by Abby Brooks
“So, how is the homestead?” she asks, pretending to be busy straightening stuff on the counter and carefully avoiding my eyes.
“A joy as always.” I let out a long sigh, the weight of everything waiting for me back home pressing down on my shoulders. “I had to let Pete go.”
“Like, Pete as in Handy Pete? The one guy you had left who had a clue as to how to fix all the things that break on a daily basis over there?”
I nod. “That’d be the one.”
She wrinkles her brow. “That was the last person you had left over from before your grandmother passed away, right?” Her tone is soft and reverent. My grandmother died last year after a long battle with lung cancer—no surprise after all the cigarettes—but still painful nonetheless. She raised me since before I could remember anyone else ever being in my life.
Hell, she was my life.
I gave up college to stay with her and help her keep stuff running at the homestead as her health declined. And now that she’s passed, I feel this obligation to keep the thing going even though I don’t have the knowledge or money to do it justice. It was really a blessing when she finally let go and I’m so thankful she doesn’t have to fight anymore. But I’m lonely. And in over my head. And totally overwhelmed.
“Yep,” I say, popping the P at the end of the word. “He was the last person I had left. Period. It’s just me out there, now.”
“How are you going to do it all?” She looks and sounds so genuinely concerned for me, I almost feel like crying.
“I have no idea.” I shrug. “Nose to the grindstone, I guess. Maybe sell a few more goats or chickens and make some extra money…?”
The honest truth is that I’m scared. Like, really, super scared. Ali gave me the job here at Culpepper’s Pages in order to help make ends meet, but her business would be much better off if she didn’t have to come up with my paycheck every other week and I know it. Thing is, I also know I need the couple hundred dollars I make working here or I’m going to end up wondering how to keep food in the fridge.
“Do you think you should sell it? Cut your losses and move on?” She’s looking at her hands, totally aware that while it might make the best practical sense, there’s no way I could do something like that. No way at all.
“That homestead was everything to Nana. She grew up in that house. Her mom and her grandma grew up in that house. My dad grew up in that house. She made me promise that I’d raise my own children in that house.” I flare my hands, at a loss. How can I even think of selling a family legacy like that?
Ali grins. “Well, considering the glacial pace you’re setting on the boyfriend front, you’re going to end up disappointing her on the whole raising your own kids thing. At this rate, you’re going to be a crazy cat lady before you’re thirtieth birthday.”
“Shush, you.” I make a funny face and head over to fuss with the window display. On the way, I make sure that the sign in the door actually got flipped over to read open this morning. Which it did, of course. Our lack of customers has way more to do with the state of Wistful than something as simple as forgetting to flip the sign over.
I’m adjusting a book on our display for the hundredth time—I can’t decide if it looks better on its side or standing up—when movement on the other side of the window catches my eye. My heart skips about four beats and my mouth goes dry and my stomach hollows out. Straightening slowly, I stare at the person striding down the sidewalk on just the other side of the glass.
It’s him.
The man.
The guy with the gun who took my virginity on my twenty-first birthday. He’s changed, but that doesn’t stop me from knowing him. Especially since he’s starred in almost every fantasy of mine since that night.
His hair is long now, brushing just below that square jaw that now hides behind one hell of a thick beard. He’s wearing jeans and t-shirt instead of a suit, but there’s no denying the thunderstorm in those slate-gray eyes. I put a hand to the glass and our gazes lock together. In the space between heartbeats, the course of my life is forever changed. How can anything be the same ever again if he’s here?
His brow furrows.
His jaw clenches.
Time stops and this moment between us is all that’s ever existed. And then he blinks twice, takes a long breath, and keeps right on walking, his focus locked on the sidewalk in front of him.
The urge to run out the door and flag him overrides every other thought in my head. I bolt out of the window display, tripping on the little step that gets me every damn time. Ali puts down her Kindle and looks up at me with concern.
“Everything okay?” she asks as I pick myself up from the floor in a flurry of muttered curse words.
No. Everything is not okay. My past and my present and my fantasies and my realities have just collided in an explosion of adrenaline and excitement. I shake my head, not sure what to say.
Ali darts out from behind the counter and takes my hand. “Skye, what’s wrong?”
“It’s him.”
“It’s who?”
“Him. The guy. From the alley.”
Her eyes go wide. “You mean the hitman who raped you?”
“He didn’t rape me and he wasn’t a hitman.” I don’t have time for this old argument. I rush to the door and press my face against the glass, hoping to catch another sight of him.
“Fine. Whatever.” Ali appears beside me, pressing her face to the glass just like I am. We must look like little girls peering into a candy store. “I don’t see anyone.” Her voice is tense as she strains to see down the street.
Pulling back, I shake my head. “It was him. I swear.”
“But how could you even be sure? Was he carrying a gun and chasing some guy down the street?” Her eyes go wide and she covers her mouth. “Oh shit, Skye! Do you think he followed you here? Like, maybe you know too much and he has to take you out or something?”
Fear churns in my gut even as I scoff at her idea. “Um. No. I’m sure he’s not here to take me out,” I say, even though I am sure of no such thing. “And no, he didn’t have a gun. He looked really different actually.”
