Discover Me & You, A Devil's Kettle Romance: Book 2

by Susan Sey

  “—who got pregnant at fourteen?” Rage, hot and red, beat its fists against that cold calm. Willa was aware of it there, but she didn’t feel it. She might later but right now she was simply curious. “You thought maybe it was Georgie who was having sex when she was fourteen years old? When she was a child? That’s not sex, Gerte. That’s rape.” Gerte flinched and Willa was aware of a savage joy beyond the curtain, a warrior’s fierce satisfaction in scoring first blood. But shame as well. Shame tangled there, too, always. “Rape isn’t really the kind of ammunition decent people use to score social points.” She studied Gerte with academic interest. “So I’ll ask again — what’s wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me?” Gerte’s voice strengthened, her mouth firmed into a dissatisfied line. “What’s wrong with her?”

  She shot a finger toward Bianca, standing there staring just like everybody else. Bianca appeared to be beyond words for once, and Matty still gazed at Willa as if she were something he’d never seen before, or a difficult math problem he’d just finally understood.

  “What’s wrong with a woman who’d lead an entire town to believe such a thing? Bianca knew exactly how it would look when she swanned off to Europe with Georgie after Joe died. She knew exactly what we’d all think when she came home with a baby. Because life is strange and people are impossible but I think we’re all clear on the fact that a woman doesn’t celebrate her husband’s death with a little European vacation, not even Bianca Davis. And she certainly doesn’t carry a baby to term without being aware of it. For God’s sake, she wears a size zero!

  “So she knew we’d assume Georgie was the mother. But she also knew nobody would argue when she said the baby was hers. And why not? Because she’s a Davis.” Her mouth twisted with disgust. “She’s a Davis, and she knows there’s not a soul in this town who’d challenge her. She could say the sky was purple and everybody would rush to agree. Yes, Bianca, it’s lovely, Bianca, please don’t bankrupt us, Bianca.”

  She pulled in a shaking breath, released it in a righteous huff. Color burned in her soft cheeks and Willa was aware of a pulse of sympathy threading through the rage and the pain on the other side of her borrowed calm. She knew what it was to be ground under Bianca Davis’ pointy high heel. Gerte was wrong and misguided, and she’d let her rage poison her, but Willa understood.

  “Her Diego was an entitled little monster, a cruel, selfish boy who grew into a cruel, selfish man, but nobody’s allowed to say a word of that ugly truth because what would Bianca say? What would we do without the great Diego Davis and all the tourist dollars he’s still bringing in from beyond the grave?” Gerte jerked a hand toward the sketches, toward the entire gallery full of works of undeniable genius. “So we don’t say anything. We smile and we go along and we scrape out our little living by the grace of God and the indulgence of Bianca Davis.” Gerte’s eyes burned.

  “So to answer your question, Willa, there’s nothing wrong with me. I simply take every opportunity that comes my way to remind the Davis family that they’re no better than the rest of us. They might be richer, but they’re no better. And I’d think you, of all people, would agree.”

  “Why would you think that?” Willa asked evenly.

  Gerte tipped her head and considered her closely. “You really do look just like your mother, Willa. Did you know that?”

  Her fingers itched to tug on her non-existent ball cap. “No.”

  “You have her hair. I never noticed before.”

  “Why would you?” Willa had taken care to erase every bit of resemblance between herself and her mother. Shay had been a wild thing, a dangerous flame. And fire didn’t concern itself with what it consumed. It just fed. Willa understood wild things too well to feel safe anywhere near Shay.

  Bianca frowned. “Shay was a blonde.”

  “No, Shay wanted to be a blonde. She chose to be a blonde. But what God gave her looked more like that.” Gerte nodded at Willa’s loose hair, an avalanche that had defeated even Georgie. A pulse of shame surfaced through the fury burning away on the other side of the thinnie’s calm. “Shay had hair for days, remember?” She sent a measuring look Willa’s way, then turned to the sketches on the wall. “This one,” she said, and tapped a finger next to the third sketch, the one of the naked back, the flirty invitation and all that wanton hair. “Your hair is just like hers in this one. You could almost be Shay.”

