Page 35 of The Promise Of Rain

Did he think I would be this easy?

Throw a little salt on the path and Jenny will flop down on her back and spread her legs?Happily lapping up whatever crumbs he deigned to toss my way?

My breath froze as it left my mouth in great huffs like a furious, impotent dragon.

Clutching my purse against my stomach, I scanned the guest parking for some sign of him, both relief and disappointment feeding the rage in my stomach when I didn’t find any.

I threw myself into the car and started it, anxious to get away from the one place I was like a sitting duck.

After yesterday, the last thing I wanted to do was leave my house.

I needed the peace and tranquility it afforded me.

But I didn’t feel safe inside it anymore either.

Mentally purging my grocery list to the bare minimum, I rushed through the store in Peppergrove and grabbed only those items I couldn’t live without as a maelstrom of possibilities played through my mind on a loop.

It was when I hit the last aisle that my cart collided with someone else’s.

“I’m so sorry!”I gasped.Tipping my chin up to apologize again, I stared into the disbelieving eyes of Deacon’s former best friend, Adam Baker.

As he took me in, his expression morphed into that oily smile that turned my stomach.“Well, well, well.If it isn’t Jenny Davis in the flesh.”

His tongue wrapped around that last word like it was me he was licking.

Curling into myself, I jerked my cart away from his and turned it around to walk away.Whatever I was after on the other side of Adam wasn’t worth it.

“Even with the extra padding, you still look just as fine leaving as I imagine you wouldcoming,” he jeered softly.

My shoulders climbed up to my ears.Taking the corner briskly, I headed for the cash furthest from the lane he occupied.

I wasted no time getting my meagre supply of groceries into the car, grumbling over the fact I’d have to go back out in a couple of days which was the very thing I’d been trying to avoid, and tore out of the parking lot.

There was only one person who could make me feel better.He wouldn’t be expecting me this late on a Monday afternoon, but he’d never turn me away.

Pulling into the drive leading to St.Michael’s, I began to breathe easy.

Until Deacon pulled out.

I’d just missed him.

He lifted a hand in greeting while I simply stared back at him.

Throwing my car into park in the first available spot, I banged my head lightly off the steering wheel, praying to a God I wasn’t sure I believed in, that the past would remain buried.

Because I couldn’t handle him looking at me now the way he thought of me then.

7

Hairy Fucking Larry

Deacon

I’d spent the last ten years of my life either following or giving orders, planning missions, and collaborating rescues.

I’d given each one my all, planned as best I could, and left the rest up to God or the fates, whoever was in charge that day.

There was no letting go with this one.It had a chokehold on my heart and soul.