Kelly snapped the elastic band one last time and tugged her tail of hair before stuffing the thick mass into the neckline of her hoodie. Wiggling and flexing her fingers and wrist, she scowled when a twinge of pain shot into her elbow.
“Frickin’ fuck.” The harshly muttered expletive was necessary for this instance. Annoyed that she had more checkmarks in the disadvantage column now than when the day started, her mood grew gloomy and irritated.
Her hand hurt like a mother. The significant snowfall had a Day After Tomorrow quality to it. She dropped her favorite rifle when she tumbled into the road and thanks to the weather would never locate it now. Why the hell not?
It was no use pretending the biggest check mark wasn’t messing with her in a big way. A quick peek in the old bathroom mirror showed lips thinned by tension.
Roman Bishop.
Ugh.
He didn’t scare her, but she was fairly sure he’d get off on it if he did. That didn’t mean that she wasn’t on full alert. Knowing who she was gave him an advantage that made her teeth clench. If he hadn’t taken a verbal shot at Burt the other night, she’d suspect he was a lawyer or some other official type hired by the Dulbs to rattle her cage. It was a reach, yeah, but what the hell else could explain his presence? Providence was hardly a stop on a touristy trail of quaint little towns.
But here he was, and now she was stuck with him and his hidden agenda thanks to that sneaky bitch, Mother Nature. Nothing like inviting the enemy to hang out during a snowstorm for fun times to ensue.
She stared at her reflection. What she saw was a rather unremarkable, harried looking female wearing a worried frown.
Glaring at the bathroom door, she walked toward it and sighed. He was on the other side, and though she tried every way in the book to ignore his ass, her attempts were laughably inadequate. Refusing to look at him or engage on any level didn’t stop all of her senses from being drawn to him anyway.
Him getting a laugh out of her shocked Kelly. She’d been trying overly hard to be glib and dismissive, so the involuntary guffaw made her uneasy. Nobody ever wiggled around her defenses.
Until now.
Her stomach growled. Before leaving the kitchen, she put a pot of chili on a low flame and tossed a bunch of aluminum foil-wrapped cornbread squares into the oven to warm. There was plenty of food in the cupboards and fridge—enough for a week at least. If the power went out, she didn’t want to open the freezer at all, so she did a swift mental inventory of supplies on hand to make sure all the bases were covered.
Hand on the doorknob, she straightened her shoulders. Hating that her mother so easily played the victim card, Kelly preferred a more feel-free-to-suck-my-balls attitude. In the end, it didn’t matter what Roman Bishop had up his sleeve. He was wasting his time. She wasn’t interested in whatever the hell he was selling. Matty, KA James, and getting as far from this place as she could manage was all she should large. Everything else was background noise.
Shoving her hands into the front pouch of a stretched out hoodie, it only took a few steps before she was standing in the living room staring eyeball to eyeball with her problematic visitor.
Crouched by the glowing fire, he reminded her of a jaguar in a documentary about big cats she and Matty watched. All her mind could process was how he looked. Swallowing became difficult. So was admitting she liked what she saw. He had a square jaw covered in several days’ growth of a beard. In her world, the men were either bald, had long hair, or fell back on the sharply groomed guise favored by law enforcement and military types. This guy fell in the last category.
Dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothes. Conservative, maybe. Dangerous, definitely.
“Filled the bucket.”
Um, huh? She blinked. His mouth moved, and words came out, but for some reason her brain scrambled, and all she noticed were his lips and how his neck looked like a meal.
“Is that chili?” His nose was in the air, sniffing. He rose slowly and ran his hands down his jeans. An adjustment? She supposed he sort of had to with thighs shaped like tree trunks.
Not at all confident that her voice wouldn’t betray her thoughts, she nodded and hurried away from him. Making herself busy at the stove, she lifted the heavy lid from the chili pot to give the mixture a stir when he moved in close from behind and hung over her shoulder.
The urge to send an elbow backward was hard to tamp down when he invaded her body space. She didn’t like being crowded. Usually, it felt like an unfair power play made possible by her less than terrifying size, but this… this was different somehow.
“Mmm,” he groaned close to her ear. “You’re killing me, Smalls. Stop stirring and start dishing.”
She felt his warm breath on her neck and trembled. “Grab bowls from the cupboard. There’s silverware in the dish drainer.”
He chuckled then stood at attention, saluting her. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t call me small,” she snidely bit out when he moved away. “It’s rude.”
