Chapter 4
Tank
She hangs on like the road’s got teeth.
Tight. Locked up. Every time I lay the bike into a turn, her arms cinch harder around my middle, like she’s braced for steel and gravel instead of a clean curve through mountain road.
I keep my eyes on the blacktop.
Doesn’t stop me feeling every inch of her behind me.
Morning air cuts cold through the pines, mean enough to bite, but she’s all heat at my back even through leather.
Soft where I’m hard. All those tight little lines in her body telling me she’s still wound up bad.
Her helmet knocked between my shoulders the first few miles.
Still does now and then. Light tap. Shouldn’t mean a damn thing.
It does.
Last night she was shaking so hard I thought she might come apart in my arms. I got in that bed because she was ice cold and the drugs were tearing through her system. Because leaving her like that wasn’t happening. I kept it clean. Kept my hands where they needed to be and nowhere else.
Didn’t change a damn thing.
Having her tucked up against me did something I don’t like looking at too close.
She fit there too easy.
Small, warm, soft in all the places a man notices whether he wants to or not. For one half second before fear hit her full in the face, she melted back into me like her body knew I had her. Like she could rest there.
That half second has been under my skin ever since.
Now she’s riding a little better. Still scared. Still stiff. Still holding on like I’m the only thing keeping her off the pavement.
Maybe I am.
That thought hits me low and ugly.
I take the cut onto the logging road and feel her grip lock down harder, her body coming in closer behind me.
Christ.
The safe house sits back in the trees where we left it. Weathered cedar. Stone chimney. One story. Quiet enough to bury a man in. Far enough off the main road that nobody comes up here unless they mean to.
Good.
I kill the engine.
Silence drops hard.
For one second, she doesn’t let go.
Then her hands jerk away from my stomach like she touched a live wire.
I get off first and turn back. “You can get down.”
She swings her leg over too fast, boot slipping on loose gravel. I catch her elbow before she goes sideways.
She startles.
I let go at once.
Green eyes lift to mine. Wary. Too wide. Too tired.
I take my helmet off and jerk my chin toward the cabin. “Inside.”
She looks past me at the house. “Whose is it?”
“Ours.”
That gives her pause.
Fair enough.
I take her helmet when she fumbles with the strap and undo it myself. Her breath catches when my knuckles brush under her chin.
Mine damn near does too.
I get the helmet off and her hair falls down in a chestnut mess, flattened from the ride, tangled at the ends. She pushes it back from her face and looks away like she’s embarrassed by the state of it.
Jesus.
I turn toward the porch before I keep looking.
The lock sticks like it always does. I shoulder the door once and it gives.
Cold wood. Dust. Old smoke. That’s what the place smells like when nobody’s been in it for a while. Morning light cuts across the floor in pale stripes. Bed against the far wall. Coffee table. Small kitchen tucked into the back. Short hall to the bathroom.
She steps inside slowly, like she expects the room to spring a trap.
I shut the door behind us and set my keys on the counter.
“You can breathe.”
She looks at me. “I am breathing.”
Barely.
I let it pass.
“Tonight, the bed’s yours. I’ll take the floor.”
Her eyes flick toward the room, then back to me. “You don’t like beds?”
“I don’t like lamps.”
That almost gets a smile out of her.
Almost.
I cross to the wood stove by the chimney, crouch, and lay a fire. The cabin’s too cold and the old vents in this place barely push heat worth a damn. By the time I get a flame going, I can feel her watching me.
I don’t look up.
She moves to the window and lifts the curtain just enough to look out at the trees. Morning light catches the side of her face. Freckles over her nose. Skin still too pale. Mouth set tight like she’s holding herself together by force.
Too soft for auction rooms and private cabins and men with money in their hands.
My jaw tightens.
I look away and head for the kitchen. Coffee. Powdered creamer. Sugar. Good enough.
“You want some?”
She glances over at me, almost surprised the question is that simple.
“Coffee? Again?”
“Yeah.”
A beat passes.
“Fine. Why not?”
