by Sam Mariano
He barks a little louder, wagging his tail and shooting me a hopeful look.
“You’re too hard to resist, do you know that?” I ask him. “Do you have doggy treats around here somewhere?”
When Brant comes back inside, I’m caught with my hand in the cookie box. Scout is sitting on the floor, wagging his tail, excited while he waits for a Milk-Bone.
Brant cocks a decidedly unimpressed eyebrow. “I leave you alone for two minutes and you’re giving him treats.”
“He was hungry,” I insist.
“He just finished his breakfast,” Brant states.
“He was cute?” I offer more honestly. “I can’t resist those big pitiful puppy dog eyes. He had me convinced he was starving.”
Brant shakes his head, walking over to the counter as he unwinds a cord and plugs in my charger.
I draw my hand out of the box and bend down to give Scout a treat. “Here you go, buddy. Enjoy it. I think your dad’s gonna cut you off.”
“I only give him treats if he’s done something to deserve a treat,” Brant informs me. “At least make him sit down or something.”
Scout is already licking his chops, but I hold the treat up and his gaze darts to it. “Sit.”
He promptly obeys my command and sits on his hind end.
“Good boy,” I tell him, giving him the small bone and petting the top of his head. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”
Brant shakes his head at me still giving Scout praise and affection for sitting. “You’re gonna spoil him rotten.”
Scout chomps on his Milk-Bone, his tail swinging enthusiastically.
Brant whistles and Scout looks back at him. Brant points firmly to the ground beside his feet and Scout obeys, going over to Brant’s side and lying down beside his feet. Once he’s there, though, he looks up at me longingly, like he wants to come back but he’s just too well trained to defy his alpha.
I cock my head as if unimpressed, and Brant just smirks. “Your wiles only get you so far here,” he informs me.
“I’d say brute force and bossing people around only gets you so far, but I guess it has gotten you everywhere you wanted to be,” I acknowledge, crossing to the counter and picking up my phone.
“Don’t turn that on yet,” he tells me. “You can text your sister after we eat.”
Once more, I cede to his bossiness and go over to wash my hands instead.
After we have breakfast, I’m finally allowed to message Amber.
With Brant hovering over my shoulder, watching what I’m typing, I tell my sister I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, but one of the kids I’m watching spilled chocolate milk on my phone and I’ve had it in a bowl of rice, trying to dry it out. I tell her it’s still being wonky, but I just wanted to let her know I’m okay and I’ll see her soon. I tell her to give the kids hugs and kisses for me, and not to let Pappy forget to take his medication before bed.
“Is that some kind of signal?” Brant asks, narrowing his eyes in suspicion and grabbing my phone before I can press send.
Leaning my hip on the counter, I cross my arms over my chest and regard him. “No. Believe it or not, my sister and I never came up with a secret SOS signal in the event a madman ever kidnapped one of us.”
Pointing at the phone, unconvinced, he says, “This Pappy line seems unnatural.”
“It’s not,” I assure him. “Pappy is supposed to take his medication before bed, but half the time he falls asleep on the chair in the living room, so he forgets. Normally I’m home, so I wake him up with his pills and a glass of water and make sure he takes them before I go to bed. I don’t know if Amber will think to do it since that’s always my job.”
Still, the man eyes me up like I’m tricking him.
Sighing with annoyance, I tell him, “I don’t need rescuing! I like it here. Do you think I’m faking everything? To what end? It’s already Sunday—I assume you’re taking me home tomorrow. Why would I bother making a fuss now?”
Finally, he says, “All right,” and presses send. Still, once the message goes through, the paranoid man turns my phone back off.
I expect a certain measure of crazy from someone I met through a kidnapping, though, so I let it go and we get on with our day.
I’m excited to see what a day with Brant entails, now that things are more or less normal between us.
This is the first I’m really seeing Brant’s property. The night I arrived, it was dark outside, and yesterday I was here by myself but didn’t want to go snooping around. It’s not that I was worried I might stumble upon a stash of bodies in one of the outbuildings—though, upon reflection, maybe I should have been a little more worried about that—it’s just that I had a lot I wanted to get done around the house.
I love my family, but being at Brant’s house by myself was so peaceful. Peace and quiet isn’t something I’m used to having much of, and I have to say, I’m a fan.
Scout is excited to be outside and runs up ahead of us. Since we’re in no hurry today, Brant’s stride is more of a lazy saunter.
It’s a nice day, the sun peeking out between the passing clouds. It’s so quiet out here, too. You can hear the sounds of Scout’s paws traipsing across the lawn, smell the freshness in the air. Like the rest of Brant’s surroundings, it’s just so peaceful.
“Have you always lived out here?” I ask, looking over at him. “Is this family property or something?”
Shaking his head, he surveys his land. “Nah, I bought it myself once I saved up enough money for a down payment. We grew up in a little suburban ranch, all the houses pretty close together. Wasn’t what I wanted. I like a little more space to stretch out.”
A little. I smile wryly, looking around the massive property—and that’s just what isn’t covered by trees. Obviously, I don’t know how far his property runs, but just in the area I can see, there’s the main house, a three-bay garage across the dirt path, a nice-sized pond with a little pier, a second garage or barn or some kind of big red building a little farther away, something white and domed that might be a greenhouse, a small shed, and then off in the distance the way Scout ran, there’s a small cottage-like building.
