by Mary Stone
No. It was the opposite. He was trying to keep her safe.
From him.
19
Linc leaned back in his chair after spending hours staring at his laptop and groaned. His back was stiff. He stretched, then scrolled through the SAR website he was in the midst of creating.
It looked like shit.
He wasn’t helpless when it came to web design; he’d taken classes in college. He’d had an idea of what he wanted to create for his new site, advertising his services. But this wasn’t it. It reeked of amateurism. Not to mention the five-hundred photos he’d uploaded with hopes he’d have some good ones to use on the site had nearly crashed his computer, and now it was running slow.
It was not his day.
Not his week.
It didn’t even feel like his life anymore. It felt like someone else was in control, and he was just along for the ride.
Linc’d tried to keep busy. He really had. But the flashbacks were coming full force now, not just hitting him at night, but all the time, while he did the most innocuous things. He’d be going into the fridge to get breakfast, only to be rocked by an explosion of fear, right in his heart. It had nearly knocked him off his feet. He’d ruined a whole sleeve of eggs that way. His body was tense and wound tighter than a spring. It felt like he was the bomb, like he wasn’t safe anymore, with anyone, no matter what he did.
When he flashed back, it was always to that same day, in the marketplace. That woman with the fear-filled eyes. Austin’s face, smiling at Linc as he kicked around the soccer ball. The blistering heat. That dusty air, heavy with the smell of machine oil and gasoline. Kids’ shrieks of laughter dissolving to screams of terror.
And Linc knew Kylie was probably wondering what was up with him. She hadn’t called or texted since he’d seen her last on the night of the dinner; he figured that was just her, being stubborn, since she’d warned him enough. She was a little firecracker. Linc could almost feel the flare of her hot temper aimed right at him, even from all the way up on the mountain.
The only thing that had made him smile in the past few days was thinking about his father’s face when she laid into him. No one ever did that to his father. It was pretty hilarious to see the wide-eyed shock on his face. Even if it hadn’t put him in his place totally, it had, for about five seconds, which was more than anyone had ever done.
And Linc wanted to call her. Wanted to ask her to come over and beg her to have patience with him. But as shitty as he felt about it, as much as he wanted her—in his bed and in his life—he couldn’t do it.
She hadn’t signed up for this shit, and she sure as hell didn’t deserve it.
Powering down his computer, Linc got up and stretched. Storm did too, from her comfortable place under his feet. Even she seemed to know something was going on with him, or maybe it was his imagination that she seemed to hang back a little more, a look of concern on her face. He put on his boots and his flannel. They went downstairs, and he grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down on the couch with his phone.
He opened up a text to her.
But he didn’t know what to say. Hi, sorry I’ve been such an asshole. But I think I’m going insane.
Yeah, that would work out really well. Way to make her go running for the hills.
The worst part about it was that Linc didn’t think that would make Kylie run. In fact, he thought that would just make her hold him closer. She was that type of girl. Nurturing. Caring. If someone was hurt, she tried to fix it. She’d probably do a bang-up job of understanding just what he was going through. She’d take him in her arms and try to comfort him, and she’d put her entire heart and soul into it.
And she wouldn’t admit it, but he’d be a total drag on her.
That’s not what Linc did. He didn’t rely on anyone. He’d spent most of his life alone mostly because he’d realized that he was his own best company. After Syria, he’d adopted a few mottos…
If you want something done your way, you do it yourself.
Prepare for the worst.
Do or die.
Linc healed his own hurts. He’d gotten his brain sick, and he was responsible for getting it well. Or living with it the best he could.
Alone.
Because he could control alone.
Linc dropped his phone to his chest and took another swig of beer, then slid down on the couch, propping his head up on his arm as he stared at the ceiling.
Commanding himself to relax, he deliberately slowed his breathing, and the edges of the room went hazy before he drifted into a sense of peace.
When he opened his eyes, Kylie was there, wearing that red farmgirl dress again. “Miss me?” she said, biting on her lip seductively.
And all those thoughts about not needing her went right out the window.
Linc tried to sit up, but Kylie clearly had other ideas. She leaned over, hovering over him, and placed a finger on his lips.
When she straddled him, he ran both hands up her back until they fisted in her hair. She leaned forward, pressing her breasts against his chest. “I missed you,” she said, her voice just a breath before she pressed her lips to his.
Dropping his hands to his sides, he lay there as she undressed him, letting her do as she pleased. As she stripped her panties down her legs, she smiled. “Did you miss me too?”
Linc let out a hard breath of air. “Yeah. I did miss you. I’m sorry, Kylie. I didn’t mean to…but I’m glad you’re here now.”
She kissed him again. The tip of his nose, his cheeks, his jawline, making her way to his ear. “Make love to me, Linc.”
Moving her into position, he raised up to meet her as she sank onto him, joining their bodies.
Heat exploded in his brain, their connection searing every part of him.
Flame. Fire. Starting where they joined, it radiated outward until the rest of his body turned to red-hot embers.
He heard a scream. And another and another. Then an explosion so loud it rocked his entire world.
Kylie!
