Striking Edge

by Kelsey Browning

  Zach shot a side-eye glance at Greg. “Man, he’s not right. It’s like he’s mad. At least I think he is. But he doesn’t look or sound mad. Like his tone of voice and body language don’t match his actions and his words.”

  “I said exactly what I mean,” Shep articulated clearly so they would understand. “I want to see anything you filmed since I walked out of this camp.”

  The older guy quickly reached for his camera. “I’ll show you what I got, but I promise you, I didn’t see anyone get close to your tent.”

  Shep hunkered down and watched the playback on the camera. Unfortunately, Greg was telling the truth. No one had approached Shep’s tent. And no one could’ve snuck in undetected because the tent never moved. Not a single wiggle or wobble.

  The lack of a clear target to blame sent a feeling up Shep’s spine that he’d never felt before, as if his body knew something that his mind did not.

  * * *

  Enough with all the damn drama.

  Joss was half tempted to drag her shelter into the trees and away from the group. Even away from Shep. Because it had been apparent he’d expected her to narc on someone and was disappointed when she hadn’t.

  Look, Devil Divine, I didn’t see anything.

  And Joss wanting to dodge drama was kind of humorous. Normally, she was the high maintenance one, but since her life had taken a sharp dogleg, she’d become calmer.

  But between Moody’s disappearance, the fawn she and Shep found earlier in the day, the thefts, and Lauren whining about the small burn on her hand, Joss wanted to shove her fists in her ears and find a place where she could be alone. Maybe the lyrics that had made a fleeting appearance earlier would return. Visit her like tiny inspiration fairies.

  Please come back.

  Shep strolled over and hunkered down beside her. “You hungry? I’ve got a few MREs—ready-to-eats.”

  Really? He’d obviously doubted her earlier, and his face was still a frown-fest.

  “Why would you want to share with me when you think I’m covering up who stole the first aid kit?”

  Shep’s normal eye contact avoidance became a hyperactive game of beer pong played with his eyeballs.

  That was it. She was hungry, thirsty, tired, and music-deprived. She could not take any more bullshit right now, not even Shep’s.

  Using both palms, she hit him square in each shoulder. Gravity failed him and he landed on his ass.

  “You think I took your Band-Aids and Tylenol? Well, screw you, Shep Kingston.” She snatched her pack from her shelter, not giving a damn that some of the roof leaves rained down on her. With her teeth set, she whipped open the zipper and dumped everything out on the ground. “Look through it all if you don’t believe me. Crawl in my shelter and make sure I didn’t bury anything under the leaves. Whatever you want. Because I want you to feel like a jackass when you don’t find anything.”

  “I really think you need to eat,” he said softly. “And yes, it did cross my mind that you might have taken the kit. I am sorry. I know you didn’t. Why would you when you know I’d give you anything and everything out of it? You don’t have to steal to take what’s mine.”

  Joss’s thumping heart stuttered. He was admitting that she only had to ask and he would do anything for her.

  She began to slowly pick up her belongings and place them back in her bag. When she came across the Band-Aids, she said in a quiet voice, “I had my own.”

  “Let me apologize to you with food. It’s nothing fancy, but it will be hot.”

  Did she have an appetite? She didn’t even know. Before coming out here, food had been repulsive to her. Knowing that Chris, Winston, and Miguel would never eat again, she’d barely been able to force a few bites down her throat.

  “They don’t taste that great,” Shep said. “But they’re full of protein.”

  His simple, no-strings offer extinguished the last of Joss’s anger and hurt feelings. “Maybe we could share one?”

  “If we do, is this like a first date?” His smile was seriously like the sun rising from behind the lush green forest. A blessing. A benediction. A bounty of male beauty. “Or are you one of those women who wants a fancy dinner and dancing and all that?”

  “I don’t mind a nice restaurant.” She held her hand up toward the sky, where the stars were winking like fireflies in a velvet-shrouded sky. “But it would be hard to beat this candlelight.”

