So close, but just out of reach.
He popped off the lid and let go of a small moan when he saw what was inside.
“It’s a twist on a classic. Lemon bars though it’s whipped in cream. They’re sweeter. Less tart.”
He reached out and ran his thumb at the tiny dimple at the edge of her mouth. “Sweet like you.”
Shivers rocked her through, and she couldn’t stop the whimper that whispered from between her lips with him touching her like that.
He didn’t look away, he just kept watching her.
His stare penetrating and complex.
“I have something for you, too, Dakota.”
Her brow furrowed, and her heart beat in a fit of anticipation.
“What’s that?”
“I talked to Todd at the bank.”
The frown between her eyes deepened.
“You’re going to get that loan.”
“What do you mean?”
He looked out over the stream, the water stained a shimmery black as it babbled over the rocks. “I came into some money.”
It was so rough when he said it. Like it pained him to admit it.
She waited for him to explain.
Patient while she felt like she was going to rattle apart.
Because she felt his agony all while there was a thrill that bubbled in her blood.
“A life insurance policy of my mother’s that I didn’t know about. One that came to maturity when I turned twenty-six.”
He shuddered, and she couldn’t do anything but reach out and grip onto his upper arm. Unable to sit still beneath the torment that raged through him. “I’m so sorry, Ryder. I…you can’t give me that money. It’s yours. You need to—”
“I’m getting mine and my mom’s old house back with it, too. It’s a wreck, but the owners are letting it go cheap. The rest? It belongs to you.”
“I can’t accept it.”
Surprise jutted through her when he suddenly hopped off the branch, and he set the tin aside. Her head spun when he reached up and grabbed her by the waist and placed her on her feet.
An inch from him.
And the sparks in the air started to shoot.
So bright they blinded her eyes and sent her heart battering at her ribs.
He framed her face in his hands, and a fire burned from his palms. “You can accept it, Dakota. Because I want to give you everything you deserve in this world. I want to watch you soar. Fly. Take hold of every dream you’ve ever wished. And I want to be worthy of watching you do it.”
Her lips parted on a shaky gasp. “Ryder.”
“I mean it, Dakota. Run after this dream. Because it’s good and right, and you’ll be offering this town something that is beautiful. Something that is so uniquely you it would be a fucking sin not to bring it to life.” In emphasis, he tightened his hold on her face. “Love is on the house.”
A war went down in his dark eyes, then she nearly dropped to her knees when he pressed the softest kiss to her closed lips. It was the barest brush.
Innocent.
But in it, she felt a promise.
He drew back, gazing at her for the longest time, before he murmured, “I have to go.”
Turning, he disappeared into the shadows, and Dakota touched her lips with her fingertips.
Never so sure of anything in her life than she was right then.
Ryder - Twenty-Six Years Old
Ryder took the twenty-four-hour drive straight through with Amelia in the passenger seat.
“I’m honestly shocked you agreed to this,” she said, angled to the side so she could study him.
He tried to ditch the cloud of disgust and shame that wept in a hazy fog from his conscience. The feeling that it was all wrong. Something afoot and amiss. “It’s my ticket out. It’s the only thing I can do.”
She laughed, only partially at his expense, like she truly couldn’t make sense of him. “Why do you want out?”
“Because this isn’t the kind of life I want to lead.”
“I never knew a hard man could be so soft.”
“I’m not soft.” He spat it like it could protect from her getting into his thoughts. Into the sacred places that he had to keep guarded.
“Yes, you are, Ryder. And not the kind you should be ashamed of. You’re the only person in this world who’s ever treated me like I’m more than a tool. A weapon that Dare uses on both his friends and his enemies.”
It was the first time he’d ever heard the regret in her voice. A haunted misery that she’d covered and suppressed.
“Maybe it’s time you got out, too.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s too late for some of us.”
There was something in her voice. Something that left him itching more than he had been.
“It’s never too late to become something better.”
He’d never been so sure of it as they made the trade with twelve men surrounding them with automatic rifles. As he’d looked down at death and knew he wanted to live.
These men got to decide his fate right then, and a true sense of terror covered him as he and Amelia gathered the four duffels stuffed with money.
But they let them walk, and Ryder promised himself he would never be in that position again. He silently chanted it as they picked up the rental car that had already been arranged for them and took turns driving back to Colorado.
He couldn’t sleep on his break, though.
He was riddled with too many thoughts.
Too many emotions.
Grief and hope.
Fear and love.
Guilt and the belief that he could be better.
And he held onto that belief when they pulled into the alley behind the dank dry cleaner’s office at just before dawn. Knew it as they went inside and tossed the bags to Dare’s feet.
As he grated, “It’s done, and so am I.”
A smile split across Dare’s face. The menacing kind. The kind that froze the blood in Ryder’s veins.
“Oh, Ryder, you’re just beginning.”
Pete stepped forward and brought the butt of his gun down at the back of Ryder’s neck. It dropped him to his knees. Dare came forward and leaned over him so he was holding onto his shoulder and muttering near his ear, “I own you, Ryder. Who is going to have to die for you to remember it?”
That was right before another blow landed at the side of his head. A blow that completely knocked him out.
He woke with pain splitting his head in two. Agonizing as he blinked open his eyes to the glaring light and tried to get his bearings.
The house he rented. He was in the bed in his house.
Dread seeped deeper when his arm brushed against something, and he shifted to find Amelia in bed beside him.
And the dread blasted cold when he realized she was too still. That it was too quiet. He flew onto his knees, taking her by the face and shaking her. “Amelia. Wake up. Please, wake up.”
Her body bounced as he shook her. No response. No resistance.
His fingers trembled where he pressed them to her neck. There was no pulse. And her skin was too pale. Too white.
He fumbled for his phone and dialed 9-1-1, begged them to hurry before he started blowing breaths into her mouth.
Frantic as he pumped at her chest.
Tears blurred his eyes as the paramedics came in, and he stumbled off the bed as they took over.
He watched like he was detached.
Floating.
Suffering a near-death experience and he was watching his body below him.
But he guessed a piece of him died right then.
When they took her away in the ambulance, even though he knew she was already gone.
He still went to the hospital in Poplar where they’d taken her. He waited in the waiting room, claiming her as his fiancée, knowing she had no one else. No family. More alone than he could ever be.
And the doctor gave no sympathies when he came out and told him they couldn’t bring her back. She’d OD’d. So many opioids in her system there was no way for her heart to beat.
Ryder buried his head in his arms and choked over a shattered, “What?”
As if he was in shock.
As if he didn’t know.
As if he couldn’t believe what she had been involved in.
But it was shock.
Shock over what Dare had done. The lengths he’d gone to keep Ryder trapped.
A warning.
A threat.
One that had cost Amelia her life.
Chains rattled around him. Cinching down tight.
He wandered out of the hospital.
And he dropped to his knees and wailed toward the sky.