  “No,” Willa heard herself say. “I couldn’t be.” She could feel Matty’s eyes on her but she threw herself toward the thinnie's calm and didn’t meet them. She didn’t want to. Not yet. “Shay was—” She stopped, shook her head, unable — or maybe just unwilling — to complete the thought. She didn’t need to. Everybody knew what Shay had been.

  “Yes, she was,” Gerte said, her lips thin and disapproving. “And then there was your daddy, drunk more often than not, and dangerous when he was. Peter must’ve been away at college by then, or nearly. Not that any one of them would’ve been much help to a girl in trouble. The only other person you could’ve gone to was—” Gerte’s face went slack as comprehension dawned. “Bianca.” The hand at her throat crept up to cover her mouth. “A woman who cares more about the Davis name than anything or anybody in the world. Whose answer to everything is money, money and more money.” She stopped, thunder-struck. “Bianca bought your baby, didn’t she?”

  Matty said, “You sold me?” His voice, thin and shocked, threaded into the cracks in Willa’s already-battered heart. His pain rooted and spread, became her own. The thinnie’s peace strained under the crushing weight of it.

  “My God,” Gerte murmured, staring at Bianca. “You did. You bought a child. For shame, Bianca!”

  Shock thickened the air, the rancid scent of Gerte’s revulsion shot through with the sharp tang of Matty’s confusion and pain. And that pain was overwhelming. Staggering. How could it be otherwise? Gerte had just informed the boy with no grace or compassion whatsoever that his own mother had sold him, for God’s sake. Willa’s chest was so tight she could barely breathe.

  She met Eli’s gaze almost as an afterthought. She’d nearly forgotten he was there, he’d been so silent. He was shocked, too, unmistakably, and those deep blue eyes held immense sorrow. But it wasn’t cold, that sorrow, and there was no judgment in it. He wasn’t disappointed or betrayed; he was simply sad for her. For whatever she’d been through. It was as if he could sense her pain across the protective canyon of the thinnie, and it grieved him.

  Shock tried to rock her back but he threaded his fingers through hers and kept her close. His palm was wide and warm against her own, and it had gratitude curling up on the other side of the thinnie’s buffer like a cat, content to wait until she opened the door between them.

  “It was complicated,” he said softly to her, and she nodded helplessly. He turned to Bianca, zeroed in on her somehow with an accuracy and an authority that must’ve served him well when he was still fighting fires. “It was a complicated and difficult situation.”

  “It was.” Bianca moved so that Matty was sandwiched firmly between her and Georgie — the family closing ranks, Willa saw with a bittersweet pang. Matty was her blood but he wasn’t her family. And she wasn’t his. She’d sold that right years ago. And yet satisfaction glowed inside her like a hot coal. Maybe she wasn’t his family but Matty had one in the Davises. They’d given him money and prestige when Willa could offer him nothing but her love. That would’ve been enough, maybe, the money and the reputation. But it made her sacrifice all the sweeter to know that he had love, too. Georgie studied Eli with a narrow-eyed awareness Willa might’ve found shocking if she’d had the bandwidth left for reflection. As it was, simply continuing to breathe required all her concentration.

  “I’m sure you’ll want to discuss it further,” Eli said.

  Bianca said, “I’ll be in touch.”

  “I’m taking Willa home now.”

  “You do that.”

  He nodded to the Davis women. “Thanks for a lovely e
vening.” He turned to Gerte with perfect composure. “You, on the other hand, are a poisonous old bitch and I hope you get everything you deserve.”

  CHAPTER 24

  ELI SHEPHERDED WILLA onto the sidewalk, and when he held out his hand for the truck keys, she surrendered them without a murmur. Eli’s heart ached. He didn’t know what the hell had happened just now — he didn’t know what had happened fourteen years ago either — but it was all connected and it had torn Willa apart. Her precious stillness was a ragged thing now, clinging to her in tattered shreds. Agony leaked from her, puddled in the air around her, and for the first time, Eli understood what she’d meant when she’d said sadness smelled like rain.

