Leather and Lace

by Jessie Evans

Now there was nothing to look forward to at the end of a long day at the site. There was no reason to make plans for the weekend. If Mia wasn’t with him, he didn’t care about bike rides through the desert, or that camping trip in the river valley. They hadn’t been together long, but it had been long enough to convince Sawyer that no experience was nearly as worthwhile if he couldn’t share it with Mia.

  He was in love with her, real love, the kind that grabs you by the throat and refuses to let go. He’d thought he’d been in love once or twice before, but now he knew that had been puppy love, love on training wheels. Loving Mia was flying down the road on his Harley at seventy miles an hour. Heather had insisted that she loved him, but her “love” had only made Sawyer feel trapped. Mia’s love made him feel free, hopeful, and happier than he’d ever been.

  Assuming she did love him back. Tulsi said Mia was pushing him away because she cared about him, but as the days ticked by with nothing more than terse texts from Mia saying “yes, I’m fine,” or “no, I don’t need anything, thank you,” Sawyer was becoming less sure. Maybe Mia was glad she’d had an excuse to end things before they’d gotten in any deeper.

  The thought made his stomach clench around his last swallow of beer, and something deep inside of him demand he take action. He wasn’t going to let Mia slip away. Respecting her wishes and boundaries didn’t mean he had to lie down and give up. Sawyer wasn’t going to let her history with a crazy man force him into sitting on his hands while she pushed him away, and he wasn’t going to give up on the woman he loved without a fight.

  “I’m going over there.” Sawyer slammed his empty beer glass back on the bar and slid off his stool.

  “You want company?” Tulsi asked, to which Sawyer replied—

  “Not even a little bit.”

  “Oh.” Tulsi giggled, her big blue eyes crinkling at the edges. “Well, good! Do all the things Bubba and I wish we were doing.”

  “Will do,” Sawyer said, dropping a twenty onto the bar before he turned to go.

  “But not together,” Tulsi called after him. “Bubba and I don’t do those things together. I mean, unless you want to, Bub. I have had a lot of whiskey. I could probably forget that you’re practically my brother if I closed my eyes.”

  Sawyer heard Bubba tell Tulsi she was cut off, but he didn’t turn around. Now that he’d decided to go to Mia, he couldn’t get to her fast enough. He pushed through the door to the saloon and out into the night, taking the stairs at a jog.

  Outside, the wind whipped through the trees, filling the air with a whooshing sound interspersed by the occasional snap as a branch lost its battle against the impending storm. Last he’d heard, the forecast had been calling for thunderstorms all night tonight and tomorrow. He’d had the crew take the lumber for the next stage of the saloon refurbishment inside, and cover it with a tarp before the end of their shift today, and had called off work for tomorrow. He’d planned to spend tomorrow meeting with the antique brick people in Clint, and chatting with the seismic expert who had done tests around the cavern last week to make sure the ground beneath the old jailhouse would remain stable during an earthquake.

  But as he walked down the street, Sawyer was already figuring out when he could reschedule both meetings. If he had his way, he’d be spending all day in bed with Mia, making up for the four days they’d spent apart. He ached to hold her, to smell the lavender scent of her hair as she lay on his chest, to listen to her breath grow slow and even as she fell asleep in his arms. With Mia, sex was about so much more than getting his rocks off, it was about connecting, celebrating what a miracle it was to have finally found the one who was meant for him.

  He was going to tell Mia how he felt tonight. Screw taking things slow. He needed her to know that he wanted this to last longer than the summer, or even the year he was scheduled to be in Lonesome Point. He wanted to put down roots. With her. He wanted them to be in this for the long haul, and he wanted that to start right here, right now, with him moving in and watching her back the way he knew she’d watch his if their positions were reversed. Surely she wouldn’t turn him away, not when he was standing on her front step with his heart on his sleeve and rain pouring down all around him.

  By the time he reached the end of the block, thunder rumbled from the west and the first fat, heavy raindrops had begun to fall. He hustled across the street to Lavender and Lace’s front steps, but took time to scan the street and the sidewalks before he knocked, ignoring the drops pinging against his shoulders. The sidewalk was deserted, and the road empty except for a few cars parked on the opposite side of the street, closer to the hotel.

