Deacon

I didn’t know what “this” was or how he intended to deal with it and I didn’t care.

I only cared about one thing.

So I walked across the cabin and got close to him.

“I want this place cleaned up and I want their asses out of here, Priest. Spic and freaking span and them gone,” I hissed.

“It’ll be done,” he replied tersely.

I looked into his eyes, nodded, and turned.

“I’m gonna get my car. You rouse Peyton. Yeah?” I said to the girl.

She was pushing herself to her feet and wiping her face but she still managed to say, “Yeah.”

I moved to the door, stopped in it, and forced my eyes to the boy standing there.

“One day,” I said, my voice soft, my tone ugly. “You’re gonna have baby girls. One day, you’re gonna have daughters you’ll love more than anything in the world. And then there’ll come the day, the weeks, the months, the fucking years,” I leaned in to him, my voice degenerating, “you’ll lie awake, remembering this night. Remembering what you did to that girl. Scared out of your damned mind that some fucking asshole is doing that to one of your girls. Knowing it could happen because you know, being that kind of asshole, there are tons of assholes out there just like you.”

His face paled and his throat convulsed.

“I pray to God what you did tonight never happens to the babies you’re gonna make,” I stated quietly. “But I’m fucking thrilled you’ll live in terror of it.”

On that, I stomped out to get my SUV.

* * * * *

By the time I got Annabelle (who told me her name in my Rover) and Peyton to Vista Real, got their behinds into their condo (also with no parents, what were these people thinking?) and dealt with Peyton puking for an hour—after which I delivered my lecture to them while Peyton lay sniveling on the couch, curled up against Annabelle, who was cradling and rocking her—and made my way home, it was well past four in the morning.

I drove directly to cabin six.

There was no Navigator. The other SUV was gone too.

It was dark, as were all the cabins, including eleven, where Priest’s Suburban was parked outside.

Apparently, Priest had done his duty and then bedded down for some shuteye.

I found this upsetting. I knew it, I felt it, but I didn’t let that feeling take hold.

It was Priest and I had to accept that.

I had no other choice.

Still, I got out of my Rover, walked up to the cabin, and used my master key to open the door.

I flipped the light switch and saw it was clean as a pin. The smell lingered in the air, which meant I’d probably have to shampoo the rugs and air the place out but there was nothing to indicate it had been trashed three hours before, outside the cigarette burns in the coffee table. I even walked through the bedrooms and bathroom and found they’d cleared out. Not a pair of undies to say those loser kids had ever been in residence.

Feeling slightly better about this (slightly), I grabbed my bat and flashlight that Priest had left sitting on the couch for me, left, locked up, and drove my Rover home.

I walked in carrying my flashlight and bat, dumping both on the seat of the handsome, carved, antique hall tree that was one of the few things that the ex-owners left that I intended to keep.

I left the light glowing in the foyer but headed straight to the dark kitchen.

I did this because that was where the bourbon was.

I made it to the cabinet where I kept my booze and was reaching to it when the voice sounded behind me.

“Why don’t you have a man?”

I jumped, whirled, and stared at the hulking shadow sitting at my kitchen table (my table, not the ex-owners, theirs was gone—it was gently used, oak, sloped arrowback chairs, one thick, sturdy, carved, gorgeous leg holding up the table—I’d found it on Craig’s List, local, and a screaming deal).

I stared at Priest, finding it hard to speak because my breathing had turned heavy.

“Why don’t you have a man?” he repeated.

“I—”

I heard his chair scrape across the wood floor and my body shot straight as he stood, his shadowed presence a menace, even across the room.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in my entire fuckin’ life,” he stated, his voice hushed but pulsing in a way that scared the heck out of me.

But it was his words that made me stop breathing.

“How is it that a woman that looks like you does not have a fuckin’ man?” he asked.

“John—” I forced out.

“That is not my name,” he clipped, his sudden fury blanketing the room. “You know that’s not my name, Cassidy.”

“Okay, Priest—” I tried again.

He leaned toward me threateningly.

“That’s not my fuckin’ name either and you know that too,” he bit out. “You know, woman. You fuckin’ know. So why the fuck do you rent a cabin to me?”

I didn’t reply because there was no answer to that. We both knew it. We both knew I had no business renting him a cabin.

We both knew it.

“Every time I show, I pray to God there’ll be another truck outside your house, a man in your bed. Every time I show, nothin’. You’re alone. No fuckin’ clue why. You the way you are. Goofy. Sweet. Hard-workin’. Happy to sit outside on a porch and sit quiet, doin’ nothin’ but bein’ and listenin’ to a river rush by. The way you look. No man?” I saw him shake his head in disbelief. “It makes no fuckin’ sense. Then you rent a cabin to me knowin’ you should show me the road and that makes even less sense.”

“You need somewhere to stay and I need the money,” I chanced pointing out.

“You needed the money, Cassidy,” he retorted swiftly. “That was your excuse in the beginning. You don’t need it anymore so we both know that’s bullshit.”

I lifted my hands, half-confused, half-pleading. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I wanna know why you have no man,” he returned immediately. “And since you don’t have a man, why you don’t have a dog. And a fuckin’ Taser. And a goddamned can of pepper spray.”

“I—”

“You walk up to a situation like that with a Maglite and a baseball bat?” he asked, throwing a long arm wide, indicating the cabins in an angry way that made me step back and hit counter. “You rent to a guy like me and walk into a situation like that, you’re fuckin’ whacked.”