Hard Time (Hard as Nails #1)

by Hope Conrad

  “Is this a gift?”

  He cocks a brow, and my face immediately flames. “Um…I just mean…we have books that are bound nicer than others. So if you’re looking for something that’s text book quality versus gift quality—you know, leather bound, hard cover versus soft cover…”

  “I don’t need anything fancy,” he says.

  I clear my throat, then lead him to the poetry section. As I search for the Dylan Thomas books, I’m acutely aware of Street standing slightly behind me, close enough that I can feel the warmth emanating from him.

  My hand hovers over several different Thomas titles. “Is there a particular time period you’re interested in?”

  The feeling of heat increases as he steps closer to look over my shoulder. He smells clean and fresh. Like what a sunny day on a lake would smell like, I fancy. Darsbury doesn’t have a lake and I’ve rarely been outside the city limits.

  “I’m looking for one with the poem Clown in the Moon.”

  I feel the whisper of his breath against my ear and shiver.

  “Oh.” I lick my lips, and take a shallow breath. “I’m not—I’m not familiar with that one. Is it—Is it good?”

  He doesn’t answer for a few seconds. Then he says softly, “My tears are like the quiet drift of petals from some magic rose. And all my grief flows from the rift of unremembered skies and snows.”

  My breath hitches at his words. Quickly, I pull out a book, then another, searching. When I find a book that has the poem he just quoted, I swallow hard, then slowly turn.

  Our bodies brush before he takes several steps back as if I’d burned him.

  “Um…that’s nice. I’ll have to read the whole thing.” I hold out the book. “Will this one do?”

  He takes the book from me and says “yes” without even looking at it.

  Returning to the counter, my body tenser than ever, I ring up his purchase, noting that he pays for the book with cash. After I hand him the bag with book and receipt, I keep my gaze focused on his shoulder.

  He’s going to leave now, and I feel torn. This guy had been in prison and no matter how much I want to believe he’s a good guy, he’s not. He’s a criminal. He’s a thug. I shouldn’t want anything to do with him.

  “Is there something else you need?” I manage to ask when he doesn’t move.

  “I see you’re hiring.”

  My head snaps up and he points to a sign behind me. “I was wondering if I could get an application.”

  “Uh…” I stutter and brace my fingers tight around the rim of the counter. “We are, but the manager isn’t here.” I force my next few words out. “Do you want me to take your name and number?”

  His eyes angle at me, and I see activity behind them. “That depends. Do you think he’d hire an ex-con, Katie?”

  * * *

  I freeze, and we stare at each other. I was obviously wrong. He does recognize me. And he knows my name.

  But I’d already known that. Mary said my name once while we were on the line, and an inmate had overheard her. He’d started to taunt me with it.

  Pretty name for a pretty girl, Katie.

  The food looks good but not as good as you, Katie.

  I bet you’d taste better than this shit, Katie.

  I think you’d like Kurt’s dick, my dick, in your face, Katie.

  Scared, I’d looked for one of the guards, but their attention had been elsewhere. Street had been standing behind the guy who’d been doing the talking, and if I’d expected him to get angry and flay the man for his words, I would have been disappointed. But yet he still managed to come to my rescue.

  With an exasperated roll of his eyes, he’d bumped shoulders with Kurt and in that unspoken way guys communicate, jerked his chin toward the food as if to say, “Move the fuck on. I’m hungry,” making it clear his concern was for his belly, not me. But with a smirk, Kurt had moved on.

  And to my relief, he’d never used my name again. Hell, he hadn’t even looked at me after that.

  It suddenly hits me then. That maybe Street came to my rescue more than I’d imagined. That maybe he’d had words with Kurt afterward…

  I’m still lost in my thoughts when Street speaks. “You know what? Never mind.” He takes a measured step back from the counter, and shifts his body toward the front door.

  I lunge into action and push my hands hard against the surface of the counter. “Don’t,” I say quickly. “You don’t have to leave.”

