Sinful Ever After - Vivian Wood Page 0,4

starting to pool and give her raccoon eyes, but I don’t think that now is the time to say anything.

She seems more than a little unhinged. It’s common practice in my life for the women that I sleep with to be a little insane. After all, I like them to be tall, blonde, and gorgeous. Usually that comes with a whole side of daddy issues that makes them try very hard in the bedroom.

“That’s what I meant,” I say calmly. The whole situation is getting a little out of control now, so I start to back toward the apartment door. “I’m on my way out now, so…”

She picks up a pillow from the floor and flings it in my direction. “Good. Just leave!”

I get the picture. Grabbing my keys and phone from her kitchen counter as I slink out, I rush down the stairs of her apartment building. As I burst into the cool night air, I shiver. I’m glad it’s summer, I guess. In the winter in northern Washington, this close to the beach, it gets bitterly cold.

As opposed to now, when the temperature is merely cool. Almost balmy. It a new moon tonight, almost no illumination coming from the sky but the patient stars.

Gathering my clothes from where they lie strewn across the street, I hobble back to my lifted black Jeep and quickly dress. My wallet is still in my pants, which I’m glad for. Having to replace my wallet for the third time this year is not really on my to-do list. This is far from the first time I’ve been in this exact situation, and it’s probably not the last time either.

Still, ordering a new set of credit cards and a new ID is a pain in the ass.

The pleasant buzz I had going on is fading. I get in my Jeep and drive down highway 101, heading back to Whiskey Bend. That’s where the base camp for the National Park Service is, where I’m stationed as a park ranger.

I crack the windows a little bit and enjoy the cool night air on my drive back through the inky darkness.

I don’t think about what just happened.

I don't think about how it feels like my life is ever-so-slightly out of control.

And I definitely don’t think about the Morgan family as I pass by the turn off to get to their estate. In fact, I speed up, just to avoid having to think about them.

Okay, maybe I just wonder about them a little. About my mother, too. I imagine my mother — now deceased — when she was much younger, exploring their estate. That was before I was born. Right before she met my bastard of a father, who brutalized and bullied her until her dying breath.

I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell anyone but Grayson about her passing. Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

It’s too painful a subject. Especially when I start thinking about what she confessed to me as she was dying.

Was she just on so many drugs that her addled mind invented an affair?

Or was she just trying to right a wrong that took place thirty years ago?

The fact that I still don't know is just fucking with my head.

I look out the window and try to think of something else. Soon I pull my Jeep around the last bumpy turn, and Whiskey Bend spills out before me. Above me as I climb out of my vehicle, I can't see the sky. There is a dense canopy of tree leaves over the camp site. The familiar wood cabin style buildings in the forefront welcome me. In the distance, there is a huge ropes course built, intertwining with the trees.

A familiar figure stands on the porch of the largest cabin that doubles as a mess hall, waiting. As I get closer, I can make out my boss Nate. He wears his usual khaki shorts and a Whiskey Bend tee shirt, his feet clad in sandals. His arms are crossed as he leans against the outside of the mess hall. His bald head gleams in the feeble light.

I stride forward, taking the steps to the mess hall two at a time. It’s only when I’m close that I realize that Nate is extremely pissed off at me. I slow down as I catch the hostility in his stare.

Nate is usually pretty easygoing, so his mood is unexpected.

“Hey,” I say, climbing the last step. That brings us eye to eye, or at least it would if he