Faceless

by Alexandra Ivy

  “You told me that you always wake at eleven-eleven,” he reminded her. It’d been years ago, but he’d remembered her complaint that she could never sleep through the night. In fact, he remembered a lot of things about this woman. Something that should have warned him that she wasn’t just another friend. “I thought something warm and sweet would help you relax.”

  Her lips parted as she studied him with an expression he couldn’t read. “You are . . .”

  “Sexy?” he offered.

  She sipped her hot chocolate. “That goes without saying.”

  “No, let’s not let it go without saying.”

  She lowered her gaze to his bare chest and down to his hard abs. “Fine. You’re insanely, ridiculously sexy.”

  He grabbed his mug. “Better.”

  “You’re also the most thoughtful man I’ve ever known.” She took a sip. “Why aren’t you married?”

  It was a question he’d never been able to answer. He blamed his career and the crazy hours he worked. He blamed his past and his difficulty in trusting that happiness wasn’t going to be snatched away from him. He blamed everything except for the blindingly obvious explanation.

  He’d chosen his wife a long time ago.

  Leaning his hip against the island, he studied her over the rim of his mug. “You tell me. I think I’m an incredible catch, but I keep getting thrown back in the pond.”

  She snorted at his teasing words. “You don’t fool me, Noah Heller. You’re too picky.”

  “True. Only the best will do.” He held her gaze. “I’m not going to settle for less than true love.”

  They stared at each other, a glorious awareness sizzling between them. Noah’s heart thundered in his chest, stealing his breath. He could see the desire darkening her eyes. A hunger that echoed inside him. Then, with a tiny shiver, Wynter turned her head to glance around the kitchen.

  “I love this cabin,” she murmured in soft tones. “You’ve made it into a home.”

  Noah dismissed his pang of disappointment. They had all the time in the world. Instead, he smiled with unabashed pride. Most of the cabin he’d built with his bare hands.

  “It’s getting there.”

  “I need to think about selling my mom’s cabin.” She wrinkled her nose. “It should be owned by someone who can give it the loving care that it needs.”

  “You could fix it up and use it as a rental,” he suggested, wise enough not to mention his fear she wasn’t in the best emotional state to make major decisions. “It would be a nice extra income.”

  She nodded. “Something to think about.”

  They both sipped their hot chocolate, a comfortable silence settled between them. It’d always been that way. They fit together with an ease he’d never experienced with anyone else.

  Finally he set aside his empty mug. “Was it a nightmare that woke you?”

  Wynter shook her head. “No. It’s just an inner alarm that goes off at the same time each night. Erika had a fancy name for it.” She grimaced. “I just call it a pain in the ass.”

  “Trauma has a way of hanging around long after the actual event.”

  She pushed aside her mug, her gaze locked on him. “What about you?”

  “I wasn’t with my parents when they crashed so I don’t have the same horrifying memories, but I had my share of nightmares.”

  “How did you get rid of them?”

  “I haven’t,” he confessed. There were still nights he jerked awake, convinced he could hear his parents screaming in pain. “Not entirely. But I no longer wake in a cold sweat.”

  “What’s your secret?”

  Noah paused, then he shared the secret that he’d kept to himself for years. “I went to the jail to talk to Manny Adkins, the guy who crashed into my parents.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. “When?”

  “Just after my eighteenth birthday.”

  “What happened?”

  Noah folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t have any memory of the long drive to Florida. And just a vague impression of the large, oppressive stone prison that had been surrounded by layers of fences and armed guards.

  He did, however, have an acute recollection of the man who’d smashed into his parents’ car. Adkins was tall and gaunt beneath his prison uniform with a pasty white skin and hair the color of mud. His features looked too big to fit on his narrow face, giving him the appearance of a rat.

  Or maybe that had been his own imagination, Noah conceded.

  “We met in one of those cramped prison cubicles where you have to speak through plexiglass sheet,” he said. “I expected . . .”

  “Noah?” Wynter prompted when his words faded.

  He sharply shook his head. “I don’t know what I expected. Regret for the devastation he’d caused. Not only to my family, but to his own. Or maybe a defensive refusal to admit that he had done anything wrong.”

  “That wasn’t what you found?”

  “He was just ... pathetic.” Noah released a harsh sigh. “I was only eighteen, but I was more an adult than he was at forty. He whined about his sentence, he begged me to write to the parole board to get his sentence reduced, and when I refused, he asked for money.” Noah made a sound of disgust. At the time he’d stared at Adkins in disbelief. What kind of creep asked the son of the couple he’d murdered for cash? He forced himself to continue. “He claimed the crash had ruined his life and it was somehow my parents’ fault for dying.”

  “What a jerk,” Wynter muttered.

  “Yes, and not worthy of the years I spent hating him.” Noah shrugged. “Instead of wasting my emotions on the man responsible for killing my parents, I tried to cling to the good memories of my childhood.”

  A faint smile curved her lips. “Tell me.”

