by Snow, Nicole
Clarissa bites her lip, and fuck, I hate myself for how even now, all it takes is that to make my desire tighten into a steel core in the pit of my stomach. Her mouth pure sin.
Sweet fuck.
She’s got the kind of mouth that makes a man want to devour her whole.
That first time I saw her at the mansion, in the kitchen, her lips playing sensuously over her chocolate, my mind went straight south.
And it’s already there now, my pulse throbbing wild. I remember too well how those butterfly lips feel on my skin, wrapped around me, taking me deep and letting her tongue flutter against my—
She speaks again and might as well have punched me in the face.
I blink. “What?”
“How could you?” she asks, her voice breaking. “How could you ever work for a company like that, knowing what they were doing?”
Fucking hell.
Just like that, she knocks the wind out of me, and I pull back, letting her go and looking away, glaring into the darkness.
“It’s not that simple,” I growl. “It’s just not.”
“How isn’t it?”
“I was practically a fucking prisoner. You’d know,” I mutter. “You’d know exactly what it’s like when horrible is all you have. The only family you have. The only life...till one day you can’t take it anymore and you snap.” I work my jaw, every inch of my body tense to the point of pain. “What your father was to you, Nighthawks was to me.”
She’s quiet, her warmth drawing away. It’s like our little universe just experienced its own heat death. I hear the faint motions of her standing, denim rasping as her thighs slide together.
“Yeah,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. I guess...yeah, I do get that. I shouldn’t have asked.”
I look up—unsure whether I’m pissed or just so fucking sorry for everything—but she’s turning away. She moves in that controlled way she has, where she wraps her arms around herself, trying to hold everything together.
There are no more words as she walks away.
Nothing but one last murmur, her voice drifting back.
“Good night, Leo.”
Good night, I think, but my voice stays trapped in my throat.
Because if I say anything, I’ll beg her to stay, and I can’t fucking do it.
She’s more than I deserve, alone in this darkness.
9
Ten Steps Back (Clarissa)
I’m even more confused than before, and two days of pacing around in this cabin hasn’t really helped.
There’s so much spinning through my head.
The truth about my father, about Heart’s Edge, about Galentron.
Hints of things I never knew about Leo. Things that make me wonder if I ever really knew the man I fell in love with at all.
Sure, I have to believe that what he showed me was the truth of who he was, a truth he had to hide to stop the company. An organization I know now was abusing him as much as my father abused me.
I feel like a coward. This is the justice Deanna’s after, isn’t it?
She wants to redeem our names.
Maybe deep down, she’d wanted Papa to be innocent, but there’s no clearing him. No forgiving him. He was straight up vile, abusive scum.
He’s also dead. And ironically, it’s Leo who’s alive and who’s taken the fall.
He suffered, burned for it, only for this clueless town to vilify him.
That’s the man I know.
The Leo I watch from a distance as the days drag on, my heart so heavy, wishing I could just reach out to him and close the chasm he opened between us. We’d been so close in that frantic, painful, beautiful kiss.
But I can’t distract him, either. This can’t go on forever, and he’s my best shot at stopping it.
I can’t spend my life in limbo, wondering if my sister is dead or alive.
Neither can Zach. Every day, I watch him run outside to play with Leo, smiling and laughing. It’s like he senses the connection between them.
He calls him Mr. Monster, Mr. Nine, and Leo lets him, hiding his subtle, smirky smile behind his mask, and every time I see Leo smile at our son? I’m so effing close to breaking my promise my eyes sting red.
He’s such a good father, and he doesn’t even know it.
He’s nowhere in sight right now, though—at least not by daylight. When I can’t see his glowing fire, he seems to melt away in the trees and magically reappears when Zach calls his name.
I hope he’s resting.
He may try to hide it, but I know he’s running himself ragged, watching over us.
Last night, I caught a glimpse of him moving, slipping into the shadows.
I know where he went.
He’s out there, looking for Deanna, scouring the land to find so much as a footprint or an empty canteen that might say she was there with her kidnapper for even a moment.
I’ve been staring at my laptop for the last half hour, trying to focus on the emails my assistant manager’s been sending me from Sweeter Things HQ in Spokane. Just ordinary stuff like inventory orders, budgeting, a customer claiming she found a stray hair in a bonbon and the manager having security video of her plucking the hair off her own head and shoving it into the chocolate.
People, right?
But I look up as Zach tumbles over to the kitchen table, folding his arms and resting his chin on them while he looks up at me with that eager smile and those bright eyes that say he’s about to ask me a question that’s pure trouble.
Usually it’s something age-inappropriate, but this time...
This time, when he chirps at me, I feel the blood drain from my face.
“Derek’s teaching me town history,” he says. “I didn’t know you used to live in the big museum place, Mom! Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
My tongue turns to wood. I shoot Derek a helpless look, and he winces, mouthing sorry over Zach’s head.
Ugh.
I force a crooked smile. “Um, sure did. It wasn’t always a museum, though. It used to be my house, but after your grandfather” —tried to murder me, I cough, pausing bitterly— “passed away, your Auntie Deanna and I didn’t want to stay in the house anymore. So we donated it to the town and they made it a museum.”