  His tongue bats against his lip. He’s thinking my words over, contemplating if he should leave or stay. He finally decides to stay and pushes the hand not holding the bag into his pocket, but he’s quiet, waiting for me to speak.

  It’s at this point that I realize I have nothing to lose even as there’s this voice in the back of my mind telling me I’m crazy for engaging in the conversation I’m about to engage in. There’s the part of me that knows he spent time in the hole for violence, and the other part of me that knows that Street is a good man.

  “I don’t know if Mr. Dobbs will hire an ex-con, but I can put in a good word for you.”

  He narrows his eyes and tilts his head to the left, and when he does the scar beneath his right ear and across his jawline stands out even more. “And why would you do something like that?”

  My hands twist nervously. “You always seemed to be a model prisoner. At least...”

  Shut up, Katie! What are you doing? Don’t bring that up!

  “At least until the courtyard incident,” he finishes.

  I swallow hard. “Yeah. Until then.”

  “And yet you’d still put in a good word for me. Why?”

  I shrug. “I just feel like you’re a good guy, and you might need this break just like I did when I first walked through that door behind you.”

  “A feeling isn’t a good reason to do something nice for someone else,” he points out. “Acting on feelings will always lead to disappointment. Trust me, I know.”

  “Fine,” I grumble. “You want a reason?”

  He nods.

  “Kurt,” I say, wondering if he’ll remember.

  I know he does when his jaw clenches and his lips flatten.

  “So I’m right. You did talk to him. You convinced him to leave me alone.”

  He says nothing.

  “It wasn’t like I wasn’t used to trash talk, but there was something about Kurt… He scared the hell out of me and I thought he was going to hurt me, but you diffused the situation. You gave me faith that not all the men in that place were monsters.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “No, but I have good instincts about people and I think you’re a good person underneath all the bullshit and all the labels and all the time you spent behind bars.” I shrug. “People have this idea of who a prisoner is before they’ve ever talked to him. I didn’t need to have a conversation with you to know you’re a good guy.” I want to continue, but I stop myself. He’s seen me with his own eyes, watching him. But maybe it was always a one-way street, and I’d seen what I wanted to see.

  “You know, it’s funny. You say you have great instincts, but you had an abuser for a boyfriend.”

  I swallow a nervous lump in my throat. How can he know that? Has he been following me? Stalking me? There’s no possible way he could know. “How would you know something like that?” I ask as if it were a hypothetical question, not as if he’s onto the truth.

  He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes point to several scars on my arm. I’d gotten them before I started working at the prison, when Brett broke my arm so bad the bone pierced skin. It still aches all these years later. I fold one arm over the other. I pride myself on being strong, and my battle scars are a reminder that I wasn’t always strong enough.

  “There’s this look in your eyes,” he continues, reading me like a book he’s read a thousand times before. “The way you carry yourself. Even if you didn’t have the scars, I’d still be able to spot it from a mile away. I’ve seen it all befo
re, too many times to count. My past has molded me, and my past hasn’t been a good one. So what does that tell you?”

  I shift my gaze away from him and opt to stare at the floor. “Whatever you’ve done in the past, you’re capable of changing,” I say, trying to shift the conversation from me to him. I’m much more comfortable that way. Comfortable enough to lift my gaze from the floor to see him looking intently at me. “You can get a fresh start just like I did. If you just believe in yourself, then the people around you will believe in you too.”

  He doesn’t take his eyes off me, but there’s a beat of silence. I can see his mind turning behind an empty stare. Slowly, reminding me of a lion stalking his prey, he approaches the register again. He puts his bag down with a thump, rests his palms against the counter, and leans forward. “Would you say that if you knew all the dirty thoughts I had about you in prison? If you knew how many times I fantasized about you, and wondered what color panties you were wearing on any given day of the week? How many times I wanted to fuck you in the middle of that cafeteria after everyone had cleared out, and sometimes even before they did?” Lifting one hand, he runs his thumb seductively across his mouth, then bites the swell of his bottom lip. “What would you say if I told you I was thinking about doing all those things to you right now?”

