Thirteen
Noa
She was dead.
I stared at the wall as a numbness began to spread through me.
Dead. I couldn’t even say the word out loud.
Laying my phone down on the mattress, I wondered if I should call someone.
Who? I knew nothing about her life. Not now or ever really.
My eyes were dry. There was no surge of emotion.
Did that mean I was a bad person? She hadn’t been a good mother, but she’d still given me life.
That deserved something. A shred of grief. Possibly a tear or maybe a sob.
I glanced around the room, waiting on it to hit.
Nothing happened. Just the numbness.
I should call Jellie.
No, it was four in the morning. I didn’t want to wake her up. She would want me to though. But … but I didn’t want to talk about it. She’d ask me questions, and I’d have to repeat all I’d been told.
I dropped my gaze to my phone. I could text Ransom.
But after he’d hung up abruptly two days ago during our first-ever phone conversation, he’d not texted or called since.
I was trying to not take it personally. We often went days, even a week without texting.
But he’d called. And he was reading my book.
Dread, embarrassment, humiliation—all kinds of emotions hit with that thought. Proof I could feel.
I felt a lot where Ransom Carver was concerned.
Where my mother’s death was concerned, I had nothing.
I couldn’t even manage shame for not feeling anything.
My mother’s death, having to pack up and go to Madison, handle her burial or cremation, clean out her trailer—all the things I should be working out, but I shoved them aside, as if they were of no importance, to focus on my telling Ransom that I watched porn.
He had gotten off the phone with me fast after that.
No, I couldn’t text him. If he’d kept reading, then he was probably putting some distance between us since he now knew the things I’d fantasized doing to him or with him.
Flopping back down on the bed, I closed my eyes. The trilogy that had been a bestseller and entertained romance readers everywhere should be something I was proud of. Not something I regretted.
Yet … here I was … wanting the same boy I’d wanted ten years ago and worrying that I’d done something to lose what I never had.
Funny how I hadn’t noticed that when I needed to talk to someone, Arden hadn’t come to mind. Not once had I texted or called him with something. It was always Jellie I called, and then if it was a topic that I wasn’t hiding from Ransom, I’d text him about it. But never Arden.
Why had I said yes to him again?
Sighing heavily, I sat back up and went to my closet to pull out a suitcase.
I’d call Jellie tomorrow. She’d want to know.
She might even want to come to Madison to help me.
Not that I wanted her to see the trailer I’d grown up in or the condition it was most likely in now.
I might put off that call. Just until I got there and saw what I was dealing with.
There was no way I was staying in that trailer.
I’d get a hotel room. Maybe I should book my flight and hotel first. Then pack.
God, I couldn’t believe I had to go back and face this.
It had been easier to pretend she didn’t exist when she was alive.
Block out the past and the hurt. Her death was going to force me to face it all again. Remember.
A slight ache began in my chest, and I paused.
Was that it? The grief? I stood there, waiting, letting it sink in, and the pain spread.
Through my memories, my childhood, the mom I’d longed for but never had, my childish desire to please her once, and with it all came the grief.
But not for the woman who had died. But for the little girl who had never been loved.
I should probably see a therapist.
If I didn’t already need one, which I probably did, I was going to require one after this.
Dayton Anthony stepped into the office I’d been led to when I arrived at the Madison police station.
He was the one who had called me and told me that they had found my mom in a meth house that they busted.
She’d been dead on arrival, and the medical examiner estimated she had been for at least ten hours.
I stood up from the chair I’d been sitting in, feeling restless and needing to move.
His eyes widened for a moment, and then he hesitated. It confused me at first, but I realized then that he’d not seen me since high school. My pen name was a secret that my mother hadn’t known, and it hadn’t been spread throughout the town. To everyone here, I was just Noa Raines.
“I, uh—Noa?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s me.”
He blew out a breath and gave me a nervous smile. “Um, not the time for this, but you, uh … you look different. New York City must’ve been good to you.”
“I believe I was just a late bloomer,” I replied.
That was what Melinda, Jellie’s mom, had called my transformation.
He cleared his throat, then let out a small chuckle.
“Apparently so.” He stared at me for a moment, and the silence was getting awkward.
Then he blinked, as if realizing why I was here.
“Right. Okay, this isn’t required, but since you’re here, if you could, sign this form for your mom’s body to be released to the funeral home.
I already had them send her to Brighton since you were on your flight, but I didn’t know if you were planning on a cremation or not.
They’re waiting for your response. I told them to give you time to get here. ”
His thick Mississippi twang was something I’d almost forgotten.
Ransom had a drawl, but it wasn’t quite as strong.
I wondered if that was because of the difference in the way they had been raised.
Dayton hadn’t come from money. His father had been a coal miner, and his momma worked as a cook in the diner in town until she got pneumonia when he was thirteen.
She had never come home from the hospital.
I reached out and took the paper and pen he held out. Glancing over it before signing it was a habit I’d gotten from my literary agent. She always insisted I read the contracts even if she approved them. The information was already filled out, and I signed the bottom.
“If you want her cremated, Brighton can handle that. They will also obtain the death certificate. I have Joe Mates’s number right here,” he said, pulling out a card from his back pocket.
“He is who you’ll call to speak to about your wishes.
I wrote his cell number on the back. He is expecting your call.
” He paused and cleared his throat again.
“I didn’t figure you’d want to see the pictures of the scene. But I have them …” He trailed off, dropping his gaze to the floor, as if he wasn’t sure if he should have said that or not.
I would assume most daughters would be crying, falling apart, showing some sign of emotion. I wasn’t most daughters. I started to tell him that seeing the photos wasn’t necessary when the door swung open.
