by Lara Adrian
The sheriff’s furrowed brow and sheepish stare was answer enough. “Travis Parrish is coming home a free man, Leni. So long as he stays on the right side of the law, I can’t prevent him from going anywhere he wants to.”
“You mean you won’t.”
It was a well-known fact that Amos Barstow’s allegiance to the Parrish family went way back. His father had been one of old Enoch Parrish’s closest friends before the elder Barstow died about a decade ago. Now, Amos was more than willing to look the other way over a lot of things when it came to the old man and his three sons.
His gaze gentled as he considered her now. “I’m sorry for what happened to your sister, Lenora. I truly am. I’m sorry she left all this burden on you when she abandoned her child and never looked back. This mess shouldn’t have been yours to clean up.”
“This mess?” Leni’s voice rose along with her outrage. “Riley’s not a mess I’m cleaning up. He’s not a burden. As for my sister, she didn’t abandon her child. She would never do that. I don’t know where she is or what made her leave, but it wasn’t by choice. She’s going to come home one day. I know she will.”
The sympathetic look on the seasoned law officer’s face said this wasn’t the first time he’d heard someone plead a case for an errant family member’s honor. She could see his doubt. He didn’t have to say he expected Shannon was gone for good—or possibly not even alive. His prolonged silence conveyed that clearly enough.
Leni couldn’t take it another second.
“You mind turning the sign on the door around on your way out, sheriff? I’m going to close up now.”
Besides, Riley was waiting for her to pick him up at her best friend’s place. Although Leni and he lived in the house behind the diner where she and Shannon grew up, on weekdays her friend Carla Hansen brought Riley home with her after teaching at the elementary school he attended.
After her confrontation with Dwight Parrish and the reality of Travis’s return tomorrow, she needed to see her little nephew’s sweet face and know that he was tucked in safe and sound at home where he belonged.
Sheriff Barstow zipped up his jacket, then put his gloves on. “You be careful out there on the road tonight, all right?”
Leni inclined her head. “Goodnight, sheriff.”
She continued her cleaning and watched him leave. His SUV turned left out of the diner parking lot, heading back toward the neighboring town where he lived.
A few minutes later Leni locked up, shrugged into her heavy wool peacoat without buttoning it up and trudged out to her old red Bronco. She cleared off the eight hours’ worth of snow that had buried it during her shift, then hopped in and cranked both the heat and the wipers to full blast.
As the vehicle warmed up, she tapped Carla’s number on her cell. “I just closed up and I’m about to head your way,” she said after greeting her friend. “How was he today?”
“Great, as usual,” Carla said, a smile in her voice. “We made snow angels in the yard after school, and then we spent a couple of hours looking at the blizzard on weather maps online and learning all about the biggest snowstorms. Did you know the world record for most snowfall in twenty-four hours was set in Colorado in nineteen-twenty-one?”
Leni laughed. “Huh. Nope, can’t say I knew that.”
“Seventy-five-point-eight inches, in case you’re curious. Riley couldn’t believe it was enough to bury two of him stacked together, so I got out the tape measure to show him. I think he’s measured everything in my house now.”
“No wonder you’re his favorite teacher,” Leni said, taking a right onto the two-lane that would carry her northwest a dozen or so miles to her friend’s place near the school. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get away sooner to come and pick him up.”
“Don’t worry about it. He’s asleep. School’s closed tomorrow, so he’s welcome to stay the night if you like. The snow’s still coming down with a vengeance out there. You should stay put.”
“I’m already on the road. And I don’t mind the drive.” Leni put the call on speaker as she tried to talk over the rhythmic thump of the wiper blades. “I just . . . I really need to have Riley close and where I can see him tonight.”
“What happened?” Carla knew her too well than to miss the note of anxiety in Leni’s voice. “You sound rattled, and you never get rattled. Are you nervous about tomorrow?”
“I didn’t think I was, but then I got a visit from Dwight Parrish at the diner tonight.”
