“You stink.” She twisted his shirt in her fist, forcing him to bend closer.
His lips brushing her ear when he whispered, amused, “Aurora Rae, you worried about me.”
She let go and took a half a step back to take him in, filthy, messed up, one hand bandaged, command in his shoulders and strength carved into his handsome face. He was the dearest person to her and yet foreign, like someone she’d never met before. Mysterious for all the ways he was familiar and yet right now, a complete stranger.
He lowered his chin and laughed at her.
Now he was hers again. She’d waited all week to hear that chesty rumble. She jumped, secure he’d catch her and he did, sliding his arms around her back as she cinched her legs around his hips and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Over the top of her head buried in his shoulder, he said, “Guys, this is my sister, Rosie.”
Well before she was ready, he put her down with a muttered, “Let go,” and she knew the mistake she’d made was serious, her reaction way too intense for siblings.
With her feet firmly on the ground, some distance between them, and the awareness she’d caused a scene and they were still the center of attention, she played for the laugh.
“You smell like you rolled in dead things and the dead things rose up and barfed all over you.”
It wasn’t the wittiest line, but it got a roar of response, and it was the best she could do when all she wanted was to snap her fingers and disappear them both to a luxury hotel with room service, a huge tub, fluffy robes, and a bed big enough that Zeke could pass out in it for days. She’d doze in a chair, read and watch over him, make sure he didn’t disappear again.
“Hungry enough to eat a house. Think you can rustle something up?” he said.
She made a disgusted face. “I’m not coming within two feet of you till you boil that stink out.”
He lunged for her. “What? It’s good honest clean sweat.”
“It’s gross.” She ducked under his swinging arm, before he could smother her, and backed off, hitting peak teenager with the line, “I hate you,” before fleeing to the kitchen, to the tune of rude male laughter, her face hot enough to be used as a skillet.
For the first time her corner, her window away from everyone, was welcoming. She could stand there until her heart stopping jogging around her chest, until the pulse point in her neck quit trying to strangle her.
Of course he was safe. He was just off somewhere playing in the dirt and making friends. It was only the first week here and she knew they were trying to break her, and they’d done a superb job. Isolating her, ignoring her, manipulating the situation so that she felt powerless and alone and made a spectacle of herself.
This was so very different to the cons she usually ran but God, she needed to up her game to four-dimensional chess if she was going to avoid making dangerous mistakes.
She knew what came next. Once they were satisfied she was truly vulnerable, the love bombing would begin. It wouldn’t happen until they judged her broken down enough, ready to be grateful for the change in her circumstances.
There’d be offers of friendship, a more suitable job, opportunities to fit in and flattery to make her feel secure and comfortable again. It would be just as predatory in its own way as her isolation was, designed to make her feel dependent on those showering her with understanding and affection, to never want to go back to the time when she was sidelined and irrelevant.
For someone not prepared for this, the consequences would be devastating. The result: a coerced loyalty and dependence on a culture that only pretended to have your best interests at heart and could turn the love on and off at will, making it impossible to keep your balance, to think independently and act freely, leaving you always on guard and full of nervous pretense.
This little episode was an ass-kicking reminder to be better prepared.
Since she wasn’t breathing like she might hyperventilate anymore, her face had stopped flaming, and the activity in the kitchen was winding down, she could leave and Macy couldn’t complain she was shirking her responsibilities. She could’ve left anytime, and it’d been tempting, three times a day, but the more defiant she was, the longer her punishment would go on, and if they knew about the bunch of keys she’d taken from the belt loop of one of the men who strong-armed her out of HQ, they’d have a reason to go medieval on her.
She waited until Macy made eye contact, acknowledging her in her defined place, until the cleaning crew arrived, and she made for the door of the dining room, standing in the shadows waiting for Zeke.
She could see him drinking something in a pottery mug through a join in the open door she hid behind. She didn’t want to have to share him with anyone this time. One by one the men in his posse finished up and left the dining hall until he was alone with just the clean-up crew.
