Hell Breaks Loose (Devil's Rock #2)(49)

“Don’t worry, man. I got your back.” Voices and laughter broke out in the background. “Hey, save me some!” Zane shouted with a laugh.

“Hey! Don’t forget about me,” Reid warned, his voice snappy.

Zane spoke into the phone again. “You got our hostage. No one’s forgetting. How’s she doing? You roughing her up?”

Emotion clogged Reid’s throat. Grief for the kid brother he’d lost. Anger at the man who had taken his place.

“You come up here much, Zane?” he asked, gazing blindly into the darkened kitchen, focusing on the window above the sink, the frosted glass, the world outside of it. Brittle leaves drifted from the branches of a big oak.

“Nah. Why? Is it run-down?”

“No, just being here reminds me of the old man. Those were good times.”

“Honestly, I don’t remember him too much.”

Reid closed his eyes in a slow pained blink. That might explain some of it. His brother didn’t remember their grandfather and all he had taught them . . . shown them. How not to be like their father and men like Rowdy. How to not fall under the thumb of a man like Sullivan.

Shaking his head, he swallowed down the thickness in his throat. “All right. You keep working on getting me that meeting with Sullivan.”

“Will do.”

He hung up the phone and turned back to the couch. Settling down on it, he fixed his stare on the door that separated him and Grace. Gracie. That’s how he would always think of her. When he returned to his cold jail cell, he wouldn’t think of her as Grace Reeves, the First Daughter. She was Gracie. His. Even if she wasn’t.



Grace spent the next day in her room. Mostly. She came out in the morning, but only because she had to use the bathroom and eat. She managed to avoid his gaze as she made toast, grabbed an apple, and poured herself juice.

In the afternoon she wasn’t so lucky. She emerged to an empty cabin and tiptoed like a teenager sneaking out. Stealth was critical. She opened the refrigerator and took out a package of cheese slices and slapped together a cheese sandwich. Under normal circumstances she would have grilled it on the stove, but she wanted to be back in her room before he returned from wherever he was. She knew he was close. He wouldn’t have strayed too far. Last night had changed nothing. If anything, things were worse. More tense. He still wouldn’t trust her.

She grabbed a can of soda and bag of potato chips to go with her sandwich, ready to dive back into her room when the front door suddenly opened. He walked in, carrying an armful of firewood.

His gaze locked with hers. Tension crackled and she felt her face heat, the memory of him in bed with her, his hands on her, touching her where she hadn’t been touched in so long. In a way no one had ever touched her.

“Getting chilly,” his voice rumbled. “Tonight should be downright cold.” He turned his back on her and squatted, stacking logs in the firewood rack.

She shifted on her feet, her mouth drying as she gazed at him. “Didn’t think it got this cold in Texas,” she said inanely.

“Texas is a big state. Lots of different climates. It snows early in these mountains. Soon this place will be blanketed in white.”

It would be beautiful. Something right off a Christmas card. She bit back the comment that she would like to see that. This wasn’t a holiday. And he wasn’t a friend . . . contrary to how the lines might have gotten blurred last night.

Turning awkwardly, she moved toward the bedroom, ready to slip inside where she didn’t have to look at him anymore. Where she didn’t have to reflect on everything they had done last night. Everything she had let him do. Everything she had felt.

His voice stopped her.

“Afraid to eat out here? In my company?”

She turned back around. “Why should it matter to you where I eat?”

After a moment he replied, “It doesn’t matter.”

She stared at the broad expanse of his back, admiring the way the muscles and sinew flexed under his thermal shirt. She headed back for the bedroom, but his voice stopped her again. “How’d you meet your boyfriend?”

“Charles?”

He rose, dusting his hands, leveling those green-gold eyes on her. Amusement lurked there, and something else. Something she couldn’t name but that did funny little things to her insides. “Yeah.”

“He’s my fiancé,” she reminded him.

His lips twisted, looking down at her hand. “No ring?”

“Not yet. It’s not official.” She knotted the hand that should have showcased an engagement ring. “I met him during my father’s first campaign,” she answered.

“So he works for Daddy.”

There was no mistaking the derision in his voice. “Yes. You could say that.”

His gaze flicked away, dismissing her. “Doesn’t seem your type.”

She straightened her spine, heat flaring in her cheeks. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard someone say that about Charles and her. Not the first time some cute intern blinked her long eyelashes at her and tapped her glossy lips with some passive aggressive remark. You two seem soooo different. I never would have pictured you two dating.

“Oh, you know him, do you?”

He shrugged like that was a moot point. “No.”

“Then you know me so very well?”