Keeping her here was a mistake. For her, potentially a dangerous one.
She’d lied to him. She was scared. Very scared.
And that changed everything.
ANNIE
I opened the door from the garage to the main part of the house, surprised to see that morning was being ushered in on the billowing clouds of a storm.
Thunder boomed and the air smelled like electricity. No rain, though. Mother Nature was only setting the loud and violent stage.
Margaret was in the kitchen, preparing food, and at the sound of the door to the garage opening, she turned with a tight smile that quickly vanished when she saw me.
“What are you doing in the garage?” she asked, as if I’d been snooping around the place.
“Talking to Dylan. Turns out he was here after all.”
Her face was unreadable, but everything about her gave the impression of being shocked.
“Is he in there?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
For a second a smile burst through that wall of impassivity. And then it was gone. I didn’t know what that smile meant. I didn’t know what anything meant anymore.
Margaret set down a pot of coffee on a table full of food. There was homemade bread set out with butter and jam beside it. Cut-up melon and strawberries filled the bottom of a pretty pottery bowl. There were cinnamon rolls. Fresh ones. Still steaming.
If my stomach weren’t in knots, I’d be all over that.
“I’m sorry I don’t have much for you.” Margaret looked down at the food like it had failed her.
“It’s a feast.” I picked up a strawberry like I had an interest in eating it, but my stomach rolled over at the idea. So, I just held it, picking off the green leaves, one by one.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
Margaret, in a pale yellow shirt and a pair of black leggings, poured me a mug. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Black.” I drank it black because it was cheaper. And faster. Because it didn’t bother anyone. “Actually, can I have some sugar? Both, actually.”
Margaret fixed up the coffee and handed a dark blue heavy pottery mug to me. “I don’t understand people who drink coffee black. It’s like they don’t want to enjoy themselves.”
Huh. Score one for Margaret.
I took a sip of the coffee and nearly grimaced. It was too sweet. And not hot enough with the milk. Come to find out, I liked it the way I’d always had it. Go figure.
“Margaret,” a soft voice said, and suddenly Dylan was behind me. I could feel him there in the nerve endings along my back. The hair on my neck stood up.
Him. That’s what every part of my body said. Him.
And mine.
I put the mug on the table before it fell from my fingers.
“Go shopping,” he said.
“For what?” Margaret asked, putting her hands on her hips and giving the impression of a woman at her wit’s end. A mother, actually—she gave the impression of being a mother. Frazzled but affectionate.
“I don’t care. You’re always telling me my house needs stuff; go get some.”
“You have a guest. Who has had a rough night, and you want me to—”
“I want you to get out of the house,” he said, and my skin shrank. It squeezed me tight and I couldn’t breathe.
“Dylan,” she said, her façade cracking. Her worry visible, but not for me. No, her worry was entirely reserved for Dylan.
“It’s fine,” he told her. “I’m fine.”
Right, I nearly laughed, like I was going to hurt him? Chip that steel edge of his? Impossible.
“All righty!” Margaret said, and she opened up a small closet and grabbed her purse, stomping around a little to make her point. “But I’m using your money and filling up your fridge.”
“Go gambling, I don’t care. Just be gone.”
Dylan walked past me to shut the door behind Margaret.
The door closed with a heavy, loud click and he turned to face me.
Dylan.
Those lips like pillows. The taut, shiny flesh at his thick neck. The scars looked worse here, in this light. But I had no reaction to them, besides concern. They were not repellant or scary. They just were.
His dark, heavy-lidded eyes were unreadable and they walked all over me. My hair, my eyes, the neckline of my camisole, my legs beneath my shorts.
I felt naked under that gaze, my clothes stripped away.
“Tell me your name. Your real name.”
“No.”
His face split into a grin, and I remembered he liked my opposition. My sharp edges. This was how things between us started and I did