Even though he’d barely touched her, flames licked up her body, igniting the fire that stayed banked around him, never extinguished. “‘Thanks’ may be premature. I’m not a world-renowned cook like Logan.”
This time when he backed away, she let him go. It might have been her imagination or hopeful thinking, but he seemed to be moving easier on the field.
She fingered the swath of hair he’d tucked away. Dinner. If she was going to cook, she would need to hit the Piggly Wiggly for groceries. She spent the rest of the afternoon putting together a meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, and green beans.
While she waited, she poured a glass of wine but stopped with the rim on her bottom lip. Alcohol was a big no-no for pregnant women, right? She poured the wine down the drain and lay down on the couch, the nerves in her stomach amplified. How quickly she forgot the scope of her problems.
* * *
Alec parked in front of the Galloway house, feeling torn about his decision to butt into Hunter’s life outside of football. The two cars hadn’t moved from the night before. Before he even had his truck door open, Hunter came crashing out of the house, the screenless frame of the outer door banging hard. The white man from the night before was yelling from the porch. Hunter didn’t react but kept his head down, moving forward. He carried his school backpack and a royal blue sleeping bag.
Anger burned away Alec’s indecision. He slipped out of the truck and called over the truck bed. “Hey … Bone-man, wasn’t it?”
Bone-man stopped. “What’re you doing back here?”
“Hunter’s coming with me. Team dinner.”
Bone-man’s eyes darted between Hunter and Alec. Hunter didn’t wait for him to say anything more, but swung into the passenger side of Alec’s truck and slammed the door. Bone-man pointed a finger in Alec’s direction. “His mama will want him home later.”
“Sure thing.” Alec’s definition of “later” would be vastly different that Bone-man’s.
Alec got them headed out of Mill Town. Hunter kept his face turned to the side window, his huge hands curled over his still-knobby knees, fingernails bit to the quick. Alec chewed at the inside of his mouth, not sure what to say. “Do I need to call your mama?”
“I’m not four years old.”
“Does she know what’s going on?”
Hunter’s foot bounced, tension building like a stretched rubber band. He shook his head and mumbled. “She don’t know nothing.”
Alec pulled onto the circular drive of Lilliana’s house. The house seemed to bask in the orange light of the setting sun. Hunter craned his neck, his eyes huge, taking it in. “You’re shitting me, Coach.”
Alec turned the truck off. “Watch your tongue around Lilliana. Miss Hancock, to you.”
“She your girl or what?”
“She’s my—” His throat tightened. What was she? Not his girlfriend or a one-time fuck. She was indefinable. Or maybe she was the mother of his child. The thought sent nerves skittering through him. Weakly, he said, “She’s my … friend.”
The tiniest of smiles lightened Hunter’s face. “All right, Coach, whatever you say.”
Alec rang the doorbell and checked his watch, gripping his duffle tighter. Five thirty. The door swept open and mouth-watering aromas drifted out. He shot back in time, to the feeling of stepping into his house after football practice in high school. Hancock House smelled like a home.
Lilliana waved them in, an oven mitt on her hand and a smile on her face. “Come on in, guys.”
She was barefoot, wearing tight jeans and a curve-hiding, man-sized flannel shirt rolled up to her elbows, the tails tied around her waist. Her hair was pulled into a swinging ponytail with a few tendrils falling around her face. He couldn’t discern any makeup, but her cheeks were tinged pink. She looked wholesome and gorgeous.
Hunter’s wide eyes darted around the two-story entry as if expecting an ambush. The setting sun reflected off the crystal chandelier, casting tiny rainbows on the walls, and light splintered through the stained glass in the front door, adding a mosaic of color to the floor.
Lilliana gestured to the staircase. “Let me show you to your rooms.”
Hunter had a death-grip on the strap of his backpack and clutched the dirt-streaked sleeping bag to his chest like a security blanket. In contrast to a body that had not fully matured into manhood, his deep, buttery voice echoed in the entry. “Stick me on the floor somewhere. I brought my sleeping bag.”
