Splinters of You (Retired Sinners MC #1) - Anne Malcom Page 0,55

cops if she didn’t hear from me in an hour.

“He won’t hurt me,” I scoffed, sounding a lot more confident than I really was.

She smiled. “Oh, honey, I’m not worried about that. I’m calling the cops to make sure you don’t hurt him.”

I definitely felt like hurting him. Like sinking my fingernails into his face and raking them through flesh and bone, so he couldn’t look in the mirror without thinking of me.

Because it seemed to be what was going on with me lately.

I was on unsteady ground with this guy and I hated it. That wasn’t why I was here. I needed to get back on top—in many senses of the word—because he awakened something in me. He awakened the story in me. That could be useful. But not if I was too caught up in wondering why he watered my garden to write a damn word.

No.

I had to set things straight. And instead of waiting on him to stomp onto my turf with the element of surprise and the upper hand, I was flipping the switch.

Though, I did wonder whether I should’ve updated my tetanus shot before I made this trip.

It was too late now.

For me, and my car.

It took longer than I thought to make it to his place. He was more isolated than me. With a road no one would notice. Woods so wild they mirrored the man himself.

He’d put himself here.

Banished himself.

Much like I had.

I had snatches of his stories. Shreds, really. The tattoos, the fact he had once been a member of one of the most notorious gangs in North America. And that fact alone was telling me things.

Because you didn’t quit the Needful Nomads.

You either died or…you died.

Death was the out.

Either old age, in a battle with a rival gang, or at the hands of his own “brothers.” Even though I had abandoned the book, I had done enough research on these clubs. They fascinated me. The violence. The sense of loyalty. The punishment for betrayal. It felt medieval and honest.

Apart from the violence against women that seemed commonplace and as normal as milk in their fucking Cheerios.

Just as I was wondering just how deep Saint had gotten into it before he skulked into the Washington woods, the woods cleared.

Slightly.

Just enough for a large house to come into view.

Larger than mine.

By quite a bit.

This was not the falling down, one room cabin I had been so sure he lived in. No rabid dogs came bounding around the corner of the house, ready to rearrange my face or give me firsthand experience of what rabies felt like.

No.

The house was wooden, pale, well-maintained.

Two storied.

Though it seemed as little of the woods had been disturbed as possible, there was a small pathway leading from where his truck was parked to the house.

There were fucking flowerbeds.

Blooming flowerbeds that looked just as healthy as mine.

Which had me mad enough not to marvel at just how nice this place was, and just how wrong I had been. Instead, I slammed the car into park, all but leapt out of it, and stomped toward the front door, intent on banging on it.

It didn’t occur to me to skulk around the corner, melt out of the woods, to surprise him like he did with me. A good thing too, since the door opened before I could get halfway up the path.

He didn’t look surprised. Just indifferent. There wasn’t even the tiniest bit of irritation I was here, invading his space he’d taken great pains to shut away from the world.

“Have you been watering my garden?” I asked in greeting, my voice acid.

“Yeah.”

I resisted the urge to scream. “Why?”

“It was gonna die.”

I waited for more of an explanation. I didn’t get one. “That’s it?” I said. “It was going to die? That’s not how that works, Saint. I know you don’t come out in the world much, to interact with people, and trust me, I get it, but I also know you’re not stupid. You have knowledge of social niceties and things like personal space. Lines that shouldn’t be crossed.”

He folded his arms, looking almost amused, and that was enough to send proverbial steam out of my ears. “And the line you’re drawing is me making sure you’re not killing your garden?” he clarified.

The mild way in which he spoke, disinterested but entertained at the same time, it made me furious enough to want to do something unsarcastically dramatic and childish, like stomp my foot and scream in his face. But I