All Chained Up (Devil's Rock #1)(42)

Turning, he walked out of her apartment. And tried to forget the sight of her sitting alone in that bed.





FIFTEEN


THURSDAY NIGHTS WEREN’T the busiest at Roscoe’s but they still saw a hefty crowd. Bud was closing up tonight, so Knox left just shy of midnight. The crowd had already started to thin by then. Some people actually had to get up early for work. Aunt Alice had off tonight and she promised to take dinner to Uncle Mac. Knowing her, she had probably stocked the fridge with fresh groceries, too. At least the old man had a good meal tonight. Knox would get up early and make him some eggs and bacon before he took his run.

He rarely missed a morning run. After eight years locked up he couldn’t get enough of jogging in the wide-open spaces and dragging all that clean fresh air into his lungs. He wasn’t in a ten-by-eight cell. He wasn’t in the yard either. He didn’t have to worry about where he could and could not go. There was none of the constant tension. Just freedom.

The back parking lot was empty as he made his way to his pickup. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket, checking for messages. He didn’t have many contacts. Only a few people even bothered to text him. His aunt and uncle. Couple of guys from work so they could verify work schedules. His cousin Becky texted him occasionally.

But he wasn’t checking for them. He was checking to see if Briar had texted. He knew it was probably too soon for her to know one way or another if she was pregnant, but it had been almost a week since he saw her, and he couldn’t get her out of his head. He told himself it was because he’d screwed up and neglected to use a condom, but he knew that wasn’t it. That wasn’t the only reason. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. How she felt against him. How she tasted. One night together hadn’t purged her from his system. It only made him want her again.

Loose gravel skidded beneath his boots as he came to a hard stop at the sight of his truck. It was the same truck he owned before he went in. He’d saved up a lot of summers for it. It wasn’t in the best shape, but it ran smooth, and it definitely looked better before he went in to work tonight. A couple of the windows were crashed in and it looked like someone took a baseball bat to the body of the truck.

They’d also written in red spray paint across his door. KILLER.

“Shit.” He exhaled a heavy breath. His aunt had mentioned that a couple of guys stopped by Roscoe’s asking for him. She suggested that they might be old friends, but he knew better. He didn’t have any friends left. He hadn’t kept in touch with anyone while he was inside.

They were probably friends of Mason Leary. The guy he killed. He’d had friends. Family. People who refused to believe that Mason was a brutal rapist. They would care if Knox was out. They would take exception to the fact that he was free to walk the streets. They’d do this to his truck. And maybe it was their right. He’d taken someone from them, after all. Leary might have destroyed Katie and deserved a cold grave . . . but that didn’t mean other people weren’t hurt over losing him. Knox was responsible for that.

Opening the door, he brushed the glass off his seat and climbed in. Starting the engine, he pulled out of Roscoe’s parking lot and headed down the street, the word KILLER emblazoned across his door.

He clenched his hands around the steering wheel and tried not to let it bother him, tried not to let the sour taste suffusing his mouth spread and sink its teeth into him. Every muscle in his body tightened, squeezing hard, rejecting this even if he knew it to be the truth. It had never mattered in prison if he was a killer. Everyone was guilty of something there.

But out here it did matter. It mattered that he wasn’t decent or respectable. No one would ever look at him and see anyone worth a damn. As far as the world was concerned, he was better off in prison. Out here he was just a f*cking waste of space.

KNOX DIDN’T CALL HER. Well, other than his initial text giving her his contact information. Briar couldn’t bring herself to call him even though he was all she thought about. She had no reason to call him. It had only been six days since they were together. He’d asked her to let him know whether she was pregnant or not, but she wouldn’t know for certain this soon. She could have bought a home pregnancy kit—or even tested herself at work—but it just seemed too soon to yield accurate results. Not to mention she didn’t want to attract anyone’s attention at the clinic. The last thing she wanted was to start tongues wagging around the water cooler.

Plus, she refused to believe it was possible. The odds were slim. She clung to that.

She stepped out of the shower and didn’t even bother with a towel, simply folded herself into her terry-cloth robe. The sound of the TV carried from the living room, a low rumble on the air. A side effect of living alone. Even when she wasn’t watching TV it was always on, so that the silence never got to be too much.

She stood in front of her bathroom mirror and spritzed her hair with the necessary detangler. Breathing in the familiar aroma of pears, she set about brushing out the wet snarls. She almost didn’t hear the knock—at first thinking it was just the TV. She paused mid-stroke and stuck her head out of the bathroom.

The rap came again and she moved forward, her bare feet padding over the carpet. She peered out of the door’s peephole and gasped. The sight of Knox on the other side hit her like a punch to the chest. He propped one arm against the door frame and seemed to be staring right back at her.