by Larissa Ione
The way he offered, so casually, as if this whole situation was run-of-the-mill, made her heart constrict. None of this was casual, or run-of-the-mill, or even welcome. She could take care of herself. She didn’t need him, didn’t want to grow dependent on him, and certainly didn’t want to get used to having him around.
The last time she’d let a man into her life, she’d ended up with more than a broken heart; she’d gotten a few broken bones, too.
“Thanks,” she said firmly, as she hopped into the truck, “but it won’t be necessary. I’ve got it handled.”
He joined her, not bothering to buckle in as she peeled out of the lot. “You don’t like accepting help, do you? Why not?”
Sudden anger welled up from out of nowhere, shocking her with its intensity. “Because when you need something the most from someone, they always let you down.”
“You didn’t let me down when I needed you,” he said quietly.
Wincing with guilt, she whipped into the sheriff’s parking lot, grabbed the bag of clothes and toiletries, and practically ran into the station.
“Hey, Jillian.” Matthew Evans, who had graduated high school two years before she had, stood from behind his desk. “Stacey isn’t due in until tonight.”
“I’m not here for Stacey.” She patted Reseph on the arm. “I have a mystery for you.”
“What’s going on?”
“This is Reseph. I found him near my house. He has amnesia and we don’t know who he is.”
Matthew gave her a you-can’t-be-serious look. “Is this a joke?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
After a moment probably spent trying to decide whether or not to buy into her story, Matthew nodded. “Okay, let’s take a report and see where we need to go with this.” He gestured to Reseph with his pen. “Do you know anything at all? Where you live? How you got on the mountain…?”
“No.” Reseph’s voice was level and serious, the total opposite of how he’d been with her and Tanya.
“All we have is his first name,” Jillian said.
Matthew guided them to a couple of chairs, and they spent the next half hour answering questions and filling out paperwork. When they were finished, Matthew stood, and Jillian and Reseph did the same.
“I’m going to contact the state police and hand this over to them. But first, I’ll call the local shelter and get you set up, Reseph.” He turned to Jillian. “It was good seeing you.” He strode out of the room.
“What does he mean, shelter?” Reseph’s crystal eyes searched hers.
Crap. Jillian blew out a long breath. “It’s where you’ll stay now. Matthew and the social workers will help you find out who you are.”
His jaw clenched so hard she heard it pop. “And if that doesn’t happen?”
“Then they’ll get you the help you need to take care of yourself.”
He stepped closer to her, overwhelming her with his size, his presence, his masculine, outdoorsy scent. “I don’t want to go to a shelter. I want to stay with you.”
“You can’t.” She backed up, needing to extricate herself from the magnetic pull that seemed to surround him. “You need things I can’t give you.”
“I don’t know these people.” He sounded so distraught that she almost reached for him. God, how easily he stirred emotion in her. Another reason he had to go. “I don’t want to know them.”
She had to get tough. But not for him, for her. “Reseph, I have enough to deal with on my farm. I can’t keep an extra stray.”
“Stray?” He was on her in a flash—she didn’t even have time to be afraid or question his intentions, because his mouth was on hers and his body was a hard wall against her curves. “Does this feel like I’m nothing but a stray?” he murmured against her lips.
Good… God. No, it didn’t, but she couldn’t risk an emotional attachment, especially with someone who could turn out to be a serial killer or something. Talk about a guy turning out to be something different than you’d thought.
“Reseph, please…”
He renewed the kiss, taking her face in his broad hands, and it didn’t occur to her to protest. In fact, when he ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, she opened for him. He took advantage, driving his tongue against hers and then slowing it down to nibble on her lower lip. His masterful possession had her melting bonelessly into him. Her breath grew ragged as she got lost in his kiss and the feel of his body pinning hers to the wall.
Her own body strained to get even closer to him. All sense of time and place became only a hazy niggling in the back of her mind as Reseph’s thick thigh separated her legs and his chest pressed against her breasts.
“Take me home, Jillian.” His whispered words tickled her kiss-swollen lips. “I promise you’ll never think of me as a stray again.”
Tempting. So damned tempting.
“What the—?” Matthew’s voice cracked in the small room, making her jump. “Get off her, buddy.”
Reseph went utterly, dangerously still. Then, very slowly, he turned his head. “Fuck off. Buddy.”
Whatever Matthew saw in Reseph’s expression made him step back and flex his hand over the pistol at his hip.
Oh, shit. Heart pounding, Jillian slid out from under Reseph’s body and put herself between the two men. “It’s okay, Matthew. We were just saying good-bye.”
Abruptly, the menace surrounding Reseph evaporated and hurt flashed in his eyes. She almost gave in. Almost asked him to come home with her. Instead, she managed a shaky smile.
“Take care, Reseph.”
And with that, she got the hell out of there.
Six
Pain lanced Reseph as Jillian walked away, becoming a deep, sharp ache when he heard her truck peel out of the parking lot. She’d left him. She’d really left him. And it hadn’t even seemed to be all that hard to do. She hadn’t looked back, had run out of the building as if she couldn’t wait to be away from him.
