Boneyard Ridge by Paula Graves Page A

answers flooded his brain, most of them so intimate, so unsayable that for a moment, he felt as if he’d been struck dumb.
    But the fog cleared almost as quickly as it had arisen, and with an almost preternatural clarity, he knew that only one answer would suffice.
    The truth.
    “Absolution,” he said in a voice as raw as a wound.

Chapter Seven
    There was no nuance to the word. No hint that Hunter was yanking her chain or making a joke. Just a ragged-edged openness that burrowed like an ache in the center of her chest.
    She fought the terrifying urge to cry and plastered on a mask of a smile. “Fresh out of absolution, sugar.”
    He withdrew his comforting heat from her, and the morning chill swept in to take its place. “I’d like to hike over to Bitterwood and see if I can pick up any news about your disappearance, but I don’t like leaving you alone here.”
    “Afraid someone will find me while you’re gone?”
    Keeping his careful distance from her, he glanced over his shoulder and met the challenge of her gaze. “Afraid you’ll bug out while I’m gone.”
    “I thought I wasn’t a prisoner.”
    “You’re not. That doesn’t mean I want you to leave. At least, not until I can figure out what the BRI are planning to do next.”
    “How’re you going to do that?” Alarm fluttered in her belly. “You’re not thinking you’re going to just walk into the next planning meeting and pretend you had nothing to do with what happened last night, are you?”
    “I’m not sure anyone saw me well enough to recognize me.”
    She took a couple of steps toward him before she realized what she was doing. She drew her hand back, but not before her fingertips brushed his bare forearm.
    He gave her a look so scorching she felt something inside catch flame and spread until her skin felt hot and tight beneath his gaze. She made herself look away from him, but the fire didn’t die. It just continued to smolder low in her belly.
    She didn’t trust him. Didn’t particularly like him.
    But apparently, she wouldn’t mind wrapping herself around him and riding him like a cowboy on a wild mustang, as her grandmother used to say when she didn’t know Susannah was listening.
    Well, hell.
    She somehow managed to find her voice and the unraveling threads of their conversation. “You can’t chance it. If they did see you last night, they’re as likely to shoot you dead before you open your mouth as not, right?”
    “Probably,” he conceded. He took care not to look at her this time, and she supposed he didn’t care for all this sexual electricity zipping and zapping around them any more than she did. “I wasn’t going to go stick my head in the lion’s den or anything. Just thought I could try to touch base with my boss and see if he’s heard anything about what happened last night.”
    He kept talking about his boss. What boss? Was he seriously still trying to convince her he was working some undercover angle and was actually on her side?
    What kind of idiot did he think she was?
    She decided to play along, for now, however. No need to antagonize the man who had her held captive, for all intents and purposes. “Do you think it’s possible nobody heard the gunshots?”
    He shook his head. “They weren’t using sound suppressors. The noise would have carried to the hotel.”
    “But there were only night staff on duty. And the employee parking lot is some distance from the hotel.” The more she thought about it, the more possible it seemed that the incident had passed without anyone heading down to the parking lot to see what was going on. “The woods are close, and people do go hunting out here at night, sometimes. I’ve heard the security guys complain about it, but they’re not conservation officers, so they don’t actually go out to look for the perpetrators. Most of the time they don’t even report the gunfire—”
    “They’ll look into it when you don’t show up for work this morning,” he said with