THE OUTLAW’S BRIDE Read online

  He hadn’t been thinking about this, but what would Victoria think of him if she saw him doing this? All he was doing was making some food. That was it. Sure, he was making some for her too and it had been inspired by seeing her all miserable, but that didn’t mean she had to know about that. For all she knew, he was hungry, made himself something, and made her a snack as well because he wasn’t that horrible of a person. It would be rude for her to suffer while he enjoyed himself.

  There was no way that she would view it like that. It wasn’t like she could be angry with him either, though, and he didn’t have to interact with her just because he was giving her this cake. Maybe it could be a peace offering.

  The microwave beeped, letting him know that the mug cakes were done. Or that they might be done, anyway. Putting two in at the same time almost ensured that neither were fully cooked, and he rose from his search to grab a fork to test that theory with. Yeah. They were both still too gooey in the middle.

  He set the microwave for another 30 seconds, and then went back to his hunt for some other type of goody. This time, he found a single peanut butter cup. Only one. Of course. He hit “cancel” on the microwave before it was done beeping, and threw the entire peanut butter cup into one mug cake before setting the microwave to finish doing its thing.

  He didn’t need that candy anyway. Maybe she wouldn’t notice that he didn’t have one in his if he didn’t say anything. There was no way she would. Yeah, he could just set the mug down in front of her and then walk away.

  Where was she, anyway? He pulled her mug cake out, leaving his in the microwave while he decided to hunt for her. He grabbed a glass and poured some milk in it from the fridge; there was no way he’d be able to carry enough stuff for the both of them without dropping something, so he didn’t even pretend to try.

  He found Victoria sitting on the couch. He’d been using it, but he still didn’t frequent it as much as Victoria did. He knew she wasn’t sleeping in her room, if it could even be called that. The only thing that made the place hers was that she would go in there sometimes, pretending like she was sleeping to appease him. He could hear her footsteps making their way through the hall when she thought he was sleeping.

  So she waited not to disturb him. Cute. But infuriating. He felt a rush of blood make its way through his body down to his cock, and he felt the damn thing bulge in his pants. This wasn’t even the first time it had happened. He was getting pretty annoyed with Victoria. It was a natural reaction to have, sure, but why did she make it happen so much?

  Victoria didn’t notice him when he entered. She would need to work on that; she wasn’t the best with noticing people enter rooms, and that wouldn’t do her any good when it came to her safety. He watched her for a few seconds before letting her know he was there.

  Her back was to him, and she was staring blankly at some spot in front of her. Darren wondered if she was thinking in her head about what she might be watching if there was a TV there, but that didn’t seem like a very Victoria thing to do. He didn’t know much about her and what she liked and what she chose to think about (beyond the fact that she got mad easily and let people know about it), though.

  Maybe something was wrong. Her head was bent down so that it faced her knees, and her elbows were on her knees. He couldn’t see them, but her hands were probably holding onto her face in some effort to balance that position or make it more comfortable.

  He looked around from one side of the room to the other. It wasn’t a protection thing, like it usually was; it was more of an “is there anyone else who could help with this?” thing. There was no one else, of course. They were the only two people there, and there was nothing he could do to comfort her. He wasn’t the comforting type of person.

  But he still had the mug cake and the milk in his hands, so he set them down on the coffee table in front of her. Then he walked away from her and back to the kitchen, where he ate his own snack in silence.

  # # #

  Victoria

  Whatever quiet, cohabitation-ish thing they’d had going on that day didn’t last. Victoria didn’t know why he had given her a mug cake. Maybe it was poisoned. There was no reason for him to poison her, and it smelled so good. So she ate it. And maybe that meant that he would think she owed him something, but it probably didn’t. Every relationship – especially platonic ones, because that’s what this unfortunately was – didn’t have to have strings attached to it, did it? No.

  She wasn’t sure why he’d walked off into the kitchen after seeing her. Maybe he didn’t even want to be around her. What he’d made her was so nice, but he hadn’t needed to do that, and then he’d disappeared.

  God.

  There was seriously nothing to do here.

  The only thing there was, was Darren.

  But she couldn’t do him.

  Could she?

  No. She shouldn’t even be considering it. There was nothing that she could get from Darren that she couldn’t get from anyone else.

  That wasn’t true.

  And he clearly had a soft side to him. Why else would he bother with giving her something like the stupid cake? She wondered if he’d made it. He had to have been the one to do it. She’d been looking through the cupboards earlier and there was almost nothing in there beyond what was in the freezer, with the exceptions of a few baked good-inspired ingredients. A little bit of cocoa here, a little pinch of sugar there.

  Once she was sure Darren was out of sight and not watching her she made her way back to the kitchen as fast as she could. There had to be a garbage can in here somewhere, and she finally found it after opening just about every openable surface in the place.

