by Taryn Quinn
“There’s nothing wrong with them, per se. They’re just not fashionable.”
In spite of the fact that my face felt like it was freezing into place, I cocked a brow. “Oh, and that eye-searing combo you have on is? You practically have on a snowsuit. Like a child.”
Her cheeks reddened. I don’t know how I could tell the difference considering she’d been awful damn pink from the wind to start with, but somehow I knew I’d gotten to her. “I’m not a child. I’m a grown woman who likes to be prepared.”
“Huh.” I crossed my arms and jutted my chin toward her car. “So how’s that working out for you?”
She stepped forward, kicking up snow with her gigantic boots. Then she let her gaze wander down the front of me and let out a little harrumph. “And you know what else? Statistics say that eighty-eight-point-six of grown men who wear sweatpants are either still living in their mother’s basements or they’re serial killers.”
Deliberately, I moved into her space, dwarfing her with my size. And yet again, she did not back down. “Those are some odds, Red. Are you feeling lucky?”
CHAPTER 2
Maggie
I was supposed to be afraid of this guy. That was what he wanted me to be anyway. Why else would he be looming over me as if he wanted to do me bodily harm?
But I wasn’t buying it. Let’s go over the evidence.
Wile E. Coyote sweats.
Enough concern to pluck me out of my car like a wilted vegetable.
Back to the Wile E. Coyote sweats.
Also, possibly the kindest, softest, most intriguing brown eyes I’d ever seen. Surrounded by a frame of inky lashes. Such a heavy fringe that snow kept gathering on them until he grew impatient and blinked it away.
But that was neither here nor there.
“First of all, there are most likely no serial killers in Turnbull or the surrounding towns. That’s extremely improbable, given the size of the population.”
“So are your dumbass statistics, but I didn’t call you on them, did I?”
I wasn’t pouting at being called a dumbass. Lord knows I’d been called much worse. As the youngest of six, I’d gotten used to verbal abuse at a young age. I almost enjoyed it.
Just because I looked small and defenseless didn’t mean I was. I tended to sneak up on people like a bunny.
Aww, she’s so cute and fluffy—CHOMP.
“Then again, you’re not making any effort to assist a stranded traveler, so maybe you are planning to Ted Bundy me. Where’s your fake cast, huh?” I gave his arms in the sleeves of his surprisingly thin coat a glance before pretending to search the snowbanks around us. “Where’s your VW Bug with the passenger seat taken out?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Ted Bundy. One of the most famous serial killers of all time. Don’t you people respect the titans in your field?”
“What people is that, exactly?”
His bored tone was making me feel stupid. So much for going toe-to-toe with this giant behemoth. He didn’t find me amusing and he obviously had no intention of helping to free my vehicle.
So time for plan B.
“I’ll just get my bread.” There was no helping my clipped tone as I stomped back toward the ditch. Not that I could even be sure he’d heard me. With the howling wind and the crunch of my boots on the snowy, uneven ground at the side of the road, maybe he hadn’t heard a word I’d spoken.
Then his big hands clamped around my upper arms and he hauled me back as if I’d been on the verge of falling into a fire pit. “Hold it. What bread?”
“Kindly unhand me.”
He made a low noise in his throat and without looking back at him, I knew he’d done that cocked brow thing again. Pretty hot. I couldn’t move one eyebrow independent of the other, so I tended to appreciate skills in others that I did not possess.
“You have no reason to try to get back in that car.”
“Yes, I do. I need my bread before it gets cold.” I sighed. “Well, any colder than it already is. My hot bag can only do so much.”
“Your hot bag? Woman, you make no sense.”
“Stop calling me woman, and it’s an insulated bag to seal in warmth. I used it to protect Mrs. Pringles’ bread. It’s her favorite, pumpkin chocolate chip.” I craned my neck to look up at him, intending to shove his big paws off me, but his head was tilted and his lips were parted, revealing just a hint of bright white teeth.
And those dark assessing eyes were searing right through every damn layer of my clothing.
