Drawing a long, low hiss from him.
He must finally decipher the silent plea in my gaze, because the next thing I know, his hand is cradling the back of my head, his mouth is closed over mine, and I’m sinking deep into a tailspin of heady emotion.
And fear.
Crippling fear that makes me break free of his lips, because somehow I know with certainty where we’re heading tonight if I let it happen.
Jesse’s intense gaze settles on me. “I get it. We don’t have to go any further.”
“No. That’s not . . .” That’s the thing: I don’t want to stop. I’m ready for this with Jesse. What I’m not ready for are any demons that may choose tonight to resurface.
“What do you want? Right now, from me,” he whispers against my mouth.
My breath catches. Has he asked me that before?
Or have I only wished that he has?
I swallow against my ball of nerves. “I don’t want to be afraid.”
Understanding flickers in his eyes.
He kisses me again.
And again.
And again.
Mercilessly, until my lips are sore and my tongue feels tangled and I’ve memorized the taste of his mouth. And then he whispers, “Afraid?”
A breathless “no” escapes me.
His free hand slowly slides under my shirt, unclasping my bra, to smooth over my breasts, the touch gentle and caring. Almost reverent. Cool air springs goose bumps as he lifts the material up and over my head. Just like he kissed the scar across my face, he now leans down and skates his lips across the unsightly five-inch scar on my stomach where Meredith had to remove my spleen.
“Afraid?”
I curl my arms around his head as his lips drift up, leaving a wet trail over my skin on their way back to my mouth. “No.”
When his fingers snap open my jeans button, stealing a few of my heartbeats, he pauses to watch my face, a silent question in his eyes. He unfastens the zipper and slips his callused hand down, his thumb rubbing absently across the exact place where my tattoo sits, his hand resting on my pelvis. Where my hand has rested so many times, thinking about the fragile life that resided in there for such a short time.
My body responds to the feel of his hands, welcoming it.
“Afraid?”
I shake my head and tug at his shirt. Reaching back, he yanks it over his head and tosses it aside, giving me a chance to take in his olive skin and lean muscles. I focus on tracing their lines as he slips the rest of his clothes off. And helps me with mine.
I can see how much Jesse wants me—scars and damaged past and all—and it ignites my blood, hot enough to chase all fears and demons away.
There is no pain, tonight, as Jesse pushes into me.
There are no horrid flashes, no menacing whispers.
No demons.
Only a strange, euphoric sense.
As if I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
TWENTY-NINE
Jesse
then
I know something’s wrong the second I step into the apartment and Licks swaggers to the door. For the past five days, the bulldog’s been too attached to Alex’s leg to greet anyone.
The sinking feeling has already settled in my stomach by the time I walk the seven steps to the kitchen, to find a still-warm casserole sitting on the stove. I know before I reach my room that Alex is gone, leaving nothing but a note in her curvy handwriting:
Jesse, I’ve gone home. I need some time and space to think. —A.
“Fuck!” I throw my keys at the wall. This morning, when I kissed her goodbye before leaving for work, I saw the fear in her eyes. I should have expected this.
“It’s probably for the best, man.” Boone leans against my door-frame. Normally we drive in together, but I left in my own car this morning, not waiting for him. I haven’t said two words to the guy, still too pissed.
“The hell it is,” I mutter, scooping up my keys and heading for the door.
My thumb sits on the buzzer for a good twenty seconds before the gate crawls open.
She’s waiting for me at the front door, her arms hugging her chest. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You just took off.”
“Viktor comes back tomorrow. I have a lot to do.” Her wide eyes scan the driveway, the road, the trees, as if someone may be watching. She was never worried about that before, spending hours in the garage with me. “Grocery shopping, laundry, I have to get his dry cleaning . . .” Her voice trails off as I close the distance, stepping well within her personal space; so close, she’s forced to tip her head back to meet my gaze.
“You just took off,” I repeat.
Tears spring to her eyes and she blinks them away. “We can’t do this anymore.”
“You mean just for now, right?” When she doesn’t answer, my gut clenches. “Have you forgotten what he did to you?”
She shakes her head, taking a step back. “That’s the thing—I haven’t forgotten anything that he’s done to me. I wish I could. I wish I could forget every lie, every slap, every insult. I wish I could forget how stupid I was to marry him.”
“You can’t stay with him, Alex. It’s too dangerous!”
“No, Jesse. This”—her hand flies back and forth between us—“this is too dangerous! You even being here right now is too dangerous.” Her bright eyes flare with anger, such a rare sight. “What if someone drives by and sees your car? There’s no good reason for you to be here. You said we aren’t being stupid, but this is us being stupid!”
I trap her against the door with my arms on either side of her, afraid she’s going to run inside. “You’re my reason for being here.”
“And that reason is what’s going to get us both hurt. Or worse,” she whispers. Her hands push against my chest.
Pushing me away.
“Just because that friend of his reacted the way he did doesn’t mean Viktor is capable of the same.” Even I don’t believe those words as they come out of my mouth, but I’ll say anything right now to convince her to come home with me for just one more night. We can talk. We can figure this out, together.
