by T. S. Joyce
“Suit yourself.” Reese lifted her sky blue gaze to hers and canted her head. “But you might learn why Bron is the way he is now.”
More freaking mysteries from Reese and she was beginning to sound like one of those palm readers who threw out just enough information to keep the client hooked. Samantha wasn’t playing unravel-the-mysteries-around-Bron. The more she knew about him, the more he hurt her, and the more she wanted him despite it all. And that was a deadly combination to her already weary heart.
Over her cold, dead, lifeless, rigor mortised body would she be popping over to his cabin unannounced tonight.
****
Samantha was definitely hiking through the woods again, just a day after being lost in them the first time, only this time, she was doing it in the dark. At least she had a flashlight, like a freaking sleuth on a mission.
Jesus, she was going to get shot. The good people of Joseph were open gun carriers, and Bron seemed the type to know his weapons. She’d seen the shotgun he had on a rack in the back window of his truck.
Reese, that little poop stirrer, had given just enough enticing bread crumbs of information to make her go crazy the rest of the day, and at the last minute, she’d hopped in her car and parked it on the road before the Bron’s driveway. Just like Reese said to. Why was she getting the feeling she should have strings attached to her limbs so Reese could play puppeteer easier?
Why did she always get herself into these situations? Why couldn’t she just leave well enough alone? Bron was happy with Muriel, while she was playing Stalker, Stalker in the Woods. She was probably going to jail tonight. Maybe Dad could give her tips on picking the right prison gang.
Light shone through the trees up ahead, and she could make out the meadow she’d parked in yesterday. The porch lights of Bron’s cabin lit up the entire clearing, and in front of the house at least fifty townspeople were gathered. A town meeting at dark, and she hadn’t seen a single flyer on the light poles on East First announcing it. What kind of weird neighborhood watch shit was this?
A vaguely familiar man stood on the porch stairs talking too low for her to hear from this distance.
She clicked off the flashlight and took a wide loop through the trees to get closer until she couldn’t move without being seen. Belly crawling sounded awesome in theory, but in reality, it was loud and there were sharp sticks and rocks that booby-trapped the ground and poked her in the stomach. Her ascent was slow and terribly clumsy, but at least she wiggled close enough to the tree line to catch some of what the tall man was saying.
“I think right now, we have to consider that the threat could be coming from anywhere,” he said. His hair shone raven black with streaks of silver in the light of the house, and his eyes looked dark to match them. His jaw was stubbled with glints of gray, and he wore a leather motorcycle jacket and fitted jeans over heavy black boots.
Beside him, Bron rocked slowly in a chair with his hands clasped in front of his face. He shook his head. “You know it’s probably the Marsdens who did this to Trent. It’s on me.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd and the tall man trilled a sharp whistle. They quieted immediately. “You think this is a revenge killing, Cress? Your pairing with Muriel failed, so her daddy killed your brother? What would that gain for his clan? War, that’s what, and they’re outnumbered. That old bruiser doesn’t have the nuts to pull this off. Not in broad daylight. Not in our territory.”
“Then who?” someone asked from the crowd. “Marsden is the only one who sounds right for this.”
“The possibility exists that this could be a resurgence of hunters, or someone caught wind of Trent in town and took it upon themselves to kill what scared them.”
What in the actual fuck were they talking about? She looked from profile to profile, and none of them seemed surprised by the turn of conversation, or at the easy way this man talked about Trent’s death. Like this was every day chit-chat, and a murder hadn’t just occurred.
The breeze drafted up her back and lifted a strand of hair that had fallen out of her bun. Bron’s reaction was instantaneous. His nostrils flared and he jerked his gaze directly to her. Shit.
Pursing his lips, he shook his head slightly. Yeah, she got it—she shouldn’t get caught spying on the cult meeting. Freaking Reese for getting her here. Now Samantha was too terrified to move, and she needed to escape this place as soon as humanly possible.
A man on the edge of the crowd twitched his head in her direction and frowned.
Crap, crap, crap.
After a few moments, he turned his attention back to a question that had been asked from one of the townspeople.
Her terrified grasp loosened on a thatch of wild grass.
“Hunters are being eyed for this because I got a call from Tommy Young yesterday,” the tall biker said.
Her body jerked at the mention of Dad’s name and the dry leaves under her crackled. Dad put a phone call in to Leather Jacket? Why?
“I move we reschedule this meeting to tomorrow night,” Bron rushed, standing.
“What? No,” Leather Jacket said. “We’re all here now. Let’s discuss how we’re going to handle the old—”
A stony hand clamped onto her shoulder and Samantha screamed in shock as the man from the edge of the crowd dragged her upward. His grip hurt, and she imagined his fingers digging all the way to her bones.
The man lurched back and was slammed onto the ground, and the absence of his punishing grip made her stumble forward.
Bron had his hand around the man’s throat, and a feral sound ripped from both of them. Samantha stared dumbly from the rocking chair, still swaying, to the twenty yard distance Bron had crossed in a second’s time. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t physically possible for him to move that fast.
“Bronson,” Leather Jacket barked out.
