Hell Breaks Loose (Devil's Rock #2)(38)

She broke eye contact and looked down at the fish flopping inside the net. “What do we do now?” She squeezed her eyes tight in a long blink. That, too, sounded like she could be talking about something else besides fishing. “With the fish, I mean. What do we do with the fish?”

He took his time answering, but when he did, his voice was carefully modulated and unaffected. “I clean it.” He took the net from her and moved to the bank. Bending, he grabbed a knife from the tackle box. She followed him and stood silently as he worked.

At least he didn’t require her help. There was no further conversation as he quickly gutted the fish and cut it into clean fillets. He worked so quickly and efficiently, like he did this every weekend and hadn’t been locked up for years.

“Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Clean a fish? My grandfather taught me, among other things.” A smile played around his mouth. “This was his place. He used to bring my brother and me here before he died. He was a good man. He tried to be there for us, you know . . . but my parents . . . Well, you’re stuck with the hand you’re dealt. You can’t do much about who your parents are, can you?”

Something about the way he said that made her chest ache. It was more what he didn’t say, what he left out about his parents that convinced her his childhood was not something out of a Norman Rockwell painting—no matter how quaint the cabin.

“No,” she agreed. “You can’t.”

He paused, not looking at her, but she felt as though her simple acknowledgment was telling him something about her, too. It reinforced her early point that they weren’t so totally unalike.

“When did he die?” she asked, before she could reconsider the wisdom of having a personal conversation with him.

“I was seventeen. He had a stroke. He went fast, which was good, I guess. His life wasn’t left for my mother to decide.” He snorted. “She couldn’t even take care of herself or her kids. My grandfather wouldn’t have wanted his fate left to her.” He chuckled, and the sound was lacking all humor. “She would have made a mess of that for damn sure.” He sent Grace a quick glance before looking back down at what he was doing. “I’ve only been back here a few times since then.” Another pause fell, in which she watched him. The afternoon sun glinted off his hair, casting it dark gold. “The place has a lot of good memories.”

“And now it has new memories. Of me. Your hostage.” She angled her head and sent him an arch look.

“Funny.”

Her mind worked, calculating. His grandfather died when he was seventeen. He had to have gone to prison soon after that. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-one.”

He went to prison when he was just twenty. So young. What had happened in the years between seventeen and twenty that charted him a course straight to prison?

Finished, he stood. “Come on.”

He stepped past her, his manner brusque again. Gone was the laughing guy who’d reeled in a fish. That brief flare of chemistry between them had vanished, too. If it had even existed at all. Maybe it was all one-sided. Just in her head . . . or long-ignored libido. Or something that was the result of their isolation together. Either way, it was a good thing that it was gone.

She followed him, trekking back to the house, water squishing out from her wet shoes. He stopped at the shed near the cabin, depositing his tackle box. She left the net there, too, and kept moving. At the porch, she stopped and looked back at him. Who was this guy who liked to fish and share stories of his grandfather?

He’d broken out of prison for a reason, and she wasn’t certain it was to rejoin his old criminal network. Nor did she think he was trying to forge a life of freedom for himself. If that were his goal, he wouldn’t be holding her hostage. He’d be headed to Mexico. He was this close to the border, after all. He’d told her he was going to end up back in prison. That didn’t sound like a guy trying to start over clean.

He wanted to meet with this Sullivan person. She’d heard him insist on that with the others when they were leaving yesterday. That was his goal . . . she just didn’t know why. He was an enigma.

Shaking her head, Grace turned and stepped inside the house, putting him out of her sight. For the time being at least. She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever. Still, she shouldn’t be spending so much time trying to figure him out. He didn’t matter. Not his hotness or how dimples had appeared when he smiled and made him look younger. More approachable. Not how fun it was to learn to fish with him. Not his background or his motivations. She didn’t want to know him.

She needed, instead, to figure out how to land herself out of this mess. One thing was for certain. His goal was this Sullivan guy. Not her well-being. Not getting her home. No, that was entirely up to her.





Thirteen




Grace had the cabin to herself for most of the day. Reid started a fire in the fireplace. It crackled enticingly, but she didn’t want to position herself in the main room where she would risk further interaction with him.

Instead, she sequestered herself in the bedroom where she found an old beat up copy of The Hobbit on the nightstand. She burrowed on the bed beneath the heavy Aztec-patterned blanket, appreciating the warmth and telling herself the book would distract her. She smiled, thinking of Reid’s grandfather reading from the epic fantasy. A good man, Reid had called him. A man with depths, she also suspected.