“I met that guy, Jesse,” she says, her voice wobbling with fear. “I sat next to him in a lawn chair and talked to him about buying organic pork instead of regular pork. He seemed like a normal guy. A nice guy. He brought his wife her drinks and had his arm around her most of the night, and I remember wishing my husband was like that with me. I wasn’t afraid of him. I’m afraid of Viktor. I think a part of me always has been.” A bitter laugh escapes her lips. “What did I honestly think I was going to do? Tell Viktor I want a divorce, pack a bag, and move in with you? He isn’t the kind of man who will accept that. And if he even suspects that something has happened between us, he wouldn’t let you off.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“No, Jesse. It was one thing when I thought it might earn me some bruises. But this . . .” She grits her teeth. “I’m going to leave him. But it may just take a while. And I need to be smart about it. That means you need to go, now. Please.”
“What if he hurts you again?” I can’t keep my voice from cracking.
Her fingertips find my mouth, a soft smile settling on her lips. “I won’t give him a reason to. I’ll be fine, Jesse. Don’t worry.”
She disappears behind the heavy door and the deadbolt clicks.
Deep down, as much as I hate it, I know she’s right. I shouldn’t have shown up here like this.
If I don’t smarten up, my feelings for her are going to get her hurt.
I step out from the can to find a line of greasy mechanics standing at the edge of an open bay door, the cold late-November temperature flooding the garage.
The engine’s purr is unmistakable.
“Nice work,” Tabbs offers as I settle into the open space between him and Zeke, the freshly painted silver Aston Martin sitting like a show car smack-dab in the middle of the parking lot.
I barely glance at it, too b
usy staring at the woman standing behind it.
She’s hidden, disguised as the rich trophy wife of a Russian mobster again—her cotton-candy pink coat a bright spot in the cold, overcast day—but I see the real girl underneath.
I haven’t heard her voice or touched her body in three weeks. It’s been agonizing.
“Welles!” My head snaps to Miller, standing with a sharply dressed Viktor. “Get over here.”
Shit. I close the distance to them and Miller promptly leaves, as if he’s not privy to the conversation we’re about to have.
“Hello, Jesse.” Viktor’s accent sends prickles down my spine. “What do you think of the car?”
“Looks incredible. They did a good job on the bodywork. Still running well?”
He strolls toward it—and Alex—forcing me to follow. “Yes. I wanted to take it out for one drive before parking it for the winter.” He pauses. “I have another job for you, if you are interested. It is for a friend of mine. A time-sensitive restoration.”
I keep my gaze to the ground, afraid I’ll get caught staring at his wife. “What does that mean?”
“It means that when the car arrives, it must be restored quickly.”
“What kind of car?”
“Those are details for a later date.”
Fuck. Here we go. I’m no idiot, especially now that I have a better understanding of who Viktor really is. We’re not talking about a pet project in his garage anymore and I don’t want to be in this guy’s pocket. “I’ll pass. But thanks.”
“I will give you some time to think about it. The payment will be significant.” He reaches a hand out for Alex. She comes without hesitation, close enough for him to lean in and kiss her right in front of me. I turn my attention to the car, my teeth cracking against each other. And yet I can’t help but inhale, desperate to fill my nostrils with her perfume again. The scent of her has long since disappeared from my sheets. “I should go away more often. I came back from Russia to the woman I first married,” he says. Then, “Think about it, Jesse.” He rounds the car, leaving Alex to climb into the passenger side on her own. She does so without so much as a glance at me.
It’s as if we don’t even know each other.
Boone appears next to me as they speed away, my eyes trailing them. “What’d he want?”
“He wants me to rebuild another engine, for his friend this time. I said no. It sounds shady.”
“It is.” He pauses, and I wonder if he’s going to elaborate. He’s been out with Rust a lot more lately, working his way into “the circle.” “The cars that need work are lower-risk and therefore cheaper to lift. He can flip them and then sell them for a ton of money without the buyer knowing that a week before, the car they’re buying was a hunk of junk sitting under a tarp in a storage garage. Most of the time, the owner doesn’t even know the car is gone before its wheels are rolling across foreign soil.”
“Smart, if he has some idiot to do the work for him.”
“Yeah. His last guy is doing ten to fifteen for robbery. I guess he was hoping to rope you in as the replacement.”
“Did you know?”
“Just found out. I would never have brought you to The Cellar without telling you what he really wanted. I swear.”
“I don’t want anything to do with it.”
Boone nods slowly, his eyes in the direction that mine are, the direction in which Alex just disappeared. “She’s scared. That’s what that was.”
I sigh, because that’s all I can do. “Yup.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” He slaps my back once before walking away.
A painful knot forms in the base of my throat.
Because I know that I’ve lost her.
She’s never going to leave him.
THIRTY
Water
now
I nearly stumble over my own two feet when I round the corner to find Ginny sitting in the truck.
She holds up a horseshoe. “Lulu needs her own sign.”
“Okay . . .” I climb in and crank the engine, unable to keep my gaze from wandering over to her wide-brimmed hat and the oversized purse tucked under her arm.
“What?” she snaps.
“Nothing, it’s just . . . you’re actually going into town?”
