Physical Distraction: A Sinful Suspense Novel (8 page)

“When you showed me the boxes, you said something about the 1990’s being popular today. Maybe there was someone else in here before me?” I suggested.

“Yes, but—but my nephew knows better than to remove anything from my collection.”

“Was your nephew looking in this decade too?”

“He must have been. The box was sticking out. The one I pushed back.” She looked down at the front of the box. “Yes, it was 1999.”

I lifted the box top to show her the fresh handprint.

“Well, look at that. I’ll have to call him later and give him a piece of my mind.”

“Do you think it’s possible for me to get a hold of him and ask if I could see the paper?” There were thousands of papers surrounding us, and the one paper I needed to see had left the room for the first time in sixteen years. It couldn’t just be a coincidence. I’d found my first real clue.

Alice didn’t have to mull over my request. “No, dear, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll give him a call later and tell him to bring it back. Check back here next week. Was there anything else you wanted to see?” she asked with an edge of disappointment. It seemed she was hoping I’d spend more time looking at her vast collection.

“No, I just really needed to see that one. But thanks so much for letting me see your papers. It’s wonderful how you’ve managed to collect them all and keep them in such perfect order.” My compliment seemed to wipe away some of her disappointment. I helped her return the box to the shelf and followed her back to the front of the store.

I desperately wanted to know her nephew’s name and had to think fast. “Alice, I can save you the trouble of contacting your nephew. I work at the Bucktooth Sawmill. Maybe he works there?” I asked hopefully.

“Oh my, a pretty thing like you with all those dirty, smelly sawmill workers? That Hal Stevens, I always credited him with more manners than sense.”

I decided to ignore the usual conclusion jumping that I shouldn’t be working amongst a group of men and the automatic assumption that I had no true job skills. “Does he work there? I could just ask him.”

She waved her hand. “Gosh no, Hal would never let my nephew work there. Alcott is sort of the black sheep of the family. But his sons work at the mill.” She laughed. “They’re sort of the gray sheep, if there’s such a thing.”

“Alcott?” I asked, and steadied my hands in my pockets. Could there be two Alcotts, I wondered briefly.

“Alcott Wolfe. Jem and Dane are his sons.”

“I see.” My throat was suddenly dry, making it hard to talk. The coconut fragrance had started out pleasant, but it was closing in on me, and I was feeling as if I desperately needed fresh air. “Well, if you could find the paper, that’d be great. Thank you again.” I walked out onto the sidewalk and gulped in the cool, clear air. It was my first clue, and it was a doozy. Alcott Wolfe was somehow connected to my dad’s death.

Chapter 12

Jem

With Finn out on sick leave and only Hal’s nephew, Stan, a complete numbskull who only had a job at all because he was Hal’s nephew, to help out on the water, I was having a hard time getting the day’s work finished. Out on the pond, I could usually clear my mind of any of life’s crap that liked to follow me around, but this week, I’d been preoccupied with something that was irritating the shit out of me. Our newest office helper, the girl who’d been stuck in my head since the first moment I saw her in the granite ravine below Phantom Curve, had hardly looked my direction all week. And it wasn’t just an attempt to ignore me. It seemed, suddenly, that she flat out despised me. I was sure Everly had filled her head with all kinds of details about Jem Wolfe and now, Tashlyn had made her mind up that I was trash to be avoided. Or maybe I’d just been kidding myself and she’d hated me all along. There just wasn’t that much to like.

I’d left Stan in charge of gathering debris to send to the chipper, a job that didn’t need as much supervision, and I climbed off the logs to take a lunch break. There were only two hours left until the end of the work day, but there had been too much for me to do to take the break earlier. I preferred the later lunch. It meant everyone else was already back at the job, and the break room would be empty. Most of the time, I wasn’t in the mood to listen to everyone’s bullshit.

I headed across the yard toward the main building. Most workers were busy inside the mill. Steam from the machinery moistened the air with its sticky, harsh smell. A truck had carried in some massive, specially ordered eighty-foot logs, and the high-pitched screams of the saw in first cut to remove bark echoed off the surrounding peaks.

Tashlyn’s slim silhouette went past the front window. Stevens had her running circles to get the office organized. He seemed pretty damn pleased with himself for hiring her. Couldn’t blame the guy.

I walked in through the back door of the break room. Hadn’t really prepared myself to run into her, but there she was, standing in the light of the fridge and that unexplained glow that seemed to follow her around naturally. She was wearing worn and tattered cowboy boots over her tight jeans, and my eyes went straight to her perfectly sculpted ass.

