by Tess Oliver
“I’m good. Let me get dressed. Then I’ll take you up on the offer of helping me close up.”
Chapter 7
Amy
We’d done a shabby job closing up, and I wanted to kick myself for it. I was sure I’d get a good scolding from Jack in the morning. And he’d been good to me, so I hated letting him down, especially when he wasn’t feeling great. But I hadn’t been able to work up the energy or enthusiasm I needed to clean the place up right. Hunter had helped, but something told me I would have done a better job without his large, hard to ignore presence. I was definitely sure I would have done a better job if I hadn’t caved almost the second the man walked into the bar. When it came to Hunter Stone, I had about as much willpower as a kid in an everything is free candy shop.
We climbed into the car. My silence and dark mood made it obvious that I hadn’t come out of the south end of our passion scene feeling any better about our relationship than I had going into it. Going into it. Hell, going in didn’t cover it. I’d nearly jumped the man. Now the bitter ache of regret tugged at every muscle in my body. I could still feel the delicious tenderness in my pussy and it made me that much sadder. It was there to remind me that I was just a fuck to him. There wasn’t ever going to be more than that between us. Like he’d told me many times, that was all he had to give.
I turned up the radio to avoid conversation, but by the time I’d pulled out onto the street to head home, he’d turned it back down. He stared straight ahead. “Talk to me, Street.” Right as he said it, his phone buzzed. He pulled it out and checked it, then pushed it back into his pocket. “What’s wrong?” he continued.
“That.” I waved my hand toward his pocket. “That’s all of it right there in a fucking nutshell.”
“I’m not following.” I could hear the irritation rise in his voice.
“Which girl was that? Or has it gotten to the point where you can’t even match faces to names?”
“What the hell does it matter? There’s them and there’s you. You’re the only you. Everyone else is just filler.”
“Filler? You mean insulation. Seal up your heart. That way nothing real ever has to happen between us.”
He looked over at me. “Nothing real? What the fuck was that back there? Felt pretty goddamn real to me.”
I squeezed the steering wheel, but what I really wanted to do was pound him like I had earlier. “You’re such an ass. You know exactly what I mean.”
“Nothing’s changed between us. Why can’t it just stay like this?”
“Nope. I’m done with it. Time to grow up, and I guess that means the two of us growing apart.” Even as I said it, I felt a cold tremor of heartache rush through me. Just being without him for three days had produced such an urge to be touched by him, I’d ignored all reason tonight. I had to steel myself against him or lose myself completely. “I’ve figured this all out. Us, I mean.”
“Yeah, what have you figured?”
“When we’re together, you know, messing around, everything works. When I’m with you, naked and wanting everything you can give— and you do give it well, asshole or not, you know how to please— I’m willing to be completely yours in those erotic moments. You own me when you’re between my thighs. But when it’s over, I want control back. I want to be independent to do what I think is right and not be watched over. Your possessiveness needs to end when I’m out of your bed. But it doesn’t. You have the freedom to do whatever you like but I don’t. And I’m tired of it. I have no fucking clue why it took me so long to realize it, but I know it’s not working for me anymore.”
Hunter faced forward and slumped down in the seat. He had to bend his long, thick legs to make room for them in my small car. I glanced over at him. He closed his eyes, but I knew he wasn’t sleepy.
My throat felt as if someone’s hand was wrapped around it. “You just need to let go of the damn leash, Hunter. You’re free to see whoever you like, and I want that too. No more scaring guys off.”
He didn’t open his eyes, but his Adam’s apple moved up and down along his throat as he swallowed. Deep down, I hoped he was swallowing back regret, swallowing back whatever it was that was keeping him from ever letting himself love me. I had always been confident that he would eventually come around, but tonight, as I was cradled in his arms, feeling every bit his and yet knowing that he wasn’t mine, I realized that I’d been kidding myself all along.