The clearing stilled and not even the night critters in the woods behind her dared to chirp. The air smelled funny, electric, and Bron stood slowly, blocking her view completely with the wide planes of his back.
Rubbing her throbbing shoulder, she tried to peek around him, but he moved in front of her again.
The man on the ground looked furious, if the mauve color of his face was anything to go by, but he rose and headed back to the onlookers, whose eyes all seemed to be riveted to her and Bron.
“Who is she?” Leather Jacket asked in a booming voice.
“She’s no one.”
“Is she yours?” the man asked in a careful tone.
His? She wasn’t anyone’s, and she definitely didn’t belong to some two-timing back-stabbing liar. Oh, she’d heard loud and clear when they were discussing Bron’s failed marriage. His refusal to enlighten her earlier was as good as a lie in her book.
Bron still hadn’t answered, so she spoke up. “I’m not his anything. Well, I’m his client. He’s working on my house for me and I…had a question about the plumbing. And the…cat pee. And the water meter.”
Bron’s irritated sigh turned into a soft rumble in his chest. “That’s water heater, and they can tell you’re lying. You’re terrible at it. And what are you wearing?”
She looked down at her skin tight black ensemble. “Black Lycra.” For spying better, clearly.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
“What’s your name?” Leather Jacket asked in a soft voice that was seriously starting to scare her.
“Samantha.”
He sniffed a humorless laugh and rocked his head back. “Let me guess. Samantha Young.”
The crowd surged toward her. Angry yells and crude names filled the night air and Bron’s arm snaked around her waist. “She’s mine, she’s mine. She’s mine!”
“What are you—”
“Shhh,” he hissed.
Well, that was just rude. She didn’t understand anything. These people knew Dad, knew her, even though she only recognized a few faces in the crowd. Reese was one of them, and her friend looked terrified.
“You know what she i
s,” Leather Jacket said in an angry rumble.
“Yes.” Bron’s profile grew rigid as he watched the man, and the muscles in his jaw danced as he clenched his teeth.
“Your place here will be compromised, do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Bron’s chest heaved, and he whispered, “Fuck,” and dropped his gaze to Samantha’s.
“What’s happening?” she asked in a tiny voice. The mob looked ready to kill her, and Dad’s warning over the phone suddenly frightened her. Maybe she should’ve taken him more seriously, because she obviously had no idea what was going on in the shadowy underbelly of Joseph.
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered. But the cool, stony look in his eyes said he hated her in this moment. Pulling his gaze back to the man, he said, “I understand.”
“No!” Reese yelled. “Dodger, this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.”
“Did you know she came back?” the man, Dodger, asked Reese. His face was morphing into something fearsome. “And you didn’t tell me? Tread carefully, or your fate will be the same as his.”
Reese’s lip trembled and her eyes filled with moisture as she dropped her chin to her chest. “But he’s a Cress.”
“Tradition or no, he has to abide by the same rules the rest of us do.” The authority in his voice cracked across the clearing.
“I don’t understand.” Samantha couldn’t pull her eyes away from the tear that stained Reese’s cheek. She’d done something bad. She could feel it, and from the somber faces in the crowd, they hadn’t wanted whatever judgment that cult leader, Dodger, was handing out either.
She shouldn’t have come.
“I’m taking her home. Stay as long as you need to,” Bron said to the towering man on the porch. Without a word of warning, he grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the crowd. He cut a straight path through the people gathered on his lawn, but someone wrapped their fingers in Samantha’s hair and ripped her backward.
She gasped in pain, and Bron turned so fast he blurred. He gripped a woman’s wrist and growled, “Let her go, or so help me, I’ll fuckin’ kill you. I have nothing else to lose.”
Samantha’s heart was in her throat, pounding so hard it was impossible to breathe. She could feel the strands of her hair separating from her scalp in the woman’s grip, but it loosened and she shoved Samantha’s head forward. Bron angled his face in a silent warning, never letting his gaze drop from the woman’s. His eyes were blazing, and his lips pursed in a thin line—a look of fury she’d never seen on his face before.
Turning, he pulled her behind him and led her to his truck. Throwing open the passenger side door, he hefted her into the seat like she weighed nothing and pulled the buckle over her lap like she was incompetent. Slamming the door, he strode around the front of the truck with long, lithe strides and slid in behind the wheel.
The truck rocked with the force of his door shutting.
“What the hell was that?” she asked breathily.
“Stop. Talking,” he gritted out through his clenched teeth.
“Why do you think you can talk to me like that?”
He turned the key and revved the engine. “They can still hear you.”
How? The others were ten yards away from the truck at least, and she’d been whispering.
“Fine. You let me know when you feel like having a civil conversation that doesn’t end with you talking down to me.” She twisted the radio volume and he hunched into himself when a country song blared through the speakers.
“Dammit, woman.” Bron hit the volume button once and the noise died to nothing. “You’re killing my patience and my ear drums. Just sit still until I get us out of here.”