She reached inside the fridge but hadn’t looked around to see who’d entered. I crossed the room. I wasn’t big on giving a lot of thought to shit. Especially when it was something that had been twisting me up inside, and her cold shoulder treatment had been doing just that. My mind was made up right then to talk to her, and there was no room to question my decision.

As she closed the fridge, I pressed my palm against the door and finished shutting it. She gasped and spun around, wedged between the fridge and my body. I fucking hated the look she was giving me.

“You’re avoiding me, Woodstock.”

She shook her head, drew her eyes away and scooted to the side. I pushed my other hand against the fridge. She was trapped, and it was killing me not to touch her. Her long lashes lifted, and she peered up at me like a frightened, blue eyed kitten. Her lips were so damn bitable I had to clench my jaw tight to stop thinking about kissing her. Kiss, hell, I’d be lucky to get out of the lunchroom without her handprint on my face. But I was never one for common sense when a beautiful girl was involved. And this girl had knocked me fucking senseless.

“I’d like to eat my lunch, please.” There was a slight tremble in her tone, as if she didn’t trust me, which I hated even more than the angry way she was looking at me.

“Just figured since you’ve seen me naked and everything, we should at least be friends.”

Her blue eyes flickered with sudden shyness as I brought up that day in the locker room. It had been locked down tight in my thoughts. I could still feel her fingers pressing against my skin as if she was touching me right then.

She lifted her shoulders, pushed out a defiant chin and tilted her face up toward mine. “Nope, I’m pretty sure seeing someone naked doesn’t automatically qualify them as a friend. Hope that clears up any misconception.”

I stared down at her. “There she is—the other Tashlyn. One minute you’re Cinderella, waiting shyly in the corner for your prince to come, and the next, you’re fucking Xena the Warrior waiting to cut down any man in her path. Lots of layers, darlin’.”

“Yep, I’m complicated and—” She paused and pulled her eyes away, the shy Tashlyn returning without warning. “I can’t—We can’t be friends.” She moved to duck under my arm, but I mirrored her step.

“Ask me anything,” I said. I was digging my own fucking grave here. Normally, I would just have said fine—not friends—big fucking deal. But I couldn’t just let this go. “I know Everly has filled your head with all kinds of shit about me. Ask me.”

She finally lifted her face to mine. Her attention went to my scar. “How did you get that scar?”

“I was spending time in juvenile hall, and I mouthed off to the wrong guard. He smashed my face into the chain link fence surrounding the yard. In all fairness to the guard, I deserved it, and he didn’t see the sharp barb sticking out of it. The upside was that I got to spend three days in the infirmary where the food tasted less like shit and more like cardboard, a taste bud step up for sure. The downside was that the infirmary doctor was an old guy who’d retired from medicine decades before but decided to volunteer. His eyesight was bad and his fingers were shaky.” I lifted my hand long enough to point at my scar. “That’s why it’s so damn pretty.”

Her face softened some for the first time since I’d kept her captive against the fridge. “You were just a kid,” she said softly.

“Sixteen.”

“The guard was pushing around a kid. Don’t think he deserves any
fairness
qualifier.”

I looked down at her. Some of the tension was easing. “Shit, Woodstock, never know exactly what’s going to come out of that beautiful mouth of yours, but you never fucking disappoint.”

Her face was just inches from mine, and my will was breaking fast. I leaned closer and was sure she’d slide out under my arm and flee. She didn’t. As my mouth got dangerously close to hers, her soft breath caressed my lips as she spoke again.

“What were you in juvenile hall for?”

It was a question that stopped the kiss . . . for now. “Robbery.”

Her gaze hardened again. “So, Everly was filling my head with the truth about Jem Wolfe.”

“Sort of. But not everything is as it seems sometimes, you know?” I wasn’t about to tell her that I’d taken the fall for Dane because he was eighteen. He’d been the one to steal the cash from a gas station, but I’d confessed to it. Sending Dane to jail would have ended in tragedy. He couldn’t have survived it.

She stared back at me. “I don’t know. As far as I can see most things in life are pretty black and white.”

“Really? Cuz it seems there is nothing black and white about you or why you ended up in this town.”

Her eyes flickered with an emotion I couldn’t quite recognize. I lowered my arms. I was sure she’d walk away. She stayed there tucked between me and the white, whirring refrigerator. There wasn’t one inch of her I deserved to touch, but fuck, did I want to.

  She took a deep breath as if she was steeling herself for something else, another question. “Sixteen years ago, my dad’s truck went off the side of the road. He burned to death in his truck.”

“I’m sorry about that, Tashlyn. Really, I am.”

She shook her head. “That’s not my question. You said to ask, so . . . What the hell does your dad have to do with his death?” She’d braced herself, but her voice trembled as she spoke.

