Every man had a dark side. The difference was that some men chose to integrate that darkness and turn it into their power. Instead of letting the darkness rule you, you harnessed it. Like when I channelled my anger into hockey.
It was better to let a woman in on your darkness than to hide it from her. A good woman could help your darkness lose its power over you.
Any guy who didn’t do some fucked up shit, or in my case, plan to do some fucked up shit in his life was either lying or was boring as hell.
If I hadn’t told her, she’d have found out some way. Jared and Bob would have leaked it out to her.
Seeing the way they talked about her this morning really had got me thinking. Got me worrying. Lit a fire under my ass.
Maybe they were my high school friends, and they were loyal, but we’d grown apart through the years. Who they’d become scared me. Since I’d gotten back into town to take care of my mother a little over a year ago, I’d fallen back into the same old habits with them, same old jokes, same rec league team that dominated and would go get smashed after the game at the bar. I’d try to enjoy myself even though I was drinking water.
The last year here seemed to have gone by in a snap. I couldn’t think of a single damn memorable day, in fact.
But the last—what was it, three days or so?—since I’d laid eyes on Natalie, seemed like they could have taken years.
I welled up with a strange emotion, like sadness, but more powerful. Even if she didn’t know it, Natalie had brought me to the realization that there was more to life then I was experiencing right now, and I wanted that.
Maybe she was my angel, but how could I make her understand all this? She hated me now, and I didn’t even blame her. There was no going back from that, but what if she’d been placed in my life to send me the message that I need to get the hell out of dodge?
That sadness crept in, further.
It seemed that was my destiny in life. The people I really connected with--my father, Louisa, now Natalie-seemed destined not to be in my life. I was cursed.
It was a shame, but then again wasn’t everything in life supposed to happen for a reason?
Just then, my train of thought was interrupted when I heard three honks from a semi truck coming my way. What on earth?
This guy was just barreling down the middle of the fucking road.
I slowed as quickly as I could, but I could feel the ice beneath my tires.
My heart fluttered, because I knew if I was having this much trouble braking with tires that were especially designed for snow, Natalie would have it ten times worse in that tiny little Honda Civic rental.
The truck sped by me—fucking asshole. I slowed and pulled over as far into the ditch as I could without danger of flipping. I wanted to scream more than a few obscenities at the truck as it barreled by, but this was no time for that.
As I drove along, the eerie feeling of déjà vu of my sister’s crash on this very same highway sunk in further.
A girl driving out in a snow storm in a really bad car.
Black ice on the fucking highway that you could never see coming. But then, that was the thing about black ice. It was invisible.
My heart raced and I drove slowly, through the thick snow, until I came about her car.
As I suspected, she’d ended up in a ditch.
“Natalie,” I screamed as I got out of my truck and examined her car.
Goddamn it if this happens again I’m fucking done.
The front wheel had barreled through a patch of ice in the ditch. With my arm, I brushed away the snow so I could see into the driver’s seat.
“Natalie. Natalie!”
The airbag had gone off, and she wasn’t moving.
I tried to open the car door, but it jammed on the ground after I had opened it a few inches. So, I reached in with one arm, opened the window, undid her seatbelt, and pulled her out.
I put her in my passenger’s seat safely, pulled her suitcase and the box of her father’s journals out of her trunk, then headed back to Black Mountain.
18
Natalie
I blinked my eyes a few times and then came to, looking up at the stucco ceiling.
I was covered in a blanket, cozied up on the couch.
A woman knelt beside me.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi, Pumpkin,” she answered.
“Who are you?” I asked, groggily.
I squinted, focusing my eyes. “Wait a second. Elaine, from the bar?”
She smiled. “Aw, you’ve met my twin sister, I see. I’m
Cherry, her sister. I’m the nurse of the family.”
I heard the noise of boots stepping on floor wrap around the hall and into the living room.
“She’s awake,” Cherry said with a sweet-as-pie smile.
When I saw the man, a jolt of electricity shot through my veins. It felt like an arrow had made it through to my heart.
He flexed his jaw, scrubbed his chin with his thumb, and the whole night came rushing back.
Shane’s admission that he’d come up with a plot to get ‘even’ with me for something my father had done.
My panicking.
My running.
My accident.
“Cherry was off-duty tonight, so I had her come and run some tests on you.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “How did I get back here?”
“Shane pulled you out of a wreck. Do you not remember that?”
I sat up.
“I remember a truck bearing down on me…”
“Me too. That fucking semi that came barreling down the two-lane,” Shane added.
“Wait. Wait--” I rubbed my forehead in an effort to unscramble my thoughts. “How did you see the exact same semi?”
Cherry’s eyes flashed down. I looked up at Shane, who crossed his arms.
“I followed you,” he growled.
My heart started to beat like crazy.
“You...stalked me?”
He grinned. “I prefer ‘escorted,’ actually.”
