by T. S. Joyce
She flipped him off behind his back, but for lack of the ability to grow a compass from the palm of her hand, followed the oaf back to the meadow parking lot, where her car was currently the only one left.
“Thanks for not letting me die,” she said as she slipped behind the wheel.
He closed the driver’s side door and leaned against the frame like he was waiting for her to roll down the window. When she did, he said, “You would’ve if I let you continue building that shitty shelter. Next time you get lost in someone’s back yard, try not to bleed. It brings in the predators.”
Like she’d meant to fall and scrape her knees. Narrowing her eyes, she asked, “How long were you following me?”
“An hour. You have a filthy mouth on you.”
A tiny screech tore from her throat and she jammed the key in the ignition and twisted until the engine roared to life. Or it would’ve roared if it were the giant navy pickup truck that sat in front of Bron’s cabin, but since it was her faithful Jetta, it sounded more like a pissed off bumble bee instead.
Gripping the steering wheel, she tried to clear her head of the frustration this man caused her. This was the last thing she would ever say to him, and she didn’t want to leave bickering. She was mature and strong and he shouldn’t think she was so affected by him. “I’m sorry about Trent. He was a good man.”
His bright gaze grew empty once again. “You never knew him as a man, so you couldn’t know he was a good one.” With that, he pushed off of the door frame, stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest as she eased back onto his gravel drive.
His words made her so sad. He stood stoically in the meadow, reflected in her rearview, as his cabin lay dark and lonely looking behind him.
She hadn’t wanted to leave her hometown behind, but at the time there hadn’t been any other choice.
Not if she was ever going to be okay again.
****
Bron watched Sam’s tiny car bump its way down the driveway and closed his eyes against the grief that threatened to drown him. He’d been teetering on the edge with Trent’s death, and now she was back home to torture what was left of his soul.
He’d lied to Trent when he’d said he didn’t think about her anymore. He’d lied to his brother and it was one of the last things he said to him.
Sam would have been it for him if she wasn’t human.
Now, the only mating he’d ever have was the six years he’d suffered through with Muriel. Dad was gone, he couldn’t even guess where Mom was, and now Trent…
He swallowed hard and pulled viciously at his tie until it released its strangle hold on his neck.
And now Trent was gone and Sam was back for a night to tease him with what he’d missed out on.
Still beautiful—God she was so beautiful with her dark hair and sexy lips. And that dress she’d worn had probably caught the attention of every red-blooded male at the funeral. Her eyes had always slayed him. Caramel colored and warm, they always lit up with her smile and gave away every emotion. She’d been a ten when they were two love-struck teenagers, but now she was so damned gorgeous it was hard to look away from her.
Everything about that woman spelled trouble.
It was a good thing she was on her way out of town so he could get ahold on some semblance of the empty normalcy of his life now. He’d have to rebuild the mill and pick up extra remodel jobs until the insurance kicked in. He’d thought about waiting a while to start back to work until he didn’t feel like his chest was on fire thinking about Trent, but keeping busy was the only thing that would save him.
Inside, his bear was going mad.
****
As tempting as it was to blast out of town and flip off the Now Leaving Joseph, Oregon sign on the way out of Hell’s Canyon, Samantha couldn’t just leave without seeing the house she grew up in.
According to the paperwork in Momma’s will, she was the proud owner of the two bedroom cottage on the outskirts of town. She’d tried to sell it, but a murderer had lived there and likely the townspeople thought it haunted. It was hard selling a haunted property that had been abandoned years ago, no matter how low she had dropped the price.
Someday, Samantha was going to use the money she’d been saving to fix up the place and finally sell it. It was the last string she had to cut to free herself from the hell that had enveloped her life here. If she fixed it up nice enough, made it irresistible to a buyer, then she’d be rid of Hells Canyon for good.
There wasn’t a plethora of bed and breakfasts or Motel 6s in the sleepy town of around a thousand inhabitants, and if she didn’t want to drive the winding mountain passes by car headlight, she was going to have to sleep at the house.
The townspeople might call it haunted, but she knew better. Her murdering father hadn’t died and come back an angry phantom. He sat in a jail cell in Benton County, making criminal friends and trading prison tats.
In town, she took a right onto Russell Lane and rode it to the border where the street lights didn’t reach.
The last rays of sun had disappeared, and a half moon sat low in the sky. From the crumbling driveway, she could just make out the shape of the old house. The front porch seemed to be sagging, and the roof needed repair, but at least it was still standing. With the run of bad luck she’d had here, she’d half expected it to be burned to ashes on the ground.
The old blue paint was faded and cracked, and wood rot had set in. She pulled a suitcase from the trunk and it made a soft sound as it rolled behind her on the rotten porch. Her key still turned easily though and she sent a little prayer into the universe that no animals had made the house a home in the years it had sat empty.
The lights caught as soon as she flipped the switch. Thanks to the old for sale sign in the front yard, she’d found it important to keep the utilities on and pay the piddly bills every month on the off chance that someone would see this place as the perfect cozy fixer upper.