I stared down at her and tried to figure out what she was asking. “What are you talking about?”

“I went to Alice’s shop to find the local newspaper article about his death. In a strange, and frankly, scary coincidence, your dad had come in just before me and taken that one paper. Out of all the damn papers in her collection, he took that one.”

Each word was sucking the wind from me, and my gut rolled into a hard knot. I couldn’t speak. Inside, I was always being eaten up by pieces of crap from my past, ugly stuff that was easier to ignore than explain, stuff that I’d pushed out of my head to save my sanity. But I had no fucking clue why my dad would have taken that paper.

Tashlyn blinked up at me waiting for a logical answer, but there was nothing fucking logical about my dad. “Wish I knew what to say.” My voice cracked from my dry throat. My appetite was gone.

I turned and walked out. I reached the metal shed where the saw blades were sharpened. I stood and stared at it for a long moment. My own reflection stared back at me, warped and hazy between the wavy metal walls. I lifted my arm and threw my fist into it, leaving a hand-sized dent in the aluminum siding. My knuckles throbbed and thin lines of blood trickled between them. My hand hurt like hell, but throwing my fist into that wall felt fucking good.

Chapter 13

Tashlyn

During the heart of the workday, when the machinery was running and the men were shouting over the din, the place was chaos, an organized pandemonium, but chaos, nonetheless. After closing, when only a few men were left to finish up whatever needed done before the following morning, the sawmill transformed into an eerie graveyard for dead trees.

Hal had graciously offered to let me stay in the office until it was time for my bus. He’d even given me the option to do some work for overtime pay, and there was certainly enough to do. I’d finally gotten the place somewhat organized. Now there were calls to make on overdue payments, a job I didn’t really relish but Hal had let his books fall into disarray. It was a wonder the mill had been running so smoothly for so long.

Today, as Hal was leaving, he’d mentioned that the days would soon be getting shorter and it would be pitch dark by the time my bus came. He suggested I start thinking about getting a car, a notion that seemed pretty far off financially at the moment, but he was right. I was already uneasy staying alone here when there was still faded daylight. I didn’t want to sit on the bus bench alone in the dark, especially after the nightmarish story Everly had told me about vanishing girls.

I looked out across the yard. It seemed the last worker had gone home. The sun was dropping low, teasing the mountain peaks with its last spray of light before dusk. I pulled on my sweatshirt, an item I’d bought at Everly’s insistence. My faded denim jacket was useless against the chilled mountain air. Like Hal’s mention of the car, Everly had cautioned me to start saving for a proper winter coat.

I’d really come unprepared for this entire adventure, an adventure that so far was leaving me with more questions than answers. After learning that Alcott Wolfe, an extremely frightening looking man, had taken the newspaper about my dad’s death, I’d decided that Jem’s dark warnings about this town were not to be ignored.

After our tense encounter in the lunchroom, I had no idea what to think about Jem. He seemed genuinely shocked, almost to the point that he looked sick from it, when I told him his dad had taken the newspaper. My first few impressions of him had been sugarcoated because he’d saved my guitar and then he’d saved a man from death, while putting himself in harm’s way. But, like Everly had been telling me all along, it seemed Jem Wolfe was pure trouble. 

The early evening breeze came down off the mountain and brought with it a fresh scent of pine that could nearly overwhelm the senses. All day, the scent of wood and evergreen hovered over the yard, but it was the bitter, dying smell of trees giving off their last oily breath. The fragrance from the live trees above on the ridge was far more pleasant, reminding me of Christmas in The Grog where a live tree was always propped up in the middle of the commune to decorate. It produced a nostalgic tug in my chest, a feeling of homesickness for my aunt.

As I headed across the yard, a small whimpering sound came from the building that housed the carriage for the first cut. Occasionally, when he had a free moment, Hal would walk me around the place and explain everything that was going on. I found it all quite interesting and was learning a surprising amount about the mill process.

I continued on toward the trail that led to the highway and my bus bench, deciding I’d only imagined the sound. Then I heard it again. It sounded like a small dog. Impossible. Still, the thought of a dog stuck down here all alone in the cold night was enough to make me turn around.

In the shadows of the brick and steel building, the giant carriage and blades looked like a monster with hooked claws and teeth. It somehow looked more terrifying sitting dead still with no steam engine to give it life. An almost imperceptible sound caught my attention, and I walked around to the far side of the carriage. I glanced under the metal cradle where the logs were positioned for trimming. The cement floor had a thin layer of sawdust that had not been swept clear, but the only footprints were human. No paw prints. No more dog sounds.

