Lessons in Corruption (The Fallen Men 1)

The little cabin I had bought sight unseen online was ramshackle; the heat was on the fritz, which had been fine when I first moved in during September but during December, January and even now in February, required me to wear at least three layers of thick knits and invest in multiple blankets. The hot water held out for about three minutes and I was the kind of woman who took half-hour showers. Most of the kitchen cabinets were broken, the fridge groaned like a bear emerging from hibernation, and the sloping garden that led to the ocean—my entire reason for buying the house—was an overgrown thicket of thorns and tangled bushes. I was still reeling from my disappointment even though I’d already been there for six months.

Still, a thrill shot through me at the sight of the little cabin on the side of a steep cliff beside the ocean. There was a thick coating of moss on the steepled roof, the screen door was hanging crookedly on its hinges, the garden was so overgrown that it crawled up the sides of the peeling, shingled walls and onto the sparsely graveled driveway. It was an absolute mess. But it was mine; I owned it outright. The real estate agent had balked at the plastic bag of cash I handed to him to complete the transaction but he took it all the same and now, for the first time in my life, I owned something just for myself.

I named the house Shamble Wood Cottage and I planned on painting a little sign to put on a post at the start of the long driveway. It was well down my priority list but I couldn’t wait to claim the land the way I wanted to, making it exactly my own.

The interior wasn’t much better. The best thing about it was the open plan layout, unusual in an older cabin. The kitchen led to a slightly sunken living room and dining nook that was delineated with an old, hand carved oak bar that was decorated with raised designs of ivy and delicate tree branches on the front so that it was visible from the living room. The entire front wall at the back of the house was constructed of large windows and sliding glass doors so that every room had a perfect view of the sloping yard and the gorgeous sprawl of the blue ocean unfolding from the rocky beach.

I didn’t have much furniture, but the deep leather couch and huge matching chocolate brown armchair I had perpendicular to each other in the seating area in front of the enormous stone fireplace were cabin chic and super comfy. I’d finagled a makeshift coffee table out of wooden crates until I had the time and money to buy a real one but I was desperate for a few bookcases that could house the boxes of books I had set to one side of the couch.

After putting away the groceries, I made myself a bowl of oatmeal with fresh berries and maple syrup. Breakfast for dinner or lunch and breakfast for breakfast was pretty much my go-to. I was a morning person and I loved everything about the first meal of the day, including coffee. After eating, I grabbed my mug of decaf and moved to the huge armchair in front of the crackling fire. It had taken me a couple of tries to get it lit but I was glad I had bothered because the sea salt in the logs turned the flames a gorgeous blue and green.

It was quiet and beautiful and I wanted to love my life now that I was free, but even liberty couldn’t close the yawning abyss of loneliness in my soul. It overtook me in the darkness between falling asleep and slumber and in the fragmented moments of quiet between periods at school. When lovebirds brushed together beside me, intrinsically bound to each other like magnets, like two things elementally meant to be. I knew it came mostly from being isolated my entire life, cloistered away by my ultra-conservative parents because of the mistakes they had made with my brother. I’d had no friends, only family, and even that was fractured irrevocably by the time I was eleven.

It also came because I was a romantic and yet, I had no romance. Not ever. Lusting after King and the brief time we had spent together was the greatest connection I’d ever forged.

Before I had left, I might have had a home and a husband, but I’d never been loved, neither had it or lived with its pulse inside of me. I’d lain awake while William snored softly beside me, imagining the kind of life I might have lived if I had been strong enough to run away, to fight against the destiny that had been plotted for me by my parents. I dreamt of a man who would utterly possess me, rip me from comfort and safety and plunge me into passion and chaos. A man who would look at me, instead of through me like my husband had. A man who was a real man, maybe one who chopped his own wood and fixed his own leaky pipes. Not a thirty-six-year-old lawyer from a small, deeply religious town in the prairies who had befriended my parents and took me as an eighteen-year-old bride because I was pretty, practically virginal and had no greater aspirations for myself than those set by my parents. I’d dreamed the dream for eight years before finally doing something about it.