Page 3

Chapter Three

BEAU

T he red-headed beauty with ivory skin and a faint peach blush disappears down the trailhead towards her car, her face bold and confident despite everything. I wanted to scare the shit out of her, warn her away from the HRT and Murrieta, altogether. Warn her away from me, too. But knowing her, I’ve had the opposite effect.

After a week of raptly watching Brynn, I can say with certainty that she’s drawn to trouble. Just like I’m drawn to her. Fuck, I’ve made a total mess of this assignment.

Still, I go through the motions of dialing the satellite phone to speak to my client.

“Forester, give me some good news.”

I grunt, uncertain I can do that. “I made contact with your daughter today and spouted plenty of shit to scare her away from the HRT and Murrieta.”

“And she took the bait?” Henry Lovelace sounds tired more than anything. I know he’s had trouble sleeping this past week, knowing his daughter’s staying and recreating in a town mere hours away from announcing the opening of a double homicide case. A case that’s awfully reminiscent of a string of serial killings from a couple of years ago.

I rub my hand over my face. “She left right after I threatened her, which I took as a favorable sign.”

“Did she say whether she’d be leaving for good?”

I explain, “I didn’t really portray myself as the kind of upstanding guy a woman traveling alone would give her itinerary to.”

“Makes sense.”

“But tracking her, warning her … what you hired me to do is done.”

“Much appreciated. I’ll wire the rest of your money this afternoon.”

“Nice doing business with you.” I end the call.

This is it. The end of caring about Brynn Lovelace…

So, why does the finality of it put a tight knot in my throat and a deep ache in my chest? I don’t fucking know. But then there’s been a lot I haven’t known since first laying eyes on her.

In terms of job difficulty, I’ve never made easier money. I’m a hunter and outfitter by occupation, and Brynn’s the easiest prey I’ve ever tracked. But in less than a week, she’s become so much more than an assignment.

She’s the reason I look forward to getting up in the morning. The woman I think about unceasingly throughout the day. The object of my dreams at night. The dark, unsatisfied need that claims me when I jerk off alone in the shower.

I thought I was a man past needs like this. I’ve spent the better part of adulthood denying my wants and desires, making my life gray for strategic and tactical purposes. Blending in so that trouble never knows where to find me. Becoming the gray man who observes life rather than lives it.

Brynn is everything I’ve eschewed. Lively, vibrant, bold, confident, and so damn hot the most innocent thoughts of her burn me alive.

If anything ever happened to her, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, which made what I agreed to do for her father bearable. At first. Henry Lovelace is friends with Vengeance County’s sheriff, William Baker. So, when Henry needed to find a man to track his daughter and scare her off the HRT, I was the guy.

I get where he’s coming from, especially with two missing hikers leaving the town on edge. He claims he can’t get Brynn to listen to his warnings, and I believe him. I’ve seen enough of her stubborn boldness to be simultaneously concerned and filled with a deep and abiding admiration. But another part of me feels scuzzy and unscrupulous, having manipulated her like this.

You had to do this, Beau. Just think about the two missing hikers. Eyewitnesses of their last known destination said the women weren’t alone at Lake Florence, although they had trouble describing the man in any concrete way. Dark blond or light brown hair. Unknown eye color. Nothing memorable or remarkable.

A little over two years ago, Ted Wesley Craven, an upstanding high school teacher and veritable paragon of society, ended up dead after pursuing and attempting to kill the investigative journalist exposing his dark deeds. Turns out the man was a serial killer, preying on female hikers in national and state parks across California.

The nation breathed a sigh of relief, believing Craven’s death brought a tragic chapter of California history to a close. But if the two missing hikers turn up deceased with clear signs of foul play, Sheriff William will have a media firestorm on his hands. As if Craven has risen from the dead.

William will need my help as a private investigator and tracker on the case. I’m good at finding bodies, a grim skill nobody wants but law enforcement needs. The timing of wrapping things up with Brynn is perfect, with the missing hikers case really starting to intensify. I don’t have time to shadow her anymore, acting as her guardian angel, as she put it.

But all the logic in the world, all of the thoughts about good and bad timing, don’t negate the fact I need Brynn Lovelace down to the very marrow in my bones. It’s been a long fucking time since a woman captured my attention this way, all feminine curves and that sexy-as-fuck combination of sass and strength.

Watching her for a week has forged an even stranger intimacy. I know so much about her that I shouldn’t. She loves extra creamy oat milk and lavender lattes for breakfast, and she makes the French toast from the Paradise Inn’s breakfast buffet into intricate little castles, complete with bacon drawbridges and syrup moats.

She uses honey vanilla shampoo and conditioner, as well as strawberry lip balm, which makes her smell like strawberry shortcake. I’ve purposely positioned myself downwind of her to savor the fragrance. She sings in the shower, snorts when a really good joke tickles her funny bone, and listens to British indie bands.

Strawberry Now and Laters are her favorite candy, followed by Skittles and Sour Patch Kids. She loves pink nail polish, though she rarely wears it because being out in nature means constantly scratching or otherwise ruining a manicure, and she never wants to settle for a nine-to-five job.

One of her canine teeth is a little off-kilter because she refused a second round of braces as a kid, and she feels self-conscious about it when she smiles.