He came through the door with his pack over his shoulder and his awareness in the shadows where he’d know she’d be. He saw her before she had a chance to step out from her hiding place, moving into the darkness with her.
He looked like trash, his weariness coming off him in waves. She wanted to touch him all over, check him for bumps and breaks and burns but she contented herself to smooshing her face into his arm. “I mean it about how bad you smell.”
He rubbed a hand through his hair and a shower of grit fell on her, making her jump back. “Christ, I know. I’d like to burn these clothes. There was no water for bathing. I ache all over and I’m so tired I’m insensible.” He peered at her. “Are you okay?”
Stick together. She would be now that he was here, and they could talk. “I’m sorry about in there.” She gestured back to the now empty dining room. “I overreacted.”
“No one told you where I was.”
“I raised the roof trying to find out.”
He groaned. “That’s fucked. I think you covered up okay. They’d be expecting a reaction.”
That was what saved her bacon. “I spent all week putting my hand in my pocket searching for my phone wanting to call you.”
He yawned. “They haven’t returned them.”
She shook her head, taking his pack from his shoulder and lowering it to the ground. “The hand?”
“Nothing. I live in a cabin with four other men and a Longhorn skull on the porch. You got any idea how I find it?”
“I know where that is.” It was a good fifteen-minutes’ walk on the other side of the settlement. “I have a roommate called Cadence and our cabins are nowhere near each other.”
“Aurora Rae, I’m dead on my feet. They’re trying to break me with manual labor and roughing it.”
“They don’t know you well.” It would take a lot more than that.
“I’m feeling pretty freaking broken right now. They want me to earn the right to pack a weapon. They want me to find a woman and get her pregnant.”
Which meant. “Oh shit.”
He yawned again. “The good news is the building site is close to the forest drop site. Any sign of the signal jammer?”
“No, but I have a plan.” That plan involved letting herself into HQ and doing a thorough room-by-room search, followed by the nursery, the school and every other building she hadn’t already checked out, including wherever the hell Orrin lived.
Whatever expression she’d been wearing made him react, grabbing her hand. “I’m so fucking glad to see you. What have they done to you?”
Stick together. He’d been worried too. “You need to get clean and rest. We can talk later. How long do we have before they separate us again?”
“Till Sunday afternoon when we go back to the site.” He squeezed her hand. “Walk me home, Aurora Rae.”
Since she was on corner duty half of Saturday, that wasn’t a lot of time. She wasn’t ready to let him out of her sight and she wasn’t making him walk fifteen minutes in the dark. She took him the five minutes to her cabin.
He blinked at the blue flowerpot. “Novel idea of a cow skull.”
�
��Your cabin is too far. You can stay with me tonight.” She pushed the door open—there were catches but no locks—to reveal Cadence sitting crossed-legged on her yoga mat.
“Hi, this is Zack.” She dragged him inside, pulled the pack he wouldn’t let her carry off his shoulder, and dumped it on the floor. “He’s going to stay tonight.”
“No. No.” Cadence scrambled to her feet, tripping on the end of her mat and almost body-slamming Zeke.
He steadied her with the flat of his hand to her shoulder. “Whoa there.”
She reeled back, her hand going to where Zeke’s had been. “You can’t stay here.” She pointed at the open door. “He can’t stay here, Rosie. There’s no room. We don’t have room.”
“He can sleep in my bed.”
Cadence rolled up her yoga mat. “It’s not a good idea.” She was flustered and couldn’t get it to go back into its cloth bag.
“He doesn’t know where his cabin is.” A lie with enough truth in it. “And he doesn’t have a flashlight to go stumbling around in the dark anyway.”
“You do,” Cadence said, and then flinched because she’d essentially admitted to having gone through Rory’s things.
“Cadence, right?” Zeke held his hand out to shake. After an awkward beat, Cadence abandoned the mat and its recalcitrant bag, stepped forward and took Zeke’s hand for the fastest-ever greeting. “I’m sorry we didn’t check with you first. I just need somewhere to wash and to crash. It’ll only be one night.”
