Unrestrained, page 2
Yet what wouldn’t she have given to have somebody help her when she’d needed it? A dark memory stirred, swam by lazily, threatening to surface, and she quickly submerged it. She was not going to think about that.
But what would she say to Stein, assuming she could even track him down?
Hey, you know those dirty pictures Luisa took that she’s been threatening you with? Well, don’t sweat it, I’ve got them, because she left her iPad somewhere and I found it. You look pretty neat, so I’d like to keep a couple of pictures for my own personal use, but you can have the rest back if you want ‘em.
What’s that? Who the fuck am I?
Nobody.
Nobody at all.
She sighed. This was what she got for leaving home this morning, for venturing out on her anniversary. Grief. She should have known, should have stayed at home where it was safe. She opened the web browser and typed ‘Burkhart Stein’ and ‘Brisbane’ into the web browser and ran an eye over the hits.
Burkhart Stein, Stonemason, 182 Irving Road.
Easy. Too easy. So Stein was a local lad. The optimist in her had expected to find nothing, or that he lived far, far away, which would have taken the need to make a decision from her. Well, so much for optimism, now she had to act. But, really, a small voice insisted, sometimes the best thing to do when faced with a difficult decision is nothing.
Bullshit.
She read the ad again. Stonemason. That explained the muscles. All that hewing and grinding and turning of stone obviously kept a man in shape. If her high-school German served her correctly, the German word for stonemason was ‘Steinmetz’. Herr Stein the Steinmetz. Catchy. The closest German word to ‘metz’ she knew was ‘Metzger’—butcher. That made him, literally, a butcher of stone. It was all too easy to picture his flinty gray eyes weighing up a terrified slab of granite for slaughter.
Under Stein’s name, occupation and address was a phone number. And a link to a gallery. She clicked on it and sucked in a tight, dry breath. Headstones. Lots of headstones. He carved headstones for a living and he had a gallery.
“Jesus H Christ, fuck me sideways with a hyphen.” What had she done that was so bad, so heinous, that she was being punished like this?
Calm down. Carving headstones for a living didn’t make him the Grim Reaper. He was just a man, a man being blackmailed.
To call or not to call? She hated that the very idea of doing it immediately made her skin prickle with discomfort, and that it wasn’t just the thought of the man himself that made her uncomfortable, but the physical act of calling him. It was hard to pass for normal, to be normal, with her almost pungent aversion to phones. Landlines, cell phones, business and personal calls, she hated them all and it wasn’t unusual to catch herself pretending she couldn’t get to the phone in time to answer it, or deliberately letting her cell phone batteries go flat, sometimes for weeks at a time. It had lost her many editing clients and yet still she did it. Because she remembered the shrill sound of her cell phone ringing and ringing while she was busy dying.
Don’t be a pussy, Holly. Man up.
She had to force herself to do it, to take out her phone, which actually had some charge left. Poor planning on her part. Her fingers misdialed twice on the suddenly too-small keys before she nailed the third attempt. Three rings, four rings, five. No answer. Maybe he’d changed his number to dodge the stalky, threatening Luisa. Maybe his hands were full of tombstone. Maybe he was busy tying someone up. Or perhaps he was ignoring the phone like normal people did now and then. Except there was nothing ‘normal’ or ‘like most’ about Herr Stein, the butcher of stone, and now there was no hiding the truth from herself, that his looks, his very being, intimidated her. Thoroughly. As well as everything else about him. His job. His name. That stare.
Fuckity-fuck.
“Stein.”
She hung up, the rich baritone reverberating in her ears. She focused on her hot chocolate as she replayed the sound. His voice was subterranean deep, wrapped in a harsh German brute of an accent. He’d uttered a single word, yet it had transformed him instantly from a picture to a flesh-and-blood man, a man she didn’t know, a man who didn’t look at all friendly, and who more than likely had an attitude to match his insanely powerful body.
Sweet splicing semicolons, Holly, you would have to be out of your gourd, bat-shit, flesh-eating crazy to get mixed up in this. Don’t even think about it.
