Page 3 of Edge of Ruin (The Edge Trilogy #3)

“You’re not what I expected,” he said. “I have to talk to Duncan.”

“Oh, my God. You mean, you’re Jack Kendrick?” I was appalled. I’d been expecting a stolid jarhead type, older, thicker, with a paunch, balding graying hair buzzed off. Maybe a long, bushy mountain man kind of beard.

Not a foxy silver-eyed sex god who loved to walk in the rain.

“You’re early.” There was an accusing note in his voice.

“Duncan texted me last night saying you were still in Idaho, so I expected you late this evening, or tomorrow. Otherwise, I would have texted you alternate directions so you could have avoided driving on this road in the rain. What, did you drive all night?”

“Uh, yes.” He didn’t need to know what a cowering scaredy-cat I was, so I skipped the explanations, while running our entire conversation through my mind at the same time, trying to assess just how rude and in-his-face I had been to him.

Hmmph. Pretty bad, I concluded. No ruder than he deserved, but still … yikes.

Well, I guess I had to make an effort to fix it now. He was doing me a big, fat favor, after all. If he was still willing to do it at all, at this point.

“So,” I said. “Seems like we got off to a weird start.” I tried to sound conciliatory.

“Yeah, it does,” he said blandly.

I kept my voice carefully light. “What do you mean, not what you expected? What were you expecting?”

“Duncan told me you were a professional designer with a stalker problem who needed to drop out of sight for a while. He did not tell me that you were an itinerant, tattooed, wild child neo-hippy.”

All thoughts of conciliation vanished. “That’s ridiculous!” I said hotly. “And rude! I’m not a neo-hippy, or a wild child. And I am a professional, itinerant or not! Tattoos or not! You owe me an apology!”

“We’ll see.” Jack’s face was blatantly unapologetic.

Wild child? My brain stuck on that like a hook. It was not how I’d describe my muddy, strung-out, sleep-deprived, what-the-cat-dragged-in self, but holy crap, who did this guy think he was? How dare he?

So he was that insufferable kind of man who made snap judgments about a woman solely based on a nose ring and a tie-dyed t-shirt.

Though I had, in point of fact, been meaning to take the small, glittering nose ring out before meeting him, just to suss him out first. Military types were sometimes conservative, so I had every intention of stopping at a place with a bathroom, splashing my face, putting on some decent clothes, some deodorant, brushing my hair, maybe even applying a little makeup.

But I hadn’t wanted to get wet. Add yet another mistake to the list. Another wrong turn.

I held up my arm, displaying the tattoo of coiled barbed wire that circled my narrow wrist. “You’ve got a problem with me because of this? For real? In this day and age, when absolutely everyone has ink?”

Kendrick shrugged. “Just calling it how I see it.”

I was blushing again. It smarted, to be judged by him. I bit back a babbling flood of explanations that were none of his damn business. Explanations that I owed to nobody.

In truth, that tattoo wasn’t one that I had chosen myself.

My mom’s boyfriend had taken me to his buddy’s tattoo parlor when I was ten, to spite my mom.

As an attention-getting technique, it had bombed big-time, since my mom had been too focused organizing her next heroin fix to notice.

I figured I was probably lucky I hadn’t gotten hepatitis or worse from that guy’s needle.

Or that the boyfriend hadn’t decided to put the tattoo on my neck or my face. Talk about a life-defining look.

But I didn’t believe in playing the victim, so I’d flaunted that damned tattoo.

I’d owned it, accepted it, and gotten plenty more on my own account.

Nobody had forced me to get the Celtic knot tramp stamp tattoo over the crack of my ass, or the crescent moon and star on the top of my foot, or the smiling gothic sun face that adorned my shoulderblade, or the flower over my left breast. And Kendrick couldn’t even see those.

I’d never felt embarrassed about my funky, alternative fashion choices before.

Usually, I kind of enjoyed getting into the faces of uptight people.

I figured it was good for their health to have their assumptions challenged.

But for some reason, the self-appointed task of challenging assumptions was no fun at all today.

I just didn’t have the juice for it. Not with this guy.

“Would you mind answering my original question?” I asked, my voice tight. “How far is it to your place?”

“By this road, two and a half miles. Cross-country, it’s a little over a mile and a half. Why didn’t you take the other road?”

“What other road?”

“I had another road put in, from the other side of the property. It’s shorter, and newer, and better kept. I texted the directions to Duncan. He should have passed them on to you.”

I shoved back my hair, wondering uncomfortably if I’d left a fresh streak of mud across my cheek. “These were the directions he gave me last week, before I took off. He must have forgotten. I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s been distracted lately. Love, and all.”

“I see,” he said.

“But just for the record, I’m not a teenager. I’m almost twenty-eight. Nor am I any kind of wild child. Nor am I in any way flaky. On the contrary.” I crossed my arms over my chest, and kept my chin up, since I couldn’t deny the itinerant or tattooed parts.

Not that I was even minimally embarrassed about them.

He raised an eyebrow, and just waited, silent. I willed myself not to drop my gaze. A raindrop rolled slowly down the sculpted contours of his jaw. I watched it, breathless.

“You don’t look twenty-eight,” he observed.

I shook myself loose of his spell, and steeled myself to do the grown-up, dignified thing.

“Well, I am. But if you’ve drawn your conclusions about my intrinsic value as a person after just a couple minutes of conversation, then screw it.

There’s nothing left to be said. I’ll just hike back to town and find a motel and someone who can help me pull my van out later on. After that, I’m out of here.”

He frowned at me, as if I were the unreasonable one. “That’s not necessary. We’ll talk logistics later. Get whatever you need out of your van for the time being. You can’t walk back to town now.”

I drew myself up to my full height, which was only about five foot-three, unfortunately.