  “Okay.” Noah was willing to do anything to keep her distracted. When he’d come to pick her up from the hospital, she’d looked so fragile that he feared she might shatter. The stress was taking a heavy toll, but for now there was nothing he could do but stay near and offer her comfort. “As you know, my parents moved to Miami along with my aunt and uncle to open a Thai restaurant.” His father’s parents had immigrated from Thailand when they were newlyweds, and his family had celebrated their culture.

  “My kind of people,” she murmured.

  “Yes. You would have loved them. They had the same gift as you do.”

  “Working endless hours for little pay?” she asked dryly.

  “Certainly that,” he agreed. His parents, along with his aunt and uncle, had lived above the restaurant and were on constant duty. “But I was referring to their amazing ability to make their customers feel as if they were a part of the family. We had to hold their funeral at one of the megachurches to accommodate the crowd.”

  Noah shook his head at the memory of the vast funeral. It hadn’t seemed real to a fourteen-year-old boy who hadn’t accepted his parents were gone forever. Easily sensing his stab of pain, Wynter reached across the island to brush her fingers over his bare arm.

  “What is your favorite memory of them?”

  That was easy to answer. “No matter how crazy business might be, they always took me to the beach on Saturday morning. We built sand castles and ate ice cream and my dog would splash in the waves.” A familiar warmth settled in the center of his heart. Adkins had stolen many things, but he could never take away those sun-filled hours that he’d spent laughing and playing with his parents. “Even when I got older we would go so I could flex my muscles for the local girls and work on my tan. It was our family time and nothing was more important.”

  She gave his arm a squeeze. “You were lucky to have them.”

  “I was. But after they died I allowed my fury of what I lost to blind me to the appreciation of what I’d been given.”

  “And now?”

  “I still get angry,” he conceded. “It’s such a senseless loss. But I do know I was luckier than many people. I had my parents’ love for fourteen years. And when they were taken, I
was given the security of my grandmother’s home.”

  Amusement sparked in Wynter’s hazel eyes. “She was a wonderful woman, but she scared the hell out of me.”

  “Nana was a fireball.” He laughed. His grandmother had barely topped five foot and weighed less than a hundred pounds, but the entire town was terrified of her. “I watched her take a broom to the neighbor when he drove over her prized rosebush.” His smile faded. “I miss her every day.”

  She glanced away, no doubt reminded that her own grandfather was currently clinging to life by a mere thread.

  “I think I’ll go back to bed,” she murmured.

  “Okay. Don’t hesitate to call out if you need anything.” He reached to comb his fingers through her tousled hair. “Or if you just get lonely.”

  She flushed, turning to head for the doorway. “Thanks for the hot chocolate.”

  “Anytime.” He watched her disappear, his body hard and aching to follow her to her bed. “Any. Time.”

  Chapter 12

  From the protection of the thick woods, the Stranger watched the light switch off and the cabin plunge into the darkness. It was impossible to get closer without sending the pack of mutts into a barking frenzy.

  It was annoying.

  The Stranger wanted to see Wynter’s face.

  Was she crying? She had been earlier. Back at the farm when she’d been covered in her grandfather’s blood.

  A shudder of bliss raced through the Stranger.

  It hadn’t worked out as planned. Once again there’d been a moment of distraction and it had ruined everything.

  Well, not everything.

  There’d been screams. Delicious screams that had echoed through the air and ricocheted through the shallow dells. And then the ambulance and police cars had arrived with sirens blazing and lights flashing and more shouting. The melee had thundered through the Stranger.

  Yes, a productive day, if not how it was meant to end.

  Perhaps the next task would provide a better outcome.

  Or at least more screaming.

  “Alive at last,” the Stranger whispered.

  * * *

  The text pinged at 3:30 A.M.

  Grabbing her phone off the nightstand, Mona Shelton fumbled for her glasses. Over the past few years her eyesight had faded. Kind of like the rest of her body. She’d never been a beauty queen. Not like Laurel Moore. But the last decade had stolen what prettiness she could once claim.

  Her hair had thinned until it laid flat and dull against her head. Her skin was wrinkled and her shoulders slumped from the years of carrying heavy trays of food at the truck stop. Even her small boobs that had once been firm and high were now drooping in defeat.

  It was true. Life was a bitch and then you died.

  With a harsh sigh, Mona shoved on her glasses and read the text:

  Your husband is passed out on the corner of Sixth and

  State. Come and get him before the cops are called.

  “Shit.” Mona dropped the phone and flopped back on the pillow.

  She wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. Let Drake be hauled off to jail. What did she care? It wasn’t like he gave a damn about her.

  Ever since precious Laurel’s daughter had appeared on the doorstep, Drake had been spending his nights in the bar. And when he did bother to come home, he slept in the guest bedroom. As if he couldn’t bear to be next to her.

  Pain of rejection sliced through Mona.

  Christ, she was a fool.

  No, she was a coward, she silently corrected herself. Drake was right about that. Hadn’t she driven three hours to Larkin to speak to Wynter Moore, only to scuttle away with her tail between her legs?

  She had everything planned. She’d Googled Wynter and discovered the young woman had one of those fancy restaurants that served the sort of food usually found in California. Everything was homemade and locally sourced and non-modified. Whatever that meant. Give her meat loaf and mashed potatoes any day over that snobby crap.