Cadence had moved all the way across the small central room while Zeke spoke, and stood with her arms folded over her chest and a scowl the depth of a volcano on her face.
“What are you afraid of?” Rory said. Was she afraid of Zeke? It was certainly possible, he looked rough and menacing this way.
Cadence turned her back to them. “I’m not afraid. This is my cabin and I don’t want him here.”
Rory shot Zeke a look and mouthed, I’m sorry. “You won’t know he’s here,” she said.
“Sure I will,” Cadence turned back to them and jammed her hands on her hips. “We might never be able to air the stench out.”
Her humor was unexpected. Zeke lowered his face and laughed and when Rory laughed too, Cadence allowed herself a smile.
“Okay. Okay. I don’t like it, but okay.” She pointed to her bedroom. “I’m going to bed. I get up at five, it would be really good if you and whatever you used as cologne were gone by then.”
“I promise, me and my unfortunate reek will be out of your hair first thing. Thank you,” he said.
Cadence closed her bedroom door with a goodnight and before either of them could move she opened it again and peeped out. “And keep it down. I’m a light sleeper.”
Zeke pointed to himself and said, “Church,” and to Rory and said, “Mouse.” And for a second Cadence believed him, but they heard her grumbling from behind her closed door and they both stifled laughs.
“Tell me you have a tub,” Zeke said.
It was a rainwater-fed shower and they had a full tank.
While he was in the bathroom, Rory made up a bed for herself with a spare quilt on the hard couch. She was contemplating for the millionth time how badly she missed her phone and her e-reader, when Zeke reappeared with a towel looped around his hips.
He cleaned up real good. He’d shaved, and his hair was wet and slicked back and without the grime he seemed monstrous with health. “Feel better?”
“Hell of a lot. But I don’t have anything clean to wear.” He looked down at himself. “Do you mind the skirt for tonight? I don’t know what they did with my bag.”
That story would wait. The toweling skirt was surprisingly masculine on him. He might have found the construction work a strain, but his body was built for it, the rise and curl of muscles perfectly proportioned on his chest and arms, through to the ripples of his abs and the hard cuts of his Adonis belt.
He’d had lustful eyes on him in the dining hall when he was filthy. Cleaned up and semi-naked, he was devastating. “Bedroom,” she pointed to the open door and then got off the couch and led the way.
He stopped in the doorway and visibly sagged. “A single. We’ll make it work.”
Oh no. Not a chance. “I’m not getting into bed with you.”
He braced a hand on the doorjamb, popping his bicep into relief. “Why not?”
How could he sound offended? “It’s too small and you’re too big.” Also, intensely naked. “I have the couch.”
He groaned. “I can’t put you out of your own bed.”
“Don’t make a habit of it.” She went to move past him, but he took up all the space and he didn’t move aside.
“Stay with me. We can talk till I pass out.”
“Nope.” They stood so close she could feel the heat coming off him, followed a drop of water as it traveled from his hairline, down his cheek, and neck, where it pooled briefly in the hollow of his throat before starting a journey down his chest. She could lick that drop up, run her tongue over the swell of his pec, along his collar bone, all the way up his neck to his jaw.
Holy fuck, what was that about?
He pulled the door closed and lowered his voice. “Rory?”
She reached out and poked him in the sternum, collecting the drop and putting it in her mouth. “We’re not doing it.”
He caught her hand in his. “Not doing what?”
She shook her head. She’d gone into a trance, overwhelmed with the wet warmth of him in the small room; the comfort of him after a week of stress and the unfamiliarity of wanting to put her mouth on his skin and taste the reality of him. She let her hand drift to an angry red graze on his shoulder. “What happened?”
“Nothing. Scraped it. Tore a shirt. Are you okay?”
She took a step back from him and sat on the bed. “I’m fine. I had an interesting week.”
He sat beside her, being careful with his skirt and showing a lot of thickly muscled thigh. “What’s this?” He laid a hand on her forearm, the fingerprint bruises left over from her manhandling. His touch didn’t help her stop feeling light-headed.