“Ugh. I should’ve guessed he wouldn’t be able to resist gloating over his brother’s early release.”
“Dwight made it very clear I’m going to be in for a fight when it comes to shielding Riley from Travis. I’m really afraid they’re going to try to take him from me.”
“Then you’ll take the fight to court. I know a great lawyer in Bangor who does a lot of pro bono work on family cases, especially when it comes to the protection of children. I’m sure she’ll be willing to help you if you need her.”
Leni let out a sigh. “Thanks, Carla. But you and I both know the Parrishes aren’t the kind of people you take to court.”
“Shannon did. Her testimony put Travis in prison for these past seven years.”
“And look what happened to her.”
Leni couldn’t prove anything, but in her gut she knew her sister hadn’t simply walked away from her life and everyone in it. The trial had barely begun when Shannon vanished without a word or a trace. Given her troubled background and her history as a runaway in her teens, her missing person case had gone largely ignored by local law enforcement and the rest of the community.
Leni didn’t want to think what might have happened to keep Shannon away from her child, or from seeing her assailant’s trial through to the end. All these years later, Leni wasn’t ready to accept what everyone else in Parrish Falls seemed to think about her sister—that whatever had happened, she was never coming back.
Leni refused to believe that.
Emotion pricked the backs of her eyes, making it even harder to see through the heavy slant of the snow blowing in front of the vehicle. The Bronco’s yellow headlights barely pierced the relentless swirl of flakes as she drove past the crossroad and the lone gas station in thirty-five square miles.
“I should hang up,” she said, her tires slipping in the new snow already filling the road since the plow had been through. “I’m probably fifteen or twenty minutes away in this mess. Don’t wake Riley before I get there. I’m going to put him straight into bed when we get home.”
“All right. Drive safe. See you when you get here.”
Leni ended the call and leaned over the wheel, peering straight ahead. With the moon obscured by the storm, the unpaved road was treacherous and dark the farther she drove.
Drifting snow crowded the edges of the two-lane, narrowing it to roughly one and a half.
No more signs of civilization to light the way. No more houses on either side. Only thick hardwood forest and a steep ravine that followed the frozen stretch of river running parallel with the winding road.
She pushed onward for a handful of miles before headlights ahead of her cut through the darkness. The vehicle was moving fast, coming toward her. A large pickup truck. One she recognized immediately.
The sharp blade attached to the front of it shoved large heaps of snow into her side of the road. Instead of slowing, Dwight Parrish’s truck picked up speed as if he didn’t see her. Or as if he meant to challenge her.
Holy shit.
Leni swerved as his bright headlights filled her windshield. There was no shoulder to cling to, only soft snow on the ledge above the ravine.
And zero traction.
Her outside tire slid into the formless shoulder, too sharply to correct. The heavy Bronco kept going, veering out of control. She pumped the brakes, but the snow gave way beneath her, rendering them useless. The treads of her tires had nothing to grip.
Oh, God.
The front passenger side of the vehicle l
urched at the edge of the steep drop.
Then it pitched forward, taking her over the side of the ravine.
Down and down and down.
Above her on the road, Dwight Parrish’s pickup roared away without stopping.
CHAPTER 4
Inside the small gas station’s convenience store, Knox put a few dollars on the counter for a packet of air-activated hand warmers he didn’t actually need.
“Thanks for looking in back for these,” he told the attendant behind the register.
The scrawny, tattooed twenty-something with ginger-colored dreadlocks bobbed his head, mild disinterest in his dull gaze. “No problem, man.”
It would take a few minutes for the human’s faculties to fully come back online after the blood Knox had just drained from him in the store room. The mind scrub he’d given him afterward ensured the local youth wouldn’t even recall Knox had been there at all.
The precaution was more habit than anything else. In general, he didn’t bother with Breed feeding laws or curfews, but his Hunter training had conditioned him to exist on the fringes of civilization. He preferred to navigate his world with speed and stealth, and leave no trace behind him.