He opened every cupboard before finding the dishes. She rolled her eyes. Juggling two stoneware bowls, he snagged a couple of spoons from next to the sink.
“I didn’t say you were small,” he drawled with annoying charm. “I called you Smalls. There’s a difference.”
She answered his comeback with a shrug. “Tell me something. Does this seem like a reference I would get?”
He reacted with a jolt and frowned. “You’re right. Sorry. My bad. It’s from a movie.”
She froze when his penetrating gaze swept her head to toe. “And for the record. Small is in the eye of the observer.” For a brief second his eyes rested on her chest. “As the observer of the moment, I’d say you’re perfect.”
Were her eyes blinking? That’s what it felt like, but she wasn’t sure. Her mind went blank when he looked at her like she was Miss America or something. Was he blind? Stupid? Joking?
“I think we need to start over ‘cause this isn’t working.”
Another blink. Followed by some swallowing and a sniff. She didn’t know what else to do. The instinct to shut him down before anything else came out of his mouth hit her hard.
“Better idea,” she ground out. Kelly almost winced at the defensive tone in her voice. “Let’s not, but say we did, hmmm?”
He let loose with a low, rumbling laugh that triggered a seismic shift inside her. “Now, come on,” he smirked. “You know damn well that’s not how this is going to go. Can’t you try on nice and see if it fits?”
Denting his thick skull with the wood ladle seemed like way too good an idea. Did he actually think that shit would work with her? No man was ever going to tell her how to behave.
Dropping the ladle being sized up for weaponization, she slammed the lid back on the pot, crossed her arms and snarled, “You know what a hat trick is, right? As a sports reference, it’s amazing. In a character assessment, not so much.”
His answering arm cross put them bully chest to bully chest. To be accurate, it was more like his chest in her face and her chest in his belly.
“Meaning?”
The ominous tone he used activated a flash memory. She was ten or so and curled up on the rug by the fireplace, reading an ancient copy of a Nancy Drew story that once belonged to her grandmother. Her mother was having a heated debate with Sam and Ginny. There was yelling and crying, as usual, courtesy of Debbie. Poor pitiful Debbie. The last thing clinging to this memory was Ginny’s voice. “Stop making it about you, Deb. It’s Kelly who will pay the price if this continues.”
Anger bubbled up inside her. Goddammit. Secrets and lies. Enough!
“That tone will get you nowhere,” she scoffed.
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Shut up, conscience. This isn’t the time to weigh in.
“And my meaning is obvious. So far you’ve patronized and been rude. That’s two of the three you need for the shit-monger trophy. Since you haven’t bothered with fair, and by that I mean letting me in on the secret, I’ve got a couple more in my ammo clip that are worthy of consideration.” She pursed her lips and plowed on. “Hidden agendas being what they are, you’ve also pulled off a public ambush and some questionable stalking. On private property. You realize I could put a hole in you with a bullet and you’d be the one getting arrested. We don’t like trespassers round here.”
“Jesus,” he muttered when she finished. “I don’t even know where to start. You’ve got this all wrong.”
“And you’re full of shit for thinking I’m stupid. You have patronized and been rude.” She was shouting and didn’t care. “You did ambush me at Shorty’s. Your truck was on my property when you ran me down. What part have I gotten wrong?” Her hands were waving like a windmill by the end.
Fifty different things flashed on his face. Good. She hoped some of her accusations stuck. Until he told her what the hell was going on, he could expect more of the same. If he was waiting for her to beg, he’d be waiting a long time. She friggin’ hated secrets. Hated the power of a secret and the damage when revealed.
“The only reason you’re standing in front of me and not hanging like a gutted deer from a tree in the backyard is because I have a fucking conscience. Something I see little evidence of coming from you Mr. Bishop. Asking for a reset because it’s somehow convenient—for you—only makes my point.”
Ladling chili into the bowls, she dismissed him with an angry grunt.
Whatever. He was playing her, and she wasn’t having it. And she wasn’t joking about the gutted deer. She could easily have shot him. He was on her property. Property marked with trespassing markers.
The thing making her uncomfortable was pretending a saint-like, above-it-all persona. It might have been possible to dart off into the woods she knew like the lines on her palm, leaving him to drive aimlessly in a storm of snow blind proportions. But that’s not what went down, and if she was honest, him hovering over her with the snow falling all around them and the intensity of his eyes boring into hers…
A sensual jolt snaked along her spine causing an involuntary quivering of her neck and shoulders. She put a hand up to protect the vulnerable stretch of skin.
