4. Vengeance upon Your Children’s Children
Vengeance upon Your Children’s Children
Josie
When I come back to the world again, I’m staring at the slow-moving blades of a ceiling fan so out of date it’s probably about to come back in style. Too bad it looks like it might fall out of the ceiling first.
I blink a few times, taking stock. Of my surroundings. Of myself.
I don’t immediately know where I am.
I feel...not great. Nauseated, a headache forming at the top of my skull, and hot.
Hot. This sensation brings the afternoon’s events back in a jumbled mess of memories.
Handcuffs in the back of a cop car.
The oystershell driveway crunching under my flip-flops.
A gorgeous white sailboat at the end of a splintery dock.
Jacob’s text and the drive to Kilmarnock and—
Wyatt.
The man responsible for me being in handcuffs. The one who called the cops on me, then let me sit in a hot car while he signed autographs before finally changing his mind and deciding not to press charges for trespassing.
And now it appears that I’m inside his tiny murder cottage underneath his wobbly murder-cottage fan.
And if I’m inside, someone carried me. The cops, I assume, since Wyatt was on crutches. The idea of being touched like that by men I barely know, especially while I’m unconscious, makes my stomach riot.
It was just to bring you inside , I tell myself, but squirming, dark feelings have my heart racing. I draw in a slow breath.
“You’re awake,” a voice says.
Even without seeing his face, I know the voice belongs to Wyatt.
I’m not sure why I recognize it at all, but it is lodged inside me like a piece of shrapnel.
The timbre of it is deep and throaty with the slightest bit of roughness.
The kind of voice I’d love to hear narrating audiobooks—if it weren’t actually Wyatt reading them.
He actually sounds relieved. Surprising.
I don’t turn my head. I need to collect myself a little more before facing the beast. “Sorry to say, your plan to kill me failed.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you.” I can hear the frown in his voice.
“Right—you just wanted me arrested and left in the back of a hot car. The cops are gone?”
“Yes. How do you feel?”
“Somewhere between flame broiled and blackened,” I say.
Which is true. But I’m also very happy to know Officer Eyebrows and his Boy Wonder sidekick are gone. I wouldn’t want to look at them after knowing one or both of them carried my limp body inside.
Slowly and carefully, I sit up. Thankfully, the dizziness is mild, and there are no more black spots threatening to steal my vision. But my head pounds like there’s a second heart in there, beating angrily.
I’m still not ready to look at Wyatt, so instead, I glance around the room.
Despite the run-down exterior, the inside of the cottage is clean, though small and woefully in need of some TLC.
We’re in a living room. The front door is just to the left of the couch where I’m seated.
The hardwood floors are narrow planked and slightly warped, with water stains here and there, and the wood is darker in some places where furniture might have sat for years.
It has the musty scent of an older home, but a faint, rotting smell lingers underneath.
The walls are a dingy white. No pictures or paintings, just a few nails or holes where they apparently used to hang.
The windows have ratty curtains that resemble oversize doilies, a perfect companion for the faded floral furniture.
The newest thing in the room is a large flat-screen television sitting on an old dresser that’s missing a few knobs.
My gaze finally lands on Wyatt. More specifically, the black boot encasing one of his feet. He’s leaning against the wall across the room, crutches propped up next to him. When I look up and meet his eyes, his gray irises are like harbingers of a storm.
It’s the same expression he always wears when he looks at me. As though I’ve somehow committed a personal affront just by my mere existence.
He looks terrible . Still unfairly handsome but really not good.
His normally dirty-blond hair just looks dirty. It either darkened since the last time I saw him, or it’s in serious need of a good wash. His olive complexion looks sallow and waxy, like he has been living in an underground bunker for six months without seeing sunlight.
Which makes no sense considering the waterfront location with a gorgeous sailboat ready and waiting to be, you know— sailed. Though his crutches probably have something to do with how he looks.
Why is he on crutches? A sprain? Fracture? Something else?
I suddenly notice what I should have seen right away. Wyatt has stubble. His cheeks and jaw are covered with what falls somewhere between a five-o’clock shadow and a short beard.
This is more out of place than the walking boot and crutches.
I’ve never seen Wyatt anything other than clean-shaven. To the point I once asked my brother if Wyatt keeps a travel razor in his car in case of a stubble emergency. Jacob laughed, but he didn’t give me a straight answer, so I’ve held it as canon ever since.
