Rush (10 page)

I shook my head. “That’s sad.”

“So you do like him.” He glared at me
accusingly.

“I just think it’s sad. That’s all. Don’t
you have any compassion?”

“Not for him, no.”

I stared at him for a moment and he
dropped his gaze again, almost as if he felt ashamed. I didn’t believe that.
Maybe he was covering up some other emotion. I was becoming highly suspicious
of everything Trent did and it seemed like an ominous trend.

Trent shifted his weight from one foot
to the other. He sighed. “I came in here to ask if you were ready for breakfast
and find out if you wanted to go on a little hike today,” he said in a grudging
tone.

What I really wanted was to get away
from him and his messed up family. “A hike sounds good, but I need to get
dressed first.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

I put the things back in Max’s box. “Trent,
I don’t want to fight over this. Honestly, I have no idea how the box got here.
I don’t like Max.”

He glanced at me. “Are you sure?”

No. “Absolutely.”

The rest of Friday was spent carefully
avoiding the subject of Trent’s stepbrother. I never mentioned him to their
parents. We hiked, had lunch in a local cafe, ate Thanksgiving leftovers for
dinner. On Saturday morning, Trent and I started the drive back to Avery’s
Crossing.

I was never so happy to come home as
when we re-entered town on Sunday afternoon.

***

On Saturday morning, I woke up hungry
and decided to go downstairs and forage in the kitchen for something to eat. I
hoped the Kincaids didn’t mind. They seemed to like me, so it should be okay,
but no-one had said I was free to raid the fridge.

Downstairs, the only sound I could hear
was the ticking of an old-fashioned clock in the living room. I padded into the
kitchen in my stocking feet. The air was fragrant with the smell of coffee
brewing; someone must have the coffee maker on a timer. Now that I was here, I
felt a little nervous looking for food on my own. I hated imposing on people.

My stomach growled so loudly it hurt. On
a sigh, I opened the refrigerator door. There was still half an apple pie left
over from Thanksgiving, so I pulled it out and began the hunt for a plate.
Unfortunately, this involved opening cupboard doors, which for some reason made
me even more uncomfortable than getting in the fridge.

I persevered.

I’d just cut myself a slice of the pie
when Mr. Kincaid walked in, looking sleepy and rumpled as if he’d just gotten
out of bed. He wore sweats and a t-shirt under a loose cotton bathrobe and his
salt and pepper hair stuck up in seven different directions.

I gave a guilty start. “Good morning. I
hope you don’t mind that I got myself something to eat.”

“Of course not. Help yourself.” He
walked stiffly to the coffee maker, opened the cupboard above it, and pulled
out a mug. “Want some coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

I glanced at him covertly as he took
down a second mug and was struck all over again with his resemblance to Max. He
was a good-looking man, his looks tempered rather than diminished by age. I was
alone with him, with no Trent to interfere or be embarrassed if I brought up the
other son.

“I—um—I thought you might want to know—”
I said hesitantly.

He glanced at me with little curiosity. “Yes?”

“I—um—met your son. Max. He’s—uh—he’s
going to Central Willamette State this year.”

Mr. Kincaid’s face took on a fixed
aspect that said I was treading on dangerous ground. “I have no son named Max.”

“Okay. Well, I met Trent’s former
stepbrother, then. He looks just like you.”

Mr. Kincaid sent me a chilly look. “Did
he tell you what he did?”

“Trent told me.”

“Then I’m not sure why we’re having this
conversation.” He poured coffee into the two mugs.

“I’m not sure either,” I said with a
nervous laugh. “It just seems so weird to visit here and not even mention him.”

“It’s not weird at all. He committed a
terrible crime and this family no longer has a place for him.” His voice
sounded so reasonable, so calm and assured, that I almost believed him.

But there was that drawing.
He broke
my ribs today.

“He told me—um—that someone broke his
ribs once,” I said, watching Mr. Kincaid’s face.

His jaw tensed. “He did, did he? You
must know Max pretty well.”

“Not really. We were just talking about
growing up, you know?” Again with the lies.

Mr. Kincaid handed one of the mugs of
coffee to me and leaned back against the edge of the granite counter. “Max wasn’t
a popular kid. I’m sure you can imagine why. He got beaten up so many times we
lost track of all the fights he was in.”

I frowned, unable to stop myself from
saying “did anyone try to help him?”

He looked me right in the eye. “No.”

“But...why not?”

“Because Max lost his right to
protection when he murdered his little brother.”

His eyes looked as cold and hard as the
granite against which he leaned. There was hatred in them. Hatred for Max. I
couldn’t keep looking into his face, so I glanced down at his hands where they
clasped the coffee mug. He held the cup so tightly his fingernails were
bleached almost white. A huge gold signet ring on his right hand flashed the
letter K at me from a black background.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have
brought it up.”

