of uncertainty from earlier were back and multiplying like damn Mogwais fed after midnight. Why had I brought up the Groom? I was sure that was the last thing he wanted to talk about, no matter what he said. It was the last thing I wanted. And now I couldn’t unsee what I’d seen in his stare as I helped him clean up, wondering how we were doing this. A hundred questions started racing through me.
How were we talking and sharing dinner like there hadn’t been ten years between us? Like I hadn’t walked out on him? What was the point of this? For him to make sure I was emotionally stable after everything or for me to see that he was doing well after all these years?
I fell quiet as I helped place the leftovers into questionable-looking Tupperware. Once done, Cole opened the fridge door while I stood in the middle of the kitchen, my heart racing again. “Would you like a refill?” he asked.
Yes, I did. I wanted to go back to playing our game. I wanted those blissful moments where I wasn’t thinking about the Groom and everything I’d left behind when I fled this place. But I couldn’t go back and I wasn’t sure how he could pretend to.
As I lifted my head and looked at him, I didn’t see Cole. Not really. I saw the Cole from ten years ago, the last time I’d seen him. He had been staying behind to meet up with a study group for another class, but he’d walked outside with me, and we’d kissed. Oh God, no one had kissed like Cole. Each time had outdone the last and each one had been perfect.
How could we be here like none of that happened?
“What are we doing?” I blurted out.
Cole turned around slowly, one hand on the fridge door and the other empty. “Well, I was hoping we’d share another drink, talk some more.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Folding my arms across my chest, I willed my heart to slow down. “Why are you okay with this? I never answered your calls. I wouldn’t let you see me. I left town without saying a word to you. Why would you even want to see me now?”
He stared at me a moment and then closed the fridge door. “That’s a good question.”
I exhaled heavily. “And that really isn’t an answer.”
Cole walked over to where I stood, stopping a foot from me. I’d forgotten how tall he was, and I had to lift my chin to meet his stare. “I don’t know if you want to hear the answer to your question.”
It hit me then, something I really hadn’t considered but made total sense. It would explain why he’d showed up as soon as he heard I was back in town. It explained what I saw in his stare. My stomach sunk. “You . . . you pity me, don’t you? This is what tonight is about? You feel sorry for me.”
Horror and embarrassment rose swiftly. Why didn’t I figure this out the first night he stopped by? I took a step back, bumping into the counter. Once upon a time something great and damn near magical, but now we just had years, a hundred what-might-have-beens between us, pity and remorse. That was it.
A pink flush crawled up my neck and splashed across my cheeks. That look crept into those beautiful eyes. The same I’d seen before. I couldn’t deal with it. I pushed away from the counter, then hurried around it, snatching up my purse. “Thank you for dinner,” I said, not meeting his stare. “It was amazing—”
“What?” Cole barked out a short laugh. “I didn’t want to have this dinner with you because I feel sorry for you. Is that what you think tonight is about?” He thrust his hand through his messy hair. “Seriously?”
“—and I’m glad we got the chance to catch up,” I continued, swallowing down the sudden knot in the back of my throat.
His hands closed into fists at his sides. “I don’t know why you think that I had you come over for dinner because—”
“Why wouldn’t that make sense? You know what happened. God, you more than anyone know what happened,” I said, my hand tightening on my purse. “We can’t sit and eat dinner, pretend like there hasn’t been ten years between us.”
His eyes flared. “I’m not pretending that.”
“And we can’t . . .” I said, sucking in a sharp breath as my chest burned. In the back of my head, I knew I was being too hard on this situation, on him, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “We can’t pretend that nothing happened.”
“I do know what happened and I sure as hell am not pretending that what happened to you didn’t,” he said, lips thinning. “Fuck, Sasha. It was all I thought about for years. For years. But it is not what I think about when I see you standing in front of me. It’s not what I—”
“Don’t,” I said, hand up and voice shaking. “I need to leave. Okay? I just need to go.” Without waiting for an answer, I turned around and headed for the front of the house. He called out my name, but I kept walking.
I knew when I got home, when I had a few minutes to really think about what had happened, I was going to want to throat punch myself, but the flight response was in high gear.
The night air rushed to greet me as I stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind me. I was halfway down the walkway when the door reopened behind me. Hell, he was fast.
“Sasha.”
I kept walking, nearly breaking into a run. I didn’t care. Not like I could be any more embarrassed than I already was. I just had to get out of there.
“Sasha, please stop.” He was only a few steps behind me. “Damn it, don’t run from me again.”
Don’t run from me again.
