Slow Burn

by Roxie Noir

  Johnston’s Barn isn’t really a barn, or at least, animals don’t live here any more. It’s owned by River County, so now it holds community events instead of horses.

  People wave at us as we walk in. Gabriel and I wave back, and within a few moments, we’re taking off our jackets and hugging people hello and talking about the crazy, late-in-the-season thunderstorm that hit a few days ago.

  Gabriel keeps his hand on my back the whole time, a habit he’s developed. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it, but I like it anyway. It’s sweet and protective and it makes me feel safe without ever being overbearing or controlling, like he’s got my back.

  Which he does.

  Minutes later, as we’re still talking about this crazy storm, I see our friend Ashton walking toward us carefully, three full plastic cups in his hands. He hands one to Gabriel, one to me, and keeps one for himself.

  “My treat,” he says, holding his hard cider up. “To three more weeks of Police Academy.”

  I grin and look over at Gabriel, holding up his cup.

  “Is this a test?” he asks Ashton.

  Ashton just laughs.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he jokes. “This week’s big challenge is getting the recruits blitzed at a square dance and then having you run five miles first thing in the morning.”

  “You would, you dirty bastard,” Gabriel laughs.

  “Knowing you, I’d wind up hungover as a motherfucker and you’d finish those five miles looking fresh as a goddamn daisy. Sorry for the language,” he says, looking at me and nodding bashfully.

  “I don’t even know what those words mean,” I deadpan, taking a sip, and Ashton laughs a little too loudly. It’s probably not his first cider.

  “Y’all see that huge old oak tree that got knocked across Old Lawyers Road during the storm the other night?” he asks, getting back to the topic on everyone’s minds. “Old Man Emerson called it in but the county said they couldn’t get to it ’til morning, too many power lines down and such, so once the storm ended me and Rob Junior went down there with some chainsaws and the winch on the back of his work truck....”

  After the cider, we get in the middle and dance. Since this event is specifically for beginners, the caller takes it slow and explains everything, so before long we’re whirling and turning the wrong way and bumping into people right along with everyone else.

  It’s a blast. Half the town of Conifer is there — senior citizens, people our age, kids, the whole nine yards — and it’s warm and friendly and downright enjoyable.

  Forty-five minutes in, all the dancers and the caller take a break, so we head off to the side to sit on a hay bale. Instead, Margaret and her husband Tom are standing over on the side, and when they see us, they wave us over.

  “Did you hear?” she asks, her voice hushed and quiet.

  My heart sinks and clenches, like it’s suddenly encased in iron bands.

  “Hear what?” I whisper.

  My mom’s dead. My dad’s dead. Something’s happened to one of my siblings; they kicked Zeke or Joy out onto the street; Grace’s husband left her...

  “Lilah,” she says, and takes my arm. “Come on.”

  Margaret leads me to a quiet corner of the barn, pulling her phone out. My heart’s hammering even though I’m relieved that my family is okay.

  “Is it something with the trial?” I ask, walking behind Margaret.

  Lilah’s trial finally started about two weeks ago. I wasn’t asked to testify, and didn’t really want to, but Gabriel was.

  I nearly had a panic attack at the thought of going back to Huntsburg, so I didn’t go with him. I felt awful about it, but he’s sworn up and down a million times that it’s fine.

  He also told me that the only member of Lilah’s family to show up for her trial was Lucas, along with his partner, and I had no idea how to feel about that. Somewhere between still angry and less angry and eventually forgiving but not just yet, I think.

  “Here,” Margaret says, finally standing close to a wall where there are less people. She holds out her phone to me and I take it. She’s got the Huntsburg Star-Ledger up on the tiny screen, and I swallow hard when I see the headline.

  Stalker Receives Hefty Prison Sentence

  HUNTSBURG, SC. — Despite the heartfelt pleas of some family members as well as her victim, Lilah Dawson, 24, was sentenced to seven years in prison, the maximum allowable sentence for aggravated stalking in South Carolina...

  I close my eyes and tilt my head back against the wall of the barn, tears pricking at my eyeballs. Margaret takes her phone back, shoves it in her pocket, and Gabriel pulls me in close, Margaret’s hand on my shoulder.

  Seven years in prison. I can’t even fathom it, and I can’t help but imagine if I had to spend seven years in prison without having ever had a job.

  It’s heart-wrenching. I feel nauseous, and I feel powerless, and I feel unbelievably guilty.

  “You tried,” Margaret said.

  “I should have gone down there instead of writing that letter,” I say.

  “You think that would have made a difference?” she says, rubbing my shoulder.

  I pull back from Gabriel and wipe my eyes, trying to breathe deep and control myself.

  “No,” I admit.

  “None of this is your fault,” he says.

  I sigh, still trying to get a hold of myself.

  “She thought that cricket chirps were a secret form of Morse Code that would give her the key to unlocking ancient spells hidden in the Bible,” I say. “She thought she could talk to angels. She shouldn’t be in prison, she should be getting help.”

  “I know,” Gabriel says, rubbing small circles on my back.

