“I worked late cleaning debris. I was just heading into the locker room when I heard the saw.” I saw now that his face was a few shades lighter than normal. “I heard you scream. Holy shit, Tash, what the hell happened in there?”

“I don’t know.” I grabbed my chain. “The shark’s tooth.” I pulled away from his arms. “My necklace.”

He followed behind. “Tash, you’re not making sense. Maybe we should get you to a doctor.”

The machinery looked different now. Before it was powerful and almost majestic. Now it was a daunting torture machine built only to chop things up. “The shark’s tooth was hanging right there.” My hand shook as I pointed to the place where I’d seen the tooth. “That’s why I climbed up on the conveyor belt.” The tears flowed again, and I looked at Jem.

Utter confusion crossed his face. “There’s nothing there, Tash. What shark’s tooth? Let’s go into the office so you can sit down.” He reached for me, but I pushed him away.

“I’m fine. And I saw it.” I lifted my empty chain. “I used to have a shark’s tooth on the end of this chain, but I lost it.” I wanted badly to hold it together, but I was splitting apart into a million pieces. “I lost it back when I lost a piece of myself. My dad died. And I can’t remember any damn thing that happened back then.” I crumbled into a puddle of tears.

Jem wrapped his arms around me and again his protective warmth surrounded me. Something about it felt so familiar, so right, it only added to my confusion.

He led me out into the night air again. “Did you see anyone?” He looked down at the ripped remnants of my sleeve. “Who tied you to the carriage?”

My throat was dry and sore from crying, and my head was a jumbled mess. Nothing made sense. Nothing seemed real. Except for Jem. He was incredibly real. I took a deep shuddering breath. “I don’t know who it was. He said a few words, but his voice wasn’t familiar. But I think I smelled cigarette smoke on his clothes.”

“Well, that eliminates Dr. Tupp, the local dentist and the old guy who works in the post office. And me, I guess. I don’t smoke cigarettes. But just about every man who works in this mill smokes or chews tobacco.”

“That’s all I remember. It was all so unreal, like a terrible nightmare where I couldn’t wake up.” I pressed myself against him again. His nearness was the only thing helping to alleviate the sickening, icy cold feeling in my stomach.

“I told you, you shouldn’t have come to Blackthorn.”

Another dire warning. It was the last thing I wanted to hear. “You don’t understand,” I said as I pulled from his arms and headed across the yard.

“Tashlyn wait.”

I turned around.

For a long moment, we were two people nearly frozen in space, gazing at each other, technically strangers and yet, not strangers.

“Who the hell am I kidding,” he muttered as he stomped toward me on his spiked boots. His hand grabbed my arm. “I don’t want you to go, Tash. Don’t fucking leave me.” He pulled me against him, and his mouth came down over mine.

Every sensible fiber in my head was telling me to push away. This was the last thing I needed. But every daring fiber, the ones that gave me courage and let my heart have its way told me to stay. Rational thoughts evaporated into dust. I softened in Jem’s arms, suddenly wanting to be even closer to his warmth, to his body, to him, all six feet plus of him.

His kiss deepened. My lips parted farther. I hadn’t been kissed like that since . . . Hell, I’d never been kissed like that. I was nearly breathless as he lifted his mouth from mine. He tightened his muscular arms around me. I pressed my face against his chest.

“Shit, Woodstock, I’ve never been so damn conflicted in my life. I’m trying to figure this out. All I know is I wake up thinking about you and I go to sleep thinking about you.” He pushed his fingers under my chin and lifted my face to his. The glittering brown of his eyes darkened, and I could see his throat move with a deep swallow. I was tight enough against him that I could feel the pounding of his heart.

Then, without warning, he dropped his arms and stepped back to look at me in the shadows of the young night. The stunned look on his face frightened me.

“Shit, Jem, you’re scaring me, and I’ve already been through a live horror movie. What’s wrong?”

He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong and yet everything’s wrong. At the moment, you’re about the only thing in this town keeping me from going nuts. Let’s get out of here. I guess we can tell Hal what happened in the morning.”

“No, don’t,” I pleaded. “He’ll fire me for sure. It was stupid of me to go into that building in the first place. Let’s just keep this between us.”

He sighed. “If you’re sure, but how the hell am I going to keep an eye on you when I’m out on the pond?”

“There are so many people around here, I’ll be fine. And I’ll be keeping an ear open for that voice.” A shiver ran through me, but it wasn’t from the cold.

Jem grabbed my hand. “Come on, Woodstock. I’ve got a flannel shirt you can wear. That sweatshirt is history. I’ll take you home on my bike. The last thing you need is a bus ride into crazy town.”

Chapter 14

Jem

I pulled the bike over three blocks before Everly’s house at Tashlyn’s request. We hadn’t discussed why, but I knew Everly would give her a hard time for riding home with me, and I wasn’t about to add to the stressful night by debating it. Even if it really was none of Everly’s fucking business.

Tashlyn had wrapped her arms around me and held me so tightly the entire ride home, I was disappointed when she finally let go. I could still taste her lips, and it was going to be hard as hell riding away from her tonight. But scary fucking shit was happening, and it was about time I faced the demons of my past, including the devil himself, my dad. There was more at stake than me facing up to the cold hard reality of what had been happening in this town for years. Tashlyn’s arrival seemed to have stirred up some of Blackthorn’s ugly past, a past, that even as a kid, I’d played an unwitting role in. But those days were over, and I would destroy anyone who tried to harm Tashlyn.

I rolled up the driveway to the house. Television light flickered through the front window. I’d hardly spoken to my dad all week, but I was ready to sit down for a real fucking father and son chat right now, even if he wasn’t in the mood.

I walked inside. A weed cloud filled the house. Dad was draped like a lifeless corpse on the couch. Six empty beer cans were stacked next to the arm of the sofa. Dad always had a theory that he wasn’t completely drunk until he could no longer stack empty beer cans. It seemed his liver should have protested that theory long ago. Now it was in full rebellion.

He’d fallen asleep in front of a porn flick, a sure sign that he’d had enough weed and beer for the night.

I stared down at him and, for a second, it struck me that he might be dead. A long snore followed, kicking me out of that idea. The tall, thickly built menace of the town was shrinking down to skin and bones, as if his dying liver was sucking all the life from him one muscle at a time. Tonight, the yellowish cast on his skin looked extra ghoulish. Dane and I would be losing him someday soon. That thought was supposed to give me some kind of reaction, a pressure in my chest, a swelling in my throat, but it didn’t. He’d chosen his life and now, his death, and he was going to take his fucked up decisions to an early grave.

I picked up one of the unopened beers and popped the top as I plunked down in the easy chair. I lifted my foot and nudged him with my boot. “Hey, Dad.”

He opened his eyes and worked hard to focus on the figure sitting in the chair. The rope scar around his neck became easier to see as his weight dropped. He sat up. “Jem, why you waking me? Something up with Dane?”