by Jesse Joren
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"Don't guys always say that after sex?" I said, but my heart was thumping. "I didn't figure you for someone to rush in."
"Yeah, it's only been two and a half years since we met," he said as he eased me down next to him. "Talk about impulsive. But I didn't mean for that to happen."
"You could have said no," I said with sass. "Or pushed me like you really meant it. It's not like I'm stronger than you."
"No guy with a pulse would be that stupid," he said as his fingers traced my thigh. "And don't sell yourself short. All the work you've done in the last few months really shows."
"You knew that already. You bring me my clothes," I said, curling close under his arm.
"Size is your thing, not mine. I'm talking about having endurance and strength to hike, have wild sex, to kick life in the balls."
He kissed the top of my head at the end of this little speech. I heard the smile in his voice.
For a very long time we lay braided together, listening as the rain came to a slow stop outside. I didn’t want this to be over. Real life and all its shades of gray would start again as soon as we left this bed.
Hex curled a piece of my hair over and over his fingers. Neither of us spoke for a long time.
"So when are we heading back to Walden?" I asked finally. "Do you need to see a doctor?"
"No doctor," he said, "and I'm not taking you back to Walden. I'm taking you back to Atlanta."
At last. The words I should be cheering to hear him say. Instead I felt a sickness bloom inside me.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I can't keep you a prisoner forever," he said. "I wasn't sure when we left yesterday, but I am now. You deserve to go back to your world."
Shock was still trickling through me. I was already reeling from everything that had happened for the past two days. It seemed like a year since that Skype with Natalie.
"So my assignment is done. What kind of report are you going to give to Stella?" I said as lightly as I could.
Hex raised up to look at me, his eyes somehow more naked than I'd ever seen them.
"That you were indispensable," he said. "Completely irreplaceable. No one has ever meant more to me."
Really. How about Rosine?
A wiser part of me bit the words back. I could pry, but on the subject of Rosine, Hex would have to tell me what he wanted me to know.
Even though curiosity was killing me.
We made hurried preparations to leave the cabin. I wiped down with a damp towel by the stove, then we straightened the small space. The room looked stark and silent again, with no signs of the trauma of the night, the lovemaking of the morning.
"You have some warm clothes in your bag," he said, pulling on a black hoodie and a blue plaid shirt. "Dress in layers. It turned cold, but the sun will be warm after we get moving."
When we stepped outside, the air was cool and damp. I was glad for my own cherry-red hoodie and white thermal shirt. From old habit I'd checked the labels.
Medium. Not bad.
"Let's loop back to the clearing," Hex said. "There's something I left there yesterday."
We circled back to the clearing, and the sight of the damp gray rocks made me feel guilty all over again. On the distant hills there was a streak of fall color that wasn't there yesterday.
"Here we go," Hex was saying.
He'd unpacked a plastic bag and a thin towel. He used the towel to wipe something dangling from his hand before stuffing it into the bag.
"You aren't really going to keep that thing, are you?" I asked. The sight of the dead snake made me queasy.
"The best respect I can give this old guy is not to let his skin go to waste. I have a perfect idea for it."
He looked sideways at me and smirked.
Standing there in the cool outdoors, he looked as sexy and strong as he always did. The jeans and hoodie clung to his body in a way that made me wish we were back in the cabin's bed without any clothes between us.
He'd pulled his hair back again, accentuating his cheekbones and slanting eyes. After last night's ravings, that air of control was back, surrounding him like an invisible cloak.
Last night. In spite of the warm, breathless passion of this morning, that had been in the back of my mind. It was hard to forget those ravings, the teeth snapping at his own arm.
"I'm ready," I said, "and ready to hear about Rosine. If you're still willing to tell me."
That was smooth. What happened to not prying?
Hex looked at me, and I sensed his sigh. He finished stuffing the rattlesnake into the bag, tucking it into a side pocket of his pack. Again I wondered why the hell he wanted it.
"This place is a little like Eden," he said. "It figured there would be a serpent in it. Something that may not be exactly evil, but brings bad things all the same. That seems like a good start for Rosine."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
"She was my older brother's girlfriend," Hex began as we plunged down the trail. "That didn't stop me from having one hell of a crush on, fifteen or not."
"Rosine was the kind of girl that everyone noticed, and she worked it. My brother was crazy jealous over her, and she worked that too."
"One night she called me up out of the blue. She was in college about an hour from our hometown, but she and my brother had parted ways. She was crying and said she needed to talk to me alone."
"I rode my motorcycle up to see her at her dorm, and we went to a Starbucks to talk. Her parents were in trouble, losing their house from her dad's gambling habit. Twenty-two thousand dollars behind, and she didn't know what to do."
"It was flattering," he went on. "Here I was just a kid, and she was confiding in me. So I got an idea."
"The year before, my aunt Velma left me and my brother each about twenty grand in her will, to help us with college. My brother blew through his, but most of mine was still there. I told Rosine she could have it and pay me back."