Unease settled around her shoulders and not even the sweet waft of cacao from her hot chocolate could settle her jangled nerves. She stirred extra sugar into her mug. Screw the calories. Poking her marshmallows with her teaspoon, she imagined crawling inside one of the puffy sugar pillows, pulling the spongy top down after her until she was safely cocooned inside a padding of sweetness. How foolishly unnerved she was by that bottomless voice. And yet a longing to do something impetuous also filled her, something wild and crazy like meeting Stein and maybe finding out for herself what the expression on Luisa’s face was about.
A vision of his dark head and massive, tattooed shoulders wedged between her thighs struck like a rattlesnake and she had to squeeze her legs together to stifle the rude throb that set up between them. Nothing more than the product of lengthy celibacy, she tried to tell herself. Ha! Even the macarons on her plate knew better.
Frowning, she dunked and held a marshmallow under the sweet hot chocolate until it melted. There, now nothing could go wrong. The gods loved sacrificial marshmallows and would now protect her and help her in her quest. Uh-huh. Right. She wasn’t even sure which quest she meant, the one to return the iPad or to satisfy her lustful curiosity about Stein. Not that it mattered. The world of appearances, ruled by abhorrently air-brushed cover models and pin-up girls with not a whisker on their hoo-hoos let alone any imperfections, dictated that her curiosity would remain just that. Her packaging was not up to scratch.
But maybe…
Maybe even though she might not be able to enjoy what Luisa had enjoyed, she could still meet the mysterious Stein and give him the photos to do with as he pleased. She could get a face-to-face eyeful of him, and saving him from blackmail could be her good deed for the year. Decade. Whatever.
Rolling her shoulders, she tried to work some of the tension out of her neck as she redialed Stein’s number. No point telling herself it was just a phone call, she didn’t care what anyone said, conversation was risk—a dance of words that could carry or shape intent, and sometimes you only found out at the very tail-end of a long conversation that the other person’s intent, all along, had been malice.
Chapter Two
Forty-five minutes later, she sat, antsy, at another café two doors down, convinced the iPad owner would swoop down on her like the Angel of Death at any moment, though the notion that the Angel of Death carried an iPad was somewhat incongruous. She shifted on her seat. There were too many people in the cheery café, their glances invasive, a million ants on her skin. The minute hand on her watch moved forward with excruciating slowness, as if crawling towards the limits of endurance. She was gathering her things, ready to leave when the café door swung open. She looked up but it was just a middle-aged woman, her pale narrow face blank and weary from a harassing day.
Holly knew just how she felt. When she’d rung Stein, he’d thought her a prank caller the first time and had hung up on her. The second time he’d asked her if she was a friend of Luisa’s and had hung up before she could even answer. She’d had to call again and again, and even once he’d understood she was serious, his assent to meet had been delivered in a disagreeable growl. Forget the butcher of stone, she was christening him Mister Grumpy.
She took out her regency romance, ready to dive back into the deflowering scene on page two hundred and two when the café door swung open. A powerfully built man with dark, close-cropped hair let the heavy door slam behind him. He dwarfed the tired middle-aged woman by a good two heads and the whole room seemed to go still as he bore down on the startled café owner at the till. Holly put her book away. She’d picked the silver-haired café owner as the unflappable earth-mother type but now anxiety scrabbled across the woman’s round, rosy face and she clutched the bundle of menus closer to her bosom, like a shield, as over six feet of surly approached her.
Stein was bigger than Holly had realized. How had she missed that? Even in two dimensions his looming height should have been apparent. And that expression. Fuck. It was a scowl to blight fields and turn all the village women barren. The perverse part of her, that small part with a death wish and longing for risky kicks, loved it, of course. The part of her that was still sane wanted to hide.
The iPad rested conspicuously dark against the buttercup tablecloth and she darted a glance at it. She could surreptitiously slide it off the table, onto her lap under the tablecloth, out of sight, and pretend she was waiting for someone else. But as she looked up she saw Stein’s grim eyes already locked on her. Oh, hell, what had she done?