I start it brewing because doing something with my hands is smarter than standing here watching her in my space like it doesn’t mean anything.
The cabin settles around us while the coffee drips. Fire snapping low in the stove. Refrigerator clicking on. Wind moving through the pines outside.
She stays close to the counter but not too close, hands hanging awkward at her sides like she’s not sure where to put them.
I pour the coffee and hand one cup over.
Our fingers brush.
Small touch. Still enough to get my attention in a way I don’t like.
She wraps both hands around the mug and takes a careful sip. Her eyes close for half a second.
That hits harder than it should.
I lean back against the counter with my own cup.
She looks at me over the rim. Quiet. Thinking.
Then, “We never said names.”
Right.
I nod once. “No.”
Something in her shoulders eases. Just a little. Like the fact I noticed too matters.
She looks down at her coffee again, then back up. “I’m Julie.”
It fits her too well.
“Julie,” I say.
Her throat moves.
“And you?”
“Tank.”
Her brows pull together. “That your real name?”
“No.”
She waits.
I take another sip of coffee. “It’s Conrad.”
That tiny almost-smile touches her mouth again and disappears.
It lands in my chest like a fist.
She lowers the mug a little. “Why did you help me?”
Straight to it.
Because I looked at you once and knew I wasn’t walking away.
I keep my voice flat. “Because I know what it looks like when nobody’s coming.”
Her eyes lift fast.
Stillness settles between us.
“My stepfather and stepbrother sold me,” she says quietly.
No hesitation. No dressing it up.
My grip tightens once on the mug.
“I figured something happened.”
Her mouth twists. “That obvious?”
“Some things are.”
She looks away at that.
For a second I think she’ll shut down. Then she takes another sip and stares into the cup instead of at me.
“My mom died two years ago,” she says. “After that, it was just me taking care of everything. Bills. Food. Cleaning. My stepfather, Earl, drank. Travis, my stepbrother...” Her fingers tighten on the mug. “Travis liked making me feel small.”
My jaw locks.
I say nothing.
Sometimes silence is kinder than whatever else is waiting in a man’s mouth.
“I told them I was leaving,” she says. “They gave me some orange juice.” Her laugh is short and ugly. “That’s the last thing I remember before everything went soft.”
Something cold moves through me.
Kitchen table. One drunk bastard. One smirking coward. One girl trying to get out.
I can see it too easy.
“My parents died when I was ten,” I hear myself say.
Her head lifts.
“My brother too. Car wreck.” The words come old and flat. Safer that way. “My grandparents took me in after.”
She stays quiet.
I look past her, out the window, at the trees instead of her face.
“Should’ve been better than what it was,” I say. “Wasn’t. House ran on fists and fear.”
She studies me for a second. Not pitying. Thank Christ.
Just listening.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
A humorless breath leaves me. “Sorry doesn’t change the dead.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I know they came out rougher than I meant.
She hears the edge in them and doesn’t flinch.
“I know,” she says quietly.
That lands somewhere low and strange.
The room goes still again.
I finish my coffee and set the mug down.
“You can shower if you want. Bathroom’s down the hall. Towels should be in the closet. There’s spare clothes in the dresser. I’ll check outside.”
Her eyes flick to the window. “You think they found us already?”
“No.”
“Then why check?”
“Because that’s what I do.”
That one comes out too sharp. I see the tiny flinch she tries to hide.
Damn it.
I drag a hand over the back of my neck.
“Julie.”
She looks at me.
My voice comes rougher than I want. “You’re safe here.”
For a second, she just stares.
Not yet trusting me, but maybe wanting to.
That is enough for today.
She nods once and heads toward the hall.
I watch her go longer than I should.
Then I open the front door and step out into the cold.
Pine. Wind. Quiet.
She is in my safe house. Drinking my coffee. Using my shower.
It should feel temporary.
Manageable.
It doesn’t.
It feels like the beginning of trouble.
The kind a smart man avoids.
Maybe a smarter man would’ve kept his distance.
I was done for the second I saw her on that stage.