by Lily Rede
“Thanks, Darryl,” he said, “my supplier left me high and dry.”
He shook hands as he got up out of the visitor’s chair.
“Anytime, Cal. Just glad I could help out. Talk to Gordon, he’ll get you set up.”
Cal turned to Russell and Adam, who was still trying not to let his nerves show.
“Cal, this is Adam Mallow. Adam, Cal Iverson.”
Cal’s eyebrows went up, but he shook hands.
“Nice to meet you, sir,” managed Adam.
“My stepdaughter Fiona is a great friend of your sister’s.”
Adam frowned as the pieces clicked into place.
“That’s right, I remember Grace said that Miss Althea had gotten married again. Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” grinned Cal, and clapped Adam on the back, “and good luck.”
With a wink, he stepped out, taking Russell with him, who was looking between Adam and the stoic Darryl with anticipation that bordered on anxiety.
The door closed with a final “click,” and Darryl sat down to rifle through paperwork, waving Adam into a chair.
“So, you want to work construction?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Darryl looked him up and down with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Great, let’s get started.”
Ten minutes later, Adam tried to keep his head up as he trudged back to the car.
So much for getting started.
It had been too much to hope that Russell’s begging would yield anything more than this sham of an interview that had exposed not only Adam’s lack of experience, but apparently his lack of potential for any future whatsoever.
“Damned tarp.”
Adam looked around and spotted Cal struggling to tie down a green tarp over the back of his pickup. The wind had picked up, causing the edges to flap mercilessly. He hurried over to lend a hand.
“Much appreciated,” said Cal, and scanned his face with shrewd eyes, “No dice?”
“Guess it’s going to take some time,” Adam shrugged.
“Don’t take it too hard, kid. I’m still waiting for Bright’s Ferry to open its arms and I grew up just across the bay.”
“Did you ever get branded as the local firebug?”
Cal actually laughed.
“Can’t say that I did. But I did take a joyride in my neighbor’s car when I was sixteen. Wrapped it around a tree.”
He put a hand on Adam’s shoulder.
“We do stupid things, and not just when we’re young. But we make amends and we move forward. That’s life.”
Adam nodded, slightly comforted. Cal considered him for a long moment.
“If you don’t mind some heavy lifting and mindless restocking, I could use a hand down at the hardware store. Doesn’t pay much, but it’s steady.”
“Yes!” Adam nearly shouted, and Cal grinned.
“All right, then. Why don’t you meet me down at the shop at Main and King and help me unload this lot. Bunch of two by fours and some planking. Then you can get to work helping me find a new lumber guy to do business with. Preferably someone who won’t welsh on an order two weeks in a row.”
As they shook on it, Cal’s sleeve rode up and Adam was surprised by the red welts and scabbing along one arm – he’d been badly burned, and recently.
“Something wrong?” asked Cal.
“No, nothing,” replied Adam thoughtfully.
HE WATCHED ADAM MALLOW drive away and tried to contain his rage. He didn’t worry that anyone would noticed, but he wished he could find a way to express the anger that was starting to boil over.
He didn’t like setting fires. He wasn’t that person.
But –
He had to admit that there was something so satisfying about seeing a building go up in flames. The Mallow boy felt remorse for his crimes, and that was scarcely enough, but those were crime of stupidity. Fires built for the sake of rebellion.
He only burned things that needed to be burned for his own very personal reasons, and the goal wasn’t just the odd jolt of satisfaction and pleasure, but a higher cause. To reach that goal, he had to keep the cops off his scent, and that wasn’t going to happen if Adam was making friends in the community, marching into job interviews and getting settled as a newly upstanding citizen of Bright’s Ferry.
The Sheriff’s Department should have him at the top of their list, at least long enough to allow him to complete his work.
This won’t do at all, he thought, I have to keep him close.
And he hurried away.
“HOLY FUCK, GRACE! YOU won’t believe this!” Fiona screeched loudly enough to have the entire library looking up in disapproval.