In her peripheral vision, she registered several gazes following Stein’s progress, patron heads turning like those of spectators at the Colosseum. Tall, broad-shouldered and bullish of neck, Stein plowed through the tables towards her while she sat fettered by a misplaced sense of courtesy. Dusty dark overalls clothed his square, rude laborer’s frame. Why had he not changed? Had he laid down his tools to come direct from hammering an inscription into a tombstone? It shouldn’t come as a shock since she knew what he did for a living, but the thought that she’d interrupted his work, his funereal work, and that somewhere a body was being forced to wait for its headstone, made her lightheaded.
As he neared, the eyes of the two shop girls at the next table widened. Under his heavy blue overalls, his faded gray cotton T-shirt strained across a swelling chest and sloping shoulders that, if yoked, could pull a tractor. Or maybe two. His long legs ate up the remaining distance and, before she’d readied herself, a pair of what looked like steel-toed construction boots planted themselves before her. Too late to stick her nose in her book and pretend she’d been waiting for someone else. Too late for anything.
“You.”
No point pretending he wasn’t talking to her or that she was too engrossed in inspecting his boots to hear him. She looked up and up and saw something she hadn’t expected, something else the photos had hidden. Low on his jaw, Stein had a deep, jagged rent from left ear to left lip, like someone, or something, had tried to rip his face off and had almost succeeded. Heart stuttering, she stared. In effect, he was wearing her team colors—scars—and ones deep enough to make her bet that, like her, he’d heard Death’s phlegm-filled murmur, had felt its hot, rank breath right up against his ear. They could hold their own near-death pajama party and sit up all night, braiding each other’s hair while they swapped ER stories. And she could stare long and deep into his eyes, the ones that, right now, promised death, tidal waves and typhoid, and he could tell her all about how he got such a lovely kiss from Death and they could compare notes. But his scar, unlike hers, looked dangerous and sexy. Maybe she should ask him what his secret was.
Get a grip.
With an effort she tore her gaze away from the scar and met his gray eyes. Ouch. Cold and bracing as a slap of winter sea on bare legs. And yet something hot simmered beneath… A dash of well-marinated rage? Not that rage looked bad on him. His brooding expression could bring all the girls to the yard, plus any boys that way inclined. But why was he giving her the hairy eyeball? She was helping him, damn it.
“Did you invite me here?” He inspected her, his regard both scalding and freezing.
Strange how his accent, the words delivered in a bass rumble that made every other man’s voice sound falsetto, made her sit up straighter, her gaze skittering away from his face to the dust covering his arms. Dust from a headstone?
Show no fear, Holly. “Yup, that was me.”
He sat without waiting for invitation. It was a surprisingly graceful lowering of such a sizeable bulk considering his thighs barely fit under the table, but then he wasn’t really a heavy man, more on the lean side, the flesh drawn tight over his face and giant frame. She snuck a glance at his marred face as he rested his folded arms on the table and shifted his weight. His cranky expression had turned sphinx-like. Hard to say whether he was uncomfortable or embarrassed about the photos, or just plain annoyed. All she got from him now was guardedness.
A shocking habit putting your arms on the table like that. She tried but failed to tear her eyes from his forearms, those twin slabs of corded muscle and ropy vein coated in fine gray powder. With surprisingly few hairs considering the thick, black stubble on his chin.
He picked up the laminated menu with a blunt hand. “You ordered?”
She blinked and looked at her menu, surprised to see it still there. “No.”
He grunted noncommittally. Ah, a man of few grunts. She searched the café for signs of a waitress. Where had they gone? When she’d arrived they’d swarmed, eager to spruik the soup. Surely they weren’t allowed to hide when it suited?
He perused the menu with intense focus. A remedial reader? She’d never dare voice that smart comment. He had to be the toughest, most intimidating man ever to grace the evolutionary drawing board. That she’d met, at least. And she’d met a few leathery types in her time, had even been stabbed by one.
He closed his menu and a waitress sidled up to him. The girl greeted them and asked what they’d like. Or asked Stein, at least. Holly didn’t care. Better the waitress stare at Stein than her.
“A Coke, please.” He didn’t bother to pin a smile on the request despite the waitress’s flirty smile. Interesting.
The girl’s smile didn’t waver at either the bite of his tone or his accent. She was either very keen or a bit dim. Holly spoke up. “Same here, thanks.”
