Page 37 of Tourist Season

I T’S NEARLY NOON. A ND I ’M standing on the street outside Harper’s cottage like a fucking obsessed loser.

I push the sleeves of my charcoal-gray Henley up to my elbows.

She likes my forearms. I think. She stares at them a lot.

Unless I’m fucking delusional, which … probably tracks.

She seems to like these tactical work pants I wear sometimes, too.

“Is that part of your uniform?” she’d asked a few nights ago, gesturing to my trousers and work boots.

“I don’t really have a uniform other than a vest and jacket, but … I guess so.”

I still feel the heat beneath my skin from the way her gaze dropped down the length of me a fraction slower than what would be deemed appropriate for a nemesis, unless she was searching for the most painful place to knife me.

“Hmm,” was all she’d said before returning to her work.

But I still caught the little glance she tossed my way.

I brush away the nonexistent dust from my clothes. Maybe she’ll like what she sees? It shouldn’t matter, but increasingly, it feels like it does.

This is stupid. Leave her alone.

With a frustrated sigh, I turn away as though I’ll actually manage to convince myself to walk back to the Capeside Inn. And then I turn again, facing her house once more.

When she didn’t reply last night to my text about picking her up, and then never showed to excavate Arthur’s victims, I tried to convince myself that she just needed some space to process our mind-blowingly hot sex from the night before.

Well, I thought it was mind-blowing. The best sex I’ve ever had, and I know it’s not just the mushrooms talking.

It just felt right with her. Natural. Like our energy fit together, two magnets snapping into place.

But maybe she doesn’t feel the same way, and it chews me up.

She still didn’t reply this morning. And when I texted her an hour ago, she didn’t reply to that either.

As the minutes have trudged onward, I’ve become increasingly worried about her.

She’s usually so responsive. This isn’t like her.

It’s bad enough that she might be avoiding me, though I could understand that, given the circumstances.

But what if it’s something worse? What if she’s sick?

Hurt and alone? She operates in shadowed circles.

What if some of those ghosts have caught up with her?

What if Arthur has turned on her? What if she’s—

I cut my thoughts off before they can spiral into my darkest fears and march through the gate, not stopping until I’m pounding on her door.

“Harper …” No sound comes from within her cottage. I knock again and press my ear to the door. Still nothing. “ Harper .”

I catch a muffled groan that sounds as though it’s coming from the back of the house.

In a heartbeat, I’m striding down the flagstone path that skirts the side of the cottage. I’m nearly at the corner when the front door opens and I halt abruptly at the sound of my name.

“Nolan …?” Harper’s head pokes out the door, her eyes flicking toward the street before landing on me once more. “What are you doing here?”

Relief is a flood that washes through my veins. It’s followed quickly by a wave of embarrassment.

And then, suspicion.

There’s something wild in her eyes. A sharpness in their silver shards.

She retreats just a little, backing into her lair like a feral creature.

She looks like she’s ready to run. What I wouldn’t give to see a wicked smile flash across her face before she bolts away from me with a challenge to catch her.

Maybe she’s wearing those tiny sleep shorts that highlight every curve in her ass and that low-cut tank top that hugs her breasts.

The sudden fantasy of chasing her down and fucking her brutally as she screams my name goes straight to my cock.

I clear my throat in the hopes that it might somehow clear my mind too as I walk closer to the door, my steps careful and cautious.

“I was …” What do I say? I was obsessively worrying about you until I finally decided to trespass on your property, which I’ve already done several times, though you don’t know that …

? Fuck, that sounds awful. “I was at the river last night. Alone, despite the fact I don’t know where to dig.

Figured I should stop by to make sure you were coming this evening, seeing as how we’ve got a strict schedule to adhere to. ”

“I’ll be there.”

Her assurance is delivered with no biting edge, no roll of her eyes. And that’s what worries me the most. She retreats farther as I near the door, shielding her body behind the slab of wood so that only her face is visible in the narrow crack of light.

What if she’s naked?

What if she’s naked and not alone ?

Jealousy explodes through every cell in my body, incinerating my earlier fantasies into bitter ash.

I do my best to convince myself that whatever she’s hiding is none of my business.

