Smolder Road (Scorch Series Romance Thriller Book 6)

by Toby Neal

  I pick up the blanket, unable to resist rubbing the silky fur against my cheek, remembering how it felt to roll around on it naked—way too good!

  Two skins are missing from one corner. They must be the furs that we tanned together in the meadow out front, on a spring day that feels like a year ago.

  There’s a box on the back porch, latched to keep animals out. I open it up and find the furs: dried, soft and ready to go. Inside a trunk at the foot of the bed I discover thread and a needle.

  Sitting on a rag rug in front of the potbellied stove I start to work, pushing the needle through the rabbit skins, finishing the blanket.

  I’ve never sewn anything in my life, and for a first timer I think I’m doing a pretty good job—but the stitches are not nearly as even or precise as the ones Roan made.

  “That’s the kind of thing your dad can do,” I say aloud to our baby. “He’s strong, and brave, and so good at everything! He loves you even though he doesn’t know you exist yet. That’s the kind of man he is, capable of great feeling, able to do anything he sets his mind to.”

  When I finish the blanket, I spread it out over the bare mattress. It’s beautiful and inviting, but we’ll need sheets…

  As I step back a wave of exhaustion hits me, the way it does these days.

  The fire crackles peaceably, a warm breeze floats through the open windows, carrying the scent of early summer tinged with the earthy smoke of burning wood. I can go back to the Haven later for the sheets.

  I lie down on the bed, nuzzling the soft fur blanket, and quickly drift off to sleep, willing myself to dream of Roan again. Come home to me, Roan. We’re here, waiting for you.

  Chapter Forty

  Roan

  Mist is tired, stumbling over loose rocks, while Shadow’s head hangs low with exhaustion when we finally reach the cabin in the blue of evening. We stop just outside the trees.

  Always good to stay outside of range, assess the situation, make sure things are clear before moving in.

  The voice of the Gray Man is a habit, but no longer an identity.

  There’s smoke coming from the chimney, the shutters are open wide, and the windows are cracked. Someone has moved into my home.

  My nostrils flare and my neck feels hot with primal possessiveness—this is my cabin, the place I want to bring Lucy to!

  I calm myself by settling into stillness in the lee of a tree, breathing quietly and willing my clenched muscles to relax. I won’t do anything until I know who’s inside and what they’re up to. It could be a family, people in need of protection…or evil men in need of death.

  I drop Mist’s reins, ground tying him. My wolf noses me as I squat, weapon drawn, watching for any sign of movement.

  Darkness spreads across the overgrown grass in the clearing, and a twinge at the neglected look of the place tightens the skin around my eyes. Signaling Shadow to sit and wait, I work my way through the trees around the edge of the clearing, trying to see in through the windows and get a glimpse of who’s broken in.

  Lucy stands up as suddenly as a jack-in-the-box in the window frame, and she’s shaking out a sheet. The ruddy light from the stove falls on her pale gold skin, and a lantern she’s lit catches in her blue-black hair.

  My heart thunders as loud as the roar of a train going through a tunnel as I watch her put the sheet on the mattress, and then fluff a pair of pillows.

  My throat is dry, my tongue swollen in my mouth. All the words I want to say, all the ways I want to cry her name are trapped inside me—and I fight my muteness, opening my mouth to call out; but when I try, only a whisper sears my paralyzed throat. I want to run to her, but my muscles are locked in place as I fight for breath.

  She vanishes for a moment and I crane my neck to see her pulling the rabbit skin blanket off the couch. She throws it across the sheets and with a satisfied smile, crawls onto it, disappearing from view below the level of the open windows.

  I swallow to clear my sandpapery throat.

  My vision of that golden light, the experience of that loving Presence, the intensity of Lucy in my arms, that tiny pulsing light in the depths of her belly—was any of it real?

  Phil’s parting words when we left the cave reverberate through my mind. “You got what you came for, Winterboy. But knowing something is never enough. You have to do things differently, too.”

  I am changed, if I believe I am.

  I belong to the light, if my actions follow the blaze.

  I am loved and capable of loving, if I live it.

  My vulnerability terrifies me. Lucy holds the power to redeem or destroy me.