God, those words hurt, because they were true. That was what I was doing, and I couldn’t seem to stop myself. Grabbing the handle of the truck, I threw open the door. The dome light came on, and it immediately hit me. I staggered back from the open truck, dropping my purse. The smell. Oh God, my stomach immediately revolted. The smell was raw and metallic. Rotten. There was a loud buzzing sound. Flies. I glimpsed brown and white fur matted with red before I whipped around.
Cole stopped at my side. “What the . . .”
Bending over, I placed my hands on my knees and tried not to gag. No luck. My chest and stomach heaved.
He stepped around me and stalked up to the open door. “Holy fuck,” he grunted, and whipped around. A nanosecond later, he grasped my upper arms, forcing me up straight. “I think you need to go back into the house.”
My wide gaze met his as my knees went weak. “What is that in the truck?”
His jaw was locked down, as hard as a diamond. “Let me just get you back in the—”
“What’s in there?” I demanded.
“You don’t—”
I wrenched free, surprising him as I bolted to the right. He grabbed me, circling an arm around my waist, hauling me back against his chest. But it wasn’t quick enough. I saw. A scream rose in my throat, but shock choked it back down, silencing me.
I saw what was in my mother’s truck.
Chapter 9
Pressing my hands over my face, I counted until the urge to vomit all over Cole’s hardwood floors passed. No matter what I did or what I tried to focus on, what I saw in that truck appeared in my mind, in all the gory details.
It reminded me of the only time I hadn’t been in the dark while I was . . . with the Groom. It had been during one of his moods, and he had a lot of them, almost as if he were two separate people. One moment he was almost . . . kind and gentle, as revolting as that still was. Other times he was violent and unpredictable, and breathing would set him off. It had been during that time, after being dragged out of that room to use the restroom, after my face and stomach burned from his fists, he’d shoved me into the room, blindfold off. It was then, as my knees had cracked off the floor, that I learned the lights were controlled from the outside.
He’d turned the lights on then, and it had taken several moments for my eyes to adjust to the brightness, and when they had . . . I’d thought I knew fear. I’d believed that I couldn’t have been terrorized any more than I was.
I’d been so wrong.
I saw everything in flashes, one after another, as if my brain was too overwhelmed to process it all at once.
; Rusty red blood had dried in splatters all over the hardwood floor, most likely seeping through the subfloors. There were cuts in the floor, nicks I didn’t understand then. Fresher blood—my blood—was on the bed. And the walls—Oh God—I could still see those walls. Dried blood arced across the section above the bed, and I knew someone had lost their life right there, but it was what hung from the walls across from the bed I’d normally been chained to.
Bloody white wedding gowns.
Six of them.
Something hung from them by a thin piece of wire. Something I couldn’t even begin to process. Something that had taken years for me to accept.
A finger had hung from each dress.
And I knew then I was going to die in that room, like so many others. I’d screamed and screamed until my hoarse voice went out, until—
“Drink this.”
Lowering my hands, I looked up in time to see Cole place a cup of fizzing water on the end table beside the couch. He’d disappeared down the hall for a few moments and had returned with the cup. My hand shook as I reached over and picked up the cool glass. “Thank you.”
He stood there a moment. “We got . . . it out of the truck.”
Shuddering, I started to sip the Alka-Seltzer and then chugged it. The front door opened and I looked up. Through the front windows, blue and red lights flashed. Cole had called the police. I wasn’t exactly sure what the police could do in this situation, but state troopers had showed up about twenty minutes ago.
The trooper walked into the living room, his green uniform starched and pressed. He was an older man who looked like he’d seen weirder shit than what was found in my truck.
He looked over at Cole before speaking. “I have a few questions to ask.”
I nodded as I held the empty glass.
“Cole was telling me this truck belongs to your mother—Anne Keeton?” When I nodded once more, he asked, “Who knew you were using your mom’s truck besides her?”
“My friend Miranda knew. So did Angela. She’s a young woman who works as a housekeeper at the inn.” I paused. “And Jason knew. He stopped over at lunch. But none of them would’ve done that.”
“Jason . . . ?” Cole cocked his head to the side.
“Yeah. Remember him? He was in our econ class. He’s an—”
“Insurance agent now,” he finished. When he saw my expression, he said, “He has a billboard over by Route 9. Haven’t seen him in person in years though.”
“I know him,” the trooper said. “Pretty good man. Gets coffee every morning down at the Grind.”
My eyes met Cole’s. “I don’t know who could’ve done that or why.”
“Cole had mentioned your car was vandalized on Friday while it was outside the Scarlet Wench,” the trooper said. “Have you been having any problems with anyone recently?”