“Seems like a lot of space just for you,” I remark.
“Scout lives here, too,” he reminds me.
I crack a little smile. “I know, I’m just saying. When you bought the place, was this what you imagined, or…?”
He looks over at me. “How do you mean?”
I don’t know exactly how to ask without making it sound like I think there’s something wrong with his life now. I don’t, but it does seem a little lonely, and it’s a shame for someone like Brant to live alone if he doesn’t want to.
Watching Scout play as we walk toward the garage, I try to wrangle my curiosity into words. “Like, when you bought the place, were you with anybody you saw a future with? Or did you think you would be?”
“No,” he says simply.
“You never saw yourself getting married? I thought you said kids sounded nice and you just never met the right person—you never came close or anything?”
His lips curve up faintly. “You sure are interested in my marital status.”
“I just don’t get it.” I shake my head. “You seem like a man who should be married, and you seem like the kind of man a lot of women would love to marry, so I don’t understand how you’ve made it to 35 without forging some kind of family for yourself. You seem like a family man.”
“I’d consider myself a family man,” he agrees. “And I have a family. You’ve met some of them. Not being married doesn’t mean I don’t have a family.”
He’s frustrating me with his unwillingness to answer the question he has to understand I’m asking, but I don’t know how to ask more plainly than I have already, so I let it go as we walk into the big building though a man door.
Since it’s a garage, I expect to see cars inside. There’s an SUV down in the last bay off by itself and I can see tools and typical garage things a
long the far wall, but my apprehension grows a little when I look at the workspace that takes up most of Brant’s garage.
There’s a huge wooden table in front of us with some kind of saw or cutter or…some kind of machine on a bench at the end of it. The whole perimeter of this work area is occupied by various cutting machines. On the floor in front of the massive table (definitely big enough to fit any body type on top of) is a green plastic drop cloth.
“Is this where you do murder?” I ask.
Solemnly, he nods his head. “This is where I do murder.”
My eyes widen and I look over at him. “Really?”
His lips tug up a little. “Kinda. I murder trees.”
“Huh?”
His smile widens. “This is my workshop. I do woodworking—it’s my hobby.” He walks over to the murder table, and I look around at the sharp instruments he has neatly organized on slotted shelves hung up along the workshop wall.
“What a convenient cover,” I tell him, looking around. “‘No, officer, I don’t have a murder room. I make tables.’” I cross the room and grab a particularly dastardly-looking tool with a wooden handle from the rack it’s hanging on. “You could definitely kill someone with this.”
“I’m not a serial killer,” he says, mildly amused.
“So you say,” I tease before hanging the tool/weapon back on the wall. “I’m not convinced.”
“You don’t seem very scared of a man you think has a murder workshop.”
I shrug. “Hey, I’m not on the murder list anymore, what’s it to me?” I pick up another tool and hold it up. “What’s this for? Torturing fools?”
“It’s a chisel,” he explains. “While I suppose it could be used to torture fools, I mainly use it to clean up joints when my saw doesn’t leave them as neat as I want ’em.”
I nod slowly. “If the police ever ask me, that’s exactly what I’ll tell them. I got your back.”
He grins, shaking his head. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
Lifting my eyebrows pointedly as I replace the tool on the wall, I toss back, “Says the man with a murder workshop.”
When I turn around, I gasp, because he somehow snuck soundlessly across the room and he’s standing right in front of me.
Putting his hands on my hips, he backs me up against the counter. “It’s not very good manners to put your hands all over a man’s tools without an invitation.”
“No?” I murmur, my heart racing a little faster at his proximity. Bringing my hands up to rest on his broad shoulders, I look up at him beneath my eyelashes. “What’s the punishment? Chiseling my joints?”
Brant laughs, leaning his head forward and kissing the side of my face. “Crazy,” he says again.
His hands slide down my hips and dip around until he has both hands under my ass, then he lifts me and puts me up on his counter. It’s impossible to sit like a lady up here with him already between my legs, but he moves closer, not giving me much time to worry about it. “You sure look good in my workshop, though.”
“Need an assistant?” I offer, spreading my legs a little wider as my skirt rides up. His hard body comes flush against my pussy, covered only by the thin barrier of my panties. One large, calloused hand comes to rest on my bare thigh and I lick my lips, looking up at him.
Kiss me, dammit.
“You can’t help me out here,” he tells me.
“Why? Because I don’t know what a chisel’s for?”
“Well, no. That kind of thing can be taught, but you can’t help me right now”—his other hand comes to rest on my bare tummy—“because you’re pregnant.”
“Oh. Because I might breathe in sawdust and stuff?”
“Plenty of stuff out here I wouldn’t want you breathing in. Sometimes I work with resin, too, and I doubt that’d be safe for the baby.”
I look down, stricken by a swell of sadness I don’t even understand. I like the feel of his hand tenderly resting on my stomach like that. No one’s ever done that before aside from me, and it definitely feels nicer when the hand belongs to a man.