“Shhh!” Grace reprimanded, but came to look over her friend’s shoulder at the computer screen, where a couple of newspaper articles had been loaded, side by side.
“Star linebacker blows out knee…God, look at him. He was even yummy in college.”
“What is it with you and younger men? Scoot over.” Grace shoved Fiona a few inches to the side to share her chair and kept reading.
“He could have gone pro,” she murmured, “Poor Matt.”
“Take a look at the other one.”
Grace complied, grateful that she’d enlisted Fiona’s help. She may be an incorrigible flirt, but Fiona had a practical head on her shoulders. When Grace had confided her fears based on last night’s debacle, Fiona was remarkably zen about the whole thing. She’d pointed out that no one had ever had a problem with Matt in all the years he’d lived in town, and that this was precisely why God had invented the Internet, before diving into research on the baffling puzzle that was Matt Harris.
The second article broke her heart.
“Area man suspected of attempted murder dies in car accident. James Harris, forty-six, was pronounced dead at the scene after a drunk driver plowed into his car at Church and Fidelio in the early hours of Sunday night. Mr. Harris leaves behind a wife, May Harris, forty-three, and son Matthew…blah blah blah… Mr. Harris was wanted for questioning by the police over outstanding warrants for driving while intoxicated and an attack that left his wife Mrs. Harris in a coma at St. Teresa’s Hospital. Matthew, completing his senior year at Malvern College, was unavailable for comment.”
Eyes brimming with tears, Grace turned to Fiona.
“Oh, Fi. How awful. I didn’t know. I mean, I knew his mother was at Sunrise Glen, but I just never asked…”
Fiona clicked a few keys and pulled up a picture of James Harris – the resemblance to Matt was uncanny.
“Well, this explains a lot. He’s terrified he’s going to turn into his father, a raging alcoholic with a nasty streak.”
“Oh my God, and I told him I wanted him to spank me!”
Grace buried her face in her hands, belatedly hoping she hadn’t said that too loudly.
“That’s not the same thing and you know it.”
“Even so!”
“You’re missing the important question here, your Graciousness,” insisted Fiona.
“Which is?”
“I did a little hacking – don’t look at me that way. His record is clean as a whistle as far as I can tell – no arrests. Still, knowing what he came from, and having seen him totally lose it last night, and taking into consideration everything you know or have heard about him since the day you met – do you trust him?”
That’s the million dollar question, thought Grace, but she already knew the answer.
“I have to go,” she murmured, abandoning the chair to pull her purse from a desk drawer.
“Yeah, that’s what I think, too,” said Fiona.
TIRED BUT CONTENT FOR the first time in months, Adam felt his eyes pulling closed as he tried to focus on the action flick on the TV in front of him. He’d never worked that hard in his life, even with long hours at the soup kitchen. The manual labor involved in life at the little hardware store was going to take some getting used to, but Cal seemed like a good guy,
and his store manager, Silas Jankowsky, was a stand-up guy, if a little long-winded.
Adam had returned home after hours of unloading and getting the lay of the land, and, feeling inspired, proceeded to examine the house in meticulous detail, noting repairs to make, big and small, in every room. At the end of the day, he had a long list and some newfound insight into his sister – some of which made him extremely uncomfortable. For example, she’d kept all of his high school things. He found a box of papers, yearbooks, and even the Second Place science fair medal he’d gotten his freshman year before things had started going downhill. He felt a pang as he went through the box, musing on the years he wasted, and everything he’d put his sister through.
That was almost as bad as the trunk of sex toys he’d found under Grace’s bed while he was checking a loose board – not just a little box, but an actual flat trunk. Okay, so there were no spikes or whips in there, but there was quite enough for Adam to realize that his sister was into some pretty kinky shit. He didn’t dare look in her night stand.
Fuck, a guy can’t un-see that kind of stuff, he’d thought, irritated, and wondered if Matt Harris knew what Grace was into. Of course, he wanted Grace to be happy, but wow.