He grabbed her arms and rolled them both until he was on top of her. He had to keep her safe.
Kylie started screaming. Screaming. Screaming.
When he looked down, pushed her hair from her face, it wasn’t Kylie at all.
It was the woman from the marketplace, her eyes wide with fear. Her voice was old, creaky. “You left them,” she wailed as flames tore at her face, melting her skin until she was nothing but a burning skeleton. “You killed them all. You know it should be you.”
Linc jumped to his feet, then fell to his ass, the jolt running all the way up his spine.
The woman was gone. The flames were gone. The nightmare was gone.
It was only him and Storm that remained.
And the guilt. The sorrow. The grief.
Rain fell like marching soldiers upon the roof, competing with the only other sound. His harsh breathing.
You know it should be you.
Rubbing his eyes and looking around in the dim blue light from the clock on the radio across the room, Linc reminded himself that he was safe. That he was in his house, in his living room, where he’d fallen asleep. Alone. Even though he could still smell her, feel her, Kylie wasn’t, hadn’t been here.
He jumped when the phone buzzed on the wood floor beside him.
He stood up and stepped onto something sharp. His phone buzzed again, its display illuminating the bottle of the beer he’d been drinking. It now lay shattered, pieces both big and small littering the space around him. His feet were bare. His soles began to sting.
“Shit,” Linc ground out, collapsing back onto the couch and wiping the glass from his feet. He’d sliced his toe. Blood trickled from the wound. He needed a bandage.
Ripping off his sweat-soaked t-shirt, he wrapped it around his foot, applying pressure as his phone buzzed again.
Cursing a long line of filthy words, he reached for the phone and checked the display. He had five missed calls from an unfamiliar number i
n Spartanburg, South Carolina.
And it was two in the morning.
There was only one reason he’d be getting a call from a number out of state like that, at this hour. And it was definitely not something he was equipped to deal with right now.
Shit.
As Linc stared at the phone, his chest still heaving, his mind still reeling with thoughts of fire and damnation, a sixth call came in from that same number. He answered it this time, his voice thick and gravelly. “Yeah?”
“Is this Mr. Coulter? Mr. Linc Coulter from search and rescue?”
That was how these things usually started out. He swabbed at his toe again. The bleeding was stopping. “Yeah. How can I help you?”
“There’s been a terrible accident at the college down here in Spartanburg, South Carolina. A parking garage collapse. We have SAR on it right now, but we need another to come right away, and you were highly recommended by your peers.”
Right. Linc had many peers all over the area who had him in mind for disasters like this, and usually, he’d be all for it. In fact, a week ago, this would have been a no-brainer. He’d already be on the road, ready to help. But now he had no idea of what he was capable of. What he could handle. What might set him off. He felt like a ticking time bomb, with no idea what his body would do.
Linc gritted his teeth. He had to push through it. This was his job. His life. And he wasn’t about to lend any more truth to his father’s assertions that he didn’t do anything but play with dogs high on the mountain.
“Yeah. I’m on it.” Linc reached for the pull-string for the lamp and turned it on. “Text me the address.”
Wide awake now, he checked how long the drive would take, and told them he’d be there in a little over an hour. The glass would have to wait. Every damn thing else would have to wait.
He changed quickly and grabbed his go-bag, checking he had everything he needed.
He did.
This part of his life he was good at. Competent. In control.
After leaving a message with his veterinary clinic to watch his dogs, which they were usually on call to do when he was going to be away for an uncertain amount of time, he called to Storm and they both jumped in his truck.
Ready.
But as he headed down the mountain, the dark, fearful eyes of the woman still seemed to bore into the back of his head.
This time, she was laughing.
What makes you think you can be a hero after what you did?
20
Kylie stopped at the local McDonald’s on the way to her meeting with Nate Jennings and ordered a super huge of just about everything on the menu.
Other people, when they were depressed or bothered about something, couldn’t eat. Kylie had the opposite problem. When stressed, her stomach became a black hole, constantly grumbling for anything she could put in it: the greasier, the better.
As she popped a handful of ketchup laden fries into her mouth, she realized she was very stressed…about Lincoln Coulter.
Which made her even more angry and stressed.
Taking a long sip of sweet tea, she tried to force her mind in more productive directions, namely the case she was supposed to be working on. Sweet little Emma Jennings.
She’d spent the entire day going through the rest of Arnold Jennings’s entire inventory of paintings, thinking if three were missing, how many more? It turned out…at least another dozen, and Kylie wasn’t even finished yet. The paperwork was a mess. Paintings, both finished and unfinished, were stashed in the attic, under beds, in closets. In a word…everywhere.
Emma had been horrified.
Denise Summers hadn’t just been shagging her grandson, she was a terrible assistant to boot.
“How long did it take Mr. Jennings to complete a painting?” Kylie had asked the sweet old woman.
Emma had just waved her hand. “Anywhere from hours to twenty-five years.”
Kylie hadn’t understood. “How’s that?”
Emma sorted through the newly sorted stack and pulled out a painting of a lopsided little boy and his…bear? Wooley mammoth? No, a dog. A hideously ugly dog that seemed very close to eating the child.
