Chapter 20
20
Sloane
“Wait.”
My first instinct upon hearing Davis’s request is to comply. Especially when my heart is pounding this fast and my mouth is dry and my legs are shaking and when obeying was ingrained in me from early, early, early in my childhood.
Someone uses an authoritative voice to tell you to do something, you do it. You’re not in charge. They are.
And there are consequences when you’re disobedient.
I fight through the urge to comply, through the urge to do what he says, to listen to my body yelling that it’s dangerous to disobey, and I don’t wait .
I keep walking toward the camper. I need to gather my things and ask Giselle if she’ll give me a ride into town.
The sheriff told me I can get back into my house tomorrow or Friday. So I just need to stay with Tillie Jean or Annika for a night.
Maybe longer, depending on how much time it takes to clean my house up.
Which I will not be afraid of.
I won’t.
I’ll be strong while I get through the rest of this.
Leaves rustle behind me, and then Davis is in front of me. “I’ll show you my family tree.”
“Not interested.”
“Sloane—”
“ I am not interested . I don’t want one part of your secrets. If you want my help, you have to give me everything you have. The days of me being satisfied with breadcrumbs are over. And don’t think I’ll settle for a single loaf either. That’s not enough. I want the whole fucking bakery. And I don’t mean you and me naked. I mean full partner in the treasure hunt. You get me?”
Peggy meows softly, like she’s alerting me that my blood pressure is getting dangerously high.
As if I can’t tell by the buzzing in my ears and the narrowing in my vision.
I don’t do this.
I don’t yell at people who help me. I don’t tell my boss I’m taking the next two days off of work because finding a treasure is the most important thing in my life.
I smile. I have fun. I make friends. I hide the darker parts of myself and tell myself I don’t need to feel guilt or shame for existing, that if God is real, he’ll know I did my best.
But my museum was broken into. My house was trashed. I’m getting fake-married to a man who wants my help and is willing to give me orgasms but not willing to give me his real motivations to find what he wants my help finding.
I’ve hit my breaking point.
I’m finding the damn treasure.
I’m taking care of myself.
I’m putting an end to all of this.
Now.
Davis stares down at me in the darkness, and I hear a joint pop.
Probably a knuckle. Came from the general vicinity of his hands.
I don’t bother looking to see if he’s clenching them.
The fact that he’s breathing heavily is confirmation enough that he’s irritated too.
“I get you,” he finally says.
I lift my brows at him.
Another knuckle pops.
He breaks eye contact with me to look around. “Giselle?”
“What?” comes a response from much closer than I expected.
“Get lost.”
“I don’t take orders from you.”
So this is what a truly frustrated Davis Remington looks like.
Flaring nostrils.
Flat lips.
Angry eyes.
It’s hot.
No.
No .
Angry men aren’t hot. They’re asshole little babies who need to learn to control their tempers.
Except I’m starting to wonder if that’s what Davis does all the time.
I’ve never encountered anyone quite like him before. Someone whose facial expressions don’t give anything away until he’s in his natural element, and even then, you wonder if he’s only letting you see what he wants to let you see.
Someone who always seems loose-limbed and relaxed, but not relaxed at the same time.
Like, alert-relaxed. Ready-relaxed.
Stop it, Sloane .
Men don’t get the benefit of the doubt from me anymore.
Especially men with closely guarded secrets that they dangle like carrots to get what they want.
Carrots like orgasms.
I shake my head and step around him while Peggy meows louder. “I’m getting my things, and I’m leaving.”
If I can’t use my own car tonight, I can borrow Tillie Jean’s or Annika’s.
I’ll head into the city. Get a hotel room as far away as I can from wherever Nigel’s working. Be anonymous for the weekend.
Georgia, Grady’s former extra baker at Crow’s Nest, moved to the city to live with one of Cooper’s teammates last year. I could hang out with her. I miss her.
“Secrets in the wrong hands hurt people,” Davis says.
“Everything can hurt people.”