The scruff doesn’t look bad—shockingly good, actually—but it does make me concerned.
Not an emotion I usually—okay, ever—have when it comes to Wyatt.
His expression is tight, his grumpiness amplified into something almost threatening. His jaw is clenched so hard I bet he could turn coal into shiny diamonds right between his molars.
I clear my throat and ask, “Are you okay?”
Of course Wyatt’s okay.
And remember—you don’t care , I tell myself. Though I shouldn’t need the reminder.
It’s the nurse in me. I’ve taken an oath to help people—even surly ones who just had me put in handcuffs. Not that nurses sign the Hippocratic oath, but it’s generally understood that our job is to help rather than harm.
And Wyatt appears to be in need of great help.
“I’m fine,” he finally grits out, and I swear I can hear his teeth grinding as he clamps his mouth shut again.
Typical Wyatt-speak. Possibly IBS induced. Or maybe it’s not an irritable bowel thing but just an irritable personality one. Not IBS but IPS—irritable personality syndrome.
“Great,” I say with a little more sarcasm than I’d typically use. Not sure whether to blame the man or the heat exhaustion. “I’m a little less fine, what with the unlawful arrest—”
“They just detained you,” he says.
“Semantics. Whatever they technically want to call it, all I know is that I was put in the back of a cop car in handcuffs.”
I wait for an apology that I know will never come.
It doesn’t. Wyatt simply stands there, looking sweaty and miserable and like someone poured expired milk in his cereal.
I remind myself that this is Wyatt . The grouchiest of grouches himself. On the ice, this really works for him—from what I’ve heard. According to my brother, Wyatt channels all his surliness onto the ice. He even picked up a new nickname in Boston: Oscar.
As in: the Grouch.
Despite my lack of interest in sports, I do use social media, and I once ran across a video of fans wearing shirts that featured Oscar the Grouch peeking out from his trash can with a hockey stick and a Boston jersey with Wyatt’s number.
I’m not sure whether those shirts were aboveboard from a licensing perspective, but who cares?
I immediately bought one. Even if I’ve only ever worn it to sleep in, lest anyone find out that I own it.
Because the cringe part of the new name is that his ladyfans now refer to themselves as Grouchies. As in, groupies for the Grouch. I’m definitely no Grouchie, but I do love the shirt. It’s just so...fitting.
The shirt is packed in my bag, I remember with no small amount of discomfort. As though somehow Wyatt will sense its existence.
It’s at this moment I realize Wyatt and I are—perhaps for the first time ever—alone in a room together.
My mouth goes dry, and I don’t think it’s just the heat this time. It’s a strange surge of nerves, exacerbated by his cool gray gaze and permafrown.
“We skipped right over the pleasantries,” I say. “Hello, Wyatt.”
He gives me the smallest of nods. “Josie.”
The way he says my name makes my stomach twist uncomfortably. Or maybe that’s just a remnant of the heat exhaustion. I can’t read his tone, but it’s definitely not neutral.
“I’d say it’s good to see you again,” I tell him, “but...” I shrug.
“But it isn’t,” he finishes for me. Or is he agreeing with me? Probably both.
“You didn’t have to roll out the red carpet of the law to welcome me. Answering the door would have been just fine.”
“You didn’t knock,” he says, like this is the most logical explanation for calling the cops. “You were wandering around the yard, taking pictures.”
“Ah. Criminal activity for sure.”
“I thought you were a reporter.”
“A reporter?” I snort. “You’re not that important.”
He says nothing to this, probably because he vehemently disagrees with my assessment.
And he’d be right.
I know Wyatt is a big deal. Though this place is too far out of the way to be crawling with paparazzi, it wouldn’t shock me if some enterprising sports reporter drove out here hoping for a story. Or something else. I can imagine Grouchies lined up outside the door or peeking in the windows.
Hockey fans aren’t unlike the fans of any major sport—they can be obsessive to a degree that frightens me, and there is a distinct percentage of fans who would cross a lot of moral and ethical lines to get close.
Or to brag about spending time—or the night—with a player.
But wait—Wyatt thought I was a reporter?
As in, he really didn’t recognize me?
I hadn’t considered the extent of how insulting this is until now.