But here it was, unintended or not. That didn’t mean it would last, or that love was involved, or that they’d have any kind of relationship tomorrow, or the next day. She asked for nothing more than this. A bit of human connection. A sexual touch. The feeling that someone in this world could be trusted, could be a true friend.
Silas watched the narrow road. She watched him. He was different from any man she’d ever known. That wasn’t saying much. She’d had a couple of boyfriends before Blake had come along, but nothing serious. Then Blake had swept her off her feet, they’d gotten engaged, and for a short while she’d been deliriously, blindly happy. The wedding had been lavish and beautiful and well attended. Mostly by Blake’s friends, family, and business associates. His mother was super controlling, and not what anyone would call supportive of Blake’s choice of a wife, but she’d grudgingly accepted her son’s choice. For a while, at least.
After the wedding her husband had effectively isolated his bride from the rest of the world. She’d become, as he continued to insist, his. That had been romantic at first, but it became more and more alarming as the weeks and months dragged on. She’d realized six months into the marriage that something was wrong, but she’d been so sure she could fix whatever was broken inside her husband. It had taken three broken bones and the news that she was pregnant for her to realize that some things could not be fixed.
She’d been willing to risk her own safety in hopes that she could save her husband, but she would not risk her child.
Would she ever get Blake out of her mind? He was in the past, nowhere near Mystic Springs. Silas Hollister was nothing like her ex. He might as well be a different species. A better species. A good, honest man.
Silas parked his truck in front of a long wooden building. It was plain but sturdy, a duplex with two doors side by side. Both unmarked doors were painted dark green. He helped her down; otherwise she would’ve had to jump. He took her hand and led her to the door on the right side of the building. He opened it, no locked doors for Silas, apparently, and walked inside.
This was his home, a comfy place to hang his hat at the end of the day. A cold fireplace was straight ahead. It might be cold now, but it looked to be well-used. A brown leather couch and matching chair were placed before that fireplace. The coffee table between them was cluttered with books, an empty coffee cup, and a plate that had a few crumbs on it.
She pointed to the plate. “You’d better not leave something like that sitting around. You might draw mice.”
When she’d first seen the horror that was a collection — a herd? A bevy? — of mice, she never would’ve thought she’d be able to make a joke about it. But here she was, making light of it with Silas.
“Phone’s in the kitchen.” He pointed to a door to the right of the living room.
One thing at a time. She’d make her calls, and then….
And then what? Silas said they could spend the day together, but she had doubts. Could she put Blake behind her? Could she take a chance with another man? No to both of those questions.
Could she enjoy Silas for a while? Yes. Maybe. She really, really wanted to.
She made the calls from an old, avocado green wall phone. Both of her clients were understanding and obliging. How long would it take for the place to be cleaned? Should she start cancelling her Saturday appointments? She’d wait until she knew for sure. Next week was already going to be busier than usual.
So maybe she should make the best of today.
Gabi walked out of the kitchen and found Silas waiting for her by the front door. She couldn’t help but remember how she’d felt last night when he’d touched her, when he’d been inside her. When he’d held her in those big, strong arms.
“We can walk down to the river,” he began. “Maybe later we can…”
She walked to him, grabbed the front of his brown shirt, and pulled him to her for a long, inviting kiss. When she took her mouth away from his she said, “Maybe later. I have other plans for you right now.”
He lifted her off her feet, kissed her, and started walking. His home was simple, like hers, but she was pretty sure there was a bed in it, somewhere.
Blake cursed when he looked into the beauty shop window. All was dark. Gabi wasn’t here. Fuck this!
He’d been doing his best to remain unseen, to observe without being observed, but he was tired of waiting.
Waiting had never been one of his strengths. He was not a patient man.
He walked into the ice cream shop next door, where a very pretty blonde busied herself wiping down the small tables to one side. She greeted him, smiled, and walked to a position behind the counter where several flavors of ice cream were on display.
“I don’t want ice cream,” Blake said sharply. “I was hoping for a haircut, but the shop next door seems to be closed.”
“It is, but I think just for the day. If you can wait until tomorrow…”
“I don’t want to wait,” he snapped.
The blonde’s smile faded. Weirdly, a burst of cold air came out of nowhere, as if someone had turned on the air conditioning at full blast. The day was much too cool for air conditioning, even in an ice cream shop. The chill didn’t last, so he dismissed it.
“There’s a barber shop in Eufaula,” she said. “I’d be happy to give you directions.”
He waved her off and left in a huff.
His fingers began to tingle, then they started to itch. He glanced down to study his hands. They didn’t look any different, but what an odd sensation! It was as if all his anger had settled in his fingers and he could feel that anger growing until it burned.
Blake shoved his hands in his pockets, then headed back the way he’d come, north on Main Street, right on a side street, toward the abandoned B&B he’d called home for the past few days.
The house he’d commandeered was in view when the world began to swim; colors changed, became brighter, and then he saw hues in the air he hadn’t realized existed. He lifted a hand, tried to touch the colors but couldn’t. After a moment he shoved his hands back into his pockets, where they seemed to be safe. What the hell? Was he having some kind of a breakdown? If he was it was all Gabi’s fault.