“Well, not if you’re just going to sit there all day, holding the steering wheel.”
I put the truck into gear, avoiding a confused-looking Felix who simply stands in the middle of the driveway, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself without Ginny there. “How long do you think it will take to get that engraved? I can drive you back right after. I’m sure Dakota won’t mind.”
“I have some errands to run, anyway. They’ll take me a few hours. Maybe you can drive me back over lunch.”
“Errands?”
“Yes, errands.” She sets her jaw and I know I’m not going to get any more out of her. So I tune the radio and settle into the drive.
And think about Jesse. Since that night last week, we’ve been alternating between apartments for the last few nights. Thank God he left my apartment early this morning. I’d hate to think what would happen if Ginny caught him strolling down my steps. Though she seems to have warmed up to him a bit since she saw what he helped me with in the barn. She didn’t even comment on the fact that he needed to be in her barn in order to do it.
As we approach the main street, I notice her hands curl tighter around the straps of her purse, until her knuckles are white. “I can go with you to do your errands, if you want, Ginny.”
“I’m not a child.”
Okay . . . “Don’t forget, Hildy’s coming out with Zoe tonight, after school.”
She shakes her head, mumbling, “The girl thinks I’m senile.”
“Who’s that?” Meredith nods toward the small woman standing next to Ginny, their backs to us as they watch Zoe and Lulu trot past.
“That’s Hildy. She and Ginny were childhood friends.”
By the time Zoe and Hildy drove up in Hildy’s black sedan an hour ago, Ginny had changed out of two different outfits, swept the porch, given Felix a good brushing, and was sitting stiff on her swing, her arms folded in her lap.
I couldn’t tell if she was nervous or excited. I suspect a bit of both, though she wouldn’t admit it to me.
Seems there was nothing to be worried about, though. One minute out of her car, Hildy was hugging Ginny and Ginny was letting her.
“I hear Ginny went into town today. I never thought I’d see the day.”
I chuckle. “Yes. She had ‘errands.’ ” I air-quote the phrase. I honestly don’t know what she spent her time doing. Aside from the engraved horseshoe, I drove her back empty-handed. I think maybe she just wanted to rejoin the land of the living, if only to wander among them for a few hours.
“You wouldn’t believe how much of a fight that stubborn mule put up over the gallbladder surgery. I didn’t even know something was wrong until I saw her hunched over outside the barn. Apparently she’d been having digestive issues for years. And even after the gallbladder attack, she still refused surgery. Honestly, I think it was me telling her about you, and my suggestion to have you move here, that motivated her to go in at all.”
“That’s . . . crazy.”
She sighs. “That’s Ginny.”
“Well, Zoe asked if her friend could board her horse here. If Ginny agrees—which I’m pretty sure she will—then she’ll have an excuse to go back into town for a new horseshoe.”
“Huh.” I turn to find Meredith with her arms folded over her chest, smiling at me.
“What?”
I get a tiny head shake in response. “Come on. We’re going to grab dinner at the rodeo. Jesse can meet us there.” She ropes an arm around my shoulders. “You two have been spending a lot of time together.”
If, by a lot of time, she means every moment that we’re not at work, then she’d be right. I honestly didn’t think that anyone had noticed, but I guess I was wrong. I duck m
y head as I feel my cheeks begin to burn.
“And you haven’t had any issues?” She hesitates. “I’m asking as your doctor, not as a nosy mother.”
“No issues.” Nothing but hours feeling like I’ve fallen and somehow landed in my own private heaven.
“Good. I’m glad.” Her words are encouraging, but the worried frown over her brow has me second-guessing her.
The crowd explodes with hollers and cheers as the bull charges through the gates, bucking through the air like he’s on fire and desperate to put himself out, the rider somehow staying on his back.
“This happens every June?” I ask as I take in the bleachers, hundreds of locals and tourists filling them.
“Yup. One of the busiest weekends of the year for Sisters.” The way Gabe says that, he doesn’t sound at all enthused. We’re sitting near the front in special seats. One of the perks of being part of the sheriff’s family.
I guess I’m classified as “family” now.
Meredith sits on the other side of Gabe, in deep conversation with Mrs. Green, the town councilor. The topic of conversation appears serious by the stern frown in Meredith’s forehead. If I had to guess, it’s about building a bypass around the town. That or maintaining the curbside appeal of Sisters. Meredith holds a lot of pride in this town. When we first drove through it, I never noticed the dented trash cans and cracked curbs, but now that I’m a “local,” I’ve seen what she has complained about.
Amber stands down in the front row, talking and laughing with another girl. Both of them look done up like dolls with their fat curls and their wide-brimmed embroidered hats, their smiles dazzling.
“That’s this year’s Rodeo Queen,” Gabe explains. “That was Amber, a few years back. When she was little, she used to sit on my shoulders and stare at the girls. She was determined to win and so she did.”
“Right! Dakota mentioned something about that.”
A buzzer goes off just as the bull finally achieves his goal and bucks the rider off, rearing on him. The rider’s quick, though, landing on his feet and darting out of the way, his hands stretched in front of him. Several guys run into the arena to help corral the bull.