No White Knight

by Nicole Snow

  I’ll never know how many times I come. One O blurs into the next.

  This is what shattering means.

  Falling apart.

  Falling for Holt.

  Falling in love.

  Yeah, it scares me, but it’s the nicest fear ever—and it turns my senses up, makes everything hotter and more intense.

  More irresistible.

  That overwhelming moment comes when he drags me down on his length, roots in me so deep it’s like I can feel him in my belly, joining us so tight we’ll never be apart.

  I come again instantly, and so does he.

  It’s terrifying, honestly, losing every last shred of self-control.

  Pleasure drives me out of myself, rolling through my body like an earthquake until I scream so loud it spooks the horses.

  Holt roars, pouring himself inside me, pumping so deep and so hard it claws at his soul.

  My nails go to work again, ravaging his back until I can’t take how good it feels, until I just dissolve.

  Like I said.

  Terrifying.

  ...but God if I don’t want it again and again and again.

  I scare myself a little more coming up from the frenzy, thinking what this means.

  An uneasy truce isn’t enough anymore. Not with a man who pushes every last button in my manual.

  I want to keep Holt Silverton messing me up for a long time.

  I’m kinda glad I got everything out of my system earlier.

  Makes it easier for me to be calm, snuggled up against Holt on the hood of his truck at the drive-in theater. The stars blaze bright overhead while an old Greta Garbo flick plays on the ginormous screen in black-and-white.

  It’s a loosely held summer tradition for Heart’s Edge.

  The town doesn’t do this every weekend, not when it’s spendy to run the big projector, and there’s something about movie licensing in the mix.

  Nobody really cares what’s playing.

  It’s about the atmosphere here, being together like this.

  All of us just silhouettes, faceless, but part of the town, held together in this silent communion.

  I haven’t been in a long time.

  Not since I was little and used to come here with my parents and Sierra. We’d spend half the time watching the movies and the other half looking up and counting stars.

  It’s almost bittersweet to be back here now, remembering happier times with a sister who wasn’t threatening my whole life.

  I’m a little surprised, though, to see Reid Cherish here.

  His Jeep’s parked a little ways off from dozens of vehicles.

  For once he’s not done up in his suit, though he looks like he just came from work. No suit coat, his button-down shirt loose at the collar, tie off, sleeves rolled up.

  Hell, his hair’s even mussed up, a bit of it falling in his face.

  His gaze is locked on the screen, but it’s like he doesn’t quite see it from the way he’s glazed over.

  Like he’s seeing something else, and he’s got this weird, melancholy look on his face.

  I don’t want to feel sorry for him.

  I don’t want to see that banker man as human.

  But I know that look he’s wearing too well.

  It’s twin to the feeling inside me, remembering how once I had a family to share nights like this, and now I’ve got nothing.

  I tear my eyes away from Cherish and bury my face in Holt’s side.

  No, not nothing, I think.

  I’ve still got my ranch. I’ve got my dignity. I’ve got Frost and Plath.

  And I’ve got Holt for however long this lasts.

  Why the hell am I worried about Sierra or Cherish right now when they’re the people trying to take everything away?

  At least Cherish is here. I shouldn’t be thinking about Sierra, but I can’t help it.

  Not when I can still hear her girlish giggles and remember how she’d hug me like a real sister then.

  Dad would let me pick out the stars on my own, but when I said them wrong, sometimes Sierra would patiently repeat them, one syllable at a time, until I said it right.

  Ugh.

  Part of me actually misses that annoying backstabber. Misses her being my sister and not my sworn enemy.

  She’s vanished. Totally off anyone’s radar.

  I haven’t seen her or Declan anywhere. Not even that big old truck of his that’s hard to miss.

  No one’s tried to come sniffing around Nowhere Lane or the ghost town, either. I’ve ridden out every day, and found no new tracks. Ditto for Holt and Alaska going on patrol.

  Holt told me about his meeting with the guys, how they said they’d keep their eyes and ears open. He also mentioned Declan and Sierra checking out of Charming Inn.

  That should be good news.

  Maybe they realized the jig was up, got smart, and left town.

  That’d be a huge weight off my shoulders.

  One less evil to contend with while I try to get everything sorted with the ranch. Maybe, just maybe, after things are secure, I can work out the will. Maybe I can pay Sierra something so she can get her life back on track without needing these shit-awful men.

  Something’s still eating at me, though.

  And I guess I’m ruining the night because Holt squeezes his hand against my shoulder, gathering me closer.

  “You’re tense,” he whispers. “Something on your mind?”

  “Just bad memories,” I say, practically crawling into his lap. “Sorry. I don’t mean to screw up our date.”

  “Nothing’s screwed up as long as I get to be with you.” He makes an amused sound, nuzzling my hair. “You want to talk about it?”

  “Nah. It wouldn’t help tonight.” I tilt my head back against his shoulder, looking up at the sky. “Just hold me, Holt. Let me watch the stars.”

  For the first time in a few nights, Holt and I head home and sleep like the dead.

  It’s nicer than I want to admit.

  The safety and security that comes with being able to slip into a man’s arms and know he’s not there for anything but my company, my warmth.