Hex had my undivided attention as we walked. His back was to me, but I sensed his ironic smile.
"Then I took it a step further. I told her just to keep it as a gift. Because I loved her."
My mind recalled the loathing in his voice from the night before. Obviously that love had gone sour, and he was only fifteen, but I felt a stab of jealousy anyway.
"She kissed me then," he went on, "and that made it all feel worth it."
"How old was she again?"
"Twenty-two."
My jealousy morphed into protective anger.
"Let me guess," I said. "She accepted your gift, even though her family should have solved its own problems."
"Yes. Being Rosine, she also upped the stakes. She told me that she and my brother had never really been that close, and that she wouldn't mind waiting for me."
"The next day I withdrew most of the money, then I made one more stop for a couple of hours. That night I drove back to her dorm and gave her the money, then I showed her the result of my other little stop."
He touched his right bicep and glanced back at me. A sick feeling spread in my stomach. The tattoo.
"She cried and thanked me over and over again. She loved the tattoo. Said it was better than a ring, more permanent. That she'd wait for me, but it might be a few days before she got the money part straight with her parents."
His voice became even more impassive.
"A few nights later, her father called me. Rosine had disappeared, and they were checking with everyone who knew her. No one knew where she was, and no one was more frantic than me. I cut class and spent the whole week up there, riding the roads and trying to look for her.
"That's when her folks realized their savings account was drained."
Hex paused, and for a moment there was only the sound of our feet on the trail.
"Are you sure you want to hear all this shit?" he asked me.
"I already want to kick her ass," I said, "b
ut now I have Train Wreck Syndrome too. Keep going."
"Things came together pretty quick after that," he said after a moment. "Rosine had trotted out that 'gambling debt' story to whoever she thought would buy it."
"Her folks wanted to think there was a good reason. Like someone forced her to do it. That was the going theory until a month later when they got a postcard. No apology, just a note that she was living with a guy overseas. That she was shaking the dust of that 'shitty little town' off her feet."
"In case you're wondering, I never got a postcard," he added.
"What a bitch," I said. The words were out before I could stop them. "I'm sorry, it's just –"
"You haven't heard the best part yet," he said with a snort of laughter.
"Flash forward eight years. I was overseas too, working in Greece, getting connected you might say. Sometimes with the right people, sometimes the wrong people. Either way, there was good money in it for my industry."
"What's your industry, again?" I asked in a very casual tone.
"Gathering secrets," he said. "And the dirtier the secret, the higher its value. Does that surprise you?"
"No." I was more surprised that he'd answered that question at all.
"So one night my cell rang," he continued, "and it was Rosine. Eight years without a peep, now here she was, crying and hysterical. I still don't know the hell she got my number."
"She said she was scared and hiding in a little town north of Dubai. The guy she was with had been killed, and she needed help to get back to the States. She said she was being watched."
"Halfway around the world, and there she was. I'd say what are the odds, but they were probably good. She was like a bad penny."
"The smart answer would have been 'fuck off' and click," he continued. "But some stupid sliver of chivalry wouldn't let me say no."
"It was a five-hour flight from Athens to Dubai, then a drive north. We planned to meet the next night at a wharf not far from where she was. A friend did me a favor and arranged to have a beat-up, very fast boat left there."
"A smuggler?" I guessed.
"He'd prefer to think of himself as a man who sees opportunities that others miss," Hex said. "I'm sure there was a reason the boat was a piece of shit that could outrun anything else on the water."
"I pulled the boat up to the wharf right after midnight. Rosine came out of the shadows, looking as beautiful as ever. She was sort of like poison in my system, with no anti-venom that would get rid of her."
Again I remembered how the lacy white tattoo looked on his arm. Anger and jealousy rose together in my throat.
"I helped her onto the boat, and right away she started kissing me. We both needed to focus, but Rosine had always been kind of hard to ignore."
"I was distracted by her, trying to get us on the water before the wrong someone came along. Then I felt a gun pressed against the back of my head."
"Who was it?" I asked, the words leaving me in a hard little bullet.
"That's where things get interesting," Hex said. "Someone said, 'turn around slow, motherfucker,' and I knew that voice."
"Rosine lied, you see. Her guy wasn't dead. He slipped on the boat while she was distracting me. He wanted two things: to get out of the country incognito, and to leave no witnesses."
"Very logical, but pretty cold with us being brothers."
The whole forest seemed to catch its breath.
"Why?" I asked in a small voice.
"He and Rosine had been together since they stole all that money and left home. He was always a loner, and he'd left town before Rosine. No one ever put it all together."
"They drifted around, always strapped for cash. Then they dreamed up a scheme where she got close to a guy with money."
"They planned to make a big haul and live rich for the rest of their lives. The guy they picked was a big fish. Lots of money. Like son-of-a-sheik money."
"She was good at pushing the buttons that make guys tick. I don't know all the details, but she got close enough to play this one pretty good."
"What did she do? Steal his family jewels?"