  For whatever reason, behind this countertop, I feel safe. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. Still, the things he’s saying unnerve me to the point that I begin to question if it’s too dangerous to have him around—question if I’m wrong about him. Everything he’s thought about, I’ve thought too. But it was different when it was a fantasy that had never been spoken aloud.

  He keeps talking, and it’s as if his smooth voice is touching me all over. The way I long for him to touch me with his hands and body.

  “What would you say if you knew the incident on the courtyard happened because the guy was talking shit about you? Talking about you even worse than Kurt had. Talking about what he wanted to do to you, all the while knowing you were mine to dream about? You still think you’d want to work with me here?”

  My eyes round and my mouth trembles and when I simply continue to stare at him, he grins, but there’s a dark undercurrent in the trace of his smile. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. So thanks, but I don’t need you putting in a good word for me.”

  Then he turns to leave, walks to the door, and pushes one firm hand against it.

  His actions jolt me out of my paralysis. My mind is pounded by thoughts and questions and fears and images of all he wants to do to me. By warnings to let him go. But the thing that stands out most is the knowledge that if he leaves now, I might not ever see him again.

  “Wait,” I yell and rip an application out from under the register. “You forgot your application.” I round the counter, chin tilted high, and hold it out to him.

  His eyes do acrobats, screaming Did you not listen to a word I just said?

  There’s a tense silence between us as I wait for him to grab the application, and after a few heart-splitting seconds, he does.

  “Challenge accepted,” he says with an amused smirk, and then he’s out the door.

  I take a long breath of relief as he rounds the corner. When he’s out of sight, I stumble back to the counter and lean against it for support.

  I’m shaking.

  I can still smell him.

  Still hear his voice as he quoted Dylan Thomas to me.

  What the fuck is wrong with me? I think.

  But then I return to the poetry section. I find another book with the poem.

  My tears are like the quiet drift of petals from some magic rose. And all my grief flows from the rift of unremembered skies and snows…

  It’s only after I’ve bought the book and head home to my daughter that I remember what he said.

  “You say you have great instincts, but you had an abuser for a boyfriend.”

  Had.

  Like he’d known I’d broken up with my abuser of a boyfriend since leaving the prison.

  But how in the world could he have known that?

  Chapter Two

  Street

  Well, that was a fucking plot twist and a half. It had never been my intention to walk into that bookstore. I’d been steadfast in my resolve to leave her alone. The plan was to stay as far away from her as humanly possible. I needed to leave that fantasy behind in prison. That’s what I told myself. But I couldn’t let it go.

  I asked a favor of my friend, Slate, a man I had no business asking anything from. I found out where she worked, and where she lived. I found out she’d left her boyfriend, and that she’d had a baby.

  Then the plan changed to keeping my distance, only not quite so much distance. I couldn’t resist getting closer to her. Watching her from afar.

  Just like I used to do in prison, where my fantasies were wilder than any reality could ever be. But given freedom outside those walls, I hadn’t been able to control myself. I suppose it was just a matter of time. Really, what harm could come from going inside the bookstore? All I’d wanted to do was see her up close, maybe talk to her, even as I pretended I didn’t know who she was, but somehow I screwed that up.

  I suppose that was just a matter of time too. Because I know exactly what she is to me.

  An unobtainable obsession. For almost three years, I fantasized about everything I wanted to do to her. I wanted to be inside of her, and to feel the warmth of her flesh around my hard cock. I wanted to tear her apart from the inside and make her mine.

  I still want all of that, and that’s the fucking problem. The closer I get to her, the more the walls between fantasy and reality shatter, and the more I want her. It was easier back then, when my wants and desires seemed next to impossible.

