"Is this a book?"
"Please, don't."
She sounded a little pleading, but not enough to win out over my curiosity. I read the introduction paragraph.
I know you. We've been here before. No surprises. A settled score. I know the darkness. From inside. A reckless rage. A poisoned pride."
I got shivers. These were song lyrics. White Buffalo, if I was correct.
She'd come around the counter and her hand reached for the manuscript. I didn't want her to have it back. I wanted to read more. I wanted to know more. What was this story? Who was this woman? I understood her stare at the screen now. She was a writer - she had to be. I'd witnessed art in its raw form when I'd seen her like that.
"Give it back." A command, not a question. It made me want to keep it that much more. I didn't like it when people told me what to do. What was more, I didn't want to give this up before reading it.
"No."
She looked surprised. Didn't men often tell her no? I looked her up and down. She wore jeans and sneakers but, good God, jeans and sneakers had never looked this damn good.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not going to give it back. I want to read it."
"You can't."
"Why not?"
She took a deep breath. "Because it's mine and it's not done yet. I don't want you to."
It was a classic I-don't-think-my-work-is-good scenario that happened to every artist. I was no artist but I knew people who were - some of the kids at the club, for instance - and they always hated their own work.
This manuscript was really good. I'd only read the opening image but it had me hooked. I wanted more.
"I want to use my wallet and take you out to breakfast." It was out there. I was asking her out to spend time with me. I wanted to know her mind, who she was on the inside. She had suddenly become the most intriguing thing in the world.
"I don't think so. Who do you think you are?"
I shrugged. She tried to reach for the manuscript again. I moved it behind my back and she followed it, putting her body right up against mine. Her breasts pushed against my chest and I noticed them. Supple but firm. Real.
Her breath caught in her throat and she jumped back, putting distance between us. Pity. Although her morals were good to see, too. There was nothing special about a girl that was willing to get physical so quickly. Sure, I did do one night stands - my sex life wouldn't exist if there weren't women out there who threw themselves at me, whose legs fell open if I just looked at them right, but that didn't mean I respected them.
On the contrary, I didn't want anything to do with them after we slept together.
"You can't just take my manuscript. That's stealing. It's personal property."
I nodded. I was being shameless about it. "Come out to breakfast with me."
She shook her head. "I can't. I have to work. I can take a lunch break, though, but I want my manuscript first."
I had the feeling she was going to reject me the moment I gave her script back to her so I shook my head. "You can get it when you come to lunch with me."
"You're going to blackmail me with my own manuscript?"
"I don't like to call it blackmail. It's just plain old manipulation."
She rolled her eyes. "Right, because that makes it so much better."
I smiled. Her sarcasm, her dry humor, I wanted more. "If you don't show up I'm going to take it to someone who can make something of it and do it all under my own name."
"That's a lawsuit, asshole."
I loved it when she spoke to me like that, her words dripping with menace and her calling me an asshole. I was so attracted to her it was crazy. I looked at her mouth, her lips pursed into a determined line and I wanted to kiss her. I wasn't going to, though. I was going to go slow with her, do it right.
"Come on, just come to lunch with me. There's a place just around the corner on Soquel Avenue. It's called The Crepe Place and they're open now. Meet me there for lunch then you can get your manuscript back."
She looked at me and I could see her mind working, going over the options she had. I knew I was making it impossible for her and, yes, I was being an asshole. But I wanted to spend more time with her and if it was up to her that was just not going to happen. I had a bargaining chip now and I wanted her to bite onto the bait I was dangling before her nose.
She crossed her arms over her chest and it pushed her breasts together a little through her tank top. She was stunning. I forced my eyes to her face, not wanting to scare her away by looking like a pervert on top of everything.
"Fine," she finally said. "I'll meet you there at two."
"Do you know where it is?"
She nodded. "I go there now and then. I'll meet you at two."
Someone came in through the door with a stack of books. She glared at me. "I have to work now. It would be great if you could just go away."
Hostile. Ouch. But I deserved it. "I'll see you at two."
"Yeah." She plastered a smile on her face and it was impossible to know that she'd been angry with me just a moment before "Mrs. Phelps, it's great to see you again. Let me sort that out for you." She took the books from a middle-aged lady and took it to the counter. The woman asked Selena how she was and how her story was coming along. When she did Selena shot me a dirty look. "Oh, you know how it is. Always some kind of hiccup."
She meant me. I knew it. I smiled and left the library, feeling like I'd just won the lottery. So what if I'd cheated?