  “Lilah never had a chance,” I whisper. “Between my father and hers, she never had a fucking chance.”

  “And it’s not your fault, sweetheart,” Margaret says. “You did what you could.”

  “I could have done more.”

  “We talked about this,” she says, using her mom-voice. “She threatened your life, and you still went out on a limb to help her.”

  I sigh. I’m not sure writing a letter to the sentencing judge was exactly going out on a limb, but deep down, I know Margaret is right.

  It still sucks, though. I’m positive that my father had something to do with it, that after losing his election because of me he felt the need to control something, no matter what, and poor Lilah got to feel his wrath. He’s golf buddies with practically every judge in the state.

  We just stand there for a while, Gabriel rubbing my back on one side, Margaret with her hand on my shoulder. I’m incredibly lucky and I know it, because I’m here, with my boyfriend and my kinda-boss-kinda-mom in a town that I’ve come to absolutely love. I’m taking night classes at community college. I never ever wear pantyhose.

  But I know Lilah could have been me. If I’d had slightly different genetics, if I’d gotten unlucky in the mental health department, I could be going to prison and she could be here.

  Out on the dance floor, the caller steps up to the microphone.

  “All right, ladies and gents! Round two is set to start in just a few minutes here, so grab your partner and get on back to the dance floor...”

  “Come on,” Gabriel says.

  I sigh dramatically, yet again.

  “Don’t make me quote Theo,” he says, his voice gently teasing.

  Theo’s my therapist, a very nice sixty-something man who has reading glasses and accepts payments on a sliding scale. Sometimes Gabriel comes to our sessions, because he’s ten thousand times more supportive of a partner than I think I deserve.

  “‘Release everything you cannot control,’ or ‘guilt is a vampiric emotion’?” I ask.

  “I think both apply.”

  I make a face. He kisses the top of my head.

  “I’ll come dance, but I’m gonna feel bad about it,” I say, taking his hand.

  “I cannot control your feelings, and therefore I release th
em,” he says, serenely, as we walk toward the dance floor.

  I doze off in the car on the way back home, but I wake up when we stop.

  And then I realize we’re not at the cabin. We’re in Conifer’s tiny downtown, and since it’s nearly midnight everything is completely dark and closed.

  “Huh?” I ask.

  “C’mon,” he says, opening his door. “I want to show you something.”

  Groggy, I get out of the car. Gabriel takes my hand and we walk across the street to the grassy patio behind Bubba’s Good BBQ, the picnic tables where we ate the very first day we were here.

  He points to one, and we sit on the table, our feet on the seat, looking out at the park across the street and the stars above. The windows of the town glimmer darkly, and a breeze whispers around us. I’d be really nervous if he weren’t here, but he is.

  “You remember eating here, right?” he asks, my hand still in his.

  I just nod.

  “We had to buy you those horrible plastic flip flops from the drugstore because you left everything behind,” he goes on, blue eyes the color of midnight as they bore into me. “And then you sat here and told me that you had been afraid that you’d go back, because you knew that you were embarking into a big, cold, terrible world.”

  “I wasn’t,” I say softly, and squeeze his hand. “It’s actually not so bad.”

  Mostly because you’re here, I think.

  “I sat across from you and we ate ribs and I had no fucking clue what we were going to do,” he goes on. “We’d known each other for two weeks, I didn’t even know your middle name, you’d never had a job and I was afraid that your father was going to track you down and take you back by force—”

  “You never told me that,” I interject.

  “I decided to keep that particular fear to myself,” he says dryly.

  “That was probably a good idea.”

  “But even when everything was up in the air, I was totally, completely, a hundred percent fucking certain that I was supposed to be there, with you, even at this picnic table after you’d run away barefoot,” he goes on. “That hasn’t changed at all, and tonight, knowing what you’ve done for Lilah, just reminded me why you’re my favorite person.”

  My throat’s closing, my stomach clenching. I try to smile, but I think it might come out weird.

  “Gabriel...” I start, but I don’t know how to finish that sentence and just stare at him.

  He pulls something out of his pocket.

  It’s a small box.

  No, I think. No, no, no, please no, please please no.

  I feel like I might puke, and when Gabriel looks at me again, horror flicks across his face.

  “It’s not an engagement ring,” he blurts out.

  I take a deep breath, and Gabriel starts laughing.

  “Sorry, I didn’t think the box through,” he says, grinning.

  Now I’m laughing with relief, one elbow on my knees, face in one hand.

  “You have the worst reactions,” he teases.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just — I mean, you know.”

  “Of course I know,” he says, kissing me on the temple. “That’s why it’s not an engagement ring.”

  “It’s not you,” I tell him. “It’s not. You know that.”

  It’s that I’ve already been married once and that relationship was a hellscape. It’s that every marriage I witnessed until I moved to Conifer had a strict hierarchy, and they were all practically prisons for the wives. It’s that I was pretty much forced into it once, nearly forced into it again, and I just can’t handle thinking about it right now.

  Maybe someday. If I do get married again, it’ll be to Gabriel, but I need time.

