Page 45 of Wolf It Down, Knot Me Up

Every easy thought disappears as my attention snaps to the mirror. “Who?”

She’s twisted around in her seat, staring through the rear window. “That’s him. The man who pretended to be Roman and led me into the woods.”

The smile, the laughter, all gone. The violent bastard I’ve spent years burying now claws his way back to the surface.

That asshole tried to hurt her.

I stomp on the brakes. Tires chirp against the road as we both slam into our seat belts. Horns explode behind us, but I’m already winding the wheel over, the truck swinging through a hard U-turn before I bury my foot on the accelerator.

“Grayson—”

I don’t answer. I’m hunting, but the blue pickup is gone, vanished into the town as though it knew exactly where to disappear.

“Where the fuck…?” My gaze rakes every side street, every parked car, every driveway. “You sure it’s him?”

“Ninety-nine percent.” She’s leaning forward now, scanning with me. “His face is long and narrow, and he has thinning hair. It was him. I’m sure of it.”

I throw us around the next corner harder than I should, already hating myself for noticing the rust before the license plate. I grip the wheel until my knuckles ache.

Find him.

We spend twenty minutes carving through every street in Rusty’s Bend, and he stays gone.

“Damn it.” Lucy slumps back before catching herself. “But… this means something, doesn’t it? He’s local. He didn’t run.”

“Maybe.” My voice barely sounds like mine. “Or that he stayed.” The thought settles somewhere dark. “Which means,” I say quietly, “you don’t come into this town alone again.” I’m staring at her now. “I’m not asking.”

She searches my face for a long second, and whatever she finds there makes her swallow. “Okay.”

I nod once. “Good.”

I force my hands to loosen on the steering wheel before they crack the leather. Lucy doesn’t need to see the rest of what’s circling inside my head.

Because if I ever find that man… I’ll make sure he remembers my name for the rest of his life.

“Come on.” My voice softens, though the cold never quite leaves me. “Let’s get you to Eve.”

I steer us toward the hospital, and after a minute, she breaks the silence. “So, how young were you when you started cooking for yourself?”

“Does it matter?”

“It matters to me.” She turns toward me, studying my face instead of the road ahead. “I want to know you, Grayson, not just the charming stuff.”

Nobody’s ever asked for the parts of me that aren’t easy to love. I keep my eyes on the road when I answer, “Eight.”

She doesn’t gasp but just waits. Somehow, that’s worse.

“She was busy,” I say, because the door is already open now. “Long parade of boyfriends. None of them wanted a kid cluttering the picture. She’d come home with new bruises and a fresh excuse for the jerk who gave them to her.” My grip tightens on the wheel.

Nine years old, hurrying into the kitchen to find his hands around her throat. I throw myself at a grown man because there isn’t anyone else to do it. Ending up with a broken jaw, I watch my mom take him back a week later as if nothing happened.

I shove the memory back where it belongs. “You learn to look after yourself.” I shrug. “Or nobody does.”

“That’s not okay,” she says quietly.

I glance over, and her eyes are shining, not with pity but with anger for me. And for one stupid second, I want to pull the truck over and just hold her.

“What happened to you wasn’t okay. You know that, right?” Her voice breaks. “A little boy shouldn’t have had to be the grown-up.”