But why? He might not remember being with any women, but he knew desire when he saw—and felt it. When he’d kissed Jillian, she’d reacted like a female who needed her male naked. She’d thrown off more heat than her wood stove, and her body had melted into his so fluidly, so easily, that if they’d been alone, he had no doubt he could have been inside her in a matter of minutes.
So why had she abandoned him?
“It’s for the best,” Matthew, that dick, said. “She’s had it bad enough without having to deal with you, too.”
Reseph ignored the crack aimed at him. “What’s she had to deal with?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.” Matthew gestured to the door. “Come on. I’ll take you to the shelter.”
Having no choice, Reseph grabbed his department store bag and allowed the dick to drive him a mile away, to a building that looked like an old prison. Or prison hospital.
Deputy Dick confirmed his suspicions. “This used to be a sanitarium.”
“And now it’s a homeless shelter? You have a big problem with homelessness here?”
“We had to reopen it when the demons came. It’s not a homeless shelter as much as it is a women’s shelter.” He gestured to a side yard, where a half-dozen kids were building a snowman near the swing set. “Most of them have homes.”
“Then why would they be living here with their kids?”
“A lot of their husbands went off to fight and never came home. These women are afraid to be alone.”
“But the demons are gone.”
The deputy’s expression turned sad. “Not for them.”
They went inside, and shit, the shelter was depressing. Someone had tried to dress the place up with colorful paint, construction paper artwork, and cheap Christmas garland on the gray, cracked walls and rusted iron railings, but it was still a gore-toad in a kitten suit.
Wait… what the hell was a gore-toad? Were things starting to come back to him? God, he hoped so. With Jillian gone, he needed something to grab onto.
And dammit, why
had she left him?
A gray-haired lady met them at the desk, and Reseph allowed her to lead him to a cell with concrete walls, a cot, and a two-drawer metal filing cabinet that doubled as a dresser.
This was going to be his home.
It was nothing like Jillian’s warm, cozy cabin.
The lady, Nancy, handed him a clipboard with paperwork. “I need you to fill out everything you can, and sign where indicated. There’s a sheet of rules and a schedule you need to agree to. Everyone chips in to help out, from cleaning to laundry to yard work and cooking. Men’s bathroom is down the hall.”
She left him alone with his paperwork and a skinny black pen.
He sank down onto the cot with his plastic bag of everything he owned in the world. But even that wasn’t his, was it? Jillian had bought the stuff for him.
So what now? He didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to be away from Jillian. That kiss… damn, that kiss. He’d been attracted to her before, but there had been some serious chemistry behind the intimacy they’d shared.
Yeah, the earth had moved for her so much that she left you like a mongrel dumped at the pound.
His fingers tightened on the bag. Maybe he’d scared her more than she’d let on. Maybe he’d been too much of a burden.
He considered everything she’d done for him, from hauling him to her house and taking care of him, to cooking for him, buying him clothes, and getting him help. Okay, so he’d been a burden. But he didn’t have to be. While he worked on trying to find out who he was he could help out around her house. Earn his keep like he’d be doing here.
“She didn’t give you that option, idiot.”
Muttering to himself, he looked out the narrow, barred window at the playground, where a woman was watching over kids engaged in a snowball fight. Every once in a while, she smiled at them, but Reseph recognized her nervousness. Her tense posture was set in fight-or-flight mode, and her gaze kept darting to their surroundings, as if she expected monsters to jump out at her at any time.
These women are afraid to be alone. Matthew’s voice rang in Reseph’s ears.
These females’ demons were still haunting them. Jillian was like that, too. He’d seen it in her eyes when they’d been in the barn the other night. Had Jillian been hurt? Or widowed? She hadn’t mentioned a husband, but maybe his loss was too painful to talk about.
Reseph had to find out more. Surely someone knew Jillian well enough to discuss her.
He tossed the clipboard aside and headed to find Nancy. She wasn’t at the front desk, but he heard her voice coming from a room down the hall. He slowed as he approached, singling out her voice from the other two females.
“I’m not sure I like having a man staying here,” Nancy said. “Especially not one with amnesia. He could be an ax-murderer for all we know.”
So… judge-y. Insulted, Reseph bit back a curse. Nancy could be right, but he could also be a world-famous surgeon who donated time and money to orphans in third-world countries.
“Didn’t the deputy say they were going to run his fingerprints?” asked a woman whose voice was a two-pack-a-day rasp.
“That’ll only help if his fingerprints are in a database,” said another woman.
“I don’t know about you,” Two-packer said, “but given what happened to the Bjornsen couple, the fact that this Reseph person was found only a mile away from them makes me nervous.”
“Bjornsen couple?” Nancy asked.
The woman’s smoky voice lowered even more. “The Bjornsens are that weird couple who moved here from California.”
“I met them once,” Nancy said. “What happened to them?”
“Shh. I don’t think this has been made public yet. I only know because I overheard Sheriff Miller talking on his phone at the Purple Plate. He was saying that the Bjornsens had been slaughtered in their own trailer a couple of nights ago. Quite the coincidence that this man shows up with no memory at around the same time.”