His eyes go round and wide. “What was Grandpa like?”
Oh, crap.
Some things, I can’t.
He’s smart, but he never needs to know some facts.
So I just smile faintly, painfully, and search for a careful answer. “Well, he was mayor for most of our lives. He was always busy. Career focused. Tall.”
Yeah, okay, my father’s towering height scared me too, but it’s also the most mundane fact I can give him without turning into a sobbing mess.
Zach giggles. “Big people don’t have to be scary. Mr. Nine is huge and he’s not scary.”
“Mr. Nine is a nice guy.” I sigh, resting my chin in my hand. “Do you want to see the museum, ZZ-man? I can even show you my old bedroom.”
I might as well have just offered to let him live on ice cream for a week. Awesome.
He lights up, nodding quickly.
“Yeah!” Then he turns back, giving Derek wide eyes. “Can I, Mr. Derek?”
“Hey,” I say, laughing. “I’m the mom here.”
“But Mr. Derek’s my teacher.” Zach pouts. “And I need his permission to miss lessons, don’t I?”
“The boy’s got a point,” Derek teases lightly, then laughs. “We’ll count it as today’s history lesson. I’d meant to ask if I could head out a little early anyway, honestly.”
I tilt my head. “Big plans?”
“Sort of?” He wrinkles his nose. “I’m, uh...meeting my boyfriend’s parents.”
“You don’t sound very happy about that.”
“Would you?”
“I really don’t know.” I smile, shrugging. “I only ever had one boyfriend, and as far as I know, his parents don’t even exist.”
“Ah, mysterious.” Derek
wiggles his fingers, then laughs and ruffles Zach’s hair. “Be good for your mom, munchkin. It’s a field trip, but try to actually learn something.”
“I will,” Zach promises with utter solemnity, prompting us both to laugh.
Derek bundles himself up and heads out, while I stand to change into something a bit warmer.
What have I done? The very notion of going back to the museum, to that house, makes me feel sick.
But I’d rather show Zach my childhood home in my own words, before he hears something awful around town.
And who knows, maybe looking around the house, I might find a clue.
Maybe Deanna left something behind, something I can use to help Leo find her before it’s too late.
I hate feeling so helpless I’m depending on total luck.
I couldn’t help Leo back then. I hadn’t even known what he was going through. But I need to be Deanna’s hero now.
I shrug Zach into his jacket, then slip out to Leo’s campsite.
I know how exhausted he must be. He doesn’t come on the alert the second I set foot anywhere near him.
He’s sound asleep, stretched out on his bedroll with a thin blanket pulled over him.
Even with the weak autumn sun filtering through the trees, brassy with late afternoon threatening to turn into evening, that can’t be warm enough.
So I slip back indoors as quietly as I can, dig around in the chest at the foot of the bed, and tug out several huge quilts that might’ve been put together by Ms. Wilma years ago. Then I creep back out to the campsite and shake them over Leo, tucking them around him as gently as I can.
Before I tiptoe away, even though I know I shouldn’t...I lean down and kiss his cheek.
* * *
By the time we drive up to the museum, I’m ready to throw up.
Even with the plaque over the door and the printed banners down the sides, the tall, blocky, square mansion is home. And for me, that’s a curse.
Home means raised voices, pain, stalking, fear.
It means being small and powerless.
It means living surrounded by secrets more terrible than I’d even known at the time, making myself invisible while terrible shadow men moved through the halls, always whispering their schemes.
I don’t want to be here.
But I can’t let Zach see how uncomfortable this place makes me, so I plaster on a smile as we park and head up to the entrance. It’s nearly closing time per the hours posted outside the door, so there aren’t many people around.
Just a few staff members and a couple elderly folks who don’t pay us the slightest bit of attention. I pay for our tickets—paying to get inside my own house—and lead Zach inside.
At least no one seems to recognize me. Even if there’s an absolutely terrible painted portrait of younger me mounted over one of the display cases. It’s next to my father’s stern, forbidding portrait, with Deanna’s on the other side.
Zach stares up at it. “Mom, is that...you?”
I grimace. The painting looks like it’s making the same face, only half-melted.
“Supposedly,” I whisper.
He tilts his head to the side, scrunching his little nose up with a skeptical look, then looks back at the painting, then at me, a smile teasing his lips, promising suppressed laughter. I snort—and he bursts into giggles.
“I’ll draw you a better picture, Mom.”
“It’ll be the best one ever, kidlet.” I draw him in to kiss the top of his head. “Come on.”
I lead him through the rooms, wandering from display to display.
I’m thankful the other exhibits aren’t about us. They’re just town artifacts like a lump of old silver ore, which used to be the lifeblood of Heart’s Edge. There’s a diorama of the famous cliff, and a plaque about the legendary lovers who ran away. Some info on the local Native tribes. Details on recent forest conservation efforts, too.
It would almost be relaxing, if not for the feeling that I’m walking around on haunted ground.
There are too many security cameras for me to really go digging around, too.
