Glitter and Grit

by Jessie Evans

  Reece turned to face him, chest tightening as she realized why he’d been so unusually guarded since last night. He really did want her to stay. And that was even more reason to find his dad ASAP.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Reece said, laying a hand on Grayson’s back. “I’m going to stay and do whatever I can to help you through this. It’s what I’d do if you were just a friend, let alone the nicest man I’ve ever met.”

  “He really is the nicest man,” Layla piped up from the backseat. “So don’t break his heart, okay? Or then we can’t be friends and I’m starting to like having you around.”

  “I’m a big boy, sis,” Grayson said, glancing at Layla in the rearview. “I don’t need anyone to make threats on my behalf.”

  Reece glanced over her shoulder at Layla. “I don’t plan on breaking anyone’s heart, but you have permission to kick my ass if I do.”

  Layla nodded seriously. “That sounds fair, but do try not to. I don’t have many friends and I’d like to keep any new ones I manage to acquire.”

  “Speaking of friends…” Reece pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket and stabbed out a quick text. “Cole was supposed to call me about grabbing a game of pool yesterday or the day before and he never did, that turd.”

  “Cole Lawson?” Layla asked, a stilted note in her voice that made Reece think Layla and Cole must have had a falling out. The two of them used to be tight back in school—both were in the advanced classes and worked after school at the barn together—but people changed.

  “Yeah, he gave me a ride home from the hospital the other day.” Reece sent the text asking Cole to call her when he had a minute in his busy schedule and dropped her phone in the cup holder. “He said he wanted to catch up, but something more interesting must have come along. Probably something in a short skirt, I’m guessing.”

  Layla made a noncommittal sound. “I don’t know. Cole was always a good friend. He’ll probably call and explain what happened sooner or later.”

  Reece shrugged. “Maybe. If not, I’ll have plenty of time to catch up with him now that I’m sticking around for a while.”

  “About that,” Layla said. “I was thinking I could move into Dad’s old bedroom downstairs. That way you can have the room next to Grayson’s. I know you two are all kissy-kissy, and you probably won’t sleep there. But at least you’ll have a closet of your own and a place to close the door when my brother starts to get on your nerves.”

  Grayson scowled. “You don’t have to do that, Layla. I don’t want you to feel like you have to shift your life around right when you’re getting settled.”

  “Yeah,” Reece agreed. “I don’t have enough clothes to fill up more than a drawer or two, and if I get annoyed with Grayson, I’ll lock him out of his bedroom and make him sleep on the couch.”

  Grayson grabbed her leg above the knee, hitting that ticklish spot that made her squeal and her entire body spasm.

  “Stop it,” Reece said, slapping his hand before she pushed him away. “You’re driving, psycho. Behave.”

  “Just remember, if you lock me out after we fight, then we won’t have the chance to make up,” Grayson said, hands returning to the wheel. “And I’m really good at making up.”

  “Which is why I’m moving downstairs,” Layla said dryly. “I don’t want to hear you two ‘making up’ or any of the other things you decide to do in Grayson’s room. I’ll take my excellent hearing downstairs, thank you.”

  They spent a few more minutes discussing the logistics of the move and when Reece would start helping open up the barn to new clients before moving on to a list of groceries Grayson wanted to pick up before he and Layla headed home. Surprisingly, however, the conversation didn’t arouse any of the anxiety Reece was expecting. Even when Grayson reminded her that they would need to hold off on advertising for boarders until the media frenzy blew over, she didn’t rethink her decision to stick around.

  Even with Neil back from the dead and her and Grayson’s fledgling relationship growing more complicated with every passing day, moving in with him still felt right. She wanted to make new memories at the Parker ranch—happy, blissful memories with Grayson—and put the darkness of the past behind her. She’d wasted too many years running. It was time to put all the old pain and fear to rest. Physically, she was still weak, but mentally she felt tougher than she had in years.

  Knowing Grayson had her back made her feel safer, stronger.

  She’d always rolled her eyes at women who said they didn’t know what they’d do without the man in their lives, but now she was beginning to understand where they were coming from. She didn’t need Grayson to lean on to get by, but it was nice knowing that he was standing beside her, ready to lift his weapon if she got too tired to hold hers. And she was there for him, too, something she intended to prove to him as they got through the crazy days until his dad was found together.

  “I’ll be over as soon as I pack the rest of my things,” she promised as Grayson pulled up in front of her parents’ house. “If the reporters are still there, I’ll park down the road and walk through the woods to the house.”

  “Don’t do that,” Grayson said. “Just call me and I’ll come open the gate. I don’t want you walking around the woods by yourself. I doubt my dad is camped out on our property, since it’s been crawling with cops for the past few days, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  Reece laughed. “Okay.”

  Grayson smiled. “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing,” Reece said with a shrug as she reached for the door. “I’m coming to peace with your bossy side, that’s all.”

  “It’s my worried-about-you side,” Grayson said, holding her gaze as she hopped down to the ground. “Be careful and call me when you leave the house. I’ll come wait by the gate so I can bring you right in.”