  He handed her into the truck, and she sat docilely as a doll while he buckled her seat belt. He glanced up at the sky as he rounded the hood. Clouds swirled and roiled, deepening from green to purple as the sun sank into a steely lake. The storm was coming. It was coming and there was nothing Eli could do about it. Just like there was nothing he could do for Willa. She’d been wounded, deeply and grievously and in a way no doctor could heal. So he took the wheel and did the only thing he knew to do.

  He drove her home.

  He drove her home but he didn’t take her inside. The air was a hot-tempered blast when he opened the truck door and stepped onto her drive. It shoved and slapped at him when he rounded the hood again and handed her down as well. He kept her hand in his and led her across the yard to the path they’d followed a few nights before.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked her. For a long moment, she only gazed at him, her fairy eyes wide and blank. And a near-perfect match for Matty’s. He hated himself for seeing it. Hated that it was there to see. Hated even more that she’d been robbed of her innocence, while an entire town revered the bastard who’d stolen it.

  The urge to do violence surged up in him, curled his free hand into a fist and had sweat popping out on his spine. And he knew once again that he wouldn’t get out of this town without punching somebody. He prayed it wouldn’t be Gerte, though lord knew she deserved it. If there was a God in heaven — an option that was looking less likely by the moment tonight — maybe He would raise Diego from the dead so Eli could punch him instead. Yeah, he decided. That would make a believer out of him. How about it, Big Guy? One little resurrection so I don’t have to go to jail for beating down a poisonous old lady?

  There was no answer. He wasn’t surprised.

  “I don’t care,” Willa said. She dropped his hand, turned and started down the path. Eli believed her. In that moment, she truly didn’t care. Or she’d disconnected herself from caring. She was going to the thinnie, he knew somehow, to either put herself back together, or to fall apart completely. Either way, Eli would be there.

  He fell into step behind her as darkness dropped over the forest, and let the rhythm of her footfalls guide him through the night. It was a near-perfect replay of the hike they’d taken a few days ago, but it wasn’t his pain accompanying them this time, it was hers. And the darkness wasn’t a gentle, welcoming presence this time, it was a naked blade. Thunder grumbled in the bluffs to their north, and distant lightning illuminated the clouds a split-second at a time. It was as if disaster were unfolding in slow motion, the clouds growing heavier, the darkness growing deeper, frame by inevitable frame. Eli could hear the spit and sizzle of sporadic raindrops hitting the dirt path all around him, could see the tiny individual puffs of dust each one sent up from the dangerously hungry earth with every flash of brilliant white.

  It was beginning. It was breaking.

  After a time, they stepped out of the woods into Willa’s clearing. It was the perfect circle Eli remembered, minus the pocket of stars overhead. There was only a black, pregnant sky up there now, dropping lower and lower, pressing them harder and harder into the earth. The wind ramped up to a gusty howl and the trees swayed, jostling up against each other like passengers on a crowded train. The soft wood creaked ominously and Eli followed Willa to the center of the thinnie.

  She dropped to her knees beside the rock, spread both hands over the flat surface. Lightning flashed and Eli saw the raindrops, fat and erratic, painting black splotches on the steely gray basalt. Her eyes were closed, and he hesitated. What did she need? What was she listening for? Did she hear it, that song he could almost hear that seemed so accessible to her? Was she soaking it up, healing herself? Filling the jagged rips in her soul with whatever the thinnie offered her?

  Then she bent and laid her cheek against the rock between her hands. Her face crumpled with unimaginable pain and a sob escaped her that sliced Eli clean in two.

  As if it had only been waiting for Willa to break first, the skies broke, too. A jagged bolt of lightning ripped open the belly of the clouds. Thunder roared and rain lashed down in great, pounding waves. The heavens released a decade’s worth of rain while Willa unleashed a lifetime of pain. Eli flung himself forward, dropped down behind her, planted his knees on either side of hers and curled himself over her back. She was so small. He wasn’t a huge guy but he covered her almost completely.

