Free Sweet Desire: (A Sinful Nights Short Story) by Lauren Blakely Page A

brother Colin finished next, then Ryan reached the trailhead
one second later, breath coming fast from an epic run.
    He tapped the wooden
sign. “Forty-four minutes for this trail. Our best time ever,” he
said, as his heart beat furiously from the final sprint down the
hill.
    “Forty-four minutes
for me. Forty-four minutes and one second for you,” Colin corrected, with an arch of the eyebrow.
    “Cocky bastard,”
Ryan said with a grin, as a bead of sweat slid down his chest. He
headed for the water fountain, pressed the spout, then patted the
edge. “C’mon boy.”
    Johnny Cash trotted
over, leapt up, and placed his paws on the stone edge of the
fountain, lapping up streams of water. Like the rest of them, he’d
worked hard that evening on the trail run.
    When his dog was done,
he went next, taking a long, cold drink, then headed to the wooden
fence at the base of the trail, resting his elbows against the rail.
Something had been on his mind for days. Something he kept trying to
make heads and tails of with no success yet.
    “Tomorrow’s the big
day. I’m going to the principal’s office in the afternoon,”
Ryan remarked with a wry tone, trying to make light of the three p.m.
appointment on his calendar tomorrow. His dog wandered to his feet
and lay down on the cool dirt, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
    “Don’t tell me you
got into another fight on the ice?” Colin joked.
    “Ha. You know I’m
the one who breaks up the fights,” he said, referring to his
self-appointed role in the hockey games he played – making sure
none of his teammates lost their cool. Then, he cleared his throat
and turned serious. “I’m meeting with the detective. He called
earlier in the week to set up a time. I asked if he had anything in
particular he wanted to talk about.”
    Colin arched an
eyebrow. “Did he tell you?”
    Ryan shook his head.
“Nope. That guy was Fort Knox on the phone. He said the meeting was
just for routine questioning. Since I’m a potential witness he
wants to talk to me. Is that what he said to you too?”
    “Yup. I’m seeing
him on Friday. I tried to get some more details, but he wasn’t
giving them up on the phone.”
    Nor had the detective
disclosed them in person when he’d appeared at their sister’s
post-wedding celebration a week ago to drop the news that their
father’s murder investigation had been reopened. Last thing in the
world Ryan had ever expected to hear. He’d been shocked to the
bones to learn there was new evidence in a crime that already had two
people serving life sentences.
    “So you got any new
ideas why the case was reopened?” he asked, giving voice to the
million-dollar question. “If you had to guess…”
    “Somebody must have
come to the cops with new evidence. A new detail. Somebody saw
something, heard something, don’t you think?” Colin asked, as he
stretched out his quads after their punishing run.
    “Who do you think it
was who came forward?” Ryan had his own ideas, but he liked to hear
what his siblings thought.
    Colin rattled off a
handful of names and possibilities from their mother’s ex-lover, to
the gunman’s buddies, to even some of their mother’s seamstress
customers from years ago. “But it could be anyone. Could be someone
she made a leotard for who suddenly remembered something. And
tomorrow you’ll find out. It would be fucking awesome if they find
the bastards they think are involved.”
    “That would, in fact,
be the definition of fucking
awesome ,” Ryan said, then held up a closed fist to knock
with his brother. “I need to head out. I’ve got a client dinner
in an hour. Meeting with these guys in town from San Francisco about
doing some security for them. White Box is the name.”
    “What’s their line
of work? Sounds like a tech app or something with a name like that.”
    “It does. But they’re
very, how shall we say, hands
on ,” Ryan said, sketching air quotes. “ They run a bunch of private clubs where