  “All right,” Reece said with a smile. “See you soon.” She closed the door and started toward the house, her throat tight with emotion.

  She didn’t like the thought of being apart from Grayson, even for half an hour. She was quickly becoming hooked on his strong hugs, his sexy smell, and the intoxicating mixture of excitement and comfort that filled her whenever they were together. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel alone, and it was a sensation even more addictive than his kisses.

  It would also be terrifying if she didn’t suspect that Grayson felt the same way. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in the way he touched her like something he couldn’t believe he’d found and would be devastated to lose. She understood the feeling. She hadn’t realized how spare and cold her interior world had become until she met Grayson, but now, she couldn’t imagine going back to business as usual. She didn’t want to be that person anymore. Even if things didn’t work out with Grayson, she would be moving on with a very different mindset when it came to relationships.

  But she didn’t want to think about moving on right now. She didn’t want to move on, she wanted to get closer to this man who fascinated and challenged her. It was crazy and fast, but also felt…right. So right that not even the gray winter day or the knowledge that Neil was out there somewhere, alive and well, could bring her down.

  She practically floated into the house, humming beneath her breath as she hung up her coat and hat and kicked off her boots. She hurried into the kitchen with a spring in her step, mentally cataloging everything she needed to get together to head over to Grayson’s. She was so focused on remembering to fold the load of jeans in the dryer and grab her shampoo from the bathroom that when she saw the dark red tacky spot on the kitchen floor it took a long moment for her brain to shift gears.

  By the time she realized that someone must have been in the house and that the spot on the floor looked like dried blood, a voice was calling out from her parents’ bedroom.

  “Reece? Is that you? If it is, you have to get out of here. Right now!”

  “Cole?” Reece called out, her pulse leaping as she stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen,
the need to go to her friend warring with the need to honor the urgency in Cole’s voice.

  “Run! Get out of here,” he cried out again. “Get the police. But be careful. He’s got one of your dad’s guns.”

  Her flight response suddenly overcame her frozen one. She had a good idea which “he” Cole was talking about, even before she spun to find Neil Parker standing between her and the front door, holding one of her father’s shotguns trained on her chest.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Reece

  “I need you to stop right there.” Neil sounded even rougher than he looked and that was pretty damned rough. “You picked a bad time to come home, honey.”

  This was not the handsome, confident, master-of-all-he-surveyed Neil Parker that Reece remembered from growing up at the barn or the terrifying, cold-eyed man who had pinned her against a wall. This Neil was faded, weathered, like a dollar bill left out in the rain. His pale blue eyes were bloodshot and his usually tidy silver-streaked black hair hung in greasy chunks around his wrinkled face. He had the beginnings of a mangy beard, was wearing jeans two sizes too small, and his hands were shaking so badly the barrel of the gun wavered up and down, from Reece’s head to her gut and back again.

  She stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen, her heart slamming against her ribs, praying that Neil’s fingers were steadier than the rest of him. If not, he might end up accidentally pulling the trigger, even if she did exactly what he told her to do.

  “It’s been so long,” he said, his eyes shining. “But you’re just as pretty as you were when you were a girl. And you still have that fire in your eyes. I knew the minute I put you on that stallion when you were seven and you took off across the field like you owned the place that you were going to be unstoppable.”

  “Let me go, Neil.” Reece’s hands balled at her sides. If Neil thought she was up for a trip down memory lane he was crazier than he looked. “Let me and Cole both go, and I’ll give you an hour’s head start before I call the police.”

  Neil pulled in a shaky breath. “I went to see you last time you were in Houston. I knew you wouldn’t want to see me, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to watch my best student ride.”

  Reece clenched her jaw, fighting to keep her expression impassive though the thought of Neil lurking in the stands, while she’d been oblivious to his presence, made her skin crawl.

  “You placed second,” he continued. “But I couldn’t have been prouder if you’d won a national title. You’ve got a seat unlike anything I’ve ever seen, girl. You’ve really done well for yourself. You should be so proud, honey.”

  “I’m leaving now,” Reece said coldly. “I’m going to move past you on the right and go out the front door. Send Cole out after me.”

  Neil shifted the gun, stopping Reece before she’d taken two steps toward the door. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just need a safe place to hide for a day or two.”

  “You’re not safe anywhere in Lonesome Point,” Reece snapped. “The town is crawling with reporters and federal agents. You missed your chance to get out. It’s only a matter of time now, Neil. You’re going to get caught; it’s just a matter of how. The best thing you can do is call the police and turn yourself in without hurting anyone.”

  Neil shook his head and the shine faded from his tired eyes. “No, it’s going to be okay. I just need to wait it out. I’ve got a buddy setting me up with a new identity, new bank account, the whole works. He knows this is a goddamn witch hunt.”

  He ran a trembling hand through his greasy hair. “I don’t know what kind of country this is anymore, when the government can hack into a man’s computer and use his private property as evidence to take away his freedom. It isn’t right. I never hurt a soul.”

  “I heard about the pictures on your computer,” Reece said softly, edging back toward the kitchen counter. “You hurt those girls.”

