CHAPTER 9 JESSALYN
JESSALYN
Greenway Park lay on the outskirts of Reverence, population two thousand and change.
Warrenton was a fifteen-minute drive to the south, easily commutable once I got this damn car fixed.
The needle was a hair’s breadth away from the red as I turned into the development. Was that steam coming from the engine?
“C’mon, we only need to make it another half mile,” I muttered. “At least, I think so.”
The development looked new, and the map on the car’s built-in satnav was out of date.
When I had Wi-Fi at the grocery store in Leesburg, I’d screenshotted the layout, but everything looked different in the dark with only streetlights to show the way.
We set off on a voyage of discovery, looking for number forty Linden Avenue.
The area was as nice as the subdivision I’d lived in back in Maine.
Neatly trimmed lawns and well-maintained streets, tidy trees and no trash in sight.
The houses on Linden Avenue were larger than the others I’d seen, set back farther from the road, all with double garages and immaculate lawns.
I turned into the driveway of number forty and pulled up next to a big black pickup with planks of wood sticking out of the back.
Not the type of vehicle I’d imagined Tiffany driving, but maybe she liked DIY?
Or had a boyfriend visiting? Or she’d borrowed the truck?
I checked my hair in the rear-view mirror—a little lank, but I’d be able to take a shower soon. Should I leave Shiro in the car? Tiffany had sounded keen to meet him, so I clipped a leash to his collar and let him hop out beside me.
“No jumping, boy. We have to make a good impression, okay? No, no, don’t pee on the freaking truck!”
He trailed me to the door, and I rang the bell, trying to calm the butterflies that beat my insides with fragile wings as I waited.
And waited. And waited. Nervous but happy, the way I’d been on my first day of college.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and I tried not to stare through the mottled glass panel at the top of the door as a figure approached. Staring was rude.
“What did you forget?” A man started speaking before the door had fully opened.
“Your eyelash curlers? A pair of shoes?” He wore nothing but a white towel slung low around his hips.
Water dripped from chocolate-brown hair, down a well-muscled chest, over a six-pack, and slid into two deep grooves that ran from his hips to his— Don’t think about it, Jessie.
“Or the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s definitely me’ talk? ”
Who the heck was this guy? Tiffany’s boyfriend? His irritation turned to puzzlement as he looked me up and down. Too late, I realised my jaw had dropped and hastily closed my mouth. Why was he missing half an eyebrow?
“Who are you?” he asked as Shiro dropped to his belly and began licking the stranger’s feet. Oh, hell.
“I’m here to meet Tiffany.”
“Who’s Tiffany?”
“Uh, just…Tiffany?”
That was the name she’d given me for the money transfer.
“You have the wrong house.”
He tried to close the door, but Shiro was in the way, eighty-five pounds of furry stubbornness when he didn’t want to move.
“This is forty Linden Avenue?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“That’s the address I was given. This is Greenway Park?”
“That’s what the sign says.”
“Then I’m in the right place. Who are you? Are you with Mandy? Or Kendra?”
“You’re in the wrong place because I don’t know any of those people.”
Maybe Tiffany had made a mistake in her message? Phone keyboards were so tiny, and people didn’t always read over their words before they hit “send.” Perhaps she’d meant number forty-nine? Or fifty? Or thirty?
“They might be some of your neighbours? Three women sharing a house? It belongs to Tiffany’s parents.”
“I know the names of all my neighbours. Is this a joke? Did Melanie send you?”
“Who? I don’t know any Melanie.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning? Who are you, and what are you doing here with a dog?”
He stooped to scratch Shiro behind the ears, which Shiro must have appreciated because when the guy stood, Shiro sat up and offered a paw.
The paw caught on the towel, and I watched in horror as it came undone and slid to the ground in a damp heap.
No, no, no, no, no! Out of habit, I bent to pick it up—I was so used to cleaning up after Ridge—and found myself at eye level with…
holy hotness. I let out a squeak and froze, then fell on my ass as Shiro began licking my face in concern.
“Fuck,” the guy muttered as he bent to grab the towel.
“I’m so sorry. Shiro, lie down.” Death was looking more attractive by the second. “No, leave his foot alone.”
“Okay, speak.”
Shiro barked, just as he’d been taught to do.
Uh-oh. The guy was back to looking annoyed. Annoyed with a hint of amusement in his coppery brown eyes.
“I-I-I rented a room here,” I told him, fumbling for my phone. “I’m your new roommate.”
“The hell you are.”
Something like panic began to well up in my chest. I’d paid all that money. Driven for over an hour to get here. Several hours if you counted the many stops for the engine temperature to drop.
“No, look. I spoke with the homeowner’s daughter, and this is the address she gave me. See?”
He scrolled through the messages, quickly at first, then more slowly as he read each one. Dread pooled in my stomach, and I began to get a bad, bad feeling about this.
“You paid someone sixteen hundred bucks to rent a room here?”
I nodded. “Security deposit and first month’s rent.”
“Sorry, but you got scammed. I recognise the pictures—they came from the listing. Whoever you sent the money to, they don’t own this property; I do.”
