Her Scream in the Silence (Carly Moore #2) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,21

out to the shack.”

“Do you live alone?”

She turned to me with suspicious eyes. “Yeah. But I’ve got a shotgun that belonged to my daddy. My aunt took it and anything of worth after Momma was arrested. Good thing too, since people took a bunch of our stuff.”

Had people scavenged her house? I decided to try approaching the topic I was really interested in, especially now that I knew her news. “Why was Bingham watching you all night?”

She sat perfectly still.

“Look,” I said. “I know Todd Bingham scares half the town, but he doesn’t scare me.”

“He should,” she said, barely above a whisper. “He kills people. Or makes them disappear. Same difference.”

I knew that to be true from firsthand experience. “I know, but Bingham’s a bully. And the best way to deal with a bully is to stand up to them.”

“Is that what you were doin’ tonight?” she asked.

“That’s exactly what I was doin’,” I said. “Until Max went and screwed it all up.”

“He was just lookin’ out for you,” she said. “He likes you.”

“He likes all of us,” I said. “And he wants us to be safe, which is why he jumped in, even though I had it covered.”

“Are you really datin’ Wyatt Drummond?” she asked, changing topics, although I was pretty sure it wasn’t intentional.

“Yeah,” I said reluctantly. I had a lot to consider regarding my relationship with Wyatt.

“Do you know he hasn’t had a single girlfriend since he came back from prison?”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I’d never seen him in the bar before,” she mused. “Everybody says he and Max are fightin’, and I ain’t never seen ’em together, so it must be true.”

“Do you know what they’re fighting about?” I asked, feeling horrible for pumping her for information. She was so naive, it felt plain wrong. It was an indication of how desperate I’d become.

“Something to do with their daddy is all I ever heard.” She pointed to a county road coming up. “Turn left up here.”

I slowed down to make the turn. The snow had started sticking to the road, and I had no intention of crashing into a tree.

Once I’d safely made the turn, she said, “Go about two miles and then turn left again. I’ll tell you when we’re close.”

“Okay.”

“Is Wyatt a good kisser?” she asked, and I damn near ran off the road.

“What?”

“He’s got really great lips…not too thin and not too full. I’d never seen him up close until tonight. He’s good at just about everything he does, so it stands to reason that he’s a good kisser. So is he?”

“Yeah,” I conceded. “He’s a great kisser.”

“And how is he in bed?”

I was grateful it was dark enough to hide the blush that was burning my cheeks. “Lula! I’m not gonna answer that.”

“Oh, come on,” she teased. “I’m not as innocent as I look.”

“I would guess not considering you’re having a baby, but I’m still not going to tell you. Some things are private.” And then there was the fact I hadn’t slept with Wyatt yet. The next time I slept with a man, I needed to be sure I could trust him with my heart and my life, and while he’d proven the latter, he had yet to prove the former. “Time to change the topic.”

She laughed. “How’d you end up in Drum, anyway?”

“My car broke down and Wyatt towed it into town. I started working at the tavern because you were gone and I was flat broke. Figured I could make enough money to pay for the repairs, but it ended up being too expensive. I ended up staying because I had nowhere else to go.”

“That explains how you hooked up with Wyatt. Half the girls in this town would like to start something with him. Maybe he was lookin’ for something different.”

If she knew about his recent romantic relationships—or apparent lack thereof—maybe she knew about past ones too. “I heard he dated Ruth years ago.”

“Really?” she said, sounding excited. “I had no idea.”

“Do you know anything about anyone else he dated?”

“Shouldn’t you be askin’ Wyatt these questions?”

Her question stoked my anger—but not at her. And not just at Wyatt either. I should never have opened myself up to someone who refused to do the same. He’d had plenty of opportunities to let me in. For him to keep such much information secret was unconscionable, especially given the fact that I’d told him about all of the men who’d used me in the past, Jake first and foremost among them. He had