As Adam dozed on the couch, he noted absently that the sun had gone down, and Grace wasn’t home yet, which was odd – she usually at least stopped by the house to change out of her “librarian” clothes before going out again. She probably decided to grab dinner with Fiona. He’d just nap a little while longer and then make some mac and cheese or something.
Scratch, scratch, SNICK.
The noise was strange – soft and barely noticeable, brushing at the edges of Adam’s consciousness like a mosquito. He was vaguely aware of a waft of cold air, but just snuggled more deeply under the throw blanket on the couch and dismissed it. A moment later, the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the squeaky floor pulled Adam from sleep – heavy, a firm tread.
That’s not Grace. There was someone in the house.
Adam struggled awake just in time to see a hooded figure overhead, a raised arm, and then –
Darkness.
GRACE DIDN’T INDULGE IN shopping therapy unless she was seriously stressed out. She made a decent salary and tried to be good about money, but she had a weakness for clothes, and there was nothing more soothing than finding a new pair of boots or a dress that actually gave her some cleavage. Knowing her willpower was low when it came to pretty, edgy things, she tried to stick to thrift shops and vintage second-hand stores to get her fix. However, as she drove around town, trying to work up the courage to head over to Matt’s place, she spotted the new display in the window of the little shop on Main Street that belonged to Jenny Bright and Susan Gunterson, a longtime middle-aged couple who had lived together in the community for decades. Jenny was descended from the town’s founding father, and the two of them were sweet as pie.
Usually, the pretty, feminine things they displayed were a little too tame for Grace, but –
I want that.
Jenny smiled as Grace pushed the door open.
“Grace Mallow, what a nice surprise. What can I do for you?”
“I saw your display in the window. I didn’t think you sold that kind of lingerie.”
Susan rolled her eyes.
“It wasn’t my idea. But Deirdre, God rest her soul, ordered a pile from some lingerie designer she found online, and they finally arrived last week. We thought the least we could do was trust her instincts and honor her memory.”
Deirdre had been killed a few months back, the victim of the same crazed stalker who terrorized Colin Daniels and the entire town. She’d been Susan and Jenny’s business partner, not to mention a little promiscuous and self-centered, and though she and Grace had never gotten along, Grace knew that Susan and Jenny had thought of her like a daughter.
“It’s all beautiful,” she breathed, pulling a purple lace bustier off a hanger.
“Want to try a few things on?”
Jenny’s eyes twinkled as Grace nodded eagerly.
MATT’S MUSCLES TINGLED PLEASANTLY as he stepped out of the shower, toweled off, and pulled on a pair of jeans, not bothering with a shirt. He knew the Chief wanted to give him time off to rest up – who knew when the next fire would hit – but the enforced time to himself to think about Grace was going to drive him batty.
Yes, I’m hiding from her. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Except that he was a fucking chicken, but so what?
He’d worked on the house, run a few errands, and finally pushed himself through an intense two-hour workout in the makeshift gym in the basement. The physical activity helped him turn his brain off for a few hours.
Downstairs, he sat on the couch and stared at the corkboard he’d set up with a map and red push pins to mark the burned buildings from the rash of fires – a haphazard scattering of dots that didn’t form a shape or a pattern or anything that Matt could see connecting them.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, he started toward the kitchen to make a sandwich, but a tentative knock on the door had him turning. When he opened the door, Grace stepped inside without asking and closed the door behind her.
“Grace. What are you doing here?”
Wary, he stepped back, but couldn’t help eating her up with his eyes. She was wearing “work” clothes, but it could have been a burlap sack and Matt would have thought she looked incredible. Under her jacket, the soft gray sweater dress clung in all the right places, and the pinstriped tights had him wondering about garters and what else she might be wearing. Ordering his libido to cool it, he noted that she still hadn’t said a word, though her eyes were roving over him, filled with heat and hunger.
Shit, I’m not wearing a shirt.
“Sorry,” he muttered, “I didn’t expect company. Let me put on a shirt and then we can talk.”
