“Hello?” I called out a little louder that time, straining to hear the steps continuing up the stairs and making me clench the pepper spray in my hand just a little tighter.
In the time it took me to hold my breath—because that was going to help me hear better—I caught sight of hair and then a face a split second before the person must have taken the last two or three steps in a leap because they were there.
Not a they. A he. A man.
The owner?
God, I hoped so.
He had on a khaki-colored, button-down shirt tucked into dark pants that could have been blue, black, or something else, but I couldn’t tell because of the lighting.
I squinted and laced my hands behind my back to hide the pepper spray just in case.
There was a gun at his hip!
I threw my hands up and squealed, “Holy shit, take whatever you want, just don’t hurt me!”
The stranger’s head jerked before a raspy-rough voice spit out, “What?”
I held them up even higher, shoulders around my ears, and gestured to my purse on the table with my chin. “My purse is right there. Take it. The keys are in there.” I had insurance. I had copies of my ID on my phone, which was in my back pocket. I could order another debit card, report my credit card as stolen. I couldn’t care less about the cash in there. None of it was worth my life. None. Of. It.
The man’s head jerked again though. “What in the hell are you talking about? I’m not trying to rob you. What are you doing in my house?” The man shot out each word like they were missiles.
Hold on a second.
I blinked and still kept my hands where they were. What was going on? “Are you Tobias Rhodes?” I knew for a fact that was the name of the person I’d made my reservation with. There had been a picture, but I hadn’t bothered zooming in on it.
“Why?” the stranger asked.
“Uh, because I rented this garage apartment? My check-in was today.”
“Check-in?” the man repeated, his voice low. I was pretty positive he was scowling, but he was under a gap in lighting and shadows covered his features. “Does this look like a hotel to you?”
Ooh, attitude.
Just as I opened my mouth to tell him that, no, this didn’t look like a hotel but I’d still made a legal reservation and paid upfront for the stay, a loud creak came from downstairs a split second before another voice, a lighter, younger one, shouted, “Dad! Wait!”
I focused on the man as he turned his attention down the stairs, his upper body seeming to expand in a protective—or maybe defensive—gesture.
Taking advantage of his change in focus, I realized he was a big man. Tall and broad. And there were patches on his shirt. Law enforcement patches?
My heart started beating loud in my ears as my gaze focused back on the gun holstered at his hip, and my voice sounded oddly loud as I stuttered, “I… I can show you my booking confirmation….”
What was going on? Had I gotten scammed?
My words had his attention swinging back toward me right at the same moment that another figure appeared with a wild jump to the landing. This one was a lot shorter and thinner, but that was about all I could tell. The man’s son? Daughter?
The big man didn’t even glance at the new arrival as he said, anger definitely seeping from his pronunciation, from his entire body language really, “Breaking and entering is a felony.”
“Breaking and entering?” I croaked, confused, my poor heart still beating wildly. What was going on? What the fuck was happening? “I used the key someone gave me a code to get.” How did he not know this? Who was this? Had I really gotten scammed?
Out of the corner of my eye, because I was so focused on the bigger man, the smaller figure I’d barely paid attention to muttered something under their breath before basically hissing, “Dad,” again quietly.
And that had the man turning his head down toward the figure that was his son or daughter. “Amos,” the man grumbled in what sounded an awful lot like a warning. Fury there, active and waiting.
I had a terrible feeling.
“I gotta talk to you,” the figure said in almost a whisper-hiss before turning to me. The smaller person froze for a second and then blinked before seeming to snap out of it and saying in a voice that was so quiet I had to strain to hear it, “Hi, Ms. De La Torre, umm, sorry about the mix-up. One sec, uh, please.”
Who the hell was this now?
How did they know my name? And this was a mix-up?
That was good… wasn’t it?
My optimism only lasted about a second, because in the dim lights of the studio apartment, the man started to shake his head slowly. Then his words made my stomach drop even further as he muttered, sounding deadly, “I swear, Amos, this better not be what I think it is.”
That didn’t sound promising.
“Did you post the apartment for rent after I literally told you not to the fifty times you brought it up?” the man asked in this crazy still voice that hadn’t gone up at all in volume, but it didn’t matter because somehow it sounded even worse than if he had yelled. Even I wanted to flinch, and he wasn’t even talking to me.
What the hell did he just say though?
“Dad.” The younger person moved under the ceiling fan, light striking him, confirming he was a boy—a teenage boy somewhere more than likely between twelve and sixteen based on the sound of his voice. Unlike the broad man who was apparently his father, his face was lean and angular, and long, thin arms were hidden mostly by a T-shirt two sizes too big.
I got a bad, bad feeling.
The reminder that there hadn’t been anywhere else to stay within two hundred miles popped up front and center in my brain.
I didn’t want to stay in a hotel. I was over those for the rest of my life. The idea of staying in one made me feel sick.
And renting a room in someone’s house was a hard no after that last time.
“I paid already. The payment went through,” I pretty much shouted, panicking suddenly. This was where I wanted to be. I was here and tired of driving, and suddenly the urge to settle down somewhere filled just about every cell in my body insistently.