I start to step around him, and that’s when I realize something’s off.
It’s not anything I see.
It’s just something I sense.
And that’s all the warning I have—that one little premonition that something is wrong —before sparks explode in the campfire and something thick and hairy and heavy lands on my head.
I scream and drop Peggy.
The thing on my head hisses and clutches my hair as I spin and scream again. “Get off! Get off! ”
“ Sloane .” Davis’s voice is distant, like I’m in a tunnel.
Where’s my cat?
What’s on my head?
Does it have teeth?
Oh my god. It has to have teeth.
Something tackles me, and then I’m eating dirt and leaves, all of the air leaving my lungs.
The weight on my head is gone, but there’s a body lying on top of me, and its weight is also twisting and heavy.
Davis.
It’s Davis.
He’s grunting. “ Stop throwing things. ”
“I’m not throwing things!”
“Not— gah —you!”
A flashlight spins above us and light off of the fire makes shadows dance around us too, then there’s another shower of sparks.
“Giselle?” I gasp.
She doesn’t answer.
Nearby, anyway.
She’s yelling somewhere else. “Get lost , you fucking mangy assholes. Why is it always vermin? Why is it always vermin? Swear to god, if I don’t get a good bonus this year, I’m taking Aspen up on that offer to fund my vigilante era.”
Something hits my cheek.
Something else hits my shoulder.
The weight on me rolls off, and I spot Davis grabbing a firewood log and spinning in a circle, looking for?—
Actually, I don’t know what he’s looking for.
Or what’s going on with his hair.
There’s something weird about his hair.
And— “ Peggy .”
I start to rise, but he shoves me back down while he circles me. “Under the camper. Neutralize the threat first.”
“ Neutralize the threat? ”
Something whizzes overhead, then more sparks explode in the campfire.
“Where the fuck are you, you little assholes?” Giselle growls somewhere nearby but not nearly close enough.
There’s a creak in the night, then skittering like claws on metal, and Davis ducks again while something flies in the night, lands in the campfire, and makes sparks explode again.
“Try that again and you’re getting the wrong end of my Christmas gift from Sarah Ryder, you goddamn punk rodent,” Giselle says.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
We’re under attack.
By…rodents?
What is my life? What the actual fuck is my life right now?
I don’t know where my cat is.
Davis is trying to pull me away from the fire while I’m barely on my knees and move, Sloane, goddammit, move .
There’s an odd shriek—definitely not human—and then Giselle’s next to Davis. “How many more?”
“Two. Top of the camper. Fuck . Sloane. Get inside.”
They both duck while something throws something at them.
“I’m not fucking leaving my cat out here alone!” I shriek.
“Okay. Okay. She went under the— goddammit, stop throwing things. ”
Another shower of sparks explodes from the campfire, and this time, they fall all around us even though we’re getting farther from the fire.
“What are they?” I manage to flip on my phone’s flashlight and aim it under the camper.
Davis answers. “Raccoons. Whole family of them. Get away from the fire. I don’t know what they’re throwing, but it’s flammable.”
I don’t give two flying fucks about flammable raccoon games.
I give two fucks about?—
“ Peggy .” I spot her huddled against the back tires on the other side of the camper. “Oh, sweet baby, it’s okay. Come to Mama, and we’ll go inside where it’s safe.”
She doesn’t move.
Can’t blame her.
Davis drops to my side. “Did they hurt you? Are you hurt? Scratched? Did the one who jumped on you bite you?”
“ My cat . Get my cat.” Crap.
Dammit .
I’m crying again.
I hate crying.
No one takes you seriously when you’re crying.
“Hold on for a ride. I’m going after the raccoons,” Giselle says.
I look at Peggy, then at Davis, whose hair looks weird in the light, almost like it’s glowing, and then at Giselle.
And then I shriek again.
Giselle vaults up the camper steps, and now she’s swinging herself up onto the camper roof while the entire vehicle shakes. “That’s right, you little fucknuggets, who looks bigger now?”
