Chapter 21
JUDAH
Amelia was sleeping soundly as I removed the wood beam from the cabin door and turned the handle. I stole one last glance of her angelic face—blissfully resting without a care in the world—and slipped out.
The dawn air still had a crisp bite to it, but the lingering threat of humidity was right around the corner.
I shouldn’t have been going into the little town in the foothills.
Our supplies were well-stocked. The first forty-eight hours after running were always the most dangerous.
It’s when Valentine would have had the most men scouring up and down the East Coast for us.
But I couldn’t help myself. Not after watching Amelia sleep between stealing short catnaps for myself.
I shouldn’t have kissed her yesterday. I should have kept my fucking hands to myself. I should have continued to avoid her.
But I couldn’t.
All night long, I had replayed the way her fingers in my hair felt. The rhythm of her breaths. The frantic and unpracticed way she kissed me.
It was messy.
It was pure.
It was my damnation.
I wanted to lose myself in her.
It had been so long since I kissed someone just for the sake of kissing, not as the preamble to a quick fuck in a back alley where we’d both get off and never see each other again.
That was how I had to operate. I didn’t do relationships. Frankly, I tried to avoid sex as much as possible. But sometimes I just needed something to take the edge off when it got to be too much.
But Amelia . . . We had kissed for the sole purpose of her experiencing something new—something good when everything around us was hell—and nothing more.
Frankly, I was the last person who should have been kissing her. And yet, I didn’t regret it in the least.
I’d spent all night dozing off on the couch, then waking when thoughts of her crept into my dreams.
Right before dawn broke, I decided that I needed to go into town one more time.
I could make it quick.
Well—as quick as I could when I had to off-road down a mountain as part of a two-hour drive to the nearest bit of civilization.
I cranked up the truck, waited to see if Amelia would peer out of the curtains, and headed down the mountain.
By the time my tires hit a properly paved road, the sun was bursting through the trees in sharp flashes of daylight.
It should have been a bigger adjustment to be awake during daytime hours and asleep when the rest of the world was. Then again, I wasn’t able to sleep during the day, even when I was the thing that went bump in the night.
I hadn’t slept well in years, but when I was near her, I wanted to close my eyes and breathe deeply. I wanted to sink into the abyss of peaceful bliss.
But that’s exactly why I couldn’t.
I couldn’t get complacent. I couldn’t let my guard down.
I couldn’t risk her life because the craving for companionship I had shoved away time and time again had reared its head and mesmerized me with hypnotic eyes the color of blue jays, clear skies, and still waters.
I couldn’t have her, but I could do this for her. Something small. Something to make it a little easier.
The safe house was safe because it was in one of the most remote parts of the Monongahela National Forest. The downside was that it took forever to get to the nearest town that was big enough to have more than one store option.
Even taking the shortcuts and back roads that shaved off some time, it was a slow, lumbering drive.
And that was if the ground was dry. If it had rained, the chance of getting stuck was too great.
I took advantage of the daylight, scouting out the route for any signs that someone else had been nearby.
But there was nothing.
Just deer.
A little family of bears.
And nothing else.
It should have given me some peace of mind. Cole and I had secured this place in the event that the worst possible scenario happened. We had planned for every need. Every safety measure. But I didn’t like sitting in one place for too long. It made me antsy and anxious.
Then I thought about her.
The way her nose wrinkled at the thought of the outdoors. The way her bare feet hardly made a sound as she tiptoed across the cabin, trying to be as unintrusive as possible.
I thought about the way I sank into that couch and how my heart slowed as I watched her pace, trying to figure out what my name was.
And I had told her what it was because I was a lovestruck idiot.
All my training went out the window. Every cover story I had prepared because I worked for Valentine. All the lies I could have told her.
I told her my name because I wanted her to know who I was. For once, I didn’t want to be the shadow. I wanted to be the sun.
Undeniable. Unmistakable. Life-giving.
I wanted Amelia to see me.
Wanting her was a reckless desire.
The forest opened up and spat me onto a two-lane road. It led into a small town that sported a fast-food burger joint, a gas station, a small grocer, a farm and hardware store, the thrift shop I had been in yesterday, a used bookstore, and a Dollar General.
Because of course there was a Dollar General in the middle of fucking nowhere.
I backed into an open spot—just in case I needed to make a quick escape—and slipped into the Dollar General first, keeping my head down as I snagged a few things on my list.
The used bookstore was next. I didn’t know what Amelia was into, so I got a little of everything. And a dictionary, simply because she was a smartass.
I cracked a smile at the thought of her comment yesterday. Maybe I’d stick a bookmark on the page with the definition of “never.”
Never been kissed . . .
Frankly, I thought I had just done a shit job at digging up dirt on her previous partners. But never? She was a fucking catch. Gorgeous, smart, funny, witty. The two of us had only known each other for a bit under two weeks, but it felt like a lifetime.