  Still, he didn’t drop his guard as he knocked on Mia’s front door. He kept his attention divided between the door and the street over his shoulder, wanting to be prepared in the event of any unexpected visitors. From what Mia had told him about this guy, Sawyer doubted Paul would risk going head to head with someone his size—Paul seemed to prefer picking on people smaller than him—but it was better to be cautious than caught unaware.

  The thought had barely flickered through his head when he heard the lock turn on the shop door, and Mia opened it wide enough to stick her head through. The streetlights were muted by the rain, but he could see well enough to realize that Mia’s face was pale and drawn. She looked like she’d lost weight in just the few days since he’d last seen her, and there was a tension in her usually soft, generous features that made Sawyer hate Paul more than he did already.

  He hated the man for forcing a woman who had begun to move beyond her fear back into a world where terror followed her around like a shadow she couldn’t escape.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at him with flat eyes nothing like the warm, expressive depths he’d become accustomed to. “I’m not feeling up to that Bingo game tonight, after all.”

  Sawyer’s brows drew together. He started to ask her what Bingo game, but in the split-second it took for the thought to become words, he realized something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

  The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, his heart coiled into a tight knot at the center of his chest, and every one of his five senses snapped into high alert. Suddenly the worry lines on Mia’s face were clues telegraphing a secret message, and the smell of the hot pavement letting off steam held a warning that a predator was near—hidden, but close enough to touch.

  “Are you sure?” he asked with forced casualness, knowing he couldn’t afford to give himself away if Paul was inside with Mia. “Bingo is fun. Might cheer you up.”

  He thought he saw relief flicker in Mia’s eyes, but it was gone before he could be sure. “No, that’s okay. Tell Perry and Lisa that I’m sorry, but I’ll try to make it next week. I know it’s silly to be upset about a cat running off, but I was really attached to Whiskers.”

  “I’m sure they’ll understand,” Sawyer said, pulse kicking into high gear as his hands balled slowly into fists at his sides. Mia didn’t know anyone named Perry or Lisa, they hadn’t been invited to a Bingo game, and she sure as hell didn’t have a cat named Whiskers. This was her way of telling him that something was wrong, and he was getting the message loud and clear.

  “But seriously,” he said, stopping her before she could shut the door. “You should think about putting a treat out on the back porch. I know you’re worried about raccoons, but it might be worth giving it a try. Whiskers never could resist a bowl of turkey meat.”

  “I might do that.” Mia nodded, but she was already retreating into the house, and Sawyer couldn’t tell if she’d understood that he was trying to tell her that he was going to circle around and come in the back door. “Good night, Sawyer.”

  “Good night,” Sawyer said as Mia closed the door and locked it behind her. His ears strained for the sound of more than one pair of footsteps on the stairs, but the rain was picking up and all he could hear was the drum of raindrops on the tin roofs up and down this side of Main Street.

  Cursing beneath his breath, Sawyer tur
ned and started down the steps and across the street. Just in case Paul was watching from one of Mia’s windows, he acted like he was heading back to the hotel, jogging toward the Blue Saloon with his arms over his head. As soon as he was out of sight of the shop, he broke into a run, racing through the hotel’s parking lot and shoving his way through the hedge where Mia had first tumbled into his life, heart hammering at the thought that he might never hold her again, never see her smile, never get to tell her that he was in love with her before a monster stole her away.

  No fucking way. You’re not going to be too late. Not this time.

  Sawyer sprinted across the street and over to Rancho Grande so that he could circle around to the back of the shop without being seen. As he ran, he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed 911. He wasn’t going to wait for reinforcements, but he wanted all the help he could get. He needed to get Mia out of that house safely.

  If he didn’t…if he was too late…

  He couldn’t even think it. He wouldn’t. Mia wasn’t going to end up like Sarah.

