Page 17 of Coach (Shady Valley Henchmen #8)

Este

Honestly, I just snapped.

I’d been sitting on my phone, researching the town and its many colorful past and present residents while the neighbor started to screw something over and over that made this god-awful shrieking sound each time. I swore I felt the sound stab up my spine, into my ears. My teeth hurt with it.

When Trix let out a cry at the racket, I just flipped out.

I jumped up, ranting and raving as I grabbed Trix’s leash and my shoes.

At first, I think my intentions were to just take a long walk. To clear my head. To ground myself. To hopefully give the neighbor a chance to finish what they were doing.

But after a long loop around the town, I started back home only to hear sawing from the other side of the duplex.

I was just done.

I had to get away.

I needed a distraction.

I needed some silence .

And, yes, to a lesser degree, I also wanted some answers.

Because I had more questions than them.

My head was spinning with all the names and crimes of the residents of Shady Valley.

I mean… a few years back, a bunch of men had died of poisoning. There’d been whispers online that a female revenge assassin had been responsible.

A revenge assassin poisoner?

What surreal world was this?

Then there were the many blogs and articles about the organized crime organizations in Inyo County, California.

Suddenly, I was imagining everyone I passed was some kind of murderous psycho or drug lord.

Which, in turn, made me feel a little like I was losing my mind. I mean, I might as well get fitted for a tin hat.

I wanted someone to tell me I wasn’t crazy.

So I packed Trix into the car and drove to the most levelheaded person I knew to tell me exactly that.

Only to find that he was harboring a criminal. That he’d made me go with him to get said criminal’s dog out of a shelter.

My stomach had been sinking the whole walk up to Saul’s workshop. Because I knew. Without asking, I knew. The only way he would aid and abet a criminal… was if he was one himself.

I mean, not that I judged all criminals. People did stupid things without thinking. They pulled pranks that went awry. They got involved with drugs. They got desperate enough to do sex work.

I wasn’t judging.

But I also believed that some people belonged in jail, that some individuals were too dangerous to be out in the world with innocent people to torment.

I had personal reasons for believing in some forms of law and order and the punishment that went along with it.

So it was a big relief to learn that not only Saul, but most of his buddies, went away for defending women, not terrorizing them.

That said, it didn’t exactly help my spiral about Shady Valley and its residents.

So far, I’d been able to avoid having any contact whatsoever with Konstantin and Mikhail at the pool hall.

I kept my head down.

I did my work.

I tried really hard never to be within earshot of them, so they couldn’t call me over and talk to me.

Of course, doing so meant I was constantly close to Irina, who was always breathing down my neck and making new demands of me. Organizing closets, clearing out cabinets, moving boxes to the back alley to be disposed of.

But I would take a mean girl manager over potentially murderous bosses any day of the week.

Just being there, though, just seeing my bosses, just hearing their voices, was making my shoulders go up near my ears; it was making my stomach perpetually knotted.

I was losing it.

I wasn’t sure I realized how badly until I walked into a bathroom with a running tub full of bubbles, candles set around, the light off, and gentle music playing.

As I slid under the water, it was like a thousand pounds slipped from my shoulders.

I reached for the hard cider Saul had set out for me, sipping it as my muscles unclenched, as my mind stopped racing.

By the time I finished the cider, I was almost drifting off in the tub.

Still, it took me another ten minutes or so before I could peel myself out of the tub, dry off, and change into the oversize tee that Saul had provided.

“Mom will be back in a minute,” I heard him say as I made my way down the hall. Not to his workshop, but toward another mostly closed door. “She just needed some time alone to relax a little. Sounds like the two of you have a lot going on.”

I was getting a real reputation for eavesdropping lately, it seemed. But I couldn’t make myself announce my presence just yet. It was too charming to hear him talking to my dog the way I often spoke to her. Like she understood. Like she just might answer.

“What’s going on with her, huh? What were you guys running from?”

My heart lurched.

My hand pressed into the door before I could think it through.

“Hey,” I called, plastering a smile on my face as I moved inside the room.

Saul’s bedroom.

It smelled like him all around. Heady. Divine .

The whole space looked like him too.

The exposed brick should have felt cold. But the whole space felt warm, inviting, so much like the man himself.

He had a king-sized bed draped in a tan and white striped linen comforter and the plushest pillows I’d ever seen.

The nightstands were of similar size and stain, but one was a round shape, the other square, keeping it from seeming too matchy-matchy.

