Chapter 7 – Ben
Chapter
Seven
BEN
Moments later, I stepped out into the cold, the wind slapping against my unscarred cheek first, then burrowing deeper into the ruined nerve pathways of the other side. The scars tugged. They always did, in the cold.
I welcomed the sting. It reminded me that I was still alive, by some miracle or curse, depending on how you looked at it.
The sky was a bruised, deep purple, clouds hanging low, pregnant with ice that the weather man had issued warnings about.
I started down the path toward the service truck I’d staged for this moment. Jacob didn’t drive a blacked-out luxury SUV. Jacob drove a beat-up F-150 with tools clanking in the back and a dent in the bumper from backing into a pine tree last summer. I had to keep the act authentic.
I drove down the access road toward her, passed where she was pulled off on the shoulder, then whipped the truck around, being careful not to go so far as to reach the point where I might hit one of the caltrops, and pulled behind her car just as she stepped out of it, wrapped in her threadbare excuse for a jacket, hugging her arms against the cold.
Her hair was wind-tangled. Her breath fogged in the cold air. And her eyes… God. Those big brown eyes turned my blood to molten lava.
She looked right at me, squinting into the halo of my headlights, ignoring the dark, empty stretch of woods on either side of the road.
She looked like she was trying too hard not to fall apart, and it hit me just like it had that first time…
the magnetic pull between us. It was so sharp and merciless it stole my breath.
Fate had carved a deep, desperate need to have her into my very bones, and it was going to take every ounce of my self-control not to answer its call here and now.
I killed the engine, stepped out, and let the door slam shut behind me as I ambled toward her.
“Evenin’, ma’am,” I called out, pitching my voice lower, rougher, speaking the way Jacob, a work-roughened groundskeeper, would speak.
She froze.
I pushed my hood back off my head, figuring it would be better to go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off on this test, rather than drag things out.
Her lips parted. Her eyes widened, pupils dilating until black all but swallowed the warm brown of her irises.
Recognition flickered like a match in a pitch-black room.
Then, as if time was moving in slow motion, a pretty pink flush bloomed behind the constellation of freckles sprinkled across her cheeks.
She remembered me. Good.
Now, to see how she responded once the shock of recognition wore off. I held my breath, waiting to see what this little roll of the dice would reveal.
Then, she did what I hadn’t dared to hope for. She softened. She didn’t give me fear or revulsion, just surprise… and a hint of something else. Something that made my pulse hammer.
Her flush deepened and she licked her lips as she stared at me. Was that… attraction?
No, I didn’t dare hope for that. Not yet.
“We’ve met before, haven’t we? You’re Jacob, aren’t you?” she breathed.
Jesus Christ.
I wasn’t prepared for that at all. My pulse slammed so hard it almost staggered me. She remembered me.
Four years later, after one brief encounter with a man with a bloody hand and a scarred face… she remembered me.
I kept my voice steady.
“Yeah. That’s me, and you’re Chrissy Jones, if memory serves me.”
Her gaze swept my face, barely skating over the scar twisting down the side of it and locking onto my eyes instead. When she did, her expression softened in a way I wasn’t prepared for. She didn’t regard me with fear or caution. No, she looked almost… relieved to see me.
“I thought—” She bit her lip and shook her head. “I thought maybe I imagined you that day in the hardware store, since I never saw you again… until now.”
I swallowed a laugh. If only she knew how many times she’d almost seen me again over the past four years.
“No… you didn’t imagine me,” I said quietly.
Her breath caught.
Good.
“What’re you doing out here?” she asked. “On this road?”
Working very, very hard to make you mine in the only way I know how, given our current circumstances.
“I maintain the lodge grounds,” I said, and it was true. I’d insisted on working alongside my staff ever since I woke up from my coma. “I live on-site and was coming down to check the gate down by the county road, for Mr. Stonewood, when I saw your car.”
She blew out a shaky breath, hands sliding into her pockets.
“I’m glad it was you who found me.”
God help me, I almost reached for her. Instead, I shook off the urge and kept my distance. I blinked at her and cocked my head.
“You really remember me from that day at Stonewood Hardware?”
She bit her lip and I had to stifle a groan.
“How could I forget? You were bleeding like a stuck pig, and the two idiots behind the counter were just staring at you like a couple of dumbasses. It still pisses me off when I think about how they treated you that day.”
I chuckled and stepped toward her, my boots crunching on the worn asphalt, and was once again pleasantly surprised when she didn’t instinctively recoil like most people would in her position.
