• sixteen •

“This shit gets messy.”

Rumor

As sunny as it had been the past few days, it made the suddenly dark sky and cold wind that was blowing seem out of place. The wood-burning stove had been going since I had started it this morning. The house had been freezing when I woke up.

I walked into the living room to listen to the local weather report while wrapped in a blanket. The kitchen was much warmer, but the television was in here.

A storm was coming this way, and I wanted to think I had faced worse things than a storm alone. I didn’t want to be a wimp, but the more the weather forecasters warned that it was going to be a strong one, the more nervous I seemed to be getting.

I glanced over at my phone and considered calling King. I hadn’t seen him since he’d brought me back from Maeme’s two days ago. He had said to call if I wanted a ride to her house, and I was starting to think maybe I did.

Chewing on my lower lip, I debated if I should or not. Maeme hadn’t called me or driven down here. She must not be worried about it. Maybe I should just turn off the news and read. Forget about the weather, and it would blow over soon enough. If I fell asleep before it hit, then I could sleep through it.

The gravel crunching under tires caught my attention, and I hurried back to the kitchen just in time to see King stepping down out of his truck. I wasn’t sure if I was more relieved or excited to see him. I hurried to the door to unlock it and get it open by the time he reached the top step.

It was almost unfair the way the man made a pair of boots, jeans, and a brown leather jacket look so good. I tried not to gawk at him and kept my eyes on his face. This thing I had developed for him was getting out of control. I knew better than to feel anything for a man.

“Storm’s coming,” he said as he walked toward me, carrying a brown paper sack in his left hand.

I stepped back and let him inside. “I know. I’ve been watching the weather.”

My kitchen felt tiny when he was in it. His gaze went to the wood stove, and then he smiled. “I see you figured it out without help.”

I nodded. “I had one like that in a…home, growing up.” I had almost said foster home and caught myself.

“You know, I am beginning to wonder if you’re ever going to need me at all. You’ve yet to text or call me.”

I bit my bottom lip to keep from smiling like an idiot. Did that mean he wanted me to text and call him? Why was it making me so happy? Had I not just told myself I had to stop thinking about King like this? He was a man. I had to leave here soon. I could never be honest with him.

“I was considering it just now, but you showed up before I could make up my mind if I should be worried or not about the weather.”

The pleased smile that made his eyes light up was not helping me with my unwanted attraction to him.

“That makes me feel needed,” he replied. “It’s nothing to worry about, but I thought I’d stay here until it blows over. I didn’t want you riding it out alone in case the power goes out. Not that you’d mind that, but from my experience, women aren’t real crazy about being alone in the dark.”

I hadn’t thought of that, and I wasn’t sure there was a candle in this place. I hadn’t looked for any. “Thank you. I don’t think I’d like being out here in the dark.”

“All right then, let’s eat while we have light,” he said, holding up the paper sack in his hand. “The best burgers and hot fries you’ve ever put in your mouth.”

He’d brought food. Burgers and fries. He wanted me to eat burgers and fries with him. I had to stop myself before throwing my arms around his neck. Every time I thought I had this under control, he did something like this. Something no one else had ever done for me.

“I’ll get some plates and set the table,” I replied.

“Set the table? That’s not the way you eat burgers from the Doghouse,” he informed me. “These burgers must be eaten out of the bag, on the sofa, in front of the television.”

I hadn’t eaten anything on the sofa since I had been a kid. Smiling at the idea, I nodded. “Okay, then I’ll get the drinks. I have water, milk, and orange juice. Oh, and I still have that wine that you bought with the groceries.”

He smirked. “The wine.”

“I don’t have wineglasses here.”

“Good. Bring the bottle,” he called over his shoulder as he walked into the living room.

I took a deep breath and gave myself a mental scolding for going all fluttery in my chest when he was around. “It’s just dinner with a friend,” I whispered as I went to get the wine and a bottle opener.

Taking my time, I uncorked it before meeting him in the other room, then took out two regular drinking glasses from the cabinet.

Pausing as I entered the room, I realized I hadn’t considered that we would be sitting so close on the sofa together. It was an average sofa, but the table in front of it was on the smallish side. King had taken out the burgers from the bag and placed them on the table, along with a large container of what appeared to be fries, covered in sauce and crumbled cheese. He’d stuck two plastic forks in the fries and placed them between the two burgers.

