by Oliver, Tess
I screamed as loud as I could. My arm was being wrenched in an unnatural position as I tried to swing off the conveyor belt. My legs dropped over the side, but my upper body and twisted arm were still heading for the blades.
The teeth of the saw snipped hungrily at the air, waiting for its meal. The blow to my head, and the terrifying prospect of being cut in half made everything blur. My head felt heavy on my neck, and I was suddenly hopeful that I’d pass out before my body hit the saw.
Solid hands grabbed me again. I screamed out thinking I was going to be pushed straight into the blades. Gears squeaked as the conveyor belt came to an abrupt halt. A ripping sound followed, and my arm popped off the cradle hook.
“I’ve got you, Tash. You’re safe now.” Jem’s deep, calming tone drifted to me through the haze in my head. I felt my nearly limp body being lifted away from the carriage and the blades.
I cried into his shirt as his arms held me against his hard body.
“Please, Jem, get me out of here,” I choked out between gulps of air.
He carried me out into the brisk air. It revived me some, and the sobs slowly subsided. And the entire time, Jem held me as if he never planned to release me, as if he would keep me safe forever if I just asked. It was that other side of him that I’d seen before, the side that helped me forget that he was trouble, that he was a Wolfe.
“You can put me down,” I said, but in truth I could have stayed in his arms all damn night.
Reluctantly, he lowered my feet to the ground. It rolled beneath me. The spinning in my head hadn’t stopped completely. I held onto Jems’ shirt for support, even though his hands were still firmly on my waist keeping me upright.
The sky had faded to a chalky gray, and the first stars were winking down at the planet. I finally found the strength to look up at him. His nearness and his hold on my waist made me sway on my feet.
My fingers curled tighter around his flannel shirt. He freed a hand from my waist and used his thumb to wipe the tears from my cheek.
I looked around. We were the only two people in the yard. “Where did you come from?” My voice was weak and shaky.
“I worked late cleaning debris. I was just heading into the locker room when I heard the saw.” I saw now that his face was a few shades lighter than normal. “I heard you scream. Holy shit, Tash, what the hell happened in there?”
“I don’t know.” I grabbed my chain. “The shark’s tooth.” I pulled away from his arms. “My necklace.”
He followed behind. “Tash, you’re not making sense. Maybe we should get you to a doctor.”
The machinery looked different now. Before it was powerful and almost majestic. Now it was a daunting torture machine built only to chop things up. “The shark’s tooth was hanging right there.” My hand shook as I pointed to the place where I’d seen the tooth. “That’s why I climbed up on the conveyor belt.” The tears flowed again, and I looked at Jem.
Utter confusion crossed his face. “There’s nothing there, Tash. What shark’s tooth? Let’s go into the office so you can sit down.” He reached for me, but I pushed him away.
“I’m fine. And I saw it.” I lifted my empty chain. “I used to have a shark’s tooth on the end of this chain, but I lost it.” I wanted badly to hold it together, but I was splitting apart into a million pieces. “I lost it back when I lost a piece of myself. My dad died. And I can’t remember any damn thing that happened back then.” I crumbled into a puddle of tears.
Jem wrapped his arms around me and again his protective warmth surrounded me. Something about it felt so familiar, so right, it only added to my confusion.
He led me out into the night air again. “Did you see anyone?” He looked down at the ripped remnants of my sleeve. “Who tied you to the carriage?”
My throat was dry and sore from crying, and my head was a jumbled mess. Nothing made sense. Nothing seemed real. Except for Jem. He was incredibly real. I took a deep shuddering breath. “I don’t know who it was. He said a few words, but his voice wasn’t familiar. But I think I smelled cigarette smoke on his clothes.”
“Well, that eliminates Dr. Tupp, the local dentist and the old guy who works in the post office. And me, I guess. I don’t smoke cigarettes. But just about every man who works in this mill smokes or chews tobacco.”
“That’s all I remember. It was all so unreal, like a terrible nightmare where I couldn’t wake up.” I pressed myself against him again. His nearness was the only thing helping to alleviate the sickening, icy cold feeling in my stomach.
“I told you, you shouldn’t have come to Blackthorn.”
Another dire warning. It was the last thing I wanted to hear. “You don’t understand,” I said as I pulled from his arms and headed across the yard.
“Tashlyn wait.”
I turned around.
For a long moment, we were two people nearly frozen in space, gazing at each other, technically strangers and yet, not strangers.
“Who the hell am I kidding,” he muttered as he stomped toward me on his spiked boots. His hand grabbed my arm. “I don’t want you to go, Tash. Don’t fucking leave me.” He pulled me against him, and his mouth came down over mine.
Every sensible fiber in my head was telling me to push away. This was the last thing I needed. But every daring fiber, the ones that gave me courage and let my heart have its way told me to stay. Rational thoughts evaporated into dust. I softened in Jem’s arms, suddenly wanting to be even closer to his warmth, to his body, to him, all six feet plus of him.
His kiss deepened. My lips parted farther. I hadn’t been kissed like that since . . . Hell, I’d never been kissed like that. I was nearly breathless as he lifted his mouth from mine. He tightened his muscular arms around me. I pressed my face against his chest.
