Chapter 31 Gabe
Gabe
I search for Taryn for at least an hour, cursing her for taking off like that, before I run into someone I don’t expect to see.
“She’s not here,” Barrett Hawke says, having just come around the corner between the bookstore and the market.
Never mind Taryn, or the fact that he seems to know where my stepsister is.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask, all suspicion. It’s been years since I last saw my uncle, and that wasn’t a nice meeting.
It ended with my father punching his brother and knocking him out. And if he hadn’t done it, I would have. Though I’m not sure I could have carried it off. I was a lot smaller at the time.
Barrett smirks like he knows something I don’t, and suddenly I want to hit him for myself.
“I do live here, grasshopper. In case you’ve forgotten. Grew up here and everything. Last time I checked, I had just as much right to be here as your father.”
My hands flex into fists, and I start to seriously consider whether I can put the man down.
It’s not that he’s ever done anything to me, personally.
It’s what he’s done to other people. The man has a habit of showing up at the most random times and making as much trouble as he can.
Usually for the women in town. I have a cousin who calls him dad and a stepcousin whose mother married the man, and I’ve watched him desert them both too many times to count.
A military man through and through, Barrett never could settle down.
Even when he had kids depending on him to do just that.
“And the last time I checked, the people who live here didn’t want you,” I reply.
He shrugs in that easy, charming way he’s always had and looks me up and down once. “You’ve gotten big. And that girl you’re chasing after took off with Sammy. In my truck, if I’m not mistaken.”
I have to fight the laugh that wants to bubble out of my throat.
Because that last line makes me think Sammy has stolen his truck. Again. Good for her.
“She took Taryn home?” I ask, wanting to have this conversation over.
He nods tersely. “And if you see her there, tell her I want my fucking truck back.”
I won’t tell her anything of the sort, because I’m on Sammy’s side. But I don’t say so. Because I’m too busy planning what I’m going to say to Taryn about leaving town without fucking telling me.
* * *
I storm into the house and right into the shop.
I wasn’t planning to come here first—I want to find Taryn and give her a piece of my mind—but I had an idea on the way home and I want to get it down on paper.
I pull down the huge roll of paper I use for brainstorming, spread it across one of the worktables, and start sketching.
On the way home, I was thinking about the tree I saw on the back lot yesterday, a sweet old oak, and realized that the trunk reminded me of an eagle with its wings spread.
Not an eagle in flight, but one on the ground, having just caught something.
Looking down at its feet. Beak open as it screams in victory.
I’ll lose it if I don’t sketch it immediately.
I’m in the middle of the rough strokes version when a pair of shoes appears on the other side of the table and I realize I’m not alone.
“Am I interrupting?” she asks.
Taryn.
I look up, trying to gather my mind back together and remember what the real world is like. “You left me in town,” I say, knowing I sound like a spoiled child. “You didn’t even tell me you were coming home.”
She gives me a look that says she doubts whether I have a brain in my head. “You told me to finish my shopping by myself and walked away from me, and you think I’m going to tell you where I’m going and what I’m doing?”
I hiss at that. “I wanted to talk to my friends! That doesn’t mean you can just go off and do whatever you want.”
She slams her palms down on the table and leans toward me, and her face is all sharp lines and sparking eyes.
“You walked away from me like I didn’t fucking matter, and you’re upset that I didn’t keep you updated on my plans?
Really? Because it looked to me like you didn’t give a single fuck what I was going to do with my afternoon, or how I was going to get home. ”
The statement slaps me across the face, and I nearly stagger with it. She thinks I don’t care about her? I would lie down and die for this girl, and she’s over there thinking I didn’t care how she got home?
Then I remember the afternoon.
I did tell her to finish her shopping on her own.
I did walk away from her.
Even when I knew I was hurting her.
Shit.
Instead of admitting that I might have been wrong, I look down at her hands, and the paper she’s slammed onto the table. “What’s that?”
I feel her temper rising, the air around us practically crackling with the heat of it, and for a moment I think I might be safer leaving. But then she starts talking.
“A marketing plan,” she says quietly. “I know your business is in trouble. I know your father isn’t doing anything about it.
But I have ideas for how you can save it.
A better online presence. Rebranding. We take what you do—all that personal design—and make it your brand.
Focus on who you two are as people. What you do.
Where the wood comes from. This kind of thing is so perfect for social media.
We could build a channel for you and people would come flocking to it, not only for the furniture, but for the stories. The personal aspect.”
I glance at the paper, which holds some sort of flow chart, and then up at her. “No one is going to look at a bunch of pictures of furniture, Little Bird.”
She slides the paper toward me, though, her face lighting up.
“Maybe not, but they will look at pictures of you. You chopping wood. You in here sketching. On a tree, measuring how it will all look. Your drawings. Your father at his desk, deep in thought. We make you two the focus, don’t you see?
We make you the sexy lumberjack that people want to follow.
Your father the professor who also builds tables.
People might not follow the furniture, but they will follow that. ”
She’s talking so fast that I can barely keep up, but my mind has snagged on one word. She flew past it so fast I’m sure she thought I missed it, but I didn’t.
“Sexy lumberjack? You think I’m a sexy lumberjack?”
She looks like a deer in the headlights at my question. Like a prey animal who was just caught outside the forest and doesn’t know how to get back to shelter before it’s destroyed by the hunter.
Then she pulls herself together.
“Of course not,” she says primly. “But if we set you up to look like one, people will believe it. And women love a sexy lumberjack.”
I place my palms down on the table and lean forward until we’re only inches apart and I can see her pupils blowing out with desire. Fuck me, this girl is everything. Smart and sexy and so fucking sassy. My best friend. The girl I’ve always wanted.