“Different how?” Ali looks markedly more skeptical with each passing second, astonishment fading into disbelief.
“His hair was longer and he had a beard.” I shrug. “But it was him. No doubt in my mind.”
“Did he see you?” Her eyes narrow.
“He looked right at me.” I glance at the door, half expecting him to step through with a smile on his face and two dozen roses in his hand. Or you know, with those eyes flashing with rage and a gun pointed at my head. It really could go either way.
“And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he looked at you, and then what? Did he recognize you?” Ali sounds more and more like she thinks I’ve lost my mind.
“I don’t know. Maybe. He stared at me and then just kept right on walking.” I cross my arms over my chest and sit back on my heel. She can go ahead and think I’m crazy, but I know what I saw.
“So you saw a guy with long hair and a beard and somehow, that means you’re sure that he’s the guy with short hair and a gun that you only saw once. Three years ago. In a dark alley. In the rain.” Ali lifts her eyebrows and gives me her best you’ve lost your mind look.
“It was him. There’s not one sliver of doubt in my mind that it was him.”
“Because you have perfect recollection of a night when you were drunk out of your mind and did some crazy shit with a stranger.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry sweetie, but it’s too big of a coincidence. I think you just saw some guy that kind of looked like him.”
I know better than to fight. Ali knows her mind and nothing I can say is going to change it. But that’s the thing, I know my mind, too. And I know that was the guy from LA. The man who took my virginity and set the bar so high, I’ve not been interested in another man since.
Chapter Three
That was her. The gir
l. Skye LaRue. The hot little redhead in the black dress and fuck-me heels. The one who was there with me the night everything changed. The one who gave me her virginity in a dark alley, puffing on a cigarette like a little girl trying to look big. The one I have never, ever been able to forget.
In a roundabout way, she’s the whole reason I moved out here when shit went south in LA, although I’ll be damned if I thought I’d ever run into her. As far as I knew, she was still in LA, chasing her dreams.
And by chasing her dreams I mean spreading her legs for some guy who told her he was the reason she would finally get her big break. That’s what LA does to a girl like her. One who’s so soft and so sweet. So naïve and innocent. Hell, look what it did to me, and I might as well be made of stone.
I had no idea she had come back home. It takes a lot to shock me anymore, after all the things I’ve seen and done. But looking up to find that girl staring at me through the window of the bookstore—her hair streaming down her shoulders, glinting like fire in the afternoon sun, her lush lips parted, her eyes darting across the features of my face—you can go right on ahead and consider me shocked.
Glancing over my shoulder, a little bit of old habit and a lot of wondering if she’s following me, I duck into the first door I come to, a jacked up little deli with shitty food and even shittier service. It doesn’t matter how shitty they are though because I’m not here to eat. I’m here to pull myself together and get a handle on what I’m going to do next.
My thoughts revolve in a tight little circle. What to do, what to do? Not only is she a loose end, one of the few people in the world who could link me to who I used to be, but she’s the girl I haven’t been able to stop thinking about for years. And that makes her dangerous on multiple levels. She might not know what she saw that night, but that doesn’t change the fact that she saw it. And there’s no doubt in my mind that she recognized me just now. Not one sliver of fucking doubt.
I order a coffee even though I know it’s gonna be sludge from early this morning. My gut keeps telling me to pack up and leave Wistful. Get out of town before shit gets real. Because let’s face it, shit is gonna get real. My nerves are on edge, my body on high alert.
After three years of running, I thought I was finally safe. Finally able to leave my past behind and focus on the future. I may not ever be able to go so far as to give my heart to a woman and make a family, but I could set down roots. Build a home. Hell, I want to set down roots. I want to wake up early. Work hard on things that matter. Things that make a difference in my life. I’ve put a lot of work into that broken down cabin in the mountains I call home and I’m not sure I’m ready to leave.
But now that I know she’s here—Skye LaRue with her fiery hair and brilliant eyes—I have even more reason to stay. Even though I know it’s dangerous to talk to her, all I want to do is find her. Hear that voice, sultry and sweet. I need to know her.
I make my way through the coffee—which is just as shitty as I predicted—and head down to the hardware store, the whole reason I even bothered to come to town today. The sealant around the windows in the cabin is cracking and I need more caulk, plus I’m hoping to find a dog bed for Bay. He’s been hopping up to sleep in bed with me each night. While the company was nice at first, a one-hundred-eighty-pound mastiff is a shitty sleeping companion. He’s gonna have to get used to sleeping in his own bed.
I wander the store, grabbing the things I need, only halfway paying attention to what I’m doing and where I am. My mind is wrapped up in Skye LaRue. She looks older now, but that only makes her all the more beautiful. Gone is the childish frame and in its place is a woman’s body, curvy and succulent and begging me to taste every inch of it. I was rushed with her, that night in the alley. Driven by lust and adrenaline and a need to have her that was so fierce, I can count on one hand the number of times in my life I’ve been that out of control.
