Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,29
to Saint. “I’ve lived here all my life. So, I know that people either come here for the quiet, or the isolation. I know you came here for the latter. But you made a choice to take yourself out of that to help out your fellow human. So, you can either say yes to helping her now, or I’ll make sure that every curious gossip in this town loses her healthy fear of the man in the woods and bakes him pies and delivers it personally.”
Though I was not at all impressed with the message, her delivery, tone, and her strength behind it was something to behold. I was sure she was a soft-spoken caregiver that had a small-town mindset and disposition. Margot had been the same. Women of this town were surprising me.
Saint stood. He glared. Not at Carrie, who was delivering orders I was certain he wasn’t used to hearing from anyone, let alone a woman. She got no hostility. I was blessed enough to be the sole recipient of it. And in my weakened state, I felt it. Just a little, nothing like a lot of others would. But I shrunk, ever so slightly, in the bed. Fear crawled up my throat. This man hated me. It was painted in the air, tattooed onto my skin.
He didn’t speak. No, he didn’t need to. His eyes flickered to Carrie for a second, chin lifted ever so slightly, then he walked out of the room.
“I would say his bark is worse than his bite, but I’d be lying,” Carrie said, moving her own gaze from the door to focus on me.
“Yeah, I would say he doesn’t bite so much as tear you apart,” I replied, still not able to rip my gaze from the doorway, empty as it was.
She laughed. “Maybe so, but he didn’t leave you for dead in the woods, so that’s something.”
“Is it?” I asked, more myself than her.
Chapter 6
“He didn’t see me. The man who checked me into the motel. It had the highest cleanliness rating of any motel in fifty miles. Which was why I chose it. Clean was good. He made sure his motel was clean. But he didn’t see me. The blood on my shoes. The darkness in my soul. He didn’t see me. None of them did.”
“What are you doing here?” I demanded of the attractive man.
Much more attractive now I was feeling slightly more human. If that’s what I was. The morning was crisp. Everything was sharper, the air cutting little slices in my lungs. Maybe a little deeper than it would’ve if I hadn’t spent so much time getting acquainted with it yesterday.
Now I wasn’t hallucinating from exposure, or blurry-eyed from drugs, I saw him in all his glory.
That was his word.
Glory.
Though, not nobility.
Carrie had all but strapped me to the bed last night, warning me I wouldn’t be feeling so hot for a while. Side effect from near hypothermia, I guessed. I was also on crutches for as long as my ankle took to heal. Two weeks at a minimum to keep off it, the sprain was so bad. I had rejected all offers of help from her once I’d gotten my shit something resembling together this morning.
I was expecting her to fight me much harder on me finding my way home, without a car and with crutches I barely knew how to navigate, and not near enough narcotics in my system. Luckily, my medicine cabinet at home was waiting for me.
It was getting there that was the problem.
Seeing those unfeeling, uninterested, and cold eyes told me why Carrie gave up so easily. The two were in cahoots.
Instead of answering me, the man, tall, muscled, and wearing the same leather jacket, with a jawline that could cut steel, nodded down the street just a little.
I craned my head to see my car parked on the curb. My gaze snapped back to him. The Saint. The sinner. The car thief.
“You stole my car.”
“Didn’t steal it since I’m plannin’ on leavin’ it at your place when I drop you off.” His brow ticked ever so slightly, showing me he was annoyed at having to speak. I would wager a guess he was annoyed to even be here.
Why was he here? He obviously didn’t want to be. And he didn’t seem to be a man that did things he didn’t want to. My eyes flickered back to the small doctor’s office. Did he have a fling with the unusual, feisty doctor?