  Fear never cloaked me like this as I approached an armed camp of skinheads because I didn’t care about the outcome.

  If Lucy sends me away, or if I’m not brave enough to go to her, only the Gray Man will remain.

  I don’t want to be the Gray Man anymore. I want to be Roan Winters, father of the child in Lucy’s belly, husband to the woman I admire and adore, brother to my best friend, a son to his mother. A family man.

  I return to Mist and untack him, turning him loose to graze in the rich grass of the cabin’s front yard, pumping water into an old bucket for him and Shadow.

  My animals tended to, I cross to the cabin. Closing my eyes and drawing strength from the source of light and energy inside me, I slip off my moccasins on the porch and open the door. The hinges creak, and I look across the cabin into the bedroom, waiting to see if Lucy has woken.

  She hasn’t.

  Lucy’s lying face down, her arms spread wide on the blanket as if to embrace all the sensations of the silky fur. I pad across the warm room, reveling in the crackling fire.

  “Lucy.” I touch her shoulder, and still she doesn’t wake. How could she come out here, alone, and sleep so soundly she doesn’t even hear an intruder?

  My heart jolts at the reality of her vulnerability.

  Lucy and our child need me to protect them.

  Resolve hardens in me. The Gray Man has his uses, and protection is one of them.

  “Lucy.” I shake her shoulder this time, and she opens her eyes at last.

  “Roan.” There is no surprise on her face, only a beaming smile, the same smile she greeted me with when she appeared in my vision.

  My heart shatters into a thousand pieces, and they all cry her name. Apparently, a heart can break with happiness as easily as despair.

  I sit beside her on the bed, draw her up into my arms, and kiss her.

  Her hair smells like strawberries. She tastes of longing, but also a tangy bitterness, suffering that has to do with her pregnancy.

  “I’m sorry I left you.” My voice is as rusty as the door hinges from lack of use. “I can’t say it enough.”

  “You hurt me worse than losing my finger.” She sits up and holds my gaze. “I get that you did it out of love, though. I know it.”

  “I didn’t lie when I told you I was broken. But something happened that healed me.” My voice still keeps trying to stop. Words are hard for me to find, and it’s so frustrating when my mind is racing.

  Lucy reaches up and touches my lips. “I dreamed that we made love here,” she gestures around the humble cabin, “and I believed that you’d return to this place, so I came.”

  I sink into her warm brown eyes, and her luscious lashes sweep down to hide them. I squeeze her tighter. “We met here in this cabin. And everything was…” My throat closes. My voice is gone, just when I need to tell her how much I love her, when I need to tell her that I’m changed.

  “It’s okay. The old Lucy Luciano would have held onto her pride and kicked your ass, but I’ve changed too.” She snuggles deeper into my arms, rubbing her silky head against my chest, sliding her clever little fingers up and down my buckskins, caressing my body beneath them. I’m kindling under her hands as they build a fire, and it warms me enough that my throat can open.

  “I love you, Lucy.”

  “I know you do.” She nods. “I know how you feel. I always did. T
hat’s why it was so frustrating that…you wouldn’t admit it.”

  “Bad things happened that scared me. I believed that I couldn’t love you the way you deserved, and that I didn’t deserve your love either.” I stroke her hair, and the curls spring under my hand, bouncy and full of life as my Lucy always is. But she’s more subdued now, her energy pulled inward as she grows our baby, lending it her strength. She has so much to give.

  Lucy plays with a piece of fringe on my shirt, and the way she rolls the leather between her fingertips makes me long for her, but first I owe her my story. I owe her words I’ve never spoken to anyone.

  She listens quietly, holding me, as I tell her about my muteness, how keeping secrets became an identity, and how difficult it is to speak, even now. I tell her about my grandfather: how he allowed me to be given away when my mother died, and how he took me back later to shape me, with his anger and hatred, into the man he wanted. Lucy rests her chin on my chest, her warm brown eyes shining acceptance. My throat aches, trying to close again, the bands of silence tightening—but I draw strength from Lucy and cough, forcing my voice to go on, to tell Lucy everything.