What Dodger had said rattled around in her mind as Bron pulled around the yard and onto his gravel drive. Her dad was involved with what they were doing up here, but how? He was in prison. And how could hunters be to blame if Trent was burned alive? Hunting accidents happened in Hells Canyon, but as far as she knew, never by fire. It was always a wayward bullet that hit an unsuspecting target.
“Bron, who is that man?”
“He’s the boss around here, and that’s all you need to know.”
“No, that’s not all I need to know. He said my dad’s name. What does my dad have to do with any of this? Does he think he was the one who killed Trent?”
“No, not him. The people he works with. Have you talked to your dad about what happened?”
“I can count the number of conversations I’ve had with him on one hand. The man is certifiable. He called me yesterday and said I need to leave here or someone will kill me.”
Bron ripped his gaze away from the road long enough to give her a wide-eyed glance. “Tell me exactly what he said, word for word.”
She repeated their brief conversation as best she could.
“Shit. Does he mean you’ll be killed by my people or his?”
Samantha pressed her cool palms against her cheek and inhaled deeply, then leaned back against the seat. “You’re scaring me. I don’t know what any of this means. His people or your people. What are you saying?”
He licked his lips and shook his head. “I can’t tell you any more than I already have. If you want to know more, answer your dad’s phone calls.”
“Answer my…” A haunting realization brushed over her. “Have you been talking to him?”
“To who?”
“My dad. And I swear if you lie to me, I’ll never forgive you.”
Clamping his mouth shut, Bron stared at the dirt road in his high beams.
With a humorless laugh, she nodded and looked out her window. Of course he had. Because not talking to the man who was currently serving ten years for murdering his father would make sense. And nothing about this town made any damned sense anymore.
This felt like a betrayal, the two men who’d hurt her the most talking behind her back.
“What did you mean when you said I was yours?”
“Doesn’t matter because it won’t stick. You need to get out of here. Everything will go back to normal when you’re gone.”
“I’m not leaving here confused like I did the last time. I can’t move on like that if I’m always questioning everything. Surely you can see that isn’t an option. For six years, I’ve circled around the reasons why you did what you did, and now I’m even more confused. And why didn’t you tell me about Muriel? You said she was happy.”
“She is happy. She isn’t with me anymore, so she’s probably happier than she’s ever been.” His eyes had a strange glow that reflected off the window, and he refused to look at her.
“Did you love her?”
“No.”
Her lip trembled and she bit it. Hard. “Then why did you leave me for her?”
His chest heaved and the cab of his truck felt too small. She couldn’t breathe and the longer he went without answering, the more she was sure he wouldn’t. At a stop sign at the road, she shoved the door open and stumbled out before he’d even come to a complete stop.
“Samantha, what are you doing?”
“What I’m not doing is running around in circles while you get in my head and confuse the hell out of me again, Bronson.” Yeah, full name. If he was going to insist on formality with her name, she was doing it back. Dick move battle. She hoped it hurt him like it hurt her.
“Are you in trouble?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” he demanded, arm still draped over his steering wheel and glaring at her through the open passenger side door.
“I mean, are you in a cult or something. Is that what I saw back there? Some secret society that hurts outsiders. Because they were going to hurt me, weren’t they? That’s why you said I was yours. It wasn’t because you actually care about me, Bronson. I’m not stupid, nor am I clinging to the hope that the man I cared for will come back to me someday. I’m a realist. You don’t know how to feel for me like I deserve. You said I was yours because you don’t want my blood on your hands.”
/> “What do you want from me?”
Her insides were breaking apart. What did she want from him? Everything. No one would ever, could ever, feel about him the way she had, and he’d tossed her away like she was nothing. “I want you to finish my house. I want you to stop talking to me, and just treat me like any other client. And when the job is done, I want you to take my money, and shake my hand like we don’t know each other, and then I don’t want to ever hear from you again.”
She turned and strode for her car, dark and shiny under the moonlight.
The buzz of his automatic windows sounded and he pulled up beside her. “Why were you at my house tonight, Samantha? Why now?”
“Reese told me to be here.”
A curse left Bron’s lips. “Wait,” he drawled.
She pulled the handle of her Jetta and sank into the driver’s seat, then slammed the door beside her.
Most of her life had been spent waiting on Bron.
Most of a lifetime was long enough.
Chapter Six
A pounding knock rattled the house and Samantha squinted her eyes open. It was barely light out.
With a groan, she rolled out of bed and stumbled to the front door. Throwing it open, she narrowed her eyes at the three men standing in front of her house. One looked like an older version of Dillon Tanner who used to sit next to her in English class, one was a complete stranger who was roughly the size of a Clydesdale horse, and the last was Bron, who looked tired and ruffled and was frowning at her legs.
Dillon whistled a catcall and Bron shoved his way past his crew, plucked her off her feet like she weighed little more than a kitten, and barreled back down the hallway toward her room.
“Let go of me!” she yelped.
“Then wear some damned pants when you answer the door.”
Mortified, she squeezed her eyes closed, then dared a glance at her lacy red underwear. She went to bed with pants on, but sometimes she kicked out of them if she got too hot in her sleep. And the window unit in her room was definitely still capable of blasting out some serious heat.