  “I know that,” Gabriel says softly. “And you know I don’t give a shit whether we sign a piece of paper or not as long as you’re mine.”

  “I am,” I tell him, leaning my cheek against his shoulder.

  “Good,” he says. “Because I got you this promise ring to promise that I love you and I’ll always be here for you, and I’ll marry you if you ever want me to and I’ll stay your life partner forever if you want me to.”

  Gabriel pops open the box. Inside is small silver ring with a thin band, one small green gemstone in the middle. It’s not fancy and it definitely wasn’t expensive, but it is beautiful.

  “Getting you a ruby seemed too on-the-nose,” he says.

  I’m crying again, and I hold out my hand. Gabriel slides the ring onto my middle finger, then brings my hand to his lips and kisses it.

  “I love you,” I whisper. “There’s nobody else I’d ever want to be my life partner.”

  “I’m glad,” he says, grinning. “There’s no one else I’d ever want to horrify with a proposal.”

  I laugh, and Gabriel kisses me, softly at first and then deeper. Still sitting on the picnic table, our mouths move against each other slowly, his hand creeping up my thigh. We pull apart, pause, kiss again, and this time I curl my tongue against his.

  When we stop, I realize I’ve got one hand under his shirt. I pull it back as he nuzzles my ear.

  “Let’s go home before we wind up naked on this table,” he says in the voice that still sends shivers down my spine. “People will talk.”

  “We can’t have that,” I tease, but he stands, takes my hand, pulls me off the picnic table and we head for the car.

  Then we drive home, to the house that we share, the bed we share, the life we share, and I go to sleep with him curled around me and wake up to my hand in his.

  And it’s not perfect, but it’s all I could ever want.

  The End

  Need more Gabriel & Ruby?

  Sign up for my newsletter and get a special, subscriber-only bonus epilogue coming Friday, June 2!

  PLUS, you’ll get my friends-to-lovers novella, Dirty Sweet, totally free along with deals on new releases, giveaways, ARC offers, and no spam ever.

  Sign up right here!

  Acknowledgments

  This book — like all my books — is for Mr. Noir, because if it weren’t for him I’d have no idea how to write a love story. Here’s to this one and a whole bunch more.

  It’s also for the other authors who helped me out and kept me sane through a pretty dark winter: Jess, Kate, Anna, Viv, and Jojo; and it’s for the munchkins who’ve shown up in my life over the last few years. May you never open Aunt Roxie’s laptop, and if you do, may your parents never find out.

  And finally, OF COURSE, a big giant hug for the Roxettes, the best damn group of readers any author could possibly want. You’re a bunch of hilarious badasses and I love you for it.

  Come join The Roxettes, my Facebook group!

  We’ve got giveaways, ARC offers, sneak peeks, pictures of hot men, and much, much more.

  Get in here!

  No feelings. No strings. No falling for anyone.

  It’s a simple enough transaction - Marisol needs the money, and I need a nice girl to parade in front of the cameras.

  I’ve been clean for months, but my record company’s not satisfied. Apparently it isn’t enough to only kick a heroin addiction - they’re insisting that I find a girlfriend as well.

  If I don’t, they pull Dirtshine’s massive record deal.

  It’s supposed to show that I’ve changed my ways, that I’ve turned over a new leaf, all that rubbish. But I’ve had it with suit-wearing wankers telling me what I’m to do, so I’m on the verge of telling them to go f*ck themselves.

  And then she shows up.

  Marisol locks me out of my own concert by accident. She’s wearing a suit at a rock show, searching for her lost law school textbook, has no idea who I am…

  ...and for the first time in years, I’m hooked.

  Get Never Enough now!

  Some fairy tales start after midnight.

  The crown prince and I have nothing in common.

  He's a rugged, battle-hardened soldier who spent four years in an elite military unit. I met the K
ing and Queen for the first time wearing leggings and a sweatshirt.

  But there's the way he looks at me, eyes blazing with hunger. Like he knows every dirty thought I've had about him - and he likes them.

  I don't know how long I can resist.

  Get it now on Amazon, or FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

  Jackson Cody nearly ruined my life.

  I was dumb, drunk, and eighteen. He was a rodeo star with a smile that could melt steel, and I was this close to giving him everything.

  I learned my lesson, grew up, and moved on. Now I’ve got my first huge assignment as a photographer, and if I play it right, this rodeo shoot could make my whole career.

  There’s just one problem, and it’s got spurs, boots, and hazel eyes.

  Get it now on Amazon, or free with Kindle Unlimited!

  Join the Roxettes, my Facebook group!

  Facebook

  Instagram

  Twitter

  Bookbub

  Pinterest

  About Roxie

  I love writing sexy, alpha men and the headstrong women they fall for.

  My weaknesses include: beards, whiskey, nice abs with treasure trails, sarcasm, cats, prowess in the kitchen, prowess in the bedroom, forearm tattoos, and gummi bears.

  I live in California with my very own sexy, bearded, whiskey-loving husband and two hell-raising cats.

  roxienoir

  www.roxienoir.com

  roxie.noir@gmail.com