by J. R. Ward
Bingo.
Fumbling to light the cell up, he groaned when he saw the time. Eleven o’clock. Considering he went to bed at five a.m., this might as well be the middle of the night—not that he could see daylight. Thanks to his blackout drapes and the fact that he’d put a washcloth over the front of his cable box, there was no illumination around him at all.
It was like he was floating in air, and he loved the weightless feeling as he reclined against his pillows and stared up at a ceiling he couldn’t see.
His erection was of the pleasant variety, nothing that demanded attention—more like a suggestion in the event his right palm was bored. He was a little hungover—not bad, though. After he’d left the café, he’d met up with a couple of buddies and they’d ended the night talking about songwriting in the back of a friend’s dive of a sports bar.
G.B. glanced at his phone’s digital readout again.
That children’s book illustrator had to be up by now. She’d gone home early so she could work in the morning.
Should he wait until the afternoon, though? Look less desperate?
As he considered his options, he smiled. Usually with women, he was a real straight shooter—no games, no overthinking, no drama. Then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten turned down by one, so it wasn’t as if he needed game.
Like, last night hadn’t exactly ended at the sports bar—which was why his cock was a little less than insistent at the moment. The sex hadn’t meant a thing to him, though.
On that note, he pulled up Cait’s contact.
He’d put her into his phone by her first name, because he still didn’t know what her last one was, and he hesitated before hitting her number with his thumb. The fact that he was naked under his sheets and in the dark and already aroused made this a little tacky—in contrast to the chick he’d done at four a.m., who’d had her tits out and all but put up a billboard that she wanted some grind, Cait was no doubt working quietly.
His illustrator was … well, it sounded trite to put it like this, but she was a good girl.
He let the pad of his thumb go down to the screen and initiate the call. Then he put the iPhone to his ear and listened to the ringing. If it went to voice mail, he was going to keep it short and—
“Hello?”
He smiled so wide his front teeth felt a chill. “Hi. Do you know who this is?”
God, he hoped so. It would suck to be any less unforgettable than he thought he was.
“You called,” she said with a laugh. “You actually called.”
“I told you I would.” Pulling the covers up higher on his chest, he put one arm behind his head. “I keep my promises.”
Man, that throaty laugh of hers made him flex his pelvis. But he put a lockdown on that motion.
“How are you?” she asked.
He made no bones about trying to hide his yawn. “I’m still in bed, can you believe it?”
Actually, he wanted her to know where he was, wanted her to wonder what, if anything, he had on.
“Musicians probably don’t keep bankers’ hours, do they.”
“Definitely not. I went out after you left—nothing crazy, though.” For some reason, he got off on the fact that reassuring her felt right. “Just with some colleagues, I guess you’d call them. Did you go straight home?”
“I did. And got right into bed.”
Mmmm. “Did you sleep well or were you distracted by dreams of a soulful singer who managed to get your digits?”
Yup, her laugh was the goal to reach for—he loved the sound of it. “Yes, that was what kept me up. How did you know?”
“Maybe he was dreaming of you, too.” He followed that up with a quick, “How’s work going? Your puppy and you having a good time of it?”
“Actually, I’ve done three pages, which is awesome.”
As a text came through to him, he winced at the beeping notification in his ear. “How long do you have until the book’s due?”
“I’ve got another week, but you don’t want to take any chances. Better to finish early than find yourself squeezed for time and rushing things. The good news is I’m on track—I have about eight more pages to go, and I got lucky today. Sometimes the flow is just right there, you know?”
“Inspired, maybe?”
“Are you trying to sell that singer again?”
“I am. He comes with a good warranty, not a lot of wear and tear.” Kind of a lie, but come on … “He’s functional, reliable … and attractive in so many settings.”
“Is this a lamp or a man we’re talking about?”
“He’s bright, too—did I mention that?” As she laughed again, he smiled. “And he’s eco-friendly.”
“How so?”
“He eats organic.”
“A lamp with a hearty appetite?”
“Oh, sorry—I mean he only accepts those curlicue bulbs.”
“Do they sell these things at Target?”
“No, someone has to give him to you.”
Even he heard the purr in his voice at the end of that one—and she obviously got the drift, because there was a quick pause.
She cleared her throat. “Sounds … pretty magical.”
He lowered his voice and dropped the riff. “Will you come to see me sing tonight? It’s just backup, but I’d love to have you in the audience as my guest.”
Before she could answer, he jumped in. “You can come backstage, hang out with somebody famous—your Facebook status would be awesome. It’s a Millicent Jayson concert—you must have heard of her?”
Say yes, he thought. Say yes…
As he waited on pins and needles, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this way. For some strange reason, all he wanted was to be inside this woman—it didn’t make sense, but that was destiny for you.
The powerful wasn’t necessarily the comprehensible.
Duke walked out of his bedroom into a haze of pot smoke. Coughing, he went over to the cabin’s front door and ripped it open, letting the cool spring air in.
“Man, you gotta put up that damn bong,” he muttered at the couch.