  There wasn’t much hiding in the plastic bag there, save for the small bags of flour and sugar and cocoa that she’d been expecting. She didn’t bother checking back through the cupboards for the other ingredients; Darren had clearly used everything they had to make that mug cake for her. Had he even made one for himself? She hadn’t seen him do it. But anyway, it wouldn’t be happening again.

  That is, unless they went to the store. And since she was supposed to be living with him here for a while, there was no point in avoiding him, as much as she wanted to. She groaned, closing up everything and leaving the kitchen close enough to the way she’d left it. Glaring down books she didn’t like and hanging out in the kitchen sadly was no way to spend her life, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to waste any more time doing it. She had to suck it up and talk to Darren.

  But that was easier said than done.

  When she didn’t want Darren anywhere near her, he found a way to put her in his arms and press his mouth down to hers. He hadn’t touched her in a while, and that was driving her insane, but maybe she was better off for it. Maybe that meant she would think more clearly, now that she didn’t have the heat of his skin on hers clouding her judgment.

  Whatever. What mattered was that when she did need Darren, he was absolutely nowhere to be found.

  It was easy enough to make her way out of the kitchen and to the living room, but he wasn’t there either. She went down the hallway and opened every door she saw. He might’ve been hiding behind one of them, but, still, he was nowhere to be found; she even threw his bedroom door open and peeked in. He wasn’t there, either. Was the man dead? Could she just leave?

  Part of her wanted to strut out and make her way back in town, regardless of someone wanting her killed. The rest of her, well, it did what it normally did: it burned with lust and begged for her to stay. God damn it.

  She gritted her teeth and continued her search. On her way down the hallway again, she noticed that the back door leading out into the yard behind the safe house was slightly ajar. This struck her as a little weird, especially considering how crazy Darren had been over keeping her safe lately. This didn’t mean he might not just crack it to let her know where he was, though, so he might be out there.

  She didn’t have anything on her feet, not really. When Darren had basically stolen her away
from coming into work, all she’d brought with her was the clothes she’d had on her back. Her socks were long since filthy, and she was sick of wearing them.

  She glanced out towards the yard. She could see a small bit of mist lining the tips of the grass. She still had her gross socks on, and it would be even worse to walk through that grass and get them all wet than it would be to just get rid of them all together. So she tore off her socks as quickly as she could, and threw them in a corner where Darren probably wouldn’t notice them. She’d go back for them later before he could, anyway.

  The porch out back was colder than she was expecting. Victoria let out a hiss, expecting for the wooden planks beneath her feet to be jagged and uneven, leaving her with splinters up and down the flesh of her bare feet. It wasn’t. It wasn’t cozy either – it was still wood – but it wasn’t bad. She breathed in deeply, her entire body shuddering as she brought her arms up to either side of her chest. She should have brought a sweater out with her before deciding to come outside. Not that she had one. The trees around her suddenly seemed ominous. This was a terrible idea.

  A shiver ran up and down her body. It couldn’t have to do with the cold. It wasn’t even so far into the year that she’d need to put a coat on anyway, but she was still freezing. Something inside of her felt uneasy, and she looked around her quickly.

  No.

  This was either a test, or something was wrong. There was no way Darren would just leave the door open like that when he had explicitly stated that she was being kept here for her safety. He didn’t even really like leaving her alone, for God’s sake! There was no way he’d leave a door open leading to the back yard, which led through to the…

  Trees.

  She had no idea what was back there. She didn’t want to freeze up, even though she could feel the muscles in her body tensing. She looked back through the yard, just past the tree line. She couldn’t see anything in the dim light of the early evening. And it was so early; it shouldn’t have been getting dark out yet. It was the trees. She couldn’t see past them, and the shade they were throwing onto the house was doing her line of sight no good.

  It would probably be better to go back in the house. A gust of wind blew past her, and she rubbed her hands over her arms. No. There was no reason to be back here. She looked to the woods again one more time, and, turning on her heel, backed her way back through the door.

  She didn’t think she turned around once while she did it, staring straight ahead of her as she fled back into the house. It was efficient, though, and it worked for her, and she was safely back inside in no time at all.

  Darren would probably freak out if he knew where she’d just been. While he had gotten more casual about her than the way he’d acted at the beginning, Victoria could tell that he was still unhappy about anything that might jeopardize her safety. And there was something about the mystery of the area around this place that made her feel in danger.

  No.

  Not in danger.

  She shook the feeling away. She would just lock the door and forget about this feeling. It took her a minute. The lock blended in with the color of the doorknob, and there was something off about the latch. It didn’t look new. The way she had to hold onto the knob and press it closer to the doorframe as she locked the door told her this entire thing was old. The cabin looked newer than the door did; maybe whoever put these here had a thing for antique doorknobs. Maybe this place wasn’t as secure as Darren would have her believe.