I was a selfish bastard with her. Hard and savage. A greedy pig rutting into her until I came inside her like she was mine. But who could blame me? Is there a man on this planet who could have resisted her walking up like that, so young and brazen, her lust dancing so clearly in those fantastic eyes?
She wanted me to take her.
So I did.
Simple as that.
Sometimes, I wish I’d gone slow with her, taught her what true pleasure feels like. Even so, selfish as I was, I know she came that night. Hell, I know she came hard that night. Her tight little pussy clenched around my dick and it was all I could do to last as long as I did.
That girl dug herself into a corner of my mind and made herself right at home. She’s been there for the last three years, waiting for me every time I close my eyes. The fiery little thing who took one look at me and gave me everything. It’s been damn good ammunition for my filthiest fantasies. I don’t know if I can stay in this town, knowing she’s here and not do anything about it. I don’t think I can stay away. I want her. Fuck that, I need her. But I can’t have her. Not now. Maybe not ever.
It makes me nervous being here in town, out in the open like this. I feel so much better in my shitty little cabin in the woods. Wouldn’t you know, the whole time growing up, I resented the hell out of my dad, pushing all his SEAL training and his crazy conspiracy theories on me. I hated him for making me learn how to hunt and fish, to build stuff out of whatever I found lying around, to handle weapons and grow food. And now the only reason I’m even alive is because of those very same skills I resented when I was a teenager. If Dad was still around, I’d call him and thank him.
Or maybe not.
That crazy bastard doesn’t deserve even one ounce of my gratitude.
The basket digs into my forearm, made heavy by all the items I’m just throwing in there. It bumps against a shelf as I turn a corner and I curse, looking down to make sure I didn’t knock anything over.
“Hey.”
The voice is unmistakable. It’s hers. Sweet like candy, yet low and smoky, like one hell of a fine brandy. It’s not changed one bit in the last three years. My eyes meet hers and I consider playing it off like I don’t know who she is. It’d be better for both of us if I just turn around and walk away.
“Hey,” I say. I’m such a selfish bastard. Who was I kidding, even thinking I could walk away from this girl?
“Are you following me?” she asks, wrapping her arms around her stomach. A basket with a few items in it dangles from her forearm, just like mine.
I look down at my own basket and then glance around the store. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Pretty sure I was here first.”
Skye steps towards me. “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
The bells over the front door jingle as someone enters. She turns towards the sound, allowing me to catch sight of that delicate spot just below her jaw. The only part of her body—other than those sweet lips—that I got to taste that night all those years ago.
Her focus comes back to me. “Did you follow me here? To Wistful?” Her voice is low and taut, a rubber band stretched to the breaking point.
“Skye?” The voice comes from the front of the store. High-pitched and worried.
“Gimme a sec,” Skye calls over her shoulder before turning back to me. “How long have you been here? In Wistful?”
I shrug. “A while.”
“How long are you staying?”
“As long as it takes.”
My answers are vague, but she doesn’t care. She takes another step towards me, arms still wrapped tightly around her middle. “Can I see you?” she asks, licking her lips, a blush flaring across her high cheekbones.
The girl either has no sense or she’s as pulled to me as I am to her. By all rights, she should be terrified to find me here after all these years. Instead, here she is, asking for more. I’d be more than happy to oblige.
But I can’t. Bringing her into my life, even for a little bit, will only put her in danger. I mean shit, I can’t even be sure I don’t have eyes on me right now. Just this
little conversation is enough to paint a huge ass target on her back.
“Walk away, little girl.” I intentionally repeat the first thing I ever said to her.
“I’m not a little girl anymore.” Skye lets her arms fall to her side, the basket banging against her thigh, and steps into my personal space.
“Ain’t that the truth.” I let my gaze travel across her body, roam across her curves. My damn dick presses even harder against the zipper in my pants.
Behind her, a tall blonde comes stomping around the corner of the aisle. She’d be stunning if she wasn’t standing next to Skye. But unfortunately for her, she is standing next to Skye. And just like the sun eclipses the stars and the moon when it comes blazing across the horizon, Skye’s beauty transcends everything around her.
“Come on,” says the blonde, eyeing me warily and pulling on Skye’s arm.
Skye shakes free. “In a minute.”
“Listen to your friend,” I say and turn away from them, fully intending to walk away and disappear.
“Wait.” Skye grabs my arm and I freeze. “Give me your phone.”
People don’t talk to me like that. If anyone’s giving orders, I’m the one giving them. I turn, amused by the fire in this woman. “Ask me nicely.”
The blonde rolls her eyes but Skye’s lips quirk up in a smile. “Give me your phone. Now,” she says, lifting an eyebrow in defiance.
“You’re playing with fire, Ms. LaRue,” I say shaking my head. I hand her my phone even though I know I’m going to regret it.
“Maybe I like to live dangerously.” She pulls up my contacts list and starts entering her information. “I still don’t know your name.”
And here it is, the moment of truth. I can snatch my phone away from her and walk right out of her life. Pick up and move out of Wistful and keep disaster from ripping both of us to shreds. Or, I can be selfish and let her get to know me and all the danger that follows me wherever I go. I hate to admit I don’t have to think too hard about it.