The Red Ledger, Book 6

by Meredith Wild

  The Red Ledger

  6

  MEREDITH WILD

  This book is an original publication of Meredith Wild.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2018 Meredith Wild

  Cover Design by Meredith Wild

  Cover photographs: Alamy & Shutterstock

  * * *

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Continue The Red Ledger

  Also by Meredith Wild

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Isabel

  Perdido Key, Florida

  A cloak of misty gray fog hovers at the water’s edge, hiding the horizon of endless sea. Uneven wooden pickets pierce the dunes on either side of the narrow path that leads from the cottage to the beach. I brace my hands on the deck’s rail and think about venturing down to the water to explore. The fog is comforting for the anonymity it offers, but eerie too. Though I haven’t had the luxury lately of being able to see more than a few steps ahead anyway.

  After a morning of goodbyes and loose planning, Tristan and I pulled away from New Orleans with the aim to find a quiet place to hide away for a while. I’m eager to put distance between us and what happened. Martine’s death. Bones’s murder. Facing my own death and the revelations around Tristan’s memories. It all seems like an awful nightmare I can’t shake.

  I close my eyes and concentrate on the waves rolling in. Little by little, the rhythm works against the panic that’s stitched itself into even my resting thoughts. I’m tired. I should go inside and catch some sleep, but I don’t trust my dreams. Tristan’s fatigue took hold moments after we arrived. I’m certain whatever drugs Townsend gave him to even the fight is the cause.

  A week here may not be enough to restore what’s been lost.

  Maybe it’s the events of the past couple of days or the years of desiring a real life with Tristan that does it… Either way, I feed a little fantasy that the beach house isn’t just a pit stop on the journey, but that it’s ours. Mentally I pick new colors for the little bedrooms and spruce up the outdated beach-inspired furnishings. I make a plan to fix the sticky slider that opens to the deck. I take in a deep breath of ocean air and imagine what it might be like to have coffee out here in the mornings, just the two of us.

  I pretend this is home.

  That quickly, I recognize how foolish my thoughts are. Reality is a painful strike against the fleeting moment of relief.

  I open my eyes, leave the deck, and take the sandy path to the water. The salty mist cools my skin as I walk. When the chilly waves crash over my feet, I absorb the discomfort and let myself sink in place. Looking around, I can see more than before. The waves breaking in the distance. A low-flying pelican. Behind me, the beach house with its fern-colored siding is barely visible.

  Situated on a remote stretch of the Gulf, the house sits high on stilts that elevate it above the sand, almost defiantly ready for the storms that batter these shores.

  I walk back a few steps and plunk onto the sand. I drop my head in my hands and wait for the crippling wave of emotion that’s now long overdue. I prepare myself to give in to it and savor the relief of having cried my heart out. But my eyes don’t sting. Everything hurts, but that telltale prickling doesn’t show up. The tears don’t come.

  Maybe tears can’t heal these new wounds.

  “You okay?”

  I draw my hands away and claw them into the sand as I jolt back. A few feet away stands a young man. The first thing I notice is his hair—light blond and matted into long, messy dreads that frame his face and his deep-set brown eyes. Every inch of his skin is burned a dark golden from hours, maybe days, in the sun.

  He shifts on his feet, resituating the straps of his large pack over his shoulders. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to sneak up on you. This fog is crazy, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I exhale a shaky sigh. “Is it like this a lot?”

  “Don’t know, really. I’m just passing through.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  He shifts the weight of the pack again before easing it off his back and onto the sand. “Heading to the Keys. You mind?” He gestures to the sandy spot between me and the pack.

  I hesitate a little because I’m still shell-shocked from recent events. But nothing about this guy is setting off alarms. Plus this is hardly a private beach. If I don’t like his company, I can walk a few yards to the house and wait for him to pass through.

  “Go ahead.”

  He drops down as I answer, reclines onto his back with a relieved grunt, and tucks his hands behind his head. He lifts an eyebrow and tilts his head toward me. “Bad day?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I hear ya. I’ve been going pretty hard the past few days. Weather’s coming in, and I was hoping to make it over the bay before it caught up to me.”

  “Are you close?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do you have a map?”

  “Yeah, I check it every once in a while. I don’t mind taking my time, though. Should be fine either way. Plenty of piers between here and there I can camp under if the water doesn’t get too rough.”

  He closes his eyes with a sigh, and I get the sense he doesn’t really care if I’m here or not, which is an odd relief. The comfortable silence with a complete stranger is a pleasant distraction from my own troubling thoughts. After a few minutes, he pops up on his elbow, his gaze suddenly bright.

  “Hey, do you happen to know what day it is?”

  I smile a little at his obviously lax attitude toward time and circumstances and pull my phone from my pocket. “March thirtieth.”