  But on the outside, I’ve been lured into her trap.

  I’m still shocked she didn't run screaming from the store when I walked in. It was obvious she recognized me instantly, and just as obvious that she truly thought I didn’t recognize her. I’d almost barked with laughter at the lunacy of it.

  I could never forget her. Not those beautiful hazel eyes, not that angelic body, and not her chocolate brown hair that rains across her face like tapered curtains giving teasing glimpses of all the beauty underneath.

  When I walked into that store, I had no intention of applying for a damn job. I have a job pumping gas. But once I’d gotten close to her, close enough to touch her, to see her tremble when I recited poetry to her, all my good intentions had vanished like smoke. I saw the Help Wanted sign and jumped at the opportunity, cutting through all the bullshit and letting her know I remembered her. Because if she reacted in fear to that revelation, I’d leave immediately. But if she didn’t…

  She didn’t. She fucking argued with me about how I deserved a second chance, about how she’d put in a good word for me with her boss. She’d literally chased me to the door and handed me an application, her eyes sparkling and her chin tilted in defiance. And I’d been drowning in all the possibilities of what that meant.

  If I get the job, I’ll finally be able to get closer to her without breaking any rules. Instead of watching her from afar, I’ll learn everything there is to know about her up close.

  I’ll make her mine, and my fantasies will cease to be fantasies, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll become something I only used to ever dream about—a reality so good it wipes away the sting of all the shit that came before.

  The only question is whether I’m willing to put Katie at risk for a chance at it.

  She said there’s good in me, and that I can turn my life around. She believes I’m worthy of a second chance, but she’s wrong. She doesn’t know anything about me. After all, she hasn’t spent nearly the same amount of time watching me as I’ve spent watching her.

  Some people can’t be saved, but it’s an intriguing idea. I’m not the worst man in the world, but I’m certainly not all that’s good and holy. I’ve done things. Reprehensible things. Some of those things, I did for Katie, but mostly I did
them for myself, for my own reasons at various points in my life.

  So, can I change? Can I be redeemed? Only the future can tell, but for now, I’m drawn to Katie like a moth drawn to a flame. I’m going to get burned, and it’s going to feel fucking orgasmic.

  * * *

  I can’t shake thoughts of Katie as I wrestle the key to my shitty apartment from the pocket of my jeans. I can’t shake the tenor of her voice, or how goddamn wonderful she looked dressed casually, her hair loose and her curves noticeable in a way they hadn’t been in her prison work uniform.

  But most of all, I can’t shake the idea that there’s no turning back. Now that I’ve seen her up close, and felt her breath dance along my skin from across that fucking counter... Now that we’ve spoken and we’ve finally acknowledged each other’s existence …

  No, I can never go back.

  I twist the key into the lock of the thin, tattered door and push it partway open. I’m hit with an instant cloud of marijuana smoke, and my blood begins to boil. My heart begins to race. My hand rolls into a fist as I bang the door all the way open and see my piece-of-shit best friend Trevor choking on a hit from a bong as he cranes his neck to face me.

  He doesn’t live here. He’s just visiting. Only he’s not supposed to be visiting. He’s a fucking ex-con, just like me, and a term of my parole is to not hang out with any ex-felons, in particular the guy who I committed burglary with all those years ago. But Trevor is like a brother to me, and he’s trying to stay straight. He needs my help to do that. So I’ve let him crash at my place a couple of times, on the condition that he never stay long and that he stay clean. It’s a big risk—if my parole agent stops by for a surprise inspection, I’m fucked.

  I’ve never been able to do the smart thing when it comes to Trevor. But now that I have the promise of spending more time with Katie in my future, that has to change.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I inquire, because it’s always best to ask a question or two before beating your friend’s ass. I’m under court-ordered sobriety, and one failed piss test from either drugs or alcohol will be enough to send me back to prison. A stranger would have already been on the ground with a broken nose. But this was Trevor…