It took a few minutes, and a couple of back and forth trips before they were sitting in thorny silence at the kitchen table. He’d been quiet following her accusatory outburst, and she assumed he was plotting his next move.
Annoyed, she stabbed at the thick chili with her spoon and shifted restlessly in her chair.
“Good cornbread,” he mumbled.
Rubbing some fingers across her frowning forehead, she offered a tepid smile, such as it was, and accepted the compliment.
“Thanks. Family recipe.”
His expression when she answered in a civil tone struck her as eager to the point of hungry. The way he looked at her was scrambling Kelly’s brain. Momentarily dropping the uncooperative reins, she blurted out a bit too eagerly, “Try it with honey butter and hot sauce.”
He blinked in slow motion. So did she. Then he scooped up a wad of the sweet spread and slathered it on half a hunk of bread. The hot sauce was next. He picked it up off the lazy Susan in the middle of the table where she kept the salt and pepper along with a stack of colorful napkins, and checked out the label.
“Cholula,” he chuckled. “My god. I remember we went through sampler packs of this stuff like a kid plows through M&Ms.”
“We?”
Holding the bottle’s distinctive wood cap in one hand, he liberally applied the hot sauce to the cornbread. With a sardonic grin, he drawled, “Semper Fi.”
No further explanation was necessary, she thought with a quick smile. She eyed him with a fresh perspective. An ex-Marine. Of course. That would explain the neat haircut and superhero-looking brawn.
“Pardon the crude language but fuck yeah this is good,” he exclaimed. The whole piece of cornbread was gone in two enormous bites.
My word. How much fuel does an engine like his need?
“Family recipes are the best,” he murmured.
She watched in breathless silence as his tongue swept crumbs from lips that made her think of things she’d rather not.
“Uh, yeah. My mom. She had the cooking from scratch thing nailed down.”
He asked a series of casual sounding questions as they dug into the chili. The chit chat was calm, courteous, laid back.
“You mentioned your mom. Does she live here?”
The enormous spoonful of chili going into her mouth gave her a few moments to delay answering. He was fishing. If he knew her full name, he had to know Debbie was dead. Who was this guy?
She wasn’t one to play word games. Not enough practice, she supposed. A byproduct of living isolated from the rest of the world. “In a manner of speaking. She’s buried in the family plot.”
He nodded and shoveled more chili into his mouth. “And your son. The dinosaur lover. Where is he?”
How she kept chewing without choking to death was a miracle. Her son? Well, well, well. Mr. Roman Bishop didn’t know shit. It seemed to her like all he had was her full name and some town gossip.
She carefully swatted the question back his way. Instead of acknowledging Matty’s parentage, she asked, “Dinosaur lover?”
He gave a friendly enough smirk. “Dinosaur cup in the dish drainer and a T-Rex toy under a chair in the living room.”
The smile was natural. She couldn’t help it. He was an awesome kid. Sister? Mother? She was both.
“Ah, yes. Were you into dinosaurs as a kid, Mr. Bishop?” She was deliberately keeping her answer cheerful and light. “In this house, the prehistoric beasts share top billing with baseball.”
His eyes shone with amusement, and she wished she had the strength to look away.
“Would you believe that I was all about the stars? Dinosaurs were cool, but outer space rocked my boat. NASA and the shuttle was my thing.”
“How does a junior astronaut end up a Marine?”
“It’s worse than you imagine,” he offered. His chuckle was without mirth. “Rhodes Scholar, I’m afraid. All highbrow stuff. Fancy degree in philosophy.”
“Oh,” she snickered. “So you’re like the guys around here.”
“How so?”
She shrugged and chewed a chunky mouthful before reaching for a napkin to wipe her mouth.
“Not a lot of opportunity in these parts. Sometimes going into the service is the only option.” She speared him with a look. “Can’t imagine there’d be many job openings for philosophers.”
He didn’t bite, but he did circle to an earlier question.
“You never said where the boy is.”
“Matthew,” she told him. “Matty for short. He’s riding out the storm with friends.”
“And his father?”
He was kidding, right? Did he actually imagine she was going to offer up chapter and verse like a hypnosis volunteer?
“Not in the picture. And it’s none of your business.”
“Easy, luv. It was just a question.”
She sat back, crossed her legs and fixed him with a heated glare. Let’s see how much he likes being cross-examined.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-six.”
“Married?”
She noted his slight squirm.
“No.”
“Kids?”
Another squirm.
“None.”
“Who do you work for?”
Dead silence.
