The beauty of—finally—falling over the edge into the soul that waited for his.

  Chapter 16

  She shouldn’t feel this decadent.

  This wanton.

  This wrapped up in Chase.

  But that’s where she was and had stayed for nearly twenty-four hours.

  It had been a sharing unlike anything she’d ever known. An erotic, sexual feast that at times was so intense she’d never imagined she could feel like this, and at others so warm and intimate and funny she couldn’t find her breath.

  How could two people experience such a range of emotions?

  And how had she lived so long without it?

  Sloan had done her level best to keep herself in check, avoiding those types of mental wanderings in favor of taking the pure joy of the hours spent with him. But despite all her efforts, those thoughts kept creeping in.

  She had to give this up.

  In a very short time, she’d be heading home.

  And while he’d been attentive and so thorough, there were moments she’d wanted to cry at his aching tenderness, Sloan admitted the truth, if only to herself.

  He hadn’t told her he loved her. Or that he wanted her to stay. Or that this meant more to him than these special hours together.

  And it was that truth that she tried to focus on as she watched him walk back into the bedroom, the plate of cheese and crackers in his hands.

  “Is that from last night?”

  “I’d hardly be a gentleman if I poisoned you on rancid cheese.” Chase bent over and pressed a kiss to her lips before setting down the plate. “This is fresh from the fridge.”

  “I’m starving.”

  “I figured this would hold us over and we could think about going out for dinner.” His gaze drifted down over her nakedness as he settled in beside her. “Or maybe we order in dinner.”

  She reveled in that warm appreciation. “Maybe we will.”

  It had been like this since the day before. That intense awareness of each other and an inability to remain apart. As if they were both trying to absorb all they could in this brief interlude together.

  Sloan reached for a cracker, settled a piece of cheese on top and nibbled a small bite. “We haven’t talked much about the Krafts. Do you think it’s worth pulling your family in and talking about the discussion we had with them?”

  Chase swallowed around a bite of his own before responding. “It’s worth filling everyone in on what we’ve discovered so far, but we don’t have a lot to go on. Rick and his wife’s fear is real, and I don’t want to underestimate that. We can put my family on alert as well, but there’s nothing specific we can call on other than keep a careful watch if my Aunt Jessie reaches out.”

  “It’s interesting she’s only pressed Nate and Sarah so far. Not her other children.”

  “I suspect she knows her antics won’t be welcome.”

  “Perhaps.” Sloan shrugged and finished the small square of cheese, something tugging at the back of her thoughts.

  That conversation they’d had, about Jessie’s actions being small and a product of whatever decision was right in front of her, struck Sloan once again.

  It was instinct, nothing more. She didn’t know the woman, nor did she have a sense of how Jessie Colton would behave in the real world. The sum total of Sloan’s impressions was tied to past behavior and the few things her family had said about her.

  And yet...

  “Those look like some very serious thoughts.” Chase pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. “Want to share them?”

  Sloan surfaced from her musings, only to glance down to see her half-nibbled cracker still between thumb and forefinger. “Sorry. Habit.”

  “Not at all. Walk me through it. What are you thinking?”

  “Jessie’s been pressuring Nate and Sarah. And from Nate’s feedback to you, he and his sister aren’t budging.”

  “Not at all, based on my read of him.”

  “Then how long will it be before she goes after her other children?”

  “Go after them how?”

  “A pressure campaign to get them on board. To either use them to influence Nate and Sarah or to pull them into her narrative that her children deserve a share of the Colton money.”

  “Everyone’s doing okay in life. My father was the wealthier brother in terms of income, but my Uncle Buck has done fine with the ranch. More than fine,” Chase added. “The money isn’t what drives us.”

  “But your aunt doesn’t know that.”

  “I can see something’s there, something that you’re working through, but I’m not following the same thought process as you. My cousins are grown adults. Max is former FBI, even. They can handle themselves if their mother comes back calling on them.”

  “Yes, but does this Ever After group know that? What resources do they have? Or worse,” Sloan said, thinking of those dead girls dumped in hand-dug graves. “What if that church has set their sights beyond Jessie.”

  “To my family?”

  “Exactly. What if the Colton family is the endgame here?”

  * * *

  It was a sobering thought, going from a day of nonstop sensual pleasure to talk of his family’s lives at risk.

  But Chase was rapidly catching up.

  He’d like nothing more than to stay right here, keeping the world at bay with Sloan, warm and responsive in his arms. Only the real world had intruded, and he knew they needed to follow her concerns.

  “Looks like it’s time for another Friday-evening family meeting.”

  Sloan was already out of bed, heading for the en suite bathroom to shower. Chase watched her beautiful body as it was backlit from the light of the bathroom doorway.

  Even more, he now knew that body matched the beautiful heart that beat in her chest.

