by Jamie Begley
“Your middle name is Dwight,” Reaper mockingly revealed the truth.
Nickel gave Ginny a pained look, taking her arm. “I can see why you wanted to get out. I’m buying.”
Reaper shut the door on her muffled laughter, cursing when he realized Nickel had the only set of keys to the rental car.
Before he could barrel out of the apartment after them, he got a text. Looking at his phone, he saw it was Nickel telling him that he left the keys on the counter in the other apartment. He wanted to follow to make sure she wasn’t being tailed, but he also needed to establish a routine of them being apart to give her stalker an opportunity to find a pattern of behavior.
Pacing around the room, he felt caged in with her being out without him. He didn’t give a fuck if was with Nickel; it didn’t lessen the antsy feeling that had him wanting to climb the walls. He had planned for her to be in rehearsal or somewhere else where there were multiple people around, not out alone with Nickel, going to the same place she had taken him.
Fuck it. He was going.
His hand was on the doorknob when the phone vibrated in his pocket. Ginny sent him a text this time. His mind started going to a horror-ridden scenario where Nickel had been blindsided and she was running for her life, and she was begging him to save her. Pressing down on the message, the dark path his mind was going down took a second to comprehend what he was staring at. A fucking happy face emoji. Below was a picture of the diner. Ginny was letting him know she was safe and where they were.
Shakily sitting back down at the computer, he forced himself to open his emails again, trying to get his breathing back to normal. He was tempted to take his pulse, then decided he didn’t want to know if he was about to have a heart attack.
Let it be a fucking surprise.
Resuming work on his emails, an hour later, she sent another happy emoji, showing which grocery store they were at with the address below. Searching on Google maps, he saw it was just four miles away from her apartment.
Without Ginny’s presence, he was able to finish his work, only to be left wandering around the rooms, waiting for her to come back. Glancing at his watch, he timed how long it should take them to shop then drive back. Giving them an extra fifteen minutes, he went to the window, looking down at the parking lot anxiously waiting for Ginny’s car to appear.
How many fucking groceries does she need?
His palm was getting sweaty from holding his phone so tightly when another text dinged.
“She’s at a Starbucks!” he roared out to the empty apartment. Glaring at the happy emoji, he shoved his phone into his pocket.
He didn’t move away from the window. Several minutes passed before he finally recognized Ginny’s car turning into the parking lot. Taking out his phone, he noted a car and a truck turning in behind them. He would go out and take down their license plates when she came inside.
Turning from the window when he heard her voice outside the door, he took another look out the window, seeing a black BMW slide into a parking spot across the street, facing the apartment building. He was typing in the make and model onto his phone when Ginny and Nickel came inside.
“No wonder none of the brothers told me about Dirty Dan’s. Stingy bastards wanted to keep him to themselves.”
Yeah, that’s why, Reaper thought sarcastically.
“I told you, you would love it,” Ginny reminded Nickel as they placed several bags of groceries on the counter. Nudging one plain paper sack to the end toward him, she then went behind the counter to put her groceries away.
“Ginny thought you might be hungry,” Nickel explained, nodding toward the bag as he hooked two bags in his hands. “Marty’s a character, isn’t he?”
“You liked him?” Reaper made no effort to go for the bag of food.
“He might be a little rough around the edges, but if I had a problem dealing with dickheads, I wouldn’t be a Last Rider.”
“You can let yourself out.”
Nickel dismissed his suggestion, hooking one leg of a counter stool. “I take it you didn’t like him?”
“He was all right,” Reaper lied through his teeth, opening the bag and scooting the fries to the side so he could count the burgers. “What did you order?”
“Ginny ordered the original sack for me.”
“How many burgers you get?”
Nickel tried to hide his amusement. “Six. How many did he give you in the jumbo?”
“Six.” And the fucker might have put in maybe four extra fries in the bag than the regular. He hated the asswipe’s guts.
“You should heat them up. It has to be cold by now. Ginny wanted to go to Starbucks for a passion tea after the store. Have you had it? It’s amaz—”
“No,” he barked out, “I haven’t.”
Both Nickel and Ginny jumped at the loud crack of his voice.
“Okay … just asked. I better go get my ice cream in the freezer.” Nickel straightened from the stool. “I enjoyed lunch, Ginny.”
Ginny smiled at him from over her shoulder as she put cans of vegetables away. “I’m glad. We’ll have to do it again.”
“Anytime.”
Seeing the warning in Reaper’s eyes, Nickel took off.
Locking the door behind him, Reaper went back to his bag of food. Moving around Ginny, who was removing more groceries from the bags, he took out a plate from the cabinet.
Arranging his food, he placed it in the microwave, and as it heated, he texted Nickel the makes and models of the cars and trucks that were outside and that he wanted their plate numbers. When the microwave dinged, he took his food out, then sat at the table, eating as he watched Ginny work around her kitchen.
He almost asked her if she was giving him the silent treatment but stopped when he remembered the last time he had asked her that question.
“I finished my work.” Stepping up to the plate, Reaper decided to man-up and be the first to break the uncomfortable silence.