We were silent the rest of the ride home. I pulled into my driveway. He climbed out, walked across to his house and never looked back. I had no more of myself to give to him. I was going to grow that same hard outer shell he was so damn famous for and keep my feelings about him locked up for good.
He waited on his porch, and I knew he was waiting for me to get safely inside. It was those small, protective gestures that had kept me hoping that he’d eventually come around. But now I realized they’d been just that, small, protective gestures, residual habits of our terrible childhoods when we’d all learned to look out for each other, and nothing more.
The house was quiet, but Mom had left the kitchen light on. Fortunately, my mom’s lack of interest in housekeeping had left our kitchen cupboards too greasy for the masking tape to adhere to. Most of it was falling off in long, dust covered strips, making the small, dingy room look slightly ridiculous.
A funny aroma greeted me as I stepped around the corner. An even more unusual sight met me in the kitchen, and it had nothing to do with the masking tape decor. A mixing bowl, cookie trays and a plate of what appeared to be homemade cookies sat on the kitchen counter. I hadn’t been able to place the aroma, but I hadn’t expected cookies. Of course, it had been so long since I’d seen a plate of homemade cookies in our kitchen, I might have forgotten what they smelled like. They appeared to be sugar cookies. My mom must have had a good, clear-headed night and momentarily lapsed back into reality.
It had been a long night of work, and the afterhours activity had left me exhausted and hungry. It was almost comical to think how excited I was to be standing in front of a plate of homemade cookies. A brief, nostalgic memory of standing at the kitchen counter rolling out sugar cookies for Christmas passed through my weary head. I smiled thinking about my mom’s face being covered with flour and my fingers sticky with icing. I’d always made sure to sneak some out to the brothers. I was never allowed to invite them inside. My dad had told me having them in the house was like locking wild animals in a tiny box. He’d never had any compassion for anyone, and he had been only just one step behind Hank Stone on the asshole chain. My mom had been one of the people to look the other way when it came to her neighbors, the Stones. She knew their father was a monster, but we were dealing with our own version of monster right in our own home.
I went to the refrigerator and pulled out the milk. My stomach growled as I poured myself a glass. I picked up a cookie off the plate and dipped it in the milk. The cookie was a little too solid to absorb the milk, but I wasn’t going to complain. My mom was out of practice, after all. In fact, our oven was out of practice too. I heard Mom’s footsteps coming down the hall as I put the cookie in my mouth and bit. A horrid, bitter taste filled my mouth.
“Amy, no! Don’t eat those!”
I spit the cookie bite out all over the counter and drank some milk fast to wash away the awful taste. I stared at my mom over the rim of the glass as I swallowed the soothing liquid. I lowered the glass and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Mom, what did I just eat?”
She looked even more distressed than usual as she stared down at the milky crumbs. “Did you swallow any?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. It was pretty awful, so I spit it out pretty fast.”
Mom had put together one of her bizarre bedtime outfits of running shorts pulled over sweatpants. She leaned down beneath the kitchen sink and pulled out a box of snail poison. “The cookies are for intruders. If they get in and see the cookies, they’ll eat them and die.”
“You put snail and slug po
ison in the cookies?”
“Yes,” she said it in a way that sounded like making poison cookies was something everyone did.
I blinked at her for a second trying to decide what to say. I had nothing. It had been such an emotional night that this latest episode of Betty Crocker mania was the last thing I needed.
I shuffled down our short, dark hallway and went to my room. I pulled off my clothes and climbed into bed. From my window, I could see the side of Hunter’s house. A light flickered in his room, which meant he was watching television. Just thinking about him less than a hundred steps away made me ache for him, but I had to get past this.
I turned away from the window and pulled the blanket up around me. Hunter’s masculine scent was still fresh on my skin. My chest felt tight as I closed my eyes and tried my hardest to push away any thoughts. Eventually, the heavy lure of a deep sleep took over.