“Shit, Woodstock, I’ve never been so damn conflicted in my life. I’m trying to figure this out. All I know is I wake up thinking about you and I go to sleep thinking about you.” He pushed his fingers under my chin and lifted my face to his. The glittering brown of his eyes darkened, and I could see his throat move with a deep swallow. I was tight enough against him that I could feel the pounding of his heart.
Then, without warning, he dropped his arms and stepped back to look at me in the shadows of the young night. The stunned look on his face frightened me.
“Shit, Jem, you’re scaring me, and I’ve already been through a live horror movie. What’s wrong?”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong and yet everything’s wrong. At the moment, you’re about the only thing in this town keeping me from going nuts. Let’s get out of here. I guess we can tell Hal what happened in the morning.”
“No, don’t,” I pleaded. “He’ll fire me for sure. It was stupid of me to go into that building in the first place. Let’s just keep this between us.”
He sighed. “If you’re sure, but how the hell am I going to keep an eye on you when I’m out on the pond?”
“There are so many people around here, I’ll be fine. And I’ll be keeping an ear open for that voice.” A shiver ran through me, but it wasn’t from the cold.
Jem grabbed my hand. “Come on, Woodstock. I’ve got a flannel shirt you can wear. That sweatshirt is history. I’ll take you home on my bike. The last thing you need is a bus ride into crazy town.”
Chapter 14
Jem
I pulled the bike over three blocks before Everly’s house at Tashlyn’s request. We hadn’t discussed why, but I knew Everly would give her a hard time for riding home with me, and I wasn’t about to add to the stressful night by debating it. Even if it really was none of Everly’s fucking business.
Tashlyn had wrapped her arms around me and held me so tightly the entire ride home, I was disappointed when she finally let go. I could still taste her lips, and it was going to
be hard as hell riding away from her tonight. But scary fucking shit was happening, and it was about time I faced the demons of my past, including the devil himself, my dad. There was more at stake than me facing up to the cold hard reality of what had been happening in this town for years. Tashlyn’s arrival seemed to have stirred up some of Blackthorn’s ugly past, a past, that even as a kid, I’d played an unwitting role in. But those days were over, and I would destroy anyone who tried to harm Tashlyn.
I rolled up the driveway to the house. Television light flickered through the front window. I’d hardly spoken to my dad all week, but I was ready to sit down for a real fucking father and son chat right now, even if he wasn’t in the mood.
I walked inside. A weed cloud filled the house. Dad was draped like a lifeless corpse on the couch. Six empty beer cans were stacked next to the arm of the sofa. Dad always had a theory that he wasn’t completely drunk until he could no longer stack empty beer cans. It seemed his liver should have protested that theory long ago. Now it was in full rebellion.
He’d fallen asleep in front of a porn flick, a sure sign that he’d had enough weed and beer for the night.
I stared down at him and, for a second, it struck me that he might be dead. A long snore followed, kicking me out of that idea. The tall, thickly built menace of the town was shrinking down to skin and bones, as if his dying liver was sucking all the life from him one muscle at a time. Tonight, the yellowish cast on his skin looked extra ghoulish. Dane and I would be losing him someday soon. That thought was supposed to give me some kind of reaction, a pressure in my chest, a swelling in my throat, but it didn’t. He’d chosen his life and now, his death, and he was going to take his fucked up decisions to an early grave.
I picked up one of the unopened beers and popped the top as I plunked down in the easy chair. I lifted my foot and nudged him with my boot. “Hey, Dad.”
He opened his eyes and worked hard to focus on the figure sitting in the chair. The rope scar around his neck became easier to see as his weight dropped. He sat up. “Jem, why you waking me? Something up with Dane?”
“Nope. He’s not around. Must have gone out to play some pool. We need to talk.”
He reached for the opened can of beer on the coffee table. He smiled as he brought it to his mouth. “Bottom’s up.” He dropped his head back and gulped down the flat beer, finishing with a satisfied sigh. He squinted at the movie on the television. “Damn, did I sleep through the good part?” He lifted his hand to point at the monitor, and it struck me that he suddenly had old man hands. Ten years ago, I’d been ducking away from his massive fist when he was pissed and ready to smack me around. Those hands were gone for good. “That brunette with the giant tits loves to take it in the ass. Love that part when he folds her over the kitchen chair and—”
I reached forward and grabbed the remote off the table. I turned it off. The room was bathed in shadows. The pallor of his skin glowed as if he was sitting under a florescent light, instead of in an unlit room.
“What’s in your craw this time, Son?”
“Why’d you take the newspaper from Aunt Alice’s shop?”
He forced a weak grin and leaned his head back against the couch. We’d had the same damn furniture my whole life, and every cushion smelled and looked like stale smoke. “Don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He closed his eyes. “Hey, can you get me my pills off the kitchen counter. I forgot to take them.”
I stayed put, but he kept his eyes closed, pretending I was no longer in the room. I walked into the kitchen and grabbed the pills. I shook them in his ear. “Here, see if you can breathe some life back into that pickled liver.”
He lifted his head and reached for the pills.