“I got plenty of napkins. This shit gets messy,” he said, looking up at me.

I walked over and set the bottle between the two burgers. Then gave him one of the glasses before setting the other in front of me.

He reached for the bottle. “Too proper to just drink out of the bottle, huh?” he asked with a teasing lilt to his voice.

I shrugged. “I wasn’t sure that was what you meant, and, well, I do have glasses, just not actual wineglasses.”

He poured wine into my cup, filling it over halfway, before he filled his to the top. I laughed, and he cut his eyes over to me.

“What? It just keeps me from having to refill it so much.”

I nodded and took my glass to take a sip.

King picked up his burger and took a large bite, then grabbed the remote control. It was hard not to just watch him. The way his jaw flexed as he chewed and the muscles in his neck moved. Why was I doing this? Men could dominate. They had the power to control. King had saved me, but hadn’t I thought Hill was saving me once too? When I’d met him at the diner where I was waiting tables, wondering where I was going to sleep that night. My roommate hadn’t paid her part of the rent, and I couldn’t afford all of it. The landlord had given us two weeks, and my roommate had vanished during that time.

How many times had I wished he had never walked into the diner? How many times had I wished to be homeless instead of the life he had placed me in?

Yet here I was, reacting to another man in ways I never had with Hill. I was getting funny feelings in my chest. He had been showing up in my dreams. I had to get some control over it. Stop it. I was leaving soon. How easily I kept forgetting.

I began to eat while King went through the stations on the television. Then, he pressed something, and Netflix came up. I didn’t know how he had done that, but it didn’t really matter. I rarely watched the television. I preferred books.

“Action, romance, thriller, horror—what’s your preference?” he asked me.

I finished chewing and swallowed before replying, “Doesn’t matter. Whatever you want to watch.”

A loud clap of thunder outside, followed by hard rain that was blowing against the east side of the house, startled me.

King raised his eyebrows. “Might not matter soon. I doubt the electricity out here holds out for long.”

I continued to eat, and he put the remote down, then stood up and went to a window to observe. The lightning outside was so bright that it lit up the living room brighter than the lamp in here ever did. The thunder that trailed it was startling as it vibrated through the house.

“I’ll unplug the television. Wouldn’t want that to get hit,” he said to me before going over to it. “Do you have anything important plugged up? Computer?”

I shook my head. The only computer I had ever been allowed to use was the desktop that Hill had put in the office. Not his office, just the office in the house. One that was rarely used.

King walked through the rest of the small house before returning to the sofa and sitting back down. “Everything looks good,” he informed me, then picked up his burger. “So, what do you think of the burger?”

“It’s delicious,” I assured him.

His pleased grin before he took another bite was mesmerizing. Jerking my gaze off him, I stared down at my food before reaching for my glass of wine and taking a long drink.

“Weather making you nervous?” he asked.

I shrugged. “A little,” I lied.

With King here, I wasn’t even thinking about the weather. I was too focused on how close he was sitting, how good he smelled, and how he made me almost lightheaded when he smiled.

He took the bottle of wine and filled my almost-empty glass this time. “Drink up,” he said, then nodded toward the glass. “You’ll be relaxed in no time.”

Wanting that to be true, I drank some more.

King took a fork and jabbed it into the fries, then held it out to me. “You haven’t tried these.”

Obediently, I opened my mouth, and he slipped the fork inside. I was sure I had never been fed before. It was almost as if someone was taking care of me. I liked it. I shouldn’t, but I did.

His blue eyes watched me closely as I chewed. He was right; these were really good. The buffalo sauce and what I assumed was goat cheese since it didn’t have a strong bite to it mixed well together. I swallowed, then smiled at him, unable not to. He looked so anxious to know what I thought.

“Wonderful,” I told him, although that was probably too strong of an adjective. Being fed by him was the wonderful part.

The lights flickered as rain beat against the windows and thunder rolled across the sky.

King set the fork down and stood back up. “We are gonna need some light soon,” he said, then headed in the direction of the bedroom.