The waitress surprised her by registering her presence enough to write down her order. When the girl tucked pencil and pad into her apron and flashed them a smile before moving away, Holly expected Stein’s gaze to follow the girl’s inviting, slim denim butt but his gaze flicked to her instead.
Slap. Chilling as winter.
“Wait until after she brings our drinks before you show me the iPad.”
She nodded and their silence drew out while Stein stared at her neck, or rather, her scars. How rude. Maybe she wouldn’t give him the iPad after all. She stared back at his neck pointedly. It was bullish and painted with dark stubble which must have tickled Luisa’s thighs when he ate her out. Oh, Jesus. Don’t think about that, Holly, not now. She dropped her gaze to his hands on the table.
Red and coarse against the yellow linen, they looked out of place, covered as they were in nicks and cuts, chafed spots, ropey veins and rough-looking calluses. Craggy knuckles crowned blunt, massive fingers that looked capable of molding stone without the aid of tools. Around her, the conversation that had so bothered her five minutes ago washed past like debris as his restless hands pinched and smoothed the tablecloth.
Was he uneasy or just used to having something to busy his hands with? Stone, rope, Luisa. Perhaps Herr Stein was not used to socializing. She sympathized. The debutantes and chatty types could keep it.
The waitress brought two cans, and a glass and a straw for Holly. The glass and straw made her smile, suggesting as they did that she was too dainty to drink straight from a can, or might leave lipstick on the glass rim. Girls like Luisa, perhaps, but not her. She tossed the straw on the table and took a deep swig straight from the can. Stein watched her, disapprovingly she could have sworn, even though he was the one with his arms on the table.
“The iPad, did you steal it?” He studied her, watchful.
Ah, hence the disapproval. “No.” She placed her can down very carefully. “I found it in a nearby cafe.”
His dark brows shot up. He didn’t believe her? Well, he could think what he liked, it was all the same to her.
“What will you do with it?” she asked.
“Probably snap it in half and toss it.”
That gave her pause. Wow. That was really Neanderthal. And luddite-ish. Would he really destroy a three hundred dollar iPad in a fit of pique? She weighed his sincerity and tone of finality. Her guess was yes. He looked and sounded a man of his word. A stern, scary-as-fuck word.
She almost jumped when the tinny Muzak of a cell phone blared from under the table. Not hers. It rang, and rang, and rang. His. She raised an eyebrow. “Would you like to get that?”
Eyes flat and gray as cinderblock met hers. “No.” He reached over and opened the iPad case. After a quick glance around for hovering waitresses she directed him to the right folder, her gaze so intent on the small screen that when, from the corner of her eye, she registered the movement of his hand reaching towards her, she shied away. And nearly slapped herself when he merely picked up his drink. He inspected her as he raised the can to his lips and drank deeply, a flicker of one eyelid and a slight twitch of the deep scar running across his cheek the only response to her involuntary reaction. But she could sense, almost taste, the sub-rosa rage pulsing under his calm exterior, the burning resentment at her reaction. And when he put his can down after a final swig, swallowed his last swallow, and bared his teeth in a grimace at the cold soda, the resentment leaked out of his eyes, sluggish and quiet as blood from a mass grave leaking into groundwater.
She hadn’t meant to offend him, she was just a little jumpy. It wasn’t like she found dirty pictures and lost iPads every day. Or met with strange men. Large, very strange, very cranky men.
She trained her gaze on the ceiling, took a steadying breath and refused to follow Stein’s progress through the files, no matter how much her skin prickled with the need to look. But his silence dragged out so long and so heavy that eventually she looked. The picture he’d opened was really quite innocuous. Stein loomed over Luisa, his body a sinister question mark as he cradled her face in his hands. But there was a look in his eyes. Whether it was need, love or just focus, she couldn’t say, but for a brief moment she wanted nothing more than to be the woman in the picture, to be looked at that way. The unexpected stab of longing drew a grimace from her. How ridiculous. She didn’t really want to be needed like that. And nor would she ever want to need someone else that way. She forgot to look away as Stein opened the next picture.
