Hot Winter Nights

He had her attention now; he could feel her gaze on him. Around them, the night was so quiet. The gently falling snow was an insulator, making things very close and intimate.

“Will he be there tonight?” she asked.

“No.” He gave a small smile. “We were a pair growing up, though. A pair of instigators. If there was trouble, we managed to find it. Gave my mom gray hair early.”

She let out a small smile. “I don’t remember much about my mom, but Joe and I were a pair of troublemakers too, though Joe tried to keep me out of it and safe. Only problem was, I was good at being stealth and following him. Used to piss him off big-time.”

He let out a low laugh. “If half the things I’ve heard about Joe’s misspent youth are true, then I can see why he wouldn’t want you tagging along after him.”

Her smile congealed a little bit and he cocked his head. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“I know you now, Molly,” he said. “I know your tells. Plus you’re a shitty liar.”

She shrugged. “You’re right about Joe not wanting me to tag along after him. He hated it and worried about it, for reasons I didn’t understand at the time or I might’ve gotten smarter a lot faster.”

“Something’s happened,” he guessed quietly.

She hesitated. “Remember when I told you I was hurt because of my own stupidity?” she finally asked.

Oh shit. He had a bad feeling about this story. “Yeah.”

“Well, I wasn’t kidding. I was fourteen to Joe’s seventeen when I developed a crush on someone in his crowd, someone I thought was a friend—but wasn’t.” She paused, her breath quickening a little. “I didn’t know, but this guy and a few others were trying to convince Joe to join their gang because he had some pretty impressive . . . skills. Skills he’d been using to keep food on our table and a roof over our head.” She grimaced. “Okay, now I’m making Joe seem like a juvenile delinquent—”

“Hey, no judgment from me,” Lucas said, reaching across the console to take her hand. “I’ve seen Joe’s skills firsthand, and he’s saved my ass on the job more times than I can count. I’m grateful for him, and grateful for you that he could provide for you when you needed it. I’m just sorry it was like that for you guys.”

“My dad really did the best he could,” she said. “He just couldn’t always keep a job. People don’t understand him.”

Lucas nodded, not saying anything else, knowing that by holding his tongue she might keep talking and tell him the part of the story she was stalling with, and he very much wanted, needed, to hear it.

“Joe didn’t want to join the gang,” she said. She paused and then cleared her throat. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sweating. Can you turn down the heat?”

He quickly did so and then handed her one of the bottles of water he had stashed in the driver door pocket.

She cracked it open and drank deeply.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“So . . . Joe didn’t want to join the gang,” he said casually, hoping she’d continue.

“No. Or do any of the things they wanted him to. He kept refusing, but I didn’t know any of those things. All I knew was that he got to go out whenever he wanted and not be accountable to anyone for his comings and goings, and it seemed so . . . exciting.” She sighed. “So when one of the guys started paying attention to me, I was flattered.” She closed her eyes.

Yeah, he’d been right. He was really going to hate this story. He pulled into his aunt’s driveway and parked. Leaving the engine on for the defrost, he turned to her. “Can you tell me what happened?”

She put her free hand low on her belly, as if it hurt. The memories appeared to have her every muscle tense and she was indeed clammy. He cracked her window an inch to get her some air and she sent him a grateful look before closing her eyes again.

“They used me to try to make Joe steal a car,” she said.

His hand, still holding hers, squeezed reflexively. “Used you how, Molly?” he asked, still speaking very low, very calm, but he was just about as far from calm as he could get.

She opened her eyes and met his gaze. “They kidnapped me. Hell,” she said bitterly. “The truth is that I went along willingly, thinking Darius wanted to be with me. But it wasn’t like that. They held me in an abandoned building, waiting for Joe to do as they demanded.”

She wasn’t the only one sweating now. He was as well. He’d worked enough abduction cases to know all the things that had likely happened to her. No way had she come out of that situation the same person as she’d gone in. And she’d been only fourteen. Just a kid, one who’d already had a rough enough life without this having happened to her. “Did Joe steal the car to get you back?”

“No. Instead, he tore apart the city looking for me. And he found me too, but it took three days.”

“Jesus.” Lucas brought their joined hands up to his chest, which was so tight now it was possible he was going to stroke out. “They hurt you.”

“Yes, but not in the way you think.” She swallowed hard and rolled her window all the way down, sticking her head out and gulping in some air. “Sorry,” she said when she’d rolled the window back up. “Thinking about those days makes me feel like throwing up.”

He understood. He felt a little bit like throwing up himself, imagining her as a young, defenseless teen facing down a gang of thugs on her own. For three fucking days.

“Honestly,” she said squeezing his hand. “It’s not as bad as you’re imagining.”

She was trying to comfort him. At just the thought, his throat burned with emotion, and his eyes did too. “You don’t have to tell me—”

“I think I should,” she murmured, searching his face. “I wasn’t—They didn’t touch me. Darius kept me separated in a room away from the rest of the guys. He told me that as long as I stayed quiet and didn’t cause any trouble, I wouldn’t be hurt.”

With every fiber of his being, Lucas wanted her to tell him that the asshole punk had kept his word.

“But the problem was,” she said, “I wasn’t exactly born with the sit down and shut up gene.” She shook her head. “I tried, but I just couldn’t do it.”

No matter how long ago this had been, if she told him that they’d laid a finger on her, he’d single-handedly hunt every one of them down and break every bone in their bodies without remorse.

“I knew Joe would be looking for me,” she said, “and that he’d find me. But on the third day, I couldn’t wait any more. When Darius came in and tossed me a bottle of water, I picked it up and chucked it at his head. It knocked him over and he hit his head on the way down and was out cold. I stole the handcuff keys from his pocket, unlocked my cuffs and went out the third story window, intending to climb down one of the two trees that were nearly up against the building.”

Lucas felt his chest nearly burst with pride and a nameless emotion, both of which threatened to overcome him. The contrast of Molly’s tough-girl strength and her not completely hidden vulnerability called to something deep inside him. “Nicely done.”

A small smile of pride curved her lips. “Problem was, I was a little weak and off my game, and when I jumped for one of the branches, I missed.” She paused. “I fell about twenty-five feet and broke my back in two places, amongst other things.”