Shifting on the couch, unease filled me. “No. I haven’t even been in town long enough to tick someone off. I don’t understand this.”
The trooper didn’t have much to add after that. What law was broken tonight? Without a suspect or any idea of who could’ve done that, I wasn’t sure if this was a case of vandalism or harassment or something more sinister. Another call came in, a vehicle accident on the interstate, and it sounded way more pressing than what was happening here.
“Can I talk with you real quick?” the trooper said to Cole.
He eyed me and then said, “Sure.”
I rose and walked the empty glass over to the sink and washed it out as they went outside. Then I stood there, staring at nothing as I tried to grasp what just happened. I clenched the rim of the sink and took a deep breath, seconds away from freaking out. Like the kind of freak-out that would put the earlier one in the kitchen to shame.
I should’ve been home right now, sitting on my couch, eating a gallon of ice cream while mentally kicking myself. Who would’ve thought I’d prefer that?
I had no idea how long I stood there, but I heard the front door open again. Turning, I saw as Cole walked through the entry that the flashing lights were gone outside.
“He’s filing a report,” he said, glancing down at his cellphone before he slipped it into his pocket. “That’s the best they’re going to be able to do right now.”
Nodding, I leaned against the sink and folded my arms. “I don’t know why you called them.”
He stopped at the edge of the kitchen island and raised his brows. “Someone picked up a deer that looked like it lost a fight with a Mack truck and placed it inside your truck.”
I flinched as my stomach turned. Yep. That sounded about right. And that poor deer had been dead. For a while.
“There needs to be a report of that,” he finished.
A weird taste coated the sides of my mouth. “I don’t even . . . I don’t know what to say right now.”
Cole didn’t respond to that as he walked into the kitchen. I tensed as he passed me and headed for the fridge. He pulled out two bottles of water. Facing me, he handed one over. “Are you okay?”
I nodded.
“I want to hear you say it,” he said, voice gentle but firm.
I opened my mouth and then gave a little shake of my head. I wasn’t okay. I shivered. This was totally messed up. “That’s my mom’s truck. What in the hell am I going to tell her? She’s going to flip out.”
He took a drink of the water. “I got a buddy in town who does car detailing. I called him while I was outside and filled him in on what happened. The deer is out of the truck, and he’ll come by tomorrow morning and get to work on it. He’ll have it like new by tomorrow afternoon. It will be like nothing happened.”
That was good to hear, but there was also a good chance I’d never get in that truck again no matter what was done. I glanced at him, letting out a harsh breath. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“But I did.”
Resisting the sudden need to run over to him and face-plant into his chest, I looked up at the ceiling. “Thank you. Just let me know how much it costs and I will take care of it.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“But I did,” I parroted back.
One side of his lips briefly turned up.
Taking a deep breath, I squeezed the bottle until the plastic crinkled. “I’m not telling my mother.”
Cole went silent and eyes sharp.
“She’ll be just like me. She’ll never be able to get inside that truck again. It’s not like she can go out and buy a new car,” I reasoned, putting the bottle of water aside. “And I don’t want her to worry.”
His jaw tightened. “Maybe she needs to be worried.”
My heart lurched. “Why . . . why would you say that?”
“I’m not trying to scare you. I hope you realize that, but something isn’t right here, and I think you know that.” Cole finished off the bottle of water and tossed it in the trash. He faced me, and anger was etched into his striking face. “Your car was vandalized the first night you were back in town and someone put that deer in the truck with some kind of intention. That’s not something a bored kid does.”
“If that was something a bored kid did, someone needs to see a child psychologist stat,” I commented.
His lips twitched into a wry grin. “I agree.”
I smiled at him, but I felt sick. I wasn’t naive or stupid and from the moment I sat on the couch while Cole dealt with the stuff outside, I knew what was done had been on purpose. I just didn’t understand why. “I still don’t want my mother to know.”
“Sasha, she should know so she can be careful.”
“Careful of what? A dead raccoon in the mailbox? Or a run-over cat that might be dropped off on the front porch?” I pushed away from the counter and tucked both sides of my hair back. “Look, I understand what you’re getting at, but she’s been through a lot, Cole. A lot.”
“So have you,” he reminded me, tone gentle.
“Yeah, but I was able to leave. I got to hide from what happened and from this town. She
didn’t. I don’t want to put this on her unless I have to.”
His face softened. “Sasha . . .”
“Don’t look at me like that,” I warned, sucking in a soft breath. I could barely deal with him when he looked at me normally, but like this? With his handsome face softening and his cool eyes warming? It was too much.
“Like what?”