I wonder if the museum staff know about the secret passageways...
I didn’t tell them when I ceded the deed to the town, but Deedee might have. Or they may have stumbled down there themselves, even though it’s hard to find the entryways unless you know exactly where to look.
There’s an old dumbwaiter lift in my old room that would go all the way down to a sub-basement, with doors leading into so many strange little rooms. I don’t think I could fit in it anymore, but I could try. The paneling is concealed in the room’s wood trim, and as Zach and I step inside, I can’t help how it draws my gaze.
It’s open.
Just a tiny crack, just enough to see the difference in the paneling, but it’s open.
Someone’s been inside recently. Kinda freaky, though I doubt it was more ominous than some museum staffer.
My lungs hitch. Zach’s tugging on my hand, wrinkling his nose as he quietly asks another question.
“You really used to sleep in here?”
I blink, taking in the room around me. It’s not quite how I remember.
It’s been turned into an installation about early settlers and their fur trapping. Rusty bear traps and pelts hang on the walls next to old guns and the remains of wooden animal cages. A huge stuffed bear stands in one corner, paws raised and jaws open.
I laugh. “It was different when it was my room, kiddo. No bears then. Just white lace everywhere, and shelves and shelves of cookbooks.”
“Oh.” He looks thoughtful, then asks, “So did you like living here? It’s just really big.”
I want to say no, to scream it, but that would be a lie. Even with my father’s vicious words and his hand crashing across my face, there were happy times, too.
Deanna and I chasing each other through the secret corridors, finding our joy where we could. The games we’d make up, pretending to be spies or ghost hunters, the thrill of it halfway real when sometimes we’d feel cold drafts from nowhere or hear sounds we’d swear were voices.
That’s the thing about sisters. We always had each other through thick and thin.
Then when I got older, the hours in the kitchen, losing myself in creating one confection after another. That counted for happier times too.
Oh my God, and Leo.
Leo sneaking in to lock my door and tumble me into bed, teasing me with his body until I bit his hand to keep from crying out in ecstasy...
Sneaking me out with him, too. A memory pulls a smile on my lips.
He was the first man who proved there was a whole wide world outside of my father’s kingdom.
* * *
Eight Years Ago
The annual Heart’s Edge summer festival.
No one even remembers what it’s meant to celebrate, but it’s such a tradition that every summer solstice the town spills out with sparklers in their hands and flip-flops on their feet and coins in their pockets to trade for candy popcorn and frozen slushies and silly fair games that you never win but get a consolation stuffed animal for anyway.
The night smells like sweet, sticky sweat and candied apples. There’s even a petting zoo this year, one of the ranchers from the town’s outskirts brought in half a dozen of his cute little Shetland ponies, and kids are lining up to feel their soft, velvety noses.
There are glowing paper lanterns everywhere, electric lights on strings, making a second galaxy of lights beneath the night sky.
It’s a risk being here.
I know my father’s roving around somewhere, kissing babies and shaking hands for the next election that’s already a foregone conclusion. He can’t see me holding hands with Leo and looking at him like he hung the moon.
But Papa’s not the reason why I’m so nervous, my stomach so jittery.
It’s the folding table under Leo’s arm, and the stacks of little white boxes hanging from my hands in plastic bags.
I’ve never let any
one but Deedee and Leo taste my candy.
But when this man has so much faith in me, when he believes I can make people love the things I create, and that someday I can have my dream, my own shop...I have to freaking try.
Have to. The faith just shines in his violet eyes when he looks down at me with an easy smile softening the roughness of his features. That smile still makes my knees weak because it feels like he can’t see anything in the world but me.
My little booth isn’t much after it’s set up.
It’s not even a booth at all, really.
It’s a plastic folding table with a bunch of cheap aluminum serving trays set out with paper doilies and my bonbons and truffles and petit fours laid out in arrangements I hope look enticing.
God. I shouldn’t be so scared, but this isn’t just the people I’ve known my whole life.
Every year, people come here from several towns over for our little festival. Heart’s Edge may be small, but sometimes it’s the only entertainment for the next fifty miles.
At least I’ll get some honesty. Strangers have no reason to be nice to me, if my candies just plain suck.
So I set myself up behind the table in my apron and a breezy summer sundress, with Leo hulking at my side.
Yep, he’s also got an apron on. A big black manly one.
Just what I need to see, right?
He’s so huge he can’t even tie it in the back. I hide a giggle behind my hand as I watch him struggle with it, grunting as he tries to stretch it to fit.
When he catches me laughing, he mock-glowers at me, and I burst into laughter. “It’s not a rubber band! It won’t get longer if you stretch it.”
He makes a playful harrumph sound. “So, what? I’m just supposed to let it dangle here?”
“Here.” Still laughing, I catch one of the strings I’d used to close the confectionery boxes, then slip around behind him and tie the string up with little loops to hold the apron together.
He’s a wall with arms and legs. I can’t see anything but him—so I’m startled when a pleasant woman’s voice says, “Oh, my—these look heavenly! And they’re only ninety-nine cents?”