Everything that had gone wrong in his life was her fault.
He headed for the back door of the B&B, but before he reached it a woman stepped between him and the door. He hadn’t even seen her before that moment, hadn’t realized she was there.
Blake pulled his hands out of his pockets and held them up. The woman, a pretty blonde but not the one from the ice cream shop, held up her own hands as if shielding herself.
“Whoa, don’t point those things at me,” she said.
Blake felt dizzy. The vision before him swam so he wasn’t entirely sure that the woman was real. “What the hell is happening to me?”
“Don’t worry, honey. You’ll understand soon enough. I’m here to teach you everything you need to know about what you really are. What’s your name?”
He’d been hiding, he didn’t want anyone to know he was here, but he found he couldn’t lie to her. “Blake. Blake Pierce.”
“Blake Pierce, I’ve been sensing your presence here for days. It’s very nice to meet you.”
“Who are you?” he asked, his words slightly slurred.
“You can call me Jenna.”
Chapter 11
Sex with Silas was great. It took her away, made her forget everything ugly in the world. Lying together after was also pretty damn good. She hadn’t been this relaxed in years, since well before Blake. Looking back, Gabi wondered if she’d ever been this content.
It would be much too easy to fall in love with him. She held on and steeled her heart, what was left of it. This couldn’t last, but while it did she was going to enjoy it.
She could stay in this bed all day, lose herself in Silas for a while. She had to enjoy every minute, because it wasn’t forever.
He seemed to be as content as she was, at least for now. Neither of them made
a move to leave the bed for several long, wonderful minutes. The phone in his kitchen began to ring, the sound distant and yet a reminder that they were not alone in the world. Silas ignored the phone, and eventually it stopped ringing. No more than a minute later the persistent ring started again.
Silas sighed and left the bed, grabbing his pants off the floor and ordering her, in a nice but firm way, to stay put. She did.
When he returned a couple of minutes later, all evidence of his contentment had disappeared. He frowned, a little. There was a little crease between his brows that she hadn’t seen before.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, sitting up and bringing a corner of the sheet with her. It was a little late to be modest, but still…
“That was Jordan on the phone. A man came into her place asking when the beauty shop was going to open up.”
She tried to ignore the chill of warning that crept up her spine. When would she stop seeing Blake everywhere? “Could be anyone needing a haircut.”
“Jordan didn’t think so. She had a bad feeling about him.”
“What did he look like?” Not Blake, please, not Blake.
“Maybe forty, blond hair, blue eyes.”
There were millions of blond-haired blue-eyed men, and any one of them might’ve wandered into Mystic Springs as she had. She wanted to believe the man who’d been downtown looking for her was nothing more than a stranger in need of a haircut.
But she didn’t. The man who’d come looking for her was the same one who’d scared her into hiding here. It was the man who made her lock all her doors, and hide from cameras, and always sit with her back to the wall. She had seen him at Eve’s window a couple of days ago. That face that had come and gone so quickly hadn’t been her imagination; it was her worst nightmare come true.
“I have to go,” she said.
A moment ago she’d been relaxed, happy, even peaceful. Now she was frantic, returning to flight mode in the blink of an eye. She leapt from the bed, started gathering her clothes, and dressed so quickly it took Silas a moment to realize that she was in a panic.
“What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer his simple question.
Silas rounded the bed, and as Gabi straightened with her bra and blouse in her hands, he placed steady hands on her shoulders. He asked again, “What’s wrong?”
She went very still. “I guess it doesn’t matter, now. I’m going to have to leave town.”
“Why?”
“Mia’s father. I know it’s him, looking for me. I don’t have much time. He’ll find me, he’ll…”
“No one is going to hurt you, I promise.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t a pretty laugh, not at all. “My ex-husband, Blake Pierce, will kill me and take Mia, if he gets even half a chance.”
“Your….”
She didn’t wait for him to go any further. “My real name is Gabi Pierce. Gabrielle Katherine Pierce. I’d planned to go back to my maiden name after the divorce, but since Mia is a Pierce, whether I like it or not, I changed my mind. We should have the same last name. Lawson is just a name I plucked out of the air when I came to Mystic Springs. I lied to you,” she said, knowing it was a truth that would hurt him. “I lied to you and everyone in town about who I am and why I’m here.”
After a moment of silence he said, “You had your reasons.”
“I did. I do. And now I have to get out of town. If Blake finds me…” She felt the blood drain from her face, and her heartbeat sped up. “If he finds Mia…”
They both finished dressing as quickly as they could and ran for the truck.
It had been fun while it lasted. It hadn’t lasted long,
He’d started off trying his best to find an easy way to get Gabi out of town. Lately he’d been wondering what was best for her and the kid, whether they should stay or go. And now here he was trying to think of a way to convince her to stay. Stupid.
Whether she left town or not, her ex-husband wasn’t going to hurt her. He’d see to that.
