I picked up a pillow on the couch and started beating him with it.
He retreated to the door laughing at my feeble attempts. “I’m so glad you’re seeing things my way.”
I hit him with the pillow again. “You are such an ass!”
He took the pillow out of my hands and threw it on the couch. Then he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me close.
His face hovered inches from mine and one of his hands wickedly lowered to cup my ass.
“Love those claws, angel.”
Scowling at him, I acted like I was going to bite him by baring my teeth and snapping a few times.
He tilted his head back and laughed. “Go get a bath babe. We’ll leave in a bit.”
* * *
The “road” as Holden and Rose wanted to call it, was more like a series of jutting rocks, worn down boulders, washed out dirt from rain storms, and quite frankly the most uninviting path I had ever traveled.
Holden was quiet for most of the drive and I was willing to just let him concentrate on where he was going. My body was jerked one way, then the other, and bounced in my seat at several points. I tightened my seat belt repetitively to keep from launching against the window. Which did happen on more than one occasion when the tires on my side of the truck dug into a low spot, while his side remained elevated on the edge of some rocks.
I felt like if we had walked the “road” up the mountain, it would have not only been safer, but less jarring on my ass and abs, that were clenching while trying to retain my balance. I looked in the rearview mirror several times to see if Rose was having trouble. I couldn’t imagine her making this trek up the hill often. She was handling the 4Runner like a professional driver despite the fact that she was also going the same route that we were.
I worried about her tipping the vehicle several times with the supplies and gas she had in the back of the truck, but she seemed to be taking it slow and steady just like Holden. It was obvious why she didn’t want to necessarily live up the hill with Ray on a regular basis now.
We went over a particularly rough bump and my cell phone slid into the floorboard beside my feet.
“Oh, there it is!”
Holden didn’t take his eyes from the road. “You okay angel?”
I timed my grab for the cell between two other rocks so I wouldn’t be thrown into the dashboard.
“Found my phone.”
Holden frowned. “We need to get a case for that and a belt clip if you misplace it that often.”
“Well normally I don’t, but it’s been an unusual situation with switching bags and all that. I usually just stuff it in my pocket. This one is bigger than the one I’m used to though so I might have to do something different. And I am, absolutely not, getting a phone clip for my belt. That looks so weird.”
“What? I have one.”
“And you’re weird. Plus, you kind of have to have it for work. I don’t.”
He chuckled. “You like that I’m weird babe. If I was normal, you would get bored.”
“Maybe I like normal. I need to text Liv.”
“Riiight. Cell coverage up here is spotty but Brock put something in it to boost signal so you might be good to go. I think he also copied all of your contacts over as well.”
I turned the phone on and let it boot up. Holden might as well have been speaking a foreign language to me. I wasn’t that savvy on the newest phones and thought they were more of a nuisance than anything.
It started buzzing and pinging like it was possessed.
Three missed calls, one from my sister, one from Jared and one from an unknown number. Several texts from Liv. My email alert was going off as well.
I wasn’t particularly interested in the voicemails from my sister and didn’t bother to listen to any of the others.
I checked my texts.
Olivia: Hope you’re okay. How was the plane? Did you survive? Is Holden still alive?
Olivia: Scratch that...did you make it into the mile-high club? How was it?
Olivia: Your sister is insane. Did research. Think she may be a sociopath with narcissistic tendencies.
Olivia: Call me.
Olivia: Bitch, you better call me or I’m sending the Aiden brigade to find you.
Olivia: Scratch that...Aiden won’t let me use the helicopter.
I laughed. My best friend was awesome. Mental, but awesome.
The first time I had met her in college I thought she had been waiting for the apocalypse to happen any second. She probably had been, but she was sweet and nerdy even with all the paranoia that had come with being her friend. Then Brandon had happened. He was severely abusive in my mind and I was relieved when she dropped him.
My arms started to tingle and I was starting to breath hard. The thought of that psycho was triggering something again. I was so tired of this feeling.
I reached out to Holden and put my hand on his lap. I took several deep breaths to calm myself. It felt safe to just touch Holden. Just that small contact, seemed to keep my nerves in check and I felt my body relax.
I checked my emails.
How Brock transferred those notifications over was a mystery to me. The guy seemed to have some genius abilities because one thing I did know, was you had to have a password to activate it on new phones.
Brock was scary I decided.
I opened up my mail and scanned it.
“You good angel?”
“Yeah, apparently I’ve won a trip to the Bahamas if I send money to someone overseas. I have four messages from Date.com, Slinky.com, YourFriend.com and BooBoo.com from interested men looking for dates in my area.”
He slammed one of his hands down on the steering wheel. “Did you use a dating website?!”
His face was a mixture of frustration and anger when I looked at him.
“Oh chill out. It was back in college. Everyone does it. I quit it after a month, nothing but weirdos and dick pics. Although I did meet a nice guy from New Jersey once.”
Holden slammed the breaks suddenly and growled. “You are never going on there again! In fact, I’m chaining you to the bed and you’re never allowed out of the house again.”
Chains? Really?