  “Then come on over to my place.” He took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

  “Wait!” After the first aid kit incident, she didn’t want to leave her things unattended, especially not her guitar. She grabbed Fiona and her pack.

  Shep’s beautiful smile turned into a grumpy-old-man scowl. “You’re not planning to play that, are you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” she said, even though she knew it wasn’t true. Even touching her guitar case caused her pain. But lyrics had come to her earlier. Maybe… maybe this time, she could actually unzip the case. Possibly touch Fiona’s smooth Sitka spruce. Run her fingers over the strings. The thought made the breath stall out in her lungs.

  Shep stared at her case much like he had eyed the camera guys earlier. A touch of loathing and a whole lot of suspicion. “Do whatever suits you.”

  Something in his tone continued that sentence with because you will anyway.

  She started to place the case back in her lopsided little shelter, but her spine straightened, and she tightened her grip on the handle. Shep was silent as he led her to his tent where Puck was resting in front of—guarding—the entrance. Shep’s scowl stayed firmly in place as he dumped the contents of a small silver package into a pot and lit the gas below it.

  “What are we having?” she asked.

  “Chicken and rice. Most of these ready-to-eats are soaked in some kind of disgusting sauce. Not the chicken and rice.”

  Joss flipped through the handful of packs peeking out of Shep’s backpack. Chicken and rice, all of them. She’d noticed all his protein bars were the same flavor, too—uncured bacon and maple.

  While he stirred the contents of the pot, she ran her fingers lightly over her guitar case. She’d felt the slick, cool fabric under her fingertips a million times, but now it seemed as foreign as a stranger’s skin. She skimmed the zipper pull, found it cold and unforgiving, as if the metal could slice her to pieces.

  She pulled back her hand and tucked it carefully into her lap.

  Without talking, Shep scooped the food out into two collapsible bowls. But Joss desperately needed the distraction of a discussion right now, so she said, “You mentioned that your sister is a Scarlet Glitterati fan.”

  He grunted.

  “Is that the older sister or the younger?” Joss didn’t really want to talk about the band, but she did want to learn more about Shep’s family.

  “Riley is the baby,” he said, handing her a bowl of steaming chicken and rice that smelled strangely tempting.

  “So she’s the youngest and then…”

  “Can you ask the actual question you want the answer to? I rarely understand implied ones.”

  “Sorry. Will you tell me your siblings’ names, the order they were born, and what they do for a living?”

  “Mandrell Margaret Kingston is the oldest. She’s the sheriff of Haywood county. She’s very bossy, but my dad says it’s because she cares so much about people. She is involved with Jayson Tucker.”

  The Jayson Tucker? “You mean Jayson Tucker, the quarterback who plays for the North Carolina pro team?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow.” Joss had met the huge handsome man when Scarlett Glitterati played the halftime show at the championship game earlier this year. Before…

  Don’t think about the crash. Distract yourself with Jayson Tucker.

  He was… well… wow. A North Carolina sheriff and one of the best quarterbacks of all time. Now that was an interesting combo.

  “Then came Kristofferson Cash Kingston. He’s a firefighter and paramedic. He also w
orks with the local SWAT team. His high-school girlfriend, Dr. Emerson McKay, recently came back to Steele Ridge. They apparently have sex regularly.”

  Joss choked back a laugh. “Good for them?”

  “It’s not a booty call. He loves her.” Shep blinked, as if he was thinking over that concept and not entirely understanding it. “She’s a good doctor. She’s part of the SWAT team, too. She and Cash are on what’s called the TMT, or tactical medical team.”

  Well, so far, his family sounded like a crew of movers and shakers. “And who’s next in line?”

  “West Waylon Kingston. He’s—”

  “Wait a second.” Something about his brothers’ and sisters’ names tickled at Joss’s brain. Harris Sheppard. Mandrell Margaret. Kristofferson Cash. West Waylon. “What’s Riley’s middle name?”