“And thank God he did,” Cherry chimed in. “You’d have died.”
I gave her a dirty look. “I’m still trying to process how you think it’s okay to stalk me. How is that okay?”
Shane sighed, seeming amused. He looked at me, then at Cherry, who was sitting in a chair next to me.
“Looks like she’s all better,” he said.
“Let me just run some concussion tests first,” Cherry added.
“Are you not going to answer me?”
Shane grabbed a chair, flipped it around, and sat reverse facing me.
“Look. There’s something we need to talk about.”
“No,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. “I feel trapped here. I don’t care about any accident.”
“Would you rather feel uncomfortable, or frozen to death?” Shane gritted out.
I stood up, with a little more effort than normal. My body hurt from the impact of the airbag, and somewhat sore from where the seatbelt had yanked me. All things considered, I felt good but definitely not normal by any means.
“Thanks for coming by here Cherry, but I’m fine. I feel totally fine,” I said.
Shane nodded. “She’ll be okay. We’ll run the concussion stuff tomorrow. It’s not like she’s going anywhere tonight.”
I walked to the front of the house, following Cherry’s lead in putting my boots on.
“Yes, I am. I’m going back to my father’s house, sleeping with a sleeping bag and the electric heater. It’ll be like camping.”
Cherry threw her coat on and glanced back and forth between us.
“This seems like none of my business. I’ll be leaving. Call me if you need anything else, Shane.”
“You’re the best, Cherry.”
She whisked out the door, and shut it before I could get my second boot on.
When I finally stepped to the door, Shane had stood in front of it, crossing his arms like he was a bouncer and I was ninet
een years old.
“Take your boots off,” he commanded, unamused.
I wiggled my eyebrows. “I told you, I’m leaving. I don’t feel safe here.”
“And exactly how are you going to get to your father’s house?”
“I don’t know, how did Cherry get to her house?”
“Cherry lives down the block.”
“Oh.”
“Your car is still in a ditch, and it’s still snowing like crazy. Take off your boots. Nothing is going to happen. Do you not trust me?”
I scoffed. “Why do you need me here so bad? You’re not my father. What do you care if I freeze to death or not?”
“Sit. The fuck. Down,” he gritted out. “I just saved your life, and you’re this ungrateful? Jesus, I’m glad we didn’t fuck if this is what you’re really like.”
My blood boiled. “If you hadn’t planned to fucking kidnap me, I wouldn’t have had to leave.”
“You knew I was acting shady, I admit that. Which is why I decided to come clean.” He shook his head.
“No. I don’t care if I freeze. I’m leaving.”
“The fuck you are.”
“Why are you so protective of me? I’m grown and I can do what I want.”
“What do you not understand about the fact that there is a snowpocalypse happening outside right now, Florida, and you almost just fucking died?!”
I blew out a frustrated sigh, and he took a step toward me, covering me in his shadow.
I hated to admit that all of my muscles tensed, and my breathing shortened when I inhaled his scent. I might hate him, but I still wanted him.
“Alright,” I relented. “I’ll stay.”
“Damn right you will. And I’m sleeping in bed with you.”
“What?! I don’t think so.”
“I don’t trust you not to leave in the middle of the night. Come on. Up the stairs.”
I led the way up the stairs, Shane right behind me. Part of me wanted to give him a break. He had come clean, and that counted for something.
But the bottom line was that I could never fully trust him again. Not while he talked about his “friends” who wanted to kidnap me like they weren’t villains.
“Do you know,” he whispered once we were in his room, a tongue’s length from my ear, “how Louisa died?”
I leaned back and crossed my arms. “You never told me. No one told me. So no.”
“It was a night just like tonight. She went out to see her boyfriend. In the meantime, she’d taken some drugs that had been laced with something.”
“She died from an overdose?”
Shane shook his head somberly.
“No. She froze to death in the middle of a snow storm. The drugs just made her drive more erratically, we hypothesize.”
“Holy shit,” I gritted out.
“Yes. And you’re acting weird tonight. Natalie, this is for your own good. You can’t leave here. If you do, and something happens, I’ll always feel responsible for you. I can’t have that on my conscience.”
My nostrils flared. “So what are you going to do, chain me up?”
Just then, I heard the sound of metal clinking together as he reached a hand in his dresser, and my heart did a tumble.
“I’m sorry. I have my reservations about all this. But I need to do this. Your eyes are dilated, and you’re not thinking straight. But it’s for your own good, until Cherry can come back tomorrow to run the tests.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
My hair stood on end. Was this actually happening? “Shane, are you fucking serious? You’re not chaining me up! Let’s go to the cops! They’ll make sure nothing bad happens to me.”
He shook his head. “We can’t they’re all relatives of Jared’s. That’ll just put you on their radar.”
“I refuse to stay here.”
“And that’s exactly why this is the one place you’re safe tonight. They’ll never think to look here.”