Reseph’s gut twisted. He didn’t think he’d have done something like that, but “think” was the key word here, wasn’t it? He didn’t know much of anything. Although he was reasonably certain he wasn’t an altruistic world-class surgeon.
“Have the police questioned him about it?”
“I don’t know, but from what I hear, the deaths are being blamed on an animal.” The woman’s voice became a whisper. “Or a demon.”
“Don’t say that,” Nancy said sharply. “The demons are gone.”
Reseph scrambled backward away from the door. A killer was on the loose near Jillian, and whether it was a demon or an animal, it didn’t matter. He might still be upset and angry that she’d abandoned him, but he wouldn’t abandon her.
But what if it was you who killed those people? It couldn’t have been. Deputy Dick would have questioned him if they’d suspected, right?
Reseph needed to see the scene. Needed to know for certain that he wasn’t responsible for slaughtering the Bjornsens.
But first, he needed to make sure Jillian was okay.
* * *
The house was so empty without Reseph. Worse, Jillian kept seeing his face when she’d told him she was leaving without him. She’d been deliberately cruel, wanting him to get upset with her, but instead, he’d kissed her. Kissed the breath right out of her.
And still she’d left him.
He didn’t know anyone. He had no home, no job, no friends. And she’d left him to be dropped off at a women’s shelter.
No doubt Reseph would have as much company as he could stand.
That particular thought annoyed her enough that she stopped worrying about him.
For an hour.
Then she realized how big the living room looked without him to fill it. How lonely the kitchen table was without him to talk to.
And how stupid was she anyway to get so worked up over someone she’d only had in her house for a few days?
But wow, could that someone kiss. Even now, her body heated in remembrance. The way he’d touched her had lit her on fire. There’d been nothing inappropriate about where his hands had been, but there’d been a whole lot of inappropriate in her thoughts.
The phone rang as she was buttoning her coat to do her evening chores. When she picked up, Stacey was on the other end, and she didn’t even bother with a hello.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a strange man at your house all weekend?” Stacey snapped. “A strange man with amnesia?”
“Hello to you too, Stacey.”
“Well?”
Stacey was nothing if not tenacious. “The phone lines were down, and I don’t know smoke signals.”
“You realize he could have sliced you up with a chainsaw, and it could have been months before anyone knew?”
Jillian sighed. “You come up here all the time. You’d have found my mangled body in a couple of days.”
“That’s not the point,” Stacey said, “and you know it.”
“Well, you’re always telling me I need a man around the house.”
Stacey cursed, which cracked Jillian up. Her friend had grown up with strict, religious parents, so whenever Stacey used a four-letter word, it would come out as a whisper or as something barely understandable.
“A man,” Stacey shot back. “Not Freddy Krueger.”
“Trust me,” Jillian muttered. “Reseph’s no hideous slasher movie guy.” She braced her shoulder against the door. “You at work tonight?”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m calling. I just got off the phone with Nancy Garrett.”
A tremor of unease ran up Jillian’s spine. “The lady who runs the shelter?”
“Yep. Seems Freddy’s gone missing.”
Jillian bolted upright. “Missing? When? Did he tell anyone where he was going?”
“Nope. Nancy went to check on him a few minutes ago, and he was gone.”
“Shit.” Jillian’s gaze darted around the room. Keys. Where were her keys? She must have left them in the truck. “You’ve got to fin
d him. He’ll starve or freeze out there.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine. He was obviously resourceful enough to weasel his way into your house.”
Jillian looked around for her gloves. “He didn’t weasel his way anywhere.”
“Do you think he might have remembered something?”
“I don’t know.” She found the gloves on the coffee table and jammed them into her coat pockets. “Look, I’m on my way in. I’ll help look for him.”
“Jillian, no. He’s not your problem anymore. We’ll take care of it.”
Problem. That was basically what she’d said to him. He was a problem. He had nothing and no one, and she’d dumped him the way some people abandoned pets without a single thought about how afraid and confused they’d be without the only people and home they’d known. An overwhelming sense of shame crushed her.
“I think,” Stacey said quietly, “that you should come stay with me for a little while.”
“What? Why?”
“I can’t talk about it right now, but trust me, okay?”
A chill seeped into her bones. “Is this about Reseph?”
“Not… exactly. I’d just feel better if you weren’t out there all alone.”
Why did everyone think she shouldn’t be alone? She liked alone. When she was alone, she had control of her life.
“We can talk about it later. I’m coming into town to look for Reseph.” She was not going to back down from this. “I’ll come by the station.”
She hung up before Stacey could argue. Where could Reseph have gone? What if he was injured or lost?
Sick with worry, she hurried outside. Darkness had settled in, but she wasn’t going to obsess about what might lurk in the shadows beyond the farm. Reseph could be in trouble, and she had no one to blame but herself.
She’d almost reached the truck when a whisper stopped her in her tracks. No, not a whisper… it was more of a puff of warm air blowing across her cheek and ear. A rank odor made her nostrils burn and a sour taste fill her mouth.
Oh, Jesus. Her knees nearly buckled. The stench was horrifyingly familiar, even after a year. Suddenly she was in the airport parking lot all over again, shrouded in darkness and at the mercy of monsters.
