by Jamie Begley
Ginny made a psst sound. “Knox won’t have any candy to put in the bags.”
“How do you know?”
“You said Knox was getting the groceries from Diamond’s zombie stash. Candy wasn’t included in the supply list she updates every month. She showed me the list when we were at the church’s Christmas dinner.”
“Why the fuck didn’t she include candy?”
“She was afraid it would rot their teeth out, and her island doesn’t have a dentist.” Ginny shrugged as if it made perfect sense. “Her island is small. She placed a limit of twenty people that she would invite to go with them.”
“Just twenty?”
Ginny nodded. “I agree. That’s way too many people to me, also.”
“How many would you take?”
“To a deserted island? That’s a no-brainer,” Ginny scoffed.
“Okay … how many would you take?”
“Just two. You and me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Room numbers 26 and 27.” Reaper shut off his phone after reading Knox’s text.
“At least it’s on the first floor,” Ginny said. “I’ve been sitting so long my feet are numb.”
“I told you to stretch out in the back seat,” he reminded her, putting the car back in Drive.
“What are you doing?” Ginny gripped the door handle as if she were about revolt if he didn’t let her get out of the car.
“Our rooms are on the other side of the hotel,” he explained. “This way, we can go directly into our rooms without running into anyone else.”
“Oh ….”
“You’re not the only who wants to get out.”
“Which one are you more tired of? The car or me?”
“Both.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel, sensing the hurt he had just delivered. The stark truth was he could have driven into oblivion and not given a fuck. What he needed was to get away from Ginny.
Each day he spent with her, Reaper could feel himself slacking the rein he kept on his emotions. She was a paradox—the more time spent with her, he discovered new aspects of her personality. Ginny was charming without being cloying. Her reactions were upfront—you could tell if she liked or disliked something or someone without her pretending the opposite. She was fucking funny and playful, getting excited about the simplest things that he had long ago lost his enchantment for. She acted as if her heart was broken just because she wasn’t able to buy taffy.
The most confounding part of her personality was her ability to relate to others, regardless of their way of life. Ginny treated Kaden Cross the same as she treated Kimmy and the other employees at the club. Initially, he thought that she gave remembrances of herself for that exact purpose, but there hadn’t been anything personal in the gifts she had given. Her main objective was to help, and in return, she received the joy of giving.
Discovering that part of her personality got to him, bringing out sexual instincts suppressed so long, and wanting to uncover the rest of her secrets. Each hour spent in the car brought the buried instincts out more until he hadn’t been able to hold back when she asked which one he was more tired of.
“Leave you suitcase in the car. After I check out your room, I’ll come back and bring it to you.”
Ginny cast him a worried glance. “We’re still being precautious? You think who’s been stalking me will be here?”
“I’d rather be safe than find out the hard way.”
“Me, too.”
“Wait here a second.” Reaper got out the car, checking several vehicles in the parking lot. Seeing no one around, he went to her door. Opening it, he looked inside, then closed and locked the doors.
Taking her arm, he started walking quickly toward the side of the hotel. As they drew closer, his hand tightened on her arm, bringing Ginny to a stop.
Ginny looked up at him in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone is hiding behind the stairwell.” If he hadn’t been on alert, Reaper would have missed the shadow standing behind the open stairs that led to the second floor. His finger went to the car fob in his hand, preparing to unlock the car and press the emergency button. “When I say go, run to the car and call Knox.”
“But ….”
He didn’t have time to argue with her before the shadow stepped out, coming into the light just as he was about to press down on the button.
“Silas!”
Ginny’s excited shout had his finger stilling.
“I was wondering when you were going to show.”
Reaper kept Ginny by his side when she started to excitedly run toward her brother. “Stay here.”
“He’s my brother …,” Ginny appealed. Then, at his stern look, she nodded her understanding.
As Ginny’s brother stepped out into the light, Reaper felt his blood go cold in recognition. Silas was the stranger whose off-handed remarks had put him in the direction of the isolated homes outside of town being used as stash houses for drugs. It was also how he had found out Memphis was using, setting off a chain reaction that stole nearly ten years of his life.
“That’s not much of a welcome, Ginny,” her brother reprimanded her.
Despondently, Ginny quit trying to get away from Reaper. “I can’t get closer. We both may have been exposed.”
“I’m also trying to protect you,” Reaper told her. “Just because the CDC doesn’t believe there haven’t been any cases in the US, doesn’t mean there haven’t been. Silas could be a carrier, with no signs or symptoms yet.” The turmoil of Ginny’s unexpected visitor had him coming off harsh, as memories of the easygoing man he used to be tried to invade the disconsolate one he had become.
“Silas wouldn’t be here if there was a chance he was contagious,” Ginny assured him.
Reaper didn’t allow his hold to slacken at her assurance. Ginny was letting her emotions rule her, not caution. He wanted to shake some sense into her. She was the type of person who led with her heart and worried about consequences later. It was a deadly combination, and until Viper found someone else to watch her, he was the only one who was standing between her and tragedy. He didn’t believe the virus was in Kentucky so far, but neither was he sure that her family could be trusted with Ginny’s safety. He’d rather come across as being paranoid about the outbreak than make her angry that he didn’t trust her brother.
