Your Coffin or Mine? Read Online Free Page B

he had mucho sex appeal and wore really cool clothes.
    Yikes, what was I thinking ?
    In my book, mucho sex appeal and cool clothes ranked numbers one and two on my Must Have in an Eternity Mate list. As opposed to the usual (1) astronomical fertility rating, and (2) astronomical fertility rating. Forget talking to him. I should be jumping him on the spot.
    The notion stirred a very vivid image, followed by a rush of guilt. Misplaced guilt, I reminded myself. I was not the one who’d bailed on Ty without so much as a see ya.
    Except that he might not have bailed. He might have been kidnapped after our night of hot, wild sex. Which would have made it impossible for any sort of goodbye, or even a note. He could be being beaten and tortured at this very moment.
    Or worse. My gaze zeroed in on the dark stain. “You don’t think he’s—”
    “—permanently dead? Staked through the heart? Head chopped off? Body cut into little pieces?”
    Ewww. “Uh,” I swallowed, “something like that.”
    He shook his head. “Not enough blood. No arterial matter. No flayed skin.”
    Double ewww.
    “But wherever he’s at,” Ash went on, “I don’t think he’s in good shape. Judging by the size of the puddle, he lost quite a bit of blood.”
    Loss of blood meant he was weak. Probably drifting in and out of consciousness, barely coherent, which would totally explain why he hadn’t contacted me again.
    I glanced around at the chaos again and my chest tightened. Ty’s words replayed in my head and I got this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. A feeling usually reserved for the stack of credit card bills currently taking up half of my desk.
    “We have to help him,” I said, letting go of the last of my vengeful thoughts. Hey, I’m female and we’re entitled to change our minds. Judging by this latest info, I was firmly convinced Ty wasn’t a total jerk-off and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
    Ash was right. Something bad had happened.
    He glanced at the mess and then at me. “Any ideas what we should do?”
    “You’re the detective. You tell me.”
    “We start with the girlfriend.”
    “Girlfriend? Are you telling me that he has a girlfriend ?” And to think I’d actually forgiven him in the last five seconds. What an idiot. I gave myself a massive mental head slap. I was so going to find him and decapitate him myself. I fought down a wave of anger and tried to sound disinterested. “So, who’s his girlfriend?”
    “I’m looking at her.”
    I glanced behind me before the truth struck. I whirled and blond hair slapped me in the face. “Me?”
    “Yeah,” he said as if he’d just pointed out that I also had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Duh.
    “Wait a second. You think I’m his girlfriend? Did he say that? And if he did, when did he say it? And how? Did he seem happy about it? Angry? Suicidal?” The questions poured out before I could stop them. Not that I would have. I wanted to know everything. Every minute detail of every super sweet thing Ty Bonner had ever said about me. “Do you think he meant it? Did he mention anything else—”
    “Whoa.” He signaled with his hands. “Time out. I think you’re getting a little carried away. He didn’t actually say it. I just assumed.”
    “Why?”
    “Because.” He shrugged. “I could just tell.”
    “How?”
    “Because he said you had a big mouth.”
    My mind rifled back to our night together and my eyes narrowed. “That dirty rat fink. I can’t believe he told you that we—”
    “He didn’t,” Ash cut in. “He didn’t say a word about you personally. Just that you like to talk a lot.”
    “And this translates to girlfriend how?”
    “Guys talk about their current squeeze or their latest blow job: ‘I boffed this girl or gave it to that one.’ You know the spiel.”
    No, but I was quickly finding out.
    “They don’t talk about wives or girlfriends,” Ash added. “That would just be weird.”
    Okay, it sort of made