Chapter 8
Hunter
A slate gray sky and the sea spitting choppy waves at us made for a rough, gloomy crossing. Seagulls hovered like kites on strings over the Durango, a fishing trawler that rarely had any fish onboard. The gulls would be sorely disappointed with the catch in our cargo hold, twenty thousand dollars of good quality blow, a treat for a coke addict but definitely not for a hungry seagull.
Rincon had sent the orders and coordinates for the drop just an hour after I’d fallen asleep. Now the heaviness in my head matched my black mood perfectly. I’d been tired as hell when my head hit the pillow, but all the confusion and crossed signals I was getting from Amy had made my head spin too much to let me sleep. One minute she was begging me to bend her over a desk and fuck her, and the next she was pissed and ready to push me away for good. I knew damn well it had always been about commitment, but it wasn’t like we’d suddenly woken up in a new world or that I’d suddenly grown a fucking soul. She knew I cared about her, but she also knew she wasn’t going to squeeze much more than that out of me. I was fucking cardboard when it came to emotion. Although, there were times when being with her took me to the brink, to a place where I was more human than stone. Like in the office, when our physical need for each other had dissolved into a wild, hot fuck that, just thinking about it, still gave me a hard on. Having her naked in my arms and completely mine for the taking had stirred that splintered, confusing sense of feeling that she had to be with me forever, that losing her to someone else would be unthinkable.
Colt pulled the collar of his coat up over his ears and tossed a handful of potato chips onto the rough water. Our feathered traveling companions screeched loudly and dove for the chips before they sank below the surface and became fish food.
Colt grinned back at me. “I think if we covered this boat with barbecue potato chips and cheese curls, we’d still be more popular with the birds than any trawler carrying fish.”
My brother walked over and stood next to me at the railing. I swept my binoculars around once. The sea was empty. Most of the fishing boats were farther out, and the incoming storm had kept pleasure boats docked. “Shitty weather, eh?” he said.
“Yep.” I lowered the binoculars but still kept a watchful eye on the water. We’d been making these drops for nearly two years and had only run into problems twice. Once there was a pleasure yacht who seemed to be following us, but it’d turned out they were behind us to find out where the good fishing spots were. It was pretty fucking funny considering we were a fishing trawler heading away from the best fishing grounds. Another run-in with the coast guard was definitely less funny. As they pulled up to find out why the fuck we were floating away from the fishing grounds and why our nets were still stacked, Slade came out of the pilot house with an old coffee can. He told them that we were out at sea to distribute our dear father’s ashes, his last wish. Colt and I had been floored and duly impressed with his quick thinking. Slade had even shocked himself. It had worked. The coast guard gave us their condolences and motored away from our boat and our illegal cargo.
“If you don’t mind me pointing this out, bro, you seem to be in an ugly fucking mood today,” Colt said.
“I do mind, so fuck off and keep watch off the starboard side. Something has me uneasy today, and I don’t know why.”
Colt shoved some chips into his mouth and turned around to lean against the railing and watch over the starboard side. “Probably just the weather. And the fact that Rincon sent us this drop order just an hour ahead of time. What the hell is going on with him?”
“Like everyone else— it’s greed.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I hear things are a little messy between you and Street, huh?”
I didn’t answer. Colt knew damn well that meant I wasn’t interested in the topic, but apparently, he was feeling immortal today.
He crunched on another chip. “I think you’re going to regret this.”
I lifted the binoculars to my face. “Just because you like playing house doesn’t mean it’s right for me. Street knows that, and if she can’t understand then I guess there’s not much to say. I don’t need any ball and chain around my nuts.”
He laughed. “Ball and chain? Shit, if that’s what I’ve got around mine by being with Jade then I’m happy to keep them securely locked up. One thing I know for sure— if you lose Amy for good, you’re going to get even grumpier and then I won’t even want to be around you.”
“Scary threat. Now go tell Slade I can see them in the distance.”
He pushed off the railing but stayed next to me.
“Don’t want to hear any fucking more, Colt.”