  “Riley.”

  “Then what’s her first name?”

  “Wynette.”

  Holy crap. He and his siblings were an homage to country music. “And your parents?”

  “Ross and Sandy.”

  Okay, so maybe not the mom and dad.

  “Do you want to know their dog’s name, too?”

  “Why not?”

  “Nicksie.”

  Hm, that didn’t seem to fit. Maybe his parents had run out of beloved country artists. “Who’s the big country music fan?”

  “My mom.” His smile returned, and Joss realized she wanted to hug it close and tuck it into her pocket like a personal prize. “My dad finally put his foot down when it came to the dog.”

  “Nicksie…” Joss mentally rolled her eyes at herself. How could she have missed it? “Stevie Nicks?”

  “Yep.”

  “I think I’m in love with your family already.”

  He tilted his head to one side and studied her. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Yeah, not to her either. But for some reason, she was forming fond feelings for a family she’d never laid eyes on. “Tell me about Waylon.”

  “He goes by Way.” Shep scooped up a bite of rice. Chewed and swallowed before continuing. “He used to be a Marine. Now, he makes custom bullets.”

  “That’s a thing—like a real job?”

  “Just as real as a rock star.”

  Touché. “And then there’s Riley.”

  “She’s been in Africa recently and is home on a visit. She has a boyfriend named Coen, and as a little girl everyone called her the Kingston Menace.”

  Joss chuckled. “I definitely want to meet her.”

  “Because she’s your fan.”

  Normally, that would be the case. Joss loved nothing better than to be approached by a superfan. Her need for that admiration had been the driving force when she shuffled her band members off to a practice session without her. She’d been looking to gather up all that adulation for herself. Looking for a way that she wouldn’t have to share the stage, divvy up the limelight.

  Afterward, she’d hidden from the world, and it had left a void of uncertainty inside of her. Because if she wasn’t Joss Wynter, most lauded living female guitar player and rock star, who was she? If she couldn’t hear the sound of screams for more, the light from thousands of cell phones, and hands clapping, what was the point of listening?

  “Did you know that I was on the cover of Rolling Stone when I was twenty-one?”

  “No.”

  “And that Scarlet Glitterati has had seven singles hit number one on the Billboard charts?”

  “I told you I don’t like the music,” he said, tone matter-of-fact. “Why would I know that?”

  The chicken and rice had become infinitely less appetizing and Joss held it out in front of her. “Can I give this to Puck?”

  “No, he’s already eaten.” Shep’s hand grazed hers as he took the bowl, and the connection zinged through Joss. “I’ll finish it.”

  “I’m one of the most famous musicians in the world.”

  “Uh-huh,” he mumbled around a bite of chicken and rice.

  “But I haven’t touched an instrument, sung a note, or written a lyric since my band…”

  “Died.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” The hesitation and reluctance in his voice told Joss it was a stretch for Shep to say such a thing. How could he offer true compassion when the public had been so unwilling?

  “Not tonight.” Because for the first time in so long, her palms itched with the need to hold her guitar. What if she took Fiona from the case and she burned Joss? Scorched her as punishment because she’d been indifferent to her music for so long.

  But what she felt, what was ripping her up, wasn’t indifference at all, was it? Shame and blame and bone-deep fear. Those were the monsters keeping her from her music.

  Fear that she might be nothing without the others. Without the rest of Scarlet Glitterati. Blame because she’d put them on that helicopter. And shame because she’d been secretly angling for the opportunity to go solo. To leave them behind.

  And now, being alone in the spotlight was the last thing in the world she craved.

  13

  Joss was gazing at her guitar case with such an expression of misery and hope that even Shep could see and recognize it. He had zero desire to hear her play, but it was as if she believed that instrument could save her life.

  And what would he do if she were drowning in the river?

  He’d throw her a PFD and jump in to save her.