The hurried frenzy of their last minute move was still evident in the half-filled cardboard boxes covered in old cobwebs that sat haphazardly around the living area. The kitchen wasn’t any better, and its counters were covered in light bulbs, unwanted dishes, jars too many to fit in the back of Momma’s station wagon and dust. A half inch layer of the white grit covered everything.
She left the suitcase in the living room and hit the tap in the kitchen sink. It sputtered and groaned, and thick brown water finally spewed from it. Thoroughly disgusted, she left it running and turned on the faucets in the bathroom to similar results.
Sadness washed through her, making her feel heavy as she studied the remnants of the home she’d been so happy in before everything went wrong. Her room still boasted pink walls and a wooden rainbow with her name written in cursive letters at the bottom. Her bed had been stripped to the mattress, but the desk she used to do her homework on still sat in the corner. She opened the sticky drawer and pulled out a stack of pictures she’d left behind. They had been too painful to take with her.
The photographs were all of her, Bron, Trent and Reese. Bridge jumping, eating at the diner in town, at parades and festivals. Trent and Bron had fallen asleep by an extra-large pizza box in one and she and Reese had taken pictures of how at peace they looked after devouring so much.
Her lip trembled as she placed the pictures back in their tiny secret grave. She’d intended to leave them here. Maybe this house was haunted after all from the ghosts of her past.
Sagging onto the bed, she squinted at all the cobwebs in the corners and the gathered dust on every surface. At the ruined carpet and peeling wallpaper in the hallway. She shouldn’t have let it get to this point. She’d been happy here once, and she’d repaid her home by trying her best to forget about it. This place deserved better than what she’d done. It deserved children swinging on the knotted rope hanging from the old oak out back, and parents discussing bills at the dinner table. At the very least, it deserved to be cleaned up and taken care of.
Her phone chirpe
d and she pulled it from her purse. “Hello?”
“Hey, I was worried about you,” Reese said on the other end. “Where did you go?”
Samantha flung herself onto the bed and dust fluffed up around her. With a cough, she said, “I got lost in the woods near Bron’s house and he had to come rescue me.”
“That’s awful. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just embarrassed.”
“Listen, I was calling because a few of us are going to the bar tonight to celebrate Trent’s life. Bron and Dillon put it together, and now Bron’s trying to flake out on it, but he would probably come if you did.”
“No,” she rushed. “I don’t want to see him anymore. I think I’m just going to hang out here at the cottage.”
“You’re at your mom’s old place? That thing is a feral cat house.”
Huh. So that’s what that musty smell was. “Hey, do you know anyone who works construction? Like a handyman, who can repair plumbing too?” The pipes were still stuttering and she could only imagine what color the water was running now.
“Yeah, I know a couple of guys who could work at a real fair price. You thinking of fixing up the cottage?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure yet, but I figured I’d get an estimate and then make a decision from there on whether I want to pursue this kind of project right now or not. Maybe if it’s just deep cleaning and a few minor repairs it would be worth it to stick around a few days and see it through.”
“Yeah. Let me call the guys I know. I can probably get them out for an estimate tomorrow morning since you’re on a time crunch.”
“You are awesome,” Samantha drawled. “How are you holding up?”
Reese sighed into the phone creating a blast of static against Samantha’s ear. “I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts tonight. Which is why the party in Trent’s honor is on the table. I have the day off tomorrow and I’ll come by when I wake up. I’ll bring some cleaning supplies.”
“Oh, you don’t have to go to the trouble. I can get them from the grocery store in the morning.”
“Let me do this, Sam. It’ll give me an excuse to see you again before you blow out of town.”
She’d forgotten what a good friend Reese was, and she hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed her friendship until now, when everything fit back into place like she’d never left at all. “All right, I’ll see you in the morning. Take a shot for me.”
“I’ll take two. Today sucked. G’night.”
“Night.”
Samantha hung up the phone and stared at a crack in the ceiling. As hard as this trip had been, and as raw as seeing Bron again made her feel, she was glad Reese had called so that she could try to find peace with what happened here.
Maybe the lack of closure was the reason her heart had stayed tethered to this place.
Chapter Four
Something was scratching against the inside of the wall.
Samantha would have been terrified if such noises weren’t accompanied by the squeaks of a mouse, or perhaps a rat. She wasn’t particularly scared of rodents since she’d raised a pair of pet store mice named Chandler and Broccoli when she was a kid, but seeing a wild one would probably bring out her screamier instincts.
The critter was fine, as long as it stayed hidden in the wall near her bed, but every time the scratching and squeaking stopped, Samantha imagined the creature finding its way to her bed and crawling up her pant leg.
Maybe she should’ve asked Reese if she could stay the night at her house.
By four in the morning, she finally dozed off on top of the bare mattress she’d wiped the dust off of. Curled under her heavy jacket, with a wad of clean clothes as a pillow, it wasn’t so bad. And eventually she got used to the musty smell enough to dream of running lost in the woods with bears and giant mice chasing her.
Eight o’clock in the morning tried to burn her with the single ray of sunlight that shot her in the eyelid, and when she groaned and rolled over, she came face to face with Bron.
He was a sexy hallucination.
