“Listen, old man. I’m not playing these games with you. That son of a bitch is going to pay.” Caine’s hand fell away, curling into a loose fist at his side. “All of them deserve to pay.”
“Yes.” He nodded, turning to stare out over the river. “Yes, they do.”
He thought of the list he’d tucked away in his home, a list that had grown longer over the day. Four names. That was all Junior had given him. But Junior had lied. The names Junior had given him were men who’d been arrested over the course of the day, but they were just a fraction. All in all, eleven men—an elder, another firefighter, a cop, the CEO of one of the local banks … and the list went on. Men in positions of power, authority. Almost every one of them.
One of them was on a slab in the morgue.
“Jeb Sims is dead,” he said, lifting his cigar to his lips. The tip glowed red in the night and the smoke was a sweet, bitter pleasure. He rarely indulged these days. But there was no point in denying himself anymore.
“I heard. He died too easy.”
“True. But he’s dead. He can’t hurt another child ever again. That’s all I care about … in the end.” He slid a look over to the house. “All I ever wanted was those selfish sons of bitches stopped. It was supposed to stop, wasn’t it? That night. It was all supposed to stop.”
Caine opened his mouth and went to say something, but then he just stopped, a muttered curse escaping him in place of whatever he might have said. A long, taut moment of silence passed between them and then Caine lifted his face to the sky. “We didn’t know there were others.”
“We didn’t. You did the best you could. I should have done more.” He clamped his cigar between his teeth and glanced over at the taller man. “But I’ll finish it this time. I have to. Remember, though, what I told you. Once you cross that line, there’s no going back.”
Caine stared out over the water, his face emotionless. That burst of rage Caine had just shown was the first true sign of emotion he had shown in a long, long time. A sigh escaped him and then Caine turned his head, met his gaze. “There’s no going back for me anyway.”
* * *
The boys played in their room.
The sound of their laughter was something the two women had to block out as they stood there, watching the news.
Ali started to cry as one of the men was pulled out of a car.
“Just how deep does the perversion in this small community run?…”
The news anchor’s voice was like an ice pick in Trinity’s ear, but she couldn’t walk away from the newscast.
They weren’t outright saying just what had happened.
But the biggest headline said enough.
“Rumors of sexual perversion, abuse of authority and child molestation stain a small town in southern Indiana tonight.”
Yeah.
That said enough.
There was a knock at the door.
Turning away from the TV, she moved to answer it, peering through the Judas hole. The sight of Noah standing there was a balm on her soul and she jerked open the door and threw her arms around him. Her aching head screamed at her, but she ignored it.
“Where have you been?” she demanded, her face buried against his neck.
He sighed, curling his arms around her waist. “I can’t tell you.”
Slowly, she lifted her head and stared at him.
The look in his eyes told the story, though. Lifting her hand, she laid it across his cheek. “It was Caleb, wasn’t it?”
Noah turned his cheek and pressed a kiss to her palm. “I can’t say. Just…” His big shoulders moved in a heavy sigh and he dipped his head, burying his face in the curve of her neck. “When can we get that ring, Trinity? I need something right. I need you.”
The ache in his voice ripped at her. Stroking her hand down his back, she murmured, “I called my dad earlier. He’ll be here tomorrow. He dropped everything. Be ready; I think he plans on putting you to the test. As far as I’m concerned, once we tell Micah, once my dad is here … I don’t even care if we have a ring now.”
She rose up on her toes, placed her lips to his.
His hands came up and cupped her face.
The ache in her heart eased back and she whispered against his mouth, “The ring can wait. I have what matters most. Right here.”
Read on for an excerpt from the next book by Shiloh Walker
SWEETER THAN SIN
Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
A pulse of hunger hit her square in the middle and rippled through her entire body. Loose, liquid warmth spread through her, turning her limbs to putty, pulsing through her core, while her nipples drew to near painful points. Just from thinking about him. No. Not him. Them. Together.
This was insane.
She didn’t care. She wanted to grab it, grab him and ride that insanity all the way to the end.
One day.
She’d only been back one day and the crazy need was threatening to eat her alive.
But then again, some part of her had always belonged to Adam.
He’d been her first crush.
He’d been her confidant.
He’d been her closest friend, for the longest time.
And when she’d seen him running along the river, some part of her had felt … safe.
She didn’t want safety now though. She wanted to stroke away the misery she sensed inside him and she wanted to wrap her arms around him, guide his head to her breasts and promise him that it was going to be okay.
Even if it was a lie.
She wanted to make it okay. Not just for her, but for him, as he stood down there, looking like his entire world was falling apart. Then she wanted to do something completely selfish and make him focus on something other than his grief. She wanted him to focus on her.
“You are a selfish little tramp,” she muttered.
Look away, she told herself. If he was grieving over Rita, she should leave him to it. She should curl back up in the bed and get back to trying to piece through the notes she’d been making, articles she’d been researching online, bits and pieces of what she remembered from years ago.
