The Party Girl

by Tamara Morgan

  Even though the reality was that he was the one about to slip.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Buried treasure? A medieval shrine built by pilgrims on a journey through your woods? Ooh, I know—it’s a portal to another world, isn’t it?”

  “You realize you’re making this really difficult, right? Nothing I say is going to be able to top that one.” Nothing he had to offer would ever compare. “This is it. The whole thing. Trees and rocks. I used to camp out here when I was a kid.”

  She looked around, taking in the wall of trees and the crackly underbrush with her nose wrinkled. “Oh. It’s...lovely?”

  He pointed at a small clearing, the overhanging branches providing enough protection to give the illusion of a tent. “You haven’t heard the best part yet. I was planning on impressing you with stories of how I slept right there in my Batman sleeping bag, nothing but a flashlight and a stack of comics to keep me company.”

  “That sounds so cute.” She paused. “And a little scary.”

  “It was. It was also lonely as hell.” He was surprised to hear himself admit it out loud. For so many of his adult years, his survival out here had been a kind of a test—of his endurance and his patience, of his ability to rely on no one but himself. To admit that loneliness also resided out here awakened something he’d thought long buried. He shook himself off. “But that’s not the point. The point is that I challenged myself to do it, to push harder, to make it through that first night. And I did. I slept on my feet all the next day, but I didn’t care, because I’d made it. So I decided to do it again the next night. And the next one and the one after that, until it wasn’t so scary anymore.”

  The silence that greeted him was more pensive than anything else. “I see. This is supposed to be a metaphor, isn’t it? You’re trying to say that the more time we spend together, the easier this is going to get. A few more nights of you and me and Lincoln hanging out, and the struggle not to want you will be gone.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

  He shrugged. Time had a way of healing most wounds, of clearing every path of the biggest stones.

  “You’re wrong,” she said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “But I do. I can tell you with absolute certainty that keeping my distance from you isn’t getting any easier. It’s harder every day.” And that wasn’t even a sex joke, though Kendra could have turned it into one. “Noah, look at me.”

  He did, the enclosed darkness making her feel both safety and danger in his proximity. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Kendra.”

  His hand still held hers tightly, and he used her sudden discomfiture to tug, pulling her so close they might have been dancing. But they stopped moving as soon as the full length of her body rested against his, hearts beating frantically where they met. A low whimper escaped Kendra’s throat. There was so much latent strength in his grip, the promise that he could crush her and consume her all at once, if only he’d allow himself the chance.

  She wanted to be crushed. She wanted to be consumed. She wanted this man so badly all she needed was for him to slip a hand between her legs and she’d come for him on the spot.

  “This is a lovely place to camp.” She swallowed the lump that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her throat and backed away. “Thank you for showing it to me.”

  He blew out a long breath, and she could see his struggle as he fought to get his body under control. And then he dropped a hand to his pocket and flicked out a knife. Kendra jumped and was proud to confirm that she only screamed a little bit.

  “Sheesh—you scared the crap out of me. Is this where you bury the bodies too?”

  Noah chuckled and drew closer to the smallest tree in the grove. “See right here? After I made it through my first night alone, I carved my initials into the trunk. It was my signature. Proof that I was here and I survived.”

  “Ooh, I can still see it.” She crouched lower to get a better look. The thick panels of bark had been stripped away from one of the sections, revealing a honeyed wood below. The initials N.W. had been carved deep into the side. She ran her finger over the letters, surprised to find the tree was warm to the touch. “What’s the W stand for?”

  “Walker.”

  Noah Walker, man of stone. “And it’s been here all this time?”

  “Yep.” Without further explanation, he stabbed his knife below the letters and began scraping away at the area below it. It didn’t take long for another set of initials—K.K.—to make an appearance.

  It was so sweet she almost released another one of those dangerous whimpers. Not even Timmy Caldwell had thought to commemorate their clandestine meeting with a tree carving.

  “There.” Noah took a step back and admired his handiwork. “Proof that you were here and you survived.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to touch the letters this time, fearful that to do so would confirm a fate that was already wrapped and sealed and suffocating her.

  “You aren’t making things any easier, you know,” she said.

  He clicked his knife closed and tucked it back in his pocket. “I know.”

  Chapter Six

  As punishment for finding Noah too attractive, Kendra was forced to spend the next few days on Lincoln duty. The task wasn’t as horrible as it sounded. Noah had somehow managed to handcraft a set of lawn darts, using what she could only imagine were feathers he’d plucked from a meal of years past. She did her best to ignore the thought that her projectile sailed at the expense of an actual bird, and focused instead on beating the pants off Lincoln.

  Not literally. No matter how many times he begged to “make things a little more interesting” with a strip lawn darts wager.

  “Ha!” Her dart landed in the middle of the farthest ring. “That makes twenty-one. I win again.”

  “Beginner’s luck,” Lincoln grumbled, but he went to retrieve their darts anyway. Even though he was clearly flagging, he’d announced his determination to keep playing until he won—which was precisely why Kendra planned on throwing the next game. That man had no idea when to quit at anything.