Naturally, his star boarder, Rolly—short for Roland—was out like a light, the guy’s roasty-toasty pea brain taking yet another THC-induced breather.
“Freeloader.” Duke kicked the back foot of the sofa on his way to the galley kitchen. “Wake up!”
“Mom?” came a muffled reply.
“No, I’m not your mom. And you’re thirty-two—that should not be the first thing coming out of your mouth in the morning anymore.”
No response. Well, not verbally, at any rate. There was a shift of position—that led to a throw pillow falling off the far end.
Maybe the cold would wake the guy up.
Or the smell of coffee.
Worse came to worst, Duke had a claw hammer in his toolbox.
At the three-foot-long counter by the stove, Duke made a pot of nonfussy coffee—i.e., no measuring to exactitude, no flavorings, just caffeine and water, add heat and a mug. He poured himself some before things had finished brewing, and he drank the first dose at the window, staring out at the farmland that surrounded the place he rented. For the second dose, he faced in, leaning his ass against the lip of the stainless-steel bucket sink.
One story. A thousand square feet. One bed, one bath, plenty of privacy, and the cost was cut in half because he did the mowing in the summer and the snowplowing in the winter for the owners who lived down the lane.
No Warren County muni services on the roads in and out of these three hundred acres. Frankly, the family was lucky to have city water and cable.
As a familiar snoring lit off from the couch, he poured himself mugful number three. Fucking Rolly. What a pain in the ass.
“You need to get a job,” he barked when he finally put his mug in the sink.
It was like having a sixteen-year-old in the house. The good news was that on a regular basis the guy somehow found some chippie to pick up the slack
. The relationships never lasted longer than a couple of months, but at least they gave Duke a break.
Would miracles please never cease.
In truth, he really needed to throw the guy out. But Rolly had him over a barrel: Old friends, like bad habits, died hard—so there was nothing he could do. Well, nothing except pray that soon, very soon, on one of the bastard’s pot buys, or a bar crawl, or for shit’s sake a trip to a Frito-Lay aisle in the local Qwikie Mart, some new version of tits-’n’-ass looked at that handsome baby face and fwelll in wuuuuuuuuvvvve.
As nauseating as that was.
Matter of fact, rumor had it there was a female on the horizon at this very moment—would that she would get her ass in gear. He was so ready to reduce the secondhand emissions in his house and get his sofa back.
Ten minutes later, he was going out the open doorway. The temperature of the “living room,” such as it was, had dropped fifteen degrees and was still falling—and Rolly hadn’t even noticed. Kinda. The guy had pulled the back cushions over his body and was doing a fetal.
Duke was of half a mind to just leave shit open, but he didn’t relish the idea of coming home to a pothead Popsicle who had to be nursed out of pneumonia.
No locking things up behind him. He didn’t have anything to steal, and he wasn’t giving Rolly a key in the event that someday he booted the guy for good.
This week he was only working twelve to five for the county, because it was a little early for the real spring cleanup and a little late for any snow removal. Soon enough, though, the backbreaking would start, and he was ready for it—the Caldwell city parks needed upkeep, and he was exactly the kind of thug to get into the brambles for ripping and tearing.
So much more satisfying than babysitting the wait line at the Iron Mask.
Getting into his truck, he started the engine, hit the gas and took the back roads to what the crews called “the Shed.” The facility was located on twenty-five acres waaaaaay outside of town—so his commute, even to an eight-hour shift that started in the morning, was just him and his truck and the farmland roads. Period. The only time he stopped was for deer crossings.
As he drove along, his eyes didn’t stray from the pavement ahead. There was no looking around and measuring the weather, or the progress of spring, or diddling with some radio station or another.
There was, however, something on his mind.
That woman from the night before.
He’d still been thinking about her as the sun had come up. Hard to explain why she’d stuck with him—yeah, sure, she was good-looking, but on a regular basis he saw that—hell, he saw a lot more, given the undress code at the club. But something about her was different … important, even.
Man, he didn’t like the whole thing. Not the fact that she was like a ghost who wouldn’t stop haunting him, or his ridiculous, overblown reaction to her—but especially the reason she’d been to that café, the man who she’d gone to see.
Fucking G.B. That bastard—
As his phone went off, he dug it out of his jacket and didn’t bother checking to see who it was. “Yeah.”
“Duncan?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. No one called him that—and what the hell was that psychic doing on his phone. “Yeah.”
“I had to call you.”
“Yeah.” Not a question; he didn’t want to encourage her—and frankly, this was a good reminder that he really needed to quit going to see her.
“I had a dream about you last night.”
Not interested, honey—although he didn’t think it was a sexual thing. He’d never gotten that vibe from her. “Yeah, so.”
“I see a crisis coming. A crossroads.” The urgency in her voice made him roll his eyes. “This is unlike … anything I’ve ever been shown before.”
At that moment, he came up to one of only three traffic lights on his route into work. It was glowing orange.
“Duncan, I see a brunette—she’s the nexus around which this spins; she’s the focal point. And this will change everything.”
He punched the gas, speeding through the four-way intersection. Just as he went under the light, it turned red.
