He pulled away. “I won’t call you again. You’ve made your choice. I’ll respect it.”
She felt the pain inside her, like something had shattered. But what else could she do? He was a hard, horrible man. Her love for him was a curse. It was going to destroy her and everything she’d ever cared about. She could tell.
She fled from him, back to Eli, half afraid he’d be suspicious. Half hoping he would be. But he only asked if she’d enjoyed her ice cream.
She told him she’d eaten it too fast, and that she missed the sweetness, because everything tasted bitter to her right now.
2013
Thera woke up to find herself tied to the bed. Linton was sitting over her, smiling a strange smile at her.
“The problem was that they were deformed, you see,” he said.
Thera struggled, testing her bonds. They were strong.
“My father and your mother,” he continued. “My father says that they shared the same soul. And that must have been the problem, don’t you think? They each only had half a soul. Why else would they have done the things they did?”
“Linton, why did you tied me up?”
Linton caressed her face. “Your mother broke him when she chose Eli. She sent Heath right into the arms of my mother. If your mother hadn’t done that, then I would never have been born. And every day since I can remember, my father has told me that it would be better if I hadn’t. He hates me so much.”
“Untie me. Please?”
Linton’s fingers traveled over her chin and neck. “I hate him too, of course.”
Revulsion shot through her.
“He told me to stay away from you. But I didn’t help to steal you for his benefit. I did it for me.” His hand slid inside her shirt.
“Linton, I am your cousin. Please, don’t—”
“What’s this?” Linton pulled out her locket.
She’d forgotten it was there. She was grateful that something had distracted him, however. “It’s my locket. My father gave it to me. There’s a picture of him on one side and my mother on the other.”
“Really?” Linton opened the locket. He peered down at the pictures. “You do look just like her. It’s uncanny. But I look like Uncle Eli, I think.” He set the locket down on her chest, still open. “Let’s play a game of pretend, Thera. Let’s pretend that you’re your mother, and I’m Uncle Eli.”
She didn’t like the sound of that one bit. Sweat began to gather in the creases of her skin. She needed to stop him. She wasn’t sure what he had planned, but she had an idea, and she was terrified. “Linton, don’t you think we’re too old for games like that?”
He touched the locket. “Well, I didn’t have much of a childhood, cousin, so humor me.” His hands moved away from the locket, outside of her shirt, over the swell of her breast.
“Don’t!” Terror went through her like a jolt.
Linton giggled. “Don’t,” he mocked her, his hand covering her breast. He squeezed it.
It hurt. She cried out in fear and pain and panic.
The door opened. “What’s going on in here?” Heath stalked into the room.
Linton’s eyes grew wide. He stood up and ran for the door.
Heath caught him and hurled him down onto the floor. “You perverted little shit. She’s your cousin, for fuck’s sake.”
Linton went sprawling and whimpered. “That hurt, Father. Why are you always hurting me?”
Heath sneered at Linton. “Is it going to cry again?” He kicked the boy in the stomach. “Maybe I should give it something to cry about.”
Linton’s eyes bulged at the impact. And then he did start crying. Fat tears squeezed out of his blue eyes. “Why, Father, why?”
But Heath was no longer interested in Linton. He crossed to Thera, sat down on the bed, and began to untie her. “I’ll take away his key. He won’t get in to bother you again.”
Thera was still shaking.
Linton, seeing that his father was otherwise occupied, got up and hurried from the room, still crying.
Heath freed both of her hands.
She shook them, trying to get circulation to come back into them.
Then Heath stopped. He touched the open locket on her chest. “What’s this?”
“It’s my locket.”
Heath snatched it up and ripped it off her, breaking the chain.
She let out a little cry and touched the back of her neck where the chain had dug into her skin before giving way. “Please, it’s my only picture of her. Don’t take it.”
“With him? You wear her around your neck with him?”
“He’s my father.”
Heath snapped the locket in two. He put the picture of Cathy in his pocket. He dropped the other picture on the ground and stepped on it with his heel.
Cathy heard the delicate metal crunch. She glared up at him. “You’re horrible. Deep down, there’s nothing in you but nastiness. No wonder my mother didn’t choose you.”
Heath busied himself with the ropes at her feet. “Your mother chose your father because he was rich and white and blond. And because, unfortunately, he managed to accidentally put you in her belly. If it hadn’t been for you—”
“My mother would never have chosen you,” Thera said.
Heath slapped her.
Thera cried out. But she gazed up at him in defiance. “She must have seen inside you and known that you were nothing but a monster.”
“Careful, Catherine,” said Heath, raising his hand again. “Next time, I’ll strike harder.”
“Stop.”
Thera looked up. Gage was in the doorway. He wasn’t wearing his baseball cap. His hair was down in long, dark waves, and he was glaring at Heath.
Heath stood up and looked at him.
They were like mirror images of each other. Their features weren’t the same, but their demeanor and the way they looked at each other was. They stared each other down like wild dogs.
“You said you didn’t want her hurt.” Gage stalked into the room and positioned himself between Thera and Heath.
Heath had turned to face him. He was still staring Gage down.