“Kindly unhand me,” I repeated, not missing the slight chatter of my teeth. I wished I could blame the cold. It was so much worse than that.
I was by the side of the road with a disabled car and a possible Ted Bundy wannabe with soulful eyes, and I didn’t even really care that he was keeping me from my bread.
Mrs. Pringles’ bread. Same difference.
“You might injure yourself further if you attempt reentry. Let the professionals handle it.”
“Further?” I frowned. “I’m not injured.”
Was I? Quickly, I took stock. Everything still worked. Arms, legs, mouth. Definitely mouth. Sure, my heart was beating a bit too fast and my thoughts were skidding out of control, but that was normal for me. My dad called me “fanciful,” which he partially blamed on my obsession with the macabre. My mama said I spent too much time with my head stuck in a book. My brothers—all three of them—called me some variation of Magpie, my childhood nickname that had stuck like a damn flytrap. Maeve and Regan, my perfect older sisters, just sighed at my supposed antics and went on with their lives.
So yeah, mental babbling was typical for me. And often, actual babbling, though the dude hulking over me was not inspiring to foam at the mouth as I usually might.
I didn’t know men like him. The guys I attracted were safe, nice boys. The kind who went to church on Sundays and pulled their elderly neighbor’s newspaper out of the bushes and always referred to my parents as “Sir and Ma’am.” They didn’t have edges. They didn’t skimp on their manners. They definitely didn’t miss their morning shave.
As far as assisting someone with car trouble, they would’ve been sweet and helpful and fixed the problem before I could ask. Not brusque and dismissive and now rough as the brute hauled me around and set me a few feet away from my vehicle.
“Stay there.” He pointed at me. “I’m going to take care of your problem so you can get on your way.”
“About time. Do you have a truck hoist?”
He was already moving toward my car. He studied the door for a moment, then yanked on the handle. It opened for him with only the slightest effort.
Traitorous car.
Fumbling inside, he realized my window was the crank-up kind and shut it so the front seat didn’t fill with snow. “Guess the door wasn’t so stuck after all,” he shouted over the wind.
I rolled my eyes. Sure, if I had the strength of an ox, no problem. “I asked if you had a truck hoist?”
“A truck hoist?” he echoed, clearly not paying attention as he studied my car.
“Yes, to pull me out of the ditch.”
“No, I don’t have a truck hoist. What I do have should do the trick though.” He shut the door without grabbing my bread or any of my belongings, then climbed out of the ditch, pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and hit a button. Smugly, I might add.
This man did not have an air of friendly cooperation, that was for sure. As for neighborly concern? Nope. Nada.
After a minute, his smug expression flattened. His mouth thinned out and he gazed at his phone as if he’d misdialed. He hit a button again, waited, then yanked the phone from his ear. “What the fuck?”
I tried not to blanch. Of course, I’d heard swearing before. I was a college student, wasn’t I? But in my family home, we had a tip jar. Anyone who swore put in a five-dollar bill. Forget a one-dollar bill. My parents had wanted us to learn appropriate words swiftly, and parting with five dollar
s of our allowance had worked fast.
Pretty sure this dude didn’t have a jar. If he did, he’d probably smash it with one of his hamhock fists.
“Is there a problem?”
“No. Definitely not. The tow truck place isn’t answering. No big.”
“It’s New Year’s Eve.”
“You don’t say?”
I ignored his sarcasm and lifted my voice to speak over the growing wind. The darker it got, the more frigid it was growing outside. But I’d be damned if I shivered. If he could seem impervious to the weather, so could I. “If you’re not using a national company and instead supporting a local business, it’s not surprising. This is a holiday. Therefore, holiday hours.”
“Thank you, Miss Know-It-All, but I’m well aware of this particular company’s hours. It’s a family business.”
“Your family? Yet you don’t own a truck hoist?” I cocked my head. “Seems fishy.”
“I said family business, not my business.”
“Ah, like your dad? Or your brother?”