She’d spent most of the afternoon on it, not that she’d learned anything. David hadn’t been able to really give her any names. They were careful about how the boys were brought in, but he’d mentioned, once, that he thought he knew who a few others were. One of them had been Glenn. Glenn Blue. And that son of bitch had become one of them. Now he had a son of his own.
They had tried to break it and then that bastard had just up and remade it. There had to be more. Other connections, other ties that she needed to see, but she couldn’t drag her eyes away from Adam.
All she could think about was him. She wanted to tell him she was sorry. For so many things. For his friend. For the hurt she’d caused him.
Lifting a hand to the window, she watched, wondered, worried. And as she watched, he lifted his hands to his face. Broad shoulders rose and fell in a ragged rhythm.
The sight of it made her ache and the tears he didn’t seem willing to shed rose inside her.
“Adam…” she whispered, lifting a hand to the window.
And it was like he heard her.
* * *
Adam didn’t know what drove him.
He didn’t hear anything.
He didn’t see anything.
But awareness rippled through him, his skin prickling as he slowly lowered his hands and lifted his head, staring up through the night at the darkened house before him.
There, at the window of the room he’d given her. He saw nothing, save the ripple of the curtain, the pale material pulled back.
Then, something shifted and she appeared. All he could see was her hand as she lifted it and pressed it to the glass.
The next few seconds were just a haze on his memory. He didn’t remember crossing the sidewalk, unlocking the door. He might have run, raced the entire way and he could believe it, because when he came to a halt in the
doorway of her room, it seemed like an eternity later, like an instant later, and his breath came in harsh, ragged pants.
She stared at him.
If she’d looked worried or nervous or startled, he could have turned and walked away.
She just stared at him, the sexy, sleek, horn-rimmed glasses a shield, hiding those luminous gray eyes. In the dim light of the room, he couldn’t clearly make out her face but he didn’t need to. Every feature was etched on his memory. From twenty years, from hours ago. He could recall her in detail.
He crossed the floor to her, his boots thudding on the floor, his heart thudding against his chest and his breath still coming in harsh, uneven rasps.
He reached up and pulled the glasses off and waited for her to do something, say something.
She should, he thought. She would. She wasn’t one of the women who came to him for this, who know what he was …
Suddenly shame twisted in him.
Rita had needed just that from last night. Comfort. A friend in the night. If he’d let her turn to him, maybe she’d be alive. But he hadn’t been able to give it to her and now she was gone.
And he didn’t care. Oh, he cared about the fact that his friend was gone, but instead of mourning her like he knew he should, what he wanted to do was just reach for this woman and have what he’d wanted, needed all these years. As he worried, as he’d wondered, as he’d needed and prayed and tried to lose himself in everybody but the woman he wanted.
Adam looked down, stared at the glasses he held. Walk away. He needed to do that.
He needed to walk away, if for no other reason than because he needed to be able to live with himself in the morning. He was used to being used. He used plenty of women. He had to do something to numb the pain, smother the guilt. But he couldn’t use her—she was the source of his pain, his guilt, his need … his everything. And it would kill something inside him if she just wanted to use him.
Swallowing the bitter ache that had settled in his throat, he blindly shoved the glasses at her.
She caught his hands. One gently took the glasses.
The other curved over his wrist.
He stared, mesmerized as she slid a hand up his forearm, pausing to scrape her nail along one of the chain links he’d inked onto his skin over the years. His skin burned under her touch. Walk away … walk …
Only he didn’t know if he could. Not now. He would lose all self-respect in the morning, but he had so little left anyway, what did it matter? It would kill something inside him, but there wasn’t anything there worth saving.
As she slid her hand higher, over his bicep to grip his shoulder, he wanted to growl, push her back up against the wall and rock against her. Feel the softness and the curves and the strength and the heat.
“You had a lousy day, I think,” she murmured.
He jerked his head up, staring into her eyes.
A sad smile curved her lips.
Sympathy.
This was sympathy.
Somehow she knew about Rita.
Stupid ass. She doesn’t want you, a sly, ugly voice inside him whispered. She never did. She had somebody else back then … somebody better. All she wants to do is pat you on the head and give you stupid, empty words.
And being the desperate fool that he was, he would take it. He knew. If she wanted to rock him and hug him and just let him cry his eyes out while she held him, he’d take that and be pathetically grateful.
He had no pride when it came to her. He’d take anything she would give him.
The only thing that kept him from grabbing at her was the fact that he didn’t know how he’d hold himself together when she left.
Looking past her shoulder, he stared out the window into the dark night. “Yeah. You … I guess you heard about Rita.”
“Yeah. I hid in the coffee shop.” She eased a little closer and slid her arms around his waist, resting her head on his chest.
She fit there.