I sat on my bike outside the library with the wad of pages. I hadn't gone in to get the book I'd been after last night when I'd gone in and seen her there. Motorcycle Repair didn't seem nearly as important as the mystery of Selena. I laughed at how much double meaning was embedded in that thought and started my bike. I drove the short distance to Water Street, parked my bike on the pavement and followed the footpath along Branciforte Creek. I sat down under a tree, lit up a smoke and started reading.
There was no one in the morgue. The night was eerie and it felt like all the bodies were going to rise and attack me. I didn't believe in zombies but I believed in fear.
I heard a click, the smallest sound but it was enough to tell me someone was here. I wasn't alone. Usually, those words are a relief but in a morgue where everyone else is supposed to be dead, the idea terrified me. There were going to be no human resurrection tonight, but if I weren’t careful there would another dead body.
I hid between the shelves of body lockers. I shivered. The raw concrete floor, the metal drawers around me, the idea that this night may very well be my last had a way of draining every bit of warmth and life that I could cling onto.
The moonlight glinted off the black barrel of a shotgun. I ran. I had no intention of dying tonight. I hoped to God the fates agreed. I found a gurney with a body on it. Post-autopsy. I gagged as I pushed it off. It fell on the floor with a dull thud. I got on the gurney and pulled the white sheet over me, hoping to God that the dead body would stay dead, that this live body would stay alive, that the guy with the shotgun was dumb enough to think I was already dead.
Footsteps came closer and I held my breath. Dead bodies didn't breathe. It wasn't that much of a problem; terror sat on my chest like an anvil and I was barely breathing, anyway.
***
Kylee Strickland was a good wife in a cut and paste life with a husband who took his job seriously. Stan was the overseer at a morgue during daylight hours, making sure the bodies coming in were labeled and put on ice. He came home at six on the dot every evening and they ate supper at seven. Kylee made sure the house was clean for her husband. She decorated it with plants and flowers and all things colorful that made life just a little less dull when he was away from the office.
When he was away she made an effort to make herself look good. She had her nails and her hair done at a salon once a month, went to the gym three times a week and jogged through the neighborhood the rest of the time. All her friends told her what a lucky girl she was, and when she was
with them she agreed and believed it.
It was only at night when the lights were off and Stan got out of bed next to her that she felt her fairytale life wasn't as dreamy as she thought it was.
The first time it happened she thought it was a work emergency and she'd written if off as such when he'd left the house between two and four in the morning, dressed in his work clothes.
The next three times she did the same, trying to think nothing of it and almost convincing herself that it was fine. She didn't even mention it to her friends.
When it started happening every night she got worried. She didn't ask him about it. It seemed like something he would deny. The fact that she felt that way about it made her worry, too. If she knew he was hiding something but she was too nervous to ask him about it, they had problems.
Stan had an office at home where he kept some paperwork. He didn't like her going in there, and when she did she only vacuumed and wiped down the desk before leaving again, leaving his papers untouched.
Today, the moment he left the house, she tiptoed to the office on stocking feet. She was quiet, even though she was alone. She was scared of what she was going to find, even more so of what she wasn't going to find.
She started with the bottom drawer on the right-hand side. Letters from an old work colleague. She read them one by one. He mentioned nothing of his work to his friend. She also noted that he didn't mention anything about her, but that shouldn't matter.
The fact that it did was something she pushed away.
The other drawers had documents in them. Bank statements that showed nothing, the deed to the house, their marriage certificate. Applications for the loan they were repaying. The papers for the new car he'd gotten himself a year ago.
Nothing strange, in other words.
She went through all the drawers and found nothing until she lifted a book in the last drawer and found a file she'd never seen before. She opened it and sat down in Stan's chair.
Bank statements from a bank they didn't bank with for a card she knew nothing about. Telephone statements for a number she didn't know. A ring with a strange sign on it that she'd never seen before. A bunch of letters with loopy handwriting on them. A woman?
She opened the first letter. Her fingers trembled when she did. She moved to the bottom of the letter. It was signed 'Love, A.' with a heart next to it.
Kylee's heart stopped. Was he cheating on her?
The doorbell rang, shocking through her, ripping her back to reality. She felt like she'd been caught in the act. She shoved all the papers and letters back into the file and returned it to the drawer under the book.
In her room, she stepped into kitten heels and looked in the mirror. Perfectly put together besides the haunted look in her eyes. She practiced a smile before walking to the door.
She kept that smile plastered on her face and opened the door. A man stood on the other side. He wore a brown suit with a mustard tie. He was handsome in a way that suggested he wasn't sure what to do with it.
"Mrs. Strickland?"
Kylee nodded.
"I'm Francis Roberts, your husband's lawyer."