My eyes zoomed in on multiple pairs of hand-cuffs clinking together in his hand.
“This isn’t happening.”
“I’m afraid it is. You’ve shown me you can’t be trusted not to run away. Do you understand what it’s like, to live with the guilt of someone close to you dying, who you could have saved?”
I swallowed, then shook my head.
“Every day, I wake up, and the first thing I think about is, what if I hadn’t been out partying the night she died? What if I had been at home? I would have told Louisa not to go out. I would have been there for her. I should have. And right now, I don’t really know what else to do. You’re not even pretending you want to stay here. I came clean, I told you the truth about Jared and Bob. What more do you want from me?”
Beads of sweat now started to form on the back of my neck.
“I’m not going through that guilt again. I’m not letting you out of my sight from now until I think it’s safe. Even if I have to chain you up.”
My eyes narrowed. He was wearing the same ribbed tank top from earlier, his muscles bulging out from underneath.
I wanted to argue with him. I thought about my phone which was in my car under snow and frozen by now. I wondered if he was bluffing about the cops all being related to Jared.
“I’ll stay,” I relented, easing my tone. “You don’t have to chain me up.”
“I wish I could trust you, Dyno. But obviously, I can’t.”
He waved me into the room where I had my suitcase. I threw on my PJs, and then he brought me back into his room.
He cuffed one of my wrists to the bed, and the other to his own wrist.
“You’re in bed with me. Is all this really necessary?”
“You’ve got that look in your eyes like you might try something, and I can’t let that happen on my watch. I’ll take care of you. Promise.”
“How am I supposed to sleep like this?” I asked.
“You’ll sleep like a baby, trust me. After an accident like that your body needs it.”
He was right.
Not long after I laid my head on the pillow, I was out like a light.
19
Shane
I didn’t sleep very well that night. Every single little noise I heard made me flinch and wake up.
Natalie, on the other hand, seemed to sleep like a rock, and then some.
I got up early in the morning and cooked some breakfast. I figured after her traumatic experience, which was made doubly traumatic by my having to cuff her to the bed last night.
I sipped my coffee and stared out at the cloudy sky and the drifts of snow that had piled up last night. Even if she had some how escaped last night, Natalie wouldn’t have gotten far. It was well below freezing, and the roads wouldn’t be fully plowed for a few days. Her car—I was pretty sure it was a rental—could be stuck there for weeks.
My chest warmed with anger. Not exactly at her—though I never thought I’d have to chain down a woman to my bed *not* for sexual purposes.
What did she not understand about the fact that this was a life and death situation, and I was her only ally right now?
At the same time I understood her position and rationale for wanting to get away from me.
I didn’t regret coming clean with her, but I’d ruined my trust with her.
It was so quiet, just the light howling wind outside. The anger stewing inside me, my own thoughts, were the prevalent noise right now.
The worst thing about bubbly-faced Florida was she held a mirror up to my own damn behavior. She was right. I should have told Jared and Bob to go pound sand and deal with the consequences. But things had gotten so loose here lately. With the McTeelys taking over the force, corruption was at an all time high here, and we seemed to be heading in the direction of a ‘good ole boys’ system again.
I sighed. It was fucking frustrating to live here. I thought about Danny. The other kids I coached. What future would they have? There were good people here, sure. But right now evil seemed to be winning.
The worst part? I wasn’t even sure what side I was on, good or evil, if you judged my actions.
That stopped now.
Although sleeping next to beautiful Natalie all chained up in literal sex handcuffs—ones I’d bought but never used—even a monk would have had some inappropriate thoughts. I couldn’t prove it, but I felt her wiggle her ass into my junk several times. Once when I was sleeping on my back I thought I felt her rubbing me on top of my jeans. She never seemed to be awake when I checked, though.
With a sigh I walked into the living room and stared at the box of her dad’s journal’s I had salvaged.
I opened the box, took a few of them out, and noticed they were labeled by date.
Holy shit. That meant I could easily see what he’d been up to, not only on the days around my father’s death, but in the time before.
I set my cup of coffee down and scrounged through them until I found the one that was marked with the proper date: summer of 2013.
My hands trembled as I opened the first page and saw the man’s handwriting.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was just…a man.
The silence of death rocked through the house as I read the first line:
This has been a stressful month.
Just then, I heard a light UMPH noise that gave me the chills, coming from the window by the stairwell.
I walked to the window, and saw a huge moose.
Relief poured through me. God, I was getting paranoid. Bob and Jared probably were all cloud talk. When it came to following through on plans, they could barely make it to hockey games on time.
Maybe that’s what scared me: a half-baked plan from them had the potential to go terribly wrong.
I need to face it: I’d drifted far apart from them. They were no longer my friends, and this was something I should have realized long ago.
I headed upstairs and checked on her. She was still sleeping. Probably would be all morning if she had some sort of whiplash from the accident.
Black Ice: A Standalone Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 15