“Thanks for calling,” he muttered. “I’ll be sure to date blondes and redheads, how ’bout that.”
“Duncan, you’ve got to listen to me. The brunette … she’s a game changer for you, and the consequences are dire, Duncan. Please—”
“I gotta go, I’m pulling into work.” Or rather, he would be about five minutes from now. “Thanks.”
“You must heed this. If you don’t engage with her, there’s a possibility it can all be avoided—”
“Bye.”
“Duncan. What I saw was a warning. The consequences are going to hurt you—”
Duke hung up on her—and turned his ringer off.
So not doing that. No more engaging with that fruitcake. And while he was at it, no more thinking about the woman or … the past.
Or the future.
Man, he was so done with the whole life thing, he really was…
As the thought occurred to him, he eyed the tree line and wondered what it would feel like to unclip his seat belt, turn the wheel and run his truck directly into a thick oak, just hit the accelerator and slam himself right into oblivion.
Fucking air bags. He’d probably end up with nothing more than a pillow in his face and a monster deductible bill to fix shit.
About five miles later, he took a right onto the two-lane road that led in and out of the Shed, and when he got to the gate in the chain-link fencing, he stopped and showed his ID. His supervisor had given him his marching orders the day before, so he proceeded to the parking lot, dumped his truck, and picked up the keys to a county version of same at the front office. For the next five hours, he was going to scout and prioritize park projects. It was the kind of thing that someone higher up should be doing—but his boss preferred hanging out in a climate-controlled environment, kicking back and watching sports commentary on his iPad.
The mayor’s brother-in-law really didn’t like getting his hands dirty in the field.
Whatever, Duke thought as he entered the Shed proper and strode by row after row of heavy-duty dump trucks, and snowplows the size of houses, and various other kinds of John Deere–ish vehicles. The air inside the aviation hangar-size space was cool and smelled like gas and oil, and high above, in the steel rafters, birds flew around and squawked as they crapped all over the county’s collection of big-boy toys.
Tossing the keys up and catching them, tossing and catching them, he knew things could be worse. He was going to be outdoors and on his own, and the Ford F-350 pickup truck he’d been assigned, number thirteen, was a newer one, with a seat that hadn’t been worn out.
The day was looking up—
“Hey—I’m supposed to ride with you.”
As a deep voice echoed through the vast space, Duke stopped and looked over his shoulder. A man had entered behind him, a large body cutting a shadow through the daylight that poured in from the open bay. Whoever it was seemed dressed right, with jeans and a heavy jacket, and those were boots on his feet. All you had to do was swap that baseball cap for a hard hat, slap an orange reflective county vest on him and he’d fit right in.
Except something was off. Duke couldn’t put his finger on it … but something was wrong about this.
“Who are you looking for?” he asked the guy. He hadn’t been told about this, although that wasn’t unusual.
“I’m supposed to come in here and find you. You’re Duke, right?”
Shit.
Duke started walking again, zeroing in on the truck he’d been assigned. “If you want shotgun, you’d better get over here. I’m leaving now.”
As he got the key fob ready, he left the guy to do whatever he wanted. But damn, he wished he’d gotten in five minutes earlier; then he could have missed—
He froze as he gripped the door handle. Across the interior of the truck, through the windows … the man was
waiting for Duke to unlock things, having somehow traveled the distance of the fifty-five-foot-long garage in the blink of an eye.
Duke looked back at the open bay. Maybe it was sixty-five feet.
Had he just had a TIA?
Shaking his head, he unlocked the vehicle and climbed in. Beside him, Mr. Speedy did likewise, the guy settling in the seat and turning away to pull the belt across his heavy chest.
At least he looked like he could handle a little physical labor.
As Duke cranked the engine over, he supposed he should ask what his shadow’s name was, but he didn’t care and wasn’t going to waste any breath on it.
“Where we heading?” the man asked.
Duke reversed out into the Shed’s open lane and K-turned. Putting the engine in gear, he glanced over at his new buddy.
And found himself frowning. From underneath the brim of that ball cap, the eyes that met his own seemed … odd. And not just because one was cloudy.
For some reason, he thought of the psychic.
But she had been talking about a brunette woman, right?
“Out into the parks,” he heard himself say as he looked away and hit the gas.
He was losing his mind. Totally. Completely.
Bye-bye, birdie.
Chapter
Eleven
At six p.m. that evening, Jim ran out of cigarettes.
He’d started his vigil outside of Sissy’s bedroom with a full pack, but that had been hours and hours ago—although he couldn’t say he’d actually smoked all that much. Sitting across from her closed door, ass on the Oriental runner, back against the lath and plaster, he’d mostly just lit them and let them burn out.
Exhaling a curse, he ground his last one in the ashtray; then he braced his palms on the threadbare carpet. Punching upward, he hefted his weight up on his arms and let some fresh blood get down into his lower body.
She couldn’t be dead, he told himself. She was just asleep … resting … chilling in the room they’d moved her into.
She’d already died.
From out of nowhere, a Seinfeld episode came to mind: You can’t overdie; you can’t overdry.