  I suck in a deep breath. “On my eighteenth birthday, I decided to get a drink at a bar. I wanted to feel like a man.” I hold Lucy’s gaze, and the love in her eyes lets me go on. “Three guys jumped me as I left, bigoted shitkickers telling me to go back to the reservation. I fought back, hard. One of them cracked his head on the curb, and died. I went to jail. Five years, for manslaughter.”

  Lucy squeezes me so hard that my lungs empty. “It’s okay, you didn’t do it on purpose.”

  Her words are an ice pick to my chest. “Actually, Lucy, I did. I wanted him dead. I wanted them all dead.” My voice is monotone…the words of the Gray Man. I swallow. “Since I left you I’ve done a lot more killing. A lot.”

  “How much?” Her voice is a whisper.

  I shift Lucy in my lap, fumbling the brass buckle of my belt open, draw the leather through the loops that hold it in place, and hand her the scarred length. She frowns at the rows of hashmarks. “So many, Roan?” Her eyes meet mine, and widen.“You’re the Gray Man.”

  I cringe at that name on her lips and nod, afraid to meet her eyes. “It was the only thing I had after leaving you.”

  Lucy reaches out and takes my chin in her hand, forcing my head up, her gaze holding mine. “We’re in a war, Roan, and you’re a warrior.” She pulls me in for a kiss, and I melt in her acceptance of me—darkness, scars, and all.

  “So now you understand why I didn’t want to get involved with you. Nothing I did ever worked out, except for my friendship with JT. I should have taken that as a sign that things were turning around, that the Lucianos coming into my life was the beginning of something better.”

  “Even if that meant the Scorch Flu?”

  “Even then.” I heft her closer and stroke her, sliding a hand down her back, around her ass, cupping her firm butt. I spread my other fingers wide over our baby. “And I’m so happy you’re pregnant.”

  “You know?” Lucy’s eyes go wide. I kiss her sweet mouth.

  “I saw it in the vision.” I kiss her again. “Our baby showed up as a little light that flickered brighter when I kissed it.” I hold her belly gently, massaging her firm, slim waist, my heart so full. “Now tell me how you know things, too.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Lucy

  I kiss the hollow of Roan’s throat where his collarbones meet, deep tenderness softening my lips as I think of his story. My touch makes his pulse race, and I close my eyes, imagining the warmth of my mouth melting his silence, opening his voice. He smells of horse, leather, pine, and pure Roan, and relief mingles with tension, desire dances with contentment.

  “You know how JT has the Sight?”

  Roan shifts slightly so that he can look down into my face. His gray eyes are shadowed and his long, glossy black hair is pulled back so that firelight shines on his high cheekbones and is absorbed into the dark stubble of his jaw. He’s so beautiful.

  This man spent the last two months hunting in the wilds, numbing his soul to exact revenge. I feel it in him, and can see it written on his face; the grooves around his supple lips are deeper, shadows haunt his eyes, and the scar on his cheek has hardened into a ridge.

  He’s a killer, a hunter, an angel of death fighting for good.

  My father was a man who pretended to be evil to bring justice. Maybe it’s true what they say, that every girl ends up with some version of her dad. I never knew mine, but that doesn’t mean I can escape my fate. Roan is the father of my child, and I love him with every fiber of my being.

  Roan strokes my back. “JT has mentioned the Sight and his intuition. I understand it’s what pushed him to buy the Haven and prepare for the Scorching.”

  I nod and snuggle closer, kissing the hollow of his throat again, letting my lips linger there, stroking that tender place with my fingertips, enjoying the way Roan tightens and warms beneath me.

  “I can sense emotions. I’ve started calling it a knowing. When we were in the caves, I could actually see the men as balls of color, even through the stone. I’m sure you won’t be surprised that most of them were red.”

  Roan’s heart pumps harder as remembered trauma tightens his grip on me. “The red film of battle. I know it well. So, this knowing is how you led us out?”

  “Yes.” I fit my head under his chin. I can’t get close enough; he can’t hold me tight enough. He tenderly kisses my forehead, encouraging me to go on. “When Kane had me, he waterboarded me for information. I felt close to death, my lungs on fire, my heart about to burst.”