Ransom Carver filled the entrance, taking all other thoughts from my head.
His gaze scanned the room until his eyes locked on me.
They went back to Dayton with a slight narrowing.
What was he doing here? And why did my heart have to begin beating wildly in my chest at the sight of him?
I was dealing with my mother’s dead body, for heaven’s sake.
I shouldn’t be reacting to the sight of …
Ransom in a cowboy hat, jeans meant to stop traffic, and a black T-shirt that stretched over his broad, defined chest. Then his arms … the thick-cut biceps on display.
I was going to hell.
“Why are you here?” he demanded as his eyes met mine again.
“Uh, Mr. Carver, sir, this is a personal matter,” Dayton told him.
He ignored Dayton and raised a brow slightly as he waited on me to respond.
Was he here because I was? He’d come barging into this room. Why would he do that? I’d rented a car and driven it here from the airport. How would he have even known I was here?
“What are you doing here?” I countered.
His jaw flexed as he said nothing, but appeared to be waiting for me to answer him first.
“Mr. Carver, I’m going to have to ask yo—”
Ransom’s eyes didn’t leave me as he cut off Dayton. “Dayton, remember who you’re speaking to.”
The threat in his cold tone sent a shiver through me. Dayton didn’t say anything more, and I decided I’d better talk before he followed through on whatever threat he’d made just now.
“My mom’s dead. Dayton was with the officers who found her.”
Ransom’s face paled slightly, but it didn’t make him appear less intimidating.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Brighton,” I told him.
“I’ll take you.”
“I have a rental car.”
“I will take you. Come on.” He nodded his head, stepping back so that I could exit the room. He didn’t even glance over at Dayton again.
I started to obey, then stopped when I reached him. Why was I just doing what he told me to do? Because he made my heart race? That was a weak response. I didn’t want to be weak.
“Why are you here?” I asked him again.
His lips quirked at the corners ever so slightly, as if he was amused. “Because you are.”
I shook my head. “No. You didn’t know I was here.” How could he?
He stepped closer to me and lowered his head toward my ear. “There’s not much that happens in this town that I don’t know, Shakespeare.” The low, husky timbre made my body tingle in many different places.
A smart woman would go outside, get in her rental car, and handle this herself. But I wasn’t smart, it seemed, because when I looked back at Dayton, who was watching us with curiosity and trepidation in his gaze, I knew I was going to leave here with Ransom.
“Thank you for everything,” I told him.
He nodded once. “Of course. Again, I’m sorry about your loss. Even if …” He didn’t finish that sentence.
Dayton knew I hadn’t kept in contact with her often. He’d had to call me more than once about her because I didn’t answer her calls.
When I turned back to Ransom, he was glaring at Dayton as if he’d done something wrong.
“Let’s go,” I told him, wanting to get him out of this station.
Dayton didn’t deserve whatever animosity Ransom was directing at him.
His hand rested on my lower back, and I jolted from the touch.
A low chuckle came from Ransom. “Easy, Shakespeare.”
His palm remained on my back as we walked past others in the station. I didn’t make eye contact with anyone. I kept my focus straight ahead. It felt as if every set of eyes was following us, which was probably my imagination.
The cool autumn breeze that had found its way to Madison was still warmer than what I was used to this time of year in New York. I inhaled deeply through my nose and finally stopped walking once we were almost at the parking lot.
“I can drive my rental. You don’t have to take me. I’m clearly not an emotional wreck about this,” I told him.
“My truck is right there,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of it.
“And my rental is over there.” I pointed.
His fingers wrapped around my upper arm, and he began walking again toward his truck, forcing me to go with him.
“You don’t have to drag me,” I complained.
“Would you rather I pick you up and toss you over my shoulder?”
I cut my eyes up at him. “I’m too heavy for you to do that. Not a good threat.”
He stopped then, and his brows shot up as if I’d laid down a challenge. That was not what I had been doing. When he took a step toward me, I took one back, shaking my head. Surely, he was not about to try and pick me up. The humiliation from that would be more than I could handle.
“Don’t you da—”
Before the last word could leave my mouth, I was off my feet and draped over his shoulder. I stared down at the pavement, shocked into silence. Then we were moving.
He hadn’t even grunted. Was this man taking steroids?
A loud smack landed on my butt, and the spot began to sting.
“OW!” I shouted, then began to wiggle free, but his grip around my legs was strong and unmovable.
“Keep that up, and I’ll do it again.”
I stilled.
“You hit me,” I pointed out.
“No, Shakespeare. I spanked your ass.”
The damn tingles were back, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
“Same thing!” I argued, trying to gain control over my reactions to this man.
“No, it isn’t. Hitting is what bastards do out of anger. Spanking is what happens to bad girls. You were being difficult and got spanked.”
He stopped then, and I heard the door unlock before he opened it.
Then he leaned in and set me down on his leather seat.
When my butt was no longer in the air and I was upright again, I looked at him, expecting him to say something, then close the door.
But he didn’t move. He was close enough that I could smell the mint from his toothpaste on his breath.
“I didn’t do anything to get spanked for.” I tried to sound angry, but it came out a little breathless.
“Yeah, you did,” he replied. “You called yourself heavy. Don’t do that shit again.” Then he moved back, his eyes not leaving mine while he closed the door.
I sucked in air when he finally broke the contact and made his way around the front of the truck.
Every cell in my body felt as if it was buzzing with electricity. I crossed my legs to give the ache between them some friction. I needed to get myself under control. I was here to bury or cremate my mother. Not become some lust-driven hussy.
Had I really just used the word hussy ?
Sweet Jesus, someone save me from myself.