“Look, they aren’t answering, so we’ll have to just wait.” He glanced around at the gathering snow as if he planned for us to wait at the edge of the road.
If that was the case, I was definitely going to try to get back into my car. As much as I loved Mrs. Pringle, I knew my stomach was on the verge of roaring. That bread was going to be mine. I’d skipped lunch, and boy oh boy, I knew better than to take shortcuts. They never paid off.
“Okay. Well, thanks.” Even if he couldn’t be polite, I could. “I appreciate your…” But I wasn’t a liar. “Conversation.”
I couldn’t be certain in the near darkness, but I was almost sure his lips twitched. “Conversation, is it?”
I shrugged.
“Come on,” he said, indicating with his chin for me to head up the short incline to a dark, forbidding, tiny house.
Immediately, my back went up. And my spidey senses started to tingle.
Or that might have been my extremities due to frostbite setting in.
“No, thank you. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll just stay here and call AAA.”
“You have AAA?”
“Of course I do.” I bit my lip, vividly picturing the expired notice on my desk at home. I’d paid that, right? It had been at the top of my To Do list, but with the holidays…
Okay, maybe not.
“You seem uncertain.”
“Not really.”
He gusted out a sigh. “It’s freezing out here. Let’s go inside and get warm. I’ll call the towing company again later.”
“If they’re not answering now,” I shouted over the wind, moving closer when my voice seemed to get sucked away, “what makes you think they will later? It’s a holiday. People are out celebrating.”
“Are you?” He pointed at himself. “Am I? No. Not everyone is in a fucking party mood. Now come on.”
When I didn’t budge, he gave me a stern look that made me half expect him to haul me over his shoulder like a sack of Maggie. Then he let out another of those windy breaths. “Please?”
My frozen face cracked into a smile. “Did that hurt?”
“A little. Not as much as my nuts shriveling up into my spine though.”
I swallowed. Along with not hearing a ton of swear words on a daily basis, I also wasn’t privy to men referring to their nuts as if that counted as ordinary conversation.
Hi, my nuts hurt. Pass the crackers.
“You, um, should definitely go inside then. That sounds painful.”
“It is. Come on. I won’t bite.”
“Are you sure?”
Now he did more than almost smile. He barked out a laugh. “Not unless you want me to, honey, and even then, I’m pretty sure you aren’t my type.” He tilted his head and lifted his voice above the howling wind. “I’m not into church girls. Even the ex-communicated kind, which does sound interesting.”
“It is. No, I’m not telling you.” I rubbed my mittened hand over my stinging cheeks. “What happens between a girl and her priest is private.”
“Wow. Some Thorn Birds shit? Kinky little thing, aren’t you?”
Was that actually approval I saw in his midnight eyes? They’d definitely warmed. Speaking of kinky…
“Hardly.” I sniffed, and not out of haughtiness.
I had to sneeze, and I had to pee. I was also freezing and starving and desperately in need of a long, hot shower.
Then again, did I dare get naked within the same four walls as this guy? Even if I wasn’t his type?
Serial killers had types too. They also didn’t kill everyone they met. I couldn’t be sure this guy was safe, but if I wasn’t in his target victim group, he could be a homicidal lunatic and I wouldn’t necessarily be in danger. Plus, I knew some judo.
Oh, the rationalizations a girl who urgently needs a bathroom will make.
“Okay. I’ll go inside with you. Briefly. Until we can reach the towing company. Otherwise, I will have many people out looking for me, and they will descend on your place like a swarm of locusts if I’m not home in a matter of hours.”
Much to my consternation most of the time. I was well and truly sick of being so overprotected by my family, though I loved them for their concern. It was just hard to have much of a life when you were watched like a rabid animal expected at any moment to go on a rampage through town.
In truth, I just mostly studied and worked, along with spending time with my bestie and my boyf—
Yep, not going there.
“Not if I tie you up and make you call them to say you’re okay and not to look for you. Then I might throw your chair in the basement and leave you without food and water.”