I hoped it sounded like a joke. I was too warm now, so I tied my hoodie around my waist.
"Close enough. She screwed this guy's brains out while my brother was downstairs cleaning out the safe. He was a fucked-up genius, my brother, but he never was one to take the high road."
"And they got away with it?"
"They forgot something," Hex said. "Never steal from the wrong person. Rosine let his name slip while we were on the boat. Guys like him don't fuck around. They find you and cut your throat."
"They needed out, and they figured I'd be more likely to come if it was just Rosine. So there they were, with the gun and two duffle bags stuffed with probably a million dollars each."
"The whole thing was like some B-grade drama," Hex said. "Not nearly as entertaining when it's your own head about to be blown off."
"He was going to shoot you over money? Your own brother?"
"It wasn't just the money. It was the money and her. Killen never let anything get in the way of what he wanted."
Part of me sagged with sudden relief.
Killen. Not killing. Killen.
He heard my gasp and stopped.
"Are you okay? Did you turn your ankle?"
"No. It's just that when you were delirious, you kept talking about killing and Rosine. Now that makes more sense."
Hex nodded and sat down on a log, motioning me beside him. I sat down, and he put his arm around me.
"Let's finish this here. I need my attention on the trail," he said.
"I don't want to go into Killen's issues. Even as a kid he always wanted what someone else had, me especially. He'd try to take it however he could."
"So Rosine was telling me that they just needed an escape. Maybe she really believed it, but I saw that look in his eyes. It said that he had a place lined up for me at the bottom of the Gulf."
"The boat was tearing along in the dark. I let go of the wheel and caught Killen by surprise. Once I knocked the gun overboard, it was just a street fight to see who could last longer."
"Rosine started screaming. The side of a barge was almost right on top of us. Killen and I both grabbed for the wheel, but I jerked it to the right."
"Then we hit a wave hard. Killen was standing on the seat, about to take another swing at me. He went right over the side."
"A person about to drown will grab the closest thing," he went on. "That was Rosine. He caught her arm and took her with him. She screamed once, then they went under."
"I barely got the boat turned to avoid the barge. After it passed, I spent a long time searching the water, but it was too dark. I never saw them again."
His arm was like iron around me. I wanted to say something comforting, but I didn't want to interrupt him.
"The sun was about the come up," he finally went on, "and there I was with a lot of money. Let's say I had no interest in returning it to the rightful owner. So I dumped it overboard."
"Two million dollars?" I almost squeaked.
"More or less. Fuck their stolen money."
"But couldn't you have just given it to charity?"
Hex kissed the top of my head.
"My naïve Evangeline," he said, "that kind of money is very hard to hide. Any charity suddenly reporting a donation like that...let's just say there's a reason it's called blood money."
"So there you have it. Two people and two million dollars all sinking under those dark waters, down to the bottom of the Gulf. And it all took less than an hour."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
My stomach churned at the vivid, brutal picture his words had painted.
"Some people would say I should have returned the money," he said. "Sheer stupidity. Plus the guy is a psycho with no ethics. If anyone deserved to get robbed, it was him."
The woods were rustling around us, soft wind and a clean scent. All at once I was glad to be alive and here in Georgia, glad to
be with Hex and be in love. Not that I was ready to say that yet.
"So your brother was Killen…D'Amitri?" I said artlessly.
"You're too smart to think that's my real name," he said.
"I do realize that, Rumpelstiltskin."
"You think I'm going to steal your firstborn?"
"No, but you sure have a way of dodging my questions."
"After that long and very ugly story," he said, "I don't have any secrets left."
"What's that smell?" I asked. "Oh yeah, now I recognize it. A big steaming pile of crap."
His laugh startled some squirrels overhead in the trees, making them chatter and scold.
"Like I said, you're smart," he smiled. "Ready for another mocha?"
He was right. It was time to change the subject.
"How about a Coke?" I suggested. "In a real glass bottle."
Hex gave me a sidelong glance.
"I have one more piece of truth, if you can stand another dose today," he said.
"Sure," I said, but after the Rosine story, I braced myself for whatever was about to come out of his mouth.
"Then here it is. You're beautiful," he said.
"No sleep. Dirty clothes. Needing a shower. Are you sure that venom is out of you?" I joked.
In spite of my light words, my face flushed. Because he wasn't joking. The look in his eyes, his tone of voice, everything. He meant it.
"Take the compliment and shut up," he said, pulling me up from the log. "I can see you getting ready to say something. Let's get back to the truck so we can argue in comfort."
"Hello, blackout sunglasses," I said. Somehow I didn't mind now. If that was what Hex needed to ensure his privacy, so be it.
He brought my hand to his lips, kissing each fingertip lightly.
"No," he said. "I think the time for those is over."
Hex buckled me in once we were back to the truck, and true to his promise he left me with the Oakleys. He'd been silent on the rest of the hike, and I guessed it was because of the Rosine story.
My own thoughts had beat in time with my steps.