Picking up the pace, he got the wood arranged by the fireplace and was sweeping up the mess he made while glancing here and there to ascertain where the hell she was. And where the hell the kid was.
Sitting on booted feet, he rested his hands on his thighs and swept the room for clues. The coffee table next to him was cluttered with crap. An ancient Magic 8 ball became a paperweight on a stack of crossword puzzle pages that appeared ripped from magazines. Next to that was an old coffee mug with a broken handle holding assorted pens and pencils. Taught to notice extraneous detail, the logo of Cheers, the bar in Boston from the classic TV show stuck out.
A distinctly northeastern dialect, the lighthouse painting and now a souvenir mug.
Also on the table was a remote control with a length of duct tape wound around the bottom to keep the battery door in place. He looked across the tiny room to the out-of-place-looking flat screen television. Next to the television was a built-in with books haphazardly crammed onto four shelves.
Anne of Green Gables.
David Copperfield.
Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth.
Really? Now he was really intrigued.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. Wow. He wanted to curl up by the fire with a snifter of brandy and talk to her about the main character’s search for the meaning of life.
The faint but unmistakable sound of a toilet flushing solved the mystery of where she was hiding. Before he turned away from the shelves full of interesting reading materials, he noted that the bottom compartment was overflowing with kids’ books.
So there really was a kid. His gaze swept quickly around the entire space. A plastic bowl full of crayons teetered on the edge of a side table. A small plastic dinosaur was wedged between a recliner and the table beside it. On the pegs at the front door hung a child’s jacket and scarf.
Clues, yeah, but the lack of pictures mystified him. A small frame on the mantle held a picture of a harried-looking young woman awkwardly cradling a swaddled baby.
Deb Jenkins? Debbie James?
Everything made sense, and none of it made sense. How could that be?
Kelly snapped the elastic band one last time and tugged her tail of hair before stuffing the thick mass into the neckline of her hoodie. Wiggling and flexing her fingers and wrist, she scowled when a twinge of pain shot into her elbow.
“Frickin’ fuck.” The harshly muttered expletive was necessary for this instance. Annoyed that she had more checkmarks in the disadvantage column now than when the day started, her mood grew gloomy and irritated.
Her hand hurt like a mother. The significant snowfall had a Day After Tomorrow quality to it. She dropped her favorite rifle when she tumbled into the road and thanks to the weather would never locate it now. Why the hell not?
It was no use pretending the biggest check mark wasn’t messing with her in a big way. A quick peek in the old bathroom mirror showed lips thinned by tension.
Roman Bishop.
Ugh.
He didn’t scare her, but she was fairly sure he’d get off on it if he did. That didn’t mean that she wasn’t on full alert. Knowing who she was gave him an advantage that made her teeth clench. If he hadn’t taken a verbal shot at Burt the other night, she’d suspect he was a lawyer or some other official type hired by the Dulbs to rattle her cage. It was a reach, yeah, but what the hell else could explain his presence? Providence was hardly a stop on a touristy trail of quaint little towns.
But here he was, and now she was stuck with him and his hidden agenda thanks to that sneaky bitch, Mother Nature. Nothing like inviting the enemy to hang out during a snowstorm for fun times to ensue.
She stared at her reflection. What she saw was a rather unremarkable, harried looking female wearing a worried frown.
Glaring at the bathroom door, she walked toward it and sighed. He was on the other side, and though she tried every way in the book to ignore his ass, her attempts were laughably inadequate. Refusing to look at him or engage on any level didn’t stop all of her senses from being drawn to him anyway.
Him getting a laugh out of her shocked Kelly. She’d been trying overly hard to be glib and dismissive, so the involuntary guffaw made her uneasy. Nobody ever wiggled around her defenses.
Until now.
Her stomach growled. Before leaving the kitchen, she put a pot of chili on a low flame and tossed a bunch of aluminum foil-wrapped cornbread squares into the oven to warm. There was plenty of food in the cupboards and fridge—enough for a week at least. If the power went out, she didn’t want to open the freezer at all, so she did a swift mental inventory of supplies on hand to make sure all the bases were covered.