  He’d seen that from the first, her compassion and care such obvious traits. But now, after spending these hours with her, he recognized how deeply it ran in all she did. She was a warm, generous lover, but it was an extension of the warm, generous person that she was. And even now, her mind was rapidly processing, wanting to ensure his family was okay.

  Her thoughts were always focused on others.

  Hadn’t Max said that in their very first conversation, when his cousin had recommended Sloan for the job?

  How foolish he’d been, Chase realized, not to recognize the real risk to his heart it would be to bring in someone so competent and so deeply caring as she translated difficult work into help and support for others.

  But he’d been so foolish and so deluded. He’d thought his life would continue the way it always had, indefinitely in limbo, always able to keep his heart protected.

  In reality, he’d only been protected because there’d been no one worth falling for. No one who mattered so much. No one who’d truly put his heart at risk.

  Until Sloan.

  The sound of the shower had him imagining joining her, even as he knew there was work to be done and a family meeting to plan, when his phone went off on the bedside table. He saw Greg’s name painting the face of the screen and connected to the call.

  “Chase.”

  That flat use of his name and the odd urgency that transmitted through the phone lines in a heartbeat captured him immediately.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Rick and Wendy. They were in a car accident about an hour ago. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.”

  “Walk me through it.”

  Despite his whirling thoughts and the sheer impossibility that the healthy, vibrant people he and Sloan had spoken to a few days before were now dead, he forced himself to concentrate.

  To listen to the words Greg spoke.

  To accept that no matter how much this looked like an accident on the surface, there was no possible way it was.

  This was all part of the swirling, writhing evil that the Ever After Church was capable of. And he and Sloan had brought the wolf directly to Rick Kraft’s door.

  * * *

  It was worse than he’d imagined, Chase thought two hours later as he sat in the kitchen at the Colton Ranch.

  Rick and Wendy were dead, and Greg had headed off with Wendy’s best friend, Briony Adams, to pick up the couple’s children. They’d been sheltered at a day-care facility that had been watching the children through the madness of trying to sort through the accident, but Briony and Greg had both been designated as caregivers in case of emergency.

  And this qualified in the worst of ways.

  “You okay?” Max sat down next to him, fresh mugs of coffee in hand. Chase wasn’t all that interested in drinking anything, but it was something to do in the endless roiling of his thoughts. A strange sort of anchor as his hands wrapped around the heat of the mug and his senses took in the heavy, rich scent of the coffee.

  “I did this.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Max’s demand was quick, the narrowing of his eyebrows into slashes over his light blue eyes even quicker.

  “I asked Sloan to dig into the Ever After Church. Into Winston Kraft. There’s not a chance in hell that accident was really accidental.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Oh, no?” Chase glanced up from where he stared into the depths of his coffee, anger at himself eating a path from throat to gut. “Can you honestly sit there and tell me you think this is just a massive coincidence?”

  “Until proven otherwise, we have to keep all reasonable options open. People do have car accidents. It’s sad and horrible and ruins lives, but it happens.”

  Chase wanted to believe that. In every way, he wanted to believe that it was simple coincidence that he and Sloan had met with the couple, and two days later they’d lost their lives.

  But something deep inside refused to accept it.

  Because something equally deep recognized something far bigger was at play. It was the same sense he’d had that there were issues at Colton Properties.

  Something was off.

  And Rick and Wendy Kraft had paid the price. Their young children would pay an even higher one for the rest of their lives.

  “Since I can see you don’t believe me, walk me through it.” Max held up a hand. “Not the guilt-ridden version where you have to hold the responsibility for the whole world, but the one that your gut’s telling you.”

  “Two people are dead, Max. This isn’t me playing overbearing big brother.”

  “No, but if you are correct, you’re taking responsibility for the actions of a killer, which isn’t right or accurate. If, and it’s still an if, Rick and Wendy were murdered, then that responsibility sits with the person who did it.”

  Chase wasn’t so sure about that—they’d never have been in danger if not for his poking around—but he saw Max’s point all the same.

  And a killer on the loose was a danger to them all.

  “At my request, Sloan’s been digging around the Ever After Church.”

  “Speaking as a former representative of the US government and a law-enforcement professional, surely you understand why that’s a problem?”

  “Yes.”

  Max’s gaze was direct. “Do you?”

  “Max, come on. These people are corrupt in every way. And—” He stopped, well aware he was treading into very dangerous personal territory. “Your mother’s involved with them. We needed to know what we’re dealing with. Sloan had the skills to find the answers we needed.”

  “What the hell, Chase?” Max practically spit out the words. “You do realize this is a massive violation of privacy and could backfire on you both? She could damage her incredibly stellar reputation.”

  One more point of guilt to add to all the others.

  And while Sloan might have been a willing accomplice, this was all his doing.

  “I’m the one who pushed for this, Max. I want answers.”