  There’s this thing I’ve started realizing about manipulative people.

  They can also be really empathetic.

  It takes empathy to realize what people want, but what matters is how you act on it. Some people use it to jerk others around. They’re sensitive to what you want, sure, but they only care as far as it takes to get what they want out of you.

  Then there are people who use it the right way.

  Guess which one I thought Holt was.

  Now guess which one he really is.

  It’s still strange, looking at him with new eyes, but I like what I see.

  I think he’d listen to just about anything I told him, too, and I’m not used to having that anymore.

  So I’m quiet as I slip into bed with him and we turn out the lights. He gathers me up like he’s gonna use that tall, strong body to wall off all the things messing with me.

  In that silence, where the only thing I can hear are his slow, soothing breaths, I let it out.

  “Y’know...I miss having a family,” I whisper.

  Holt stirs slightly, then tightens his grip, his hands firm and sure.

  “Nothing wrong with missing that,” he says.

  I smile.

  Then that wicked insight that makes me want to kiss and slug him simultaneously comes out. “Nothing wrong with missing Sierra, either. Even if you’re missing the sis you wanted and not the sis you got.”

  “How, Holt?” I squeeze my eyes shut, looping my arms hard around his neck.

  “Come again?”

  “You just take all these jumbled up things inside me and sort them out with a few little words,” I tell him. “How do you see so much?”

  “Because we’re not so different, honey.” He sighs heavily, but it’s not a sad thing. More thoughtful. “I never got the family I wanted. Blake, yeah. He’s all the good things you coul
d ever want in a brother, and I’m glad we’re making up and figuring out our shit. But I never knew who my father was, and my ma was...not who she should’ve been. Not right in the head, pitting her boys against each other for favorites. So I miss the family I never had.”

  I murmur softly.

  He dips his head, rubbing his jaw gently to my hair, his beard scratching lightly. “Doesn’t mean I can’t make that family one day, once I’m settled down.”

  That thought cuts deep.

  Not just the idea that one day, I could make the family I’ve craved too...

  ...but that maybe me and Holt want that same thing, deep down in our feeliest of feels.

  I don’t wanna be that girl.

  Miss Reads Too Much Into It.

  Thinking that because he’s willing to tell me what he wants, he might just want that with me.

  If I were in my right mind, being my mouthy, brazen self, I’d just ask him what he means.

  But I don’t want to ruin this tonight.

  I need him close right now.

  So I don’t say anything at all.

  I just cling hard enough that he’s almost got no choice but to hold me until morning.

  While I slip away into sweet dreams, hoping everything looks better with the dawn.

  I can’t say things look better, but they’re not looking worse.

  It’s an easy, warm morning with Holt again. Another day where he doesn’t have to go back on-site with it being Sunday, but I’ve still got work around the ranch.

  Animals don’t take days off.

  Of course the lunk insists on helping again.

  We work quietly in a tandem I really enjoy, hauling hay bales and feed troughs and letting the sheep out to graze. Before long we’re mounting up to ride the property, checking the fences yet again and watching for gopher holes and fox burrows.

  Nature doesn’t respect fences. We can at least negotiate a truce where we can.

  We head out to Ursa, too.

  Those old tire tracks are still there, damning evidence that someone’s been snooping around, but there aren’t any new ones.

  Maybe Declan and Sierra really did realize they were in over their heads and just got the hell out of Dodge.

  Even if I got a lucky break, that leaves the bank and Dad’s legacy to worry over.

  I make myself dismount and head for the saloon.

  Gerald Bostrom hasn’t moved, no surprise.

  Even the skeletal hand resting on the bar, outlined in years of accumulated dust, remains totally undisturbed.

  I focus on the skull, that empty, hollow face.

  If I just stare long enough, could I see what kind of man he was?

  If he had a story to tell?

  If he was innocent?

  Or was he so bad, right down to his rotting bones, that Dad had to kill him? Had to leave him here decaying, a sight so awful the scavengers won’t touch him?

  There’s not even a coyote tooth-scratch on his bones.

  I press my hand to my mouth.

  Is this what I’m doing now? Convincing myself he was a bad man because I can’t believe my father was?

  “Libby,” Holt says, and I just about leap out of my skin.

  He comes up behind me, resting a hand on my shoulder, moving in his silent prowling way that spooks me sometimes.

  “Could you knock or something?”

  “C’mon, Libby,” he says softly. “Nothing for you here. You’re just going to make yourself crazy.”

  “There’s got to be something,” I whisper, glancing around the saloon, the old wood turned yellow in the afternoon light. “Dad said find the gun. So where is it? There’s all that crap behind the bar, but I’m scared to start digging. It’s...it’s like some kind of shrine. A Schrödinger’s box, maybe. As long as I don’t disturb anything, I don’t have to know, one way or the other.”

  Holt walks behind the bar to the mess I’ve seen there before. Several huge boards, tangled up in a heap of other nameless objects coated in dust. Crates, maybe?

  If the gun’s in that mess of stuff, I’ll never find it. Nobody will without leaving evidence someone was here recently.

