by Pam Godwin
I fought with my mom last night. Turns out, I was right about her cancer.
The doctors give her six months to live.
I really need you.
Are you there?
“Yeah.” She stepped away from the ledge and trudged to her car on bare feet. “I’m here, Tommy.”
Eldorado, Texas
Present Day
“I’ll only be gone a month, Evan.” Rylee breezed past him, her mind running in a million different directions. “The lights are on timers, so don’t mess with the switches.”
“At least tell me where you’re going.” Evan caught her arm, stopping her at the front door. “You owe me that much.”
“Bullshit.” Anger flared as she whirled on him. “I had one rule.”
“I never agreed—”
“No expectations. No commitments. No possessive behavior.”
“That’s three.”
“All synonymous with no clinging.”
“I’m not…” He followed her narrowed gaze to his grip on her arm. “Jesus.” His fingers sprung open, releasing her. “Don’t break my balls because I give a shit.”
“Stop.”
“Stop what? Caring about you?”
“Yes.” She grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder on her way out the door. “My bills are paid through next month. You’re listed as my emergency contact, but nothing is going to happen. It’s just a sabbatical. My first vacation ever.”
“Rylee.” He stepped in front of her, blocking her exit off the porch.
“Evan.” Impatience clipped her voice.
His bright blue eyes searched her face as his hand crept along her jaw, soft yet demanding. “Let me in.”
She’d let him in her bed, and that was enough.
More than enough.
In the ten years since her divorce, she made it a point only to have sex with strangers. She didn’t do relationships. Never slept with the same man twice. She didn’t let people in.
Then Evan moved into the house next door.
For the first few years, she turned down his persistent sexual advances. Didn’t matter how goddamn good-looking he was. A one-night stand with a guy who lived twenty feet away was a terrible idea.
But Evan was confident and aggressive and gorgeous in all the ways that spoke to her. So it happened—late one evening, after too many beers and a long bout of loneliness.
Drunken stupidity had been her excuse the first time. But the sex was good. So she let it continue. With one rule.
No clingy attachment.
Except they were together a lot. His place. Her place. Several nights a week. Until she woke one morning and realized he was the only man who had been in her bed in over a year.
She’d broken her own damned rule.
Not only did she have sex with her next-door neighbor, but she’d also become monogamous with him. That was dangerously close to a relationship.
“I need to go.” She tried to step around him.
“You have no obligations for the next month.” He stayed with her, sliding a hand into the back pocket of her jeans, his fingers squeezing her butt as he tucked their hips together. “Give me a few minutes.”
She pulled in a calming breath, which inadvertently drew his sexy, masculine scent into her lungs. He smelled amazing, but she was immune. Damaged. Closed off to anything beyond a casual hookup.
Ten years hadn’t dulled the thorns inside her. If anything, time had made her harder, icier, more set in her ways. She wasn’t looking to change. Detachment suited her career and safeguarded the life she’d built for herself.
But it didn’t negate the fact that Evan was her friend. Her only friend. He didn’t deserve to be stonewalled.
She lowered the backpack to the porch and rested her hands on his biceps. Thick, corded muscle stretched the sleeves of his shirt, every inch honed through manual labor in his construction job.
At age forty-three, he was two years her senior, divorced, and living paycheck to paycheck just like her. His modest two-bedroom house was well-kept like hers. He drank cheap, domestic beer like her. His life was humble, unsophisticated, and honest. Like hers.
But unlike her, he had no reservations about putting himself out there—his generosity, his vulnerabilities, and his overprotective heart.
Evan was a catch, and every unattached woman in their small Texan town wanted him. He needed to stop wasting his time with her.
“All right.” She straightened her spine, wishing she were anywhere but here. “I’m listening.”
“You should see the look on your face. It’s as if a conversation with me makes you physically ill. It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me.”
Blood drained from her cheeks, and she suddenly felt lightheaded and shaky.
“Fuck, Rylee.” He cupped her neck, eyes blazing and mouth twisting with malevolence. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch.”
She never told him about Mason, never even mentioned she was divorced. But over the years, Evan had put it together. Every time she shut him out, he blamed a man she tried to forget.
“Are you going to slay all my demons?” she asked.
“If you let me.”
“Because I’m not strong enough to fight them myself?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. You’ve been fighting for years, proving to the world that you’re an impenetrable badass. I get it. You don’t need me or anyone else. But dammit, if you let me in, you won’t have to fight alone.”
With a sigh, she rested her cheek on his chest. “You’re a good man.”
“The best you’ll find this side of the Rio Grande. You should be chasing me, not the other way around.”
The only thing she chased was her career, but she wouldn’t insult him by voicing what he already knew.
His hand settled on the back of her head, holding her against him. “Tell me where you’re going.”
“Three hours from here.”
“Which direction?”
“West.”
“The desert?” He tensed. “Have you lost your mind? A beautiful woman in no man’s land? Alone? It’s crawling with rattlesnakes and scorpions and hell knows what else. Not to mention there’s no cell service. No hospitals. What in God’s name is out there worth risking your life?”