I straightened and something caught my eye. It was small and
insignificant
, a tiny speck in the vast building, and it was completely out of place. I leaned closer to get a better look. The insignificant speck became something much more. Dangling from a thin piece of leather was an ivory white tooth, a wide, flat shark’s tooth that had been carefully mounted in a gold cap like a charm. My head felt light. I blinked at the object and reached for the empty gold chain around my neck. The empty circle of gold was still there, dangling like an unfinished story in the center of the necklace. But there it was, dangling in front of me on a strip of leather, the ending to the story. Only all the middle chapters were still missing.

My hand shook fiercely as I reached for it. It was too far. My mind raced with possible explanations for why the shark’s tooth, a beloved token my dad had bought me on a trip to Florida, was hanging in the middle of a sawmill. I’d been so shocked at seeing it, at having the memory of the shark’s tooth come back to me like a solid slap to the face, that I hadn’t given thought to the notion that it was being used as a lure.

I stepped up on the ledge that ran parallel with the massive carriage table. I hoisted myself up and knelt along the metal rim of the table. I braced one hand against the hooked arm, the mechanism used to guide the logs through the machine, and sucked in a breath, blinking back tears as I reached for the tooth. Up close, it looked so familiar, it sent a flurry of disjointed images through my head, all of them leaving behind a somber, hopeless feeling.

As my fingers closed around the necklace, I heard feet shuffling behind me. Before I could turn around, big hands seized me. “Thought you might follow a puppy,
pussycat
,” the voice growled in my ear.

I struggled to free myself from his grasp. But his hold was iron tight. I opened my mouth to scream, but a sharp pain on my head knocked the sound from me. The carriage machine blurred. The shark’s tooth disappeared into the blackness that followed.

A haunting image of a hand reaching into a dark hole to yank the tooth from my necklace splintered away. The present returned as I was snapped back into consciousness by the jarring movement beneath me. I was sure I hadn’t been out for long, but the man was gone and I was on the conveyor belt moving toward the ravenous blades.

My head was swimming with pain as I tried to sit up. My sleeve had been ripped and wound tightly around the hooked arm of the cradle. For a brief, hysterical second I told myself to wake up. I had to be sleeping. This was a scenario that only happened in horror movies. It couldn’t be real. But the earsplitting hiss of the blades brought me to the horrifying conclusion that I was wide awake and heading for a violent death.

My feet were just inches from the mouth of the saw. I yanked them back toward my body. My screams echoed off the metal doors of the building. I was on my side curled tightly in a ball as I tried to slip out of my sweatshirt. The cradle arm’s grip on my torn sleeve seemed to tighten as if it was the giant hand of a clawed monster. It pulled so tight, my arm tingled. It was impossible to get my arm out of the torn sleeve.

I screamed as loud as I could. My arm was being wrenched in an unnatural position as I tried to swing off the conveyor belt. My legs dropped over the side, but my upper body and twisted arm were still heading for the blades.

The teeth of the saw snipped hungrily at the air, waiting for its meal. The blow to my head, and the terrifying prospect of being cut in half made everything blur. My head felt heavy on my neck, and I was suddenly hopeful that I’d pass out before my body hit the saw.

Solid hands grabbed me again. I screamed out thinking I was going to be pushed straight into the blades. Gears squeaked as the conveyor belt came to an abrupt halt. A ripping sound followed, and my arm popped off the cradle hook.

“I’ve got you, Tash. You’re safe now.” Jem’s deep, calming tone drifted to me through the haze in my head. I felt my nearly limp body being lifted away from the carriage and the blades.

I cried into his shirt as his arms held me against his hard body.

“Please, Jem, get me out of here,” I choked out between gulps of air.

He carried me out into the brisk air. It revived me some, and the sobs slowly subsided. And the entire time, Jem held me as if he never planned to release me, as if he would keep me safe forever if I just asked. It was that other side of him that I’d seen before, the side that helped me forget that he was trouble, that he was a Wolfe.

“You can put me down,” I said, but in truth I could have stayed in his arms all damn night.

Reluctantly, he lowered my feet to the ground. It rolled beneath me. The spinning in my head hadn’t stopped completely. I held onto Jems’ shirt for support, even though his hands were still firmly on my waist keeping me upright.

The sky had faded to a chalky gray, and the first stars were winking down at the planet. I finally found the strength to look up at him. His nearness and his hold on my waist made me sway on my feet.

My fingers curled tighter around his flannel shirt. He freed a hand from my waist and used his thumb to wipe the tears from my cheek.

I looked around. We were the only two people in the yard. “Where did you come from?” My voice was weak and shaky.