Gage broke the stare to glance down at Thera. “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
Gage looked back at Heath. But a shadow crossed Heath’s face, and he was looking at the both of them differently now. He shook himself, and then he left the room, his shoulders sagging.
Gage untied her feet. “I told you to yell for me.”
“I…” This close, he smelled strongly of soap. He’d taken a bath, she realized. Without the dingy baseball cap, he was really very nice to look at. His dark hair was glossy and wavy and it fell around his powerful shoulders. “I didn’t think about it, I guess.”
“Make sure you do if anything happens again,” said Gage. “Call out my name. Call it loud.” He got up from the bed.
She sat up. “Gage? If you don’t want them to hurt me, then why won’t you help me leave?”
He shook his head. “Can’t do that to Heath.”
“But he’s horrible.”
“He’s not completely horrible,” said Gage. “He’s always been good to me. He took me in after my stepfather committed suicide, and he treated me more like a son than he treated his own son.”
If the way Heath had just acted towards Linton was typical, then Heath treated Linton like an animal. He’d called him an “it.” Maybe there were reasons that Linton was so screwed up. Thera felt sorry for him. But she was afraid of him as well.
“Look, Heath’s going to come around,” said Gage. “He’ll get tired of it, and he’ll let you go. I’ll talk to him.”
“I don’t think he’s going to let me go,” said Thera. “He hates me. You heard him. He blames me for my mother rejecting him. Please, just help me get out of here.”
Gage looked down at the floor. “I… I can’t.” He left the room quickly, locking the door behind him.
1995
Isabella was a big fan of shoppi
ng therapy. After her blowup with Cathy, she hadn’t wanted to be around either her or Eli. The two of them made her sick. Cathy was probably the worst thing that had ever happened to her brother, but her brother was completely blind to it. He’d always been that way when it came to Cathy. Even back when they’d first started dating, Eli had changed when Cathy came into his life, cutting class, giving her gobs of money, buying her extravagant presents. He only saw the best in her. He didn’t see that she was manipulative and selfish.
Isabella saw it.
But no one cared what she thought.
So, she was doing the best she could to forget about it, by buying new shoes. She’d come alone, because she couldn’t handle being around anyone right now. Her other friends wouldn’t understand any of it. They would think that Heath was too old, or too intense. They’d call him cleaned-up white trash. They didn’t see him the way she did. She thought he was tragic and admirable. She thought he was incredibly sexy.
But she was trying to drown all of that in a deluge of adorable chunky heels. She was sitting in a store, buckling a strap on a shiny, silver sandal, when she heard his voice behind her.
“I figured I’d find you in the mall.”
Heath was standing behind her. He was looking down at the stacks of shoe boxes with bewildered amusement. Was he mocking her?
Did she care?
She stood up, but she only had one heel on, and she nearly lost her balance.
He steadied her, and he laughed. Again, she wasn’t sure if the laugh was out of contempt for her or just gentle teasing.
“You were looking for me?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Guilty.”
“But… why?”
He smirked at her.
He was gorgeous, with his dark hair and his dark skin and his dark eyes. Her breath caught in her throat. Being this close to him, having him pay attention only to her, made her feel nervous.
“You like shoes, I see,” he said.
“Um, yeah.” She sat back down and began to unbuckle the sandal she was wearing. She couldn’t think about shoes when he was here. “But I’m sure that you’d be bored. I can… stop.”
“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” he said.
She looked up at him again. “Why were you looking for me?”
He scrutinized her face. “You’re actually pretty.”
“Thank you?”
“Would you like it if I bought you shoes?”
“I have money,” she said. “I can buy them myself.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Suit yourself.”
She yanked the other sandal off and put it back in its box. “It turns out that I’m not really interested in the shoes right now.”
“That’s too bad,” said Heath. “I hope I didn’t distract you.”
“You did, but it’s a good thing,” she said. She was so confused.
“You want to go somewhere with me?”
“As long as we’re not climbing on cliffs again.”
He smirked at her. “All right, then.”
* * *
Heath hadn’t brought the truck. He didn’t think Isabella would appreciate it. In all honesty, he was really bad with women. He had no idea what he was doing. He hadn’t even been able to make the first move with Cathy, and she was the only girl he’d ever tried to make moves with.
Isabella seemed more comfortable in the convertible, but he wasn’t sure if they should drive with the top down or not. It was summer, and it was blazingly hot. Would she prefer air conditioning?
In the end, he decided for the top down, if only because the wind whipping by while they drove would be so loud, they wouldn’t be able to talk. He had no idea what to say to her.
He wasn’t pursuing Isabella because he liked her. He wasn’t even doing it because he thought it might make Cathy jealous, although that was a nice bonus if it came to that. Mostly, he was doing it because he hated Eli Linton, and he thought that fucking his sister would probably be the worst thing he could do to the guy.
Heath was lucky that Isabella seemed interested in him. It was just too bad that he had no idea how he would keep her interest.
He didn’t want to take her to the tenant house. It was grungy and dirty—no place for a girl like her. They couldn’t go back to her house. That would be awkward. But he wanted to be alone with her, not in some crowded restaurant or something. He couldn’t handle that.