  He pressed his cheek to hers and twined his fingers through her own cold, shaking ones. The rock radiated heat, evaporating every raindrop with a hot sizzle while Willa howled out her anguish. He couldn’t hear her over the crash of the thunder but he could feel it rolling through her body, shaking her, taking her, bruising her. He breathed her in — the hot slice of her pain, the cool wildness of the rain, the devastated helplessness with which she rode the tide of it all. Icy needles of water sliced at his back, and the wind swiped at him like a grizzly bear playing with its dinner. He braced his forearms on the rock, on the unyielding strength of it, and let the storm rage in the sky above him. Let the storm rage in the woman below him.

  He had no idea how long it lasted. No idea how much time had passed before he became aware that while his t-shirt might be stuck to him like a second skin, it wasn’t getting any wetter. The sky was no longer vomiting fury, and the woman underneath him had gone quiet. She lay curled against the rock with an exhausted quiescence. He lifted his head, opened his eyes and saw the first star winking at him from a hole in the thinning clouds.

  “It’s over,” she murmured, and shivered. “I’m cold.”

  He wrapped himself more firmly against the delicate curve of her spine, covered her body more fully with his own and closed his eyes again. “I’m here.”

  “I know.” She drew his hand to her cheek, pressed his palm against her cool skin. “You got wet.”

  “So did you.”

  She sighed into the rock, which was still improbably radiating heat. Eli imagined he’d see steam rising from it if he bothered to open his eyes. “You’re so warm, Eli.” She wriggled as if burrowing into him. Her bottom snuggled into his crotch and a completely inappropriate spark of interest flew straight to his dick. “You’re always so warm.”

  Yeah, and getting warmer. He was an awful person. He inched back, unwilling to watch her shiver but more unwilling to press his growing erection into her bottom like a horny teenager. “Let’s get you home.”

  “No.” She twisted her fingers through his, snugged him tight to her back again. “Don’t get up. Not yet.” She arched, lifting her bottom straight into exactly what Eli was hoping she hadn’t noticed. He sucked in a sharp breath but she only gave a hum of female interest.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  “Don’t be.” She circled her bottom against him in a primal invitation that heated his blood. “You feel good.”

  “Oh, Christ, so do you.” Lust shot into his veins, and he found himself meeting her offered bottom in a counter-rhythm older than the rock she was sprawled on. Her hum of interest drifted into an appreciative moan, and need eclipsed reason. Hunger roared, sank sharp claws into his mind but he grabbed at his fleeing decency with both hands. “But I don’t think—”

  “Good. Don’t think. Don’t think at all.” She captured the tip of his index finger with the moist heat
of her curvy lips. His dick jumped and he jerked against her. Lust flooded him and he moaned.

  “Willa, please,” he managed. “Let me take you home. You need—”

  “I need you.” She squirmed underneath him as if hunger had her in its claws, too. As if the same needful ache that danced underneath his skin danced under hers, too, raw and demanding. She sat up suddenly, and he leaned automatically back to give her the room she wanted. He watched, fascinated and mute, as she yanked up the sopping hem of her dress and rearranged herself until her knees were outside his. Her bare legs, shiny with rain, glowed under the nascent starlight. He stared helplessly at all that smooth skin, at the shadowy hint of silk just barely exposed under the hem of her skirt. His palms ached with the need to fill his hands with her and take what she offered. To bury himself deep inside the living flame of her.

  “Touch me, Eli.” She took his hand, threaded her fingers through hers and bent over the rock again. He fell forward with her, braced his free hand against the warm stone. She brought their joined hands to her lips, touched his knuckle with her tongue, a butterfly-light shock. Electricity swept through him, gathering low in his belly, coalescing into a throbbing ball of want. She slid his hand to her breast, and the nipple puckered. It pushed into his palm through the fine fabric of her dress. Need howled inside him and he took the delicate point between his fingers, rolled it gently. She gasped.

  “Touch me,” she said again, and arched her spine, pushed her breast deeper into his hand, ground her bottom into his pulsing erection. “I want to feel something, Eli. Something good. Something joyful. I want to know that I can.” She circled and sought, panting with frustration and need. “Help me, Eli. Give me this.”