  Rage blooms inside of Roan and thrums through his body. I stroke his chest, trying to ease it with my touch. “A barrier broke in me. All of a sudden this knowing came to me, an amplification of something I’ve always had.” I look up into Roan’s face, placing my palm against his cheek, the dark shadow of his beard rough beneath my hand. “I’ve always been good at sensing people’s emotions and reading them. That’s how I knew that you liked and wanted me, no matter how hard you pushed me away.”

  “I’ve never been good at hiding from you.”

  “Except for when you ran off for two months.” I smile, but the pain of his absence vibrates through me, followed quickly by a wave of fear.

  What if he leaves again?

  “I’m sorry.” Roan pulls me close, sorrow wrapping around the red of rage and quenching it. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Like I said, I forgive you.” I tilt my head up and his lips are right there. We kiss, our mouths meeting as his fingers squeeze my waist. My breath is gone, the cabin is gone. All there is in the world is Roan, me, and the magic we make. A growl vibrates in his chest, warning me how close he is to taking me. Roan’s eyes blaze with desire and his emotions are an incredible glittering purple.

  But I need to tell him more, so I push back, dragging in a deep, shuddering breath.

  “I can forgive you because I know exactly what you’re feeling.” I stroke his chest. “And I knew what Kane felt when he cut off my finger. I know my mother’s feelings about the life inside of me.”

  Roan frowns. “That sounds…terrible.”

  I shake my head because ‘terrible’ is the wrong word. The knowing is a gift and a curse—wind and rain, sunshine and sunburn. The good and the bad are often intertwined. “My perception, my knowing, has settled down since it first started, but that’s how I understand what you’ve been through. I feel it myself, and forgive you.”

  “I guess I got lucky.” And I do feel it in him, a rock-solid center, a new purpose—protecting and loving me and our baby for the rest of his days. But, still…I can’t take it if he leaves me again, especially now.

  “Lucy, look at me.” I let his eyes find mine, iron-gray with seriousness. “I never could’ve stayed away, baby or not. I need you the way trees need the sun, the way a river runs to the sea…” his voice falters. “You know how hard it is for me to find words. I
love you so much.”

  My eyes sting with tears. “I know that’s true, Roan. And I love you. I love the wounds deep inside you and the man they’ve created; you are good and brave and strong and capable of such greatness. Of deep love and a full, rich life. I love that you can make things, kill things, love things; you are everything to me. But I just have to say it. I have to tell you that if you leave me again, I will never be able to recover. My faith will be gone. I’ve sensed in my brothers that parenting brings up new fears, new love…bigger emotions than ever before. I know that you can handle it. But I can’t see that you will.”

  “Lucy,” his voice is quiet and rough. “I swear, I will never leave you again. It hurts me that you doubt me.”

  Hot tears slide onto my cheeks. “I don’t want to.”

  “Will you marry me, Lucy?” Roan’s heart hammers underneath my hand. “I can hardly ask because I feel…so undeserving. But will that take away some of your fear? Will that make you feel better?”

  A laugh bubbles up. “It would certainly make my mom feel better.” Roan looks down at his chest, where my left hand is resting, missing its finger. “I don’t really have the digit for it.” I wiggle the three remaining, trying for lightness.

  Roan picks up my hand and holds it gently in both of his.

  “I’m sure your family won’t be pleased with me asking you, being with you. But I love you, Lucille Luciano. I would do anything for you. I’d die for you.”

  “No, Roan. Live for me. Live with me.”

  He doesn’t answer, just raises my hand to his mouth and kisses the place where my ring finger used to be. I shudder with desire as his beautiful lips touch my scarred stump. I’d dreamed of a diamond on that finger…but I’d rather have Roan’s touch any day.

  “Yes,” I breathe out. Roan captures my answer with a searing kiss.

  As good as it was to be with him in my dream, reality is even better.

  In our shared vision, the cabin was gilded in gold; now it is shadowed and flickering in amber. Real life is not all smooth and glossy—it is also rugged, like Roan’s callused fingers against my smooth skin, the prickle of his beard against my cheek, the reality of this encounter compared to the fantasy of our dream.