  Where the hell was Darren? She’d intended on finding him and getting him to take her to the store, where she may or may not have ditched him. Now she was mildly worried. She’d already combed through the house and she hadn’t found him.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a trail of steam leading from farther down the hallway to the bathroom. She blinked. The shower. Of course. She took a second to listen, recognizing the sounds she heard coming from that direction as the sound of running water.

  The door to the bathroom was open. Maybe Darren had walked from there to the bedroom while she’d been out back. The idiot had forgotten to turn the water off. She should really fix that. And the steam looked so warm. There was no harm in going in it. The closer she got to the bathroom door, the more steam there seemed to be; the door wasn’t just cracked open, it was swung wide so she could see the entirety of the bathroom.

  Like she’d have been able to see anything.

  The room was full of so much steam she couldn’t see her fingers in front of her. She made her way farther into the bathroom, even though she couldn’t see shit. This was probably a bad idea. There was no way anyone was in here, though; why would Darren just leave the bathroom door open if he was showering, when he clearly knew she was there? Well, he might. It's not like he was the type to care if someone saw him naked. So maybe he was in here. And maybe that was the driving force that made her want to keep going further into the bathroom.

  She shook her head. Maybe it wasn't. No, she was going into the bathroom for her own safety. She’d had a weird feeling earlier, when she was out in the yard, and the door leading outside had been left slightly open. Now the bathroom door was also open and steam was pouring out of it; something had to be amiss, and she was just investigating it. That was all that was happening.

  Yeah. Exactly. She didn’t even stop to question the fact that her excuse had changed from turning off the water Darren had accidentally left running to checking for potential killers hiding in the bathroom.

  The farther she got in the bathroom, the easier it was to see. The storm of steam started to gradually dissipate the farther in she got. The shower was getting closer. She could see the thin outline of the shower curtain from her position, but that was about it. The toilet and the sink had to be somewhere right?

  What was she thinking? Why had she gone in here in the first place? She wasn't really scared. Of Darren, of anything, of being murdered. So far there wasn't even really proof that someone wanted her dead specifically. That drive-by could have been an accident. She doubted that she was the only person in the city with her type of car. Maybe she hadn’t even been the intended target.

  And yet, even though she didn’t want it to be true, everything in her believed Darren when he said that someone wanted her dead. So if that same everything inside of her wanted something more with him, she might as well go for it. It seemed like the entire time she'd been at this safe house, she'd spent it trying to convince herself that it was okay for her to want him.

  And she still didn’t even fully believe it.

  God damn it.

  By the time she'd come back down from that now-familiar line of thought, she'd noticed that the steam was gone. The air around her was cooler, in that muggy way that the air can only be after the thick heat of too-warm water.

  She could see more than just the thin line of the shower curtain now, and she hadn’t even advanced farther into the bathroom. If she turned around now, she could still go back. Whoever was in the shower wouldn’t have to know that she was ever there, and she could believe that it was someone else in the shower, and that she wasn't just trying to creep on –

  Darren.

  The familiar, hard lines of his body came into view. He was still hidden from behind the shower curtain, which was regrettably dark enough that she couldn’t see his skin. It was easy enough to guess who was in there, though. Meaning, not only were they the only two people in the house, and presumably the only two people who currently knew about its existence, but also that Darren was the only one with that rugged physique. It was unique to him in the way that –

  Oh, shit. A quake. And then another quake, and then, the shower curtain started to move. It felt like forever watching it, even though it was just the slightest motion as his hand first started to grab and then pull at the material. It was probably just a few seconds, actually, but it felt like forever. She had nowhere to go but back from where she’d come, and she didn’t have enough time to cross back and exit the bathroom from whe
re she was now. She’d gone too far.

  Nope. There was no way of leaving. She turned her head to look behind her for just a second, but she didn’t even have time to do that before he was in front of her.

  Should she look? Should she not? Her eyes were on the floor, but from the corner of her view she saw Darren emerge from the shower.

  She was turning into a blabbering idiot inside her own head. Maybe he wouldn’t see her. Maybe he’d look to the left, or to the opposite of where she was. And maybe he’d just ignore his street smarts and the feeling of another person being in the room with him. Yeah. Yeah, right. Like that would happen.

  He lifted his head to her before he even made as if he was going to grab a towel.

  She didn’t know how, but she could just tell that he was looking at her, even though her eye were still on the floor. It sent a flush of heat to her cheeks, and down to her neck. Her ears must've been red, too, but that might have all been from the steam instead of from something else.

  No. He was the reason. The only reason. Of course. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.