Slipping his purchase into the pocket of his parka, Knox walked outside. The blizzard hadn’t let up any during the few minutes he’d had his fangs sunk into the kid’s wrist. Not that there had been much hope of that.
The unplanned detour had been more about taking the edge off the stirrings of his hunger for a very different blood Host.
He had been thinking about Leni’s creamy throat and delicate skin as he’d taken the attendant’s wrist to his mouth. It was a piss-poor substitute. The blood was thin and tainted with the acridness of a recent dose of opioids, but the drugs had no effect on Knox. The youth was also hiding a host of sins, everything from petty thievery to a handful of violent assaults. His guilt over those crimes tasted as bitter to Knox as the kid’s addiction.
As for the red cells, they’d served their purpose. Nevertheless, sated from feeding and eager to be done with the trek to the Canadian border, it was no small aggravation that he was still thinking about the woman. Still wondering if she might have welcomed him into her bed, if he’d had the inkling to stay in Parrish Falls for the rest of the night.
Which he didn’t.
Staying for the night would mean staying until the following sunset, when it would be safe for him to be outside again. He hoped to be hours into Quebec by then.
And miles away from the sweet, freckled nose and sharp, forthright hazel gaze of a woman he didn’t think he’d ever forget.
Fuck, maybe he needed a mind scrub. Too bad he couldn’t give one to himself.
Somewhere in the dark a diesel engine rumbled, drawing nearer. The soles of Knox’s boots vibrated with the low sound, and with the metallic complaint of a snow plow’s blade scraping over the narrow two-lane.
Dwight Parrish’s heavy-duty pickup barreled past the gas station, sending clumps of snow and ice flying in its wake. He was alone in the cab, having apparently dropped his buddy from the diner somewhere along the way.
Knox scowled from within the deep hood of his jacket as he watched the truck roar up the road. He was sorely tempted to follow him. Roughing up a dickweed like that would give him great satisfaction, and not only because it seemed like more than one of the Parrish brothers could use a lesson in humility. Not to mention a brush with their own mortality.
But they weren’t his problem.
Parrish Falls wasn’t the only town saddled with a clan of self-important assholes running roughshod over anyone they pleased. It wouldn’t be the last, either.
As for Lenora Calhoun, she wasn’t the only beautiful woman who’d turned Knox’s head during his rootless trek across the country. Why she had woken something in him after only a few minutes in her company, he didn’t want to know.
He was finished thinking about her too.
Damn it, he had to be.
Putting his head down against the frigid push of the storm, he set off in the opposite direction of the diner and walked for a while. A forest of thick pines and spruce stood tall on either side of the sloping, snowy road. The decline grew more pronounced on his right, carving a deep ravine that followed the winding outline of the frozen river below.
And farther ahead, near the bottom of that same ravine around a mile away from where he was now, he saw a dim orange glow. Vehicle taillights.
The muffled sound of a running engine hit his acute senses at the same time. The stench of steaming, dark gray clouds of exhaust on the cold night wind. A hard creak of a door hinge as someone crawled out of the driver’s side, stumbling and slipping in the tangled mess of the thicket.
A woman.
Holy shit, it was her.
Knox didn’t run. Every ounce of his Breed agility and speed kicked into high gear as he flashed down the ravine.
Rapid-fire memories of another accident battered him in that short span of time. A wreck that happened eight years ago in the Everglades. One he had been helpless to stop. A death that still clawed at him today.
The recollection tore into him with talons even sharper than the spiky branches he crashed through now.
In less than a second, he reached the old red Bronco hemmed in place by trees near the bottom of the ravine and the woman who had staggered out of it.
Leni grasped the broken trunk of a young pine as he skidded to a halt at her side. Her head came up in surprise. “Kn-Knox?”
Her voice was shaky and small. Her dark hair was a loose tangle, most of it obscuring her face. But she could speak. She could move.
Thank God, she appeared to be all right overall.