“They were just dumb, superstitious teenagers.”
“They were pure fucking rude, and it was unacceptable. They should have been ashamed of the way they behaved.”
I shrugged it off and turned my attention to her car.
“Looks like you got a flat,” I said. “Mind if I give you a hand?”
She inhaled a sharp, shaky breath and offered me a grateful smile.
“I’d really appreciate that… thank you.”
Chrissy crouched beside the car to examine the damage, palms braced on her knees, eyes narrowed at the offending tire in exhausted fury.
“Seriously? Today?” she muttered. “This is just fucking perfect.”
I crouched beside her and sized up the situation.
Her tire was shredded, not just punctured, but entirely ruined.
The rim wasn’t bent because she wasn’t fool enough to drive on it for long after the tire blew out, but the tire itself was in ribbons and steaming faintly in the cold, wet air. We both stood up again, but she was still glaring at the shredded tire.
“You’re late for the Game. Mr. Stonewood won’t like that,” I said.
She scowled.
“My tire exploded. I think that’s a pretty valid excuse.”
“Mr. Stonewood won’t see it that way.”
Chrissy threw both hands up.
“What would he want me to do, go back in time? If he wants to punish me for something that wasn’t my fault, fine. What’s he going to do, anyway, spank me?”
I flexed my fingers against my thigh, trying my best to hide the way my fingers twitched at the thought of doing exactly that. She had no idea how close she was to the truth, and maybe it was sick and twisted of me, but I was enjoying the hell out of it.
I stepped closer, letting her feel the heat rolling off me before I spoke.
“He’ll do whatever he wants to you,” I murmured, my voice scraping low. “Because you agreed to that and more.”
Her breath hitched, the smallest, most delicious sound.
“Excuse me?” she whispered.
“You signed a contract when you accepted your invitation to participate in the Game,” I said. “Did you read it closely?”
She looked away for half a heartbeat, more than enough to damn her.
“I skimmed it,” she muttered.
Of course she did. Of course, the woman who metaphorically threw herself into burning buildings for people she loved didn’t read the fine print.
“That contract is binding,” I told her. “Every rule. Every consequence. If you knew what was good for you, you’d have read every word.”
Her throat worked as she swallowed.
“What kind of consequences?” she asked, voice softer now, warier.
I let the truth slip between us like a blade through silk.
“Whatever the Game demands,” I said. “Whatever Mr. Stonewood demands.”
Her lips parted, but what I saw in those big brown eyes wasn’t fear. No, my girl was intrigued.
Perfect.
Then, she cleared her throat and changed the subject.
“Can you tow my car?” she asked finally, voice small but steady.
“I can,” I said. “But if we wait to hook it up now, you’ll be even later. I can take you to the lodge first, then bring the car up after.”
She hesitated, then nodded.
I offered her a smile.
“Good girl. Let’s get your things and get you in the truck, huh?”
She blushed and bit her lip as she used her key fob to pop the trunk and pass me her suitcase. Then she shut the trunk, grabbed her handbag from the front, and handed me the keys to her car.
“If you’re coming back to get the car, you’ll need the keys.”
I nodded, took them and the case from her and strode over, putting the suitcase in the bed of the work truck.
Then, I turned and opened the passenger door of the truck for her, offering her a hand to help her up. She took it without hesitation, stepped up, and her knee brushed my thigh, creating a soft, accidental spark that lit me up like gasoline.
Inside the cab, she looked over at me with those big brown eyes that ruined me once and were about to ruin me again.
“Do I stand the slightest chance of winning the Game, Jacob, or is this just a fool’s errand?” she asked quietly.
I kept my gaze on the windshield as I put the truck in drive and started rolling toward the lodge.
“I think you have as good a chance at winning as anybody else does. For what it’s worth, I’m rooting for you.”
She frowned. Good. Confusion meant she was already thinking too much.
“You’re rooting for me? Why?”
The truck rumbled forward, headlights cutting through the rising fog as cold rain misted the windshield. After a long moment, I sighed.
“You helped me that day,” I said. “At the hardware store.”
She blinked at me, looking almost owlish and entirely nonplussed, so I continued.
“I cut myself,” I said.
“I remember.”
“You didn’t even hesitate to help me. No fear. No disgust.” My grip tightened on the wheel. “Most people look at me and see the scars first.”
“I didn’t,” she whispered.
You have no idea what you did to me that day.