a Touch of Revenge (Romantic Mystery - book 6): The Everly Gray Adventures Read Free

friends.
    “Sorry. I’ve been having a hard time with losing Mitch, and, as you probably noticed, it’s made me crazy. Water?”
    Pierce accepted the bottle, and then ran the back of his hand over my cheek. “When you’re ready I’ll be there. I’ve waited a long time, Everly, and I’m not fucking this up.”
    Shock exploded with a single bolt of electricity that zapped my brain cells. The water slipped from my fingers, landing on the floor with a thud and a bounce.
    And the doorbell shattered the silence between us.

 
    TWO
     
    I SHOT A LOOK AT the microwave clock. Eight. In the freaking morning. And everyone I knew, except Aukele, was still on the Big Island hiking the volcanoes.
    Pierce’s forehead wrinkled, his version of a shoulder shrug—only not.
    A fist banged on the door. Or maybe it was a battering ram, considering the blows nearly shook the walls. “Open up Everly Gray Hunt. Parker and I aren’t going away until we’ve had our say.”
    The wobble lurking in my knees hit full force, and I clutched Pierce’s arm to steady myself. “Jayne. And Parker. Why would Mitch’s sister be here?”
    He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Want me to—?”
    “No.” Whatever Tynan Pierce was considering would be a bad plan. “I want you to leave.” I pointed at the slider. “Whatever Jayne has to say is private. Between us.”
    Pierce leaned in and kissed my cheek. Very chaste. “Later, Belisama.” He disappeared, leaving the faint memory of a slippery crackle in the room. Surely he didn’t wear those cargoes when he was chasing bad guys. They’d announce his whereabouts. Well, damn. He’d worn them for me. So I’d know he’d invaded my space. So I’d know exactly where he was. It was sweet in a Pierce sort of way. And it totally screwed with my mind.
    The doorbell rang relentlessly. I cautiously made my way across the living room, stopped at the halfway point. Jayne had delivered a son several months after Mitch stepped in front of the bullet meant for me. They’d named him Mitchell Hunt Steele. What was she doing here when she should be on mommy duty?
    “Everly?” Parker this time.
    “Coming.” No point in putting this off. I certainly couldn’t send them away when they’d traveled from North Carolina to see me. No matter the reason. Heart jumping, I practiced smiling, and then swung the door open.
    “ Jayne. parker. I’m stunned.Why didn’t you let me—?”
    Jayne marched in, her khaki slacks and white blouse so crisp they crackled. Her left hand was firmly wrapped around the handle of the carry-on suitcase trailing behind her. “Because you would have insisted we not leave little Mitchell to make the trip. And because…” She looked me up and down, then sighed. “We might have waited too long, Parker.”
    He leaned around his wife, and kissed my cheek in the exact same spot Pierce had a minute earlier. Talk about incongruity. “How are you, Everly?” The genuine concern in his whiskey-smooth voice slipped under my protective walls.
    Jayne didn’t give me time to answer. “Harrummmph.” No one could harrumph like Jayne Hunt Steele. I was in for a time of it.
    She strolled into the kitchen with a definite wiggle of the post-partum baby fat that had settled on her derriere. Her gaze swung back to me. “Look at her, Parker. She’s skin clinging to bones and muscle. There’s no life in her eyes, and she’s hiding in one of Mitchell’s tattered t-shirts.”
    Parker winked at me, shot the cuffs of his starched shirt, and settled into my oversized chair.
    Jayne opened the refrigerator, took out two bottles of water, tossed one to Parker, and then zeroed in on me. “We’re here to do an intervention.”
    My stomach settled somewhere around my wobbly knees. What the hell? “That’s what they do for alcoholics. I’m not that into drink—”
    Jayne cut me off with the flat of her hand. “A grief intervention. Now, let’s sit down and discuss this rationally, as there are a few things