“Also nothing. I’ll tell you in the morning.”
“Tell me now.”
She took the hand he had bandaged, turned it upright in her palm. “Tell me about this first.”
“Ditchdigging. My city-slicker softness getting a workout.”
“Don’t let them think you’re soft.” Someone needs his mommy. Zeke had softness in him, gentleness he kept hidden for the most part, so not to let himself be taken advantage of.
“Only where it works for me. I get to do irresponsible things like wander off and ask questions and make friends by not being a threat to anyone.” She knew that. Didn’t understand what made her want to crawl into his lap and sync her breathing with his. He moved his hand, put his arm around her and hugged her to his side. “You had a week, huh?”
He smelled of Abundance organic goat’s milk soap, like pretty much everyone else did. Her week wasn’t that bad, but his kindness was making her feel odd, squishy. Like if he squeezed her too hard, hot sticky emotion would ooze all over the place. She pulled away and stood, going to the door. “Get some sleep.”
“Still wouldn’t want to be doing this with anyone but you, Aurora Rae.”
“I’m going to make you jog tomorrow afternoon so hang on to that thought.” She switched the light off.
He groaned, and the bed did too as he rolled onto it. “You get too uncomfortable out there, just shove me over and slide in.”
No chance that was happening as oddly tempting as it sounded to cram in with him. He needed a proper night’s sleep, no interruptions, and she was off-balance enough to crave his touch. Not a good combination of factors.
Outside on the couch, she couldn’t get settled. It was essentially a plank of wood with arms and under-stuffed cushions. She got up and found a notebook and a pencil in a kitchen drawer and drew Zeke a map so he could find his cabin without her. She slid it under the close
d bedroom door because she had no intention of waking him. Then she didn’t so much toss and turn as fight her way to sleep and she was awake before Cadence appeared.
“Good morning,” Cadence said, glancing at Rory’s closed bedroom door. “He still here?”
“Do you mind? He’s exhausted.”
“He was a shock. I’m sorry I was inhospitable, but he’s so big and this is my space and I’d gotten used to being alone and I like it. Then you came, and I’m not used to you yet so he’s just too much.”
“I get it. It’s okay. We won’t do it again. I’ll be crippled permanently if I have to sleep on this couch another night.”
She’d brought a change of clothes out of her room in anticipation of letting Zeke sleep, so she washed and dressed while Cadence did her yoga routine on the porch. It wasn’t until she was upright and functioning that she noticed the bedroom door was unlatched.
When she pushed it open, it was to find the room empty, the bed made. The disappointment at not being able to spy on Zeke asleep, all his armor abandoned, made her doubt herself all over again. She needed to pull it together or she’d make a mistake that wouldn’t be so easy to recover from.
“He’s gone,” she said to Cadence, joining her on the porch, ready for her morning shift in the kitchen corner, and the moment she said it, she knew he would be. He’d promised a woman who would’ve been happy to throw him out he’d be gone before she woke, and he never broke a promise.
They walked to work together, not talking, enjoying the crisp air and splitting up at the town square. Cadence going to open the general store and Rory going to her corner. When the first kid pulled a face at her in the window she didn’t glare daggers at him. She made a face back, and when he almost fell over from laughing, she laughed too.
She was finally getting the hang of this.
Chapter Seven
Rory ran fluidly, as if her feet barely smacked the ground. Zeke tucked in a couple of paces behind her and let the poetry of her body in motion drag him towards the greenhouse in her wake.
She was just like that eagle, sure and true and efficiently beautiful.
She wore skins that vacuum-sealed against her limbs and in this place where people mostly wore their clothes till they fell off, she looked like an alien from an advanced civilization. He needed her to talk about her week, the bruises on her arm. He needed to know what they’d done to her, because she’d overreacted to seeing him in the dining hall and that was unlike her and it might’ve been a problem had she not covered so well.
The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game Book 3) Page 6
