Ruined

Chapter Six

Sam

I stuffed the car keys into my back pocket and slammed the rental car door. The sun was shining and there was a chill in the air to tell us winter was on the way. I hadn’t slept last night, so by the time 9:00 a.m. rolled around, I was the walking dead. To make matters worse, my aunt didn’t drink coffee. The woman wasn’t human… I ended up being late to work to sate my caffeine addiction, because going without wasn’t an option.

“Sam,” someone whispered. “Psst. Over here.”

I whirled around, almost losing my footing in the loose gravel, and squinted into the darkness of the alley. A hunched figure hovered in the shadows by the dumpster. “Hobe?”

A small-framed man in his early thirties with a nasty nervous tic and a serious acne issue stepped from the dark. He refused to look directly at me and kept both hands stuffed in his pockets as he came closer. If I didn’t know Hobe, I probably would’ve crossed the street to avoid him. Not dangerous in a bruiser sort of way, he had an entirely different kind of vibe. Creepy in that “it’s always the quiet ones” way. Our boss usually made him work mornings to clean up because he tended to freak out the customers.

The Viking was Harlow’s only nightclub. The club opened two years ago—despite an enthusiastic campaign from residents to keep it out—and had become a hot spot. Even people from four towns over visited.

“Boss man is on the war path.”

“I’m running late for my shift. I know, I’m sorry.” I wasn’t a morning person, but I was stuck coming in early, before the club opened, to do grunt work because I’d been late four times last week. Normally Martin stuck me behind the bar. I wasn’t the prettiest, but I knew how to water down a drink better than anyone. The big boss was nothing if not cheap. “What’s his deal today?”

“This Gentleman Stalker thing. He’s pissed. Says it’s bad for business.”

I’d heard about that. Some of the girls who had gone missing were from Huntington campus. It just reinforced that I’d made the right choice. I could have ended up like them. In fact, I had a feeling I almost had.

The decision to leave school was prompted mainly because I’d been attacked one night on the way home from a party. No one knew about the Gentleman Stalker at the time, but who knew? I could have ended up his first victim.

Yesterday, after the accident, I’d even had myself convinced that the near miss at school and the sudden streak of bad luck here in Harlow were somehow connected. But with the clarity of a new day, I realized that was insane. That would mean whoever attacked me on campus had followed me all the way home. There’d be no point. I’d never even seen his face.

“Boss is going to stick you on cleanup crew with me for the next month,” Hobe said as I made my way around the car and to the back door. “Then you’ll have to deal with the monsters.”

I bit my tongue as I slipped in through the back. The running joke at the club was that Hobe’s mother had dropped him on his head during a monster movie marathon.

He followed, shaking his head. “Fangs and shit. Horns, scales, tentacles…” he continued seriously. “You’re nice. I’d hate to see you hurt.”

“Tentacles? Really?” And I thought I’d heard it all last week when he’d told me aliens were running the Dairy Queen on Eighth and had offered him a job. “Well, thank God I have you to protect me.”

It was going to be a long day…

As punishment for being late—again—Martin made me clean out the bathrooms. When I was done with that, he had me scraping the vomit from the side of the building. It was a good thing I had an ironclad stomach.

“Hey,” someone said, coming up behind me. “This where the cool kids are hanging?”

No.

The universe was testing me. That was the only explanation. I nodded without turning. It was bad enough he’d come back to town, now Jax Flynn was stalking me at work? While I cleaned puke from a wall? What the hell had I done in another life to piss off karma so badly? “Sure is. Guess that means you’ll have to stand someplace else.”

“And deprive you of the chance to experience my godlike body?”

I threw down the rag and straightened, turning to him with a sneer. “Godlike? Try pasty and…” Yeah, I had nothing. Godlike was a good word. Drool-worthy. Focus-stealing… Holy shit. I couldn’t stand there, looking at him, without wondering what his lips would taste like. Or how his skin would feel as I ran my fingers over the hard planes of his muscle.