“Caroline, I’m sure you mean well,” he
continued in that very reasonable voice that was so totally at odds with his
white nails. “Max is highly manipulative and a compulsive liar. He’s probably
told you all kinds of nonsense to make you sympathetic to him. Don’t believe
any of it. I’m sorry to say that my son is an irredeemably violent person. You
should stay far, far away from him.”

I nodded stiffly. “Okay. I’ll remember
that.”

“Good. You do that. Now, if you’ll
excuse me, I’ve got some work to catch up on. I’ll be in my office if anyone
needs me.” He left the kitchen for the same back area he’d emerged from on
Thursday afternoon.

I doctored my coffee with generous
amounts of milk and sugar and brought my prizes to the kitchen table to devour
them. His words pressed down on my heart, giving me that drowning sensation
again. Max hadn’t tried to make me sympathetic to him. If anything, he’d
encouraged me to think the worst of him, saying that every word Trent had
spoken about him was true.

So what was going on with his dad? Why
would he say that about Max? Trent had said the same thing; he was a master
manipulator. At the time, I’d believed him. Yeah, maybe I’d thought he was
exaggerating a little bit, but essentially I’d assumed what he told me was
true. Now, I wondered.

Max had been only ten years old at the
time of the accident. How many ten year olds are so calculating they’d
deliberately murder anyone, let alone their own siblings? It was possible,
sure. But it didn’t seem very likely and it didn’t fit with the way Max came
across in person.

I’d told both Trent and Paige that Max
gave me the creeps, but that had been a lie. I’d said it to cover up the
humiliating fact that he could arouse me just by being in the same room with
me. He’d never given me the creeps at all.

I didn’t know what to think. I looked
down at my plate and realized I’d eaten the whole slice of pie without really
tasting it. My coffee mug had been drained, too, but I didn’t remember drinking
the coffee.

If I asked Max about his past, would he
tell me the truth or would he put me off with a bunch of lies the way Trent and
Mr. Kincaid had?

Chapter 8

Max

Monday evening became catch-up time for
my design business. I was falling behind because of all my school work, and it
was beginning to worry me. Education was important, but I didn’t want my
business to falter just when it was getting off the ground. I’d lose important
momentum that way and it might take a while to recover.

I was working on a logo for a local
brew-house, and I had two proposed designs to show them, with a third still in
the beginning phase. When I had the third one down, I’d e-mail them the designs
and with luck they’d approve one of them. Then I had several book covers, both
nonfiction and fiction, and two newsletters, among other things.

The problem I had was my mind kept
wandering to Caroline. My cock was half hard virtually all the time, and the
minute I allowed my attention to waver, it returned to fantasies of all the
things I’d like to do to her. School wasn’t the only reason my work was getting
backed up.

My phone rang and I answered without
looking at the caller I.D. “Kincaid Design Group.”

“Is this Max Kincaid?” said a familiar
female voice.

“Selene?”

“That’s me.”

Selene was a member of my circle and a
former lover. I hadn’t seen her in a few months. The last time had been when
the circle helped me move down here. For them, it had really been more about
visiting with Brad and Marie—who’d preceded me in the move—because I didn’t
have a lot of stuff to haul. I hadn’t actually needed help. But they’d come
down with me and we’d all hung out for a while. Selene had spent the night in
my bed.

“How are you?” I said. Why was she
calling? We weren’t a couple anymore, not that we’d ever really been together
in the first place. Our relationship had been more fuck buddies than boyfriend
and girlfriend.

“I’m fine,” she said. “How are you? Are
you surviving small town life?”

“Yeah. Actually, I like it here.” More
every day, come to think of it. Could have to do with a certain blonde.

“Really?” Her voice oozed skepticism. “I
can’t imagine. It looked like the kind of place that’s crawling with rednecks
when I visited.”

“It’s a college town. There are a few
non-rednecks here,” I said dryly.

“I guess.” She must not have liked my answer,
judging by her tone. “What do you do for fun around there?”

“I’m too busy for fun. Work and school
take all my time.” Except for when I was chasing Caroline. Somehow I didn’t
think Selene would want to hear about that.

“I’ve been working a lot, too. Overtime.
I wish they’d fill that empty position so we weren’t always being called in.”

“Sounds like a drag.”

I didn’t want to talk about work. In
fact, I didn’t much want to talk to Selene at all. Our hook-ups had been fun at
the time, but that was over. I wanted Caroline.

“I have tomorrow and Wednesday off and I
was thinking about coming down to visit you,” she said. “I had to work over the
holiday and I could really use a fun break.”

“I think you’d be bored out of your
mind. All my time is taken up with work. I’m falling behind because of school.”

