Sinful Suspense Box Set

by Tess Oliver

  The bus pulled to a stop in front of a red bench. No one else stood up to get off. I pulled my backpack onto my shoulder.

  “After you’re done,” Everly said, “keep walking. Blackthorn is about two miles past the curve. Once you see the sign for the town, take a sharp left and walk two blocks. My uncle’s store is called Gregor’s Market. Stop in and I’ll fix you my specialty sandwich, chicken salad and pickles.”

  “Sounds good. Thanks again, Everly. See you soon.”

  The bus driver followed me out and opened the hatch. He pulled out my duffle bag and my guitar. I threw the strap around my shoulder and moved the guitar to my back.

  “You’re a musician,” Everly called from the window she’d opened. “Can’t wait to hear you play.” She waved as the bus driver motioned for her to put up the window.

  The bus kicked up some diesel smelling dust as it roared past. I took a deep breath and turned toward the highway. I headed away from the small town that was just downhill from the bus stop. Everly had warned me Trumble’s Bridge was a grim place, and it was definitely that. But it had been the last stop before my journey to Blackthorn Ridge.

  The forest ranger station that I had mysteriously shown up at when I was seven, lost confused and beyond terrified, was located just five miles north of Blackthorn Ridge. It was the reason I’d chosen the town as my starting point. Several cars sped past, one with an annoying driver who laid on his horn as he raced by, nearly startling me right over the edge of the road.

  The tall evergreens thinned, and I could see straight down the side of the road to the valley below. In the distance, I could see the mill. It seemed the smoke had dissolved, and the activity had stopped. The mill had obviously closed for the day. Everly’s warning about working at the mill had not helped to boost my already waning confidence. My skills were good, but I hadn’t ever worked for anyone but Margaret Kipple, a wonderful woman with a thriving real estate business. Her son lived in The Grog, and even though she was a business woman and lived outside of the commune, she was, in her own way, one of us. I could only imagine how gruff a mill owner might be. But at least I’d found a friend and a place to stay. I looked forward to getting to know Everly better. She was a lifelong local. She knew a lot about the area. And, it seemed, she wasn’t afraid to tell any of the dirty local secrets.

  I stopped and stared at the smooth curve of road in front of me. I hadn’t expected it, but my heart raced ahead of its normal pace and my stomach fluttered with nerves. As Everly had promised, there were several makeshift roadside memorials, including two crosses, handmade and decorated with fake flowers that were caked with roadside dirt. The white railing that ran along the curve was a different shade of white than the rest of the highway. It was easy to spot where the new railing had been welded to the old.

  With the shoddy, sporadic internet service in The Grog, I’d made the trek to the local library at least a dozen times before starting my trip. I’d found seven separate fatal accidents blamed on the deadly piece of road. All of them had been trucks driving through town late at night. My dad, the third recorded fatality, had been driving his truck on an overnight delivery. Occasionally, he’d had to fill in for other truckers and then he’d be gone a few days. The truck had been filled with his usual cargo of wine and spirits. His trucking friends had always called him by the handle Rum Runner. He’d worked for the same liquor company for ten years and had managed to snag a local, daily delivery route soon after he was thrown into the role of single parent. A wonderful woman named Greta would come and babysit me while he worked. She had big round shoulders and a heavy accent and she made the best chicken soup when I was feeling sick. Whenever Dad was asked to go on a long route, she’d come with her bag of yarn and knitting needles and spend the night. She was the only mom in my life for the first six years, but she’d moved back to Europe to be with her own family. I was bounced from day-care to day-care while my dad worked.

  I walked up to the first cross. The name Mikey the Bear was etched on it. I remembered an article about the man they’d called Bear because of his size and girth. He’d left behind a wife and three kids. At the base of the cross someone had strapped on a teddy bear with a piece of faded blue ribbon.

  I looked down into the ravine and swallowed back the bitter taste in my throat. The blackened skeletal remains of several trucks littered the ground in a macabre display. The trees around the truck graveyard were young saplings, offspring of the adult trees surrounding the blackened pit. I wondered how often a layer of young trees had sprung up only to be charred into ash and turned to loam to wait for a seed to start again.

  The newspaper article about my dad’s accident had noted that his truck had not fallen to the bottom of the ravine like the others. It had gotten jammed on a boulder. But with his combustible cargo, it had burst into flames. They’d found my dad’s charred remains inside.

  I surveyed the area. There was only one boulder large enough to stop a rolling delivery truck. My throat thickened as I stared down at it. There was no sign of the wreck, and a carpet of brilliant green moss grew around the massive rock.

  I reached into my backpack and pulled out the chocolate donut. It was smashed and looked more travel weary than I felt. It had been Dad’s favorite. Occasionally, I’d go with him on a long weekend delivery and we always took a box of chocolate donuts with us. We’d have a contest to see who could lick off the icing the fastest.

  The rumble of motorcycles roaring in the distance interrupted the peace and quiet of the forest. Several squirrels popped out of the nearby shrubs as I threw my leg over the railing. A narrow, flat ledge of dirt ran parallel with the guardrail. I set down my guitar and bags.