For the second time, the bottom dropped out of my world.
In the grand scheme of disasters, this one wasn’t so serious, but years of being stepped on by Ridge had left me far more fragile than before.
Full of tiny cracks, and the slightest pressure in the wrong place opened up chasms. Tears began to leak out. I couldn’t stop them.
“I…I need to make a call.”
Tiffany had been so friendly, so helpful.
The kind of person I’d wanted as a friend.
Maybe I’d made a mistake? Gotten confused somehow?
I held out a tiny shard of hope until I dialled her number and heard the recorded voice.
The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected.
My heart stuttered as the full horror of the situation hit me—I was alone in a town I didn’t know with only a few bucks to my name, no job, nowhere safe to sleep, and a dog that ate as much as a small horse.
The tears kept coming. Sniffing, I wiped them away with a sleeve and tried not to look like the fool I was.
“I’m so, so sorry for disturbing you. I’ll be on my way as soon as I can, but my car overheated and I just need to wait for the engine to cool before I can drive it again. Shiro, come.”
I tried to walk away, and when the guy grabbed my arm, I shrank back on instinct. How many times had Ridge done the same thing? I’d always covered the marks up with long sleeves.
“Shit, I’m sorry.” He released me in an instant. “I didn’t mean to… What happened to your eye?”
The tears? Hadn’t he seen a woman cry before? “It’s been a difficult week. I have tissues in the car.”
“I meant the bruises.”
Crap, I’d bought concealer in the grocery store, but the tears must have washed it away. My black eye was more of a yellowish colour now, but it still looked ugly without make-up. My first instinct was to lie as I always did.
“I walked into a door.”
“And what was the door’s name?”
“Uh…”
“Did you file a police report?”
“It would only make things worse,” I whispered, and when he didn’t look happy, I automatically tried to appease him. “I’m going to file a report about the rent money I paid.”
Not that I expected to get it back. And even if it did somehow get recovered, the process would take months, and I didn’t have months.
I needed to find a way to feed Shiro right now.
Maybe I could get a job working double shifts and board him somewhere until my circumstances improved?
It wasn’t fair to expect him to live in the car long-term, and we wouldn’t be getting a room any time soon.
The thought of being alone in a parking lot at night terrified me.
“You know where the police station is?”
I shook my head.
“How long have you been in town?”
“About twenty minutes.”
The guy raked a hand through still-damp hair. “You had the dog for a while?”
“Almost three years, and I’m not taking him to a shelter.”
“He house-trained?”
“He hasn’t messed on the floor since he was a puppy. Uh, apart from one time when he had a bad reaction to his flea treatment, but that wasn’t his fault, and he only threw up on the doormat. And he doesn’t have fleas. It was more of a preventive measure, and I never gave him those tablets again.”
The guy sighed. “The sun’s dropping. If you need someplace to stay tonight, I have an empty guest room.”
He’d let me stay here? Really? After I’d interrupted his day and then broken down in front of him?
I thought back to the phone call with the sleaze who’d expected me to share his bed and wondered if this guy had a creepy ulterior motive.
Because in my experience, men didn’t do favours unless they wanted something in return.
Take Ridge, for example. He’d helped me through the aftermath of my mom’s death and all the trauma that came with it, then expected me to dedicate the rest of my life to serving him.
I could message Saylor with the address; that would give the cops a starting point if I showed up dead.
There wasn’t anyone closer I could ask for help, and Shiro seemed to be on Team Towel-Guy, although he didn’t seem to be a big fan of the actual towel.
Could this be any more humiliating? I wanted to run screaming, but I didn’t have anywhere to run to. No, I was stuck.
And if I’d rented a room from a stranger on Craigslist, would that really have been so different from staying here? Either option could lead to me shacking up with an axe murderer, and at least this house came with a yard and an en-suite bathroom. I desperately needed a shower.
“You wouldn’t mind?”
His sour expression said he wasn’t wild about the idea, but he shook his head. “You need someone to take a look at your car?”
“I already know there’s a hole in the radiator; I just can’t afford to get it fixed. But it’s fine, honestly. I have another bottle of coolant, and once the engine’s had a rest, we can get out of your way.”
Even if we just drove around the corner.
“I leave for work at seven fifteen, and if you’re meandering around the house, you’ll need to keep the dog on a leash because I have a cat.”
“I promise we’ll be gone by then, and I swear you won’t hear us or see us this evening.”
But I’d make him breakfast before we slunk out the door. It was the least I could do after he saved us from another night in the car.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“Jessalyn.”
“Jessalyn.” He repeated it in a whisper as if it were a curse, and perhaps it was? “I’m Justin.”
“I really appreciate you letting us stay.”
“Just don’t say anything about the fucking eyebrow, okay?”
Justin—now speckled with goosebumps because the temperature had dropped along with the sun—stepped back and waved us into his beautiful hallway. I had a one-night reprieve. One night to come up with a plan so Shiro and I didn’t starve.
One night to rest.
One night to conjure up a new life for the both of us.