Closing the fridge, she started folding the empty grocery bags. “How’s the food?” Ginny’s cool behavior displayed her lack of interest.
“It’s good.” The food tasted more like cardboard with each bite. The coldness she was exhibiting was strikingly different from the way she had been treating him. He should be happy. Instead, he was strangely disappointed and couldn’t explain why.
After placing the empty bags on top of the refrigerator, Ginny made herself a large glass of ice water. Carrying it to the table, she set it down in front of him. “I need to leave in a couple of hours to get ready for the show tonight.”
“Thanks for the food.”
“No thanks needed.” She shrugged. “You didn’t ask for it. If you don’t want to eat it, don’t.”
“I do.” Picking up one of the burgers, he prepared to force another one down. “Did you enjoy your lunch with Nickel?”
“It was okay.”
He frowned at her lackluster reaction. “What was wrong with it?”
“You weren’t there with me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Shoving his plate away, appetite lost, Reaper reached for the computer, opening the folder he made for the questions he had for her.
“You seem to enjoy Nickel’s company more than mine.”
Monitoring her reaction, he saw she seemed more confused than triumphant at the note of jealousy he deliberately injected into the question. Taylor had loved to make him jealous. Hell, to be honest with himself, it was what had drawn his attention to her.
Ginny tilted her head to the side. “Why do you think that?”
“You smile at him the same way you do me.”
He had to give her credit; she didn’t give away any movement that would betray how she felt. She seemed genuinely puzzled.
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” he argued.
“Then either you’re not looking hard enough or you don’t want to see the difference.”
“Or maybe it’s a habit you’re unaware you ha
ve.”
Ginny sank down on a chair across from him. “Why don’t you just come out and ask me what you want to know instead of beating around the bush? Are you trying to hurt me, because I’m not trying to hide that I care about you?”
“You haven’t known me long enough to care about me.”
Ginny squeezed her eyes tightly shut, as if she was experiencing excruciating pain. When she raised her eyes back to his, he felt an intense sorrow trying to pierce through the shield around his heart.
“I’ve known you forever, Gavin,” she whispered.
“Because you felt a connection to me at T.A. and Dalton’s wedding?”
“You know I did. You felt it, too.”
“Who else have you felt that connection with?”
Her probing gaze had him shifting uneasily on his chair.
“You think I led my stalker on?”
“Not deliberately, no.”
“Because I smiled at him?”
“It’s a nice smile.”
“Are you serious?” She solemnly waited for him to take it back. When he didn’t, a puff of air escaped her as if he had punched her in the gut. “You’re being a jerk. If another man said that to me, I’d never talk to him again.”
Wincing, the depth of pain she was showing sent another piecing pain into his chest.
“I’m not saying you deliberately—”
“Thanks.” Sarcasm rolled off her in waves.
Reaper braced himself as rage beamed at him from across the table.
“No, there has never been anyone else other than you. I wish there was. Right now, you don’t know how much I wish that were true. If there had been, I wouldn’t still be sitting here. Believe that, Gavin.”
“I was making sure we didn’t leave any stones unturned.”
“Is that what you were doing? I don’t think so.” She shook her head at him. “I think you were trying to explain away why you’re so damn concerned about the way I smile at other men. Why don’t you call and ask Nickel if he thought I was flirting with him? Then call Shade, Rider, Moon—hell, call every man I am acquainted with and ask them! You want to know something about me, Gavin, come out and ask. Don’t dillydally around and presume something about me that isn’t true.”
“The only way I’m going to figure out who it is, is to find a link between you and whoever is stalking you.”
“There is no link!” Tears glistened in her eyes. “There is no link. There can’t be, Gavin.”
“Quit calling me Gavin!”
“I can’t call you Reaper!” she yelled back.
“Why not?”
“Because I fell in love with you before you were Reaper. I fell in love before I really knew what love was.”
“Stop … I don’t—”
“What if I tell you something that you can connect to my stalker?” Mockingly, she waited for him to argue. When he couldn’t, she continued piercing his heart just as surely as she had when she poked his chest with her finger when she got angry at him in her car.
“There is no link to anyone else, because there has never been anyone but you. I have a large family, mainly boys, but I had a sister who was everything to me. Our father homeschooled us, and while Leah spent a few days a week with her mother, she was the only girl I spent time with. When Leah came back from visiting her mother, she brought books and magazines that she let me have. We laid on her bed and dreamt about what it would be like when we grew up. Bless her heart, Leah was a romantic. We would read the magazines and books together and dream about the man we would love and the life we would have one day.” The tender, reminiscent smile on her lips pierced the hard interior of his heart, aware that none of Leah’s dreams would ever come true.
“Leah wanted to be an astronomer. She was fascinated with the stars in the sky. She was the one who told me what a soul mate was, and we would dream about who they’d be. Leah was certain hers was a boy she had seen a few times. She said all the signs pointed toward him.”
When Ginny paused to stare blankly over his shoulder, Reaper knew she was lost in her memories.
“Signs?” he encouraged her to continue.
