LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 3

      Demi heard Wolf on the baby monitor. He’d started to cry. She got up and went to the secret door. Leaving that open, she flipped on the light. There was no overhead light in this room, just two brushed-brass lamps with bear-embroidered shades. She went to his crib to see what had awakened him. Judging from the smell, she didn’t have to guess. Lifting him with a kiss to his pudgy cheek, she quieted him and then laid him on the changing table.

      He didn’t protest. In fact, she was pretty sure he enjoyed having his diaper changed. She bent to brush her nose with his.

      “Don’t you?” she cooed. “You like this.”

      He wiggled his arms and legs along with a baby sound of glee.

      She smiled with a heart full of love. And proceeded to change him.

      “You’re going to be a clean freak when you get older, aren’t you?”

      He made the gleeful squeal again.

      She cleaned him up and put on a fresh diaper. When she’d finished, she picked him up and held him, unable to resist. She was tired and needed more sleep, but these moments were just too precious to relinquish too soon.

      “He’s a good baby.”

      A jolt shot through her and she turned. Lucas stood in the doorway. How long had he been there?

      “Sorry.” He walked into the room. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

      “He likes eating and having his diapers changed. He doesn’t even mind a bath.” She looked down at his adorable face with his sweet green eyes looking up at her. He’d have her red hair, too. She was glad he’d gotten a lot of her features. She didn’t want to look at him and every time be reminded of Bo.

      When Lucas stopped before them, Wolf turned his head and fell into a long, curious inspection of the new face.

      “Can I hold him?”

      Demi couldn’t explain why she was so overprotective of Wolf, other than having a madman frame her and police on her tail for murder. She saw no harm in letting him hold Wolf, not in the middle of a snowstorm. He wouldn’t try to take Wolf and go.

      She handed him over.

      Wolf seemed glad to go there, immersed in rapt fascination with Lucas’s face. She watched softness transform Lucas’s expression like an instant connection had formed right then and there. Lucas put his finger near Wolf’s hand and Wolf grasped it. Her baby had a strong grip.

      “He’s something else,” Lucas said. “He has your eyes and hair.”

      “Yes.”

      “Is he Bo’s son?”

      After a few seconds she finally said, “Yes.”

      Lucas looked up at her and she felt the powerful meaning that brought to him. Bo might have veered off an honest path into murkiness and deceit, but they were still brothers.

      “You were close to Bo?” she asked.

      “When we were younger we were practically inseparable. Somewhere along the way he had drifted. I got busy with life and didn’t notice until he started doing questionable things. Lying. Treating female coworkers with disrespect. He’d almost been fired from some early jobs for sexual harassment. That wasn’t the brother I knew. I don’t know why he changed.”

      She could see the sadness that brought him, but he also had many good memories. So did she. When she first met Bo, she must have seen the same traits Lucas had. Although Bo had darker hair and green eyes, he’d looked similar to his younger brother. He and Lucas were both handsome in a strong, clean-cut way. He’d also loved the outdoors, hiking and skiing, fishing—and dogs, of course.

      She’d fallen for him right away and been certain he’d felt the same. She believed he had, anyway, and maybe hadn’t stopped loving her even after she’d begun to withdraw. She’d caught him in various lies, as well. Not major ones, just a series of little lies that made her wonder why he’d thought he needed them in the first place. But every time she questioned him he would fly into a rage. He’d frightened her once when he’d picked up an iron patio table and hurled it across the yard. That’s when she began to think maybe he wasn’t the one for her. When he left one night after another fight and came home drunk, she’d found another woman’s number written on a business card. That had been it for her. They had broken the engagement.

      “I don’t know, either,” she finally said. “He had a lot going for him, but he made a lot of bad choices.”

      Lucas watched Wolf fall asleep in his arms. “How did you get together?”

      “I’ve always known him. I ran into him a few times. Then one day at the market he started talking to me. A few minutes later he asked me out. We had dinner, then went on a few hikes.” She shrugged. “We just hit it off.”

      She wouldn’t add that Bo had reminded her of a nonconfrontational Lucas.

      “And then he showed you his new ways?” Lucas’s eyes lifted.

      “Yes, but he had some good points. He had his own business breeding dogs for the K-9 Unit and was so good with the mamas and pups. I can see how the two of you were so close before he lost his way.”

      A slight upward curve of his mouth told her he appreciated the comment.

      “He could be charming. The only problem was, he was charming to other women.”

      “Yeah, and he got mixed up with the Larson twins.”

      Noel and milder-mannered Evan had caused Red Ridge a lot of trouble, but the criminal twins were behind bars now. Bo could be a real rat, but he hadn’t deserved to be murdered.

      “What happened between you and Bo?” Lucas asked.

      Unable to resist, Demi reached for Wolf. Lucas gave him up and she held him, seeing him stir a little before falling into sleep again.

      “We started fighting a lot. He would lie about stupid things, things he didn’t need to lie about. He had a temper, too.”

      “He wasn’t like that when we were younger.”

      “He wasn’t like that until we got engaged. He asked me to marry him, I said yes, and then I found out about the harassment. It changed the way I felt about him. After one fight, he left and spent his evening at The Pour House and came home drunk.” She eased Wolf down into his crib and covered him. “The next morning I told him he had to change his ways or it was over.”

      “You broke up with him?”

      “In essence. I gave him a chance to redeem himself. I guess I still hung onto the man I dated, the man I’d fallen in love with.”

      “You did love him?”

      She wasn’t sure why Lucas needed to know all of this. Maybe talking about his older brother helped him deal with the loss. “I loved a version of Bo.”

      “Did he try to change?”

      “Oh, no. He was furious with me. He packed, took back the ring and left. Not long after that, I found out he was seeing Hayley Patton.”

      Lucas studied her, or

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