Chapter Eleven
Marlowe
I trust him, perhaps foolishly, because the way the man looks at me suggests he wants to drown me in Candy's creek for disturbing his peace.
Well, if he wants to, he can throw me off the horse. Instead, he releases his reins—thankfully not me—reaches behind him, and hands me a flask.
I take it immediately. There had better be alcohol in it, or I'm not surviving this. He slows the horse to a near stop while I take a swig and discover it's coffee. With milk, and lo and behold, sugar. Okay, not a lot of sugar, but enough to make it palatable.
Did he make coffee especially for me since this isn't his preferred tar? I don't know what to make of it, but I'll be dissecting this further when I'm not airborne on a horse.
After two healthy sips, we're on the move again. I taper my breaths, and while I'm not actively trying to sever his skin with my nails, my fingers are still clutching his forearm like it's my lifeline, the same way my other hand is gripping the flask of coffee.
Streams of light breakthrough in the sky, lighting a path ahead of us, and he seems to know the terrain with a casual confidence that makes me a little too hot.
He knows what he's doing, and I let him. I settle into the horse's gait only because of the solid, warm body against which I'm cradled.
"Where are we going?" I ask after what seems like a long silence.
"There's a trail around the perimeter of Candy Creek," he says as he pulls back the reins, and the horse comes to a stop. I hadn't realized we were on a cliff, overlooking the valley of Candy Creek.
But beyond that... a sunrise so spectacular it takes my breath away. I gasp in wonder. I had never seen anything like it. I didn't know those colors existed and couldn't name them if I tried—variations of orange and purple, streaks of violet and mauve.
"It's... magnificent," I say softly.
"It's a rite of passage," he replies, and I understand. Guess you have to see a Candy Creek sunrise to belong here.
I'm awed by the sight before me, and without thinking, I lean back to encompass the whole view, but my head presses against his chest.
The horse neighs, and I startle, but he holds me tighter, his fingers now fully on my bare skin, under my cropped sweater. His hand is so big that his thumb bumps against the underside of my breast.
I stare ahead, surrounded by beauty, transfixed by the man holding me.
I can't breathe. I need to move. I do, and I hear his soft growl as his hand presses me closer and moves a little up, brushing my breast. His cock hardens.
I'm struggling to take in air when, as if the sun had grown tired of a slow and spectacular rise, it bursts into the sky, consuming the wisps of twilight where reality doesn't exist.
The sudden brightness changes everything, and suddenly he's released his hold on me a little, then steers the horse back in the direction of my house.
Well...
As soon as I'm in front of my door, he dismounts, lifts me off the horse and onto my feet, says a gruff good day, gets back on the horse, collects the other one he tethered to a tree, and is off.
Once I'm alone, I sprint inside and shut the door behind me. I take off my clothes right there in the foyer to inspect my underwear. My panties are soaked through. A minute more and my jeans would have been damp as well.
Oh boy.
The rest of my day passes in a blur. I spend nearly every hour after my morning trot with the sheriff cleaning the room I'm going to turn into a library/study.
But my thoughts remain fixed on him. Then I get so annoyed.
He could have kissed me. I would have let him.
But he didn't. He hightailed out of the moment so fast my head is still spinning.
It's obvious he really doesn't like me, and I could have just imagined everything—a stupid teenage girl fantasy.
Yuck. What is wrong with me? Imagine if I turned around and asked him to kiss me.
He'd have chucked me off the horse with an 'eww,' and I'd have to walk home.
The sheriff thinks I'm a nuisance. An airhead city girl. He can have his pick of women. I don't make that list.
Having worked myself into a fury, which turned out to be good for the walls in the house, I eat the lasagna that Violet brought me and head to the shower, then bed. What a weird day. I hope I never see the sheriff again.
Except I'm still awake at one in the morning.
I just can't sleep, so I decide to try out the new bathtub with the bath bombs I bought from Shelley's Pharmacy.
Shelley makes them herself, and they smell heavenly.
The hot water lulls me; the aromas soothe my senses.
A cup of herbal tea, and I'm going to have the best sleep ever.
I wrap my damp, glossy body—with its soft, nourished skin thanks to the bath bombs—in a bath sheet, slip on a pair of slippers, but as I'm about to head out of my bedroom to the kitchen, I scream so loudly I think I pierced a lung.
That damn rodent otter thing, Benjamin Freaking Lawrence, is in my bed, nestled where I sleep, its head on my pillow.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I stand there, death-staring the thing, so mad I can't breathe. That's my only other set of Egyptian cotton thread bedding the bugger has now ruined as well. Argh. I'm going to kill it. No, I can't. This time, the judge will throw away the keys, and I won't see the light of day.
Fine.
Not taking my eyes off it, in case it decides to leap up and bite me, I grab my car keys and sprint out of the house, looking behind me to ensure the thing isn't chasing me.
I hate this town and its stupid otter.
Still, it's a small town, and it doesn't take me long to get where I'm going.
I pound on the door with all my might, uncaring if I rouse anyone else in the process.
"What the hell, woman? It's two o'clock in the morning," Sheriff Zephyr Smith says, fully alert, answering the door in his boxer briefs and nothing else.
If I weren't so mad, I would have taken the time to count the blocks of concrete on his abdomen he calls abs.