Lilliana crossed her arms and popped a hip. “What? My beds aren’t good enough for you?”
“I didn’t mean…” Hunter tossed a panicked glance toward Alec.
Before Alec could save him, Lilliana said, “Really, you’ll be doing me favor. I’ve put a notebook and pen on the bedside table, and I want you to tell me what I can improve in each of your rooms. Is the bed too soft, too firm? The towels too small? Not absorbent enough? Is the soap too girly-smelling? You’ll be my test subjects.”
Hunter’s shoulders dropped and he nodded. “I suppose if you really need feedback, I could make some notes.”
“Fabulous. Now, come on up.” Lilliana pointed to a bedroom on the right side of the stairwell for Hunter. “I should warn you the bathroom is a nauseating pink. The plumbing works fine, but don’t use the outlet by the sink. Dinner will be out of the oven in ten. Come on back down after you get settled.”
Hunter practically tiptoed across the threshold. Lilliana led Alec to the opposite end of the hallway, toward her room. His heart picked up to a lope. When she gestured to a room directly across the hall from her bedroom, disappointment shot through his chest. Had he seriously expected to be invited back into her bed?
All day, his mind had drifted to waking in the middle of the night with her breasts pressed against his bare back and her hand draped over his waist as though it was the most natural thing on earth. He’d had sex with a handful of women since his fall from grace, but never slept over. That would imply a relationship. Now that she’d reminded him what a soft, desirable woman felt like cuddled against him, he wanted more.
Like every other room she’d gotten her hands on, his guest room was elegant yet welcoming. The blues were dark, a masculine match to the dark stain of the furniture. A painting of a meadow of flowers drew him closer. It had the feel of a snapshot in time, the warmth of the sun and the breeze almost palpable. No signature graced the corner.
He glanced over his shoulder to see her standing in the doorway. “Is this one of yours?”
“Yep. It’s nothing special.” Uncertainty threaded through her voice, and she looked anywhere but at the picture.
“It’s beautiful.” His voice rang too emphatically through the room, and she finally met his eyes.
Something arced between them, held them both still. Her mouth softened and her tongue darted along her bottom lip. Pressure built in his chest until he couldn’t stand it. He dropped his gaze to the floor, tracing the grooves of the wood planks with his eyes. Logical lines to offset the emotions he couldn’t begin to recognize or untangle.
“I’ll see you downstairs.” Her soft voice was already in retreat.
He sighed and tossed his duffle on the bed. It’s not as if he had anything to unpack. A few toiletries and a change of clothes taken from his locker at school. He took his time, hoping Hunter would beat him downstairs, but when he stepped into the kitchen, Lilliana was alone and humming while she mashed the potatoes by hand.
Any lingering awkwardness dissipated under her welcoming smile. He propped a hip on the counter. “Thanks for making Hunter feel useful. He’s prideful.”
Her eyebrows quirked up along with her lips. “Yeah? I’m familiar with the type.”
She was making fun of him, but instead of a sharp retort, he found himself smiling back. “You’re one to talk.”
She slipped on flowered oven mitts and pulled out a pan. “There’s whiskey on the buffet in the parlor if you want.”
“I’ll pass on the whiskey, but I wouldn’t
turn down some ibuprofen.”
She opened a cabinet and handed him a bottle. “I hope you like meatloaf. It’s one of the only things I can reliably make.”
“I thought all Southern girls learned to cook at their mother’s hip.”
She whisked cream into the potatoes. “Not anymore. We caught up with the rest of the country. My parents got divorced when I was three, and Mom moved us to Nashville. She worked in a law office as a paralegal. We had lots of take-out and frozen dinners.”
“I didn’t realize … I figured you grew up here. You and Logan and Darcy seem tight.”
“Daddy brought me back to Falcon for summers and a few holidays. I stayed with Aunt Esmeralda and spent lots of time at the library. Daddy was charming and funny, but—” She chuffed a laugh. “He loved me, but he didn’t get that a six-year-old needs supervision and three meals a day.” Underneath the humor in her voice was a resonating sadness.