  His job, yes. But more than that, his moral duty. A good wilderness guide did not abandon his group when they were needy and hurting. “Open it,” he said.

  “What?” Her head came around, her eyes wide as she stared at him.

  “If I can recognize how much you want to play what’s in that case, then you want it bad.”

  “Wanting and being able to are two different things.”

  He reached out, took both her hands and turned them over in his. “Is there something wrong with your hands? Your fingers?”

  She closed her eyes, but he thought he might’ve seen a lightning strike of pain in them before she did. “I’ve tried a hundred times.”

  “Have you really?” he asked. “Or have you sat there looking at it, all down in the mouth?”

  That opened her eyes. “Down in the mouth?”

  “My Granny Kingston used to say it. You know, moping, pouting, brooding. She always claimed that a swift kick in the ass was the best way to cure it.” Although he hated it when other people touched his things without an invitation, he picked up Joss’s case and balanced it across his thighs.

  Joss’s fingers clenched—maybe with the need to defend her belonging or maybe to smack him for handling it without permission.

  Slowly, one tooth at a time, he began unzipping the case.

  “Shep, don’t.”

  “If I don’t open it, will you?”

  She simply stared at the place where his fingers were touching the zipper pull.

  So Shep finished the job, unzipping it and folding back the top. He’d expected a pristine, glossy guitar. Fancy and fussy. But the instrument Joss was afraid to touch looked as if it had been through hell and back. The wood was scratched, and at some point, someone had taken a Sharpie marker to it, doodling designs that were no better than a toddler’s. One of the tuning knobs was broken in half and another was held together by a slim strip of silver duct tape.

  Dings and scratches marred the whole thing, but Joss was gazing at it as if it was her lover’s body. A body she had been painfully denied and simply wanted to touch one more time.

  Her face was filled with heartbreak and desire.

  Good God, if this was what other people saw, how did they deal with it? If they could recognize all the emotions on others’ faces, how did they have time to do anything but study faces? Especially those of the people they loved.

  Because recognizing the sheer want in Joss’s face was overwhelming to Shep, making his heart feel as if it was pounding everywhere in his body. Whipping him from worry to
panic to lust. Beneath the guitar case, his dick hardened and throbbed. He wanted her to look at him the way she was staring at her instrument.

  “She’s not pretty, is she?” Joss finally said.

  Pretty, no. But beautiful all the same. The guitar made him think of an old stuffed pig Riley had carried around until she was nine or ten. And of the story of the Velveteen Rabbit his dad used to read to them as kids.

  The only things this shabby were those that were well loved.

  “It’s special to you.”

  Joss blinked at him.

  “Because sometimes we mistreat the things we love the most,” he said, understanding with a clarity that stunned him. “They take our casual abuse and stay for more.”

  “My grandfather gave it me.” She reached out as if to touch the guitar, but her fingertips hovered an inch away from the wood. “He was a dreamer. He saw things, heard things others didn’t. My mom tried to take it away from me because she resented her dad. Her family didn’t get him, didn’t understand why he couldn’t be persuaded to go to an office from nine to five and bring home the same paycheck week after week. Instead, he played in the bars until two in the morning and painted when he woke up in the early afternoon. This was his guitar. His pride and joy.”

  Family members were supposed to love one another, Shep knew that. But in Joss’s case, some of them had given and some had taken away. Which was real love?

  Her smile, when it came, was deep and dreamy. “He gave it to me on my eleventh birthday, and I was never the same. It was if he’d handed me a piece of my body that had been missing my entire life, only I’d never realized.”

  And now, she’d purposefully lopped off that piece.

  “Less than a year later, he died.” Her smile wavered and melted away. “Sometimes I’ve wondered if it’s because he gave me Fiona.”

  “Who is Fiona?”

  “My guitar.”

  She’d named an instrument? Then again, if she felt about Fiona the way he felt about Puck, that made total sense. “Your grandfather saw something in you.”