He shook off the rusty memories that clung to him, focusing on the here and now. On Leni.
“Are you okay?” He couldn’t keep from reaching out to move some of the disheveled tresses away from her cheek to check her over. No bruises on her face or brow. No cuts or contusions.
Miraculously, he saw no damage of any kind, not even a minor scratch. Just unmarred, satiny skin and those beautiful, long-lashed eyes that were staring at him in confusion and shock.
“Wh-what are you doing here? I thought you left town. How on earth did you find me?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice rough as he took quick visual stock of her condition. “Are you hurt at all?”
She gave a faint shake of her head. “I’m fine. I, um, I had my seatbelt on.”
He cursed under his breath. “A seatbelt wouldn’t have saved you from the river if your car had gone any farther down this incline. Jesus, you might’ve been killed.”
“I’m okay.” The hand that had been holding on to the tree now came to rest on his forearm. “Really. It was nothing. I’m good.”
Her touch felt hot against him despite the thick layer of his sleeve. Her gaze felt even warmer, fixed on his as the blizzard churned all around them in the darkness. In that moment, the attraction he’d felt toward her in the diner swelled into something more. Desire, yes, but he was also concerned. And more relieved than he had a right to be that Leni was standing before him in one piece, evidently unharmed.
He glanced away first. Using the power of his mind, he silenced the running engine of the Bronco. Then he looked back toward the disturbed embankment and the gouged shoulder where her vehicle had gone over the edge.
“What happened?”
“A truck was coming toward me in the opposite lane. I couldn’t move over and he didn’t slow down. I must’ve turned the wheel too hard. My tires slid off the shoulder and the next thing I knew, I went into the ravine.”
“This truck that didn’t slow for you,” Knox said, scowling as he glanced back at her. “It was Dwight Parrish, wasn’t it?”
Her brows rose in surprise. “How could you possibly—”
“I saw him pushing his plow, heading back the other direction.” Knox’s concern deepened. “Did he know he ran you off the road? Son of a bitch. Did he do it delib
erately?”
Leni shrugged as if it was no big deal. As if this kind of thing could happen anytime. “He just likes to harass me. He thinks he can scare me.”
“You don’t look scared. Maybe you ought to be.”
Her mouth took on a determined tilt. “Dwight Parrish has been a bully his whole life. Deep down, he’s just a coward. All of the Parrishes are.”
Knox arched a brow. “You’re one tough lady.”
“I am when I need to be.” She hooked some of the snow-sprinkled brown waves of her hair behind her ear and sent a dismayed look at her Bronco. “Shit. I’m never going to get a tow truck way out here in this weather. I need to make a call.”
“You mean to the county sheriff to report this?”
She scoffed. “There’s no point in reporting this. The Parrishes are good friends with Sheriff Barstow. Dwight will claim he knows nothing about this and the sheriff will tell me to stop trying to pick fights on behalf of my sister.”
Knox considered in silence. He’d gotten a glimpse of the lax attitude the sheriff seemed to have toward Leni’s tormentor earlier tonight. “So, your sister has problems with this family too?”
“She did,” Leni said. There was sadness in her eyes as she spoke. A quiet sense of loss. Knox would know it anywhere. “Shannon’s the reason Travis Parrish has been in prison these last seven years. He assaulted her. Beat her almost unconscious. She had him arrested for it, mainly to protect her unborn child.”
Knox clenched his jaw at the ugly details. Some of the pieces he’d been trying to put together after the incident in the diner now clicked into place. “The boy Parrish mentioned, the one he said is his brother’s son. You’re not the mother?”
“No. Riley’s my nephew. I’ve been looking after him since Shannon disappeared a few months after he was born.”
“Disappeared.” Knox stared at her. “What happened to her?”
“No one knows for sure.” Leni’s haunted gaze said she had her share of suspicions. “I don’t have time to get into any of this right now. I need to call my friend Carla and let her know I won’t be able to pick up Riley tonight after all.”