I stared down at him. It made him uneasy enough that he finally had to look at me. “Fuck, Jem, I’m a dying man. Leave me to my beer and that brunette and her shaved pussy.” He searched around for the remote.
I held it up just out of his reach.
I was getting nowhere and decided on a more direct approach. “Did you have something to do with that trucker going off the side of the road? Let me rephrase that. Did you send all those trucks off the road?”
“What? You’re fucking nuts. Your mom was crazy too, you know? Guess that’s where you get it from.”
He was testing my patience. I reached down and grabbed his shirt to force him to look at me. People had always told me I looked like my dad, and for a brief second, I could see my own face staring back at me.
He scowled angrily up at me. “Don’t go sticking your nose into shit that doesn’t concern you, Jem. You stir up the wrong people, and you’ll have to watch over your shoulder for every fucking shadow. How the hell do you think I kept you two alive all this time? By keeping my business to myself. Now let go of my shirt, and put my brunette back on the television.”
I released his shirt and glared down at him, wanting to shake the life out of the man.
He seemed to read my mind. A sad smile crossed his face. “Bet you’re regretting that day you saved me from the noose, huh?”
“Every fucking day.” I turned on the television, threw the remote at him and walked out. I climbed on my bike and fired it up. I knew where I was headed before the final decision had even entered my mind. Tashlyn had invaded my soul. I couldn’t get through a decent breath without thinking about her, and after the frustrating scene with my old man, I needed to clear my head just to keep from going crazy. I needed to see her. The weird fucking thing was that Tashlyn’s arrival in town had pushed the first domino, and the rest, it seemed, would follow. She’d opened the fucking Pandora’s Box, and there was no going back.
I pulled up to Everly’s house. It was dark. I got back on the bike and headed to Gregor’s Market, a place I rarely stepped into. With any luck, Landon wouldn’t be around. He was the last asshole I needed to face tonight.
The parking lot was filled with people stopping in to pick up sandwiches and fried chicken for a quick dinner. I didn’t give a shit who was inside.
As if he had Wolfe radar, Landon Gregor’s face shot up from behind the register. If he’d had the ability, he would have been shooting fire from his nostrils at the sight of me. Rumor was, that the old, self-righteous bastard, the honorable Mayor Gregor, was sick with something. He sure didn’t look sick as he scowled at me across the store.
“Find what you need, Wolfe, and be on your way.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Every nosy customer in the store turned to look. Everly poked her head around a display to see where her uncle’s rage had been directed. Her face fell, but it was more disappointment than anger.
Tashlyn was sitting at one of the small tables in the corner by the sandwich counter. Her blue eyes rounded with surprise when she spotted me. I walked straight toward her and thought about just how shitty it would feel if she turned me down.
I reached the table, and without a word, I offered her my hand. There was only the slightest hesitation before she placed her hand in mine.
I popped her to her feet. She had just enough time to stick her trash in the can as I pulled her past it. It seemed as if the only sounds in the market were the whirring motors of the refrigerators as I led Tashlyn through the store to the exit.
“What the hell are you about, Wolfe?” Landon barked from behind his counter.
I ignored him as I slammed open the door. I glanced back at Tashlyn in her faded and thin denim jacket. I took off my hooded sweatshirt and handed it to her. “Put this on. It’s cold tonight.”
She pushed her arm through but her hand never reached the end of the sleeve. She smiled as she curled her fingers around the end of it. “It’s got built in mittens.” She blinked up at me before glancing back at the store. Several people were staring out the window watching us. “Everly will be mad at me.”
/> Not giving a damn about the audience in the shop window I took hold of Tashlyn’s face and kissed her. A satisfied sigh ushered from her plump lips when I pulled my mouth away. “Do you want to go back inside?”
The blue of her eyes was like turquoise under the full moon sky. “No, I want to go with you.”
I couldn’t hold back my smile as I threw my leg over the bike. Tashlyn climbed on behind and wrapped her arms around me. All I could think was how badly I just wanted to ride off with her tucked in behind me and never look back at this place. Instead, I swung around and headed north on Main. The houses and stores were a blur of wavering porch lights and dirty white stucco facades as I twisted the throttle and rode through town.
Tashlyn held me tighter, pushing her breasts against my back as she propped her chin on my shoulder. I knew I didn’t deserve someone like her, but I was done standing on the fucking dark side of the moon. Sometimes you had to find the light or just drown in the blackness of it all.
I knew exactly where to head. It was only a few miles out of town, but it was far enough away from Blackthorn to forget that the town existed for a few hours.
I pulled the bike onto a tractor plowed road. I parked in the clearing next to the wood structure overlooking a steep ravine. The moon was glowing like a massive flashlight in the sky, showering yellow light over the valley below.
Tashlyn could have wrapped my sweatshirt around her twice as she pulled it closed. She reached back and pulled up the hood. “I feel bad about taking your sweatshirt. Of course, I’m not planning to give it up anytime soon, but I just wanted you to know that I was feeling some remorse about wearing it.”
I grabbed some of the loose material and yanked her against me. “Could you be any fucking cuter with your remorse and everything.” I kissed her again.