  “It’s not like that.” A frown pulled at his tired face, making him look even more haggard. “It’s not a crime to look. If it were, every man in this country would be behind bars.”

  “It is a crime.” Reece held his gaze even as she searched the counter for a weapon in her peripheral vision. “Every time you downloaded one of those pictures, you gave the people exploiting those kids a reason to keep abusing them. It’s child abuse, Neil. Some of those girls were barely eleven years old.”

  “They aren’t as young as they look,” he said, clearly determined to remain in denial. “And I never touched a girl under eighteen. You know that yourself.”

  A sour taste flooded Reece’s mouth as memories from that day at the barn flashed through her mind—the empty look in Neil’s eyes, the smell of peanuts on his breath as he pinned her to the wall, and how cold and rough his fingers were when he pinched her nipples hard enough to make her cry out in pain. But for the first time, the memories didn’t make her scared or furious or ashamed. They made her sick.

  She hadn’t been wearing a bra that day. She’d had no reason to. Until she’d hit her twenties, she’d barely had enough up top to fill out an A cup. She’d come into her Cs later in life. Back then, she’d been a scrawny kid who put on her miracle bra when she went out on a date and skipped over second base because she didn’t want anyone to discover how almost pancake flat she still was. It had been a source of incredible frustration to her teenaged self—to feel like she was becoming a woman and still be stuck in the body of a little girl.

  When Neil attacked her, she might have technically been eighteen, but she still looked like a child. What he’d tried to do was a crime no matter what she’d looked like or how old she’d been, but realizing she’d become his victim because she was petite and behind the rest of the girls in her class developmentally made it that much more monstrous. People who preyed on other human beings were bad enough, but predators who singled out the weak and the innocent were the lowest of the low, the sickest of the sick.

  Neil was sick—looking into his eyes and seeing denial so deep she could throw a penny in and never hear it hit bottom assured her of that. And the fact that he could bring up her near rape like it was an insignificant memory they both shared was all the evidence she needed that he was beyond redemption. A man who couldn’t see his own sins couldn’t repent for them, and if Neil evaded capture she had no doubt he’d go right back to buying depraved pictures of little girls and worse.

  And so Reece silently made a decision. If she had the chance, she’d shoot Neil before she’d let him run. She was an excellent shot. She could take him down without killing him and make sure he was waiting in a puddle of his own blood when the police arrived.

  But what if you’re not as good as you think you are? Even if the police believe it was self-defense, you’ll always be the woman who killed Grayson’s father. Do think you two will have a future with you carrying something like that around for the rest of your life?

  Her heart said, yes, that Grayson would understand. Her head said it didn’t matter because making sure Neil didn’t hurt anyone else was the right thing to do. And her gut said she might have no other choice. People desperate enough to take hostages were often desperate enough to kill them, too.

  Putting Neil in a puddle of his own blood might be the only way she walked out of here alive.

  “If you’re not going to let me leave, can I check on Cole?” she asked, thinking of the hand gun her dad used to keep in his bedside table, wondering if her old man was still as paranoid about people breaking in while he was sleeping as he was when she was growing up. “I want to make sure he’s okay.”

  Neil nodded and motioned with the gun. “Go ahead. He’s tied up in your mama and daddy’s bedroom. I’ll tie you in the chair next to him.”

  “You’re going to tie me up?” Reece forced a laugh as she headed toward the bedroom. “Don’t think you can handle a girl who weighs a hundred and change?”

  “I know I can’t,” Neil said, clearly not amused. “I haven’t slept in days and I remember
the way you fought. Never had any girl fight like that.”

  Reece swallowed against the wave of acid his words sent rushing up her throat. There were others. Of course there were. She should have known. She wondered how many. And how many she might have spared if she’d had the guts to stay in town and insist to her parents and the police and anyone else who would listen that her side of the story was the truth.

  But she knew the facts about rape cases, let alone attempted rape. Even if there was indisputable evidence in a rape kit, the accused might walk free for years. Or forever. There were over half a million untested rape kits sitting in police stations across the United States. Some of them had been sitting so long that the statute of limitations had expired and the cases dismissed without a trial. Literally half a million accused rapists were walking free because the American justice system cared that little about a woman’s body and spirit and the way both were scarred forever after a rape.

  Chances are that Reece insisting on having her truth heard wouldn’t have made a damned bit of difference. But it still hurt her heart to think of the girls who had been too terrified to fight back. She knew why they’d given in. She’d nearly stopped fighting, too, but in the end her own lack of self-preservation instincts had worked for her that time. She’d known there was a chance that a man who was trying to rape her might very well kill her if she made things too difficult for him, but she hadn’t cared. She would have rather died back then, and she would rather die now.

  But a woman shouldn’t have to make a choice between being raped and being killed, and if she had her way, Neil wouldn’t be forcing that choice upon anyone else ever again. Adrenaline dumped into her bloodstream as she neared her parents’ bedroom, her mind racing as she tried to think of a way to distract Neil long enough to go for the handgun she hoped was still in the bedside table drawer.