I rolled my eyes. He seemed to be taking this dating thing to new levels.
“Holden, you’re being ridiculous.”
He reached for me and his hand cupped the back of my neck as he pulled me forward to look straight in his eyes. My traitorous mouth opened on its own, as if waiting for his kiss.
He dipped down and invaded. It felt like he was plundering and branding me with his tongue. I was breathless as his mouth slanted over mine several times and took what he wanted.
He broke the kiss, leaving me wanting. “You have no idea how fucking gorgeous you are. Don’t make me shoot your ex-boyfriends. In fact, I’m hunting down Jersey boy when we get back and I’m going to kill him.”
I sighed and he turned back to the road ahead. The Jeep started moving again.
“It was one date.”
He growled and pressed a button on the steering wheel.
“Pressed” might have been too soft of a word. It was more like stabbing.
Repetitively.
I heard a bell in the car.
“Call Brock,” he said.
I heard nothing for a minute then a clicking sound.
A voice said, “Hey man.”
I assumed it was Brock’s disembodied voice. So, weird.
“Yeah. So, Julia has some online profile somewhere that’s feeding her dating site garbage. Wipe it.”
Brock laughed. “Sure thing. What’s wrong Holden, feeling threatened? Maybe she can come visit me.”
“You and Cade back off my girlfriend. In fact, don’t even think about her. I know where you live pretty boy.”
I stared at him. He was certifiable. “Holden! Don’t be nuts.”
“Oh, hey Julia,” Brock responded. “Congrats on taming the beast. I hear you’re a real firecracker though. Perfect match.
Call me if he—”
Holden hung up. His jaw was twitching.
I giggled. It was funny to see him pissed sometimes.
“Stay away from Brock,” he said between his teeth. “And Cade. Logan, unless you’re ill. Jake and the entire team.”
I grinned. “You’re kind of cute when you’re angry.”
“Brock is the biggest playboy I know, Cade has some sort of radar for single women and Logan is touchy. Men don’t get cute about keeping what’s theirs.”
“Brock is scary, Holden. The man hacked my accounts. I don’t even know Cade but he offered me a job, so he seems nice. And Dr. Matthews, I’ll remind you, has to be touchy because he’s a doctor.”
“Hmm,” was all he said.
“Have you ever been in a relationship, crazy man?”
He thought for a moment like he was contemplating what to say. “Yeah. It was long time ago. We were young. Made some plans but she was pushing it, then I deployed.”
Well, that was news. I felt a small pang of jealousy even though I had absolutely no reason to.
Get a grip!
“What happened?” I said, trying to feign mild interest.
“I didn’t work at it as much as I should have,” he said, then paused. “She ended up cheating on me and that was basically it.”
Well that explained some things. No wonder he was so possessive.
“Sorry it happened,” I said.
He shrugged. “I’m not. Taught me something, and to be honest I wasn’t ready for a serious relationship at the time. I loved my job and that’s where my head needed to be at.”
“What did it teach you?”
“That when you decide to get serious, you make a commitment. Whether that’s to your job or someone in your life. You work at it as hard as you would with anything that means something to you.”
I was about to reply but we came to a stop at a large clearing. It looked like we had reached the top of whatever hill we had climbed. The tree line was now on the far side. There was a huge meadow in the middle with two cabins. The sun was shining on solar panels hooked to the roof of both structures. The meadow was surrounded on three sides with the thick forest like the one we had just journeyed through. On one side though, there was a rocky outcropping of boulders that seemed too high to climb. There was a small stream that ran along it and a pebbled beach of sorts where the water had eroded the ground in a swell and retracted in a less rainy season.
It was the most enchanting place I had ever seen.
Chapter Ten
We rolled around the meadow along the tree line rather than through the short grass leading up to it. We came to a cleared flat section of rock and sand on the side of the nearest cabin. From this side, I could see two shacks on either side of the houses and another long building that was hidden from the road.
“We’re here angel. I’ll get the bags if you can help mom get some of the things she brought up.”
I eyed the cabins. “Where’s your dad?”
Holden looked into the trees, then swung his head around to face the boulders. “I’m sure he’s around. You can wander around all you want up here. Just don’t go off in the woods by yourself. The terrain can confuse people. Watch out for wildlife. Not that there’s anything too dangerous right now. Just be careful and for fuck’s sake, don’t go in the barn.”
I gave him a confused look. What the hell?
Wildlife, okay got it. But the barn?
There was an ancient unwritten rule somewhere that was instinctual among humans. If you said don’t eat the apple, then someone was of course, going to eat the apple. If you said, “don’t go in the barn” then it made the barn look like the ultimate in highly curious places. In which, there could be a number of interesting or horrific things.
Was his dad hiding treasure or dead bodies?
I eyed the barn with renewed interest.
Holden got out, came around the vehicle and opened my door. I unbuckled my seatbelt and he put his arms around my waist. His eyes skimmed my face then over my t-shirt. I smelled the soap he had used earlier mixed with the piney smell of forest.
His eyes softened and landed on my mouth.