I wanted to start over. I wanted to build something new. And I wanted to do it here in Pagosa.
The man looked at me. I was pretty sure his head reared back as well before he focused again on the teenage boy, hand flying through the air once more. This sense of anger exploded across the room like a grenade.
Apparently, I was invisible and my payment meant nothing.
“Is this a joke, Am? I told you no. Not once or twice but every time you brought it up,” the man spat, straight-up furious. “We’re not going to have some stranger living in our house. Are you shitting me, man?” He was still talking in that inside-voice way, but every word seemed like a quiet bark somehow, tough and serious.
“It’s not technically the house,” the kid, Amos, whispered before glancing at me over his shoulder. He waved, his hand shaking as he did.
At me.
I didn’t know what to do, so I waved back. Confused, so confused, and worried now.
That didn’t help the pissed-off man. Like at all. “The garage is still part of the house! Don’t play that technicality game with me,” he growled, making a dismissive gesture with his hand.
That was a big arm attached to that hand now that I got a look at it. I was pretty sure I’d seen some veins popping along his forearm. What did those patches say though? I tried to squint.
“No means no,” the stranger went on when the boy opened his mouth to argue with him. “I can’t believe you did this. How could you go behind my back? You posted it online?” He was shaking his head like he really was stunned. “Were you planning on letting some creeps stay here while I was gone?”
Creeps?
Me?
Realistically, I knew that this was none of my business.
But.
I still couldn’t keep my mouth shut as I tossed in, “Umm
, for the record, I’m not a creep. And I can show you my reservation. I paid for the whole month up front—“
Shit.
The boy winced, and that had the man taking a step forward under better lighting, giving me my first real good look at his face. At the whole of him.
And what a face it was.
Even when I’d been with Kaden, I would have done a double take at the man under the lights. What? I wasn’t dead. And he had that kind of face. I’d seen a lot of them, I would know.
I couldn’t think of a single makeup artist that wouldn’t call his features chiseled, not pretty by any means but masculine, sharp, highlighted by his mouth forming a tight scowl and his thick eyebrows flat across his remarkable, heavy brow bones. And there was that impressive, strong jaw. I was pretty sure he had a little cleft in his chin too. He had to be in his early forties.
“Rough handsome” would be the best way to describe him. Maybe even “ridiculously handsome” if he didn’t look about ready to kill someone like he did right then.
Nothing at all like my ex’s million-dollar, boy-next-door looks that had made thousands of women swoon.
And ruined our relationship.
Maybe I would send that shit pie eventually. I’d think about it some more.
Basically, this man arguing with a tween or teenage boy, with a gun on his belt and wearing what looked to me to be some kind of law-enforcement-type uniform, was unbelievably handsome.
And… he was a silver fox, I confirmed when the light hit his hair just perfectly to show off what could have been brown or black mixed in with the much lighter, striking color.
And he didn’t give a single shit about what I was saying as he snapped words out in the most level, talking-voice volume I’d ever heard. I might have been impressed if I wasn’t so worried I was about to get screwed.
“Dad…,” the boy started again. The kid had dark hair and a smooth, almost baby face, his skin a very light brown. His limbs were long under a black band T-shirt as he slid into place between his dad and me like a buffer.
“A whole month?”
Yeah, he’d heard that part.
The kid didn’t even flinch as he replied, very quietly, “You won’t let me get a job. How else am I supposed to make money?”
That vein on the man’s face popped again, color rose up along his cheekbones and ears. “I know what you want the money for, Am, but you know what I said too. Your mom, Billy, and I all agreed. You don’t need a three-thousand-dollar guitar when yours works just fine.”
“I know it works fine, but I still want—”
“But you don’t need it. It isn’t going to—”
“Dad, please,” the Amos kid pleaded. Then he gestured at me with a thumb over his shoulder. “Look at her. She’s not a creep. Her name’s Aurora. De La Torre. I looked her up on Picturegram. She only posts pictures of food and animals.” The teenager glanced at me over his shoulder, blinking once before shaking himself out of it, his expression turning almost frantic, like he too knew this conversation wasn’t going well. “Everybody knows sociopaths don’t like animals, you said, remember? And look at her.” His head tilted to the side.
I shrugged off his last comment and focused on the important part of what he’d mentioned. Someone had done his research… but what else did he know?
But he wasn’t wrong. Other than those and some selfies or shots with friends—and people I used to think were my friends but weren’t—I really did only post pictures of food and animals I met. That reality, and the bags and boxes sitting on the ground close by, were just another reminder that I wanted to be here, that I had things I needed to do in this area.
And that this kid either knew too much or really had fallen for the façade that I’d presented to the world. For all the lies and smoke and mirrors I’d had to employ to be around someone I’d loved. A reminder that I hadn’t deleted pictures off my Picturegram of a life I used to have. I had been careful on my account to never take any romantic-looking pictures—or fear the wrath of Mrs. Jones.
Maybe I should make my page private, now that I thought about it, so that the Antichrist didn’t snoop. I had only posted a handful of times over the last year and hadn’t tagged any place I’d been. Old habits died hard.