He closed his eyes and tried not to let himself relax, to cuddle her closer to him and breathe her in and lose himself in her. He needed that, so much. But that wasn’t his to take. She wasn’t his to take.
So he kept his hands at his sides, kept his body locked in a rigid line and just shrugged. “The whole damn town’s gone crazy the past few months.”
“The past few months, Adam?” She tipped her head back to stare up at him. “You think this just started a few months ago? No.”
She pulled back and turned back to stare out the window. “This has all been a long time coming. And there’s going to be a reckoning.”
Those words filled him with foreboding. And because the want in him, the heat, the hunger, the love he’d felt for her all his life had to be denied, it tripped out of him in a rage he just couldn’t silence. “Yeah?” A snarl curled his lip and he watched as she turned to look at him. “Why don’t you just tell me about that, sugar?”
* * *
The rage wasn’t exactly unexpected.
But how he’d gone from raw misery to raw rage in the blink of an eye caught her off-guard.
“I don’t think I’m ready to talk about that yet.” She turned away from him but hadn’t taken even a step before she was spun back around. Instinct warred with fury and logic and compassion. Muscles bunched, clenched, ready to strike out, but she didn’t do anything as he loomed over her, his face all but lost in the shadow.
“When are you going to talk?” he murmured, reaching up and pushing a hand into her hair.
Her skin prickled at his touch.
She looked away from him, away from the intensity of his eyes and tried to breathe. It had gotten hard in the past few seconds. Probably had something to do with how hot it had suddenly gotten, or maybe the fact that her heart had short-circuited and was racing about two hundred beats a minute.
The hand in her hair tightened as he tugged, guiding her gaze back to his. “No answers?” The smile on his face was just this side of cruel. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I can’t give you answers I don’t have, Adam,” she said, keeping her voice level.
And took her gaze off his mouth.
She really, really wanted to feel that mouth against hers. All of a sudden, it seemed very important, like the center of her world. It might even be the most important thing in the world at that very moment.
“What can you give me?” he asked, his voice low.
She was imagining the need in his voice. Imagining it because she wanted to hear it there. Except when she forced herself not to look at his mouth, she noticed that he was looking at hers.
Hunger lashed at her like a whip and she curled her hands into fists to keep from reaching for him.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
His lids drooped low.
Silence hung between them, heavy, taut, sharp as a blade. Then, as it stretched out for almost longer than she could bear it, he reached up and rested his hand on her hip. “I want things I shouldn’t. I always did.”
His thumb slid beneath the hem of her T-shirt and she could feel her breathing hitch in her chest. This was insane, the way she wanted.
This was insane, the way she needed.
But then again, she’d taken one look at him behind the bar and she’d wanted. Each second since then seemed to draw that need even tighter and now, standing there, practically surrounded by him, she felt like she was coiled like a spring, just ready to snap.
Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was insane.
And she didn’t care.
She’d been careful for too long.
She could have one damn night where she didn’t have to worry about anything and everything, couldn’t she?
Slowly, she lifted one hand and rested it on his chest. Through the thin material of the shirt he wore, she could feel the heat of him and it scalded her. His heart hammered against her palm, hard, fast beats that seemed to echo the rhythm of her own. Swallowing, she dragged her eyes upward and
found herself caught in his gaze. Caught, held.
“What do you want?” she asked softly.
He just stared at her.
And when she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, he held still. Almost like he was frozen. But she felt the hunger, like it was a beast, snarling from within. It practically vibrated inside him and she pressed closer, desperate to unleash that hunger and just feel.
To let go for a little while and have somebody else—no. Not somebody else.
To have Adam with her while they both enjoyed the ride.
She stroked her tongue across his lips and he just stood there.
She caught his lower lip between her teeth, tugged and he just stood there.
She kissed her way across his cheek, his jawbone and down his neck. He just stood there. His pulse raced under her touch, but he didn’t do anything. Didn’t even show any sign that he wanted her.
Other than the fact that she could feel it.
Doubt started to whisper inside her and she went to pull back.
That was when he moved.
NOVELLAS ALSO BY SHILOH WALKER
Burn for Me
Break for Me
Long for Me
Available from St. Martin’s Press
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shiloh Walker has been writing since she was a kid. She loves reading and writing anything paranormal, anything fantasy, and nearly every kind of romance. Once upon a time she worked as a nurse, but now she writes full time and lives with her family in the Midwest. She has authored dozens of works of romantic suspense, contemporary and paranormal romance, and urban fantasy under the name J.C. Daniels. Visit her on the Web at www.shilohwalker.com to learn more.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DEEPER THAN NEED
Copyright © 2014 by Shiloh Walker.
Excerpt from Sweeter Than Sin copyright © 2014 by Shiloh Walker.
Credits © Patricia Schmitt (Picky Me)
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Deeper Than Need: A Secrets & Shadows Novel Page 34