“You want my cock?” I tried to keep a straight face.
She blushed and looked away briefly. “Yes. Even if it hurts.”
I slipped my palm against the back of her neck and let my fingers entangled with her hair. She’d probably worn it down to entice me. She smelled like lavender and something else sweet. Whatever perfume she wore or shampoo she used on her hair was driving me nuts. I wanted to get lost in her scent again.
“I’m not going to hurt you again, Kristene.”
“But the worst part is over, right?”
“Yes, and that’s not what I was referring to. When I take you again, I’m going to take my time. Go slow. Make you scream. You’ll be screaming in pleasure, sweetheart, not pain,” I told her.
She leaned in just an inch and her lips descended on mine. I’m surprised by her determination to take what she wants. My mouthed opened and her lips parted. Our tongues meet in the middle, caressing and stroking. She rubbed into me, stroking the erection behind my fly.
I delved deeper, causing her breath to hitch. My fingers tangled with her hair pulling her closer as I take full advantage of her hunger. My hunger. I devoured her sweet little lips, plunging my tongue in and out of her open mouth. She was insatiable and I didn’t want to stop.
She pulled back from me, panting. “Tonight, when it’s just the two of us…you’ll take me again?”
I realized why she pulled away from me and I looked toward the basement door to see if Roy had come back up. I got so carried away in the moment. Her respect my nephew was impressive. But sooner or later, Roy would understand. His uncle was lonely and needed a companion. Just last year, he’d asked me if I’d ever get married like some of the other kids’ parents at his school. If he knew about Kristene and I, he’d probably be the first one to be genuinely happy for us. The kid wanted more than just a home and a guardian. He wanted a family.
I stared into Kristene’s eyes and held her gaze. “We’ll make it a date. Dessert in bed and something other than the Rugrats. I promise.”
She giggled. “You got it.”
I gave her another kiss and then said, “We’ll see if I can keep my mouth off you until then.”
The door chimed.
We jumped apart.
“I’m not sure who that could be, but I’m not even open for business today,” I exclaimed, rising from the chair.
“Well, you are in high demand around here,” she said.
“Be right back.”
I left Kristene on the couch to answer the door. I peered through the peephole and recognized the Sheriff standing on the other side, drawing on his cigarette.
“What the…?” I unlocked the bolts and open the door.
“Hey Kamaz. I wasn’t expecting you home today. I thought you’d be out on your property,” he greeted.
“It’s been a slow day, Sheriff. What can I do for you?”
The Sheriff opened up his jacket and pulled out a stack of folded papers. “Got a minute?”
“Yeah, what is it?” I asked, looking at the papers wearily. Usually, whenever I saw the Sheriff, that meant trouble. If it wasn’t some code violation notice from the clerk, it had to do with something one of my workers did. “I hope I’m not in trouble.”
“No, not at all. I was just hoping I could talk to you about a development here recently.” He shuffled through the papers, but a gust of wind whipped past and nearly took the sheets of paper with it. “Damn, this weather’s getting worse. I drove through town to get here and some of the shops were already closing up. Hope your pantry’s stocked.”
“Why don’t you come in?” I held the door open for him.
After putting out his cigarette, he entered the home and shrugged out of his coat and gloves. “Thank you. I thought I was gonna freeze my tail off. I got one more stop about that Albertson kid egging people’s cars from the top of the North Trolley bridge and I guess I’ll be heading home after that.”
“He’s at it again, huh?”
“Yup. So, this won’t take long…” He straightened out the papers. “Natalie says you recently employed a Kristene Hunt of Minneapolis. The young lady that’s been looking for her sister. Uh…um…” he pointed to something on the paper. “Her name’s Jocelyn.”
“Yeah.”
At that moment, Kristene came around the corner.
“Oh!” The Sheriff cleared her throat. “Um, hello? I didn’t know you were here.” He looked shocked to me Kristene.
“Hi,” Kristene replied, shyly.
“This is Kristene,” I said. “You have word about her sister?”
Sheriff froze for a few seconds as he looked back and forth between Kristene and I. “Um…not exactly. I need to have a word with you outside, Kamaz.”
“I don’t understand. Why can’t we discuss the case here?” I asked.
“This is a private matter. I believe this is something you ought to know in private,” Sheriff stated, firmly.
I looked to Kristene, who looked just as troubled as I felt. The awkward tension in the room didn’t help either.
“It’s okay. Um…I’m going to see if Roy is okay,” Kristene said, backing up.
Before I could protest, she turned swiftly and left and Sheriff and I standing there. On top of that, the Sheriff opened the door and let himself out. I followed him outside without a coat into the frigid cold.
“Um, I’m not sure what’s going on, Sheriff, but I’d think Kristene would want to know about her sister too,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“This isn’t about her sister at all, lad,” Sheriff exclaimed.
“What do you mean?”
Sheriff handed me the stack of papers he was looking through earlier.
“This is about her. Kristene Hunt,” he said, thrusting a finger at the paper.
I shrugged. “What about her?”
“She work for you now or something?”
“Yes, she’s working for me temporarily.”
“Thank God you didn’t hire her permanently. Natalie said she was staying with you. Is that true?” he put his hands on his hips.