“Like one of the mountain superstitions I told you about,” she resumed talking, her focus returning to him. “There are dozens of them, and Leah knew them all. Our brothers would make up a few of them just to trigger us. Jody told Leah her husband’s first name started with a B.” Peals of laughter came from her at the memory.
“What’s so funny about that?” Captivated by both her and the story, he began thinking of the men in town who had names that began with a B. He couldn’t think of any that would be so funny, until one family came to mind. “The Hayes?”
Ginny had to wipe tears of laughter away. “Part of the Hayes’ property borders ours. They had cousins who were always coming to visit them. Their pa named the boys starting with the letter B. Leah had a crush on Bubba, but Jody said it could be Bud or BoDean. Then Matthew told us if we buried a lock of our hair under a bush on their property on a cloudless night at midnight when there was a new moon, and then dug it up on the cloudless night of a full moon and put it in a bowl of water, the hair would point in the direction our husbands would be.”
From the peals of laughter coming from Ginny, Reaper was left to assume the girls were gullible enough to be taken in by their brothers. “You did it, didn’t you?”
“Oh … yes.” She had to wipe more tears away.
“But how did you know it was a cloudless night during a new moon?” His lips twitched when his question set off another round of laughter.
“That question would have been helpful if you had been around when we were cutting our hair. Back then, we took Silas’s word for it.”
Reaper couldn’t hold back the full-fledged smile any longer. “He was in on it too.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “They all were very helpful, keeping Pa occupied so we could sneak out. Of course we were terrified sneaking onto the Hayes’ property at the dead of night. The Hayes and the Porters are adamant about how they deal with trespassers. Our pa was, too, but at least he wouldn’t shoot you dead if you went over his property an inch. Luckily, we made it back with our lives. When it was time to dig up our hair, our brothers generously helped us to sneak out again. That time, it didn’t go as easily.”
“What happened?”
“We had no sooner dug up our hair when three bright orange lights appeared in the trees. We were so scared we were afraid to move until these things started coming down the hillside from where the lights were. They were carrying flashlights and were wearing shiny clothes, and their skin was green. I tried to hide under a bush, but Leah was so scared she took off screaming.”
“What did you do then?”
“I went after her. I couldn’t let them catch her alone. Thankfully, we managed to outrun them and made it home alive.” Ginny laid her head down on the table on her folded arms, her shoulders shaking. It was a few moments before she controlled her laughter enough to continue. “We scared our pa to death when we ran into his bedroom, screaming that aliens were coming, and we hid under his bed.”
His laughter joined hers at just imagining the terrified girls.
“Pa jumped out of bed, yelling for the boys. When they didn’t come right away, he knew what they’d done. He gave them two minutes or he was getting his belt. Miraculously”—Ginny rolled her eyes at that—“Pa didn’t grab his rifle when they came out wrapped in aluminum foil and green face paint. Poor Leah was nearly hysterical before Pa was able to drag her out from under the bed to show her it was our brothers.”
“They had all done it?”
“Everyone, except for Moses and Ezra. They were the lookouts to make sure Pa was occupied.”
Reaper wanted to ask how long it had taken to get her out from under the bed, but being a boy once himself he understood their warped since of humor when it came to harassing your siblings. “How bad did they get in trouble?”
“In the morning, Freddy let
Leah and me pick the switches he used to spank them with. Of course”—making a grimace, she shook her head at her young self—“after the wailing started, I begged him to stop.”
“Leah didn’t?”
“No, she left to take a bath. She was too miserable. We had run through a patch of poison ivy.”
“It didn’t get you?”
“Some, but I wasn’t mad at the boys like Leah was. She dropped her hair, so she was more mad at that than anything else.”
The love she shared with her family was unquestionable; it was apparent in her voice and expression. What he couldn’t fathom was why her brothers hadn’t remained in her life after Leah and her father had died.
As if reading his mind, Ginny grew more serious. “Anyway, we didn’t try that one again. There was a gazillion other ways that we tried without involving itching.”
“And because of games you played when you were younger, you think we have a connection between us?”
“I can understand you thinking we were just being silly children. I thought so, too, until I grew older and started going to school, and I lost Leah. I never outgrew the feeling that someone special was waiting for me.” As she talked, her gaze never wavered from his, opening the gates of emotions she had gone through as a young girl.
“I never had the school crushes that the other girls had. At first, I thought I was just shy where boys were concerned. Then, when I didn’t have the same shyness with girls, I began to think maybe I was attracted to girls. I was scared and confused, but deep down, I knew what was making it so hard for me. A part of me was missing—my soul mate. The older I got, it became worse. Boys were uncomfortable to be around or get close to. I felt like I was cheating on you.” Ginny gave a bittersweet laugh. “Don’t you find that hilarious?”
Actually, he didn’t.
Reaper tried not to cringe away. He had been living his best life, bed-hopping from one woman to the next, then got engaged to Taylor. From the mocking undercurrent of her question, she was aware that being faithful to a young girl, who he hadn’t even been aware existed, was the furthest thing from his mind.
Feeling guilty despite himself, and not liking the feeling, he jutted his jaw out belligerently. “If I don’t believe in soul mates now, I certainly didn’t when you were just a kid.”