“Closure.”
“So this is about the ex-husband.” His fingers angrily fisted in her hair.
“Not exactly.” She shut her eyes, searching for an ambiguous version of the truth. “I need to deal with some things. Personal issues I should’ve put to rest a long time ago.”
More specifically, she needed to deal with the boy who had been writing to her—or rather, his dead girlfriend—for ten years.
Except Tommy wasn’t a boy anymore. He was twenty-seven. And dangerous.
It was never her intention to announce herself to him, let alone meet him in person. Hell, she never should’ve logged into his girlfriend’s account. But if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t be alive today to contemplate whether or not she was doing the right thing.
He’d been there for her on that bridge without knowing it, and she’d been here for him ever since.
For over a decade, weekly emails arrived in the Tommysgirl account. Each message came from a different anonymous address, but they were all from Tommy. After she read each one, she snapped a photo of it, marked it as unread, and deleted her IP address from the activity log.
The day after sending each message, he always went in and erased it. He only needed to change the password on the account once, and she would’ve been locked out. But he never did. Because that would’ve locked out his beloved ghost.
An absurd thought, but she knew how his mind worked, perhaps better than he did. He was smart. Too smart to believe that dead people read emails.
But sometimes, beneath his brave, self-assured words, she sensed the lasting sorrow of the boy he’d been. A boy who’d lost his girlfriend in a car accident, his only parent to cancer, and h
ad been abducted and raped by a heartless sex trafficker, all at the age of seventeen.
He’d survived things that most people couldn’t fathom and found the courage to write down his trauma in harrowing detail. She never wanted him to learn she’d invaded his privacy. His emails hadn’t been meant for her, and responding to them would’ve been cruel. But when he sent that last message a week ago, she had no choice.
“What the fuck are you going to do in the desert for a month?” Evan leaned down, putting his scowl in her face. “Sprinkle sage on some coals, trip on peyote, and take a revelatory journey until you’ve vanquished these issues you think you have?”
“Something like that, but without the psychedelics.” She pursed her lips. “And we both know I have issues.”
Almost as many as Tommy.
First off, he was going undercover to infiltrate a Mexican cartel, which was by far the most reckless, idiotic thing he’d ever attempted. He had training and experience with his vigilante team, but not enough. Not to take down an entire cartel.
When he made that announcement in his last email, she panicked. Then he ended the message, stating he wouldn’t write again.
It was a final goodbye.
A sucker punch to the gut.
No more emails. No more contact. He was going to shut down the account.
If she hadn’t written him back, she would’ve lost him. She might’ve lost him anyway.
It had been a week without a response to her email. She worried herself sick, wondering if she would ever hear from him again. He used so many different accounts. What if he didn’t check them all?
No, he was too meticulous. He probably didn’t read her message until he was deep undercover. Man oh man, his reaction must’ve been boiling, volcanic fury. No question, he was plotting her death at this very moment.
She’d violated his most private thoughts, infringed upon his darkest moments, stole his secrets out from under him, and he didn’t even know she existed.
Until now.
It was such a fucked-up situation. From her perspective, he was familiar and intimate. A friend she dropped everything for. Someone she cared about and fretted over. It was the only relationship that worked for her because she didn’t have to give any part of herself in return. He couldn’t hurt her as long as he didn’t know she was there.
She didn’t need a degree in psychology to recognize how unhealthy that was. Every time she read his emails, she knew exactly what she was doing. She also understood the consequences of responding to the last one.
He was coming for her.
While that scared the ever-loving piss out of her, it’d been the only way to draw him out of the life-threatening operation he was undertaking with the cartel.
He’d saved her life on the Pecos River Bridge, and now it was her turn to save him.
So she’d devised a plan. An insane, treacherous, terrifying plan. Then she emailed him back, confessed to reading his emails, and told him when and where to meet her.
Evan knew none of this. He didn’t know about the bridge or the Tommysgirl account or the man, whose name she learned a few years ago was Tomas Owen Dine.
God, if Evan even suspected what she planned to do, he would tie her up and never let her leave.
“I’m going with you.” His hands ghosted along her back.
“Oh, really? You’re going to take off work for a month?”
“For as long as you need me.”
She didn’t need him. The thought made her feel like a bitch, but this was something she had to do alone.
“I need you to look after my house.” She pinched his rigid jaw and gave him a stern look. “You’re not going. That’s non-negotiable.”
“I figured you’d say that.” He eyed the camping gear in her pickup truck in the driveway. “What happens when a hungry bobcat attacks your campsite?”
“Mosquitoes are a greater risk to humans than bobcats.”
“Because most humans don’t camp out in wildcat territory.”
“I have a shotgun.”
He already knew that. He’d gone target shooting with her at the range.
“I guess there’s just one thing left to say.” He gripped the backs of her legs and hooked them around his hips, holding her so close his breath kissed her lips. “And one thing only—”
“Just say it.”
