Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 168121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 841(@200wpm)___ 672(@250wpm)___ 560(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 841(@200wpm)___ 672(@250wpm)___ 560(@300wpm)
“Laz got ripped off.” His voice broke with laughter.
“So true.”
They fell quiet for a time, sharing glances and smiles as she worked. Her mind raced to the final design, mentally shading between the bold lines, trying to predict his reaction. It would be primarily black. Red and brown ink would be used sparingly to blend the drawn scars into the existing ones.
She took her time, following the outline with a steady hand. Working over the scar tissue, she must have hit a sensitive area because his body shuddered. “Sorry. You okay?”
“Wasn’t you, Charlee.” A ragged exhale. “I was thinking about my parents’ death, of the burns that occurred over the year that followed.”
78
The machine jumped in Charlee’s hand. She held it midair, hovering, her heart thundering.
“Keep going.” Jay’s palm rubbed up and down her leg. “I need the distraction.”
She swallowed and brushed out another rivet in the steel plate beneath the outline of charred skin.
“We lived in Canada, a rural area near the Boundary Waters, and the land is only accessible by plane. They were on one of their supply runs when their plane went down.”
“How’d it happen?”
“A malfunction. My father was a pilot, owned an old plane. I usually joined them on those errands—so I’ve been told—but they’d left me with the closest neighbor that day. Some family that lived a few miles away.” A pause. “I was an only child.”
He’d carried his loneliness his entire life. Her chest ached and her stomach tumbled as the machine vibrated in her hand. “Abandoned and alone.”
“You, more than anyone, can sympathize with that. Makes this next part easier to talk about.”
Brown eyes scrutinized the wall behind her with more interest than it warranted. “My father inherited the land and a great deal of money before I was born. His sister didn’t receive a crumb.”
“Aunt El?” Her brain scrambled to put the pieces together. Bitter aunt. Traumatic childhood. Acid seethed through her gut.
“I’ve said her name?” His face tightened with wide eyes. “When I…flashback?”
“Yeah.” She kissed his shoulder beyond the reach of the ink.
He relaxed beneath her lips. “Elena Mayard. Something was wrong with her. I always thought of it as unexamined viciousness. She was manic, I think. I don’t know. Before my parents died, she’d kept herself isolated from the family, so much so my grandparents cut her out of their will.”
“Did she…Is that who raised you when you lost your parents?”
He nodded. “My parents didn’t have the foresight to prepare a trust. I was left with my only blood relation. She got me, the money, the house, and the land.” He glanced away, eyes hard. “She moved in for one year.”
Why just a year? What had gone wrong? She was terrified to push. “Is she…”
“Dead.” The brawn in his back flexed beneath the needle. “Died in prison.”
Prison? A fury of nausea flooded her. What had the woman done? Was she responsible for his scars?
Charlee circled fingers around the damage, mesmerized by the strength of the man beneath. Unwilling to drown him with the questions piling up in her throat, she pressed her lips together and finalized the last curve of the outline.
Finished, she disassembled the liner machine, plugged in the shader, and mixed a thimble of black ink with distilled water for blending. She added two more thimbles of red and brown.
For the next hour, the buzz of the machine overlaid the quiet between them. Sketched shreds of skin emerged from the real scars, curling away, and giving the image a three-dimensional effect. She kept her mind on the design, unable to justify the urge to ply him to talk. If she pushed him, he might shut down completely.
Midway through the shadowing on the final steel plate, he raised his head. “Take a break.”
In a jumble of anxiousness, she swiped the freshly inked area with Vaseline, clicked off the power supply, and set the machine aside. Then she looked at him expectantly.
His gaze, exposed and patient, burned through her, singeing away any lust she’d built up while touching the defined muscles on his back.
“Please put your hands on me.”
Whatever was pouring from his expression welled up from deep inside him and had nothing to do with her. She climbed over him, straddled one of his legs, and ran her hands over his middle back, careful to avoid the fresh ink.
“I don’t remember my parents. My earliest memory begins with Aunt El in a shed. It was an old ramshackle building behind the main house. One room, one window, one door. I think it had held my father’s tools at one time, but after he died, everything was cleared out.” He propped his chin on his joined hands and stared across the room. “Everything was gone except an old mattress and a Bolo oven.”
Saliva pooled in her mouth and blood surged through her veins. Were his burns connected to the oven? He’d whispered Bolo a few times during the worst of his nightmares. Had he crawled in it? Maybe he fell asleep and someone turned it on? She gripped her stomach.