by Vaughn, V.
Conscious of her muddy boots, Raine didn’t step all the way into the house. This is my house, she thought. No way am I tracking mud through it. Instead, she left the front door open and trotted back to the truck to grab her belongings: Two suitcases, a duffel bag, and three sacks of groceries, stuffed into the front passenger seat of the pickup. After dropping the bags off inside the door, she returned to the truck and threw back the plastic cover that covered the truck bed. Moving quickly so her things wouldn’t get soaked, she heaved her few belongings through the rain and into the house.
There wasn’t much, just a few cheap pieces of furniture and a single mattress, which she carried awkwardly over her shoulder, trying not to drag it in the mud. When she finally pushed it through the front door, she was out of breath, sweat dripping down her body beneath the layers of clothes despite the cold slap of the rain.
She closed the front door behind her and sat quiet for a moment, catching her breath and listening. There. Pure, unbroken quiet. No roommates, no sirens, no shouting beyond the thin walls of her cheap Seattle apartment. Just her crappy, musty bungalow in the middle of nowhere, the rain making an unbroken hush of sound on the roof. The only neighbor was a solitary house she’d passed twenty minutes away, with the lights out and no sign of life. Otherwise there was no one for miles. Solitude.
It might not be paradise, but to Raine, it was heaven.
She pulled off her boots and explored her house, all four rooms of it. The sitting room, the kitchen across the back of the house with its ancient linoleum, the bedroom to the left, the bathroom with its plastic shower and old bathtub. The door to the basement and the door in the ceiling for the attic, with its wooden ladder that pulled down. And beyond the bathroom, the fourth room, that she wasn’t sure how she would use yet. She stood in the doorway, staring at the room’s four simple walls, taking it in. She had never lived anywhere that had a spare room before. What did you do with an entire extra room? The possibilities were exciting.
She let herself enjoy the quick jolt of pleasure before she tamped it down. Maybe she’d buy a computer, if she could pick up extra shifts at the restaurant. The small inheritance she’d received out of the blue from her uncle meant she had been able to clear her credit cards, buy this tiny place, and start a new life. She had a waitressing job lined up in Freemont and a truck that still ran and a roof over her head that, it turned out, didn’t leak. Maybe, just maybe… if Tom didn’t find her…
There was no way Tom could find her.
She put the groceries away, arranged her few belongings, and dragged the mattress into the bedroom. She tucked a fitted sheet over the mattress, topping it with a comforter and her only pillow. She put away her clothes, stacking them on the shelf in the closet, since she didn’t own any hangers. Then she put her boots and the coat back on and went back out the front door, this time taking a walk around the side of the house.
The place might have had a garden at one time, but it was long gone now, the weeds taken over years ago, the leaves that drifted from the trees every autumn left to accumulate in drifts and rot.
The old man must have let everything go when he got more and more infirm. Raine didn’t mind. She wasn’t much of a gardener, anyway. She pulled her hood up over her head, looking around. She was the owner of just under half an acre of thick woods. She could do whatever she wanted with it. She could cut down all the trees and burn them for firewood if she felt like it. All she needed to do was buy an axe.
When she pushed open the crooked door to the shed, she realized she didn’t even have to do that much. There were a few old tools in here, hanging from hooks on the bare wood walls, rusted and probably useless. An axe, the handle nearly the length of her arm. A weird-looking hook thing that she had no idea how to use. A shovel, a hoe with the head detached and lying on the floor. The remains of a dismantled picket fence leaned against the wall, the paint peeling from the wood, a spider quietly spinning his web between the pickets and the wall.
In the pocket of her rain coat, her phone vibrated, making her jump. Laughing a little at herself, Raine reached into the pocket and dug out the phone, an old-style flip phone she’d bought secondhand. It had no touch screen, no texting, and no internet—just a simple phone function, on the cheapest plan she could buy. It was her only concession to the outside world, and so far only one person had the number.
“Hello?” she said, putting the phone to her ear.