His voice was entirely too serious, which was how I guessed he was lying. It was a gamble, but I was going to bet that the usual serial killer didn’t advertise his intentions so brazenly. “You forgot to add that you’d have your way with me first.”
“Hoping, Red?” Before I could stammer out a response, he grabbed my arm and towed me behind him. “Not my type, remember?”
“I didn’t say yes,” I called.
He promptly ignored me.
After dragging me up a short snowy hill, we made our way up a scarcely shoveled path to a short set of rickety steps. He stopped to pick up some wood, then stomped up the steps and pressed his shoulder into the door. “Come on,” he shouted in my general direction before barreling into the dark house.
Hell, I didn’t even know if it was truly his. He could be an illegal squatter there for all I knew.
The fact of the matter was that I knew most of the people in Turnbull. This was on the outskirts, true, and the occasional person came or went without stirring my notice, but we lived in a small, self-contained area. We might be surrounded by trees and hills and blocked in by mountains of snow for almost half the year, due to our proximity to Lake Ontario, but we kept track of our own.
Also, it was hard to make quick getaways when a snowpocalypse wasn’t a disaster so much as a way of life.
Biting my lip, I cast a quick glance back toward the road. In the time it had taken us to walk up to the house—though calling it that seemed to be an overstatement—my poor car had become even more buried. The snow wasn’t coming down in flakes now. More like pellets.
“Red,” he growled. “Forget the damn bread.”
Something about his irritation made me laugh. I clapped a hand over my mouth, then bent at the waist when more laughter rolled out. I couldn’t catch my breath and what breaths I could take were laced with ice. Crappy time to be on the verge of hysteria.
Guess my accident had shook me up more than I’d thought. Or else it was due to the man himself.
So I stood up straight, threw back my shoulders, and strutted inside in my giant boots to my beheading.
At least he’d turned on the lights. As I shut the door behind me and shifted to survey my surroundings, from down the hall came a string of curse words shot off in succession like gunfi
re.
My eyes widened. If he was trying to ease me into feeling comfortable before he struck, he wasn’t too good at it.
“Are you okay?” I asked carefully, darting glances right and left as I crept up the hallway to where his voice was coming from.
And stopped dead at the mouth of the sparse, rustic kitchen.
He was standing at the stove in nothing but a pair of silky black boxers with a spatula in his hand, poking at whatever congealed mess was in his dented pan. It was one like you’d see in a camping kit, meant to be used on nights under the stars and no other time, ever. But that was his home cookware.
Fit him somehow, as did the intricate swirls and lines of dark ink that wrapped around his muscular shoulders and biceps. More ink covered his back and sides. He was a human canvas, tattooed and rippling with muscle.
I didn’t find that arousing. That he was the exact opposite of my lanky, inkless ex was merely something I noted.
“Fucking burner is fucking out.” He stabbed at the red mass in his pan. Without sparing me a glance, he continued. “Why are you still dressed like a damn polar bear? Get out of those wet clothes. You were standing in a snowbank for a good fifteen minutes or more.”
“Polar bears don’t need clothing, as they have fur.”
That he only growled made me laugh. And cautiously unwind my scarf.
While he continued to fiddle with the non-working stove, I cleared my throat. “You have a microwave. Just heat up the soup.” Cautiously, I stepped closer and peered at the gross stuff he kept trying to stir. “That is soup, right?”
“Yes. Tomato. I was going to make grilled cheese to go with it. Can’t now, because fucking burner is—”
“Fucking out,” I finished, surprised by how liberating it felt to curse. There weren’t any tip jars here.
No furnace either apparently, as it was nearly as cold inside as it had been out. Or else I’d caught a serious freaking chill.
“Look at you. Your teeth are chattering.” He turned to me and yanked off my fuzzy hat, causing the long hair I’d tucked underneath to come tumbling out. He gazed at it as if he was surprised I had hair at all, then managed to shake off his shock and tugged off my earmuffs too.