Or maybe it’s because the hand belongs to this man. The idea of Theo’s hand there now just makes me want to swat it away, but I like Brant touching the spot where my baby’s growing.
The surge of lust I felt a moment ago dies down, replaced by something tender. It’s a bold move, but I let one of my hands fall from his shoulder and come to rest on the one he has pressed to my stomach, pushing it even more firmly against my skin.
He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me. His other hand moves from my thigh, and he tucks a chunk of blonde hair back behind my ear.
We stay there like that for a minute, just being quiet together. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I’m so lost in my feelings I wish I did.
“You okay?” he asks me after a minute.
I was, but him asking makes me want to cry, and I don’t really know why. I feel an embarrassing sting behind my eyes, and I try to blink it away as I nod my head. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
He still has his hand pressed to my stomach, but when I let go of it, he pulls it away, and I’m overcome with a sudden, overwhelming sense of loss.
I wish my baby belonged to someone better, someone more like him, someone who would touch me with tenderness and care that I was carrying his child. If I had made different choices, if I had made this mistake with someone like Brant instead of Theo, things would have turned out so much differently.
I wish I hadn’t been such an idiot, and I wish my baby didn’t have to bear the consequences.
“I didn’t mean to make you sad,” Brant says, still feeling out why I’ve taken an emotional turn.
I shake my head, not looking him in the eyes. “You didn’t. I mean, I guess you did, but you didn’t do anything wrong. You inadvertently triggered a few thoughts I’ve been trying my best to keep out, but you don’t have to feel bad about it. All of this is my fault. It’s my fault there are any thoughts like these polluting my head, it’s my fault I have the problems I have, and there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
“Hey,” he says, tipping my face up so I’m looking at him. His big, rough hand cradles my face so gently, and even though I know this isn’t his mess, I’m so tempted to take the comfort he offers. “You’ve still got your whole life ahead of you. Yeah, these mistakes might be part of it right now, but they don’t have to be so final. You’re still young. You’ve got plenty of time to clean up a mess you made when you were a teenager and do better going forward.”
“Yeah, I know,” I murmur, attempting a smile. “It’s just that some choices can’t be undone and some roles can’t be recast, and no matter what happens in the future, I’ve cheated my baby out of a lot of things that might’ve been really nice because I let a man who was willing to have me killed get me pregnant.”
By the end of that statement, tears well up in my eyes and my voice starts to shake. Brant’s hand moves to cradle the back of my head and he pulls me into his chest. The protectiveness of the gesture and his hold melts me, and I wrap my arms around him, crying into his T-shirt.
Like it’s his job, he rubs the back of my head and whispers reassuring nonsense about how it’ll all be okay, letting me cry until I’m all out of tears.
When the tears run out, embarrassment catches up to me. I pull back, swiping beneath my eyes and trying to get it together. “Whoa, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to cry all over you.”
“You don’t have to apologize for being sad,” he says calmly.
“I don’t know what came over me,” I insist, shaking my head. I can’t quite bring myself to meet his gaze. “Maybe those pregnancy hormones people talk about, mood swings and all that.”
Ignoring my dismissal, he says, “Or maybe you just have something worth feeling sad about.”
My lips curve up a little, but I’m not amused. “Yeah, maybe.” I’m no longer a fan of the vulnerability of being up here on this bench, so I ask, “Can you scoot back a little? I wanna
get down.”
He takes a step back, but I can feel that his eyes never leave me. “You don’t have to be embarrassed, Alyssa.”
Trying my best to make light of it, I try to temper my voice, but I’m not quite convincing. “You invited me out to have a nice day today, and here I am crying all over your murder workshop.”
Brant watches me hop down, but rather than let me escape into playful humor, he moves forward and wraps his arm around me, tugging me into his side. “I’m having a nice day,” he assures me. “I want you to have a nice day, too.”
“I am,” I tell him, despite the tear tracks staining my cheeks. He doesn’t seem convinced, so I lean closer and tip my head up to offer him a smile. “I’m all cried out. I’m fine now. I promise.”
7
Brant
As I look down at Alyssa’s face all stained with tears, I’m torn between wanting her to learn all the lessons this dumbass mistake has to teach her and the desire to save her and her baby from any kind of misery.
On one hand, I know it’s her responsibility to stand back up from all this, but on the other, she’s so damn young and without the support system a family should offer. It’s hard not to want to lend her a hand.
Alyssa breaks away from me on her own, walking around the shop and looking at things while she gets her bearings. I stand back and watch, knowing she just needs the time to collect herself, and I want to give her that dignity.
Once she has recovered from whatever bout of misery got its hooks in her, she comes over, holding up two squares of wood—a project I finished shortly before she came into my life.
“These are gorgeous,” she says, running her hand across the surfaces. “What are they?”
“Coasters.” I walk over closer and look down at her.
“I love the way they look,” she says, still inspecting them.
These particular ones are pretty fancy. The finished product turned out neat; each coaster looks like little cuts of wood floating in vibrant pools of blue and pink. I used resin to give them a little color. They’re a gift for Bri, actually, but given Alyssa was just upset about Bri’s worthless husband, I don’t bring my sister up.