“Raine?” It was Ron Starsky, the owner of Starsky’s Restaurant, and Raine’s new boss. He was the only person she’d given the number to.
“Yeah,” she said, pressing the phone harder to her ear to drown out the sound of the rain on the shed’s thin roof. “I mean, hi, Ron.”
“I know you were moving today,” Ron said. “Are you settled in?”
Raine looked around the shed, at the broken tools and dismantled pickets, and shrugged. “Sure,” she said, making sure she sounded cheerful. “Sure I am.”
“That’s good. Look, I know it’s getting late, but I’m wondering if you can come by tonight and fill out all the paperwork we need before your first shift. I have to go out of town tomorrow, and I won’t be here when you start.”
“Right now?” she asked, thinking of the growing dark, the rain, the long drive on the driveway and the muddy back roads.
“I know it sucks,” Ron admitted. He was a guy of about fifty, balding, with a salt-and-pepper beard, who had owned his bar for nearly twenty years and had told her at the interview that he liked to play guitar in his spare time. “I have to go meet with the lawyers and my ex-wife tomorrow about the divorce settlement. I just learned they changed the schedule, and the meeting is all the way in Powell. I’ll be gone all day. And the sooner I get your paperwork done, the sooner I can get you your first paycheck.”
Raine pulled her hood back up and left the shed. “That’s really nice of you,” she said. “I’m on my way.”
Chapter 2
Starsky’s was situated on the far end of Freemont’s main drag, right where what could be called “downtown” started to disappear. It was an old-style bar and pub, with dark wood floors, a scattering of matching dark wood tables and chairs, and a large, brass-and-wood bar that took up the entire left-hand wall. It was bordered by a dry cleaner’s on one side and a smoke shop that sold a large selection of cigars on the other. The smell of the interior wafted between melted cheese, something deep fried, and old beer.
At seven o’clock on a weeknight, under sheets of rain, there were still a dozen people in the place. Ron himself was manning the bar, while a single waitress, named Sherry, handled all the tables.
Raine sat at the bar and filled out paperwork while Ron wiped up the wet rings left by the patrons who forgot to use coasters. She could feel his gaze on her, curious and quiet, every once in a while as she worked. Finally, he leaned his elbows on the bar and interrupted her.
“I think you’ll do fine here,” he said. “Since you waited tables in Seattle and all. This is more of a neighborhood place.”
Raine glanced up at him and gave him a smile. She’d met him only once before, when she’d first interviewed for a job two weeks ago. “Sure,” she said.
“Friday and Saturday nights are our best nights, of course,” Ron went on. “But we have a regular crowd that comes out every night, rain or shine.”
Raine nodded. A bar’s regular weeknight crowd was usually made up of the local alcoholics, but that was par for the course. “No problem,” she said.
“I’m short-staffed right now, but we’ll be slow until the weather gets warm. So you’re looking at four shifts a week, and it’ll go up to five come summer.”
“Okay,” Raine said.
Ron grinned. He had a friendly smile, though he looked a little stressed, probably because of his upcoming divorce hearing. “You have family in Freemont? Or friends?”
“No,” Raine said, finishing her paperwork and sliding it across the bar toward him. “Not anymore.”
He loo
ked puzzled at that, but he nodded, giving her space. She liked that about him, but she’d have to tell him something about herself sooner or later—she knew that. Small towns, and small bars, were nosy places, and she didn’t want to seem unfriendly. She just had a few things to work out first, that was all. She had to get her house in order, get her feet under her. Start to feel safe. Then she’d worry about being friendly.
When she stepped back out onto the sidewalk, pulling her hood up against the rain, she stopped. She’d parked her truck at the curb in front of the restaurant. From where she stood, she could clearly see that the right front tire was flat.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said aloud.
She looked up and down the street, but no one was around. Her tire hadn’t been flat on the drive in to town. Had someone punctured it? Kids, maybe? She couldn’t think of why.
