Not because I didn’t want to spend my life in prison, paying for my crimes.
But because those four people didn’t deserve to die.
Mr. and Mrs. Neesen had been educators.
They’d been making a difference in children’s lives.
Their daughter and her boyfriend had futures so bright ahead of them that even my previous dream of a nursing career didn’t compare.
I hadn’t realized that I’d dropped to my knees until I heard a motorcycle again.
I didn’t look up.
Hoping that, if I didn’t move, nobody would notice me.
I should’ve known it was a stupid wish.
Especially when I looked up to see the bike stopping not even five feet from me.
It was the older biker.
The one I couldn’t stop looking at earlier.
And, Sweet Baby Jesus, was he ever hot.
He certainly didn’t look ‘old.’
He looked…sexy. Distinguished. Mature. And very, very male.
The only reason I could really tell that he was ‘older’, as I was calling it, was because of his hair.
It was salt and pepper.
A silver fox, I thought to myself.
Even his beard.
“You okay?” The man rumbled.
Oh God, his voice was sexy.
Deep.
Alluring.
“Yeah,” I sniffled, wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands. “I’m fine.”
He nodded. “Did you fall?”
I looked down at my bike, realizing that he thought I’d crashed or something with the way I was crying and on my knees, my bike at an awkward angle from where it’d fallen.
“No. I didn’t fall,” I said, looking down at my hands. “I’m okay.”
That ‘I’m okay’ was more for my benefit than his.
I needed to get up.
To get away from here before I went into one of those moods again.
The type that sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go until morning.
I could feel the panic rising. Could feel the tears pouring down my cheeks.
But I couldn’t stop them.
I didn’t know how.
And then I said something stupid.
“I killed them,” I whispered brokenly.
Chapter 4
Hold on to me. Never let me go. If you do, I can’t promise I’ll be there when you come back.
-Sawyer to Silas
Silas
“I know,” I told her.
She clenched her eyes shut, and the apples of her cheeks, the only part of her face that had any color left in it, paled.
“I never meant to,” she whispered. “I wish it would’ve been me.”
My gut clenched.
This was most certainly not how I wanted to meet Reba’s daughter.
I’d hoped it’d be under different circumstances.
Maybe while she was visiting her parent’s house.
Or maybe while at the grocery store.
I didn’t do tears.
Tears did things to a man.
Made him feel sorry for things he couldn’t control.
Made him do and say things that he never would’ve said had there not been tears.
“Life doesn’t work like that,” I told her, wishing it did, in fact, work like that.
I would know.
I could recall five such instances that I could offer myself instead of another person being taken from me. And it never got any easier.
“I know. I know. I can’t stop myself from thinking it, though. It’s like a burn in my gut, and a bullet to my brain. It never stops,” she whispered, leaning forward so her hands were crossed tightly around her stomach.
No, it didn’t.
“You want a ride?” I asked.
She finally gave me her eyes, and I felt the shock all the way through me.
It pierced my brain, traveling to the tips of my fingers and toes.
Her hair was down.
Long, curly, black, and down to her ass.
It was beautiful.
But what made her absolutely stunning were her eyes.
A deep shade of blue, nearly indigo.
Her eyes were captivating, and I found myself extremely disappointed when she looked away and went back to staring at the cross.
The cross that was changed with the seasons like clockwork.
New flowers were put on the spot once a month by lord only knows who, and it bothered me at times.
The town wasn’t letting it go.
And I feared that this meant bad things for Sawyer.
Especially when it came to making friends, once again “No, I don’t want a ride,” she said, startling me.
“How far do you have to go?” I persisted.
She pointed in the direction.
“That’s helpful.”
She shrugged, uncaring.
Then, without another word, she got up, mounted her bike and rode away.
She looked back three times before she was too far away for me to see her, and I cursed as I looked over at the cross one last time before I started the bike up with a roar.
I was meeting Lynn to talk to him about the possibility that Shovel could be near the town.
My town.
A town that I told him, under no circumstance, was he ever allowed to show up in again.
He’d been in jail now for over twenty years and had been released just two days ago, according to Lynn.