She’d never heard of this man in her life. She wasn't aware they had a lawyer.
"Yes?"
"I was instructed that if your husband disappeared I was to collect a document from the home."
"Disappeared?" The lawyer was too calm about this.
"Yes, ma'am. Do you have the document for me?"
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."
He frowned slightly. "That's strange. You are Annie Strickland, aren't you?
Blood drained from Kylee's face and for a moment the world went black.
I closed the manuscript and leaned back. Holy shit. This was more of a mystery than anything I'd ever read or studied before. And Selena had thought of it all. This just made me that much more determined to read it all and to get to know the woman that had written it. I opened it again and carried on reading, not caring about the time and all the other things I was supposed to be doing before I met her for lunch at twelve. I still had time. I could do it later.
Much later. I was the boss, right?
Chapter 5
Selena
It was impossible to concentrate. I had my book open in front of me and I was trying to write, but I knew Logan had the printed out manuscript and it was driving me crazy.
The only person I'd shown my work to at all were the ladies at the book club, and that was only because those were the rules. They showed their raw side and, in return, I did the same. It was different when the drop dead gorgeous biker I was thinking of using as a character was reading my stuff and judging me by it.
Every writer poured parts of her soul out onto the paper. We used our past and experiences. We didn't write them exactly but we liked to use them as inspiration. People who didn't write didn't understand that. There was a lot of mystery and murder and betrayal and lies and confusion in my book. I didn't want Logan to think any of that was part of me.
God, I shouldn't have cared what he thought about me at all. That had been easy when I'd been able to hide the sides of me I wasn't willing to show the public. It was different now that he was reading my work. I could see it like my diary - not the content but the fact that this was as much a key to my soul as anything. And the truth was even though I didn't care what he thought about me, I would have liked it if he thought something nice about me, at least. I wouldn't die without it but it really wouldn't have hurt, either.
It was a slow morning at the library. When my mind was this troubled I needed a lot of work to come in so I could distract myself. There was nothing. I'd already packed all the books back that had been checked in. I'd organized the entire biography section and I'd issued two new cards. And it was only twelve-thirty.
Alicia came into the library looking chipper. I glanced at her.
"Good morning, Selena," she said in a sing-song voice. "I got the notification that you sent a message concerning a wallet?"
Of course, Alicia automatically got all messages sent on the bulk line.
I nodded.
"And has Mr. Frost been back to retrieve it?" She tried to make it sound like a normal question but there was hope in her eyes.
I nodded again. "First thing this morning."
She looked slightly disappointed but forced a smile. "That's good. I'm glad you're so on top of things."
We both knew this wasn't about me at all, but whatever. I smiled at her, one that was completely fake, and she disappeared into her office. No doubt she wanted to see him again. I knew for a fact she wanted to do more than just see him. And here I was, about to go to lunch with him. Wasn't that just great. Of course, I wouldn't have gone if it hadn't been for the fact that he'd stolen my manuscript, but, of course, that was beside the point.
It was still an hour and a half until I could go and get my work back. An hour and a half until I could see how much of my dignity was stripped away after he told me what he thought of my book.
Finally, the time came for me to go to lunch. I popped my head into Alicia's office. "I'm taking lunch now. I'll be back in an hour."
She nodded without looking up at me. She would man the front desk if it came down to it. I walked out through the front door and to The Crepe Place. It was only two blocks or so, easy to reach by foot.
The front door had an awning over it that said The Crepe Place and I opened it. Friendly faces greeted me when I walked in.
"Hello, Selena." Paulie was a waiter I saw every time I went there for lunch. He had floppy hair that fell over a geeky face and glasses that were the only reason his hair wasn’t permanently in his eyes. "Table for one or are you just grabbing a takeaway?"
"Actually, I'm meeting someone."
He looked around.
I followed his gaze and saw Logan sitting at a table in the back. "There he is, thanks."
Paulie's face fell and he nodded. I walked through the tables. The Crepe Place was a homey ki
nd of place you could take your whole family. The walls were all wood, one of them covered with pictures. The bar at the back had a whole counter with alcohol on the back. This was the kind of place for anyone and everyone.
I walked to the table where Logan sat reading my manuscript. My stomach flipped a little. I really didn't like it when other people saw my work. It really wasn't anywhere near good enough.
He looked up when I stopped in front of the wooden table and smiled when he saw me. He smelled like cigarette smoke but I hadn't actually seen him smoke - maybe he was one of those guys who wouldn't do it in front of a lady. Imagine if men still had manners like that.
Hard Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (The Fallen Thorns MC) (Whiskey Bad Boys Book 2) Page 4