A niggling thought, one she kept carefully tethered in a private area inside her head, broke free. Searing cold danced along her spine. Was this man in black with the unusual mannerisms and speech connected to her father?
All her fears, each and every one, cascaded from her soul in a torrential rush. She’d worried almost from the moment of her mother’s untimely passing that the mysterious figure she was certain fathered her and Matty would wonder when Deb didn’t turn up at their disgusting liaisons. Would he send out feelers? Was Roman Bishop her father’s lackey?
The only thing keeping her in her seat was knowing Matty’s real situation was flying under the radar.
Oh, she knew the busybodies in Providence all assumed that when a baby turned up at the James farm, it was hers. Only Sam and Ginny knew the truth. And since Deb rarely if ever ventured into town and Kelly had long ago driven fifty miles in the other direction to take care of business, what the hell did anyone know?
It was a great thing, a really, really, really great thing that the asshole responsible for spawning her and Matty didn’t know the truth. And she planned to keep it that way.
She eyed the man across from her. The arrogance rolling off him hit her like a tsunami wave. Who the hell did he think he was? She rescued him from a storm. Made him a meal for fuck’s sake. And what had he done? Almost killed her and then showed off his interrogation skills. Asshole.
Oh! And the son-of-a-bitch didn’t have the balls to answer her last question. Seriously? She might be young, a measly female, short, and vastly inexperienced in real world situations, but cheese and crackers! She wasn’t a potted plant with no clue.
What. A. Dick.
“I believe the question you left hanging in mid-air was who the hell do you work for, Mr. Bishop?” Fuck him if he thought she was too young and silly to hit back and not back down.
“How do you know I work for anybody?”
Oh for heaven’s sake. This guy was unreal.
“I’m here in Providence to check out some property for sale. That’s all,” he said with a dismissive shrug.
“Points for quick thinking but give it a rest would you?”
Score one for the home team, she sniggered when he did a double take and his eyes widened from her overly stern tone.
A good five to eight minutes of intense eyeball combat ensued. She finished her chili and brushed crumbs from her placemat while never looking away. He was crazy nuts for challenging her, something she was sure he came to understand by the time she stood up. Stomping her feet so her jeans would relax she shoved both hands in the hoodie pouch.
Canting her head in the direction of the door she spoke in a calm firm voice. “Have animals to tend. You’re on clean-up duty.”
The way he leaped from his seat and his vehement, “Let me help,” didn’t get the reaction he expected when she put up her hand to stop him.
“Look. I would suggest that you fuck off and die but since that’s just wishful thinking and I’m stuck with you—for now,” she snarled heavily, “make yourself useful and stay out of my way.”
His hurt little boy expression reminded her of Matty. “But I can help. With the animals.”
She sighed heavily. “Is that so? When was the last time you fed chickens and goats?”
“Well, never,” he mumbled. “But you can’t do that by yourself, and I’m…”
She cut him off with a ferocious hoot of laughing outrage. “News flash. I do everything by myself. Shall we revisit the do not patronize me part of our fascinating conversation or can you just accept that’s what you’re doing and get the hell out of my way.”
“Wow.” He was smirking. She wanted to wipe the masculine leer off his face. “I get that there’s a lot you have to do. By yourself. But there are some things that most definitely require two people.”
Oh no he didn’t!
Did he?
Shit. She didn’t know, wasn’t sure. Innuendo and flirty talk wasn’t her thing.
“Shut up.”
He smirked some more.
Stomping away like Matty did when he didn’t get his way, Kelly grabbed a knit scarf and hat off the pegs by the door and fished some gloves from the pocket of a hanging jacket.
She wanted to fire back at him with all she had but bit her tongue. Holding her own against someone so much older and more knowledgeable was difficult enough. It would be suicide to give him more ammunition.
On her way to the back door, she turned suddenly and caught him staring at her ass. Whatever she thought to say melted on her tongue.
“Um, tea would be nice when I get back.”
And then she bolted, grabbing the snow shovel stowed outside so she could clear a path across the backyard to the animal pens. The snow was coming down so fast she could barely see. The dim bulb above the back door lent an odd glow to the scenery.
With a final look at the house, she pushed Roman Bishop and his murky reasons for invading her life into the background. Life in these hills had a way of being unforgiving, and she didn’t have the luxury of time or opportunity to do anything other than survive.
He felt trapped. By his own weakness, because that’s the only way he could explain his getting messier by the second feelings for a girl he was supposed to be handling in a professional capacity.