Yeah, that was going to be fun, but if he was going to get tossed to the curb, he wanted to at least be fully dressed at the time. It didn’t matter that fireworks exploded any time they touched. What sane woman would want to be with a man who scared her? Trying not to let his frustration show on his face, he started for the stairs.
“Don’t bother. You’re just going to have to take it off again,” she said.
CHAPTER TEN
MATT FROZE AS GRACE slipped off her glasses and set them on the entry table, dropped her jacket to the floor, and pulled off the clip that held her hair back, letting it tumble around her shoulders in luscious purple ribbons. She slipped out of the black Mary Jane’s on her feet, kicking them away as a confused surge of excitement coursed through his body.
“Grace?”
“I read about you,” she said, “about your knee, about your father…”
Matt’s jaw clenched. None of that was a secret – hell, it had been in the fucking papers – but it was humiliating that she now knew how he had failed to save his mother, and that buried deep inside was the potential to turn into a monster like the one he’d grown up with. As if last night weren’t enough.
“I thought if I was careful, then I could get past – ” Matt stopped, defeated.
Grace took a step toward him, and then another, shaking her head.
“I don’t believe you’d hurt me.”
“You don’t know that.”
She stopped a couple of feet away.
“Have you ever hit a girl or someone who couldn’t defend themselves?”
“No.”
“Ever grabbed a girl so tightly you broke a bone? Ever screamed at her in public or threatened to hurt her or put her in the hospital?”
“God, no,” Just the thought had nausea rising.
Grace was still watching him closely, and apparently, whatever she saw satisfied her, because she nodded.
“Well, then, I think I’ll deliver a stern reprimand and a reminder that I know how to handle drunken pricks who grab my ass in a bar, and we’ll move on.”
Matt struggled to make sense of what she was saying, b
ut her hem had shifted, revealing the lacy tops of her thigh-high stockings and a sliver of creamy skin.
Focus, Harris.
“What if I can’t trust myself, Grace?”
“You’ll have to work on that. Meanwhile, I’ve considered all the facts and I’ve decided that for the moment, I can trust you enough for the both of us.”
Matt frowned and was about to ask her what precisely that meant, when she shocked the question right out of his brain by reaching for the hem of her dress and pulling it up and off over her head, tossing it by her shoes.
Holy God.
It was a struggle just to breathe with Grace standing before him wearing nothing but pinstriped thigh-highs and a violet-tinted camisole in something gossamer and sheer that cupped her sweet breasts and ended in garters that made him want to drool. The transparent fabric did nothing to really hide candy pink nipples or the delicate cleft at the apex of her thighs.
“Like it?” she asked, turning slowly to give him the full effect, and the impact of violet gauze grazing the most stunning ass he’d ever seen was like a lightning bolt of lust straight to his groin.
He groaned. She grinned.
“You’re not allowed to tear this one off because I just bought it and a few other little things, and I’m going to be living on noodles for the rest of the month to pay for it.”
Grace closed the gap between them. Matt held his breath, still frozen.
“You’ll have to peel it off, very carefully. Anything else,” she whispered, “anything you’ve ever dreamed about…”
She didn’t touch him, just stood there, waiting.
Waiting for instruction, he realized, and reeled. His tongue felt thick and blood surged through his veins as arousal clutched him with sharp talons.
“Undress me,” he managed, taking a fucking huge leap of faith. His voice was guttural, clouded with lust, but pleasure flared in her eyes before her lashes dropped and she sank down.
It should feel wrong, but the sight of Grace kneeling in that gossamer nothing, reaching for his waistband, was the most intensely erotic thing he’d ever experienced.
This is what she likes, he reminded himself. Hell, he wasn’t exactly protesting at the moment either, but he didn’t dare touch her, not yet. He clenched his hands at his sides and held still as she slowly undid the button and carefully tugged the zipper down. He wasn’t wearing underwear and his cock sprang free, fully erect and throbbing, and she gasped. Still following instructions, she pulled his jeans down and they both moaned when his damp crown brushed her petal-soft cheek as she worked the denim off his legs.