“ Peggy . Don’t run away. Sweet kitty, don’t run away,” I sob as I peer under the camper again.
My cat stares back at me, frightened and frozen.
Three screeches and a whole bunch of chittering reverberate from the top of the camper, and then there’s silence.
Peggy keeps staring at me.
I keep staring back. “It’s okay, love, Mama’s here, don’t run away.”
“I’ll get her,” Davis says quietly next to me.
And that’s when I smell it.
Burning hair.
I sit straight and feel my own head, then look at his, and?—
“ Oh my god, your bun’s on fire! ”
There’s a thump next to him.
I scream and blindly swing at it, but Giselle catches my arm, squeezes a pressure point just enough to make me yelp, drops my arm, spins somewhere else, and a moment later, the smoldering thing is out.
Because Davis is covered in water.
Giselle tosses the bucket aside, drops to her belly, aims her flashlight under the camper, and rises again. “Keep talking to the cat.”
I stare at Davis.
Who’s staring back at me, soaked.
Something weird is clumped on top of his hair.
Which isn’t in the full manbun it was before.
And not because of the water.
“Peggy,” I croak out.
“Keep calling for her,” Giselle says.
Peggy .
Oh god.
I lean over and aim my flashlight under the camper again, then I sag in relief when I spot her still frozen beside the back wheels. “Okay. You’re okay. You’re— aaahh! ”
She’s gone.
One minute she was there, and the next?—
“Got her,” Giselle says. “Get inside. I’m calling the fucking exterminator and then I’m calling fucking Levi and then I’m booking myself on a month-long cruise somewhere without rodents and campfires and all of you.”
Davis pulls me to my feet.
It’s dark, the only light coming off a small lamp outside the camper and the fire, but I can tell he’s so grim-faced that he might as well be the grim reaper.
Coming to herald the death of his hair.
His wet, soggy hair.
“Get in the camper.” His voice is low. Gravelly. Full of suppressed emotion.
He knows.
He knows his hair is toast.
“Cat,” Giselle says, handing me Peggy. “Get in the trailer. Now .”
My body obeys because authority. Of course it does. “I—thank you.”
“Apologies for the nerve pinch. Most effective way to get you to do what I needed you to do. How’s your head? Manbun—get a first aid kit.”
“Manbun?” I stutter.
“That’s what they call—” She pauses and looks at him as all three of us hustle inside the camper, and my heart drops to my toes. “Called him. How’s your head? Are you scratched? Good thing you have the doc on speed dial if you need rabies shots.”
Davis’s hair.
His hair .
It’s crispy on one side, sticking up maybe three or four inches. When he let it down last night, it came down past his collarbones, and now—now that part won’t even reach his chin.
The other side still has something stuck in it.
Something—is that a pine cone?
“Sloane. Your head . Sit.”
I obey Giselle’s orders and drop onto the bench at the table, still clutching Peggy, who hasn’t purred once, and I keep staring at Davis.
His shirt is soaked.
His pants are soaked.
And there’s a half-singed pine cone stuck in what’s left of his manbun.
I got gum in my hair once when I was a kid.
Forbidden gum, of course.
I got lectured about gum being the devil’s handiwork the whole time Grandma was rubbing peanut butter into my hair to loosen the gum so we could wash it all out.
As I’m staring at Davis’s hair now?—
I don’t think peanut butter’s gonna solve this.
Peggy squeaks in my arms.
I loosen my grip, but she doesn’t run away.
Instead, she huddles closer like she, too, is horrified.
“That bad?” he asks me.
Do not change your plans just because he’s losing his manbun , I order myself. You know you have to leave. Especially if there are attack raccoons out here.
I swallow.
Swallow again.
And then, as Giselle continues inspecting my scalp, I say the last thing I should say. “You’re gonna need some help.”
I know what I’m implying. He knows what I’m implying.
But this is it.
This is the last time I help him.
Cross my heart.
The very. Last. Time.