She scrubbed a hand over her face. She couldn’t afford a tow, even if she knew who to call. It crossed her mind to go back into Starsky’s, ask Ron for help. Or she could fix the tire herself, with a few tools and a puncture kit. She knew how.
She raised her gaze across the street. There, on the corner, stood a small sporting goods store, Freemont Sporting Goods. Attached to the store, as if part of the same business, was a gas bar. Raine trotted across the street and headed for it.
There was no one at the gas bar, so she entered the store. The falling light through the front windows made the place gloomy. She let the door fall shut as a bell tinkled overhead, taking in the plasticky smell of canvas tents and rain gear and brand-new climbing boots. There seemed to be no one here either. “Hello?” she called.
A man emerged from the back. She stopped cold.
He was… big. Tall, his shoulders pure muscle, his chest and arms bulky and strong. He wore battered jeans and a t-shirt beneath a button-down shirt of dark green. His hair was dark, cut short, though long enough that she could see that it was slightly curly. He wore a beard trimmed close to his cheeks and jaw. His eyes were dark brown and fixed unwaveringly on her. His boots made a heavy sound on the floor as he came toward her.
“Help you?” he said.
Raine tried to find her voice. She glanced around. She was definitely alone in the store with the guy; there was no one else there. “I need a tire puncture kit,” she said. “Do you carry those?”
The man paused at the head of the aisle, several feet away, looking at her. He pulled a rag from his back pocket and slowly wiped his hands with it. “You puncture your tire?”
“It’s no big deal,” she protested, as if he’d argued with her. “I can fix it. You got a kit?”
But he didn’t seem to be in a hurry. He glanced past her shoulder, through the plate-glass window at the front of the store that looked out to the street. “That your truck?”
Raine glanced over her shoulder, though of course she already knew which truck he was looking at. “Yeah, that’s it.”
He seemed to think for a minute, as if debating something in his head. Then he said, “Drive it up to the gas bar and I’ll help you out.”
“No, no, you don’t have to do that.” Raine took a step back toward the door. She wasn’t sure why this man made her feel wary—he wasn’t even close to her, and he’d barely said a word. Still, it felt like the store was too small.
“Yes, I do,” he said simply. He lifted his chin briefly toward the window behind her. “It’s pouring rain. The gas bar has a roof. You can’t fix a tire in the rain.”
Raine bit her lip and said nothing.
He folded the rag and tucked it into his back pocket again, the motion emphasizing the line of his chest and the muscles of his arm inside its sleeve. “Pull up to the gas bar,” he said again.
“Okay,” Raine heard herself say. She backed out the door and recrossed the street. He was right. Even if she had a kit, she couldn’t fix her tire in this. It was practically dark, and the gas bar was lit, its bright fluorescent lights almost welcoming in the wet gloom. There were no other customers.
Raine started the truck and drove it, the right front wheel making an alarming dragging sound, the few feet across the street and up the gas bar’s driveway. He was waiting for her next to one of the pumps, a jack at his feet. He had assessed the tire before she’d even finished getting out of the truck.
“This puncture’s in the wall of the tire, not the tread,” he said with a shake of his head. “Looks like it was made with a knife, too. Probably kids—the kids around here don’t have much to do but make trouble. You need to replace the tire. You got a spare?”
“No.” Her stomach sank. She didn’t have the money for a tire, not until she’d worked a few shifts at the restaurant. But without a truck to get home in, she was screwed. “Shit,” she said aloud. “Shit, shit, shit.” When she looked up, he was watching her, one eyebrow silently lifted. “Sorry,” she said.
He shrugged. Now that they were outside, away from the confines of the store, he wasn’t quite so scary. He had high cheekbones and soft lips under the scruff of his beard, and his dark eyes had gold flecks in them. She must have stared at him a second too long, because he dropped his gaze. “I have a spare,” he said, his voice a deep rumble. “I’ll swap it for you.”
“You don’t have to,” she said. “I can do it myself.”
He looked straight into her eyes. “Tell you what,” he said. “Pay me later.”
