by Ella James
“I’m going to let this drop, Walsh, but it’s not over. I’m not a dog. I can’t stand drool or silent farts. To be completely honest, I’m really more a cat person. They groom themselves and stay out of the way. Loyalty—whatever that is? Cats give as good as they get.”
As we bump over the red dirt road that streaks beneath a copse of pecan trees, I wonder why she thinks she should only give as good as she gets. After watching her from afar for so long—after trying so many labels on her, from scared to treacherous to clueless—I’m almost surprised to find that Cleo Whatley is a real person. She’s nothing like I thought.
I remember her mouth around my cock and grit my teeth. I want to make it up to her. To take back all the observations I shared. I’m fucking weird sometimes—I know this. I shouldn’t have said something so strange. Certainly not if I want her staying at my house.
I think again about the amount of money I agreed to pay her and have to rub my lips together to keep from laughing.
“You know that you have dimples when you frown, but not when you smile—right?”
“I’ve been told.”
“That’s kind of weird.”
We pass a crooked green mailbox. There’s an old farmhouse at the end of that driveway, with an even older farmer pulling weeds. I shrug. “I’m weird. Not scary weird.” I look her in the eye. “I followed you to get an idea of how much you were dealing, Cleo. That’s all.”
She snorts. “Hashtag: were there any signs?”
My mouth curves up without permission. “You’re different... than I thought.”
“I hope that’s a compliment.”
“Mostly.”
She scoffs.
We pass a few more mail boxes mounted on a giant piece of plywood, and I veer right at a “Y” in the road, following Pecan as it rolls onward, deeper into thick, oak-pine forest.
“How am I different than you thought?” she asks.
I can’t help smirking. “More difficult.”
“How?”
I shrug. “Just are.” I realize I’m being more forthcoming with her than I’ve been with any girl in years. It’s... inappropriate. A moment later, I’m relieved to see the pale blue mailbox to the right, followed a few feet later by a thin, dirt drive that curves into some trees.
“I’m a ninja,” Cleo says as I turn.
I press my lips together, suppressing a bark of unexpected laughter. “What?”
“That groin kick is my least fancy move. I’ve got more where that came from.” She sits up straighter and arches her brows at me. “In other words, don’t try anything sketchy, unknown guy with whom I’m driving into the woods.”
I rub my temples. “Would it help if you drove?”
She shrugs. “Probably.”
I pull over on a red dirt shoulder, and she cuts her eyes at me. “You sure? Your car is worth like, more than my family’s house.”
Shit—could that be true? I’ve got no damn clue what to say about poverty, having never experienced it myself, so I shrug. “Just a bunch of glass and metal.”
I watch her neck as she drives. I watch her shoulders. She seems tense. I smooth my hand over my pants and glance over at her, then I set my eyes back on the road. “There’s a stray at my place. Black cat. A ‘she,’ I think.”
I watch her delicate brows lift. “Oh yeah?”
“Mm-hmm.”
She smiles at me, bright and unexpected. “Can I adopt her?”
“She’s kind of mangy. She might be sick.”
Cleo shrugs. “I don’t care. I’ll take her to the vet and make her better.”
“If we can get her.”
“I think we can,” she says.
I tuck my thumb inside my fingers. “Do you consider yourself an optimist, Cleo?”
“I don’t know,” she says, braking a little as we reach a fissure in the dirt road. “People say glass half empty, glass half full like it’s so easy to just pick one. I think things are more complicated. My full might be different from yours. Or maybe all the glass is, is a glass.”
“You think this cat will be your new pet?” I manage a smile.
“My Eight Ball tells me ‘very likely.’”
“And if we catch her and we have to put her down instead?”
I watch her throat as she swallows. Her skin is pale there—pale and smooth as satin. “I don’t know. I wish you wouldn’t say that.”
“It makes you sad to think about putting down a feral cat you’ve never even met?”
Her tongue darts over her lips. Then she slides her gaze to me. “I think pain should be reserved for something painful. Not a fucking hypothetical.”
