Free Hale Maree by Misty Provencher Page B

cupping my head as he brings his mouth down on
mine. His lips are softer than I expect. I spin inside his kiss,
clinging to him as he pulls my lip between his teeth and gently
releases it again. His breath whispers my name across my mouth as
he pulls me even closer. With my body crushed against his, and the
sunlight from the windows, and his hands sliding down my back, I
think I am going to combust.
    As his mouth moves against mine again, and
his fingers slide over my hips, his cell phone begins to ring. He
ignores it, but I pull back.
    “ Aren’t you going to get
that?” I ask. He groans, but reaches into his pocket, then steps
back, his eyes still boring into mine, and turns on the
phone.
    “ Hello?” His tone could not
be more agitated. He listens a moment before his eyes move away
from me, out the windows. We’re still so close; it feels like an
invasion of his privacy to stay there, under his chin, breathing
him in, so I back away. His gaze remains far past me.
    “ Ok...but they still don’t
have any leads, do they? I thought you said they worked
together...well, did Sophia have something to do with it or
not?”
    He moves then, turning away from me to plant
his hand on the edge of the table, his back to me. I follow the arc
of his arm, past his broad shoulder, and down to his narrow waist.
My skin still tingles where his hands held me steady only a moment
ago.
    “ But he told you Sophia sent
him...that they were together...no, it doesn’t add up, does it...I
don’t care what she says. The guy told you he was there because of
her, why would he say that if he wasn’t? I’ll talk to her in a
couple days. I’m too confused to say anything right now...Yeah,
she’s still here with me...I don’t know yet, we’ll see...alright,
well, keep me up on what’s going on, okay?...Alright, Dad...yeah,
you too...bye.”
    He switches off the phone and lays it on the
table.
    “ What’s going on?” I ask. He
shakes his head, and rubs his eyes with one hand.
    “ We don’t know,” he says.
“Sophia’s either excellent at playing dumb, or she really doesn’t
know who Rick Tatum is. She’s been blowing up my house phone trying
to get me.”
    “ Why doesn’t she call your
cell?”
    “ She doesn’t have this
number,” he says. He’s still looking out to the beach. “The only
ones that do are my father and Landon.”
    “ Are you going to call
her?”
    “ When I figure out what to
say to her, I will. She was cheating on me, Hale. I don’t think she
needs to be told that it’s over.”
    “ What if you’re wrong?” I
ask. What I mean is, if she didn’t have
anything to do with this, are you going back to her? I don’t know why it is such a dark question that I
have a problem asking it. I shouldn’t care. It’s just getting
really hard to remember that Oscar’s a complete
stranger.
    “ The guy knew her name,” he
says. “I’m pretty sure she had everything to do with it. Look, I’m
going to go for a walk and clear my head.”
    And that’s it. He goes out and the door
latches shut behind him with a gritty bang.
    “ Come running,” I whisper,
but he doesn’t hear me.
     

CHAPTER SIX
     
    HE IS GONE FOR TOO LONG. I finally follow
his path out the sunroom door and down the short, curved sandy path
to the beach. The trees open up and the lake stretches out even
larger than I thought. I’m surprised that, although I can see the
other side, there are no houses looking back. The only sign of life
I see is Oscar sitting at the end of a long dock with his feet in
the water. I pick my way around a beached, aluminum boat, but I
only get a foot away from shore before I stop. The wobble of the
boards makes Oscar twist around to see me.
    “ Hi,” he says, scooting
himself, and his removed shoes, over to make a spot for me. “You
want to come sit?”
    “ No,” I say, backing off the
dock. The slight quake in the structure makes me feel lightheaded,
but it’s the thought of falling in the water that fills