chicago to see a Cubs game. We’d stopped at a small diner along the way where Micah and I had done the deed in the women’s restroom. We had an ongoing game to see how many public places we could have sex in without getting caught. If I remembere correctly, we’d made it up to ten. I didn’t appreciate him bringing up that specific piece of history.
“We shouldn’t talk about these sorts of things,” I said, giving him a glare. Maybe he didn’t realize how hard our breakup had been on me but that was no excuse to talk about our intimate moments now that we were both with other people. If he thought this hole in the wall was going to be number eleven, then he was about to be disappointed.
“Have you thought about what I told you last night?”
“Not really,” I lied. “You know, I don’t get you, Micah. You could have been with me for as long as you wanted but because daddy says you need to have were babies, you dump me and shack up with a woman you don’t even love. Then, as if that’s not bad enough, you tell me you still love me and bring up our sexual history.” My voice had risen along with my temper and right as I finished my rant, the waitress delivered Micah’s food. She looked between the two of us nervously, like she’d just interrupted a lover’s quarrel.
“Thank you,” I told her when she set my iced tea in front of me. She gave me a tight-lipped smile and walked away. I spared a glance at Micah but quickly looked away. I didn’t care for a man who didn’t know what he wanted. Or one who knew what he wanted and didn’t go after it. Aiden had always showed interest in me and hadn’t given up on pursuing me until I was his, something Micah needed to learn.
“You don’t understand my world, Gwen,” Micah said through a mouthful of hamburger. I took a sip of my tea and hoped it’d wash the bad taste out of my mouth.
“Maybe not, but you don’t understand love. What exactly do you expect from me?” I was positive that once the case on brew distribution was done I wouldn’t talk to Micah again. If the occasion arose again and the FPD wanted my help, I would only work with Wyatt. Micah didn’t seem to know what he wanted and I didn’t like the confusion it caused me. I instantly wanted to see Aiden; where the hell was he and why wasn’t he answering my texts?
I could see the wheels turning in Micah’s head as he thought about my question, no doubt trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t set me off. At the moment, I wasn’t sure anything he said wouldn’t piss me off.
“I didn’t realize it’d be this hard,” he began, pausing to think. “I knew I’d miss you but I thought I’d done the right thing. Most were men mate with were women while they’re still dating their other girlfriends. I didn’t want to do that to you. Still I wonder if I should have, because at least then I wouldn’t have to see you with Aiden.”
I was quiet as I considered his words. If he had gotten a were woman pregnant while he was still with me, well, there was no doubt that that would have been the end of us. I wouldn’t have been able to stay with him knowing he had a baby with another woman. The breakup had sucked, but it could have been worse, I realized. I shook my head in frustration because Micah wasn’t getting the overall concept of our problem.
“Thank you for not doing that,” I said. “but the problem isn’t whether you could have cheated or not. The problem is that you chose breeding new weres over our relationship. That’s not love, Micah. If you had truly loved me, you wouldn’t have given me up so easily. As for Aiden, he’s been there for me since I first met him. He’s gone to the extreme to protect me from harm. What we had is history; let’s just leave it at that and try to be civil for the sake of closing this case.”
Aiden had killed two women at Rush to protect my identity, and, at the time, I had been sickened at how easily he killed. However, after seeing the lowlifes that filled orders for witches’ blood, I wanted all of them turned to ash.
Micah was quiet for the rest of his lunch and soon we were back in the car and driving again. He had taken a bunch of side roads and we ended up in a town that looked desolate. A few closed-down shops lined a cracked blacktop road, making it look like a ghost town. I wasn’t sure why, but the place looked vaguely familiar. My eyes inspected the scenery and buildings as I tried to make the connection. The proverbial light bulb went off. Bridget hadn’t been the one to show me this place; it had been Amy Harper’s memories. It looked different during the daytime, but I was sure it was the city where Amy Harper had been kidnapped.
“This is the place,” I told Micah without a doubt. Micah pulled the Jeep to the side of the road and I hopped out and ran to the corner. There was an alley about ten feet up the sidewalk so I ran to it and, standing in the entrance, looked back at Micah to see if he was following. I stared down the long alley and closed my eyes as memories flashed through my mind. Amy Harper, scared and alone, had stood in this exact spot. She searched overhead but didn’t see anything, then ran down the alley in hopes of losing her pursuer. I opened my eyes and followed the same path Amy had. When I reached the end of the alley, I was standing on what looked like the edge of town; cornfields and barbed wired fences lined one side of the street and, alongside the corn, was the warehouse.
“What’s going on?” Micah said from behind me.
“This is what Amy Harper showed me,” I told him. “I think that’s the warehouse.” I pointed to the building in question and started across the street. I was so anxious with the discovery of the warehouse that I stumbled over a stump. I would have fallen into the barbed wire had it not been for Micah’s arms catching me. He wrapped a muscular limb around my waist and stopped my tumble. But, without thinking, my hand flew out to grab at anything and ended up on the wrong end of a barb. I pulled my palm away quickly and shook it as the stinging sensation shot through my palm. When I turned my hand over to see what the damage was, my palm was holding a pool of blood.
“Son of a bitch!” I said through gritted teeth. I was used to getting hurt, being born with two left feet and all, but it still hurt like hell. Micah pulled off his t-shirt and ripped it in two, using one half to soak up the blood and the other half to tie snugly around my wounded palm.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” he said with a small smile.
“It’s kind of par for the course,” I agreed. My head was down as I watched Micah’s white t-shirt turn red with my blood, but the realization that he was standing in front of me shirtless helped distract me. I looked up through my lashes and absorbed the broadness of his shoulders and the depth of the valleys that formed his impeccable muscular form. His brown hair brushed his shoulders as the wind played with it. His face had just enough stubble to be considered ruggedly sexy. He met my eyes with a longing I didn’t want to see from those familiar eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a soft tone, full of concern. I nodded my head because I was afraid my voice would crack. I quickly looked away and focused on the warehouse so that I wasn’t staring into Micah’s honey-colored eyes. I’d been a fool to think that being around him wouldn’t affect me. It had been almost a year since we’d broken up, but being around him and hearing that he still loved me was hell on my heart, especially since I had a very sexy vampire who wanted to claim me as his. I still wasn’t sure what Aiden and I were. In my terms, if I said I wouldn’t date anyone else and only be with one guy, then we were dating. In vampire terms, claiming someone as theirs could mean I was his property, under his protection and forbidden to be touched by any other vampire. I had known Aiden for two years and that didn’t fit with his personality. I knew he liked me as more than a piece of property, but the last couple of days he’d been scarce.