  Donut in hand, I headed cautiously down the side searching for solid footing with each step. On the third step, my foot slipped, and I slid down several inches before I could gain traction again. The terrain was cut into broad, weatherworn steps where the dirt would level off to form a flat shelf before dropping down sharply to the next ledge.

  I walked along one step to an area that had an easier decline and nearly tripped over a small plaque that had been welded to a metal stake. The plaque was completely crusted with dirt and the writing was faded and hard to read. I picked up a rock and scraped away some of the debris, expecting to read another tribute to one of the victims. Instead, it turned out to be a tribute and a trailhead marker commemorating the nineteenth century fur trappers who had frequented the area. The aptly named Trappers’ Trail had been deemed a historical landmark.

  I straightened and looked past the sign. The trail itself was mostly worn away by rain and wind. Forest litter and even some human litter covered what must have been a well-trod path a few hundred years earlier. A long winding path led down into the ravine and disappeared into a thick copse of trees. It might have been a historical landmark, but it wasn’t being maintained in the slightest. Of course, it might have been a little too much dark irony for a town to be celebrating its proud history right along the site where the notorious Phantom Curve had claimed so many lives.

  I traversed another slope of loose gravel and managed to reach the boulder with the donut still in hand, but it now had grit mixed in with the rainbow sprinkles. Overhead, the motorcycle engines echoed off the towering mountain slope.

  My shoes slid along the mossy ground, kicking up the musty green smell that was uniquely moss. The boulder stood taller than me, and it was at least fifteen feet wide. In fact, to call it a boulder was silly. It was more an extension of the rocky mountain slopes, an outcropping that had somehow skipped the usual ravages of wind and erosion.

  I stood and closed my eyes as an evergreen scented breeze pushed against me. Without warning, a jolt of panic shot through me. Suddenly, the breaths I’d been pulling in at a natural pace and depth weren’t enough, and I couldn’t seem to take in enough oxygen. My fingers and face tingled with numbness, and an overwhelming sen
se of terror froze me to the spot. The donut fell from my fingers and landed icing down on the dirt. I had no explanation for my reaction. A clammy sweat covered my skin. I leaned my hand against the rock to steady myself. The tingling in my fingers moved to my hands and arms and I worried I might pass out.

  It was a laugh behind me, a deep, treacherous sounding laugh that shocked me out of the panic attack. I sucked in a long, steadying breath and turned around. Panic turned to fear, and it dawned on me just how alone I was. Only I wasn’t completely alone. The man, the motorcycle rider, was tromping down the slippery, steep trail in his black motorcycle boots and black leather jacket as easily as one might cross a flat, solid floor. His dark hair was shaved close to his head and a mosaic of black tattoos that looked like nothing more than a blur of ink from where I stood covered his neck. The one thing that was clear to me—my beloved guitar, my prized possession, was dangling precariously from his big hand.

  He waved the instrument around like a flag above his head. “I wasn’t seeing things.” His unhinged laughter bounced off the surrounding granite cliffs. He stopped a few feet away. I backed up.

  My bottom hit the rock. The unexplained panic attack had subsided sharply. Now fear made adrenaline surge through my bloodstream. My gaze flicked in every direction, looking for my escape route, as if I’d been cornered by a hungry mountain lion.

  He had dark eyes that were looking at me but seemed to be looking straight through me too, as if there was a conflicting bunch of thoughts going through his head. One thing was sure, he looked dangerous.

  His eyes dropped to my legs and back to my face. “Aren’t you something,” he said. “Looks like you just popped out of a magic genie bottle or something.” He licked his bottom lip and grinned wickedly at me. “And I already know what my three wishes will be.” He took another step.

  My eyes shot to my guitar. He hung it from his long fingers as if it was a piece of trash to be tossed aside. He was more focused than I would have given him credit for as he seemed to notice where my attention had landed.

  He looked at the guitar with surprise, almost as if he’d forgotten he was holding it. He lifted it up and strummed it roughly. The discordant sound sent several critters from the nearby trees and I startled. He laughed again.

  “Give her the damn guitar,” an angry voice called from above. Another pair of black motorcycle boots lumbered with preternatural ease down the rough terrain. This man was just as tall but with dark blond hair and facial hair. There was much more emotion in his face. In fact, he had a face that was hard to look away from. He reached the spot where the first man was standing and wrenched the guitar from his hand without a struggle. They were both over six feet tall with imposing, almost threatening physiques that would make any sane man think twice before crossing them.

  The second man stepped closer, and instinctively, I took a step back which, from the tiny tilt of his mouth, seemed to amuse him. He had a black plug in each ear and a deep scar lined one side of his perfectly squared jaw, the kind of jaw that made a man undeniably handsome. A ham handed doctor or possibly even a friend or the man himself had done a poor job stitching the gash, yet it didn’t detract from his face.

  He stretched his arm out to hand me the guitar. As I reached to take it, our fingers accidentally brushed together and the oddest feeling, a feeling akin to déjà vu, a weird familiarity, pushed the breath from me. His eyes, brown but with flashes of feral gold, met mine for a brief second. It almost seemed as if he’d felt the same thing, but I brushed off the idea as my runaway imagination, a result of the earlier panic attack.