“Right.” He took a step and stopped. He really had gotten up feeling invincible this morning. “Everyone in the entire fucking town knows how you feel about Amy. Shit, guys won’t even step within ten feet of her because of you. The only person who doesn’t know how you feel about her— is you. Pretty fucking thick— that head of yours.”
“Colt— swear to God, I’m gonna—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m leaving.”
I pushed Colt’s irritating lecture out of my head for now. I still wasn’t feeling right about this morning, and I needed to focus on the drop. A feathery fog had fallen over the sea, but I could see our contact boat anchored in the distance. Ace, our main contact, had seemed pretty fucking shady at first. He’d always insisted on holding a gun to one of our heads, in case something was wrong or short with the cargo. Not that we had anything to do with the quality or quantity of the goods we were delivering, but Ace seemed to think it was a necessary threat for Rincon to keep up his end of the deal and think twice about cheating him. The funny thing about that was that Rincon couldn’t have cared less about us. If one of us had our head shot off, he’d just find a replacement crew. There were plenty of people willing to take a risk to make a quick buck. Coincidentally enough, when Jade’s creepy ex, Ray Ward, had put up a reward to find her, Ace had answered the call and provided Ward with information leading to Jade. Only once Ward had lured Jade back by holding Colt hostage, he’d decided not to pay Ace the reward. A big mistake. Ace had helped us get Jade back from Ward, and after that, we’d gained a mutual respect for each other. Now the drops were much less intense. Until today.
Ace climbed down into the inflatable with his two men. Occasionally, he brought different men with him. We never bothered to learn their names because it wasn’t necessary. This was a business deal, not a tea party. Only one of the men with him looked familiar, he was an older guy with skin weathered by days at sea and a tattoo of a giant squid on his forearm. We’d always just referred to him as squid. There was something about the set of Ace’s shoulders that didn’t seem right. The man was as confident as a fucking rooster in a flock of horny hens, but today his rigid posture seemed forced.
Colt leaned over the stern and lowered the rope ladder as the inflatable boat bobbed up and down over the uneven tide like a car on a roller coaster. Even with the battering the small boat was taking, Ace sat like a pillar of marble, smooth-faced and stiff.
As they made their way across, I
lifted my binoculars and looked over at the other boat. As always, Ace had left two crew members behind. One was familiar, a goofy looking guy who always wore a yellow beanie pulled tight over long, dark hair. The other guy, who stood right next to yellow beanie, wasn’t anyone I’d ever seen before. I knew Ace went through crew members pretty fast. He was quick to get rid of them if they lost their nerve easily or were too unreliable, but this new crew overhaul seemed more than usual.
Ace’s boat, a slick overhaul on a fast Sundancer, lifted up and down on the choppy current. Aside from Ace’s unusually severe posture and the new crew members, everything seemed normal and quiet. But just as I lowered the binoculars, my eyes glimpsed something that shouldn’t have been there. I lifted them again and focused on the Sundancer. From the corner of my eye, I could see Ace and his men getting closer to the Durango. I squinted through the binoculars and waited for the stern of Ace’s boat to dip down with the rough sea. The bow went up and the wave rolled beneath it until the stern dropped. I hadn’t been imagining it. There was a small motorboat tied off on the far side of the Sundancer.
Adrenaline pumped through me. As badly as I needed to jump into action, I couldn’t let on that I knew something was up. Even though they were only twenty feet away, I casually swept my binoculars toward the inflatable boat. The man behind Ace had a gun in his back.
I held two fingers up to the pilot house, our signal to let the person in the captain’s chair know that something was up. “Colt, be alert.” That was our verbal cue to be ready to pull a gun.
I motioned for him to step back from the stern. I reached behind and pulled the gun out from under my shirt but kept it out of sight. Colt did the same. I glanced back to the pilot house. Slade was already coming down the steps. We hadn’t had an incident like this yet while running cargo for Rincon, but we were ready and we knew how to avoid making things worse by looking alarmed or ready to fight.