Near the large window, he had a buttery-soft leather reading chair, a small table, and a lamp.

Across the wall from the TV were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with an open space for his television.

He’d clearly built them with the expansion of his personal library in mind, so they weren’t packed.

Still, it was an impressive collection that he had separated by various little knick-knacks: carved wooden figures, art, photographs, a rainbow Buddha, and a couple of pieces of children’s drawings and porcelain figurines clearly slapdash painted by little hands.

Was it from his family?

Or the kids in his club family?

I had no idea. But I did feel like it said a lot about him as a man that he displayed those little gifts proudly.

Just inside the door, a yoga mat was rolled up beside a record cabinet.

Above it was a massive drawing that seemed to be made out of several dozen single sheets of paper. It was a massive surrealist animal art with two tiger heads facing away from each other with the whole world within them: trees, mountains, other animals.

It was stunning.

“Wow.”

“It’s extra impressive to know that he drew each piece and mailed it to me individually, so he remembered exactly where the last piece left off and seamlessly had them all work together.”

“This was made by another inmate?”

“Yeah. He came in a couple years after me. Mad at the world. The chaplain tried to push him in my direction. But meditation and yoga weren’t for him. Art, however, was. So that became his kind of mindfulness.”

“He’s insanely talented.”

“Yeah. Keep telling him he’ll have a career on the outside doing this.”

“He will. How long does he have to go?”

“A few more years if he can keep his nose out of trouble.”

“What are the chances of that?”

“Hard to say when I don’t see him face-to-face anymore. But I think he’s come a long way from that angry kid he once was.”

“Where’d you even get a frame this big?”

“Had to make it. And get glass cut for it.”

“I love it. And all the kid art.”

“Masterpieces, all of ‘em,” he said, gesturing toward a framed piece of paper with what was only a single yellow spiral doodle.

“Do you want kids?”

Why did I want to know?

“When the woman and the time is right, yeah. You?”

“I always did.”

“But?”

“But I don’t know if it’s going to be in the cards for me.”

“Hey, you never know. The days are short. But life is long. Things can change. If you want them to.” As if sensing that my heart couldn’t take another heavy topic—even one I’d brought up myself—he quickly segued away. “Looks like the bath helped.”

“I almost fell asleep in there,” I admitted. “Thank you. For all of it.”

“The bed is changed and ready for you.”

It sounded sick to say, but I would have preferred the bed not be changed, so I could get in and smell him all around and on me.

“The TV and stereo remotes are on the nightstand. Got you a bottle of water. Some snacks. Dragged up one of the dog beds we have around. And I wanted to clear this before I gave it to her, but I found a chew for Trix.”

He gestured toward where he’d stashed it on the bookshelf. But Trix had already sniffed it out and was sitting next to the shelves, nose wiggling as she looked up at the package.

“She’d love it,” I said, standing there watching him unpackage it and toss it on the bed for her.

“I’ll let you get some sleep.”

“Wait,” I called before I could think it through. “Do you want to… watch a movie or something? I kinda got a second wind, I guess.”

“Sure,” he agreed without hesitation. And, it felt, without expectation. “Side preference?”

“Further from the door,” I said, going around the bed.

“Want me to leave the light on?” he asked as we both climbed under the covers.

“The light from the TV should be enough,” I said. Though I had a feeling it was his presence that would be the most comforting in the dark.

Saul flicked on the TV and then off the light.

The bed was huge.

But we somehow both managed to move in toward the center, our bodies touching from shoulder to feet.

His warmth chased away the chill from them keeping the clubhouse at the frigid temperature of the produce room at Costco.

I picked some random period piece for the comfort vibes and snuggled up under the covers.

And for once, my mind was quiet.

There were no thoughts about my violent bosses, my demanding manager, my annoying neighbor, the various other criminal organizations in town, or even the thing I’d been running from when I’d stopped and settled here.

The problem was, ripped off all those things to distract me, all I could seem to focus on was the feel of Saul beside me. The way his arm moved ever so slightly when he shifted, making it brush against mine.

It may as well have been a sensual massage with the way my body responded. It was a sizzle and a flame that burned brighter and hotter with each passing moment.

It wasn’t long before I wasn’t even paying attention to the movie, before I was fully focused on Saul.

“You keep wiggling around like that and I’m gonna have to do something about it,” Saul said, gaze cutting to mine, his lids heavy, his eyes flooded with the need that was coursing through my bloodstream.

“Then do something.”