Best of 2017

He walked out of the woods and carried me toward the house. “Yes.”

Each long stride seemed an eternity, the dead grass and fallen leaves whispering beneath his boots.

“Did you hurt the dean’s wife?”

He swung the back door open, and the screen smacked onto the side of the house as he pushed inside. “Yes. She was like Melinda. She craved it.”

“And Melinda? Was she a regular thing?” The twinge of jealousy that shot through me was completely at odds with the knife in my hand and the fear in my heart.

“Yes.” He carried me through the house. “We had appointments, more or less. Once a month. She’s who you heard that night when I found you. I hadn’t even caught her yet by the time I heard you screaming for help. I told her to leave, then set out to find you.”

I knew it. I wasn’t crazy after all. The screams that brought me to Garrett were real.

“You’ve been lying to me this whole time.”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t elaborate.”

“That’s the same thing.” I shook my head.

“Maybe.”

“Definitely.” I needed to know more, my curiosity overcoming my irritation with his deception. “Why would she scream in the woods? Why not come to the house and let you tie her up or something?”

“That’s not my thing.” He powered up the stairs.

“I think my wrists that first night would beg to differ.” I sighed with relief as he set me on my bed. My leg still stung and throbbed, but at least the house was warm and the bed was soft—and I still had the knife.

“Let me rephrase.” He rubbed his jaw and avoided my gaze. “I enjoy rigging, but that’s not my main thing.”

“What is your main thing?” I already knew, all the puzzle pieces falling into place, but I wanted to hear it from him.

He sat back on his haunches and began unlacing my boots. “It’s best described as consensual non-consent.”

I rolled the terms around in my mind. “So, pretend rape?”

He tossed one boot, then gently pulled the other off my injured leg. “The only thing pretend about it is the non-consent. The rest of it is real.”

“So Melinda would come and run from you like a victim in a slasher flick?” I should have been repulsed, but I understood the excitement. Those movies were popular for a reason. Each of us had a little killer or victim inside. Even me.

“Yeah, we had an agreement.”

“Are there others?” I hated how badly I needed to know the answer. “Other women?”

“No, just Melinda, and that’s over.” He tried to roll my jeans leg up to see the wound, but it was too skinny to cooperate.

With shaking fingers, I reached for my waist. The more I thought about it, if raping me had been his goal, he’d had plenty of opportunities. He’d never harmed me.

I ignored the chaotic jumble of thoughts rumbling through my mind and unbuttoned my jeans. He glanced up, surprise crossing his eyes before he dropped his gaze again. I dragged my zipper down and started wriggling out of the jeans.

He helped me peel them off and kept his eyes on my injured leg instead of my pink panties. Quasi-rapist yet also perfect gentleman. My head spun.

“This is a mess. I may need to stitch you again, but I’ll have to clean it up first so I can see.” He rose and walked to the bathroom. The cabinet squeaked open as he gathered supplies.

“What was your and Melinda’s agreement?” Shrugging out of my coat, I adjusted my leg away from the bed. I didn’t want to get blood on the handmade quilt.

He walked back to me, his dirty boots clunking along the floor and his arms full of gauze, tape, and alcohol. “She would come to the house, knock on the door, and then take off running into the woods. I’d be waiting at the door and give her a head start. Then I’d chase her.”

The image of him running through the woods like a predator spoke to the darker parts of my soul, the ones I’d never explored for fear of enjoying what I found there. What had I gotten myself into?

I tried to seem nonchalant. “And once you catch her?”

He knelt down and wet a washcloth with alcohol. “You saw.” Glancing to the knife in my hand, he asked, “Could you put that down? This is going to hurt, and I don’t want to die by my own kitchen knife.”

I narrowed my eyes at him but dropped the blade on the bed.

“Thanks. Brace yourself.”

When he touched my bloody calf, I brought my hand to my mouth to stifle the scream.

“I’m sorry.”

When I could finally breathe again, I asked, “Does that turn you on?”

He shook his head. “Not even a little. The kind of pain I give is wanted. And there’s always a reward.” He glanced up at me, the dark depths of his eyes making my stomach clench.