His parents weren’t divorced, but he understood loneliness. Before he could say anything, Hunter shuffled into the kitchen, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his slouchy jeans. He had changed his shirt and the scent of male body spray was strong. Lilliana favored him with a smile that made her sloe-eyes sparkle and made Alec wish she was directing it at him.
“You mind setting the table, Hunter?” She picked up a handful of silverware.
Hunter shot a look toward Alec, but he only raised his eyebrows and chucked his chin toward Lilliana. The silverware jangled during the handoff, and Hunter retreated to the table where three placemats and glasses of iced tea awaited. While Hunter fumbled with the utensils, Lilliana carried all the food to the table.
Hunter’s voice was hesitant, and he moved the fork from the left side to the right. “I’m not sure…”
“Give us one of each, no worries.” Lilliana waved him to the seat on the right and took the head of the table for herself. Alec took the third place, sitting gingerly. His ribs were better, but any quick movement sent sharp pains shooting through his shoulder. He’d been lucky his non-throwing arm had been the one banged up. They passed the food around and Alec loaded his plate. Maybe it had been a while since he’d had a good home-cooked meal, but it smelled and looked amazing.
He speared his green beans. A foot tapped his calf, and he glanced up, his fork halfway to his mouth. Hunter stared like the meatloaf was manna, his hands resting on either side of the plate. Lilliana gave Alec a headshake, and he dropped his fork back to his plate.
“Would you say grace, Hunter?” she asked.
The boy stumbled over the beginning of a prayer, but his words smoothed toward the end as if reciting a long-ago learned poem.
Lilliana kept the conversation light throughout dinner, the perfect hostess. Alec contributed the minimum amount possible, and Hunter mostly communicated in grunts as he cleaned his plate and refilled it twice.
After Hunter excused himself to finish homework, Alec cleared the table while Lilliana loaded the dishwasher. With the water muffling her voice, she asked, “What’s going on with Hunter?”
“Last night, before his brother tackled me, I found him under some trees at the end of their street. He was studying by flashlight, and a sleeping bag was half-tucked away.”
“Poor soul. What are you planning to do?”
He opened and closed his mouth before shaking his head. Beyond getting him out of his house for one night, Alec had no plan. “It’s not really my responsibility.”
Lilliana shot him a look under her lashes. “Could have fooled me.”
“I’ve got enough problems to deal with without taking on the kid’s too.” He gestured toward her only realizing his misstep when she tossed the sponge into the dishwater, splashing his shirt.
“Did you just refer to me as a problem you have to deal with?”
“Well, not a problem exactly. More of a complication.”
“A complication I will deal with like every other woman from the beginning of time.” Dark eyes flashing, mouth pinched, she looked like an avenging dark fairy. One that would curse him throughout eternity.
She swept off, her footsteps sounding on the stairs. He didn’t know what to say and wasn’t up to chasing her. He took up the discarded sponge and finished washing. After taking more ibuprofen, he climbed the stairs.
He hesitated at the top. Hunter’s door was cracked, and he tapped, pushing the door open enough to stick his head inside. The boy was asleep on top of the comforter, surrounded by schoolbooks, notebook paper sticking out at odd angles.
He was on his side and curled up with a hand under his cheek, snoring softly. How long had it been since Hunter had slept in a warm, safe room? Even one night spent afraid was too many. Alec stacked the books on the bedside table and pulled a quilt up from the foot of the bed, tucking him in. Alec was an only child, but the urge to protect Hunter made him feel like a big brother. Turning out the light, he backed away and shut the door, a lump in his throat.
No matter the complications, he would to do his best to help Hunter.
Chapter 7
Lilliana worked on the portrait until her back put up a protest, and her eyes weren’t able to focus on the fine work anymore. “You’re looking good, Edwin. We’ll get your eye color right tomorrow. And, maybe, if you ask nicely, I’ll trim your belly down. Give you a six-pack.” She winked, but Edwin’s expression remained solemn yet competent.