Surely that was the lingering exhaustion talking.
If I got a full night of sleep, maybe my feelings for Dr. Amelia Hawthorne would go away.
But I had a hunch they were here to stay.
I tucked the stack of books under my arm and slid up to the front counter, where a bespectacled man—with three gray hairs combed over his otherwise shiny head—sat, watching the morning news on an old analog television.
“Find somethin’ good?” he asked as he thumbed through the stack I slid on the counter.
“Yes, sir,” I said as I pulled out a few bills I had stuffed in my pocket. Since I wasn’t sure how long we’d be here or if we’d have to move, Amelia and I were working on a tight budget. But these were necessities.
The man punched a few buttons on a dinosaur of a register and read out the total. Less than ten bucks. Nice.
I handed over a twenty and waited as he slowly counted out my change.
So. Fucking. Slowly.
My gaze drifted to the morning show, where the commercial break had just ended, as the perky host with a bouffant hairdo gave the camera a stern look.
“The search continues for a man authorities say may be connected to the disappearance of an Alcott University professor and her brother. Dr. Amelia Hawthorne was last seen leaving the apartment in New Haven, Connecticut, that she shares with her brother, Joel, on Friday evening. Joel was last seen entering his apartment Friday night. Neighbors called 911 on Saturday morning after noticing the apartment door was ajar and found signs of a struggle. Dr. Hawthorne’s car was later found abandoned outside of the Four Horsemen Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Surveillance footage from across the street shows a possible abduction in progress.
Authorities have identified the man in the video as Jude Graham, a Four Horsemen employee who previously served time for aggravated assault, armed robbery, unlicensed dealing in firearms, and extortion. ”
“Hold on, I’m short a dime,” the man said as he turned toward the TV, moving slower than molasses to grab a roll of coins.
My mugshot flashed on the screen as the newscaster read off phone numbers to call if I was spotted. You know—since I was armed and dangerous and all.
That was my cue to get gone.
The news report meant trips into town would have to be few and far between. When someone around here eventually realized I was the guy from the news, the woods wouldn’t just be crawling with cops.
I was out the door before the man even turned back around.
The drive back to the cabin was full of more evasive turns and alternate routes than I usually took. I constantly checked my rearview mirror, even after the forest had swallowed me whole once again.
Instead of parking in front of the cabin, I parked to the side, behind the giant pile of wood I had split yesterday while I attempted to avoid Amelia.
I set the shit I picked up in town on a log, then covered the truck with tarps, branches, and leaves until it looked as though it had been there all winter.
Amelia was awake when I slipped inside. She was sitting on the couch, staring listlessly at the wall as she chewed on her fingernail. “You should really leave a note or something when you leave,” she said softly. “I hate waking up and realizing I’m alone.”
It wasn’t fear in her voice that stopped me in my tracks. It was hurt.
“I won’t do it again.” When Amelia looked at me with wary mistrust, I added, “I promise.”
What I didn’t tell her was that it was because the hunt was on.
I set the Dollar General bag on the end table that covered the cellar entrance and pawed through it. “And if I have to, we have paper to leave notes now.”
That piqued her curiosity. Amelia glanced over her shoulder as I continued to rummage through the bag and handed her the journals and pens and pencils.
There were a few skeins of yarn and knitting needles.
Back when I had broken into her apartment, I’d spotted a knitting project.
I didn’t know if I had gotten the right kind of yarn or needles, but it was something to keep her busy.
I had gotten a few decks of playing cards too.
Anything I could find to keep her mind engaged.
I wanted her to stay sharp. She had to stay sharp because I had a feeling Amelia would be the key to getting us out of this mess. She just didn’t know it yet.
“You got books?” Amelia asked as her eyes danced over the spines.
“I wasn’t sure what you were into . . .” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I just . . . picked out a few things I thought you might like.”
She reached out and touched the stack, her lithe fingers lingering between a Whitney West romance and a thriller by Jordan Loft.
I thought she was going to take the thriller when she laughed. “You jackass.”
But it wasn’t mean-spirited. I wasn’t sure Amelia could be mean even if she tried.
Her amused snicker broke the fog looming over her head as she picked up the pocket dictionary I had paid a whopping ten cents for. “I wonder what the definition of ‘never’ is,” she mused.
I wanted to kiss that cocky smirk from her lips. I wanted to turn it to lips parted in an O as she gasped and those eyes rolled back in her head. I wanted to hear each heady breath as it slipped from her lips. I wanted the curious way her mouth explored mine.
I forced the thought out of my head. Instead of indulging another fantasy of her, I snagged an anthology of poetry and sat on the far side of the couch.
Amelia wrinkled her nose at my selection but didn’t say another word as she picked up a thick book on the history of baseball and curled back up in her corner.
The space between us was for the best.