“Silas, this is Gavin. He’s a friend of mine.”
Friends? Reaper didn’t correct Ginny, letting it ride. Maybe in another lifetime they could have been friends, but not in this one.
“We’ve met.” Silas took another step under the light hanging on the side of the building.
Ginny looked up at Reaper in surprise. “You’ve met my brother?”
“I didn’t know he was your brother. It was a long time ago. We met at the diner,” Reaper roughly supplied the information.
“Been a long time.” Silas nodded at him. “Good to see you again. Haven’t seen much of you since you’ve come back to town.”
“You knew I had been kidnapped? I haven’t seen you, either,” Reaper said flatly. “Surprising in such a small town.”
Silas gave a laconic shrug. “Don’t get out much. This is the first time I’ve been out of my house since I quit my job. I heard a Last Rider went back with Ginny; didn’t know you were the one called Reaper. Everyone in four states knew you were missing back then. You were kidnapped.” The way he stated it could have come across as a statement of fact or a question.
Silas’s reply and expressionless face sent his bullshit meter rising. Viper had been able to keep the details of his kidnapping out of the media, yet Reaper wasn’t naïve enough to think that a slip from anyone from The Last Riders, Predators, or the hospitals he had been in would provide a leak that would allow the whole truth to come out.
“How’d you know a Last Rider went with her if you haven’t been in town?”
“Just because I don’t come to town doesn’t mean I’m can’t pick up a phone.”
<
br /> “Silas’s mother is a little bit of a gossip,” Ginny explained.
“Not much in town gets past her ears.”
Reaper found it pretty damn cagey. Silas’s noncommittal response didn’t provide the answer from where he had gained his knowledge.
Silas’s gaze went to both of them. “You both look like you could use a good meal and some rest.”
“We could. Ginny can call you when she wakes.”
“My sister is coming home with me. Ezra and Fynn are keeping a big kettle of stew and cornbread warm. Plenty for you too. The boys are making a spare bed for you in case you decide to stay.”
“We’re staying at the hotel,” Reaper shut the offer down.
“Silas … we could be contagious.”
Ginny’s attempt at trying to ease the terse situation didn’t help. The two men were engaging in a battle of wills, which Reaper was determined to win.
“Ginny and I have everything we need here. A friend of mine booked rooms for us and has already set us up with food.”
“We saw. We’ve already loaded the food up to take with us.”
The battle of wills had just escalated in a direction Reaper had failed to register until it was too late.
“We’ve?”
Silas raised his hand in the air, closing it into a fist when it was above his head. Then Reaper saw other shadows move, blending into the light from various positions around the hotel. He counted five men as they moved closer.
Silas lowered his hand. “I wasn’t the only one who came to welcome Ginny home.”
“Then it was a wasted trip,” Reaper said. “We’re staying here.”
“Then,” Silas matched his ultimatum with one of his own, “we’re staying here too. We’ve already rented the rooms on both sides of yours.”
“How did you know which rooms we rented?” Reaper regarded him suspiciously.
“Wasn’t hard to figure out which two rooms were for you and Ginny when we saw Knox packing a bunch of groceries inside both rooms.”
“Pretty good guess.” Silas didn’t appear to register his sarcasm.
“Been known to make a few good ones when the occasion calls for them.”
As they talked, Reaper was aware of Silas walking closer.
“There was no point for you to rent rooms here. Ginny and I were set up to stay here.”
“There is a point when there’s no need for either of you to stay here when I have plenty of rooms to spare. Why stay cooped up in a small room when you can have all the outdoors at your footsteps? You seem like a sensible man. What makes more sense: Staying here, when you know Ginny will sooner or later answer her door to one of us, or move into my house with just me?” Silas moved in for the kill in his argument.
“If you’re so worried about you two being contagious, the only place you could go in town is to The Last Riders’. Personally, I wouldn’t, heard a couple of the women there are pregnant.”
“More information coming from your mother?” Reaper asked caustically.
“Could be.” Silas gave a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t rightly remember who told me. Am I wrong?”
“No, you aren’t.” Ginny tiredly leaned against Reaper. “Is there anywhere else we can stay?”
Reaper looked down at her, seeing she was asking him and not her brothers, leaving the decision in his hands.
Every place he could come up with had drawbacks, and none that would be as safe as to what the Colemans were offering.
“You might not have been in town the last few months, but how about the rest of your brothers?” Reaper asked Silas, not giving in to what could be Ginny’s safest option without considering the safety of everyone involved. If he had to pitch a tent behind the church, he would.
“They come into town even less than me.”
“Silas is the only one who isn’t a homebody,” Ginny teased her oldest brother.
“They could get sick,” he told her before giving in. “We could have been exposed. It’s going to be a waiting game to see if we get any symptoms, which means they’ll have to wait it out with us before coming back to town again.”
