Claimed, page 28
“You’re way off base with that one,” she said in a low voice.
“Am I? I don’t think so.” Lydia leaned in. “Did you get some of those millions of dollars? And then want more? Was he in your way?”
“I have a three-bedroom house and a cat. What the hell am I going to do with that kind of money.”
“You tell me, Candy.”
“Why should I bother.” The woman wrapped her arms over her chest and set her chin. “You seem to have made up a better life story for me than I could have. The fact that it has absolutely nothing in common with anything I’ve done or even thought about no doubt doesn’t bother you. Fiction is just too much fucking fun for people, isn’t it. So, yeah, I’ve got nothing to add to your fantasy, sorry.”
Candy looked down the hall, out to the waiting room. “But you are right about one thing. It has been two years since I’ve had a day off. You want to know why? It’s not because I’m committing some kind of embezzlement. It’s because this place is all I have, and while that makes me lame, it doesn’t make me a criminal—or a murderer—thank you very much. So I’m taking the rest of what’s left of today off, and when I come in here tomorrow morning, we’re going to forget you ever said this shit to me. Or, if you want, call Eastwind. Have him come over to my house with some handcuffs and cart me off to jail. G’head. Let’s see how far that goes, shall we? Anyway, have a good fucking evening. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The older woman turned away. Walked away.
In her wake, Lydia stayed where she was as there was a rustling out in the waiting area, like Candy was putting on her coat and collecting her purse. Then the door opened and shut.
Heading back around her desk, Lydia went to the window, separated the blinds, and watched Candy back her car out and drive off down the gravel lane.
I’m never going to see her again, Lydia thought.
Hard to know if the portent was good news or bad.
“Shit,” she said in the utter silence of the building.
Collapsing into her chair, she propped her head on her hand and remembered when she had first walked into the WSP. It had been for her interview with Peter, and she could vividly recall stepping out of the winter cold and into the warmth of the waiting room. Candy had looked up from her desk and started talking, just as the woman always did.
As if they had been carrying on a conversation. For years.
Back then, Peter had been in his office every day, and Rick had been working in the clinic, and she had been full of excitement about her new job.
After so many years of feeling groundless, of being groundless, after her grandfather’s death, she had thought, yes, finally.
Roots.
From which to grow.
But now, here she was. Alone—
The door out front opened, and footfalls came down the hallway, slow and heavy.
As she looked up, her breath caught even though she knew who it was. Hell, no doubt it was because she’d recognized the stride: Daniel’s face was tanned from his time out on the preserve, and his hair was smooth from having been stroked by the wind as he had raced along the trails. Likewise, his clothes were marked with river mud that had dried into dirt.
She didn’t give him a chance to speak.
Lydia sprung up and raced for him, throwing her arms around his neck as she launched herself against his powerful chest.
“Oh, God…,” she croaked. “I am so glad you’re here.”
IN RESPONSE TO Lydia’s hard embrace, Daniel put his arms around her stiffly. At first. But as she sank into him and shuddered, he closed his eyes and nestled her in under his chin.
“What happened?” he said, aware that he had a report he should make of his own.
But could not.
“I just… I think it’s all hitting me now.” She pulled back. “Everyone is gone. Peter. Rick. Now Candy. They’re all gone—but you’re here. Thank God.”
As she stared up at him, he intended to speak… except he found that he’d lost his voice. Her eyes were just so hypnotic, ringed with tears, glowing with emotion. All he wanted to do was protect her from hurt. From harm.
Sweeping his hand over her hair, he rested his forehead on her own. “Lydia.”
Her name was a preamble to words that he ultimately couldn’t say: They stayed there in silence for what seemed an eternity, their bodies creating a collective warmth, their souls melding. Meanwhile, all around them, whirling fates that were only hinted at were like a ring of fire closing in on their future.
On their present.
But they had this moment. And if pricelessness was based on rarity, then this quiet instant was invaluable—because he knew that it wasn’t going to happen again.
When he lowered his mouth to hers, he had no conscious thought. He couldn’t afford to think. He’d spent the return trip on the ATV reliving the feel of the hatch’s cold wheel under his hands. He heard once again that rogue gunshot. He saw the uniformed guard’s head blow up.
He remembered the red spray in the air.
As he kissed Lydia, as he licked into her mouth, all of that receded. None of it was with him, anymore. She was the great eraser.
And it was more than the present she took with her. She took his past, too.
Without warning, Daniel threw himself into her, bending her backward until she gripped his shoulders and his strength was the only thing keeping her off the floor. He kissed her harder and harder, and then he kicked the door shut and cleared her desk off with his arm, things hitting the floor, something breaking.
Like either of them cared.
He laid her down on the top, her body thumping against the wood. “I need you,” he said. “I have to…”
Her answer was a scramble with her hands at her pants as she released the button, yanked at the zipper. When she kicked off her boots, they banged against the side of the desk, and bumped as they hit the floor, and then the jeans were gone—
He tore her panties. Just ripped the cotton right off of her.