He smiled, his teeth blinding white in his suntanned face. “I’m going to miss your hot body.”
With a quick dip, he claimed her mouth. Warm tongue, firm lips, clean taste, his kisses were always agreeable. Pleasing. Yet something was missing. Nothing she could label. Just an itch at the back of her mind.
It was her, not him.
She tried to lower her feet to the ground, but he tightened his grip. She leaned away, but his mouth chased hers, intent on recapture.
“Evan.”
“One for the road.” He pulled her tight against his erection, grinding seductively. “I’ll settle for a quickie.”
“No.”
“Come on, Rylee. How am I going to go without you for an entire month?”
“You have plenty of booty calls.” She snatched the phone from his back pocket and pulled up his contact list. “Who do you want? Addy? Amy? Ashley? Ava? Wow, so many options, and I haven’t even made it past the A names.”
“You’re the only one I want.” He ripped the phone from her hand and tossed it onto the porch swing. “And you’re the reason those women are in my contact list.”
That was true. She pushed him onto every unwed lady she encountered.
Somehow, she’d fallen into monogamy while making sure he didn’t. She needed to see those women slipping out of his house in the mornings, so that each one could add another mile of emotional distance between her and her charming neighbor.
“I told you no expectations.” She squirmed in his arms. “I suck at this.”
“Yeah, you do.” He set her on her feet. “Only because you want to suck at it.” He grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulders. Then he fisted the straps, yanked her close, and stole a kiss from her lips. “Get out of here before I carry you into the bedroom and delay your trip.”
“Thank you.” She stepped back, gave him a small smile, and headed to the truck.
“Rylee.”
“Yeah?” She glanced back.
“I’m going to be pissed if anything happens to you.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
But no promises.
She hoped to stop Tommy from killing her, but there were no guarantees he wouldn’t hurt her before she convinced him to see reason. She didn’t know what he looked, sounded, or smelled like. Didn’t know anything about him in the physical sense. She wouldn’t even be able to pick him out in a crowd.
But she knew his psychological and criminal profile like the back of her hand.
Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned.
She imagined that summed up his current state of mind. By reading what he’d written to the girl he loved, she’d stained his words. He would regret revealing so much of himself and view the letters as weapons turned against him, his secrets and insecurities wrongfully exposed.
Hell has no fury like a man deceived.
She anticipated his wrath, feared it, but she wouldn’t run. She had a month off of work.
A month in the desert with a livid, deadly criminal.
She would survive this, or she wouldn’t. But she owed it to both of them to see it through.
The charred structure protruded from the dry, crusty earth. Rylee’s chest tightened as she shaded her eyes, squinting at the rubble around her, trying to make out what was left of the Milton house.
Caroline Milton.
Tommy’s girl.
Two exterior walls jutted in misshapen pieces, weathered by years of dust storms. A fire had devoured the rest. Arson. The conflagration had burned so hotly it had melted the stone foundation.
A shiver ran up her spine. Wit
h zero cover and nothing but buttes, craters, and searing sand in every direction, it felt as though she were standing amid ancient ruins on an alien moon.
This barren part of the Chihuahuan Desert promised hardship to anyone living here, which was why Caroline’s house had sat empty for years after the family died.
Until Tommy bought it and burnt it to the ground.
His own childhood home stood two miles away. A grueling distance for two kids to trek to see each other. The next closest neighbor was thirty minutes by car, so maybe that two-mile hike was a blessing.
The unforgiving sun beat down on her neck, burning her fair skin as she pushed sand over the bag she’d buried in the remains of Caroline’s house. The duffel contained her ID, credit card, phone, and license plates from her truck—everything she carried that could identify her. The phone was the hardest to relinquish, but without cell service, it was useless.
Sweat trickled between her breasts, her body temperature rising to unbearable levels. She released her ponytail and shook out her hair, using the length to cover her shoulders and arms. She wouldn’t last an hour out here without turning into a blistered tomato.
The heat chased her back into the cab of the air-conditioned truck. She leaned toward the vent, absorbing the cold air as her mind drifted to the next task.
Was Tommy already at his house, waiting for her? What if he hadn’t made it out of the cartel’s headquarters? She’d only given him a week’s notice.
He had the resources to learn who she was and everything about her. The man on his team, Cole, had some sort of military background that enabled him to erase their identities from existence. With time, that guy would’ve found her. But probably not within the week she’d given. And not while Tommy was undercover and unable to make contact with him.
Tommy’s emails never disclosed last names. Not his, Caroline’s, or any of his friends’. Rylee only discovered his identity, and that of the Milton family, by piecing together the clues he’d provided, such as the descriptions of his rural home, the details of Caroline’s car accident, and the fire he’d set to her family’s property.
After she determined where he grew up, she’d driven by a couple of times to check out the place. But not recently, and she’d never dared to step out of her truck and peek inside for fear of being discovered.