“Yes. She has a room here. I rent out cabins and rooms, after all. What business is that of Natalie’s? And what do you mean, thank God I didn’t hire her permanently?”
Something seemed rotten and I frowned.
“Well, look at the papers. See for yourself. You’ve got a delinquent, a misfit, and a criminal on your hand.”
“What!” I stared at the dozens of charges typed out on a paper. Ironically, Kristene’s name was at the very top. Apparently, they’d conducted some kind of background check on her.
“We checked her sister out as a part of the missing persons investigation and apparently, her sister’s a little criminal too. Only thing is, that Jocelyn’s got a worse record than her sister. These girls are trouble, Kamaz. How did you get mixed up with them?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re getting at here.”
“We’re just looking out for you, Kamaz. We look out for everyone like this. This is our town and we don’t need criminals like this coming to stay. We’re trying to change things here. Make it safe for our kids again.”
I shook my head. “I can assure you, Kristene isn’t a criminal.”
“That’s not what that paper says. Petty thief. Assault. Jaywalking. Trespassing. Look at it,” he croaked.
“Yeah, I looked at it.” I was puzzled. This was the first time I had any indication that Kristene had committed crimes in the past. I was even a bit confused.
“Like I said, when Natalie showed me these reports and told me that this woman was staying in your home, I knew we had to tell you. Women like this Kristene and this Jocelyn, they don’t stick around. You’ve gotta know that, Kamaz.”
“Look, no offense, but I can take care of myself.”
The Sheriff shrugged. “Alright. Just do what you want with that information. I don’t want you to get tricked again. You remember what happened the last time?”
<
br /> I swallowed down the sudden rise of sorrow in my throat, but it was like the Sheriff had reopened an old wound and then packed salt into it.
He clapped me on the back. “You’re a good guy, Kamaz. Don’t let ‘em get ya. We have plenty of women right here in Arrow Lake that you can settle down with.”
“Sheriff, I think it’s time for you to go,” I said, handing him the paper.
“No, keep it. I thought you should know.” He tugged on his gloves. “We’ll be in touch, alright? And I’m willing to bet that other gal, her sister, really doesn’t want to be found. My guess is she and her little bandmates did something they don’t wanna own up to and skipped out of here. We had lots of problems down at that bar during the time period that she allegedly was here.”
Whatever the Sheriff was saying was going in one ear and out of the other. All I could think about was why Kristene felt it necessary to keep these vital details about her past hidden from me. Then come to think about it, this wasn’t really hidden at all. I’d met Kristene in the process of committing something that was a serious crime in the Sherriff’s book.
I sighed. “Talk to you later, Sheriff,” I said, backing into my house.
I guess he got to his patrol car okay, because I closed the door and walked back to the couch in a trance. The clues were all there, but I didn’t care to see them. Just like before, I’d been vulnerable, let someone in, and trusted them. Was this my fate? Was I doomed to keep connecting with women who didn’t have my best interest in mind, only their own?
If Kristene and her sister had a rap sheet a mile long and were known for moving from city to city, there was a good chance that she’d leave me just as quickly as I found her.
“Hey,” Kristene called out softly from the den as I walked in. “What was that all about?”
I searched the room for Roy, not sure that I wanted him to hear about this.
“Roy went upstairs to find his train cars, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Kristene said, knowingly.
“When were you going to tell me?” I asked.
“Tell you what? Is this about my sister?”
“You didn’t hear the Sheriff?”
She frowned. “No. Did you think I would eavesdrop? Please tell me. Is there something wrong with Jocelyn?”
“This isn’t about your sister. Not entirely.” I handed her the stack of papers. “So, is this the way you roll? You live a life of crime?”
“I…what is this?”
I swallowed. “You know, when I found out that you had broken into my cabin, I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. You said you were looking for your sister, but that wasn’t all was it?”
Her eyes scanned the paper lividly and her chest rose and fell with each exasperated breath she took. “This is old. All of this.”
“You came looking for your sister, but were you trying to steal from me?”
She gasped and pushed the papers at my chest, giving me no choice but to take them back.
“How dare you accuse me of trying to steal? I told you I made one bad judgement call by entering your place. I was looking for my sister and the police station was no help to me. And you know what? Now I see why. They were judging me from the beginning.” Her tone was fueled with aggravation and anger, but she kept her voice down.
“What are these charges against you?” I plopped the papers down on the coffee table. “You wanna tell me about that?”
“I was young. I told you before. I grew up with my grandmother after my parents died. My sister and I, we…” She paused and took a deep breath. “We did things when we were young. I got in trouble a lot with her. That was years ago. That Sheriff must have done a whole lot of digging to come up with this.” She picked up the stack again and looked at it in disgust. “Half of these charges I agreed to so they’d let me go. Most of these are from six years ago.”
“Yes, I can see that. Some are recent,” I said.