  “Tell Ned that his niece, Mia Sherman, is being held hostage in her place on Main Street,” Sawyer said when the dispatcher came on the line, grateful for small towns and the fact that everyone in Lonesome Point knew everyone else. He could tell this woman the bare essentials and she’d have a car on its way in minutes. “This is Sawyer Kane, I’m going to try to break in the back door to her shop and help her, but I don’t know if this man is armed.”

  “Sir, you shouldn’t attempt to enter the home,” the dispatcher said. “Wait for the police to—”

  “I’m not waiting,” Sawyer said, breath coming faster as he turned the corner by the coffee shop and started down the narrow street that led to the owners’ parking spaces behind the shops. “She could be dead by the time the police get here.”

  “Sir, please!” The dispatcher’s nasal voice went up an octave. “You can’t—”

  Sawyer ended the call and silenced his phone. He didn’t want it ringing at the wrong moment and alerting Paul to the fact that someone was coming in Lavender and Lace’s back door. If he was lucky, Mia had understood his message and would be ready to run for the front door when Sawyer came in the back. If he was really lucky, the back door would be open and he could sneak in unnoticed and get to Paul while his guard was down.

  Sawyer was already imagining how satisfying it was going to feel to bring his joined fists down on the back of Paul’s head, when a car started up farther down the street. Sawyer froze, praying it wasn’t Mia’s truck, but a part of him knew it was, even before the vehicle lurched out of its parking spot and the yellow headlights swept across the alley, blinding him for a moment.

  A moment was all it took for the truck to roar past him, the water kicked up by the tires spraying into his face as he was granted a one second view of a terrified Mia clinging to the steering wheel while a man matching her ex’s description—dark hair, slim build—held a gun on her from the passenger’s seat.

  “Mia!” Sawyer spun to see the truck weave unsteadily back and forth, nearly hitting the dumpster behind Brew You before it turned left and then made a quick right onto the Old Town highway.

  In the moment before the truck disappeared, a single gunshot echoed through the alley. Sawyer dove for the ground as something whizzed by over his head, close enough for him to hear the whine of the bullet as it streaked through the air.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Sawyer isn’t dead. Sawyer isn’t dead. He can’t be dead. He can’t be.

  The mantra thrummed through Mia’s head, over and over, as she guided the truck down the Old Town highway with Paul’s gun aimed at her midsection, and Paul—the man himself, the monster she’d been waiting to crawl through her window—in the cab beside her.

  But this time he hadn’t come in the window. He’d come out from underneath the bed, where he must have been hiding since noon that day. Mia had left the shop unlocked for ten minutes while she’d run down the street to get a coffee. That had to have been when he got in. When he crept into her shop, climbed the stairs to her apartment, rolled under her bed, and waited there until she was nearly asleep before rising out from beneath the ruffles of her bedspread like a nightmare climbing out of a birthday cake.

  Mia had screamed so loud in the second before Paul shoved the gun against her throat that she’d been certain someone had to have heard. She kept waiting to hear police sirens, but the minutes ticked by—long minutes, while Paul told her how much he’d missed her, how much he loved her, and kissed her on the cheek while she tried not to cry—and the night air had remained quiet.

  Paul had made her get up and get dressed in a blue sundress he’d selected from her closet. He’d instructed her to fix her hair and do her makeup the way he liked it—with pink cheeks, glossy lips, and the brown mascara, never the black—and stood in the bathroom doorway watching, like he used to when they were together. After, Mia had dawdled picking out shoes as long as she dared, hoping Paul’s attention would waver and she would be able to get to the phone by her bed and send a 911 text to Sawyer, but Paul never took his eyes off of her.

  And then, like the answer to a prayer, Sawyer had shown up on her porch, just as she and Paul were coming down the stairs from her apartment. Sawyer had known immediately that something was wrong, but he hadn’t given her away. He’d simply taken her cue and rolled with it, proving he got it, got her, in a way so few people ever had. And then he’d circled around to the back of the shop to try to help her, and Paul had shot at him.

  Paul had shot at him, and now Sawyer could be dead.