In the same trench coat as yesterday, he was swathed in black from head to toe, looking every bit as dangerous as he did delicious. It burned that the sight of him still revved my engine. He was cut, too. “What are you doing here, Jax? Something tells me you didn’t come down to watch me scrape puke.”

A waggle of his brows and a not-so-subtle wink. “But you scrape it so well.” I geared up to tell him to shove off, but he raised his hands, sobering. “Okay, okay. Kelly told me where to find you.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I told her I was leaving. Wanted to say good-bye and see how you were doing.”

A tangled knot formed in my chest. I hated that he was here, yet a part of me wanted so badly for him to stay. How was that for twisted? I should have the words “perpetual indecision” tattooed on my ass. “Good-bye?”

He tilted his head to the right. “Missing me already?”

Hell, yes. “Counting down the seconds to departure, actually,” I said. I stepped away from the building and twirled around, ending with a little bow. “And obviously I’m right as rain. Feel free to move it along to whatever hole you plan on crawling into for the next three years. I’m working, after all.”

“Oh, yeah.” He folded his arms. “I can see that. It must be exhausting to clean puke. Bet they pay you the big bucks. Tell me, do you have a corner office yet?”

I turned back to the wall. The stain was all but gone, but I contemplated scrubbing it some more. I would not engage in a bickering match. Would. Not. “Like I said, I’m fine. Obligation complete.” I wiggled my fingers over my shoulder in a dismissive wave. “Run along and irritate someone else now.”

He made a noise low in his throat—a cross between a snort and a growl that was both hysterical and sexy at the same time. “Obligation? What kind of sense does that make? You were driving. How could I possibly feel obligated?”

Shit. He had a point.

“Speaking of…” I turned to face him again. But not stare at his chest. Or his arms. Or his lips. God. Definitely not his lips… Wow. Had someone cranked up the heat? “What was up with that, anyway? If I hadn’t piped up, you weren’t going to say anything.”

Silence.

“About driving the car?” I prodded.

He narrowed his eyes and I had to remind myself to breathe. That look, all attitude and danger, used to be the death of me. Apparently, things hadn’t changed. “Why bother?”

“Why—? Kelly thought you almost killed me. You didn’t even defend yourself.”

He stiffened. “I don’t need you to stick up for me. Maybe I didn’t care what she thought?”

“Hey, Sam,” Margret Guinness called as she passed on the sidewalk. I didn’t miss the look of disdain that crossed the old woman’s face as her eyes passed over Jax.

He didn’t miss it either. He glared at Margret, and without turning back to me, said, “Maybe I don’t care what any of them think—and that includes you.”And with that, he turned on his heel and started toward the back of the parking lot.

Was he kidding? With a quick look at the door to make sure the boss wasn’t watching, I took off after Jax.

“You’re really something.” I caught him as he reached the edge of the parking lot. Grabbing his arm, I spun him around. “And a big, fat liar.”

He snorted, eyebrows rising slightly. “Someone needs to update their vocabulary. Scoundrel. Rogue. Criminally hot badass. You can do better than big fat liar, Sammy.” He pulled away and kept walking.

Some people called it stubbornness. I called it determination. Proudly inherited from my mom right along with my crooked toes and too-wide smile. I caught up to him again, this time jumping in front to block his path. “You care what I think. Granted, you may not care what Kelly thinks—most people don’t—but you care what I think.”

“You’re delusional,” he growled, all the humor draining from his expression. I knew that look. It was the about to go postal expression I’d seen on him a thousand times before. “You can’t possibly believe—”

From inside my back pocket, the cell phone started ringing. Without waiting for him to finish, I fished it out, hoping it pissed him off. He’d always had a thing about being interrupted. “Hello?”

“Ms. Merrick? This is Allen over at Frenksel Automotive. I’m just calling to inform you that we’ve had a chance to look over your car.”

“Oh. Well, that was fast. I knew the sheriff was having it yanked from the river. Any idea what caused my brakes to crap out?”

Behind me, Jax’s shadow moved a bit closer. I could feel him standing close and it was giving me chills.

“Yes. We know exactly why your brakes didn’t work. Ms. Merrick…it looks as though they were cut.”