She seems angry as we roll on through the trees. Like she’s sure I’m fucking with her head.
I am fucking with her head. I don’t mean to, but I can’t seem to help myself.
This close to... everything that’s coming, I find myself strung taut. It’s not like you might think. I can feel myself becoming more... exacting. More thorough. As if force of will can help me.
Cleo’s green gaze wanders over me, and my chest tingles like it’s waking up from sleep. “If you know the cat’s gender,” she says, “then you must have touched her.”
“That was a gamble,” I admit.
“Why?”
“She could have been rabid. Could have clawed me.”
Cleo shrugs. “I’m all about gambles.”
“Then you are an optimist.”
She shrugs again. “You think the cat will be hard to catch?”
I shake my head. “She’s pretty friendly for a stray.”
She smiles. “Then it’s settled. She’ll be the third in our crime unit. I’m naming her Helen.”
I can’t help smiling at the thought of Cleo with a cat. For some reason, I have the feeling they’d get into some trouble. “Helen—of Troy?”
She shakes her head. “For Helen Keller.” After a minute, she says, “My sisters w—they’re deaf.”
“They can’t hear anything?” For reasons unexamined, this shocks me.
She nods, tightening her hands on the wheel as we lurch over the bumpy road. “My parents both had a gene for it, even though neither one of them are. Were,” she corrects. Her mouth tightens.
I think about how she reacted to my guessing that her father died and feel a tender wave of curiosity rise in me. I want to ask, but I don’t dare. Losing my Mom and Ly has taught me to tread lightly where loss is concerned. Shit, my own damn life has taught me that. I swallow a deep breath and let my eyes drift to her hands. “Does that mean you know sign language?”
“Yep.”
I turn that over in my head. Last time I tried to learn sign language... I swallow. “Show me something.” Anything, I want to plead.
“The sign for ‘fuck you’ is this,” she says, pushing her knees into the bottom of the wheel as she holds two fingers up, almost like a peace sign, touches the tip of one to her nose, and then moves her hand out and up, making a classic “okay” symbol.
I laugh.
She grins. “Want to see the sign for whore?” She folds her hand in a little and runs it along the side of her chin.
She follows the curve of the driveway to the right, and I watch her face as the house comes into view. It’s a whitewashed two-story with a wide brick porch and Manning’s Harley in the dirt out front.
“Welcome to nine-one-one Pecan.”
Her lips quirk at the corners. “A pecan emergency?”
I shake my head, fighting my own smile. “The address. It’s nine-one-one Pecan Way.”
“Oh. So who lives here?” She pushes her dark hair out of her face as she steers around the bike and pulls up right next to the porch.
“It’s a private residence, registered to a woman named Rose Cole.”
“Who is that?” Cleo asks, shifting the Escalade into park.
“She’s dead. It’s phony paperwork.”
She twists her lips. “Makes sense. I guess if you’re lying about s
omething of this caliber, you have to go big.”
I nod. A slow spinning sensation starts at the base of my throat and crawls up the back of my head, until I feel so dizzy, I’m forced to lean over my lap and touch my fingers to my forehead.
KELLAN LOWERS HIS HEAD INTO his hand and, with his long, strong fingers, rubs his brow. He inhales deeply, making his thick shoulders rise, and then he exhales, and his back seem to slacken.
“Is something wrong?” I look down on his neck and shoulders, admiring how tanned and thick he is; the way his hair is shorn to different lengths as it tapers to his nape.
I’m just starting to get nervous when he lifts his head. His eyes are clear and blue and void. “Everything’s fine.”
But the look on his face is just so weird. I don’t believe him. “Are you like... frustrated or something?”
He glances at his cell phone, cradled in the palm of his big hand, then looks back up and me. His cheeks are sucked in as he shakes his head. “No.” He loosens his jaw, so he looks a little less uptight. “Come on.” He smiles wanly as he nods at the house. “Let’s go in.”