  Mia’s next breath emerged as a sob, but she bit her lip and held her breath, fighting to regain control. If she started crying now, she was never going to stop, and she had to stay calm if she was going to have any chance of getting away from Paul and calling for help.

  “Are you going to cry for him?” Paul asked, his voice strangely disaffected, the way it had been since he rose from beneath the bed, scaring Mia out of her mind. “Were you sleeping with that man, Mia? After all those months of acting like I wasn’t good enough, did you jump into bed with the first dumb cowboy who crooked his finger?”

  Mia shook her head, knowing better than to confirm Paul’s suspicions. It would only make him crazier, and he was plenty crazy already. “Where are we going?” she asked, slowing at the four-way stop at the southern edge of downtown.

  “Keep going straight.”

  Mia hesitated. “But this road—”

  “Go straight,” Paul yelled.

  Mia accelerated too fast, fear making her foot heavy on the pedal. Paul responded by shoving the gun into her side hard enough to make her gasp.

  “Don’t try to wreck the truck, and don’t question me again,” he warned. “I know where I’m going, Mia. I have it all planned out. I’ve been planning how this was going to end for months.”

  Mia’s breath shuddered out and tears pricked at her eyes. “Please, Paul. Don’t do this. This isn’t who you are. You’re not a killer.”

  “That’s not what you said before,” Paul said, running the barrel of the gun up and down her ribs in a way that was almost playful, making bile rise in Mia’s throat. “When you testified against me, you said I was trying to kill you. You said I would have murdered the woman I loved if you hadn’t hit me over the head with your mother’s statue. I still have a dent in my skull, Mia, beneath my hair. Did you know that? The doctors say I’ll never be the same.”

  Mia swallowed, her pulse leaping in her throat as she tried to think of the best thing to say. The moment was eerily reminiscent of the last months of her and Paul’s relationship, when any innocent remark could become a trigger, turning her sweet, sensitive boyfriend into a jealous, spiteful man who was beginning to scare her.

  But back then, she’d only been worried about losing her steady date, not her life.

  “I was afraid,” she finally said, voice trembling. “I was just so afraid.”

  Paul clicked his tongue,
making a tsk-tsk noise that made it clear he wasn’t buying it. “You should never have been afraid. You had to have known I would never hurt you. Not back then. We still had our entire lives ahead of us. We were still in love.”

  Mia nodded as if she agreed with him, as if what he’d said wasn’t ludicrous considering he’d tried to strangle her, and now had a gun jabbed so deep into her side it pressed painfully into her abdominal muscles every time she inhaled. “I should have known. I wish I’d been thinking more clearly, but I was scared and… I’m sorry. I’m sorry I misunderstood.”

  Paul’s arm relaxed and the gun eased an inch away, still pressed against her, but not hard enough to hurt. “I knew you would apologize if you had the chance. I told the doctor at the prison it had all been a horrible misunderstanding, but she said I was delusional.”

  He made a disgusted sound. “They were the ones making me crazy. They pumped me full of so many drugs, half the time getting out of bed in the morning felt like running a marathon. But I made myself get up, Mia. For you. I made myself get up and volunteer for every shit job that would shave even half an hour off of my sentence. I was determined to get back to you, no matter what. I’ve always known we’d be together. In the end.”

  Mia pressed her lips together, refusing to panic, even if the way Paul had said those last three words made her positive he was thinking of side-by-side graves, not happily ever after.

  “Where are we going?” Mia asked with a sniff, blinking away the tears in her eyes. “This road dead ends at the ghost town.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice more pleasant now that he’d had his apology. “I want you to show me around. I want to see where your family helped settle the West. I read all about them while I was in prison. I probably know your family tree better than you do.”

  Mia shot him a look out of the corner of her eye, trying to figure out what he was really up to, but his face was the same peaceful mask it had been for most of the night, barring the moment he’d seen Sawyer standing on the front step and his features had twisted with terrifying rage. Gram always referred to jealousy as “the green-eyed monster,” but not until Paul had Mia seen how apt the comparison really was. Paul’s jealousy transformed his handsome face into something monstrous, something hungry, craven, and barely human.