He leaned in and ran his lips across mine as he moved me out of the seat. My body slid down his until I reached the ground. His hand cupped my jaw while the other one moved down my back to massage my lower back.
My body hummed under his attention.
So much for trying to keep my distance.
There was an ear-splitting boom that rattled the door. The reverberation moved through my body. I screamed against Holden’s mouth, ducked my head and clung to him.
“What the fuck was that?!”
Holden sighed. “Dad’s got the cannon out.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Cannon?”
He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me toward Rose’s approaching truck. My legs felt unstable from the scare and my eyes were scanning the area.
We stopped and she climbed out of the truck.
She was shaking her head. “Does it every damn time I come up here. I’m surprised he can even hunt up here with all the noise he makes.”
“It’s an actual cannon?” I asked Holden, still shocked.
He looked down at me and chuckled. “Yeah, an actual cannon. It makes noise now though, and doesn’t actually shoot anything.”
Rose grunted and started removing bags from the backseat. “Only because the forestry service threatened to call the state.”
I absentmindedly started taking bags from Rose as she handed them over to me.
“An actual cannon,” I said in wonder.
Holden’s dad must be a sweet, reclusive fan of old weaponry. That must be it.
In my mind, I had envisioned a much older man, that looked like Holden that was hunched and using a cane. The type that had candies in his pockets and smiled a lot. The ones like you run into at the clinic sometimes. Or your friendly neighborhood old man that walks his dog every day. Not that I had much experience with that one but in my mind, old men didn’t shoot off cannons. Unless they were fans of history. Or something.
I followed Rose to the first cabin, while still looking around.
Holden was chuckling to himself as he watched me go. I stuck my tongue out at him.
The cabins looked like they were basically the same. They were square, made of huge logs and both had one window located beside the door. Both had a wrap-around porch. The one that we stopped at, had things hanging off the porch railing. A blanket, some rope, fishing net and other items. Two fishing poles and a tackle box were in the corner beside a long bench. There was a pair of muddy boots outside the door.
Rose and I went into the cabin. It had the distinct smell of burnt wood and I noticed that there were some burned logs in the fireplace. There was a rather old looking leather couch that had seen better days in front of it and a reclining chair beside a table. The interior was a bit dark, with most of the light coming from the large window beside the door.
I followed Rose over to a small kitchen and dining area beside the living room. There was a huge, black cast iron stove that looked like it was from the turn of the century. I wasn’t entirely familiar with how they worked but I knew you could burn wood or coal in them to cook. I couldn’t imagine living without the convenience of having the modern version.
I piled my bags on the counter. There was a sink that looked normal but it was chipped and worn. The cabinets looked like they had never been painted. It looked like they had a few years of wear on them, but they were thick and sturdy as Rose began to stock the shelves.
There was a thick wooden table with a couple of spindly looking wooden chairs beside it and a pack of playing cards sitting in the middle. Several rugs were laid on the floors, but otherwise there were few decorations. On the other side of the cabin there was a door that led to a bedroom. The cabin was small and rustic but it had charm.
Holden knocked on the door and I saw him leaning against the frame. “Does h
e want me to just fill the tanks with the gas?”
Rose nodded. “Yeah, just needs a refill. Did you bring my bags?”
“Yeah mom, they’re right out here. I’m going to go throw ours in the other cabin. Is the generator working?”
She looked up at him, “I’m sure it is, otherwise we would be hauling parts up for him.”
Holden turned to leave and I heard a booming voice that said, “Holden! My boy! Finally made it. I thought you were supposed to be here last night.”
“Hey pops. Nah, we stayed at mom’s house. Julia was dead tired and it was really late.”
“Well, where is this little ladybird?”
Holden chuckled and stuck his head back in the door. “Angel, come meet my dad.”
As I walked toward the door, feeling mildly nervous about meeting his dad, I heard Ray laugh. “Angel? Well, let’s see this celestial creature.”
I stepped out the door and felt Holden’s arm slip around me. I blinked several times and let my eyes readjust to the sunlight that was now shining brightly across the meadow.
When my eyes adjusted, I looked up to find a friendly, round face with a white beard and twinkling eyes staring back at me.
He looked like Santa Claus. If Santa Claus was slightly more built, and didn’t have the huge round belly. But his face was a definite match.
“Do you keep reindeer up here by chance?” I asked.
He threw back his head and laughed.
“Missy, you’re not the first person to ask and probably not the last,” he said, and leaned in conspiratorially. “I’m sure we have a few around but they look like elk and they’re mean as sin.”
I smiled at him and giggled. He was funny and seemed like the type of person who would get along with just about anyone.
His eyes softened at me and he winked. “You are quite a magical creature. I’ll make you a crown later. You can be princess of the valley.”
I looked up at Holden who was smirking at his dad. Grinning up at him I hopped up and down doing a little wiggle.
He shook his head, laughed and kissed me.
Oh my gawd. Right in front of his dad too.
“Dad, I think you’ve made her day. Let’s get this gas unloaded. I didn’t know where you wanted it.”
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