  “I want them, too, but we’re not going above the law to get them.”

  “And if this church is doing some dangerous things?” Chase knew he had responsibility here, but he couldn’t quite rid himself of the importance of that point. “Things even the government hasn’t been able to find?”

  “That’s a low blow.”

  “Not a low blow. It’s the reality of the situation. They’ve shielded themselves so much that they were nearly able to bury the story about those dead girls. If you hadn’t been on the case, I believe they would have buried it. They’ve got skills and some clout, and we need to fight fire with fire.”

  “A handy excuse until you get burned.”

  “Rick and Wendy sure did.”

  And there it was again. That steady drumbeat he couldn’t see past. It suggested his insistence on the truth and on cracking open the details on the Ever After group was tainted with danger.

  “Walk me through what Sloan has found. Step by step.”

  “You do understand she did this for me?”

  “Yeah, I get it.” Max shook his head before crossing to a small drawer near the fridge and pulling out a pad of paper and a pen. He sat back down and flicked the ballpoint. “Tell me what you’ve found.”

  * * *

  Jasper Thomas Miles.

  Sloan tapped a few more keys, hunting through her databases to see if anything popped on the man. It was a long shot, but she’d been digging for hours and still wasn’t sure if she had anything or if she was going in big, tired circles.

  But if this person, Jasper Miles, had anything to do with the Krafts’ deaths, she was determined to find it.

  He’d popped up when she’d followed a trail from the Krafts’ accident report Chase’s brother, Fletcher, had been kind enough to share. The driver on scene, a Mike Arnold, was responsible for the car that hit Rick and Wendy. He’d been taken into custody for driving under the influence and everything about the situation had seemed run-of-the-mill. A real and tragic accident that had resulted in loss of life.

  But something about the timing of the accident and the fact that she and Chase had just seen the couple had her digging further.

  Because no matter what, she couldn’t shake the feeling it was made to look like an accident, even as it was deliberate, intentional action.

  She’d hunted through Arnold’s social media and uncovered two interesting things. A social post where he’d checked into a local bar and tagged a friend who was meeting him there, one Jasper Miles.

  When she’d clicked into Jasper’s account, she’d seen several photos of him out in the wide-open air that looked like this part of the country. He had also posted spiritual quotes about the “ever after way” and “building a life to last ever after, even past his last breath.”

  Odd phrasing? Yes.

  Actually incriminating? It was hard to say.

  But it bothered her, especially the use of the words ever after in his language.

  So she continued to dig. And was finally rewarded late in the day with a clear and obvious hit.

  Jasper Miles spent two years in prison more than a decade ago for a violent incident. He was ultimately released on good behavior after finding his faith in prison and went on to preach to his fellow inmates.

  One of whom was Mike Arnold.

  Parole-board testimony for both men made the connection along with the matched timelines of their incarceration. Sloan recognized there was way too big a relationship to simply brush this off.

  Or call it a coincidence.

  She texted Chase with the news, only to get a text message come winging back.

  Max said send over the details and he and I will go visit Mike Arnold in jail.

  She quickly wrote up the details and emailed both men, texting back once it was done.

  Call me or come over after you’re done. Too much coincidence here. Just sent you and Max all the details.

  As work went, she was satisfied with what she’d found. There was a connection there—a clear and evident one—and she’d peeled back layers of the onion that was the complex and convoluted actions of the Ever After Church.

  What she couldn’t quite peel back or wish away was the strange way she felt, texting with Chase as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

  As if they hadn’t had sex and slept together for nearly twenty-four glorious hours before the news of Rick and Wendy’s death reached them.

  Where had that intimacy gone?

  He hadn’t even sent an assurance back that he’d come over after visiting Arnold in jail.

  It was one more sign she needed to hold tight to her common sense and even tighter to her heart.

  She’d gone into this with her eyes open and still had managed to fall in love, anyway.

  Maybe it was time to acknowledge that was a fantasy. One steeped in mutual attraction, but not destined for anything more than the time she was slated to spend in Owl Creek.

  * * *

  Chase watched Max navigate his way through Owl Creek, the past several hours still lodged in his chest like a deal gone sour.

  He’d worked through specifics with Max all while Sloan had hammered away at potential suspects. Based on the information she’d managed to uncover in a short period of time, they should all feel very good.

  They had a lead, and he didn’t need to be a law-enforcement professional to understand it was a strong, solid one.

  But even with that encouraging news and the very real possibility they would have answers about Rick and Wendy Kraft’s death in no time, he felt strangely empty.

  He wanted to solve this and figure out what was roiling underneath the surface here in his home and with his family.

  And he wanted Sloan to stay.

  He might want that most of all.

  “Do you think this guy’s actually going to talk to us?” Chase asked Max, willing away the sense of malaise and frustration.