The same goes for dimples on the backs of her thighs when she wears shorts. I heard her complaining to the other women in her group about them. As for me, they put me out of my goddamned mind with want. The thought of covering her thick thighs and their lovely dimples in swipes of my tongue, featherlight kisses, and demanding love bites makes me hard as fuck. But then so did watching her move through her yoga poses on the mat.

My thoughts get so much darker and more possessive from there. Thoughts of tasting her parted lips for the first time, of claiming her with my tongue until she’s flushed and breathless. Of sliding my hands beneath her shirt to palm her tits and tease them into firm peaks with my thumbs before unclasping her bra and devouring her with my ravenous mouth.

Of slipping my hand into her panties to grip her round ass cheeks before sliding a finger into her cunt to see how wet I make her, teasing her until she’s needy and begging. Of burying my head between her legs and sucking her swollen until she holds onto the back of my head pressing me to her pleasure center. Of her riding my thick cock, tits bouncing and hips in my grip as I pound her into oblivion.

I’m a bad man, a perverted man who wants to taint the shit out of the scarlet-hued prey I’ve pursued all week. Fill her up with my fingers, tongue, cock, and cum so that no man will ever doubt who she belongs to. But that still wouldn’t be enough because I need her soul even more than I need her body, with a desperation verging on unhinged.

I close my eyes for one moment, indulging in the visual of her—a chaos of vibrant hues from her burgundy hair to her periwinkle eyes, her juicy pink lips to her pale skin that hearkens my touch with the promise of petal-soft smoothness beneath my rough, work-hardened hands.

Get your head on straight, Beau. You’re tracking a killer and looking for dead bodies … not fantasizing about fucking your dream girl. I shake my head, taking a moment to collect my thoughts. The families of the victims deserve better than a distracted tracker.

With renewed focus, I make my way back up to the lake. I avoid trails, so thoroughly acquainted with the woods that I hike them with ease, making out familiar landmarks. Still, I hug the path just out of sight, sound, and smell of hikers that frequent the trail so that I can get a feel for where the two women disappeared and what they potentially saw in their final moments. Although their location has yet to be determined, with each passing hour, abduction stats say it’s more likely they’re both dead.

At Lake Florence, I spy the group I’ve seen Brynn with on and off all week. I wonder what made her separate from them today, heading out on the trail alone. A part of my soul nudges me, telling me I was the reason. But I can’t settle for this explanation. After all, Brynn made it clear she’s known about me stalking her all week. I can’t think of a worse first impression to make on a woman.

Let it go, Beau. Let Brynn go . Pushing the lust and need down deep into my core, I return fully to the present and the macabre task at hand, locating the missing hikers.

I search the ground and surrounding brush for clues, indications of a struggle, which I see in a couple of spots marked by broken branches. Signs of recent disturbance and footsteps. Each hint, each clue fleshes out a frantic picture, a sickening one that makes me wonder something I have since childhood. What kind of a man preys on the vulnerable?

Vulnerable . Once upon a time, I was just that. An only child growing up in a domestic violence situation. My father was a loser-drunk and druggie who kicked the dog, beat his wife, and tortured his only son. He taught me what a father never should. Kill or be killed .

He and Mom also give me an inside glimpse into how dysfunctional and fucked up male-female relations can be. No wonder I chose bachelorhood over domestic “bliss.” But with Brynn, things would be different.

For fuck’s sake, Beau, quit thinking about her! You scared her off. She’s probably already gone, and you’ll never see her again.

I don’t believe this train of thought for one moment, though. Winning an HRT permit is notoriously difficult, with nearly ninety-seven percent of people being denied. Although the NOBO route tends to be more freely awarded, it’s still a privilege few backpackers will pass up.

And it comes with a limited time to complete it, just thirty days from the date of issuance. As a result, it makes hikers do crazy shit, like attempt to complete it with broken ankles, various other injuries, you name it. I’ve seen it firsthand, living in the Sierra Nevada backcountry, and dealing with a steady stream of people who are anything but wilderness-ready.

Fuck, if Brynn continues alone on the trail, unaccompanied, what in the hell will I do? It’s the first time in I don’t know how long I’ve faced a dilemma like this because the woman makes me think with my heart and cock rather than my brain.

“Let it the fuck go, Beau,” I grumble to myself under my breath. “She’s not your woman, and she never will be. Butterfly needs to figure out how to take care of herself and stay out of trouble.”

But the words feel hollow even though they’re wrapped in truth. A part of me, a very dangerous part of me, wonders how bad it would be to accompany the sexy hiker. Stay just out of sight, far enough away so that she’s never the wiser of my presence, but close enough to ensure she makes it out of these woods alive and kicking.

Would it really be so bad? As the thought blossoms in my mind, I quickly filter through all the reasons it’s an awful idea.

Obviously, it puts me right back in the stalker and creep categories. Where in the hell could it take my mental health to follow this woman, watching her every move, and not giving in to temptation? Or even worse, wholeheartedly embracing that temptation and changing the course of my life and another human being’s irreparably?

But far worse is a viral thought that takes over my mind, infecting every brain cell before devolving into a feeling that overtakes every cell of my body, down to my muscles and bones. What if I do nothing, and she ends up another face on the Missing Persons board at Walmart? Or a front page headline for the nation’s media outlets? What if the next body I search for is hers?