“My dear Arnold finished this one in a single morning.”
Kylie tried to look impressed, but she secretly thought dear Arnold had needed to spend another couple decades on that one before making it presentable.
Art and couture fashion…Kylie didn’t understand it.
Emma leafed through the stack and pulled out another one. Kylie almost jumped. The woman in the portrait very closely resembled the nun in one of the horror movies she’d watched not long ago.
“This one, Arnold worked on for over five years, off and on.” Emma looked at the horrifying thing with abject admiration. Maybe the woman was a touch demented. “He was never quite satisfied, so he’d bring it out and dabble every once in a while.”
With a loving look, Emma ran a finger over the nun-woman’s mouth, and Kylie tensed, waiting for the thing to come alive and chomp off half of Emma’s arm.
She’d definitely been watching too many scary movies.
Nevertheless, she’d been glad when Emma set the painting back down, and when the old woman turned her back, Kylie pulled a sheet over the canvas, hating how the eyes seemed to watch her.
Actually, all the eyes seemed to watch her.
Shuddering at the memory, Kylie took a huge bite of burger and chased it with a few more fries.
Vader whined beside her, begging her with big, pitiful eyes. She glanced over at him. “No. This is mine.”
He whined again, and she softened and tore him off a chunk.
He gobbled it up just as a new update hit the radio.
She turned the volume up. The radio was full of live coverage of a horrific national tragedy—a parking garage collapse in South Carolina. She didn’t need any more awful news to bring her spirits down, so she flipped off the dial and sighed, licking the salt from her fingers as she drove to her appointment.
It turned out that Nate Jennings’s Facebook profile was a little out of date. He wasn’t as much of a thug as she’d originally thought. He’d actually graduated from Wake Forest, had a decent job as an IT professional downtown, and even mentioned a girl named Ava who he’d said “had masterful taste” as he described her. Kylie assumed it was a girlfriend Emma knew nothing about.
She couldn’t help wondering about Denise, though.
Where was she now?
And Nate’s ex-roommate? Was he still in the picture?
What a complicated relationship web.
Nate had called Kylie back after her last message, apologizing profusely for not responding because he’d been so busy with work, and invited her over to his apartment in North Asheville to discuss the information she was looking for.
Arriving ten minutes before their four o’clock appointment, Kylie wiped her mouth and wondered if she smelled like hamburger grease. Nate’s apartment building was rather swanky, too, located above a bank, and looked newly renovated. She rang the bell at the door, and he answered via the intercom and buzzed her up.
When he opened his apartment door, Kylie was floored. “Nate?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You were expecting someone else?”
“Oh. No. I just…the only photos I saw of you were from your Facebook page,” she said, taking in his khaki pants and dress shirt. Emma was right; he was handsome. “You look different now.”
“Yeah, being an adult will do that to a person,” he said, waving her into a homey little apartment. Either he had a flair for decorating, or this was Ava and her masterful taste he’d mentioned. “Had to grow up and take responsibility.”
Kylie nodded, though really, she wouldn’t know.
Would this grown-up and responsible grandson be stealing from his grandmother?
Well, he hadn’t shown a great deal of responsibility this past summer, having an affair with Emma’s assistant…in Emma’s home…in broad daylight.
; Sex made people stupid.
Before she could go down that rabbit hole, thinking about Linc, Kylie sat down on the sofa, hoping Nate Jennings would do the same.
He didn’t. He remained standing. No, actually, he was fidgeting, shifting from one foot to another. She wanted to shout at him to stay still.
Nate had been gracious on the phone, but now she felt like an infiltrator. Was he always this nervous? “I’m sorry. You said you were my grandmother’s assistant? She’s retired. Why does she need an assistant?”
Because you screwed the other one out of a job?
“She may be at the age of retirement, but Mrs. Jennings is very active and enjoys handling your late grandfather’s business. And since she, um, lost…” Kylie eyed Nate closely, keeping her expression carefully neutral, “her last assistant, she has missed having someone help her keep track of her estate dealings and charitable donations and things like that.”
Nate colored a little at the mention of the assistant, but he didn’t give any other reaction except to ask, “Doesn’t her lawyer do that?”
“In part, but she wanted someone to tie it all together,” she said vaguely, hoping he wouldn’t ask any more questions. To that end, she pushed on. “So, I’ve been auditing all of her possessions and dealings, and I had a few questions for you that I hoped you could help me with.”
He started to drum his fingers nervously on the back of a chair. God, the guy did not know how to stay still. Was he guilty after all? “I doubt it. But okay. Shoot.”
“Thank you.” Kylie pulled out her notebook and scanned the questions she’d had planned. “Do you—”
“Hey. Why do you look familiar? Do I know you from somewhere?”
She inhaled a deep breath. Her face had been plastered all over the news after the Spotlight Killer takedown, but with the passage of time, Kylie had hoped fewer and fewer people would remember her.
“I get that all the time,” Kylie said quickly, wondering if she should start wearing a wig when in her “Emma’s assistant” ruse. “I’ve been told I have a face that’s very memorable. I create feelings of déjà vu in a lot of people.”