Razed

by Shiloh Walker

  “I know what it is.” He rubbed his thumb across it.

  “I want you to have it.”

  He cocked his head. “Okay.”

  He wasn’t getting it. This was stupid. She was too nervous.

  Spinning away, she started to pace all over again and then she spun back and glared at him. “You could make this easy. I’m standing here trying to figure out how to tell you I love you, that I want you to move in. You gave me pretty words and you made me feel like I matter and I can’t do that. Can’t you at least—”

  The rest of the words were caught against his mouth.

  “Oh . . .” She sighed when he finally pulled away.

  Oh . . .

  He ended the kiss softly, rubbing his mouth over hers before he lifted his head.

  “I’m a guy,” he said, a sardonic smile on his face. “I don’t need pretty words. A key works for me. And you just told me you loved me. I can’t think of anything I need more than that.”

  “Oh. Well, then.” She licked her lips. “I guess that’s . . . that’s good, right?”

  He laughed and pulled her up against him. “You’re all I need.”

  “Wow.”

  The unfamiliar voice had Keelie pulling back. Zane resisted at first, his arm lingering on her waist just long enough to let her know he’d rather keep her where she was.

  But then, he let her go and they both turned to look at the speaker.

  The woman was unfamiliar, her chestnut hair swept into a complicated twist, a pair of chic, sexy glasses perched on an upturned nose. She had catlike green eyes and a pale, creamy complexion. The suit she wore was a brighter green than her eyes and she had that turned out kind of look that Keelie spent hours trying to accomplish.

  The woman studied Zach for a long moment before shifting her gaze to Keelie.

  “You still don’t know how to talk to people very well, do you?”

  Keelie blinked, the familiarity in those words catching her off guard.

  “Do I . . .”

  She moved closer, light slanting across her face, and for a moment, it washed away the soft, peaches-and-cream hue, while casting her eyes into shadow.

  No.

  “I can’t tell you how happy I was to see somebody finally have the balls to do this,” the woman said, pausing to look down the hall that led to the courtroom where Price Vissing was currently undergoing a very, very unpleasant trial.

  Somehow, things had shifted in the public eye and he wasn’t coming out smelling as sweet as he usually did.

  She continued her perusal of the empty hall before turning her head to look back at Keelie. “You would have done it, wouldn’t you?”

  “Done what?” Keelie asked, her voice shaking a little.

  Zane slid his hand up, curved it over the back of her neck, a solid, steady warmth. It didn’t quite stop her shaking. But she took comfort in knowing he was there. Close enough to hold. To lean on.

  “Testified.” As she came closer, her heels clicked on the floor. “I did hear you that day. Mom thinks I didn’t, but I did. I was just . . . depressed.”

  “Son of a bitch . . . Toria.”

  Victoria Kingsley angled her head, smiled. “Actually, it’s just Tori now. I kind of outgrew the goth thing a long time ago.” Then, as a sad smile curled her lips, she said again, “I did hear you. While you were down there, talking to Mom. I heard what you said. Part of me wanted to listen, wanted to tell Mom we should try. But every other part . . .” She stopped and looked around. “I couldn’t do this. Not then. And I’ve felt guilty, every day since. How many women did he hurt because I was too afraid to stand up?”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Tori looked at her, lifting a brow. “And how many times have you told yourself you didn’t do enough, Katie?”

  “Keelie.” It jumped to her lips before she could stop it. Turning her head, she stared out one of the tall windows. “It’s Keelie now. I . . . I had my name changed when I was eighteen. I didn’t want my mom, any of them trying to track me down.”

  “I can’t say I blame you.” Green eyes narrowed, Tori said, “You never answered me.”

  Keelie looked back at her. “You always did know me better than I’d like. It took me a long time to figure it out, though. We tried—you tried to tell the cops. I tried to tell them, told your mother I’d tell what I’d seen. None of them listened. At the end of it all, he was the one who took what he had no right to take.”

  “Yeah.” Tori wrapped her arms around herself, shivering a little. A haunted look drifted across her face.