And evidently, she likes sexy lumberjacks.
Maybe I should start chopping wood in front of her more often.
“Liar,” I whisper.
Her mouth drops open, and for a moment I think she’s going to lean forward and kiss me right here in the workshop, for all the world to see.
Instead, she says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her voice is hoarse with lust, and dear God alive, I have to fight every instinct to keep from grabbing her, spreading her across the table, and feasting on her.
But I can’t fucking do any of that.
“Who’s going to take all these pictures of me being a sexy lumberjack?” I ask, opting for a slightly safer topic.
She shrugs. “Me. Obviously.”
Okay, that’s not safe at all. The thought of chopping wood while she takes pictures of me, my shirt on the ground next to me and sweat running down my chest as I drive the axe into the wood again and again...
Not safe. Not better.
Business, Gabe. You’re talking business. Not thinking about dragging her into the woods, bending her over a log, and taking her raw.
I draw back, wishing desperately for a cold shower.
“And what makes you think any of that will work?”
She backs off as well, but her cheeks are flushed and she’s breathing quickly. I’m not the only one working to contain myself.
“Actually, I’m a marketing major. I do this sort of stuff all the time. And this plan writes itself. If you guys will go for it.”
I frown, putting the pieces together. “But you’re here instead of at school. How close are you to graduating?” I count the number of years it should take to finish college, then adjust for her age.
She must be almost done, but not quite. She has to have at least one more semester. And being up here has to be interrupting that. I look closely at her and see from her face that it is. She’s hiding something.
Something to do with New York.
“You must have another semester left, at least. And it’s Christmas break, but you haven’t said anything about going home. What are you doing up here, Taryn?”
She tries to back off even more, but I reach over the table and grab her wrist before she can go.
I pull her around the table and to me, watching her the entire time.
She’s been shifty about answering this question, but I’m finished waiting.
Something isn’t adding up here, and I want to know what it is.
“What are you doing up here?” I ask again once she’s standing in front of me. “And why did you call my father rather than your mother? What are you running from?”
She opens her mouth like she’s going to answer, then shuts it again, biting her lip to keep something in, and suddenly I know.
“Your mother,” I say quietly. “You’re running from her.”
She presses her lips together but nods, and I keep guessing.
“She’s into something that scares you. And you want out.”
Another nod, and this one surprises me even less. Taryn has never been good enough for her mother, and she’s always wanted to escape her. But this is a girl who doesn’t back down from anything, and she’s legitimately frightened right now. Helen is a bitch, but she’s not scary.
Unless something has changed.
“Did she marry someone dangerous?” I breathe.
“Yes.”
The word is a whisper with a shake to it. The answer of a little girl hiding under the bed.
And holy fuck do I want to take her and tuck her into my shirt. Hold her against my body and promise her that no one will hurt her again. That I’ll throw my body down between her and whoever is trying to do anything to her.
I put my fingers to her cheek. “Tell me.”
She closes her eyes for a beat like she’s trying to marshal the words, and when she opens them, I can see that she’s going to tell me the truth—or at least as much of it as she can.
“She married a mobster,” she says quickly. “He’s associated with one of the biggest families in New York. He doesn’t like me, and she...”
“Won’t protect you.”
“Right. They didn’t know I was in jail, and I realized I could disappear.
Finally get away from them, and they wouldn’t know where I went.
But he... he... he must have cops on his pay, because somehow they figured out I was there.
And they arrived before your father. So I didn’t get away like I wanted. That’s...”
“That’s who’s been calling you and threatening you,” I guess. “Your mother. But why the fuck do they want you back so badly? Why won’t she leave you alone?”
Her eyes fill with tears, making the whiskey color even more prominent, and I swear on everything I hold dear that I’m going to kill Helen for frightening my girl like this. But I keep quiet and still. I need to know the whole truth.
“I have something they want,” she whispers.
Before I can ask what, she whirls away from me, tears streaming down her cheeks, and rushes toward the door.
In her haste, she brushes against the shelves by the door and sends a mug clattering to the floor.
It shatters into a million pieces, coffee shooting across the floor.
Taryn gasps and starts apologizing, immediately dropping to her knees to start cleaning up the glass.
And as I watch, she pauses, picks up a large shard of glass, and runs it quickly across her palm.
Then she does it again.
“What the fuck!” I curse. I rush over and slide to my knees, grabbing at her wrist before she can cut herself again.
Instead of stopping, she puts the fingers of her other hand to the cut and pushes at it, like she’s trying to make it bleed harder.
“Taryn!” I slap her other hand away, confused and horrified. What the fuck is going on here? What is she doing?
The cut is bleeding freely now, and I yank my shirt over my head and wrap it carefully around her hand. The shirt will be ruined, but I don’t care. I don’t want her bleeding all over the floor.
I want to know why the fuck she’s running the palm of her hand across a piece of glass, her eyes dazed like she’s in some sort of trance.
I pull her other hand to me and force it open until I can see the palm. She’s got scars here. Lots of them. They look like lifelines, but they’re not, and when I look up at her again, her eyes are on mine, and they’re full of fear and regret.
“Taryn,” I whisper. I drop her hand and put fingertips to her cheek, trying desperately to understand. “What happened to you? What’s going on?”
The look on her face morphs into desperation, and then horror, and before I know what’s happening she’s leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine. She tastes like coffee and tears. Sugar and something sharp and dangerous.
She’s everything I’ve ever wanted.
I try to pull her closer but she’s already gone, like mist in the night, slipping out of my arms and running for the door, leaving me kneeling on the floor among the shards of what once was a mug of coffee.