“If Ginny goes anywhere else but with us and gets sick, we’ll get infected anyway, because no one will be able to keep us away from her.” Silas took a step off the sidewalk as he talked. “As to the food, all the groceries that Knox sent you was enough to feed an army. Plus, we already have three freezers packed full. I reckon we’ll do fine.”
“You have three freezers?” Reaper regarded him skeptically. For people who never came to town, they seemed to have an overabundance of food.
“Have you watched TV lately? Nothing to do in the mountains but hunt. Ginny looks like she’s ready to drop. The only one Ginny and you will be in contact with is me. That’s why the boys are staying back. Isaac and Matthew share their own place, Jacob and Jody each have theirs, Moses has his. Ezra and Fynn both live with me, but Ezra is going to move in with Isaac and Matthew, and Fynn will be going to stay with Jacob. See? We have it all worked out.”
“Gavin, it’s up to you.”
Ginny leaving the decision to him when all her brothers were standing there, putting his say-so over the brothers she loved and trusted, placed a burden on him to consider the best recourse for her. The problem was that he had other options available to him, but all of them involved leaving her unprotected.
It rankled with him that Silas had never filed their father’s will. Their reappearance in Ginny’s life could have another motive, and until he could assure Viper that Ginny was safe with them, he didn’t feel good leaving her alone.
“I’ll call Viper, then decide. Give me a minute.”
“Call whoever you want,” Silas urged without irritation, his face hard and resolved, “but our sister is either coming home with us or we’re staying.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Are you certain you’re okay with us staying with Silas?”
Reaper didn’t look toward The Last Riders’ factory or clubhouse as he drove past on the way to Ginny’s brothers’ home.
“Nine days will go by fast.” It wasn’t much of an answer, but one that would start his stay with them on the rocky ground. He didn’t want to have to search for another place right now, and once he determined that she was safe with her brothers, he would have both Ginny and Viper off his back.
“You’ll like my brothers once you get to know them.”
Ginny had perked up once he told them that Viper agreed it was the best option available, if not the only one. Unlike him, Viper had no hesitation about giving his approval with Ginny and him staying with the Colemans. He wasn’t the one who would have to stay there.
He was still irritated that Viper hadn’t provided him with a better alternative.
“You really will,” Ginny assured him. “You and Silas have a lot in common.”
“Like what?”
“He hates road trips with me too.”
He couldn’t help the small smile tugging on his lips. “As long they don’t expect me to go hunting with them and they keep their distance, we’ll get along.”
“Aw … You’re like Moses. He doesn’t believe in killing animals, either.”
Wanting to give her an eye roll, Reaper contained himself, even though he couldn’t keep his sarcasm to himself. “Depends how many legs they have.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t mind taking out the two-legged variety that shouldn’t have been put on earth in the first place. It’s the four-legged, helpless ones I have a problem killing.” He used to have that bleeding-heart mentality until he was shown firsthand the brutality humans were capable of.
“I hope you’re joking.”
“Is this the turn-off?”
“Yes. Gavin, killing … Never mind.”
“Go ahead. What were you going to say?”
“Hatred fuels the wrongs done. Forgiveness puts the fires out.” Ginny pointed to the left. “You can park over there.”
&
nbsp; “Hatred can also provide oxygen to right a wrong.”
Hatred was the only reason he had fought so hard to get out of rehab. Without the desire for revenge, he would have been content to wither away. Vengeance was the only emotion he was able to feel after Slate and his perverted clients had ripped his sexuality away from him.
Putting the car in Park, he saw Ginny’s brothers unloading the supplies from Knox and carrying them into the house.
“There are other emotions that can do the same thing.” Reaching over the console, Ginny laid a hand over his that was resting on the steering wheel.
“None than I’m interested in.” Pulling his hand away, Reaper got out of the car, walking to the back of the pickup truck where Silas was standing. “You need any help?”
Silas used one of his feet to shove a box toward him. “You can take that one.” Hopping off the back of the tailgate, Silas took a large suitcase that Viper had packed for him.
Reaper kept a safe distance from the porch, waiting for Ginny’s brothers to come back out before entering the house. A broad-shouldered man, who he hadn’t seen at the hotel, came outside. Waving to Ginny as she got out of the car, he started to jump off the porch when a quiet word from Silas, who was coming up the steps, waylaid the man’s exuberant attempt at a welcome.
“Ezra!” Ginny laughingly waved back to the man who Reaper assumed was another brother.
A younger boy came outside to sidle next to Ezra.
“Is that you, Fynn?” Ginny pretended the porchlight was blinding her, placing a hand over her eyebrows to peer closer at the boy.
The young boy laughed. “Yes.”
Ginny blew kisses in his direction, making the boy giggle despite him manfully trying not to.
“Has Ezra been sneaking you his protein shakes? I almost didn’t recognize you.”
The boy beamed up at her. “I’ve been working out with him,” Fynn bragged, raising his arm to show Ginny his muscle.
“Wow.” Looking impressed, Ginny circled her hands together to make the circle of a grapefruit, exaggerating the size of the nonexistent bicep. “I can see the potential.”