  Keelie could have kicked herself, but when she would have said something, offered an apology, Tori looked back at her, a strange smile on her lips. “At the end of it all, it’s on Price. I let him take too much, even after that night. Gave him too much—wasted years, refusing to look at myself. It wasn’t just him. It was how the cops twisted everything around, how my dad took the money, tried to convince me it wasn’t as bad as I thought. The son of a bitch.”

  If Keelie could have found that man and hurt him, she would have.

  “My dad’s dead,” Tori said, offering the words like she knew what Keelie was thinking.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yup. He’d been drinking for a while anyway—that’s why Mom left him. But he hit it harder and harder after that. One day, it was snowing. He was sitting outside drinking. Fell asleep. Temps dropped down into the teens. They found him a few days later. He froze to death. Sitting on his porch, wearing a T-shirt and jeans.” She paused, looked away. “I guess he finally realized it was worse than he wanted to think.”

  Then she shrugged, the movement almost birdlike, as if she were settling feathers into place. She looked at Zane, sizing him up. Tori had always been petite and Zane had more than a foot on her. She merely lifted a brow and then looked Keelie. “You two fit.”

  Keelie looked up at him, found herself smiling. “Yeah. We do.”

  Zane had been quiet until that moment, but now he held out a hand. “Zane Barnes.”

  Tori accepted, shook his hand once. “I know that name.”

  * * *

  Zane studied the woman, probably as thoroughly as she studied him. “Do you now?” he asked as she pulled her hand free.

  “Yeah. I run a rape crisis center here in town, Joan’s House.”

  Next to him, Keelie stiffened, almost imperceptibly.

  Tori kept on talking, her voice calm, easy. “There was a bequest made a while back and when it came, there was also a framed print of your work. A picture of the shrine of Joan of Arc at Beauvais.”

  Zane managed, barely, not to turn his head and look at Keelie.

  She’d asked him if it was okay to print that out. Not all of his images had been posted online but she’d seen that one once, when he was showing Zach some pictures from a trip to Europe. She emailed him about it, months later. Asked if she could get a copy to print and frame.

  He’d sent her the framed picture he’d had on his wall instead.

  “It’s hanging on the wall in the community area,” Tori said. “There’s no religious affiliation. Some of the girls go to the church across the street. Others . . . not so much. But we talk about Joan. A lot. The peasant who became a warrior. We’ve all got some hidden strength inside us. That’s what Joan’s House is about—finding it.”

  “Sounds like a good place,” Zane said softly, sliding his hand down, closing it around Keelie’s.

  “It is. We do a lot of good there. We’ll be able to keep doing it for a long time.” Then she turned her head to Keelie, lifted a brow. “I wasn’t able to send you a thank-you card, but . . . well, thanks.”

  Then she turned, headed off down the hall.

  Keelie busied herself staring at her shoes.

  Zane didn’t see the point in saying anything.

  Then there wasn’t any time. The sound of heels clicking had them both looking up. It wasn’t Tori.

  No. It was time for Keelie to face her stepbrother on
the stand. A witness for the prosecution, a rebuttal witness. He’d claimed never to have touched a woman in violence. Keelie knew otherwise.

  As they started down the hallway, he squeezed her hand. “You’ll do fine,” he said calmly.

  “I know.” She nodded, smiled. Then she looked up at him. “And when we’re done, maybe you can think about dealing with some of your secrets.”

  He grimaced. Then, tugging her to a stop for just a moment, he pressed a kiss to her lips. “I love you.”

  “I know. I love you, too.”

  Turn the page for a preview of Shiloh Walker’s

  BUSTED

  Coming May 2015 from Berkley Sensation!

  Week One

  The first time Trey Barnes saw her it caught him by surprise.

  Not because he knew her.

  Not because of anything she did.

  But because it had been six years since a woman had caused this kind of reaction in him.

  Six years.

  So it was a punch in the gut when he walked into the Norfolk library for the kids’ reading program and saw her. His tongue all but glued itself to his mouth and his brain threatened to do a slow meltdown.

  The woman was kneeling down in the middle of a circle of kids, a smile on her mouth. A mouth slicked wine-red and he suddenly found himself dying of thirst.

  It had also been six years since he’d touched a drop of alcohol, but in that moment, he found himself imagining a glass of wine. Wine . . . wine-red lips, wine-red sheets, and that long body, skin just a few shades lighter than milk chocolate.