He wanted to keep going, get her all naked, take his time.
But that wasn’t happening in her damned office.
Daniel did a yanking of his own, and his cock exploded out of his fly. Planting his palm by her shoulder, he leaned over her, grabbed the back of her thigh, and pulled her to the edge of the desk. As her naked ass squeaked on the wood, she cried out and her legs fell open.
He backed off a little and looked down. When he saw her glistening sex, bared to him, hungry for him, he felt his balls tighten.
Oh, no you don’t, he told himself. We’re not going that route again.
Taking hold of himself, he growled, “You’re mine.”
Gritting his teeth, he stroked the head of his erection up and down her core, and in response, she jerked up, her spine arching, her mouth falling open. With her hair spilled out around her, loose and shining, and the flush on her face, and her gasping and straining for breath, she was life to his numb heart, warmth to his cold soul.
In another time, in another destiny, she would have been the path he walked, the way through his mortal landscape.
But they had met out of sequence—
Daniel thrust inside her and she grabbed on to his shoulders while she called out his name. Dropping his head, he started pumping. He meant to go slowly. He couldn’t stop. He was not in control. His body was working independently, slapping into her, clapping against her. As he bent over and fucked her, he was grunting like an animal, totally unhinged, and underneath him, she was taking everything that he had to give her.
He’d gotten it wrong.
She wasn’t his. It was the other way around.
She owned him.
* * *
Underneath her lover, Lydia’s body absorbed the powerful thrusting, Daniel’s hips swinging at the base of his spine, his erection penetrating her deep and then retreating, penetrating her and ripping back out. It was hard—it was rough. It was raw.
And she wanted the sex to last forever.
That was her thought as a release shattered through her, torqueing her body, making her feel a rush of sensation she had never known before. And just as she flew, Daniel locked against her, his arousal kicking inside of her, making the pleasure crest again—
His mouth found hers, and they were kissing as the orgasms kept going.
And then it was over, as fast as it had begun.
Yet the sex was so intense, she felt like she had been gone for a hundred years as they fell still. In the aftermath, they were both breathing hard, and Daniel collapsed on her, his weight pressing her into the desk. Which could have been a down mattress for all she knew. Or cared.
“Fuck,” he muttered against her ear. “I’m sorry. This is not what…”
Running her hands through his hair, she wrapped her legs around his hips and crossed her ankles. “What are you apologizing for? I wanted it, too. And don’t worry… I can’t have children. I’m not—there will never be any pregnancy.”
He blinked, as if she’d shocked him. “I, ah… I should have thought about that.”
“As I said, you don’t have to.” When he pulled up a little and looked awkward, she shook her head. “It’s not something to be emotional about. To use a phrase of yours, it is what it is.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stroked his face, marveling that he was inside her. “Let’s not ruin the moment. Come on, let’s just… be here, where we are.”
“Lydia… I wish so much was different.”
With her forefinger, she smoothed his brows. “At least we have right now. Or… had it.” As her sadness returned, she cradled his face in her hands. “Let’s lock up, and go home?”
“All right.”
He kissed her again. And again.
And after that, she tilted her head one way and he tilted his another, and then they were moving in a wave, softer, slower, but no less intensely. This time, the pleasure was like a flame, instead of a bomb burst, but it burned with just as much heat even though there was no urgency.
Holding on to him, she looked at the ceiling above her desk. With every thrust, her head moved back, and with every withdrawal, it righted itself, her visual point shifting to the same rhythm that he made love to her.
Oh, God, was she really doing this in her office? she wondered. Was this actually happening… or was it some erotic dream where she’d wake up with her thighs clenched and her breath tight as she pushed her face into her pillow on a groan of frustration—
“Daniel…,” she moaned.
Her orgasm was more gentle now, but longer in duration, and his mouth was on hers again as she rode it out.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she felt like crying. Instead, she just held him tighter.
As if he were liable to disappear at any moment.
Like a dream.
DANIEL PUT THE plate down in front of Lydia and stepped back. “My cooking isn’t as good as yours.”
When she looked up at him, her sad smile broke his heart. “Come on now, this is a gourmet meal to me.”
Not even close, he thought. Goddamn, he wished he could make her some BBQ on a grill, out in the fading August sun, with tinfoil-wrapped corn, and a big-ass salad from a garden he took care of. Then homemade strawberry ice cream with hot chocolate sauce he cooked up in the old-school way with corn syrup and semisweet morsels. Oh, and he wanted to do all this in a kitchen they shared, and eat it on the porch they enjoyed their lazy Sundays on.
“Spaghetti out of a box,” he said, “sauce from a jar.”
But made with lov—
No, he stopped himself.
“Aren’t you eating?” She looked to the sink and the strainer. “I’ll wait while you get your plate.”
“I had a big lunch out on the trail.”
“A picnic?”
He sat down across from her with one of his Cokes from the vending machine in the WSP’s break room. With the amount he was drinking at work, he was going to empty the thing of all its red cans.