Hand on the doorknob, she straightened her shoulders. Hating that her mother so easily played the victim card, Kelly preferred a more feel-free-to-suck-my-balls attitude. In the end, it didn’t matter what Roman Bishop had up his sleeve. He was wasting his time. She wasn’t interested in whatever the hell he was selling. Matty, KA James, and getting as far from this place as she could manage was all she should large. Everything else was background noise.
Shoving her hands into the front pouch of a stretched out hoodie, it only took a few steps before she was standing in the living room staring eyeball to eyeball with her problematic visitor.
Crouched by the glowing fire, he reminded her of a jaguar in a documentary about big cats she and Matty watched. All her mind could process was how he looked. Swallowing became difficult. So was admitting she liked what she saw. He had a square jaw covered in several days’ growth of a beard. In her world, the men were either bald, had long hair, or fell back on the sharply groomed guise favored by law enforcement and military types. This guy fell in the last category.
Dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes. Conservative, maybe. Dangerous, definitely.
“Filled the bucket.”
Um, huh? She blinked. His mouth moved, and words came out, but for some reason her brain scrambled, and all she noticed were his lips and how his neck looked like a meal.
“Is that chili?” His nose was in the air, sniffing. He rose slowly and ran his hands down his jeans. An adjustment? She supposed he sort of had to with thighs shaped like tree trunks.
Not at all confident that her voice wouldn’t betray her thoughts, she nodded and hurried away from him. Making herself busy at the stove, she lifted the heavy lid from the chili pot to give the mixture a stir when he moved in close from behind and hung over her shoulder.
The urge to send an elbow backward was hard to tamp down when he invaded her body space. She didn’t like being crowded. Usually, it felt like an unfair power play made possible by her less than terrifying size, but this… this was different somehow.
“Mmm,” he groaned close to her ear. “You’re killing me, Smalls. Stop stirring and start dishing.”
She felt his warm breath on her neck and trembled. “Grab bowls from the cupboard. There’s silverware in the dish drainer.”
He chuckled then stood at attention, saluting her. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t call me small,” she snidely bit out when he moved away. “It’s rude.”
He opened every cupboard before finding the dishes. She rolled her eyes. Juggling two stoneware bowls, he snagged a couple of spoons from next to the sink.
“I didn’t say you were small,” he drawled with annoying charm. “I called you Smalls. There’s a difference.”
She answered his comeback with a shrug. “Tell me something. Does this seem like a reference I would get?”
He reacted with a jolt and frowned. “You’re right. Sorry. My bad. It’s from a movie.”
She froze when his penetrating gaze swept her head to toe. “And for the record. Small is in the eye of the observer.” For a brief second his eyes rested on her chest. “As the observer of the moment, I’d say you’re perfect.”
Were her eyes blinking? That’s what it felt like, but she wasn’t sure. Her mind went blank when he looked at her like she was Miss America or something.
Was he blind? Stupid? Joking?
“I think we need to start over ‘cause this isn’t working.”
Another blink. Followed by some swallowing and a sniff. She didn’t know what else to do. The instinct to shut him down before anything else came out of his mouth hit her hard.
“Better idea,” she ground out. Kelly almost winced at the defensive tone in her voice. “Let’s not, but say we did, hmmm?”
He let loose with a low, rumbling laugh that triggered a seismic shift inside her. “Now, come on,” he smirked. “You know damn well that’s not how this is going to go. Can’t you try on nice and see if it fits?”
Denting his thick skull with the wood ladle seemed like way too good an idea. Did he actually think that shit would work with her? No man was ever going to tell her how to behave.
Dropping the ladle being sized up for weaponization, she slammed the lid back on the pot, crossed her arms and snarled, “You know what a hat trick is, right? As a sports reference, it’s amazing. In a character assessment, not so much.”
