Free Deeper Than Need by Shiloh Walker Page B

Miss Mary. I’ll try again.”
    Something caught his eye and he stilled, his attention narrowing down on the man standing at the far end of their street, his gaze locked on the Frampton house. Max kept his head turned, like he was still watching his Mary, but all of his focus was on that man.
    Much as he was aggravated by the interest in the house, Max couldn’t say he was surprised by it. He wasn’t. Not at all. Madison was, after all, a small town and some people had absolutely nothing better to do with their time than sit around and cook up crazy stories about who or what might have been found down in the old cellar.
    Some had nothing better to do than idle by the house and speculate, never mind the fact that it was upsetting the frail old woman at Max’s side, never mind that it was going to ride on the new owner’s nerves something awful once she was allowed back in the house.
    Max understood human nature. Sometimes he hated that insight, but he understood it.
    Still, he had the weirdest feeling there was something more than morbid curiosity going on just now.
    It was there in the intense way the man stared at the house.
    Abruptly the man shoved away from the wall and his head slanted toward Max.
    Max didn’t let himself react. Instead, he smiled and spoke to Mary, although for the life of him he didn’t exactly recall what he said. Something about the flowers, he thought. She just smiled and nodded.
    The man turned away and walked off.
    Mentally the judge filed away everything he could about him. Tall, Max thought. Too far away to be exact, but he suspected the man was a decent height. Broad shouldered and he moved well, too well to be an old man, but he looked too comfortable in his skin to be a kid, either. Teenagers and the younger men were often still rather awkward. If Max had to hazard a guess, he’d say the man was in his thirties or forties. His hair had been covered by a brimmed hat, the dark sort, although, again, he’d been too far away to quite make out anything more than the fact that he’d worn a hat with a brim.
    So … a white man who wore a hat had stood there at the corner staring at the Frampton house.
    Blowing out a sigh, Max tugged off his own hat again and started to twist it in his hands.
    “Stop worrying so, Judge,” Mary admonished.
    He looked over at her.
    “Whatever it is that has you worrying will work itself out.”
    Despite himself, he had to smile. How many times over their six decades had she told him just that? Sometimes things had worked out. Sometimes they hadn’t.
    But it was a comfort just to hear those familiar words from her.

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    “Adam.”
    At the sound of his name spoken by a woman, Adam Brascum did what he normally did under such circumstances. Dick already hard, he rolled over to seek her out, instinctively burying his face in her hair—
    Only to recoil.
    Scratchy and stiff with gunk and gel. His erection died and he opened his eyes, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on.
    “Come on, Adam. Get up.”
    Okay … this wasn’t coming together for him. He had his hand cupping the breast of the woman lying in front of him. But the voice had come from behind him. So unless she could do a ventriloquist thing …
    Well, it was possible he’d gone to bed with two women. He’d done that a few times, but not in recent memory.
    A finger poked his shoulder.
    Turning his head, he found himself staring up at Sybil Chalmers. A slim black brow arched as she met his gaze. “Come on,” she said again. “I’m getting ready to wake Layla up, and trust me, you don’t want to be here when that happens.”
    Layla …
    He ran his tongue over his teeth as he sat up, trying to recall just how he’d come to be here. It had been late. He’d been shutting down the bar. Fuck, he hadn’t gone and had a drink, had he?
    But even as he asked himself that question he knew the answer. Yeah, his mind was a fuzzy mess, but he hadn’t had a decent night’s