Raine felt her cheeks flush hot. “I’ll pay you for the tire. You don’t have to do the work.”
But he only shook his head and handed her the jack. “Work the jack,” he said. “I’ll get the tire.” And he walked away without another word.
Chapter 3
The girl was still there when Alec came back with the tire. She’d set up the jack and cranked it, just high enough to take the pressure off the tire, not high enough to lift the truck. She’d done this before, then.
She didn’t look at him as he approached. He took a second to take her in, crouched on her haunches next to the truck. She’d pulled off the rain coat, and it lay on the ground next to her feet.
She was small, slender, but she looked strong. The thighs in her dark jeans were slim, her body easily balanced on her bent legs and flexed feet. She wore a plaid shirt, dark blue and black, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, her bare arms and elegant hands plainly visible. At the button of her shirt, he could just see a vee of shadow that led down between the swells of her breasts. He jerked his gaze away.
She had a perfectly oval face, almost elfin, with a narrow chin and a generous, sexy mouth. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a careless ponytail that trailed down her back, the locks curling together as they lay against the cloth of her shirt. But it was her eyes that arrested him every time she looked at him—light blue, striking against her pale face and dark hair, the lashes a long, deep black. Her eyes made him uneasy, made him wish for things that he already knew weren’t possible. Things that had never been possible.
She glanced up at him, and he realized he’d paused too long, staring at her. Well, she’d looked at him too long just a few minutes ago. Though probably for different reasons. She probably thought he was a serial killer.
She isn’t far wrong.
Alec punched the thought away and set down the replacement tire. He pulled the wrench he’d grabbed from his back pocket and approached the wheel. The girl scrambled away as if he’d barked at her. Embarrassed at his reaction to her, at her fear of him, he crouched before the tire and began to loosen the nuts, keeping his eyes on the task and not on her.
There was a long moment of silence as he jerked the wrench and loosened the tire. The nuts were rusted in, but he used all the force in his arm and his shoulder to do it quick.
“What’s your name?” she asked him after a while, her voice low and a little apologetic. She probably felt bad for scrambling away from him as if he were on fire.
“Alec Zachary,” he replied, without looking up.
“Okay, Alec Zachary. I’m Raine Greer,” she
said. She had taken a seat on a nearby crate of washer fluid bottles, her hands on her knees, watching him. The rain pounded on the roof of the gas bar, unrelenting, and outside the circle of the gas bar’s lights the world was dark.
Alec relented a little. “You new in town?” he asked her.
“Yeah,” Raine said. “Just today. I got a place, and a job across the street at Starsky’s.”
Alec grunted. He finished with the tire’s nuts and sat back on his haunches, looking at her. She was watching him with those extraordinary blue eyes, and the words popped out of his mouth before he could stop them. “No one ever comes to Freemont,” he said. “People only leave.”
“Not you,” she said, but when he didn’t answer, she explained. “I was born here. My parents left with me when I was three.” Her gaze wandered off, remembering something he couldn’t see, and then she shrugged. “I wanted to get out of Seattle, and I decided to come here. This place called me, I guess.”
He stared at her for a long moment, the words sending a chill down his spine. This place called me. She didn’t seem to think the words were significant. There was no way she could. Still, he stood and said to her, more gruffly than he intended, “Raise the jack a few more inches. I’ll put the tire on.”
She raised the jack, keeping her gaze away from him. They were playing cat and mouse, it seemed, neither one wanting to look directly at the other. “Do you own this place?” she asked, indicating the store and the gas bar.
“Yeah,” he said, pulling the flat tire off the hub.
“I’ve never seen a combination like that,” she said, taking her seat on the crate again. “Sporting goods and a gas bar in one.”
“I owned the sporting goods store.” He put the new tire on the hub. She was watching him, fascinated; he wondered why. “The old guy who owned the gas bar next door wanted to retire, so I bought the place off him and kept it.” He’d thought it a good business decision at the time—the gas bar was the only one at this end of town, so he figured he’d have steady customers. It hadn’t exactly worked out that way.