His answering arm cross put them bully chest to bully chest. To be accurate, it was more like his chest in her face and her chest in his belly.
“Meaning?”
The ominous tone he used activated a flash memory. She was ten or so and curled up on the rug by the fireplace, reading an ancient copy of a Nancy Drew story that once belonged to her grandmother. Her mother was having a heated debate with Sam and Ginny. There was yelling and crying, as usual, courtesy of Debbie. Poor pitiful Debbie. The last thing clinging to this memory was Ginny’s voice. “Stop making it about you, Deb. It’s Kelly who will pay the price if this continues.”
Anger bubbled up inside her. Goddammit. Secrets and lies. Enough!
“That tone will get you nowhere,” she scoffed.
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Shut up, conscience. This isn’t the time to weigh in.
“And my meaning is obvious. So far you’ve patronized and been rude. That’s two of the three you need for the shit-monger trophy. Since you haven’t bothered with fair, and by that I mean letting me in on the secret, I’ve got a couple more in my ammo clip that are worthy of consideration.” She pursed her lips and plowed on. “Hidden agendas being what they are, you’ve also pulled off a public ambush and some questionable stalking. On private property. You realize I could put a hole in you with a bullet and you’d be the one getting arrested. We don’t like trespassers round here.”
“Jesus,” he muttered when she finished. “I don’t even know where to start. You’ve got this all wrong.”
“And you’re full of shit for thinking I’m stupid. You have patronized and been rude.” She was shouting and didn’t care. “You did ambush me at Shorty’s. Your truck was on my property when you ran me down. What part have I gotten wrong?” Her hands were waving like a windmill by the end.
Fifty different things flashed on his face. Good. She hoped some of her accusations stuck. Until he told her what the hell was going on, he could expect more of the same. If he was waiting for her to beg, he’d be waiting a long time. She friggin’ hated secrets. Hated the power of a secret and the damage when revealed.
“The only reason you’re standing in front of me and not hanging like a gutted deer from a tree in the backyard is because I have a fucking conscience. Something I see little evidence of coming from you Mr. Bishop. Asking for a reset because it’s somehow convenient—for you—only makes my point.”
Ladling chili into the bowls, she dismissed him with an angry grunt.
Whatever. He was playing her, and she wasn’t having it. And she wasn’t joking about the gutted deer. She could easily have shot him. He was on her property. Property marked with trespassing markers.
The thing making her uncomfortable was pretending a saint-like, above-it-all persona. It might have been possible to dart off into the woods she knew like the lines on her palm, leaving him to drive aimlessly in a storm of snow blind proportions. But that’s not what went down, and if she was honest, him hovering over her with the snow falling all around them and the intensity of his eyes boring into hers…
A sensual jolt snaked along her spine causing an involuntary quivering of her neck and shoulders. She put a hand up to protect the vulnerable stretch of skin.
It took a few minutes, and a couple of back and forth trips before they were sitting in thorny silence at the kitchen table. He’d been quiet following her accusatory outburst, and she assumed he was plotting his next move.
Annoyed, she stabbed at the thick chili with her spoon and shifted restlessly in her chair.
“Good cornbread,” he mumbled.
Rubbing some fingers across her frowning forehead, she offered a tepid smile, such as it was, and accepted the compliment.
“Thanks. Family recipe.”
His expression when she answered in a civil tone struck her as eager to the point of hungry. The way he looked at her was scrambling Kelly’s brain. Momentarily dropping the uncooperative reins, she blurted out a bit too eagerly, “Try it with honey butter and hot sauce.”
He blinked in slow motion. So did she. Then he scooped up a wad of the sweet spread and slathered it on half a hunk of bread. The hot sauce was next. He picked it up off the lazy Susan in the middle of the table where she kept the salt and pepper along with a stack of colorful napkins, and checked out the label.
“Cholula,” he chuckled. “My god. I remember we went through sampler packs of this stuff like a kid plows through M&Ms.”
