Page 82 of Caution to the Wind

Somethin’ caught fire in my chest, scorchin’ up my throat. Somethin’ that tasted bitter on the back of my tongue.

“You don’t know shit anymore,” I told her coldly before takin’ the knife carefully from H.R.’s grip, slidin’ it back in the block, and addressin’ her. “Cleo’s waitin’ for you in the bathroom. Can you help her get dressed while I talk to this one?”

Her gaze narrowed as she looked between Mei and me, and for a second, I wondered if she’d refuse. Born and raised a biker girl, she wasn’t exactly obedient or easy-goin’ for anyone other than her future husband, Lion Danner.

But then her mouth softened, and she nudged me with her shoulder in a little show of camaraderie that spoke volumes. If I needed her, if Cleo needed her, she’d do anythin’ to meet those needs.

“Sure, Axe-Man,” she muttered with a little grin before the expression collapsed into a suspicious glare she aimed at Mei that she maintained the entire time she walked through the kitchen and down the hall to Cleo.

“Is there some mandate in the mother chapter of The Fallen that everyone has to be pretty and mean as a snake?” Mei quipped, slouchin’ against a wooden pillar like she didn’t have a care in the world.

Years ago, her comment would have made me smile. Such a little thing, a pretty thing herself with such a sharp-edged tongue. Unbidden, I had the thought that she’d fit in here in Entrance ’cause she was right in a way. Everyone here was like a cactus in bloom, lurin’ people close but not close enough to touch.

Just like her.

“You won’t be spendin’ enough time around them for it to matter much either way,” I said as I stalked toward the front door and opened it, gesturin’ her to precede me outside.

She stared at me for a long moment before pushin’ off the post and glidin’ out the door, just to maintain some pretense that the move was her choice and not my order.

The smell of her cherry blossom scent lingered in the air behind her. I held my breath as I walked through it, slammin’ the door behind me.

It was one of those late March nights that was shockingly cold, the sky clear of clouds and velvety dark against the shine of the stars. The lake was hammered metal, gleamin’ and corrugated with little ripples from the mild breeze.

Beautiful.

An awful fuckin’ settin’ for this talk with a ghost who never should’ve resurrected herself. Her presence deconsecrated somethin’ about this peaceful haven I’d carved out for Cleo and me. It made it unsafe, somehow, even though I knew logically, even after all this time, even after what she’d done, Mei’d never do anythin’ to put Cleo and me directly in harm’s way.

It was more that I didn’t want memories of her here. I knew I’d walk up the steps tomorrow after work and see her mirage outta the corner of my eye, a girl in a too-big leather jacket swallowed up by shadows but still shinin’ like somethin’ that’d hurt your eyes if you looked at it too long.

“It’s so beautiful here,” she said, the prompt I needed to shake off this stupid nostalgia-tinged romanticism and get down to why I’d put myself out here with her in the first place.

“Don’t get used to it,” I grunted and had the bittersweet pleasure of seein’ her jerk a bit, slapped by my harsh words.

Her jaw clenched, the angle sharp and slightly square. She didn’t look at me, and I wondered if it was for my sake or hers.

“You’ve got to know, the only reason I’m lettin’ you step foot in my house is ’cause I’d make a deal with the devil to help Cleo feel better. I’d sacrifice anythin’ to take it all away from her. Lettin’ you in…” I meant the house, but we were both aware it was more than that.Into the house,into Cleo’s life,into my space again. “Is conditional on you stayin’ the hell away from me and Cleo reportin’ that every day with you is golden, you hear me?”

“I hear you,” she whispered.

Her hand wrapped around the post next to the railin’, and she leaned into it like she needed the help stayin’ upright. Moonlight spilled across the side of her face, and I couldn’t remember if she’d always been this exquisite. So damn pretty cast in moonlight, she seemed ethereal, like she’d dissolve if I tried to touch her.

I clenched my fists tight and refocused.

“I got a visit at the shop today. You wanna guess who it was?”

Her eyes skittered my way, then slipped away just as quickly. “Who?”

“An old friend of yours, Jiang Kuan.”

I was watchin’ for it, and even though it’d been eight years, I’d once known her face well enough to read all her tells, so I caught the way her lids flickered as if tryin’ to tamp down a secret that might show in her eyes.

“Oh,” she said, and that was it.

“You still hangin’ out with that crowd?” I demanded.

The lingerin’ softness she’d maintained from bein’ with Cleo or the submissiveness of guilt she’d assumed vanished in a blink. Her chin jutted forward at that fuckin’ obstinate angle I used to be so familiar with, and she glared at me sidelong, mouth petulant.

“You don’t get to tell me to essentially fuck off and then demand to know about my life, Henning.”