“You can’t even spare an afternoon?”

“Selene, you know it would take more
than an afternoon. Besides, it’s a long drive down from Seattle. Why would you
want to spend all those hours on the road just to turn around and do it again
on the way home?”

“Well, I thought maybe I could spend the
night.” Her voice became a suggestive purr.

I bit back a sigh. I didn’t want to hurt
her feelings. Selene was a friend, and still a member of my circle. However, I
wasn’t especially excited to sleep with her, fuck her, whatever you want to
call it. I’d thought that part of our relationship was over.

She practiced polyamory, which for her
basically meant she screwed anyone she felt like screwing. When I’d wanted
exclusivity, she hadn’t been interested. After I’d thought about it for a
couple of days, I’d decided that was fine with me because I wasn’t all that
attached to her. We’d parted ways amicably and I’d given her very little
thought since, except to compare her with Caroline.

“You’re hesitating,” she said. “That isn’t
good. Do you have someone else?”

“No. I don’t.”

A one-night stand with Selene might take
my mind off Caroline. Maybe if I fucked someone else, I could get my
semi-permanent state of arousal under control. My mind would clear and I’d be
better able to plan my attack instead of simply reacting to the raging lust she
inspired in me. Because I was close to going off the rails with her. My desire
to be with Caro was getting way too close to overtaking my need to hurt Trent.

“I’ve got a bottle of wine to share,”
Selene said coaxingly.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Awesome! I should be able to make it by
early afternoon.”

***

Selene knocked on my apartment door at
noon on Wednesday. That meant she had to have been on the road at the crack of
dawn. She must have been eager to see me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

I opened the door and she threw her arms
around me. “Max! It feels like it’s been forever.”

“Hi, Selene.”

She pulled my head down and kissed me on
the mouth. Given how sexually frustrated I was, it should have sent me into
instant arousal, but it was strangely unstimulating. I kissed her back, a bit
dutifully, until she decided to come up for air.

“It’s so good to see you,” she said.

“Come in.” My neighbors paid no
attention to me, but I still didn’t want to stand on the landing and make out
with her.

She pranced into my living room and
turned in a slow circle. “It’s still completely bare.”

“Not completely. I have a desk now.”

“Ooh, a desk,” she said, pretending to
be impressed. “But no couch. No chairs. Don’t you ever have anyone over?”

“Not really, no.”

She gave me bedroom eyes. “I hope you
have somewhere nice to sleep.”

“I’ve got a mattress on the floor.” The
same one she’d spent the night on when she’d “helped” me move in.

“It’ll do.”

She dropped the overnight bag she
carried on my floor and sashayed back to me, swinging her hips. The snug, black
knit tunic she wore left nothing to the imagination and I could see that her
nipples were hard under the tight fabric.

She twined her arms around my neck. “Why
don’t you show me the bedroom?”

“Aren’t you hungry? You’ve been on the
road for hours.”

“I’m starving, but not for food.” She
rubbed herself against me, pulling my head down to hers. Her mouth tasted like
cola, not one of my favorite flavors for a kiss.

I pulled back. “I’m hungry. For food. I’ve
been working all morning without a break.”

Selene pouted. “Can’t you wait?”

For the first time in my life, I put
food before sex. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, all right. Where should we go? I
don’t want fast food.”

“There’s a cafe a couple of blocks from
here that’s pretty good.” I stepped back from her clinging arms with a
surprising sense of relief.

Selene and I had had quite a few good
times in bed, so I didn’t really get my own reluctance. She wasn’t going to
move in with me or anything like that. She was only here for one night, and
then she’d return to Seattle and I wouldn’t have to deal with her. This wasn’t
even a small commitment.

Yet I wasn’t really looking forward to
having her. Even the minor contact I’d had with Caroline excited me more than
Selene’s well-rehearsed moves. What could I make of that? I wasn’t sure I
wanted to know.

We had an amiable lunch at the cafe,
talking shop, discussing the occult scene in Avery’s Crossing—not that there
was one. The town was extremely quiet, but we both agreed there were probably
at least a couple of working groups here. They simply didn’t advertise. We didn’t
either, so no surprise there.

I could have told her about Caroline’s
ghost, but for some reason I held back. I didn’t want to share Caroline with
Selene. For one thing, Selene would never approve of my plan to get revenge on
my stepbrother. If she knew about it, she’d try to talk me out of it. For
another, Caroline was in a completely separate category from the booty call of
my former fuck buddy. I didn’t know what that category was, and I didn’t want
to define it, even for myself. All I knew was I didn’t want to mix the two.

Selene and I made our way back to my
apartment and my bedroom. The sex wasn’t what I remembered. It wasn’t much
better than if I’d taken care of matters on my own.