  He grins with a relaxed bob of his head. “Cool.”

  I’m ready to put the phone away when it hits me. “Oh, wow.”

  “What?”

  I laugh softly. “I just realized something.” I shake my head a little and stand. “Sorry, I have to go.”

  He looks up at me, not moving. “Nice to meet you. I hope your day gets better.”

  “Thanks. I think it will. I hope you beat the weather.”

  “No worries. I’m Caleb, by the way,” he says, waving me off.

  “I’m Isabel.”

  TRISTAN

  “Tristan.” Her moan breaks free like a forbidden thing.

  Everything about what we’re doing is forbidden and likely to get us in a world of trouble if her parents catch us. Too bad I don’t care.

  Not when Isabel’s falling apart under me. Her eyes slip closed. Her body grips me everywhere. I’m consumed by her pleasure. I’ve never witnessed anything more breathtaking than the expression on her face when I make her come. I’ve never felt anything this intense. Then again, I’ve never been this in love.

  The persistent spring wind drags branches across her bedroom win
dow, their rustling mingling with her quiet whimpers. Nothing but the two of us drowning in each other. I sweep my lips across hers and swallow the sound of my name on her lips, over and over…

  “Tristan. Tristan, wake up.”

  I blink awake. Isabel’s sitting at my side, her hand resting gently on my shoulder. I take a few uneven breaths and slowly separate the erotic dream from the real-life Isabel who seems oblivious to it all. I look around the room and remember where we are—our little hideaway on the beach.

  “Is everything all right?”

  Her smile answers for her. I rub my eye with the heel of my hand.

  “What? Why are you smiling like that?”

  Her tongue peeks between her teeth and her eyes glitter.

  Between the vivid dream and this burst of happiness in her, she’s irresistible. I pull her down onto me and drag my hands up her sides.

  “You woke me up from a really nice dream. You’d better explain yourself.”

  She giggles. I cherish the sound and the delicate softness of her body. And now I’m preoccupied with eliciting more of those sounds and worshiping all her perfect curves. I roll my hips against hers, unable to resist the pleasurable friction between us.

  She nips at her bottom lip. “You’ve been having a lot of those dreams.”

  I roll us so I’m above her. “How can you blame me? I think some of my best memories might have been forged with you under me.”

  The line of her body bends slightly, molding our torsos together a little more. “That might be true.”

  I bend to kiss her, slowly and deeply, intent on merging reality with the dream and making new memories of her crying out my name. But even as I start to lose myself in her taste and her scent and her heavenly body, I recognize she came in here and woke me up for something else.

  “Why did you wake me up? Did something happen?”

  Her lips twitch a little. “Do you have any idea what day it is?”

  I frown. “No. Does it matter?”

  She smiles again. “It’s your birthday.”

  I still and take that in. I haven’t celebrated a birthday since I became Tristan Red. But Isabel seems so overjoyed with this news, I try to muster some enthusiasm for her sake.

  “Thanks for remembering,” I say, though it sounds flat out loud.

  Isabel doesn’t seem to notice.

  “I woke you up because I didn’t want you to sleep the whole day away. We should do something.”

  I try even harder to get on board with her excitement. “It’s not a big deal. It’s just another day.”

  She widens her eyes and smacks her palm against my bare chest. “It is a big deal. And we’re going to do something.”

  I shift against her and dip down to nibble at her collarbone. “I thought we were doing something.”

  “We have all day for that.”

  “Oh good,” I hum and go lower to suck her nipples through her shirt until they pebble for me.

  She inhales sharply and pushes at my shoulders at once. “Tristan, I’m serious. I want to do something special.”

  I sigh and reluctantly entertain her request. “Okay. Like what?”

  “We could go out to dinner. There must be some nice places along the water here.”

  I glance out the bedroom door to the foggy shore. “Not much of a view. Plus I don’t really want to have dinner with a bunch of random people when I’d rather just be with you.”

  She keeps tugging on her lower lip, which does nothing for my resolve.

  “What’s your favorite food?”

  I lift my eyebrows. “I’m not picky. I’ll eat pretty much anything.”

  “What if I cook for you? We need to get groceries for the house anyway. I’ll whip up something special for dinner. And it’ll just be us.” She threads her fingers into my hair. “It’ll be normal.”

  The promise of commemorating my birthday or spending a night in with her doesn’t sway me. The last wish on her lips does, though, because she needs something normal more than I need anything. I recognize the dimming in her eyes. The wordless sadness that got heavier the farther we drove away from New Orleans and everything that happened there. Things we still haven’t talked about…

  I trail my fingertip down the bridge of her nose and kiss her softly. “That sounds perfect.”