  “Don’t you fucking dare turn on that charm, bro,” the first man barked. “I spotted her first.”

  The man who had returned the guitar looked back. “She’s not prey, and she’s not for you. Now get your ass back up on your bike.” The first man, the one who seemed to be a few pancakes short of a stack, as my Aunt Carly liked to say, took the time to look me up and down before turning and heading back up to the road.

  I was left standing with the second man, a man who looked like trouble just as much as he looked like heartache, deep, unshakeable heartache.

  He stared at me for a long, hard moment. His Adam’s apple moved along his throat with a deep swallow. “Christ, you are a goddamned heartbreaker,” he said quietly as if he was just talking to himself. He seemed to shake off another thought. All sense told me I should be afraid to be standing in a deserted ravine with this man, a man whose gaze was now riveted to me, but the earlier fear I’d felt at seeing his friend hike toward me had vanished.

  He lifted his hand toward my guitar. I pulled it out of his reach, thinking he’d decided to keep it.

  He smiled, but the sorrow behind it seemed to be permanent, as if he hadn’t been happy in a long while. “Relax, darlin’, I’ve got no use for a guitar. Can’t even sing in the shower without scaring the birds outside. I just thought I’d carry it up for you. You look a little out of it, and it’s a harder hike up than down.”

  Reluctantly, I handed him the guitar. His fingers once again brushed mine. I was sure it wasn’t just a coincidence because his hand lingered longer than necessary. The way he looked at me made me feel as if I was standing completely naked in front of him. There was a glimmer of amusement in his light brown eyes as his gaze drifted down over my body.

  I shifted slightly on my feet. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing at all. The opposite, in fact. Just wondering if you’ve got a peace sign or the words ‘make love not war’ tattooed somewhere on that body of yours.”

  “I don’t. Sorry if my clothing style amuses you.”

  “Nope, I like it.” He motioned with his head. “Come on, Woodstock, follow my steps, and you should be fine.” He turned back toward the makeshift trail.

  I stayed close behind him. His height and impressive shoulder span in his black leather jacket made me feel as if I was following a gothic Goliath up the mountain. I scurried behind trying to keep pace with his long legs and confident steps.

  He glanced back over his shoulder. The waning sunlight made his eyes nearly glow gold. “What were you doing down there?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He stopped and turned around. “You lost someone on the curve.” It wasn’t a question. But, as Everly had said, it was common for people to visit this spot.

  “Yes.”

  He stared at me for a long, drawn-out moment again before turning back around. Up above, a motorcycle roared to life. I hoped that the other man would be gone before we reached the road. He was unsettling, to say the least.

  I followed behind my intimidating but intriguing trail guide. My gaze strayed to the mesmerizing movement of his butt and leg muscles beneath his jeans, and I stepped too far near the edge. I gasped as the trail gave way. A terrifying vision of me falling head over heels down into the ravine flashed through my mind. Strong fingers wrapped around my arm. I slipped no farther than a few inches, but my heart raced as if I’d fallen a hundred feet. It was an odd, uneasy feeling I couldn’t shake even moments after both my feet were back on solid ground. He held my arm until I steadied myself.

  “Guess you’ll think twice before hiking down here again.” He stepped up to the ledge of flat ground running behind the highway railing. He turned back to me. A rush of recognition went through me that pushed a lump into my throat. Impossible. He was a complete stranger. This was not a man who would just dash out of your memory after meeting him. There was no way I’d ever seen him before. I pushed all my crazy thoughts off as the product of a long, emotional day and my first whole day away from home.

  It took me a second to notice the hand he’d lowered to me. I placed my palm on his. It was strong, warm and callused as he closed his fingers around mine. He held my hand as I climbed back over the railing.

  It had been shady down in the ravine, but the ligh
t on the highway was fading fast. The dusk sky was filling with the velvet gray of the coming night.

  His motorcycle was parked a few feet down along the railing. He looked up and down the highway. “How did you get here?”

  “I walked from the last bus stop.” My voice sounded shaky and small standing in the majestic mountain setting and in front of this striking man.

  His dark brows creased together. “You walked? What’s your name, darlin’?”

  “Tashlyn. And I suppose I should thank you for getting back my guitar and getting me out of that ravine safely.”

  “My brother wouldn’t have hurt you. He just likes to act before he thinks.” He looked down at the duffle bag at my feet. “Where are you heading?”

  “Blackthorn Ridge.”

  His scar twitched as he tightened his jaw. “Why the hell are you heading there?” His tone had hardened.

  “I’m looking for something.” I wasn’t about to start telling my story to a complete stranger, especially one who looked as if he could break my heart just as easily as he could reach in and rip it from my chest.

  His expression grew grim. “You should get back on the bus and head straight back to wherever the hell you came from.”

  I stiffened my shoulders, trying hard not to let his harsh words upset me. “I don’t see how that is your business.”

  Again, he stared at me a long moment before speaking. “It’ll be dark soon, and you’ve got two miles ahead of you. Want a ride?”

  I looked at the bike and the cold, hard gaze of the man in front of me.