Unfortunately, handling her drool worthy ass was neither professional nor something that should even remotely exist in a realm of possibility.
But, that’s exactly where his thoughts dragged him.
Clearing their dishes from the table, he took them to the kitchen and stared blindly out the window above the sink. The snow was insane. It bothered the crap out of him that she was out there doing fuck knows what while he sat on the sidelines.
Part of him, a big part, had a hard time accepting that this was Kelly’s life. His assumptions hadn’t adequately prepared him for the reality. Especially not when he thought of Liam’s life of privilege. Sure, the luxury came from a shit ton of hard work, but still. His friend wasn’t going to like learning the blunt truth about his sister’s existence.
He could imagine Liam’s outrage. ‘And what did you do while she battled the snow to feed chickens?’
Roman grimaced. “What did I do? Well, hell. I did the dishes and made tea.”
Ugh. Is this what being a pussy feels like?
Wiping off his hands, he tossed the dishtowel on the counter and reached into his pocket. It took less than five seconds to realize he had zero signal and no chance of making a call from his current location. Dammit. He wanted Liam’s input. Conditions here were much different from anything they imagined. The sooner they got her away from here—her and the kid—the better.
When she asked who he worked for, he considered playing all his cards in one hand. Telling her the truth seemed the best way forward, but that wasn’t his call to make.
Frustrated, he shoved the phone back in his pocket, crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. Not sure what to do next, he ran some options in his head but came up empty.
He had questions, lots of them. Like how the hell she stayed off radar. If Cam hadn’t stumbled on the name change courtesy of Kelly’s mother he’d still be spinning his wheels searching for a person who no longer existed. Kelly James was very real, but from a digital footprint standpoint? She was a ghost. No school records. No social security. No driver’s license. How the fuck was that even possible? Shit. Not even witness protection was so shrouded in secrecy.
Matthew James. That’s the kid’s name, right? He nodded and glanced around. This time he saw plenty of evidence that there was a child in the house. Shoes by the door. A handful of crayon drawings hung with magnets on the refrigerator. A plastic shoebox overflowing with chunky building blocks sat on the kitchen counter.
Frankly, the visual stimulation was off the charts in this house. There was stuff everywhere. On the walls, every flat surface, you name it. He thought of his well-ordered life. Shit, man. He was so anal at times that lining up pens on his desk was something he did on the regular.
No need to instigate a psychological profile why. The military might be in the past, but the habits he picked up during that time continued to inform his life. Order was his baseline. His old Justice comrades at their compound in the Arizona desert understood this mindset. They called it the control switch. It grew out of some very fucked up times when enemy kills and shit-stomp-kicking the hell out of every day was their norm. Throwing the switch was part of what saved his life when the dark times came. Not being able to flip the switch put him at a disadvantage. Without control and order, he was flying blind.
Maybe that explained why his dick was hard.
Dude, his conscience scolded. This girl is a babe in the woods. Having a kid as a teenager doesn’t make her experienced. Back down. She’s too damn young and you? You’re one of those shades of fucked up people, only in your case it’s more like a thousand shades. And some fresh-faced kid, no matter how hot a piece of ass, wouldn’t survive ten minutes in the face of your particular brand of fucking.
Ouch.
Making a valiant effort to hold his confusion and unease at bay, he turned his attention to the task of making tea. She would continue to bristle and snarl unless he gave her something to think about. He didn’t want to lie but without the all clear from Liam, he didn’t have much choice.
But what if he went with a half truth? Debbie Jenkins, aka Debbie James, was the connector piece. Kelly’s lack of an Oklahoma twang, the references to a completely different area of the country, and especially the off radar factoid. That certainly wasn’t something a little kid could start. Her mother was the author of their invisible footprint.
He wondered what or how much Kelly knew about her mother’s background and made the decision to go down that road of questioning when she returned. If pressed, and he knew she intended to, he’d go so far as to offer up what he knew about Deb Jenkins James and Adam Ward.
A wayward random thought flashed in his head. He wanted to meet the kid. Matty. Kids were kind of cool and this one intrigued him. How old did Lil say he was? Four? That seemed like a good age.
The loud thuds of Kelly stomping her boots by the back door made him swing that way in anticipation. Oh shit. The tea. What the hell was wrong with him that he couldn’t produce a hot cup of tea when that was all she asked for?
He cranked the fire under the pot of water and willed it to heat up in a hurry. The sound of the door opening and closing firmly told him he was an epic fail as a tea master.
The failure zinged his pride.