So he took her to a spot that he knew on the farm. A little creek ran through a lush field, and there were shade trees overlooking a picnic table. He thought she would hate it.
But she settled on top of the picnic table and smiled down at the creek. “It’s beautiful out here.”
He nodded. He agreed with her. He’d never quite shared Cathy’s desire for cities, although he’d visited cities while he was away and found he didn’t have any aversion to them either. Still, the farm seemed like home to him, and he preferred the peacefulness of nature. He sat down next to her on the picnic table.
She smiled at him shyly. “Why am I here with you?”
“Because I asked you and you came,” he said. He wasn’t sure what she was after.
“So, you want to be friends, Heath?”
What was he supposed to do with that? Be coy? He wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to do that. “Not friends.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
Oh, damn it all to hell. He snatched her by the chin and held her face still. And then his lips met hers.
She was startled. He could tell. But she kissed him back eagerly.
He didn’t do it for very long. Kissing her didn’t feel bad or anything. She was an okay kisser. But it felt strange. He’d only kissed a handful of women in his life, and every time he kissed one that wasn’t Cathy, it never felt right. He pulled away.
She put her fingers to her lips. She was blushing and smiling a tiny, bashful smile. “Oh,” she said.
He glared at her. Her obvious pleasure at the kiss made him angry with her. “You act like you’ve never been kissed before.”
She looked down at her knees, her smile widening. “Don’t be silly, Heath. I’m seventeen years old. I’ve done a lot of kissing.”
He wasn’t sure if he believed her or not. “Are you a virgin?”
She turned scarlet. “That’s none of your…Why are you asking me…?”
He got up off the picnic table. Damn it. It wasn’t going to work unless he fucked her. Eli would be pissed off about some kissing, but knowing that Heath had screwed his baby sister would make him crazy. Still, Heath didn’t have much desire to go through another girl’s first time. On the other hand, popping her cherry was infinitely worse than just fucking her. He shrugged. He could handle it.
Isabella wrapped her arms around her torso. She wasn’t looking at him. She looked embarrassed and confused.
He should comfort her, right? He tried to ask himself what he would do if she was Cathy.
He considered. It was too hard to imagine.
He sat back down next to her on the picnic table. “I’m not very good at this.”
She gave him a hesitant smile. “It’s okay.”
He should probably kiss her again, shouldn’t he? He leaned in and captured her lips with his.
She sighed against him.
He felt something unpleasant go through him. Guilt, maybe?
He kissed her harder, trying to drown it out.
* * *
Matt ruefully counted his remaining chips. “I don’t have enough. I can’t see your bet.”
“Suppose you’ll have to fold then,” said one of the other men playing, reaching for Matt’s chips.
Heath stopped him. “Wait a minute. I’ll spot the money he needs if he puts something up for collateral.”
Matt’s eyes gleamed. “Ah, I knew you’d come through for me, Heath. What is it you want this time? Another truck?”
“The farmhouse,” said Heath.
Matt snickered. “You gotta be crazy. This p
ot isn’t near worth the farmhouse.”
“How about the skin on your back then?”
“What?” said Matt.
Heath leaned forward. “If you lose, you let me take my belt to your bare skin.”
“Man, that’s fucked up,” said the other player.
“You remember when you beat me like that, Matt?” asked Heath.
“You’re on,” said Matt, glaring at him.
“Seriously, Heath, what are you playing at?” asked one of the other men.
Heath just smiled grimly, handing a stack of chips to Matt.
Matt pushed them into the center. “All in.”
“You’re so reckless with my money,” said Heath.
“Got a good hand,” said Matt.
The other man tossed his cards on the table. “I’m out. You two are crazy.”
Matt raised his eyebrows at Heath. “You?”
“You think I’m going to fold after I gave you money to keep you playing? I know you’re drunk, Matt, but maybe you’re really stupid too.” Heath pushed chips into the center of the table. “I see your bet.”
Matt eyed the huge pot in the middle of the table with hungry eyes. He laid his cards down. “Four aces.”
Heath winced. Well, occasionally, the jackass had to get lucky, didn’t he? He tossed his full house on the table. “You beat me, Matt.”
Matt grinned.
Heath didn’t think he’d ever hated him more. He should have read the signs better, played the game smarter. He was letting his feelings for Matt cloud his judgment.
Matt raked his chips over. “Cash me out.”
The dealer, who’d dropped out of this game three bets ago, picked up the money box. It was locked, and they all took turns with the key, just like they took turns dealing. The money was counted and verified before each game.
“Wait,” said Heath. “Stay, Matt. You’re obviously on a winning streak.”
Matt chortled. “I haven’t been winning shit since you got back here, Heath. No, I’m getting out while the getting is good.”
The dealer began counting Matt’s chips.
Heath’s jaw twitched. He couldn’t stand to see Matt have one moment of triumph. That was not the way this was supposed to go. He stood up, taking money out of his back pocket. He looked back and forth between the dealer and the other player. “How much would it be worth it to you to hold him down?”
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