“We?”
Holding the bottle’s distinctive wood cap in one hand, he liberally applied the hot sauce to the cornbread. With a sardonic grin, he drawled, “Semper Fi.”
No further explanation was necessary, she thought with a quick smile. She eyed him with a fresh perspective. An ex-Marine. Of course. That would explain the neat haircut and superhero-looking brawn.
“Pardon the crude language but fuck yeah this is good,” he exclaimed. The whole piece of cornbread was gone in two enormous bites.
My word. How much fuel does an engine like his need?
“Family recipes are the best,” he murmured.
She watched in breathless silence as his tongue swept crumbs from lips that made her think of things she’d rather not.
“Uh, yeah. My mom. She had the cooking from scratch thing nailed down.”
He asked a series of casual sounding questions as they dug into the chili. The chit chat was calm, courteous, laid back.
“You mentioned your mom. Does she live here?”
The enormous spoonful of chili going into her mouth gave her a few moments to delay answering. He was fishing. If he knew her full name, he had to know Debbie was dead. Who was this guy?
She wasn’t one to play word games. Not enough practice, she supposed. A byproduct of living isolated from the rest of the world. “In a manner of speaking. She’s buried in the family plot.”
He nodded and shoveled more chili into his mouth. “And your son. The dinosaur lover. Where is he?”
How she kept chewing without choking to death was a miracle. Her son? Well, well, well. Mr. Roman Bishop didn’t know shit. It seemed to her like all he had was her full name and some town gossip.
She carefully swatted the question back his way. Instead of acknowledging Matty’s parentage, she asked, “Dinosaur lover?”
He gave a friendly enough smirk. “Dinosaur cup in the dish drainer and a T-Rex toy under a chair in the living room.”
The smile was natural. She couldn’t help it. He was an awesome kid. Sister? Mother? She was both.
“Ah, yes. Were you into dinosaurs as a kid, Mr. Bishop?” She was deliberately keeping her answer cheerful and light. “In this house, the prehistoric beasts share top billing with baseball.”
His eyes shone with amusement, and she wished she had the strength to look away.
“Would you believe that I was all about the stars? Dinosaurs were cool, but outer space rocked my boat. NASA and the shuttle was my thing.”<
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“How does a junior astronaut end up a Marine?”
“It’s worse than you imagine,” he offered. His chuckle was without mirth. “Rhodes Scholar, I’m afraid. All highbrow stuff. Fancy degree in philosophy.”
“Oh,” she snickered. “So you’re like the guys around here.”
“How so?”
She shrugged and chewed a chunky mouthful before reaching for a napkin to wipe her mouth.
“Not a lot of opportunity in these parts. Sometimes going into the service is the only option.” She speared him with a look. “Can’t imagine there’d be many job openings for philosophers.”
He didn’t bite, but he did circle to an earlier question.
“You never said where the boy is.”
“Matthew,” she told him. “Matty for short. He’s riding out the storm with friends.”
“And his father?”
He was kidding, right? Did he actually imagine she was going to offer up chapter and verse like a hypnosis volunteer?
“Not in the picture. And it’s none of your business.”
“Easy, luv. It was just a question.”
She sat back, crossed her legs and fixed him with a heated glare. Let’s see how much he likes being cross-examined.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Married?”
She noted his slight squirm.
“No.”
“Kids?”
Another squirm.
“None.”
“Who do you work for?”
Dead silence.
A niggling thought, one she kept carefully tethered in a private area inside her head, broke free. Searing cold danced along her spine. Was this man in black with the unusual mannerisms and speech connected to her father?
All her fears, each and every one, cascaded from her soul in a torrential rush. She’d worried almost from the moment of her mother’s untimely passing that the mysterious figure she was certain fathered her and Matty would wonder when Deb didn’t turn up at their disgusting liaisons. Would he send out feelers? Was Roman Bishop her father’s lackey?
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