“You’re really doing this? You’re going to let me see a grow house?” I’m both excited and nervous. Excited because forbidden things are always exciting. Nervous because I’m hopping off the fence now. Going into Kellan’s grow house will put me firmly in his camp. His illicit, dirty-monied camp.
I wonder again what a work relationship between the two of us will look like as I watch him stride around the car’s hood. His button-up shifts over his chest and shoulders as he moves. My eyes search his face. The pretty lips. The deep blue eyes. The scruffy jaw. What kind of guy is he? Where did he come from? What’s his family like? As if he’s seeking to reassure me, his features gentle as he peers into my window.
I smile a little while my stomach flutters.
Then he pulls the door open and before I have a chance to swing my legs out of the Escalade, he lifts me out and sets me down beside him on the dirt drive.
His eyes roll up and down me, settling on my Armani boots.
“You’re in it for the money, aren’t you?” He smirks.
I put a hand on my hip. “What does that mean, pray tell?”
“I can spot expensive leather.” His eyes crinkle as his lips curve into a funny smile.
“It takes a greedy cow to know one.”
He laughs. “A greedy cow?”
I shrug as we start moving toward the porch. “I see it as a cow. A hungry cow, gobbling down green grass. That’s me, at least. I’m new money. The newest.”
“The first in your family with means,” he says as we approach the wide porch.
“The veeery first.”
As we climb the stairs, his left hand hovers behind my elbow. Protective? Possessive? Whatever his intentions are, they’re throwing me off my game.
“Unlike you,” I say belatedly as I step onto the brick porch. I’m fishing for personal information, eager to confirm my guess that Kellan was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But he’s focused on something else. Something on the roof over the porch. I’m about to ask if he’s having a seizure when the door swings open, revealing a short, skinny, ginger guy who looks like he stepped right out of the halls of my old middle school.
“Manning,” Kellan says warmly. I glance at the spot I think Kellan was staring at, and after a second I spy a discreet security camera. Of course.
Kellan clasps the guy’s upper arm in some kind of dude hug, but the ginger guy isn’t paying attention. He’s sizing me up. It’s as if he’s trying to let his facial expression and his body language alone tell me he doesn’t like me.
“Why is she here?” the ginger asks. He’s got one of the deepest drawls I’ve ever heard, the kind of voice I imagine basset hounds would have if they spoke.
“Manning, this is Cleo. She’s getting a tour. I wanted to make some space for the teddy bears and check on the Silent Stalker.”
I frown, looking from Kellan to the guy he calls Manning. Teddy bears? Silent Stalker? I could not be more confused.
“Whatever you say, bro.” Manning takes a step back into the foyer. I notice he’s wearing big, clomping work boots. And ratty jeans. And a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt.
Kellan’s hand finds mine. I look down. Our fingers tangle, and he squeezes lightly.
His eyes are on his friend, who reaches over to a coat rack in front of a flight of stairs and grabs a Crimson Tide baseball cap. He fits it onto his head. As he adjusts the bill, Kellan’s eyes never leave his face.
“Don’t worry, dude. Cleo’s on the D-team now.”
The D-team?
Manning shrugs. “If you say so, bro.”
“He does,” I interject.
Manning quirks a brow at me, and I flash him a winning smile. “If Kellan trusts me, you should too,” I point out.
He snorts. “Kellan don’t trust you,” he drawls.
I feign hurt, and look from our joined hands to Kellan’s face. “Is this true, Kello?”
He frowns and twists his mouth: confused, amused, or both.
I shrug. “Sounds like Jello, and everyone likes Jello.”
“I don’t.” Kellan makes a face.
“He don’t trust anybody,” Manning says cryptically. His thick country drawl makes my accent sound almost Midwestern in comparison.
“Then it’s a good thing I’m somebody.” I wink.
“He probably don’t even trust ole Truman,” Manning says. I frown, and at that very second, I hear something clicking against hardwood, followed by a soft jingle. At the end of the hall stretching past the staircase, I see a flash of reddish brown.
A resonant bark echoes through the foyer, and a dog with a jingling collar sails comically toward us. A blood hound, I realize as it launches itself at Kellan.