  “I’m not a beginner. We’ve been playing for hours.” And her stomach was protesting the commitment. “Didn’t Noah say he’d be back by now?”

  “I thought so. How long does it take to fix fence posts?”

  “How should I know?” She scanned the horizon, looking for signs of their negligent host.

  Lincoln spotted him first. “There he is. But who’s that with him?”

  “What?” Kendra turned her gaze to match his. Sure enough, there was Noah’s tall form, though it wasn’t moving toward them. Taken alone, that wouldn’t seem so odd—Noah was the sort of man who liked to stop and watch grass grow. But the person standing next to him, who was gesturing wildly enough to take flight, seemed a valid cause for concern. “Is that man yelling at him?”

  “Oh, shit. Yes.”

  “Why would anyone yell at Noah?”

  He was quiet. Inoffensive. Kind. A person might as well yell at the mailman.

  Kendra narrowed her eyes to examine the scene more closely. She probably needed glasses for the touch of nearsightedness that had crept up on her as of late, but she was holding off for now. No need to welcome old age with open arms. “Do you think he’s going to attack him?”

  “He already is,” Lincoln muttered, and moved a few steps ahead. “Come on.”

  “Are you insane? You can’t walk all that way. You’ll die.”

  “Then you’ll have to help me. Let’s go. You can be my crutch.”

  Being Lincoln’s crutch was exactly what she was trying to avoid, but there didn’t seem to be anything she could do as he set off at a clipped pace. With one hand pressed to his side to presumably keep all his organs in place, he limped his way across the field. Kendr
a had to trot to catch up, her shoes providing almost as much of a handicap as his injury.

  Still, she came up under his right side without a word, lifting his arm so that it braced over her shoulder. Lincoln shot her a grateful—and obviously pained—look, and handed over a good fifty pounds of his weight as they moved toward Noah’s direction.

  It was slow going, but they were helped along by the increasingly frantic movements of the man’s arms. He was up in Noah’s face, clearly irate. Kendra had enough of a temper to want to shuck Lincoln off her shoulder and fly to Noah’s defense, but Lincoln’s labored breathing, which grew with each step, stopped her from taking any rash action.

  “Yeah. You’re right. It must be a real hardship, sitting back and resting your ass on all this pristine real estate,” they overheard the man say as they approached. “What’s it worth? Six hundred, seven hundred grand?”

  Shorter than Noah by several inches and built on flabbier lines, the man could have easily been leveled by Noah’s fist—and Kendra, though normally peaceable, halfway wished such a thing would happen. But Noah didn’t move. He just stood there, impervious to the white, angry specks of spittle that flew from the man’s lips.

  There was nothing surprising in Noah’s reaction—not if she was being honest. From what she knew of him, it seemed his preferred method of handling conflict was to transform into stone, letting emotions roll over him, wearing him down over time. What was surprising, however, was the transformation that took over Lincoln. One second she was pretty sure they were going to have to carry his orange carcass back on a stretcher, and the next he’d become a stiff rod of a man she might actually have second thoughts about crossing.

  She recognized him in an instant. That was cop Lincoln. The Lincoln who got into bar-room fistfights. The Lincoln who wasn’t afraid of back-alley deals.

  “This is private property.” He strode up to the man, his tone brooking no argument. Noah shook his head slightly, but Lincoln ignored him and drew closer. “There are No Trespassing signs clearly marked along the perimeter. If this gentleman has asked you to leave, I suggest you do it.”

  “If there was a jigger of justice in this country, this wouldn’t be private property,” the man countered. “It would have been sold and restitution made to those of us—”

  “Sir, maybe I didn’t make myself clear.” Lincoln swaggered—an actual hitch in his step—and got right up in the man’s face. If the guy had been any smarter, he’d have noticed that a cold sweat plastered Lincoln’s bedazzled skull-and-crossbones shirt to his back, and that Lincoln had turned an unnaturally pale shade that made him look two steps from passed out among the whispering pines. “I’m not asking you to leave. I’m telling you to. If you don’t get off this property right now, I’ll not only have the entire Lakewood County police force out here to personally escort you away, but I’ll slap you with a restraining order so ironclad you won’t be able to wipe your ass with paper made from a single tree in this whole goddamn county.”

  The man backed away from Noah, who still didn’t do so much as twitch a muscle. Kendra noted for the first time that he wasn’t looking at his attacker. Or at Lincoln. Or at her. He’d fixated on some undefinable point in the distance—so far out of reach he might as well have been on another planet.

  “I just don’t think it’s right—”

  “Take it up with your attorney.”

  “Fat lot of good those assholes—”

  “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go before I really lose my temper.” Lincoln didn’t lay a hand on the man, but the threat was there all the same, reverberating in the air and making them all feel the pulse of shared adrenaline.

  And it worked. Kendra had no idea how Lincoln was able to manage it, but he stared the man down until he was the clear victor of the standoff. With one last loathsome look at Noah, the man turned on his heel and tramped to his car, which he’d parked a fair distance down the dirt road leading in.

  Kendra didn’t wait until the man was all the way out of view before rushing to Lincoln’s side, prepared to prop him up before he fell down. Wordlessly, Noah did the same.