  I really want to keep her trapped here beneath me so I can make love to her for hours, but somehow I know that as amazing as that would be, she needs this more. And the more I think about a home-cooked meal, the hungrier I realize I am.

  So I let her shimmy away. She tosses my shirt at me with a smirk. “Come on, sleepyhead. Let’s get domestic.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Isabel

  I scramble around the kitchen and do my best with the cheap appliances and sparse kitchenware available in the rental.

  “Can I help?”

  I turn around, and Tristan is standing between the kitchen and the largely empty living room. The fans whirring from the vaulted ceiling make shadows on his face. He’s barefoot and holding a glass of white wine in his hand. The vision is totally foreign and one hundred percent welcome. I save the snapshot in my head for when I need a reminder of what I want.

  “No, I’ve got this. Go drink your wine and relax, birthday boy.”

  He twists his lips and watches me take the baked fish out of the oven.

  I shoot him a glare. “Seriously. Go away. You’re making me nervous.”

  “All right,” he mutters and walks onto the deck.

  This crappy kitchen is stressing me out, but I’m determined to make Tristan a special birthday dinner. About fifteen minutes later, I’ve managed to plate up some decent-looking seafood tacos and a fresh side salad. Hopefully they taste okay. Presentation is half the battle, so I take stock in that, pour myself a glass of wine, and join Tristan outside with our plates. We settle at the little table, positioning both our chairs next to each other so they face the sunset and a much clearer view of the ocean. I can’t help but smile. Even if the food is awful, everything else feels too close to perfect.

  Tristan holds my gaze a moment before leaning in to kiss me. “Thank you.”

  My heart does something explosive at the intimacy of it all. Then he distracts me by lifting his glass to mine.

  “To our first date,” he says.

  I laugh. “I guess I’ll never forget our anniversary now.”

  “Which means I’ll never forget my birthday again.”

  We both laugh and drink our wine like we do this all the time. It feels surreal and wonderful.

  We’re starving, so we dive right in.

  “Wow, this is awesome,” he says with his mouth full.

  I take a bite and am relieved the meal is not only edible but tasty. “Not bad. I guess I managed to remember a few things my mom taught me in the kitchen.”

  “This is probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” He hesitates a minute, finishing another bite. “Except maybe cut my ropes with tiny scissors.”

  The corner of his mouth lifts. I’m glad he’s too focused on his food to meet my eyes, because the injection of reality throws me off balance. I swallow down a big gulp of wine and am grateful when the conversation shifts to the horizon, the wanderer I met on the beach earlier, and wondering whether he made it over the bridge. Easier topics. Convenient snippets that fit into the fantasy I’m clinging to now like a desperate belief in Santa and magic.

  Tristan clears the plates and comes back with the bottle, refreshing our glasses. The sky changes colors, from pink and orange to a deep purple that almost matches the water. He takes my hand and holds it firmly in his.

  “You can talk to me about what happened, you know.”

  I tense my jaw and look at him, silently begging him not to go down this road. I already tried crying it out. It didn’t work. I’m fine. I’m going to be fine…

  “I know it’s probably eating away at you. Maybe you think this is normal stuff for me. I just want you to kn
ow, I’ve been in some pretty awful situations, but that was probably the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. At least that I can remember.”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it.” I take a deep breath and refocus on the dying sunset. It’s bland now. All its magic has been eaten up by the impending nightfall. Just like our perfect birthday dinner. Poof.

  “Isabel…”

  I pull my hand from his, walk to the other side of the deck, and stare at the rolling waves.

  I hear his chair push back and then his quiet steps toward me. I feel his heat. A gentle sweep of his hand down my back. I close my eyes when he wraps his arms around me from behind.

  “You were incredibly brave. I hate that you had to be, but it’s over now. You’re allowed to let yourself feel things.”

  “Regret? Disgust? Pure horror? No thanks. I’m bottling it all up just fine. It’s not like we have time to put me on a therapy couch to deal with it properly anyway.”

  “Maybe we don’t, but no one’s trying to hurt us now. You can bring the walls down and talk to me.”

  I don’t know what to say. Maybe bottling it all up is a huge mistake and I’m setting myself up for a massive breakdown. But the harder this armor around me gets, the more I appreciate it.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being stronger,” I finally say, the words themselves lacking the strength I’m hoping to convey.

  He turns me slowly in his arms and tilts my chin up for me to look at him. “You were strong before. I’m different from who I was before I met you, but I don’t have the capacity to feel things the way you do. I think it’s something that got stripped away with my memory. I don’t know how to explain it except I recognize that you should be more upset than you’re letting on, but if I were in your shoes, I’d probably react the same way. That’s not necessarily normal or healthy.”