The man’s eyes flicked to me for maybe all of a second before they went back to the boy, and he said, “Does it look like I care? She could be Mother Teresa, and I still wouldn’t want anybody here. It isn’t safe to have some stranger hanging around our house.”
Technically, I wouldn’t be “hanging around.” I’d stay here in this garage apartment and never bother anybody.
Seeing my opportunity disappearing with every word that came out of the man’s mouth, I knew I had to act fast. Luckily for me, I liked fixing things and was good at it. “I cross my heart I’m not a psycho. I’ve only gotten one ticket in my whole life, and it was for going ten over, but in my defense, I had to pee really bad. You can call my aunt and uncle if you want a character reference, and they’ll tell you I’m a pretty good person. You can text my nephews if you want, because they won’t answer even if you blow up their phones.”
The boy looked over his shoulder again, eyes wide and still frantic, but the man… well, he wasn’t smiling at all. What he was doing was glaring at me over his son’s shoulder. Again. In fact, his expression went flat, but before he could say a word, the kid jumped on my train of defense.
His voice was still low but impassioned. He must really want that three-thousand-dollar guitar. “I know what I did was shady, but you were gonna be gone a whole month, and she’s a girl—” There were female serial killers out there, but now didn’t seem like the right time to bring that up. “—so I figured you wouldn’t, like, have to worry. I bought an alarm system I was gonna install on the windows anyway, and nobody was gonna get through the deadbolts on the door.”
The man shook his head, and I was pretty sure his eyes were wider than they normally would have been. “No, Amos. No. Your sneaky shit is not winning me over. If anything, it’s just pissing me off even more that you’d lie to me. What the hell were you thinking? What were you going to tell your uncle Johnny when he came over to check on you while I was gone? Huh? I can’t believe you’d go behind my back after I told you no so many times. I’m trying to protect you, man. What’s wrong with that?”
Then that intense face focused down as he shook his head, shoulders dropping so low I felt so obtrusive for witnessing it, for being here to notice the sheer disappointment that was so apparent on every line of this father’s body as he stood there, processing this act of betrayal. He seemed to exhale before glancing back up, zeroing in on me that time, and said, gruffly, and I was pretty sure genuinely hurt by the actions of the teenager, “He’ll get you a refund the second we get back in the house, but you aren’t staying. You shouldn’t have been able to ‘make a reservation’ in the first place.”
I choked. At least inside I did. Because no.
No.
I hadn’t even realized when I’d dropped my hands from the position they’d been, still in the air, but they were down and my palms were flat on my stomach, the pepper spray in my fingers, the rest of my body consumed by a mixture of worry, panic, and disappointment at the same time.
I was thirty-three years old, and like a tree, I’d lost all of my leaves, so much of what had made me me; but just like a tree, my branches and my roots were still there. And I was being reborn with a whole new set of leaves, bright and green and full of life. So I had to try. I had to. There weren’t any other rentals like this.
“Please,” I said, not even wincing at just how croaked that one single word sounded out of my mouth. It was now or never. “I understand why you’re upset, and you have every right to be. I don’t blame you for wanting to take care of your son and not risk his safety but….”
My voice cracked, and I hated it, but I knew I had to keep going because I had a feeling I was only going to get one shot at this before he kicked me out.
“Just… please. I promise I won’t make a peep or bother anyone. I took an edible once when I was twenty and got so high I had a panic attack and almost had to call an ambulance. I took Vicodin once after my wisdom teeth got removed, and it made me throw up so I didn’t take more. The only alcohol I like is really sweet Moscato and a beer every once in a while. I won’t even look at your son if you don’t want me to, but please, please let me stay. I’ll double the rate the listing was set for. I’ll send it over right now if you want.” I took a breath and gave the man what I hoped was the most pleading face ever. “Pretty please.”
The man’s facial expression was hard and stayed that way, that square jaw locked tight even at this distance. I didn’t have a good feeling. I didn’t have a good feeling at all.
His next words made my stomach drop. He was staring straight at me, those thick eyebrows flat on his absurdly handsome face. He had the bone structure you could only find on old Greek statues, I thought. Regal and defined, there was nothing weak about any part of his features. His mouth—his full lips the kind of inspiration women went to expensive doctors to try and replicate—became a flat line. “I’m sorry if you got your hopes up, but it’s not happening.” Those hard eyes moved toward the maybe-teenager as he growled in a voice so low I almost couldn’t hear it—but I had great ears and he didn’t know that—“It’s not about the money.”
Panic rose up inside of my chest, steadily, and I could see this opportunity disappearing before my eyes. “Please,” I repeated myself. “You won’t know I’m here. I’m quiet. I won’t have any visitors.” I hesitated. “I’ll triple the rate.”
The stranger didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
“Dad,” the boy cut in before the older man shook his head.
“You have no say in this. You aren’t going to have a say in anything any time soon, are we clear?”
The kid gasped, and my heart started beating faster.
“You went behind my back, Amos. If they hadn’t found another warden last minute, I would’ve been in Denver right now without a fucking clue you did this!” the man explained in that murderous, not loud or quiet voice, and honestly… I couldn’t blame him.
All Rhodes Lead Here Page 2