“I’ll do what I damn well please. I don’t need your help, or your judgments, or your attitude.

I’ll just pack a bag to walk to town, and Edna and I will be on our way.

I’m sorry about the van being stuck here, but there’s nothing I can do about that for the moment.

I’ll solve that problem as soon as I possibly can. ”

“You can’t do that,” he said, looking irritated.

“This rain isn’t going to stop anytime soon, and it’s six miles back to town.

You certainly aren’t going to find anybody to help you with that van today, and probably not for several days.

Get your stuff and I’ll take you to my house.

” He stared at my stiff, stony face and folded arms, sighed, and said, “Okay. I’m sorry.

I apologize, already. I was rude and inappropriate.

Let me rephrase. Please, get your things.

Please, let me show you to the house. It would be my privilege. ”

I was cautiously mollified, even though he was overdoing it a little. It was a good sign when a guy knew how to apologize. Whether he was sincere was another matter entirely, but just being able to manage the basic form was already promising.

I climbed into the van and shoved clothes into my duffel, too nervous to be methodical about it.

I tossed cans of dog food into my backpack, attached my sleeping bag, and jumped out with both bags draped over my shoulder, and found him examining the lurid fantasy mural on the van while he waited. “What’s this? A dragon?” he asked.

“No, it’s a serpent,” I informed him, feeling ridiculously defensive.

He grunted under his breath. “Is that your work?”

I snorted. Asfuckingif. “No,” I said crisply. “That’s not my style. Actually, I don’t really paint at all. I’m a sculptor. An old friend of mine named Rafael painted that. I bought the van from him years ago.”

“Hmmm. Whatever. Let’s go, if you’re ready.

” He grabbed the heavy duffel from my shoulder, flung it onto his back, and plunged straight into the thickest-looking part of the forest. Edna didn’t even wait for me, that bubble-headed so-and-so.

She bounded cheerfully after him, thrilled to be released from the van.

I struggled after him with my backpack bouncing as he wove and ducked through evergreens, brambles, and clinging foliage and festoons of lichen with what seemed unearthly grace and ease.

I felt so clumsy and heavy with every step, dragging my mud-covered high-tops out of the ground with a wet, squelching sound with every step.

Fir boughs slapped my face and snagged my hair.

Kendrick glanced back to make sure I was following and started up a steep incline.

The soft mud was extremely slippery. I climbed the hill, half-crawling, grabbing the trunks of little sapling firs for balance.

I started sliding downhill and reached for a clump of innocent-looking broad-leafed plants to steady myself, but their tough, leathery stems proved to be covered with thorns, fucking ouch.

I was so startled, I lost my footing, and stumbled down onto my knee, knocking it against a jagged rock.

Suddenly, Edna was next to me, whining anxiously and licking my face.

“Need a hand?”

Jack Kendrick was looming over me, though to be fair, it wasn’t really his fault that he loomed. He was standing above me on the hillside, after all, and he was ridiculously tall to begin with. His silvery eyes were narrowed thoughtfully. “Did you hurt yourself?” he asked me.

“Not a lot. Just, you know. I stuck myself with some thorns.” I pointed at the plant, and struggled to rise, cradling my stinging hand.

He helped me to my feet, his big, warm hand under my elbow, cupping it.

“Let me take a look.” He turned my hand over, examined it, and began deftly pulling out the tiny pale thorns that were embedded in my palm.

My breath just stopped. My senses were swamped with close-up sensory details.

His head bent over mine, drops of rain plopping from the ends of his shaggy, dark hair.

Every detail of him was etching itself into my brain.

The way the hair grew back from his forehead, the white streak on his temple where the scar disappeared into his hairline.

His sensual mouth. Very sensual, when it was relaxed.

His lower lip, so cushiony and pink. It looked like it would be hot, soft. Kissable.

I was close enough to smell him. Soap, pine trees, wood smoke, and coffee. I wanted to touch his face, smooth the rain-drenched strands of hair that clung to his forehead.

I recoiled, alarmed at the power of my own crazy impulses. “Let’s go on,” I said abruptly.

“Okay. But I’ll carry this.” He pulled my backpack off my shoulders.

I was irritated at the implication that I couldn’t handle it. I was small, yes, but I was no weakling. “I’m fine!” I tugged it back.

“Don’t be stubborn. You’ve been driving for God knows how long.

You’re exhausted, probably hungry, probably dehydrated.

I’ll carry it.” He plucked it from my hand with an impatient jerk and slung it over his shoulder, along with my duffel.

He started back up the hill, and I scrambled after him, knees wobbling.

Edna, swiftly reassured that I was fine again, loped off to join Kendrick again. Little traitor.

“A little farther, and the hard part’s over,” he said over his shoulder.

“I’m not helpless! I was doing fine!” I shouted after him.

He lifted his hand in mute acknowledgement, but his silence made me sound foolish and ineffectual. A dirty trick.

Over the crest of the hill, the forest opened out into a broad sweep of gentle downhill slope. The trees here were taller, with more space between them. Edna pranced around, sniffing at fallen tree trunks. The rain had slackened, and the air was luminous and heavy with fog.

The silent grandeur of the forest worked magic on my jangled nerves as we padded along.

Its beauty calmed me. It was magical, the sweet-smelling, pattering rain, the feathery delicacy of pine boughs, the paler green festoons of moss, and tiny star-shaped white flowers that floated ethereally in shiny green clumps of ground cover.

It was so shockingly beautiful, I forgot my stinging hand, my mud-slimed shoes, my outraged sensibilities.

Even Haupt and Snake Eyes had to retreat before this magnificence.

Twenty minutes later, he led me through a waist-high tangle of blooming wild roses.

Then I saw the house.