Chapter 3

Can’t trust a woman named Natasha. Natasha spelled backwards is ‘Ah Satan.’

-Lark’s inner thoughts

Lark

3 weeks later

Getting a job at the local grocery store, as well as the Taco Shop, helped.

Kind of.

I now had money left over at the end of the bills—which, I might add, were astronomical. How was it even possible for a woman—the woman whose life I’d slipped into—who had only been established in a place such as Hostel, Texas for such a short time to rack up bills like she had?

She wasn’t just behind one car payment. She’d been behind four. Five by the time I’d realized that she was, and tried to catch up.

Unfortunately, before I could get it all straightened out, it was repossessed due to non-payment.

Which was unfortunate seeing as I had mailed in my payment the day before. I’d even tried to convince the repo-man—the oh, my God he’s fucking beautiful repo-man—of that, but he didn’t believe me.

Seriously, if there was one thing on this Earth that could be considered a silver lining in the storm cloud of this situation, it was getting to see first-hand the incredible hotness of the man who had repossessed my car.

Now, he was all I could think about, and it was starting to get on my last nerve.

The first time my car was repossessed, I hadn’t been expecting to find an attractive man. I expected some nasty, old, fat dude with a balding head and a half-finished cigar hanging out of his mouth.

What I found instead was a tall man wearing coveralls, half on and tied around his waist with the sleeves. His broad back was covered with a tight, red t-shirt that had grass on the back.

His collar-length, thick brown hair was a little sweaty at the ends, causing them to twist into the most adorable curls I’d ever seen on a man.

He turned around at the sound of my feet tapping lightly on the pavement as I made my way to him, and I’d gotten lost.

He’d been muscular from the back, but from the front—with the way his tight t-shirt hugged his toned body—I could tell that he was no slacker in the work department.

His forearms had been what drew my attention first.

In my old life, I’d been a phlebotomist. The bigger and juicier the veins, the more appealing a man became.

This man, though?

He had not just one good vein, but dozens of them.

By the time I’d been able to peel my eyes away from those muscular forearms, I stalled again on his tattooed-to-the-elbows biceps.

He had rings of sweat under his armpits that made the red t-shirt he was wearing appear even darker.

Before I could even get to his face, though, he turned around to continue what he was doing, allowing me a moment to gather my wits.

Once I got myself together, I proceeded to beg him not to take my car because not only did it have all my clothes in it that I had planned to take to the laundromat that evening, but it also had my next week’s worth of groceries, sans the cold stuff that Francine had allowed me to store in the industrial fridge at the Taco Shop.

He ignored me.

When I touched him to get his attention, he practically kicked my hand off of him, and I’d fallen back on my butt as tears stung my eyes.

I tried to fight off those tears, but I still wound up crying like a baby. Which, of course, just made him feel sorry for me.

That had the same effect on me that it always had, which was essentially to light a fire under my ass.

I despised pity.

A knock sounded at my door, pulling me from my contemplations of the man and his pity.

I immediately cringed.

Knocking on my door at seven thirty on a Saturday morning could only mean one thing. Harold Higginbotham. The banker and my neighbor—who also happened to be my landlord.

He was an asshole and a half, and I fucking hated his guts.

If this was why the woman before me had left so abruptly without paying any of her bills, then I knew why she did it.

Harold had been the bane of my existence since I’d arrived in Hostel four weeks ago.

At first, he’d only been the man that was my point of contact in the city. The man that, should I have any questions or concerns, I could go to for help.

Well, fuck that.

I wanted nothing to do with the man, and I wondered how in the hell the nice men who’d gotten me out of my previous situation didn’t know that Harold was a piece of shit—the biggest piece of shit that I’d ever met.

And that was really saying something.

I had an ex who was a real doozy.

Bending over to grab the previous night’s jeans, I slipped them on, buttoned them up and grabbed a sweatshirt from the pile of clothes on the chair and slipped it on.

Once I arrived at the door, I was covered from head-to-toe.

Why, you ask, was I covered from head-to-toe while inside my place that was probably eighty-five degrees?

Because Harold was a fucking sicko.

He took every possible chance he could to leer at my body, and when he didn’t have that, he touched me.

I’d rather a touch than a leer, though. At least at this point.

Nothing was overly inappropriate…yet.

“Harold,” I smiled at him. “How can I help you?”

Harold was angry. That I could tell within the first twenty seconds.

“You didn’t mow the lawn to the required length for the HOA.”

The HOA.

If I never heard those letters again in my life, it’d be too soon.

The HOA—better known as the homeowner's association—was meant to be something that kept a neighborhood beautiful by enforcing a set of rules every homeowner agreed to upon moving into their new home.

I should know. In my previous life, I’d been on my community’s HOA board. Along with a few other people, one of those including my ex-husband.

Mainly the only thing we got bent out of shape for was when abandoned cars were left out in the open for people to stare at or when a lawn became overgrown.

This stupid bullshit that Harold was always spouting?

Today, it was the lawn—which I’d mowed yesterday, thanks to my other neighbor who let me borrow his lawnmower if I mowed his side, too.

Yesterday, it’d been because I’d planted purple flowers.

Purple. Flowers.

Yes, you heard that correctly. Purple fucking flowers.

Apparently, the color purple wasn’t an approved color for the HOA and our community.

Stupid prick.

He’d been the one to tell me that my yard wasn’t decorated, and that I’d get a fine of fifty dollars if I didn’t have some ‘ornamentation’ by the weekend.

Then, when I’d planted that ornamentation, he’d told me that color wasn’t allowed.

What in the actual fuck? Was he on some power trip or something?

Though, that wasn’t the worst thing about him.

Not only was he my landlord, and harassing me by using the HOA, but he was also the same man who ‘lost’ my car payment.

Which was complete bullshit. I had pawned the last thing that I owned of any value to my name—my grandmother’s wedding ring—netting me thirty-five hundred dollars. With that money, I then went to the bank and got a cashier’s check and walked it straight to Harold’s office.

He’d, of course, found it, but not before he ordered my car to be repossessed. Again.

Fucker.

I hated him, and I wanted nothing more than to punch him in his stupid ugly face.

But I couldn’t.

Because this was my new beginning. This was the place that I could hide out from my ex-husband—a man who was scarier than all others, including this piece of shit.

So, I’d deal with Harold. I’d deal with the stupid HOA giving me stupid fines for something that didn’t matter. And I’d deal with my car.

Because it was either that, or I was dead.

And I didn’t want to be dead.

I’d tried it once. It wasn’t for me.