“I worked late cleaning debris. I was just heading into the locker room when I heard the saw.” I saw now that his face was a few shades lighter than normal. “I heard you scream. Holy shit, Tash, what the hell happened in there?”

“I don’t know.” I grabbed my chain. “The shark’s tooth.” I pulled away from his arms. “My necklace.”

He followed behind. “Tash, you’re not making sense. Maybe we should get you to a doctor.”

The machinery looked different now. Before it was powerful and almost majestic. Now it was a daunting torture machine built only to chop things up. “The shark’s tooth was hanging right there.” My hand shook as I pointed to the place where I’d seen the tooth. “That’s why I climbed up on the conveyor belt.” The tears flowed again, and I looked at Jem.

Utter confusion crossed his face. “There’s nothing there, Tash. What shark’s tooth? Let’s go into the office so you can sit down.” He reached for me, but I pushed him away.

“I’m fine. And I saw it.” I lifted my empty chain. “I used to have a shark’s tooth on the end of this chain, but I lost it.” I wanted badly to hold it together, but I was splitting apart into a million pieces. “I lost it back when I lost a piece of myself. My dad died. And I can’t remember any damn thing that happened back then.” I crumbled into a puddle of tears.

Jem wrapped his arms around me and again his protective warmth surrounded me. Something about it felt so familiar, so right, it only added to my confusion.

He led me out into the night air again. “Did you see anyone?” He looked down at the ripped remnants of my sleeve. “Who tied you to the carriage?”

My throat was dry and sore from crying, and my head was a jumbled mess. Nothing made sense. Nothing seemed real. Except for Jem. He was incredibly real. I took a deep shuddering breath. “I don’t know who it was. He said a few words, but his voice wasn’t familiar. But I think I smelled cigarette smoke on his clothes.”

“Well, that eliminates Dr. Tupp, the local dentist and the old guy who works in the post office. And me, I guess. I don’t smoke cigarettes. But just about every man who works in this mill smokes or chews tobacco.”

“That’s all I remember. It was all so unreal, like a terrible nightmare where I couldn’t wake up.” I pressed myself against him again. His nearness was the only thing helping to alleviate the sickening, icy cold feeling in my stomach.

“I told you, you shouldn’t have come to Blackthorn.”

Another dire warning. It was the last thing I wanted to hear. “You don’t understand,” I said as I pulled from his arms and headed across the yard.

“Tashlyn wait.”

I turned around.

For a long moment, we were two people nearly frozen in space, gazing at each other, technically strangers and yet, not strangers.

“Who the hell am I kidding,” he muttered as he stomped toward me on his spiked boots. His hand grabbed my arm. “I don’t want you to go, Tash. Don’t fucking leave me.” He pulled me against him, and his mouth came down over mine.

Every sensible fiber in my head was telling me to push away. This was the last thing I needed. But every daring fiber, the ones that gave me courage and let my heart have its way told me to stay. Rational thoughts evaporated into dust. I softened in Jem’s arms, suddenly wanting to be even closer to his warmth, to his body, to him, all six feet plus of him.

His kiss deepened. My lips parted farther. I hadn’t been kissed like that since . . . Hell, I’d never been kissed like that. I was nearly breathless as he lifted his mouth from mine. He tightened his muscular arms around me. I pressed my face against his chest.

“Shit, Woodstock, I’ve never been so damn conflicted in my life. I’m trying to figure this out. All I know is I wake up thinking about you and I go to sleep thinking about you.” He pushed his fingers under my chin and lifted my face to his. The glittering brown of his eyes darkened, and I could see his throat move with a deep swallow. I was tight enough against him that I could feel the pounding of his heart. 

Then, without warning, he dropped his arms and stepped back to look at me in the shadows of the young night. The stunned look on his face frightened me.

“Shit, Jem, you’re scaring me, and I’ve already been through a live horror movie. What’s wrong?”

He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong and yet everything’s wrong. At the moment, you’re about the only thing in this town keeping me from going nuts. Let’s get out of here. I guess we can tell Hal what happened in the morning.”

“No, don’t,” I pleaded. “He’ll fire me for sure. It was stupid of me to go into that building in the first place. Let’s just keep this between us.”

He sighed. “If you’re sure, but how the hell am I going to keep an eye on you when I’m out on the pond?”

“There are so many people around here, I’ll be fine. And I’ll be keeping an ear open for that voice.” A shiver ran through me, but it wasn’t from the cold.

Jem grabbed my hand. “Come on, Woodstock. I’ve got a flannel shirt you can wear. That sweatshirt is history. I’ll take you home on my bike. The last thing you need is a bus ride into crazy town.”