  “Shit,” Lincoln said shakily. “I think I opened it back up.”

  Sure enough, he lifted his shirt to show an encroaching red along his bandage. Kendra’s physical sensations at the sight of blood were similar to those she’d felt the night of the stabbing—fear and apprehension roiling in her stomach, the quickened pulse of danger in her veins. But her emotional reaction took on an entirely different form. She wasn’t irritated with Lincoln at all. She was proud of him.

  Against all odds, it seemed Lincoln had just sacrificed his own health to stand up for Noah. Against even more odds, it seemed Noah had let him.

  “Can you carry him all the way back?” Kendra asked anxiously. Noah was strong, but as circumstances were beginning to prove, he wasn’t superhuman.

  “I can walk,” Lincoln interjected. “Just...hold me a little. And for chrissakes, Noah, you never said you got house calls. Does that happen very often?”

  Kendra pretended to be more interested in the forward movement of their feet than the answer, but the fact that she hadn’t breathed in almost a minute was a dead giveaway. Good thing neither man was paying her the least bit of attention.

  “Not too often,” Noah said, breaking his silence. As he was bearing the bulk of Lincoln’s weight, it came out as more of a groan.

  “You should have said something.”

  “Why bother? Nine times out of ten, they just need to get it out of their system. I figure the least I can do is let them.”

  As both men seemed content to let the subject drop there, Kendra spoke up. “What’s in their system in the first place?”

  Noah looked at her over Lincoln’s head, his gaze dark and pleading. She was so happy to have a reaction out of him—any reaction out of him—that she accepted his “I don’t like to talk about it” without demur. In fact, she was downright triumphant over it. She didn’t care how many trees he slept under as a kid; no man as vital as Noah hid himself away from the world without a reason. It seemed she’d finally stumbled across his.

  “Well, at least tell me what happens the other time,” she said. “The remaining one out of ten visits.”

  Lincoln answered for him. Grimacing, he said, “I’m guessing that’s why Noah has such a well-stocked first-aid kit.”

  * * *

  Kendra picked up Lincoln’s car keys and set them back down a total of ten times before she finally forced herself to sit on her hands.

  She hated being indecisive like this. She was a firm believer in ripping the wax while the ripping was good. Otherwise, you sat there and agonized over the pain to come. Agonizing caused wrinkles. Which meant more waxing and maybe even Botox and an extra day or two at the gym.

  She wasn’t even going to get started on the chemical peel analogies.

  So when the phone rang, breaking through the silence of her townhouse with a shrill beat, she jumped out of her seat, grateful for the distraction. And when the Caller ID popped up with Whitney’s number, it was almost possible to hear the weights being lifted from her shoulders and cast aside.

  “Thank God it’s you, Whitney,” she said, not bothering with a formal greeting. “You’re just who I need to sort me out. I have a quick hypothetical for you.”

  “Actually, it’s Matt, but I’d be happy to step in for the role of BFF. What’s up?”

  Kendra smiled into the mouthpiece. He would too. He’d listen to her complain about the blister on her heel and the backlog of surgical supplies she’d had to order that morning and her mother’s latest phone call—and then he’d say all the right things to make her feel better about them. “You know, maybe you are the person to ask about this.”

  “I can grab Whitney if you want.”

  “No. No, this is go
od.” She shifted the phone to her other ear. An outside male perspective was exactly what she needed here. From her inside female perspective, she could think of no logical reason why she shouldn’t go out to Noah’s house to enjoy his company and what remained of the day. They were grown adults. They were single. They’d already promised not to move things any further than flirtation. Short of taking formal vows of chastity, there wasn’t much more they could do to ameliorate Lincoln’s temper.

  Unfortunately, Lincoln’s temper was demanding greater and greater sacrifices—and she had no idea where to start looking for things to toss into the flames. Who better to ask about all this than his very own brother?

  “Okay, so imagine you like this girl.”

  “Got it.”

  “Not Whitney. It has to be someone else. She doesn’t make sense in a hypothetical.”

  “Sometimes I think Whitney only makes sense in hypotheticals.”

  Kendra laughed. She couldn’t have hand-selected a better mate for her best friend if she’d tried. He totally got her. “Focus, Matt. We’re talking about my problems here. Not yours.”

  “Sorry. I’m focused now.”

  She pushed forward. “Let’s say you like this girl, but, sadly, she doesn’t like you back. Nothing you say or do is going to change her mind. In fact, you’ve had this conversation with her like twenty times already, but you refuse to accept it and move on with your life.”

  “We’re talking about you and Lincoln, aren’t we?”

  “Dammit!” She slapped her hand on the kitchen counter, sending her shiny new bread-making machine skittering. She had yet to use the thing, and now that she’d tasted what Noah could do with a little yeast and a wood oven, she wasn’t sure she ever would. “You’re really bad at this. You’re not supposed to guess.”

  “Well, it’s not a very subtle hypothetical.” He cleared his throat. “Actually—he’s why I’m calling today, so I have Lincoln on the brain. Do you happen to know where he is right now?”