Free Home to Whiskey Creek by Brenda Novak Page A

you’d like?” he said with a laugh.
    Baxter didn’t rush to convince him. “Now and then. There are too many risks and complications that go with sleeping around to do it very often.”
    “Yeah, well, I didn’t get naked with anyone last night.” He had seen—and touched—Adelaide’s bare ass. That was memorable. But, in deference to what she’d been through, he wasn’t going to mention it. Maybe the rest of the circumstances surrounding her ordeal would go public. The incident was too sensational for word not to spread. But nobody had to know about the private hour he’d spent in Milly’s home, removing slivers. “Do you remember Adelaide Davies?”
    Baxter’s gaze lighted on everything that was out of place. He’d been a neat freak since he was a little kid. “Adelaide who? ”
    “Went to high school with us. Would’ve been a sophomore when we were seniors.”
    “I don’t recall anyone by that name.”
    “Doesn’t surprise me. We were at San Diego State by the time she graduated, and she left town right after.” Noah dropped onto the couch and dangled one leg over the arm.
    Baxter sat in the opposite chair, but he did so with his usual decorum. He wasn’t wearing one of his hand-tailored suits. He worked at a brokerage house in San Francisco Monday through Thursday, but his hours were flexible. Maybe he was taking two days off this week instead of one. Anyway, even his casual jeans and shirts came with expensive labels. He was stylish, well groomed, always had a perfect haircut and smelled like the men’s department at Macy’s.
    But Noah tried not to file any of that under the “gay or not gay” headings going on in the back of his mind. He refused to define Bax—someone he was supposed to know better than anyone else—according to stereotypes. He was still hoping his so-called gaydar was wrong....
    Actually, he didn’t care if his best friend preferred men. He’d deck anyone who had anything to say about it. He just didn’t want Baxter’s preferences to include him. Any admission along those lines would be far too weird.
    “She’s back?”
    “Just returned.”
    “And you didn’t sleep with her? You’re falling off your game, bro.”
    Noah scowled. He wasn’t that big a player. Living in a small town made it impossible to screw around very much—and maintain any respectability. It wasn’t as if he went out looking to get laid. Not very often, anyway. Women had always sort of...come to him. “Why do you keep bringing everything back to sex?”
    “Isn’t that what you usually want to talk about? How hot your latest conquest was?”
    Maybe he did talk too much about the women in his life. But he was trying to convince himself that the loneliness that had begun to plague him in recent years wasn’t going to taint his whole existence, that the life he led was fulfilling and would continue to be fulfilling even if nothing changed.
    Besides, he couldn’t think of a better way to put Baxter on notice that he wasn’t about to get intimate with another man.
    “She was beaten up! Of course I didn’t sleep with her. If you’ll listen, I’ll tell you what happened.”
    “Fine.” Baxter spread out his hands. “Let’s hear it, then.”
    “Forget it.” Flipping him off for being so damn facetious, Noah got up and headed to the kitchen.
    Baxter chuckled as he followed. “Now you’re clamming up?”
    “You don’t really want to hear.”
    “That’s not true. I’m dying to learn every sordid—or not so sordid—detail. Did you punish the guy who was giving her trouble, or what?”
    Noah turned to face him. “She was in the mine.”
    At this, Baxter sobered. “What do you mean ‘in the mine’? What mine?”
    “The one we used to party in at the end of our senior year.”
    “The Jepson mine? She couldn’t have been. They closed it off after—” his voice softened “—after Cody.”
    Noah didn’t want to think about his brother. Ignoring the reference, he once again