Two Hundred and fifty Thousand

Chapter 16:

Kael's hand closes over mine and doesn't let go.

"Read it to me," he says.

"Kael—"

"Read it."

I read it. My voice sounds like somebody else's.

"Missing heiress. Sterling family offers two hundred fifty thousand dollars reward for wife's safe return. Police say she may be in danger." I stop. "It says I've been under a lot of stress. It says my husband's cooperating fully. It says anyone with information should call a hotline."

"Give it here." He takes the phone. Reads it himself. His jaw works. "There's a picture."

"It's from the wedding."

"There's another one. Down here." He scrolls. "It's a hospital photo. She's got a busted arm in a sling."

"What?"

"Your husband's got a press conference at nine tomorrow morning." He hands the phone back to Jax. "He's gonna cry on television."

And I sit down on the stool because my legs just stopped working.

"He's not looking for me," I say.

"What?"

"He's not looking for me. He's making sure nobody helps me." I look up at Kael. "Don't you see? Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Every person in this state just got a reason to be a hero. Every truck driver, every motel clerk, every woman at a bus station who thinks she's doing the right thing. And if a police officer finds me, that's not a reward, that's a promotion." My voice is climbing. "He doesn't want me back. He wants me returned. Like a package. Like something that fell off a truck."

Kael doesn't say anything.

"I have to go," I say.

"You're not going."

"Kael." I stand up. "Look around. This town's got eight hundred people. Eight hundred people, and every one of them is gonna see that headline by tomorrow. Miss Ada. Marcy. Carl from the gas station. How long before one of them decides two hundred fifty thousand dollars is worth more than the woman in the bar they met three days ago?"

"None of them will."

"You don't know that."

"I know this town."

"You didn't know Hendricks was on the roof of the church!"

That lands.

He doesn't move and he doesn't blink and I can see it hit him right in the chest.

"I'm not saying they're bad people," I say, and my voice is shaking now. "I'm saying they're people. And two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is more than most people see in ten years. So I'm gonna go upstairs and I'm gonna get my bag, and then I'm gonna walk out that door and I'm gonna get on a bus, and you're gonna let me."

He looks at me for a long time.

Then he says, "Jax. Go on home."

"Prez—"

"Go home."

Jax goes.

The door rings and the lock turns and it's the two of us again, just like it always is, in the bar with the rain on the windows.

Kael walks over to the phone on the wall.

Picks it up.

Dials.

"Who are you calling?"

He holds up one finger.

"It's Vance," he says into the phone. "Yeah. The bus company. Who's running the route through Blackpine tomorrow?" Pause. "Uh huh. And who's driving it?" Pause. "Tell Dave I need a favor. Tell him he's got a passenger tomorrow and she's riding up front with him and there's a man in a gray hat who's gonna be at every stop between here and the state line looking for her, and he's not to let her off the bus for nothing." Pause. "No. No. Tell him I'll owe him."

He hangs up.

"What are you doing," I say.

"Getting you on a bus."

I stare at him.

"You—" I stop. "You're letting me go?"

"I said three days. It's been three days." He turns around. "You want to go, you go. But you don't go on a Greyhound out of a station where anybody can see you get on. You go on Dave's bus at six in the morning out of the lot behind the bar, and you sit up front, and you don't get off till you're across the state line. That's how a woman runs. Not how a scared girl runs."

I put my hand on the bar.

"Why," I say.

"You know why."

"Say it."

He looks at me.

"Because a man put his hands on you," he says, "and I got a problem with it. And because you're gonna be a whole lot safer across the state line than you are in this town, and I'd rather have you alive somewhere I can't find you than dead here where I can."

And I don't know what happens in me.

It's like something in my chest gives way. Like a wall that's been standing since before I can remember finally just — lets go.

I'm across the room.

I don't even remember deciding to be. I'm across the room and my hands are on his face and his mouth is on mine.

He doesn't move.

For one second. Two. He doesn't move at all.

Then his hands come up and one of them gets in my hair at the back of my head and the other one lands flat on the bar beside me and he kisses me like a man who's been holding his breath for three days.

He tastes like whiskey. He smells like leather and rain. His mouth is warm and rough and it moves over mine and I hear myself make a sound that I have never made before in my life.

And then he pulls back.

Just an inch. Just enough. His forehead against mine and both of us breathing hard.

"Elara," he says.

"Don't."

"I got to."

"Don't you dare." My hands are still on his face. "Don't you dare say we shouldn't."

"I wasn't gonna say that." He opens his eyes. "I was gonna say if you kiss me again, I'm not gonna be a gentleman about it. So you need to decide right now what this is."

I look at him.

"What if I don't know?"

"Then we stop."

"What if I know?"

And something in his face goes very still.

"Then we don't stop," he says, "and everything changes. Because the second I put my hands on you for real, you're mine. I don't share. I don't do casual. I don't do let's see where this goes. You're either standing in front of me or you're not. There's no middle. There's no halfway. I'm not built that way."

I should walk away.

I know exactly what happens to a woman who gets tangled up with a man like this. I was married to a man like this. Different flavor. Same poison.

Except.

Except he bought a county to protect his business and then used it to protect me. Except he wrapped my feet with a plastic bag from a gas station. Except he put a gray t-shirt on his own dresser with a wolf on the front because he thought I'd want something soft to sleep in. Except he just got on the phone and called in a favor he'll owe on a bus he's putting me on so I can leave him.

Marcus never once did a single thing that cost him something and didn't pay him back.

"Kael," I say.

"Yeah."

"I know."

His eyes change.

And I kiss him again.

This one's slower. Not hungry. Something else. Something worse. His hand comes down off the bar and around my waist and pulls me in and I go, and he makes a sound low in his chest like a growl and I feel it in my whole body.

"Upstairs," he says against my mouth.

"Upstairs."

He picks me up.

Actually picks me up, one arm under my knees, like I weigh nothing, and I laugh — I actually laugh, out loud, into his neck, and he stops dead in the middle of the bar.

"What," I say.

"Nothing," he says. "I just — you laughed."

"So?"

"So I don't think I ever heard that before."

And then he carries me up the stairs.

The room's dark. The lamp's off. He sets me down on the floor by the bed and he doesn't turn the light on and he doesn't move.

"You want me to turn a light on?" he says.

"No."

"You want me to stop?"

"No."

He touches my face. Just two fingers, down my cheek, under my jaw, and he tips my head up.

"I need you to hear this," he says. "Anything I do and you don't want, you say stop and I stop. Anything. I don't care what we're doing or how far gone I am. You say the word and I'm off you. Understand?"

"Understand."

"Say it back."

"Say it back?"

"Say it back to me."

"Kael—"

"Say it back."

And I hear it in his voice. The thing underneath. Not dominance. Not control.

Fear.

"Anything I don't want," I say, "I say stop, and you stop."

"That's right."

"And you say it back."

He blinks.

"Say it back to me," I say. "Anything I do and you don't want. I'd stop."

He looks at me for a long time.

"Elara," he says.

"Say it."

"You stop," he says. "Anything you do and I don't want, you stop." His voice is low. "But I'm gonna tell you something, and then I'm gonna kiss you. There ain't a thing you could do to me that I'd want you to stop."

And then he kisses me.

And this time we don't stop.

Chapter 16 Ends.