  “Come on, Daddy!” Clayton jerked on his hand. “Let’s go! I want to go play.”

  His son’s voice dragged him out of the fantasy, rich and lush as it was, and he shook his head a little to clear it. A heavy fullness lingered in his loins and he was glad he’d gotten used to looking like a bum. The untucked shirt had fit him well enough when he bought it years ago, but the weight he’d lost after Aliesha’s death had stayed off, so the shirt hung loose on his rangy frame. Loose enough that he figured it would hide the hard-on that had yet to subside.

  A few minutes surrounded by chattering preschoolers ought to do it, he thought.

  Clayton let go of his hand as he got closer and he reached up, nudged his sunglasses down. As he’d retreated farther and farther into hermit mode, fewer people recognized him, but he rarely went anywhere without something to hide his face. Between the hair he rarely remembered to cut and the sunglasses, people didn’t often recognize him these days.

  A shrill shriek split the air as two kids started to fight over a book.

  That’s going to do it, he mused. Blood that had burned so hot a minute before dropped back into the normal zone.

  Only to jump right back up into the danger zone.

  Miz Sexy Librarian was standing in front of the two kids.

  And fuck . . . her voice was a wet dream.

  “Now I know you two weren’t raised to treat books that way. Do you do that at home?”

  Two pint-sized little blond heads tipped back to stare up at her. Trey barely noticed them because his gaze was riveted on the plump, round curve of her ass. How could he not notice that ass? She wore a long, skinny skirt that went down a few inches below her knees and her stockings were the kind with a seam that ran up the backs of her legs.

  He passed a hand over his mouth.

  Hell of a way to realize he could still get aroused—in the middle of the children’s section of the very public, very busy Norfolk library. Gritting his teeth, he focused on the ceiling. Would counting sheep help?

  “Hello.”

  That whiskey-smooth drawl was like a silken hand stroking down his back . . . or other things. He cleared his throat. Speak, dumb-ass.

  “Hi!”

  Saved by the Clayton-meister.

  Mentally blowing out a breath, he watched as his son rocked back and forth on his heels, smiling up at the woman.

  “Are you here for the program?” she asked.

  “I am!” Clayton stuck out his hand. “I’m Clay. I love books. My dad tells me stories. All the time. Sometimes he even makes them up. He gets paid to do that, too.”

  Despite the total insanity of the moment, Trey found himself biting back a laugh.

  That boy, in so many ways, had been a bright and strong light in what would have been nothing but a pit of misery for far too long.

  * * *

  Oh, honey . . . come to mama.

  Ressa Bliss would have been licking her chops if she had been anywhere remotely private.

  Long, almost too lean, with a heavy growth of stubble and a mouth made for kissing, biting . . . other things . . .

  He wore a pair of dark glasses that hid too much of his face, and she wanted to reach up, pull them off.

  Because she wanted to too much, she focused on the boy instead.

  She shook his hand, much of what he’d just said running together in her head. She’d caught his name, though. “Well, hello, Clay. It’s lovely to meet you.”

  He grinned at her, displaying a tooth that looked like it might fall out at any second—literally. She thought it might be hanging in there by luck alone.

  Clayton caught the man’s hand in his and leaned against him. “This is my daddy.”

  She slid Mr. Beautiful a look. “Hello, Clayton’s daddy.”

  He gave her a one-sided smile. “Hi.” Then he crouched in front of his son. “So. Program lasts for fifty minutes. I’ll be over in the grown-ups area if you need me.”

  “That area is boring.” Clayton wrinkled up his nose.

  “Well, if I stay here, I’ll just play.” A real grin covered his face now and Ressa felt her heart melt. Since he was distracted, she shot a look at his hands—ring? Did he have one?

  Crap. Some sort of gloves covered his hands from knuckle to well up over his wrists. No way to tell.

  Clayton leaned in and wrapped his arms around his father’s neck. “Love you.”

  And her heart melted even more as he turned his face into his son’s neck. “Love you, too, buddy. Have fun.”

  A man like that was most certainly not unattached.

  But she still stole one last quick glance as he walked away.

  The back was every bit as fine as the front.