Two Weeks of Sin

She giggles.

God, that sexy giggle again. It would haunt me for the rest of my life.

We sit and eat.

“So the rain is cleared up,” she says. I can’t read her tone. She could be disappointed, bored out of her skull, or sleepy. “Does this mean you can take me through a fabulous walk in the woods and tell me all about what my boss calls the ‘animal sanctuary thing?’”

“What do you mean? I haven’t heard of anything like that.”

“Oh. She said she heard that someone was cutting down forest to make an animal sanctuary, but that would mean displacing all the animals that were already here. Nothing like that?”

“Nope. Sounds like someone’s pulling her leg. Or she was pulling your leg to get you out here. I’ve got a better idea, though. Why don’t you let me take you into town, buy a couple of things, and then we’ll take

that walk in the woods?”

“Won’t the townspeople be terrified to see a big badass like you stomping out of the forest?”

“I doubt that very much. They see me about every four days, weather permitting.”

We drive to town after breakfast. Sam hadn’t seen it yet but I had a bronco parked out back. There’s a small road between the trees that you can’t see the beginning of unless you know how to spot it.

She holds my hand the whole way down.

On Main Street in Wahay, I nod and wave at people because they do the same to me. No one cares who I am here. They don’t know my past. Or if they did, they wouldn’t make a big deal of it. Simple. Lonely - I have to admit now that I’ve met Sam - but it has been simple.

I mainly need to buy supplies to reinforce any damage the storm might have done. I leave Sam in the car while I go into a hardware store and come back out with a new pack of shingles, some sealant that would keep rain out of the cracks, and a new whetstone. I also buy her her own hatchet, since she liked the throw I did at Jarom so much. I figure I can teach her how.

But she’s staring at her phone, muttering to herself.

“Everything okay?” I say, sliding into the driver’s seat.

“I forgot I had a phone,” she says. “Believe it or not, it’s absolutely full of messages from people wanting status updates about my story. Oh shit.”

“What?”

She holds the phone up so I can take a look. “This is from my friend Lacey.” The message says, I SEE YOU, YOU LITTLE SLUT! “It just came in,” says Sam.

Before I can say a word, someone appears at Sam’s window and starts pounding on the glass. Sam looks at me and mouths I’m sorry to me before rolling down the window.

“Hey you!” says a woman who can only be Lacey. “Why don’t you both take me to some fancy restaurant? I’m fucking starving.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN : SAM WASHINGTON

For about five minutes I’m excited to see Lacey. So much has happened and she’s the only one I want to talk to about it all. Then the novelty wears off and I realize how good she looks. I remember how she is with men. I start to dread the moment when she asks to come back and see the cabin, which will surely lead to her seducing Hugh and leaving me in the lurch.

I also have a ton of messages from Trinity wanting to know why Jarom is so “despondent.” Apparently he returned to New York and set up a massive pity party that is the cause of much speculation at the humble headquarters of The Inner Eye. I don’t respond. I can’t believe how good it has felt to not have my phone, and to totally forget that it exists. Hugh told me that he liked the simplicity of life out here. I can see how a certain kind of person could get used to it.

Maybe I’m that type of person.

Lacey builds a wall of words as she eats breakfast, not even noticing that we don’t order anything. She gapes at Hugh and compliments him on his beard, his arms, his shoulders, his thighs, his boots, his Bronco, and his fine eye for journalistic talent. “You have no idea how badly Sam here has needed someone like you,” she says. “She has been a total wreck.”

“I have not!”

“Tell me more, Lacey,” says Sam.

“Oh, hey,” says Lacey, ignoring him. “Sam, how’s the thing going? You know, the uh…” She raises her eyebrows and rolls her eyes back in her head.

“Now this I’ve got to know more about,” says Hugh.