That the only reason I care about her well-being is because it has the potential to affect me too.

As soon as I’m sure she’s all right, I promise myself to go back to the inn and leave her the fuck alone.

“Everything okay?” I manage, my words slow and measured.

“Yep.” She nods emphatically. “Great.”

“Can I come in?”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Because you hate me and you want to kill me?”

Touché. “Not … right now.”

“That doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

I lay my palm on the door and her eyes dart to it before landing back on me with enough fury to set my skin on fire. When I put just a little pressure on the wood, she pushes back. “Why are you being so weird?”

She snorts a sardonic laugh. “You’re the one who’s pushing on my door like the fucking psychopathic serial killer that you are. I have your precious book, don’t forget. If you think you’re going to stop by to kill me, think again.”

“I’m not here to hurt you,” I say, my heart scraping my ribs on its way to my guts as her glare intensifies beneath the dark bangs that frame her eyes.

I’ve been unraveling my grip on the idea of vengeance, one talon at a time.

But it’s obvious Harper would never believe that.

And it’s going to be fucking difficult to convince her.

Maybe even impossible. She might need my help so badly that she’s willing to go out into the night and dig up bodies with me.

But despite what she said when I fucked her, she doesn’t truly trust me.

And in this moment, as I’m standing as an uninvited guest at the doorstep of her home, caught in the corrosive power of her mercury stare, a realization hits me so hard it steals the air from my chest. That as much as I’ve wanted justice for Billy’s murder and the injuries that will haunt me forever, the need for retribution has kept me trapped in the past. If I’d come here wanting to meet Harper and, unfathomably, forgive her, a whole different life might have risen around me.

But I’ve been so focused on our history that I might have destroyed the seeds of our future before they even had a chance to grow.

My hand slips from the door, landing back at my side. A thick swallow grinds down my dry throat. “I’m sorry, Harper,” I say, and her brow furrows with wary surprise. “I shouldn’t have—”

Another pained groan comes from the back of the house. And it sounds like a muffled plea for help.

Alarm detonates across Harper’s features. Her eyes are impossibly wide, her full lips parted in a sharp inhale. I’m sure my expression is a mirror of hers. And for a suspended heartbeat, we’re trapped in time, unmoving.

In the next breath, she slams the door in my face as I pivot and take off running down the path that hugs the cottage.

I make it to the back corner of the house just as the kitchen door slams and Harper bursts out onto the patio.

“Harper …” My shocked stare travels from her toes to the top of her head and back down again, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. “What the fuck ?”

She’s wearing her gardening gloves and overalls, a black pair this time, and her favorite leather work boots, but they’re covered with makeshift plastic booties fixed to her ankles with duct tape.

Her hair is tied in a messy ponytail with a red bow, as though she’s ready to do a musical song-and-dance routine with the ax that’s clutched in her left hand.

Her bangs and wisps of stray locks frame her flushed face.

But it’s her cropped T-shirt that really grabs my attention.

Craft-A-Corpse! the retro font says over the white fabric that’s stained with splashes of blood. And I am one hundred percent positive that it’s not more of Maya’s Berry Blissful Bloodbath. Especially when another desperate plea for help comes from the other side of the garden wall.

Her eyes dart to the sound. I creep a step toward the gate.

Harper catches the motion in her peripheral vision, and in the next blink, she takes off running with me close on her heels.

By the time she makes it to the gate, I’m right behind her, and just as she’s passing through it, I wrap an arm around her waist and scoop her up off the ground.

“Well, well, well,” I say against her ear as she thrashes. Her sweet scent of fresh herbs and citrus floods my nostrils. “I am going to hazard a guess that you’ve been up to no good.”

“Let me the fuck down,” she snarls. She scrapes at my arm with one hand, but she’s still wearing her gardening gloves and can’t dig her nails in.

With awkward steps, I walk in the direction of the pleas that now come in earnest, keeping her pressed to my body with her feet lifted from the ground.

A man’s desperate sobs come from around the corner, the spot near the freshly planted flowers where Harper likes to use her woodchipper.

“I think it’s best we first check out this rather odd sound coming from your back garden, don’t you agree?”

“Not really. No.”