Her Road Home. Laura Drake
I remember.”
Sam studied his faded-handsome face. He looked like a former high school quarterback, gone to seed. Middle-age thickness had crept up from his waist to his heavy jowls. Age and easy living had begun to assault the skin at his neck.
But his eyes, when he glanced back to her, seemed innocuous. “Mind giving me a tour?”
Her shoulder muscles tightened as the sound of “no” moved from her brain to her lips. She’d always been a lousy judge of character—trusting those she shouldn’t, and spurning offers of friendship from well-meaning people. It was as if some internal compass constantly pointed her in the wrong direction.
But Brad didn’t see her hesitation, because he’d turned and walked through the open front door.
“Hey!” Shrugging off the ice-water trickle of déjà vu at the back of her neck, she hurried inside.
She stepped to the doors of the front parlor and pulled them closed, hiding the tortured pillows and rumpled sheets of her narrow bed. When she turned back to Brad, there was a flash of something at the back of his eyes. Something oily. Her stomach twisted, remembering that her closest neighbor was a quarter mile away.
Maybe it was just her uneasy brain, superimposing the past on the present.
He walked to the stairs. “Donny Sutton and I used to slide down these banisters.” He patted the newel post. “I remember when his mother ordered that window.” He tipped his chin to the ornate fleur-de-lis etched in the tall glass window at the stair landing. “His dad bitched up a storm about it. Must’ve cost a pretty penny, even back then.”
When he bent to place the wine on the top step of the landing, a late afternoon sunray caught his diamond-studded wedding ring and threw dancing sparks up the shadowed wall of the staircase.
“I want to thank you for this. It’s not often you get to walk into your past.” His face formed a mask of sincerity.
Maybe it wasn’t a mask. Maybe she was wrong, this time.
“Could I see the upstairs? Donny and I spent a lot of time in his room, conspiring on world domination.”
“Um. I guess.”
He stepped back, gesturing for her to lead. She pictured him watching her butt as she climbed, and waved him on ahead.
“Old man Sutton died about ten years ago, and his wife, two years later.” His voice echoed in the narrow space as he turned at the landing and started up. “Donny and his sisters have fought over this place ever since.”
Sam stayed well back, not wanting to watch his pudgy rear end struggle up the stairs, but not able to stop herself. On her way by, she grabbed a screwdriver from the window ledge and slipped it in her back pocket. The weight of it there somehow felt right.
He was huffing by the time he reached the top landing. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this....” He wandered down the hall, opening doors as he went.
“Don’t go in that one!”
He stood at the doorway of the ruined room. “Wow. Donny sure would be pissed to see his room now.”
He wandered down the hall. Sam closed the door to the room.
“Oh, my God.” His voice echoed from the large bathroom at the hall’s end.
Sam hurried, wondering if he’d hurt himself on something. She had liability insurance, but sure didn’t want to have to use it.
He stood in the center of the bathroom, pointing. “The black-and-white checkerboard tile, the old claw-foot tub, the light fixtures. It’s all the same!”
She touched the scarred molding of the doorway. “I’m going to keep it as original as I can.”
He took a step closer.
Even without looking, she felt the brush of his glance, against her skin.
“Can you imagine the hours Donny spent in here as a teenager, whacking off?”
At the low, creepy tone, her head jerked up, though she knew what she would see. The concentrated, unfocused stare. Ruddied cheeks. His lips glistening, as if he’d just licked them.
She stood in flash-frozen shock, her heart fluttering in scared-rabbit beats. Not again.
His eyes roamed, lingering, as if he already possessed her. He addressed her breasts. “You know, I’ve got money. You could have a sweet deal, here.”
Shaking her head, she took a step back.
His pudgy fingers, reaching to touch, shattered her taut stillness. She ran.
Her feet pounded a hollow beat on the old wood of the hall. Halfway down the stairs, a knife of pain in her ribs forced her to stop. Her chest and shoulder screamed, but her lungs trumped everything. She leaned over, taking small breaths, trying not to throw up.
She hadn’t heard him coming, but he was there, hands all over her. Her body jerked away in an involuntary spasm and she stumbled to the landing, her brain spinning in freewheeling panic. Random thoughts pinged inside her skull. Snips of memories. Nothing useful.
Off balance, she threw out her good arm to keep from plunging headfirst into the wall. She spun to face what would come next.
A small voice whispered, You knew you’d end up here again. The forgotten-familiar weakness of lassitude pulled at her. Give up. You know it’ll go easier if you do.
The smell of nightmare-sweaty sheets drifted from the open collar of her shirt. The stench of fear.
He must have sensed victory because, face flushed and breathing heavy, he took the last step to the landing.
Sam stepped back. He’s stronger. No one is going to believe—her back hit the wall. Something clinked and bumped her butt.
Triumph-laced adrenaline zipped through her, cutting off the little girl’s whisper midsentence. Jerking the forgotten screwdriver from her back pocket, she held it in front of her like a madman in a slasher film. “Get. Out.”
His flat shark eyes gauged her resolve. “Now, you don’t want to be that way.” He reached out a hand, but jerked it back when she thrust the screwdriver at the exposed veins of his wrist.
“You’ve totally misunderstood my intentions. I don’t mean to hurt you.” His lips peeled back from his teeth, but it wasn’t a smile. “Unless you want me to.”
Her stomach heaved in a hot, greasy wave. “This may not kill you, but it could take out an eye.” The blades of rage in her throat made the words come out ragged, torn.
He hesitated, absently touching the skin of his forearm. His fingers stroked the hair, smoothing it in gentle circles.
He was imagining stroking her—Sam knew it as clearly as if she’d read his mind.
And maybe she had.
Their heavy breathing echoed loud in the hushed stairwell. Time spun out to a thrumming wire of tension. The tension sprung from different sources, with different motivations, but it paired them in a dark dance—one they both knew.
Sam stood, waiting for his next move.
Brad sighed, his lips twisting into an entitled pout. Straightening, he sucked in his gut and hiked the waist of his expensive dress slacks. “The guys at the club told me a biker chick had to be a lesbian.”
“Get the hell out of my house.” She pointed the screwdriver down the stairs. “Now.”
“Guess I lost that bet.” Hands raised, he eased past her, not turning his back until he was out of range. He took the last three steps to the entryway.
Sam followed him, screwdriver at ready. “The only thing I sleep with is a snub-nosed Colt.” He stepped through the open door. “You ever come back here, you’ll find out its sex.”
“Shit,