She blinked hard, but when she opened her eyes, he was still there, crouched down with a troubled look in his eyes and a clipboard in his hand. Her heart pounded as she raked her gaze from his bright eyes to the tensed cords of muscle in his throat, to his biceps and the little curl of ink that peeked out from under the fabric of his sleeve.
Yesterday he’d been all suits and polished shoes, but today he was all tight T-shirts and hole-riddled jeans. She couldn’t choose which Bron she liked best. They were both equally delicious. And angry looking.
“You said you were leaving town,” he said in a rich, deep voice.
“What are you doing in my house?”
“What are you doing here? It’s not exactly fit to sleep in. It smells like cat piss in here.”
She sat up so she didn’t feel at such a disadvantage. With as much dignity as she could muster wearing a skin squeezing long sleeved sleep shirt and baggy mismatched pajama pants, she lifted her chin and straightened her spine. “I have to sell it, and to do that I have to clean it up. You didn’t answer my question.”
He shook his head slowly and glared at the clipboard in his hands like it was to blame for the problems of the world. “I went out last night and our girl, Reese, said she had a job for me. Just didn’t say who it was for. I figured it out this morning after I’d told her I would do the estimate. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to work this project. Thought I should tell you in person though.”
Why not? If he was afraid she’d jump his bones the first chance she got, he was sorely mistaken. But he was right. It would be a bad idea. Mainly because she wanted to see him as little as humanly possible while she was here, and having him as head handyman around the house wasn’t exactly what she had in mind either. “Okay, do you know anyone else who can work on my house? Someone at a reasonable price? I know it would be giving me over to whoever your competition is, but I’m with you. I think this is a terrible idea.”
“Yeah, I don’t imagine Ryan Cummings would like that very much.”
She was actually impressed he remembered Ryan’s name. “Or Muriel.” That cat looked like she had claws, and Samantha didn’t like to bleed.
An empty smile stretched Bron’s face and he stood. “Joseph is too small for competition. No other contractors out here but me and Dillon right now. I’ll do an estimate, and if you’re fine with the price, I’ll have Dillon gather the crew and run the renovation.”
For as blandly as he spoke, every muscle seemed to be tense, pressing against his clothing like he was incapable of relaxing. And the air had taken on that heavy quality again, and now smelled like it did after a good rainstorm.
Her voice came out much smaller than she’d intended when she asked, “Do you need me to do anything?”
“Yeah,” he said, standing. “Stay out of the way.”
She bolted up and crossed her arms over her bra-less chest. “Why are you so rude to me? The Bron I knew would’ve never talked to someone like that.”
He turned slowly, his eyes smoldering. “The Bron you knew doesn’t exist anymore. Don’t bring him up again.”
“Asshole.” The insult slipped out before she could slurp it back in, and now there it was, sitting in the air between them.
He stalked her until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the mattress. Her breath came in short pants as his gaze held hers. He slid his hand around the back of her neck and dipped his lips to the base of her throat, right where he’d learned she was weakest all those years ago.
Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she sighed as she felt his tongue touch the sensitive skin there. When her knees buckled, he threw the clipboard on the bed behind her and caught her waist, then trailed sensual kisses up to her earlobe. It had been so long since a man touched her like this—since he had touched her.
It was wrong, she knew it was, but it felt so right to feel again. And right now, as his thumb brushed a tra
il of fire under her shirt, she couldn’t remember the reasons not to want him.
Why wouldn’t he just kiss her? She angled her head, but he dodged her lips and slid his fingers into the front elastic of her pants. Her breath sped up as he said, “Tell me to stop.”
“I don’t want you to,” she whispered.
His other arm held her tighter to him, and his slid his palm over her sex. “You’re so wet, Samantha. I remember you were always ready when I needed you.” His finger teased her opening and she sagged against him. “Beg me.”
She shouldn’t. There was some reason she shouldn’t do this that niggled on the frayed edges of her consciousness, but she couldn’t quite reach it. He pressed against her clit and dipped into her once, and she exhaled a shuddering breath. He was waiting for her to ask him, and as much as she wanted to be strong enough to tell him to fuck off, she couldn’t resist him when he was like this, offering her the affection she’d missed so deeply.
“Please, Bron.”
He plunged into her to his knuckle and a soft growl came from his throat, the same noise of contentment she’d relied on when she was eighteen and their futures had stretched before them like eternity. Now, she could have him as a quick finger fuck in an old rundown house and no more. She would be sad about that later, but for now, she just wanted to get lost in the last moment she was being allowed with him.
Crushing her against his erection, he pressed his finger into her again and again. She was so close. Pressure building, breath ragged, his lips near the tender spot behind her ear.
“Samantha.” Damn the formality of her full name on his lips. “You called me an asshole.”
She was going to come against his hand and she let out a helpless noise, too far gone to engage in conversation.
He pulled his finger from her slowly as she bucked against his palm.
“Don’t forget it,” he growled, releasing his hold on her, and leaving the room.
Lurching forward at the absence of his strong body, she caught herself on the edge of her desk. The one that held all the secret pictures. The cold from where his warmth had been stripped away was uncomfortable and a sob bubbled from her throat. And that was all it took for her to remember why she shouldn’t have wanted him to touch her.
