Page 23 of Tourist Season

T HERE IS NOT ENOUGH COFFEE in the world for me to survive today, let alone another seventeen days of this shit. I can barely even think straight long enough to make coffee, for godsakes. Yesterday, I even forgot to turn the fucking stove on. For a full ten minutes .

It’s day four. But I swear it feels like day four hundred and eighty-five.

These late nights are killing me. It’s not just staying up until two or three in the morning, or the additional physical work of digging up bodies after an already demanding day of preparing Arthur’s extensive gardens for another season of decimating Sarah Winkle’s hopes and dreams. It’s not just trying to fix the rusted old Pocket Rocket or worrying about Sam Porter suddenly showing up at my doorstep with triumphant jazz hands.

No. It’s the stress of being in a secluded place with a man who wants to kill me, and the only thing stopping him is a bit of evidence currently in the possession of the endearingly naive and perpetually distracted Lukas Lancaster.

And the other part that makes this whole corpse relocation program so completely unbearable?

Nolan Rhodes is hot as fuck .

Those dimples. They’d be my undoing if he smiled at me with anything more than contempt.

His skin. A man’s skin has never rendered me close to speechless until Nolan.

The moonlight settles on him every night as though it’s determined to illuminate the planes of muscle in his ridiculous body as he undresses to swim across the river.

Sometimes, the shimmer slithers across the scars that cross his elbow.

His shoulder. His back. His lower abdomen.

Christ, that one is the worst. It follows the diagonal ridge of muscle that leads to the waistband of his briefs.

They always hang low on his hips, like a purposeful taunt, daring me to look down when he strips his clothes off so he can walk to that dark water and slip beneath its treacherous embrace.

I’ve never been jealous of fucking water before. But here we are.

But it’s not just the way he looks. It’s his presence.

Even though I know he’d probably rather clock me in the face with his shovel, there’s something oddly comforting about his menacing silence at my side every night.

The most dangerous monster is the one right next to me.

When he’s there, I’m not afraid of the dark.

This is like some super-fucked-up Stockholm-syndrome-adjacent thing I’ve got going on.

Rationally, I know that in his mind, I belong to him.

Nothing and no one will stand between Nolan Rhodes and the life he’s come to claim.

But to my not-so-rational mind, that is so fucking hot .

It’s wildly intoxicating to be such an object of someone’s obsession that they would decimate anyone who threatens you.

I realize that sounds pretty messed up. And I know with every fiber of my being that I need to kill this man before I wind up as a souvenir in his skinbook.

Though I should be running in the other direction and testing out his theory that he’d find me no matter the distance, the idea of him traveling to the ends of the earth to chase me down somehow makes him even hotter.

My self-imposed, years-long dry spell isn’t doing me any favors right now. It’s tempting to picture an alternative ending to our acrimonious story, maybe even a happy one, but the reality is he would kill me, that’s what he would do. One hundred percent chance of death.

I sigh and roll my eyes, my hands braced on either side of the stove.

“Get your shit together,” I whisper as I finally realize I haven’t turned the burner on to boil the water in my stovetop coffee maker.

Again . “He’s just a guy. A completely psycho serial killer guy with a decent skin suit and muscles for days and some cute dimples.

” I squeeze my eyes shut and turn to lean against the counter.

“You should just feed him to Cookie Monster and be done with it.”

Even though I say those words out loud, I know it won’t transform the way I really feel into an opposite reality.

My enemy is right where I can see him. I don’t just need his help. I want it. Maybe part of me even wants him .

“No, you absolutely do not want him,” I say to myself as the water starts to boil in my coffee maker. “You just need caffeine.”

I turn off the gas, still chastising myself for the treacherous, intrusive thoughts that refuse to leave me alone.

I’m finally pouring my coffee and trying to make a mental list of parts for the Pocket Rocket when a sudden crash comes from the grounds beyond the cottage garden.

The shock of sound makes my hand jerk, and half the pot of boiling hot coffee spills onto my other hand and across the counter.