“This most recent charge for disturbing the peace was filed by an angry neighbor for a noise violation. There was a party at my apartment. My sister and some of her friends were there. I was there. I ended up taking the heat and that was the last straw for me. My sister and I got in a big argument and that’s when I told her I was going to start looking for a new place if she didn’t clean up her act. One week later, she tells me that she’s moving out and leaving with that rat bastard boyfriend of hers. That’s why I’m here. She said she’d keep in touch but didn’t. That whole time I was thinking that she went missing because of me. I came because if anything happened to her, I couldn’t live with that.”
I sighed, running my fingers through my hair. I could feel my blood pressure elevating and my pulse sky-rocketing. “This has happened before, Kristene. I know you mean well for your sister, but I’m no stranger to people who enjoy living on the wrong side of the law. They don’t change.”
“Do you think I’ve enjoyed this?” she spat. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a teen without parents. I had my grandmother and I had my older sister. That was it for me.”
“I understand that, but when things are said and done here, I’m beginning to wonder about your intentions. I can’t do this again, Kristene. I can’t.”
A pained expression crossed her face and then she grunted in disbelief. “You know what? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
She turned swiftly and made a beeline for the guest bedroom. The door slammed shut and my heart dropped to the floor.
Roy came running down the stairs right at that moment. “Uncle, you said we’d go outside before it got too dark to make snowmen. Can we go now?”
“Roy, it’s not a good time now, but I promise we’ll go.”
“Oh, alright.” He stomped away.
Feeling like the world was coming down on me hard, I sunk down into the chair to take a breather. Fully prepared to apologize to Kristene for judging her, I got up and walked down the hall to the guest room. Before I could knock, the door swung open and Kristene charged out with her bags.
“Kristene?”
“I’m sorry for any inconvenience. Thanks for the room and the chance to help you. I’ve gotta go now,” she called out over her shoulder and then continued on toward the front door.
“Where are you going?” I asked, taking long strides to reached her.
“To the motel until I hear something about my sister.”
“You can’t walk there! It’s freezing and snowing,” I exclaimed.
“My cab’s already here!”
She yanked the door open. Sure enough, there was a yellow cab sitting out in the front yard. The motor was still running since the driver had just pulled up in the driveway.
“Kristene!”
She was beyond an intervention and ran straight to cab. I grabbed my coat and ran out behind her, but it was too late. She was already instructing the driver to back out.
I watched as the cab took off down the driveway.
As snowflakes hit me in the face, they melted instantly, disappearing just like Kristene had.
“Uncle! Uncle! Are you ready? Are you ready to make the snowmen?” Roy screamed, excitedly, running out of the house.
I turned around and tried to feed off of my nephew’s energy to diminish my sorrow. “Alright, Roy. Let’s make the snowmen.”
After all, I had to do something to keep my mind off the inevitable. Maybe I would never be able to trust again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kristene
Wondering why the motel room was so darn cold, I curled up under the quilt and began aimlessly flipping through channels. Somewhere between Viktor’s house and the ride back to the motel, I’d developed a migraine the size of Texas.
I only had myself to blame about all of this. I should’ve been truthful with Viktor from the beginning. I should’ve called his office on the morning after I arrived in Arrow Lake like I’d originally planned. At least then I never would’ve caused that fire and I never would’ve been
indebted to Viktor Kamaz in the first place. But no…I was in a rush. My impatience had cost me.
But who was I kidding? Delaying my meeting with Viktor sure as hell wasn’t going to stop this obvious attraction to him or stop me from feeling sorry for him and wanting to help him out. When I first met him, I’d seen a little bit of myself in Viktor. Lonely. Burying my head in my work and pretending I was happy, but desperately wanting to connect with someone. Viktor was afraid of letting the wrong person in. I was afraid of letting go. I had become so used to having my sister around that now that she was gone, I felt a void. With weeks between us and her not talking to me, I understood now that the void might never be replaced.
But Jocelyn didn’t care. She probably just wanted to get back at me for insisting that she stop hooking up with guys that didn’t give a crap about her future. I sometimes wondered if we were even from the same womb. We were like night and day, but I too had to remember that my mom and dad were complete polar opposites. An uptight, introverted librarian lady and a successful, outgoing car salesman. In this reality, I was the introvert and my sister was the extrovert. I couldn’t change her, so why bother.
Suddenly, my face flashed hot and I threw the covers off of me entirely. I swung my feet over the bed, got up, and began pacing the room. My cell phone was on the nightstand and I picked it up and toggled through the call history.
Sighing, I called Jocelyn’s last known cell phone number and waited for the voicemail. This time, the cell phone rang before going straight to voicemail. That was good. Right? That meant something had changed or her phone had been turned on.
“Hey Jocelyn. It’s me. Look, I’m sick of this. If you’re trying to avoid speaking to me, fine, but you could at least have enough respect for me to call me and let me know you’re okay. I’ve apologized a thousand times already for calling you out on your bullshit when you didn’t want to hear it. I’m leaving Arrow Lake tomorrow. I’m out of money, time, and patience. If you want to speak to me, you can find me at our apartment in Minneapolis.”
Minutes after I hung up, the landline phone on the nightstand rung. I debated answering it since the phone hadn’t made one sound since I arrived. I hadn’t told Jocelyn my room number just yet, but maybe she finally got it through her thick skull that I wasn’t chasing after her anymore.
Wife for the Lumberjack Page 12