I heard a door open and figured it had to be the closet. Then, I heard something else open and waited, staring at the doorway for him to reemerge. The doors closed, and then he came walking back in with two oil lamps.

He held them up. “I’ll get these lit.”

Those had not been in the closet. I would have seen them before.

“Where did you find those?” I asked him.

“Secret storage inside the closet,” he replied before he disappeared with them into the kitchen.

I hadn’t known about a secret storage inside the closet. He hadn’t shown me that when he gave me the tour. Why did they have it, and what all was in it? Just lanterns? That seemed odd.

Both lanterns were lit when he returned to the living room, and he set one down on the coffee table and another on the table where the television sat. He was almost back to the sofa when the electricity went off with the newest round of thunder.

“Just in time,” he said as he sank back down on the sofa beside me.

“Why is there a secret compartment in the closet?” I asked, leaning back on the sofa with my glass of wine, then crossing my legs.

King’s gaze dropped to my legs a moment before lifting to my face. The mischievous gleam in his eyes made me smile.

“To keep the lanterns, extra supplies, that kind of thing,” he told me, then reached for his glass of wine. “I heard Doc say your ribs are healing perfectly. How’s the pain?”

The doctor had done another X-ray on Friday. Talking about it only reminded me that my time was coming to an end here. I still had no plan for what I would do next. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to watch the news and see if there was anything about Hill’s death, missing wife, or accusations that I had killed him. I felt as if I were living in my tiny bubble, but I knew, soon, this information was going to be on the news, and someone here was going to see it. Maeme possibly. I had to face reality and figure this out.

I took a long drink from my glass. “The pain is barely an ache now. Which means I should start planning what to do. I can’t thank y’all enough for letting me stay here and helping me the way you have, but there are things…I just need to prepare to leave. Soon.” Saying the words were easier than I had imagined. Perhaps it was the wine’s effect on me.

King sat back up and took the bottle of wine to refill my glass. “You still plan on leaving then?”

“Yes…I can’t live here, and I don’t want to bring my trouble to your door.”

He’d known I wasn’t going to stay, but he seemed bothered by the fact that I was leaving. Reading too much into that was a path I didn’t need to take, but my mind was taking it anyway.

He turned his attention back to me and studied me for a moment. “It would be a real bad idea for you to leave, seeing as your husband was found shot in his home. A colleague of his found him, but his wife, Carmella Millroe, was missing, as was his Mercedes. He was taken to the hospital, survived. His Mercedes was found at a Buc-ee’s just outside of Pensacola, Florida. Then, one day after he was sent home from the hospital, he disappeared.” He paused and used his glass to point at me. “That pretty face of yours is all over the news. So is his. You leave here, and someone will recognize you.”

It felt as if the blood had drained from my face as I sat, staring at him. He seemed too calm about the fact that he was housing a fugitive. Why hadn’t I checked the news? Why had I convinced myself that it was okay? That if I ignored it, the facts would go away?

“I…I…you know. I should have told you the truth. Maeme…she’s been so kind to me. She let me stay in her house. I need to go. I’ll hide somewhere else. I can’t let them come here. Bring her into this.”

I started to stand up, but King placed a hand on the top of my thigh and stopped me.

“Churchill Millroe was found hours after you left. It was on the news, as was your face, the night you arrived here. Maeme doesn’t miss the news. Ever.”

I stared at him. She had known. They all had. Yet here I was. I shook my head, confused as to why they would allow me to just stay here.

“Why? Why would she have me stay here? If they find me here, it will incriminate her, you, everyone.”

“Because you were beaten. You were the one who was hurt. And I highly doubt you shot the son of a bitch, but if you did, then he deserved it. I’ve told you already that this is the safest place for you. No one will get to you here. No one.”

My throat burned as my eyes glazed over. They had known all along, and they believed me. They hadn’t known me, but they had stepped in and helped me. Trusted that I hadn’t done it. Someone cared. Several people in fact.

King reached out to me. “Come here.” His voice was husky as he pulled me to him. I went willingly.

I needed the comfort. The emotions unraveling inside me were overwhelming.

When the first sob broke free of the cage I had been trying to trap it in, King wrapped his arms around me and held me against his chest. I clung to him as the pain, fear, relief, hope all released at once. I wasn’t alone. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t alone.