“Goddamnit,” I hiss as pain erupts across the back of my hand.

There’s no time to run it under cold water to soothe the burn.

I grab a tea towel and dab it dry as I rush toward the door.

“Nolan Rhodes, if this is your fault I am going to fuck you up .”

I head outside and through the back gate in the stone wall to find Arthur climbing out of his golf cart, the front of the vehicle wedged against a tree stump.

“Jesus Christ, Arthur,” I say, taking his arm to steady him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m perfectly fine.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Crashing this piece of junk,” he says, whacking the crumpled hood with his cane. “What does it look like?”

“On purpose?”

“Of course not.” He stabs his cane into the turf and starts hobbling in the direction of my cottage as though nothing happened. “The accelerator was stuck.”

“Under your foot? Because you were pressing it instead of the brake?”

Arthur grumbles an inaudible reply.

“Where’s your walker?” I ask, surveying the dented fender of his golf cart before trailing after him.

A quiet rustle of feathers pulls my attention away to the wall where Morpheus has just landed, shaking out his wings as he watches us with interest. I manage to subdue a groan, but only barely. “Did you leave it in the house?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need it. It will slow me down.” This is never a good sign.

When determination to kill makes its way into his bones and roots itself there, Arthur tends to forgo the more cumbersome walker in favor of one of his handmade canes.

Especially the one he has now, made of rich red oak with a bronze wolf’s head on the handle.

I can see that dark energy coursing through him as he grips the cane and makes his way toward the garden gate with purpose.

I know exactly what he’s going to say before the question even leaves his mouth. “Where is my black bag?”

I swallow and train my face into an innocent mask as he shoots me a glare over his shoulder. “I don’t know, Arthur. Where did you put it?”

“I know you took it. I saw you on the security camera when I looked back through the footage to identify the thief of my Pasotti umbrella.”

“Someone stole your umbrella?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Did you find it?”

“That’s beside the point, Harper,” he says as I chew my lip under his sharp scrutiny. “I want my bag.”

“Why?”

“None of your business.”

“Murder,” Morpheus pipes up from the wall. A look of distaste creases Arthur’s features as his foreboding stare slices to the source of the sound. “Pretty murder.”

“Pretty murder bird ,” I correct.

Morpheus flies to the peak of the bird feeder, tracking Arthur with his onyx eyes. “Nom nom cookie.”

“Harper. Why do you insist on feeding that vermin?”

“He’s not vermin. He’s a highly intelligent corvid.”

“A highly intelligent corvid who would gladly poke out your eyes if given the chance.” Arthur waves a hand in the bird’s direction, but Morpheus only caws a defiant refusal to be subdued, followed closely by a string of “nom-nom-cookie” requests as we pass the feeder. “I need my bag. I know it’s here.”

Arthur slows as we step onto the flagstones of the patio, halting when he reaches the table.

He stares at the cottage. His grip loosens and firms around the handle of his cane, his fingers flexing as though he could squeeze the images from his thoughts.

He shuffles his feet but doesn’t move closer to the door, his determination slowly ebbing away.

Pain surfaces in his features. Grief is a phantom that never gives up.

It never grows tired of haunting our hearts.

It clings on, somehow surviving even when other memories drift away.

It’s so imprinted on his soul that I think everything else about him could change as his disease pulls his identity apart, and yet it will persist. Maybe it will be the same for me one day.

The grief that still clings to me like a cloak might linger on when everything else fades into darkness.

The fear too. Terrors that seem carved into my bones.

I hate everything about this moment. I hate the loss Arthur was forced to endure all those years ago. I hate having to hide and not give back the tools with which he copes. I hate losing the friend and mentor I love to such a cruel decline.

I slip my hand into Arthur’s. He startles, but he doesn’t take his eyes from the cottage. His lips press into a firm line as he squeezes back.

“I’m sure you must want that bag for an important reason. But why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you a tea. We can talk about it.” I pull a patio chair back from the table for him, gesturing to the padded seat. “Please?”