Free Incidental Contact (Those Devilish De Marco Men) by Eden Connor Page A

make out the footprints marking their run through the snow. Recalling the exhilarating dash, he smiled.  Most fun he’d had in a while. Which said something about his pathetic excuse for a life.
    He might even say that unexpected romp was better than the sex... but then again, he hadn’t had sex, had he? Fucking limp bastard. What the hell was up with his cock? In the pool, with Amy squirming in his arms like a turned-on teddy bear, begging him with her eyes—nothing.
    Nothing below the waist. His brain conjured the intense ripple of pleasure from sliding into the heat of her tight pussy, but the sensation—and act—was limited to his skull.
    Gotta be stress. Watching the snow come down, he’d started worrying that the weather might cause the courthouse to close. He wasn’t looking forward to meeting with the solicitor, but he was tired of having this concern hanging over his head. He wanted to find out John’s fate and then find a way to move on with his life.
    Because, yeah. That’s going places. Growling, he strode through the bedroom and snatched a pair of jeans off a hanger.
    He started the coffee maker, then stoked the fire. The lights were on in the loft, but he heard no sound.
    Outside, a cold blast of wind picked up some of the powder and hurled it across his boots while he unlocked his truck. He had to pull onto the grass to maneuver around Amy’s car. At the end of the drive, his headlights showed the tracks made by the newspaper guy’s vehicle. Looked like about an inch of snow had fallen. He figured the paved roads would be unaffected. A southern snow tended to be wet, with ice involved, typically a nasty affair. This powder stuff was a real rarity. No snow day for the schoolgirl.
    He yanked the rolled newsprint from the holder affixed beside the mailbox. And the courthouse will be open. Eric slung the paper into the passenger seat.
    He found the two steamer trunks right where he expected, in the shed where his grandmother once taught the farm’s migrant workers who wanted to learn English.
    Back at the cabin, he hauled the big trunks onto the porch and opened the first one.
    Yellow cardboard boxes, about a half inch thick and the size of his palm, filled one drawer. Eric snorted, thinking about the summer his Grandmother Chapman drove them insane with her new home movie camera. She’d never quite gotten the hang of holding the camera steady. Her results had made his eyes cross and his stomach heave. And the way she yanked the camera from one subject to another....  He shuddered. To say these things would make good torture devices was like saying Bentley made an okay car.
    He grabbed a handful of the film reels and turned, intending to throw them away, but something stopped him. His baby sister, Sarah, would be in these. Should he see if Jonah wanted to try and watch this crap?
    The familiar ache throbbed inside his chest at the thought of his little sister. He’d locked her in one of these trunks once. When he let her out, she’d run straight to tattle. Eric could almost feel the stripes his dad put on his ass for making Sarah cry. Rafe never could handle it when tears fell from his daughter’s eyes. Colton had smeared mayonnaise under Eric’s pillow later that night. He knew it’d been Colton, though no one ever ‘fessed up. Colton and Sarah always had each others’ back.
    His little sister’s death had been just as senseless as his mother’s. Eric could picture her, refusing to give up the keys to her new car and being shot in return. Something like that would never happen here. Yeah, right. Damn you, Sarah, no matter what Dad thought, you should’ve stayed put, right here in the shadow of the Klan. He kicked the trunk, watching the cloud of dust rise through stinging eyes.
    Hadn’t Cynda almost been raped in the house where they’d grown up? Hadn’t their mother been killed practically in Eric’s back yard? And if living in California had put Sarah in harm’s way, who was to blame