“Yup, a picnic. Made up of picnic things.” He sat back and stretched. “Anyway, the last of the bridges is fixed. Equipment shed roof is solid. That doctored toilet is good for a little longer. ATV is fixed.”
“Your checklist.” Lydia twirled her fork around. “Everything done.”
As she let the sentence drift, he wondered if she hadn’t guessed he was leaving.
Fucking Eastwind. But that sheriff wasn’t the reason behind the departure. Bottom line, the most important thing he could do for Lydia was get the fuck out of her life. In the short term, he might be able to keep her safe-ish, but he would have to go sooner rather than later—and he had his own enemies.
“Where is the rest of your family,” he asked. “Cousins, uncles, aunts?”
Anybody.
Lydia shrugged. “It was just my grandfather and I. Only children of only children kind of narrow the family tree.”
“What happened to your parents?” In response to his question, she just kept looking at her plate, teasing the spaghetti with the tines of her fork. “I’m really not prying.”
Bullshit.
“It’s okay,” she said with a haunted smile. “I just… it feels like a different life and it was so long ago. And I guess… well, I’ve always lived in two different worlds, neither one nor the other. Talking about my mother and father feels like trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.”
“Tell me,” he whispered.
Lydia’s smile was lost as she kept poking at her pasta. “Well, my mom left me right after I was born and my dad was never around. If my grandfather hadn’t stepped up, I honestly wouldn’t be here.”
“Wait, what—your mother left you?”
“When I was born.” Her eyes flipped to his as if she were checking to see how he was reacting. “I wasn’t expected, either. You and I have that in common. And both our mothers left us, didn’t they.”
“Yeah, they did.” Daniel shook his head. “So she just abandoned you at the hospital?”
“It was a home birth. At my grandfather’s house. She tried to end the pregnancy… so many times.” As he cursed softly, she kept going, her words coming faster as if she just wanted to get through the story. “She tried to give herself a home abortion with a coat hanger. Then there were two suicide attempts with pills. The last one… she threw herself in front of a car. But I stuck.”
Daniel could only blink. “Fucking hell, Lydia.”
“I only found it all out because her diary was in the things she’d packed for the birth at the clinic. But labor happened too fast to get her across town, so after I was born, as soon as the bleeding stopped and she could walk, she got in her car and drove away. That bag was all I had. I slept with it under my bed. When I was ten, I finally opened it. She’d clearly packed with a mind to bolt from the hospital. I read the diary, but I didn’t understand it all until a little later, when I was older.” She laughed awkwardly. “The only picture I have of her was the one on her driver’s license—she didn’t even take her wallet, and I was glad I got it.”
“Is she still alive?”
“I don’t think so. I did try to find her, once. The picture on the license was real, but the name and address were fake.” She put her fork down and pushed her hair back. “Oh, my God, this sounds like such a soap opera.”
“So it was your father’s father you lived with?”
She nodded. “He lived in a secluded area surrounded by trees. I used to sleep with the window by my bed open, even in the winter. The wolves singing to the moon were my biggest comfort.”
“I love that sound, too,” he murmured. “Is that why you ended up here? Working with them.”
“It’s just home to me. And let’s face it, I do better in places where I don’t have to be anything other than what I am.”
“A behaviorist.”
“Someone who doesn’t belong anywhere.” She shrugged a little. “Here, in this small town, where there aren’t a lot of people? It doesn’t bother me as much. And then there are the wolves… they’re such beautiful creatures, and they need to be protected. Even predators can be hunted, and humans are the biggest threat to everything.”
This was why she wasn’t going to stop him from leaving, Daniel thought. She was used to being alone.
“There are other places you could live,” he said. “Other jobs.”
“I know.” She took a deep breath. “And I will have to find one… God, this was not how I imagined everything coming to an end.”
“You said Candy left, too? Did she just quit?”
“She decided to take the afternoon off. After everything, why wouldn’t she. But whether or not she comes back tomorrow morning is anyone’s guess.”
He nodded. “I realize I’ve said this before, but I wish things were different.”
Lydia pointed at him with her fork. “Truer words have never been spoken.”
They fell silent for a while as she worked through what he’d made for her. When she was finished, he cleared her plate and fork and left her to drink the rest of her milk.
At the sink, he ran the water. “That package that was for Peter. Are you going to find out what’s on those disks?”
“No. I think I just need to give it to the sheriff and let him sort it out. What am I going to do, you know?”
“Yeah, I know—”
“You’re leaving tomorrow morning, aren’t you.”
* * *
As Lydia let the words out, she was aware of her whole body tensing like she was about to be hit by a car. And yet what was that thing they always said?
Don’t ask a question you didn’t want the answer to.
In this case, it was true, she didn’t want the answer. But she knew what it was.
“I’m going to be fine,” she said. Was that directed to him or herself? she wondered. “One thing life has taught me is that I’ll always be okay. One way or the other, I always have been.”
Daniel opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