  The fact that Laurel’s daughter was obviously a successful businesswoman had only rubbed salt into Mona’s open wounds. It was a stark reminder that she’d never followed her own dreams. She was a crappy waitress at a crappy truck stop with a crappy husband. She didn’t even have an extra hundred in her bank account to take a few days off work.

  That was when she’d gotten the brilliant idea to ask Wynter for money.

  Why not?

  From what Mona could overhear, the younger woman was looking for information about the night her mother died. Mona had information.

  They could both get what they wanted.

  But while Mona spent the three-hour drive to Larkin imagining a lavish vacation in Vegas, once she reached the small town she started to lose her nerve. And by the time she’d actually arrived at the restaurant, she’d had to force herself to leave her car parked in a back alley to knock on the back door. It was frankly a relief when no one answered. She didn’t want a vacation in Vegas, she’d abruptly realized. Not if it meant going alone. What she wanted was for her husband to forget the past and realize that he loved her.

  And what was her reward for generously deciding to return to Pike without stirring up trouble?

  Endless nights in a cold bed.

  “Idiot.”

  Tossing back the covers, Mona forced herself out of bed. Even now, she couldn’t let Drake suffer the consequences of his decisions. It took her half an hour to get dressed and drive her POS car across town. Then, turning the corner on Sixth, she pulled into the parking lot.

  Glancing around, she couldn’t see anyone. Pike was a small town, but there were areas that had been hit hard by the recession. This street was one of them. The businesses that had once thrived were now shuttered, with plyboard over the windows, and painted with half-assed attempts at vandalism.

  With a frown, Mona dug out her phone. Had she come to the wrong address? Nope. Corner of Sixth and State.

  So where was Drake?

  Mona’s gaze landed on the nearest brick building where the front door was propped open. It’d once been a pizza joint, but it’d closed a couple years ago. Drake had loved the place despite the greasy floors and stench of stale beer.

  Could he have stumbled here in a drunken haze? It would be a place that would be on his mind if he had the munchies.

  Yeah, it was more than possible.

  But where was the person who’d sent the text? In fact, who had sent the text?

  She hadn’t recognized the number. So how had they known to contact her?

  Oh. She rolled her eyes as she latched on to the most obvious explanation. Drake insisted on listing her number for his construction business, along with his own. Just for emergencies, he’d promised, although she was the one who got the angry calls when he was late for a job, or when he conveniently forgot to pay a bill.

  With a resigned sigh, she shoved the gearshift into park and climbed out. The sooner she found her useless husband, the sooner she could be back in bed.

  She paused at the opening to the building. It was too dark to see anything inside. Except ...

  Was that a body on the floor?

  Yes.

  Muttering a curse, Mona scurried into the building. Even after being abandoned for years the place still smelled like stale beer. The perfect place for Drake to pass out.

  Wishing she possessed the backbone to leave him on the grimy tiles, Mona knelt down.

  “Drake.” She reached out to shake him awake.

  It wasn’t until the head lifted off the floor that she realized her mistake.

  This wasn’t her husband. It was—

  Explosive pain shattered her thoughts as a hard object smashed against her skull.

  A trap.

  Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Mona collapsed flat on her face.

  She’d always known Drake Shelton was going to be the death of her.

  Chapter 13

  After returning to bed, Wynter managed to get a few hours of
sleep, but by five A.M. she was wide-awake. No matter what was happening, she couldn’t break the habits of a lifetime.

  Tossing aside the sheets, she grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt out of her suitcase and headed for the bathroom. The hot shower did more to refresh her than her restless sleep, and pulling her wet hair into a ponytail, she went to the kitchen to make breakfast.

  Less than an hour later she had homemade biscuits with sausage and gravy waiting on the island. Strolling into the kitchen, Noah sucked in a deep, appreciative breath.

  “Yum,” he murmured, moving toward the counter to pour two mugs of coffee.

  Wynter hid her smile, astonished by how comfortable it felt to be pottering around Noah’s kitchen. As if she was home. Of course, when she was home she didn’t have a gorgeous male wandering around, filling the air with the warm scent of pine.

  Settling on a stool next to the island, Wynter allowed her gaze to skim over the man who’d been her friend for years. She’d always known he was attractive. Even if she hadn’t noticed, her girlfriends’ constant sighs and fluttering eyes when he passed in the school hallways would have alerted her. But she’d never taken a thorough inventory of just how fine his ass fit in a pair of worn jeans, or the hard strength of his legs, or the broad width of his shoulders beneath his khaki Henley. His dark hair was wet and there were small curls at the nape of his neck.

  Her fingers suddenly itched to run through those curls....

  She abruptly dropped her gaze as Noah turned to walk toward the island and set down the mugs. It wasn’t that she was trying to hide her appreciation of his male assets, but ogling a man before breakfast just seemed rude.

  They ate in a companionable silence, Noah demolishing a second helping of biscuits with the sort of gusto that made a chef’s heart sing with delight. They were both sipping their coffee when an explosion of barking destroyed the silence.

  Wynter had caught sight of the numerous dogs dancing around Noah’s feet when they’d arrived at the cabin last night, whining for his attention. Now they sounded as if an army was invading.