Dark Child (Wild Men 5)

It’s scary how he can read me over the phone, just from a few neutral words I’ve spoken. How I can’t hide from him even as I tell myself it’s what I should do.

“I’m in Memphis,” I whisper.

A few more beats. He lets out a long breath. “CatG

irl, is your sister okay?”

CatGirl. That’s a new one, and it almost makes me smile.

I swallow hard, turn away, toward the window. I touch the cold glass. “Not really. But her guy seems better. He was admitted to the hospital, but they may let him out tomorrow.”

“Shit,” he says softly, and the feeling behind that little swearword makes me smile.

Not because it’s funny. But because he’s upset on my sister’s behalf.

Suddenly his voice isn’t enough. I wish he were here so I could throw my arms around him, so he could grip me hard and hold me close.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.” I trace patterns with my finger on the fog my breath leaves on the window.

“Okay. What about the kitty? Want me to feed her?”

Aw. My heart turns over, I swear. “The neighbor said she’ll do that, but thanks.”

“Great. Look, Cos… CosieCat. You sound tired. And sad. You sure you don’t want me to come over and then drive you back home? It’s no trouble.”

He’d drive for hours to come here just to drive me back to St. Louis?

It’s that sweetness in him that slays me. The kindness and the heat and everything that makes Merc who he is. Women talk of bad boys and how sexy and awesome they are. I’ve had enough of bad boys. There’s something to be said about a genuinely good guy.

Good to me. Never petty, never indifferent, never violent. I want his concern, his touch, nobody else’s.

I fight it. “I’ll be fine.”

He says goodbye, and vaguely aware of it, of the line going silent as I stay clutching my phone and trying to stop myself from calling back and asking him to please drive over tonight and hold me.

Because now I’m starting to believe he’d do it.

Oh man… I’m starting to feel way too much for this sexy, good boy who’s obsessed with music, sexing me against walls—and who’s named after a God of the dead.

Chapter Nineteen

Merc

Sunday lunch with the family doesn’t feel the same as always. Something’s missing, and I can’t put my finger on it. The air feels too thick, a sense of drowning, as if there isn’t enough oxygen in the room, as if not all of us are accounted for.

But Gigi distracts me, banging her knife on her glass. Silence spreads. Jarett’s smile is faint but bright, his neck flushed—a mirror of my sister’s flaming cheeks.

“I told you I have an announcement to make,” she says breathlessly, then points her knife at Mom. “No, it’s not a grandbaby. Not yet.”

Mom lets out a strangled laugh.

“No, the thing is…” She meets her man’s gaze, draws a bracing breath. “Jarett asked me to marry him.”

I’d suspected it, but the hoots of approval and clapping of hands, the beaming faces around me, cut through the strange mind fog. I whistle and clap along with them, so fucking pleased for them as anyone who followed their story from up close. They beat the odds, kept the faith and stayed in love.

“Way to go, guys,” I tell them afterward, clasping hands with Jarett and giving my sis a hug. “Congratulations. Have you set a date?”

“Not yet. Oh God. It’s so weird. You’re not the first people I’ve told about this, I’ve already told Sydney, but it doesn’t get any easier.” She fans her face, puffs, eyes shining. “You know what I mean.”