Lone Star Lonely Read Online Free

diamond-studded Bulova watch was white.
    Adam tore his gaze away from her and took a
quick glance around the room, saw the open door to the adjoining
bathroom, the wet footprints, the damp towels, the steamed-up
mirrors. “You showered?” he asked her in disbelief. “Kirsten, they
told you—”
    “I don’t give a damn what they told me.” Her
words were measured, level. She capped the lipstick tube, set it
down with a precise click. It tipped over. She reached to right it
and knocked it off the stand. Then she went still and clasped her
hands around each other to hide the fact that they were so unsteady
she could barely hold them still. Her face was a mask, both
literally and figuratively. But her tension showed in those pale,
shaking hands.
    “I had Joseph’s blood all over me, Adam. They
couldn’t expect me to just leave it.” She returned her gaze to her
own reflection, met her own eyes and looked away so fast it made
Adam wonder why. “So are they gone?”
    “Yeah,” Adam said, staring at her back and
wondering what the hell had happened to the Kirsten he’d known.
“For now. They’ll be back.”
    “Why am I not surprised?”
    He stepped farther into the room. There were
a lot of things unsaid between the two of them. He supposed it
ought to seem strange to be here and not say them. Not ask her
why…and yet it was for the best. It didn’t matter why. He was over
her. And this was neither the time nor the place for questions
about their past. For quite a while he’d been going along as if it
had never happened, and he thought he’d pretty well got the hang of
it by now. A little game of make-believe. Making believe he’d never
felt a thing for her. Forgetting every night he’d spent with her
body wrapped around him. Pretending none of it had ever
happened.
    He met her eyes in the mirror. For just an
instant he thought he saw those same memories flash and vanish. As
if she was pretending, too.
    “Do you have any idea who did this,
Kirsten?”
    She turned around to face him this time. “Why
don’t you say what you mean, Adam? You’re asking if I did it,
aren’t you?”
    “No, he’s not.”
    Kirsten looked up fast. Adam turned to see
his brother in the doorway. Garrett stepped inside, noted the
evidence of her recent shower, thinned his lips, but didn’t
comment. “But those rangers are gonna be asking, and soon. They’ll
find your prints on the weapon. And if you fired it, powder burn
traces on your hands. Traces that are going to show up whether you
showered or not.”
    “They don’t need to check for that,” she told
Garrett. “I freely admit I fired the gun. Once. At the killer. What
was I supposed to do, let him murder me, too?”
    “You say once. They’ll say twice. Once at a
make-believe intruder, to validate your alibi, and once at your
husband. Now, maybe if they find another set of prints on that
gun—a set that doesn’t belong to you—then they’ll believe your
story.”
    Kirsten bit her lip, averting her eyes
abruptly. Adam found his gaze focused on her hands again. Her
expressionless face told him nothing. It was all in the hands. They
clenched into fists in her lap, perfectly painted nails digging
into her palms.
    “I think the killer was wearing gloves,
Garrett.”
    “Great,” Adam said, rolling his eyes and
expelling all the air in his lungs at once. “That’s just
great.”
    “You say that as if it’s my fault. I didn’t
dress the man, Adam.”
    Adam looked at her. God, she sounded so cold.
So unmoved. Didn’t she even care that the guy she’d been married to
for two years had just been zipped into a body bag?
    “All they’ll be lacking is motive, Kirsten,”
Garrett said slowly. “I think you probably ought to contact a
lawyer.”
    She closed her eyes, opened them again. “I
didn’t kill him.” She folded her hands together as if to hold them
still.
    “Hell, Kirsten, I know that.” Garrett sounded
sincere, and that surprised Adam. How could his