Shameless - Sybil Bartel Page 0,35
outside world.
If I was being honest, I’d always taken growing up wealthy for granted. I’d even despised it sometimes, especially in the first days of rehab when the counselors wouldn’t shut up about my easy access to money and drugs.
But standing in front of a man who’d spent years defending our country so he could afford a hideaway at the top of the mountain away from all the people he’d served to protect, I felt every one of those zeros in my bank account, and right now it wasn’t feeling good.
“I’m not going to do drugs anymore,” I blurted.
“Good.” Using a match, he lit the newspaper and stood to his full height.
The fire quickly caught, and a warm glow filled the living area.
I’d never made a fire in my life.
Walking past me, Shade went toward the front door and hung his coat on the same peg he’d retrieved it from, and for some reason that made him seem even more human and me even more spoiled. I didn’t hang my clothes up. I didn’t even do my own laundry. I had a housekeeper who did all that. I didn’t even cook for myself.
Opening a hall closet and pulling out a shotgun, Shade checked the part where bullets or shells or whatever you called them went, then he set the gun upright by the front door.
“I thought you said no one was following us,” I accused, feeling small and spoiled and inadequate.
“Never said that.” Short and dismissive, his response felt like the beginning of a wall going up between us that I didn’t know how to stop or, worse, why I thought there’d never been one to begin with.
“Yes, you did,” I argued. “You told André their cars wouldn’t make it up the mountain.”
He spared me a glance as he walked toward the kitchen. “Doesn’t mean they won’t follow us.”
“You said no one knew about this place.”
“Did I?” He opened a door that looked like a cupboard but was actually a small pantry. Stepping inside, his height and width barely fitting, he pushed on the back wall that had narrow shelves with canned goods, and it opened. He stepped into a larger space, and the lights automatically came on.
“Whoa.” I felt like I’d stepped onto a movie set.
A desk with three monitors, two TV screens on the wall, a desk chair, a couch and a small kitchenette took up most of the space, but on the back wall was a floor-to-ceiling cage that was loaded with weapons and ammunition and what looked like every kind of tactical gear you’d need if you were walking into a war zone. “Is this like a panic room?”
“I’m a Marine. I don’t panic.” He turned on the three monitors. “Bedroom is upstairs. Shower has toiletries. Help yourself.” Dismissing me, he sat down in the desk chair.
For some reason, it felt shittier than when my own damn father ignored me. “And don’t let the door hit me on the way out,” I muttered as I turned to leave, not even bothering to point out the difference between a panic room and actual panicking.
“You got a problem?” he called after me.
Only a six-foot-whatever one. I glanced over my shoulder. “How tall are you?”
His dark eyes took me in for a second before he answered. “Six five. Why?”
A six-foot-five-inch problem. Fantastic. “No reason.” I took a step.
“Halt,” he barked as if issuing a military command.
Nerves shot up my spine and feathered across my neck. My stupid self so needy for attention from him, even my body betrayed me and reacted to his hostile tone as if he weren’t snapping out an order but luring me to bed.
This time I turned to face him and crossed my arms, but I couldn’t even manage the universal body language of disdain. The sleeves of his jacket too big and too long, they just flopped around me like extra skin. Not that it mattered anyway because he wasn’t even looking at me.
I told myself I didn’t care and dished out attitude anyway. “What?”
“You’re sleeping upstairs.” He typed on a keyboard in front of the middle monitor on his desk, and images of the winter wonderland surrounding us began to pop on the screens. “Help yourself to whatever you want in the kitchen.”
“Let me guess, you’re all out of Fiji water,” I replied snidely, behaving exactly like the trust fund brat he’d accused me of being, because I didn’t know what was happening and it felt shitty.
“The cabin has a water filtration system.”