“I can’t believe I ever trusted him,” Gabi said softly. Silas wasn’t sure if she was talking to herself or to him.
“What happened?” he asked. “Why are you so afraid of him?”
For a long moment she didn’t answer. He wouldn’t ask again, wouldn’t push for answers. He just wanted her to know she could talk to him if she needed to. If she wanted to.
“He lied to me,” Gabi said as they rounded a curve in the gravel road. “About who he was, about what he wanted. Everything he ever told me was a lie.”
A knot formed in Silas’s gut. He couldn’t ask Gabi to stay without telling her the truth. About Mystic Springs; about him. More lies. Was it possible she’d see it any other way?
“The short story is, he swept me off my feet. For a while I thought his possessiveness was love, but it wasn’t. He wanted to own me, to control every aspect of my life. I thought he was insecure, that if I loved him enough, if I pleased him, he’d relax and trust me, and we could have a happy life, a good marriage. I wanted him to smile more, the way he did when we were dating. I wanted him to not check on me every ten minutes, as if he was always expecting me to leave him.”
Silas already realized what kind of man her husband had been.
“We’d been married a year when he hit me the first time.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Gabi, I’m so sorry.”
“As suddenly as he lost his temper, he apologized. He kissed me, and swore it would never happen again. It did. There was never any warning. It was as if he had a hidden trigger. I never knew what would set him off. His outbursts were sudden and explosive. The last time he hit me, he put me in the hospital. That’s where I found out I was pregnant. That’s when I knew I had to leave him.”
Silas had a pretty good picture of Blake, by this point. “I’m surprised he let you go.”
“He wouldn’t have, but his mother still controls a big portion of the family business. Since I asked for nothing in the divorce, not a dime, she insisted he sign the papers. I didn’t tell him I was pregnant. Maybe that was wrong, but I knew what kind of life she’d have with Blake in it, and… All I wanted to do was save her.”
“Mia.”
“I don’t want her to ever know what kind of man her father is.”
“He knows about her?”
Gabi nodded. “He signed the papers, as his mother instructed, but he followed me. First across town, then to another city. I’d turn around and he was there. Just… watching. Eventually I couldn’t hide the fact that I was pregnant. I kept expecting lawyers to show up at my door, but they didn’t.”
“He had other plans,” Silas grumbled.
“Yes. When Mia was almost three months old Blake turned up at my apartment. He broke in. He tried to kill me, and he said he’d take the baby, that he’d make her pay every day for being my child.” Gabi looked at him then, as he turned onto a Mystic Springs street. “I fought back. He didn’t expect that. A neighbor heard the noise and came to check on me. Blake panicked, shoved my neighbor aside, and ran out of the apartment. I grabbed Mia, loaded up my car with whatever I could, and hit the road. All I knew to do was drive north.”
“And you ended up here.”
Gabi nodded.
“Where are we headed?”
“Mia is with Cindy. I need to see my baby, need to get my hands on her and make sure he hasn’t found her.”
Maybe Judge wasn’t protecting Gabi and Mia from him, after all. Maybe the bloodhound’s instincts had led him to Mystic Springs to keep them safe from another threat. Blake Pierce. Was it really a coincidence that the dog had shown up about the same time Gabi had found her way to town? Was there some unknown magic at work?
Judge wasn’t the only one who’d protect Gabi and Mia. Silas wasn’t going to walk away from either of them. Not now, not when they needed him most.
The B&B parlor was empty, but for Blake and his new friend. Jenna was flirting with him but the truth was, pretty
as she was the ballsy bitch wasn’t his type. She was too confident, too strong for his tastes.
And she was full of questions. Why was he here? Where was he from? He wasn’t about to tell her that he was here to kill his ex-wife and take his child. He didn’t yet know if she would help or try to stop him.
She didn’t strike him as the helping type.
“What do you want?” he finally asked, as she continued to ask probing questions. What the hell did his mother’s maiden name have to do with anything?
“I’m about to turn your world upside down.”
He was beginning to regret asking her in. Still, he needed to know if he could trust her not to tell Gabi, or anyone else, that he was squatting at the B&B. “I don’t need or want…”
Jenna took a few steps closer to him. He was tempted to step away from her, but he didn’t. He’d be damned if he’d back away from a woman. “You have so much power, I sensed it when you walked into town.”
She was a nutcase…
“Three days ago,” she continued. “Late. It was just after ten. You didn’t come straight here, I don’t think. You wandered a bit. Lost. Uncertain. You explored the town a bit, then settled here. It was a good choice, which is no surprise. Your instincts are excellent. They always have been, I suspect, even away from Mystic Springs.”
If she’d been watching him he’d kill her, here and now. But did anyone else know she was here? Had she told anyone about him?
“All I want is Gabi. And my daughter,” he added.
Jenna sighed. She studied him from head to toe in a calculating way, then said, “I can help you round them up, but you need to know the truth first.”
“What truth?”
“What’s your mother’s maiden name?” she asked for the second time.
This time he answered. “Bolton,” he snapped. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
Beauty and the Beastmaster (Mystic Springs Book 3) Page 11
