Relaxing into the seat was akin to relaxing into her life right now. She watched Lucas sync his phone to the truck’s audio system, lifted a brow at him as twangy country music filled the interior. The look he threw back at her dared her to say something. When she didn’t, he navigated the truck out of the lot and eventually onto the highway.
Idiot didn’t even know she loved this band.
They rode for an hour in silence before Lucas pulled into a truck stop, filled the tank and loaded up on enough snacks to fill a full-sized grocery bag. As he reached for his phone, Stormy sat in confusion as he called to reserve a cottage for the night at some place called Golden Trails Luxury Resort.
“Why are we stopping for the night? I thought we only had a couple of hours before we were at your sister’s fiancé’s house.”
“It’s late, I’m hungry, and I got to blow off some steam—you all right with that?” he gritted out. “I already texted Merlee, she’ll be expecting us tomorrow afternoon.”
Placing the overflowing grocery bag between them, he was all frowns as he started the engine.
“You are moody as hell,” she muttered, seeing how he ran hot and cold, open then remote.
He shut off the engine. “Excuse me, darlin’, I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Oh, you heard me.”
A look that bordered on disgust passed over his face, but she didn’t care. Backing down and acquiescing, tiptoeing around a man’s feelings, getting along for the sake of getting along…that was a thing of the past. She didn’t care how big and bad and dangerous he could be, she was here for adventure and support with no obligation to navigate his emotions. They even had a contract that said as much.
“Just like a woman,” Lucas practically growled. The level of resentment directed at her was out of proportion with anything she had said or done. “Something doesn’t go as planned and you wanna say I’m the one with the problem, yeah? I’m the one who should lay down like some docile bitch and just let you have your way…because your pussy rains manna from heaven?”
He snorted. “Get the fuck outta here with that shit. I don’t get down on my knees for nobody. No woman will ever make a necklace out of my balls and parade around for everyone to see and judge me a fool. That ain’t the kind of time we go’n have on this here trip. You think because we fuck so well together, I’ll lose all good sense? I’ve been fucking since I was a kid, I know that shit well, so don’t ever think you got the magic pussy that’s gonna controlanyfucking thing I do.”
He literally stopped her breath.
The vitriol he’d just heaved on her, the sheer maliciousness—hatefulness—of it, made her want to annihilate him, to literally tear him apart and leave him dying at her feet, alone, terrified, in pain, and without hope. The urge for violence nearly overwhelmed her, pushed to be set free with a primal scream. She clenched her jaw to keep it at bay, clenched her hands to stop herself from lunging for his throat and trying to rip his spinal cord free from his body.
Her thoughts and emotions were terrifying. And then she knew, sheknewthat the most visceral experience of rage she’d ever experienced in her thirty-nine years wasn’t even hers, it was a projection of Lucas’s rage.
Closing her eyes, she took deep breaths and let the chaotic emotions rush through her like water through a rain stick. Imagined nullifying it into the earth, knowing that whatever Lucas had been through in his life, it had overwhelmed his mind and nearly ripped his soul from his body.
Shit. As awful as it felt to be the one he shitted on, the ugliness he’d spewed was actually better than him disconnecting from it, from himself. She had been dishonest with him as well as herself when she agreed to not psychoanalyze. She was who she was; all her years of training and experience, that couldn’t be undone, but what she intended to do with her knowledge, with his pain, was to allow him to continue managing it in the best way he could. She’d moved beyond sacrificing herself for the well-being of others. That was a slow death she would not endure again.
Opening her eyes, she turned and looked at him.
He was larger-than-life in his anger, yet she saw his spirit, saw that at his core, he was a caring man, relatively speaking.
Leaning over, she placed a hand on his knee, felt his muscles tense. “Did it make you feel better, talking to me like I’m the most disgusting piece of shit to ever roll into your life…because I called youmoody? You are moody, Lucas, moody as hell and you know it, but that’s neither here nor there. What just came out of your mouth has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you, andIknow that. I also know I didn’t deserveanyof it. Our contract is officially over…which is probably a relief for you. I’ll keep my promise to Mama, though, I’m with you until the situation with your family is resolved and after that our journey ends.”
Sitting back in her seat, she pulled her phone from her purse and texted her aunt Letty in Louisiana to let her know she’d be visiting in a couple of days. She smiled at her aunt’s response, aware that Lucas hadn’t moved an inch in the moments following her words. It wasn’t until his own phone rang that his body reanimate. She looked over at him as he reached toward his phone, saw that his eyes had been locked on her before he looked at the screen. He frowned, hitting speaker.
“Hello?” he answered, voice rough and impatient.
“My beloved….”
Reaching for his backpack, Lucas pulled out a laptop and spoke with Delilah as if he cared about her while motioning Stormy to stay quiet. She watched him retrieve information on the number and location Delilah called from, did a background check on the owner of the phone, and uttered a muted curse when he linked the phone’s owner to some organization called the Consortium.
Her sense of adventure restored, Stormy had no problem remaining silent until Delilah began referring to her as all kinds of whores. On the heels of Lucas’s verbal battering, it was too much. She opened her mouth to respond and Lucas’s hand fastened over it, covering half her face. She bit him, and he snatched his hand away, but she remained silent, understanding that Delilah was more than the strange and awkward woman she met at the boutique; she was certifiable, dangerous, and without remorse.
After his call with Delilah, Lucas called the information back to Terry, who said he would be sending two Brood members to the location Delilah called from.
“Fucking women,” Lucas muttered, disconnecting from Terry and storing his electronics in his backpack.
“Actually, I think you and Delilah would be perfect together,” Stormy said, smiling at him with faux humor. “Beloved.”
He glared at her, reached out to start the truck, and pulled onto the highway without a word.
They sped down Highway 40 in virtual silence, but the quiet didn’t put Big Country less on edge. On the contrary, despite the comfort of being on the road and passing familiar scenery, he felt on the verge of chewing off his own tongue.