“WOOF! WOOF!”
Kellan drops my hand and throws his arms around the dog, who’s lost all doggy decorum and jumped up on him, huge paws on Kellan’s chest.
There’s mud caked on the dog’s paws. Every time the big beast shifts its weight, it smears mud on the front of Kellan’s button-up. And still, he leans in close and rubs the blood hound’s floppy ears.
“Tru.” He clasps the dog’s head.
The dog paws at him, leaving deep mud streaks down each of Kellan’s pecs. I notice Manning staring at me and shut my gaping mouth. Our gazes boomerang to Kellan.
His hands around the dog’s nape loosen, and the dog sinks to his haunches, head held high. His tail thumps against the floor.
“This is your dog?” I ask Kellan, leaning down to rub his wrinkly forehead. I sink into a crouch. “Truman, hi.” I tip his face up to mine and peer into his doggy eyes. “What a pretty boy you are. Just like your owner. Such a pretty boy...”
Manning chuckles. “Maybe I do like her.”
“You do,” I smile. I stroke the dog’s soft head and softer ears. “Pretty boy. You’re so pretty.”
“Call ’im handsome,” Manning says. He laughs again then says, “I’m gonna run to the feed and seed. Y’all be here a while?”
“An hour or so,” Kellan says.
“Catch you girls later. Keep your yap shut, snake bit.”
Manning disappears out the door, and I look up at Kellan. “Snake bit?”
He rolls his eyes, despite an amused smile. “I told him that your name was Cleopatra.”
I smile. Snake bit. Makes sense; Cleopatra was killed by a snake. “I’m a queen, what can I say?”
I rise, because the hardwood floor is making my knees ache. I watch Truman shift his lithe, muscular body, so he’s lounging at Kellan’s feet.
“He’s beautiful,” I say sincerely.
Kellan leans down to rub the dog’s ears again. I watch the easy way his fingers stroke the dog’s head. It’s a practiced movement—no doubt.
“He’s been staying here with your friend?”
Kellan lifts the dog’s floppy ear, squeezing it lightly. The dog lets out a comically long breath
, and Kellan nods, his face stuck somewhere between sad and stoic. He doesn’t look at me when he says, “I go out of town sometimes.”
I open my mouth to ask why the dog can’t stay at his house alone, but I don’t want to be annoying.
Kellan stands, and his dog circles both of us, tail thumping my leg as he nuzzles my knees.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I croon, stroking his back. “Are you named after President Truman?”
Kellan snorts. “Capote.”
I look up at him. “You named your dog after Truman Capote?”
He folds his arms over his chest and arches a brow at me.
“Well, well. I guess your dad does read,” I say to Truman.
“C’mon,” Kellan says. He waves me past the staircase on our right and down the hall. I sweep my gaze over the crown molding lining the high ceilings as I follow him. From where we stand, it looks like the hall dead-ends into a living area.
Truman trails behind us, making me remember the dog we used to have when I was little. Her name was Honeycomb, because she was always trying to eat bees. She was a black lab, and she ran away the month after my sister Olive died. I use to think our crying was too much for poor Honeycomb. Our grieving sent her running for the hills.
I watch Kellan’s face as we move down the hall.
“Can we take him home? I’d feel so much better with a guard dog.” I smile cheekily. “He can keep me from getting offed by a rival drug lord.”
He runs his eyes over me. Solemnity weights his features. “You worried about that?”
I nod. “Are you surprised by this?”
The hallway dead-ends at a living area with cappuccino walls, brown curtains, two teal couches with chevron-patterned pillows, and a huge brick fireplace. To the left is a modern-looking kitchen, with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. To the right, another hall—the floor of this one lined with a burgundy runner.
We drift up behind the nearest couch, and Kellan wraps his hand around the spine of it. He surveys the room, looking pensive. “Not many people know where I live, Cleo. My dealers are students.”
I glance down at Truman, who’s smacking Kellan’s calf with his ever-wagging tail. “So they’re all non-threatening and presumed loyal.”