My mind whirled around the thought of the “reward.” Fuck. “So this pain is…”

“Different.” He wiped again, and this time I couldn’t keep the sound inside.

“You have a great scream, though.” He lifted my calf and inspected the wounds. “It’s close, but I don’t think you need more stitches. The separations aren’t consistent. I think they’ll sew themselves back up after you rest it for a while.”

I didn’t make it past his initial comment. “A great scream?”

“Never mind that.” He began to place gauze on the bad spots, his dark hair falling along either side of his face. “Now that you’ve questioned me, I have something I’d like to ask you.”

“What?” I wanted to push his hair back so I could see his face, but I kept my hands in my lap.

He turned his face to mine, his stare cold. “Why are you really here?”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

MY HEART DROPPED INTO my stomach acid. Surely he wasn’t asking what I thought he was asking. Did he suspect something? I’d covered my tracks, or at least I thought I had.

Maybe I’d misheard him. “What?”

He taped the gauze in place. “I did a little digging of my own, pardon the pun, and found out your mother died a few months ago and your father, Vince Gallant, was a longtime resident of Browerton. He disappeared a few years ago. Last place he was seen?” He glanced up. “Millbrook County, with my sister.”

I stuttered, and my mind blanked as he pressed the gauze onto a particularly tender spot.

He continued, “So that begs the question of what you are really doing out here. Seems like you would have mentioned your connection to Browerton first thing—to the sheriff, or me; hell, even Bonnie. But you didn’t. Why is that?”

“It didn’t really matter.” Oh, shit. “I’m here to dig for Choctaw artifacts, that’s all. My parents have nothing to do with it.”

He stopped taping my leg and sat back, his gaze settling on mine and locking. “You’re good at a lot of things—getting into trouble, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, and getting under my skin—but one thing you’re not good at?” He shook his head. “Lying.”

He unspooled a length of tape and bit it off before returning to my leg. I didn’t respond, only watched as he kept working, steadily patching me up. What could I tell him? That I suspected him or his family to have had something to do with my father’s death? I almost laughed at the thought. I’m sure that would go over a

lmost as well as his “I like to chase chicks through the woods and fuck them” explanation.

“I’ve met him. You know that?”

I twitched as he finished taping me up. “Who?”

“Still playing dumb, I see.” He sat all the way back, planting his ass on the floor and staring up at me with an openness I’d never thought I’d see on him. It was as if telling me his dark secret freed a part of him. “Your dad. I met your dad.”

“What?” I leaned forward, my need to know sparking to life. “When? Where?”

“Red, maybe if you’d just asked me right off, I would have told you. No sneaking around needed.”

I gave him a look that matched the incredulous laughter inside my head. “You barely opened the door for me the first day. You ordered me off your property. And I’m supposed to believe you were just going to offer up information to me?”

He clasped his hands, his forearms flexing. “Good point. But you’ve been staying here for almost two weeks, and you didn’t say a word.”

“You aren’t exactly chatty.” I dropped my gaze to the floor. If I were looking at the situation fairly, I’d have to say he’d been more open with me than I’d been with him. But I had my reasons.

“Well, we’re chatting now, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“So tell me the truth.” He slid his gaze up my body to my face. “For once.”

I hesitated only for a moment. “I’m here for my doctorate. That’s all.”

Disappointment flashed in his eyes. “Then I guess I don’t need to tell you about the time I met your dad.” Rising to his feet, he turned his back and strode to the door.

“Wait!” I tried to stand on my good leg, but the sudden movement sent needles stabbing into the reopened wounds. The room swam, and I thought I might vomit.

“Fuck, sit down.” He walked back to me and eased me onto the bed.

“My dad. I need to know.” I gripped his wrists, refusing to let him go until he told me what he knew.

“Just lie down.”

“No! Tell me what you know.” I couldn’t let this lead slip away.

“You being here has nothing to do with your parents, huh?” He pried my hands off his wrists. “Lie back and I’ll tell you, okay?” He lifted under my arms and helped me back to the pillows, then sat on the edge of the bed.