  He gives the biggest board his best push, but even a big, strong man like him can’t move it more than an inch or two. I watch him fling off his jacket and roll up his sleeves, gritting his teeth, like he’s ready to throw real muscle into it, but I see the dust he’s kicking up.

  “Holt, no. Don’t do it. You’ll leave footprints. We can’t have anybody knowing we were here...” A breath sticks in my lungs.

  After a second, he shrugs, then steps back around it to my side, carrying his jacket and dusting himself off.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he says, tugging gently at my arm.

  I follow him quietly with one last look back at the dead man.

  Gerald gives up nothing as usual.

  Nothing but more questions and a formless sense of dread.

  I don’t wanna be scared like this.

  One fine day, I’ll have to face down what happened here, and the fact that Dad’s part of it.

  For now, I mount up on Frost, and together we head back, riding side by side down the trail through the mountain cut with our knees bumping, Frost and Plath so close their tails practically melt into each other as they lash away flies.

  When we get to the mouth of the cut, Holt surprises me by veering off along the cliffs.

  I frown, tugging lightly on Frost’s reins and turning him to follow.

  “Holt? Where are you going?”

  “Just c’mon,” he says with that devilish grin.

  I sigh, rolling my eyes.

  I’ll probably regret this later, but for now I’ll c’mon.

  If only ’cause I’m curious as hell.

  We ride slowly along the edge of the tall cliffs and mountain slopes that give Heart’s Edge its name, but I don’t realize where we’re going until the Charming Inn is a distant silhouette high at the top of one bluff.

  Below it all, the massive meadow of summer flowers blends into the trees covering several hills nearby.

  Every summer, the meadow below the half-heart cliff behind the inn blooms like an artist’s wet dream.

  We’re talking wild colors everywhere, a carpet of pink and blue against verdant green.

  All kinds of flowers, lavender and peonies and even violets, crowd their heads up against each other.

  I haven’t been out here in forever.

  Haven’t thought about the local legend—a story I’m sure changed a hundred times in the telling.

  It’s about a farm boy in love with a mayor’s daughter, and the mayor wouldn’t let them be together—so they jumped over the cliff and became some kind of spirits.

  They blew away to live together in the mountains, forever watching over the town and answering the wishes of new lovers who toss flower offerings over the cliff and swear their love.

  My practical side always wonders if they killed themselves like Romeo and Juliet.

  Maybe folks romanticized the story over time until it was forgotten and no one ever thought it might be real. Just a fairy tale.

  Then there’s my hopeful, sappy romantic side.

  I like to imagine them flying over the cliff is just a metaphor for skipping town together.

  Flying the nest and being free to love each other, wherever they wound up.

  “Woman,” Holt says, “you’ve got the dreamiest damn look on your face right now. What’s up?”

  I laugh, glancing over at him.

  He’s almost out of place in this bright noonday sun when he’s all night colors. Mostly, this dark leather jacket that’s thin enough for summer, but leaves him looking perfectly imposing.

  He’s dressed for prowling around in the shadows. Not sitting on my mare under a high, bright-blue sky.

  At least he’s easy on the eyes.

  Who am I kidding?

  He’s divine. I can’t stop drinking in that chiseled face, those wild amber-
brown eyes, the way he makes everything look easy with his endless, casual, calm strength.

  Holy flipping potatoes.

  I might be falling a little bit in love with Holt Silverton.

  I wanted to tell myself it was lust.

  Just me getting myself all wired up over a pretty face and mistaking that enchantment for love, but now?

  I don’t think that’s all it is by a long shot.

  Because it’s not just his face making my heart thump so hard.

  It’s the gentle, curious, knowing way he’s looking at me.

  It’s the fact that he brought me out here. He knew I needed something sweet to take my mind off all the bitterness.

  “Libby?” he calls me again.

  I smile. “You know what’s up. You brought me out here so I’d get all starry-eyed over the flowers.”

  He grins. He’s sitting in the saddle with his hips slouched forward and his thighs spread in a way that just punches my gut.

  “Worked, didn’t it?” He looks away, his gaze drifting across the field. “I don’t know how many times I’ve stood on that cliff and thrown flowers over it with some chick.”

  “You...what?” My breath stalls, nervous anger licking my ears. “So that’s why you brought me out here? To see the legacy of all your broken hearts?”

  “Nah. But you took the bait, hook, line, and sinker.” He smiles that shit-eating grin. “I never did anything here. This place is serious, too sacred for games. I just wanted to see it for myself.” He turns his head back to me. “I’m not coming back here again until I mean it one day.”

  Oh, now that ain’t fair.

  It ain’t fair that he’s looking at me like he’s thinking all those things that’ve been running through my head since last night.

  It ain’t fair that with one hot look, he gets me all flustered, my breaths tight and my face burning.

  It definitely ain’t fair that I want him to come here and throw flowers over the edge with me.

  I tear my gaze away with a snort. “I think I’ll only come back here when I’m ready to throw you over the cliff.”

  He bursts out laughing. “Don’t think the legend said anything about human sacrifice.”

  “Maybe I’m not looking for love. Maybe I just want a pact with some devil to solve all my problems.”