After she cleaned her brushes and covered her paints, she flipped the lights off and stared out the windows at the small expanse of woods behind the house. Even though she was spitting-distance from town, the woods lent a sense of isolation shading into loneliness. She’d spent a good portion of her childhood as a latchkey kid. Alone until her mother got off work, and even then, her mother’s job left her too exhausted to play games or entertain a kid.
Her summers in Falcon had been heaven. There had been Darcy and Logan and more cousins than you could shake a stick at. And her time in New York had been full of interesting people. Sometimes too many people.
Trapped in her miniscule apartment with a constant rotation of roommates, she had often yearned for solitude. Now, ironically, she had too much of it. Her friends were all married with lives of their own while she puttered around talking to portraits. She was a few cats away from becoming a town “character.” It was nice knowing Alec and Hunter were down the hall.
A bang sounded. Her heart accelerated, and her stomach fluttered. The dull quiet that followed grew into a buzzing white noise the longer she strained to hear. Nothing came, and the tension along her shoulders ebbed away but didn’t disappear. The old house had always had its share of odd noises. Surely, it had been the wind. Yet, a glance out the window revealed the treetops were still. Maybe Hunter or Alec had woken and needed something.
She tiptoed into the hallway, but everything was quiet, the doors to the guest rooms were closed, no light shining from underneath.
The bang came again, fainter this time, and followed by a scraping sound. She froze. Her stomach jumped into her throat as her heart plunged to her knees. She looked up. The noises were coming from the attic. The cobweb-filled, creepy attic.
Burying her head under the covers sounded pretty good at the moment. Or she could go wake up Alec and tell him that she was scared of things that went bump in the night. The small measure of pride she had left kept her from running to him.
Silence again. The dark quiet was as stifling as being wrapped too tightly in a quilt. She forced her feet to shuffle toward her room, trying to not make a noise. In the light of day, she absolutely did not believe in ghosts, but in the dark of night, ghost stories told to scare Hancock children through the years scrolled through her imagination.
She was a few feet inside her room when a cry echoed down the hall. Unearthly and surreal, it sounded like a baby’s cry trailing into a woman’s anguish.
“Screw pride,” she muttered and ran back into the hall, aftershocks of the cry reverberating in her head.
A huge shadow-lin
ed figure in white stood in the middle of the hall. Her nerves already frayed, she squealed and backtracked, tripping on the fringe of the hall rug and landing on her butt. In a panic she crab-crawled backward a few more feet.
“What the hell?” Alec’s raspy drawl stalled her, and she sat down. Leaning against the leg of a long, narrow table, she took a deep breath and dropped her head between her knees, lightheaded.
Before she could reassemble her scattered wits to offer an excuse, a scraping sound filled the space between her too-quick breaths. She popped to her feet, drawn to the only source of logical strength in the hallway. Alec. She wrapped her hands around his biceps, now recognizing he wore a simple white T-shirt and shorts.
“What the hell is all the caterwauling about?” He ran a hand over his face and yawned.
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.” She clutched handfuls of his shirt and tried to pull him toward her bedroom.
The cry came again, mournful and piercing. His warm hands circled her upper arms. “Hold up.”
She moved closer to the heat of his chest, and his arm came around her shoulders. Her courage-stealing terror erased any annoyance she’d felt toward him in the kitchen.
“It’s coming from the attic. Is that the access?” He pointed down the long, dark hallway where a rope hung from a panel hiding the recessed ladder.
He didn’t wait for her to answer, taking two steps down the hall. Her fingers refused to loosen their grip on his T-shirt. “Have you ever seen a single horror movie? The dudes they send to investigate are the first to die.”
He chuckled. “You’re funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny. I nearly wet myself, I’m so scared.”
The wail started again, growing in amplitude then petering out like a tornado siren. Sometime during it, she’d pulled him to her, letting go of the front of his shirt to lock her arms around his waist.
“You think some boogeyman is up there ready to murder us?” Even in the dark, she could make out the white of his smile.
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