sweet. Now it’s like whiskey. Bitter, has a bite to it, and goes down with a burn.
Footsteps distract my thoughts, and then, a man growls darkly, “Leave her alone.” Only it’s not Avie.
I turn my head to see him. Lincoln. Glaring at Devereux, his stance as standoffish as he was in the bar, this time his lips pursed around a cigarette and his shoulder is pressed to the brick wall. Same stance as before, only now, the I-think-I-know-you look has been replaced with I-will-kill-you-if-you-touch-her glare.
Their glower holds one another for a moment longer than I’d expect. “Mind your own business. She’s fine.”
With a rough chuckle, Lincoln flicks his cigarette into a nearby puddle and peels himself from the wall. His eyes lift to mine, then to Devereux, who involuntarily steps back a fraction of an inch when I push against his shoulders. “Looks to me like she wants you to leave.”
Devereux’s expression collapses into a frown.
Lincoln nods toward the street and reaches for my hand. “Come on, Journey. I’ll walk you home.”
He knows my name? And holy crap. He’s holding my hand.
Why yes, hot fisherman, I will follow you anywhere you want.
“She’s fine here,” Devereux adds, stepping between us. “We were in the middle of a conversation.”
Lincoln’s mouth twists into something that resembles a smirk, but way more vicious. “I wasn’t asking for fucking permission.”
Without another word, Devereux closes the distance between them. To my disappointment, Lincoln lets go of my hand. He says something under his breath, and I think Lincoln replies, but his words barely move, and it’s hard to hear them over the sounds of the water slapping against the docks and the ringing of the buoy.
Devereux backs up as if he doesn’t want any part of this conversation, but Lincoln doesn’t. No, nothing seems to faze this guy. He remains calm and uninterested. “Fuck this,” Devereux barks and begins to walk away. He glances over his shoulder at me but keeps walking. “I’ll see you around, Journey.”
Strangely enough, I find it hard not to stick my tongue out at him.
Lincoln shifts his body toward me, purposeful and confident. His touch on my hand catches me off guard. Suddenly, I’m lightheaded. “I’ll walk you home.” Our gazes lock, and I allow myself to get sucked into his sea-green eyes up close. He leans closer to me, and I hold my breath, my lungs burning. His touch penetrates through my entire body like thousands of butterflies fluttering through me at once.
Without words, I begin to walk with him, nervous, unable to comprehend what just happened, and what I want to happen. He stood up for me, but why? He doesn’t even know me. There’s a small voice inside me that screams he wants to chop me up and cram me into his freezer, but I ignore it. My interest in him deepens with every step. I begin to wonder why he’d been hanging around the bar since he left over an hour ago.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I tell him when we’ve reached the end of the pier and round the corner to my street, attempting to draw him into conversation.
Lincoln shrugs one shoulder and drops my hand from his, our breath creating a fog around us. He gives a thoughtful glance at the docks, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
Suffocated by his silence, I try to think of something to say to drown out the noise in my head, but I can’t think of anything. We walk in silence, while everything in town seems quiet and serene, gray and dreary. I look over at him, squinting into the rain. I probably resemble a drowned cat at this point, but it’s part of living in the Northwest.
I regard him curiously. “How’d you know my name?”
He drags a hand through his wet hair, making it stand up in spikes. “Name tag,” he says, his voice laced in smoke and seduction, speaking more to the ground than to me.
“Oh, right.” I feel so stupid now. And here I thought he went out of his way to find it out, but as it turns out, not so much.
His face adopts a sudden sober edge, but his eyes never lift from the path we’re following. “How’d you get wrapped up with Belmont?”
He knows Devereux? Well, I guess he would being a fisherman. Nick works for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. “He came into the bar one night while I was waiting tables, and I just sort of