Page 14 of Demons

I laughed as I turned the lock in the door. There was a good chance I’d never see him again. It wasn’t like we ran in the same circles.

The next morning, there was a box of cookies on my front porch. My dad raised his eyebrows when he handed them to me. But he didn’t say anything about it. He turned on the morning news.

While I was trying to decide if the cookies were from Thatcher, I heard the name Deck Rogers, and my head snapped up.

“It’s a shame. Young kids getting mixed up with drugs and alcohol. That’s what happens, honey. They take too much and get behind the wheel of a car. It’s a miracle they didn’t hit another car. It’s a tragedy they’re all gone, but at least they didn’t take some innocent driver with them.”

They were all dead. The guys from yesterday. It was an odd feeling. A churning of guilt in my gut, although I had done nothing to them. No one had. They’d driven their car off a bridge, going over a hundred miles an hour.

• Six •

It wasn’t like I killed every man who spoke to her.

Thatcher

Present Day

Resting my forearms on the fence, I watched as Capri rode Zephyr around the track. I’d told her not to go full speed today. Let him stretch out some, but hold him back. She was doing exactly like I’d asked. Her tiny form looked even smaller when she was sitting on him. Bloodline was big, but Zephyr was a beast. She hadn’t been intimidated in the least. The smile on her face was fucking insane. I had a hard time looking away from her. The pull she had on me seemed to be getting worse.

“She’s got the Belmont Derby Invitational next week with Bloodline,” King said as he came to stand beside me. “He’s leaving Sunday to head up there.”

I didn’t bother looking at him. “Yeah,” I replied as annoyance began to ruin my mood.

“Don’t you think she should be focused on him and the race?”

I was gonna need a smoke. Not saying anything, I straightened and reached for the pack in my pocket. Fucker was starting to piss me off.

“She wanted on Zephyr,” I told him, then put the cigarette in my mouth and lit it up.

“The entire fucking ranch is scared to even breathe her air. She’s noticed it too. Miller barely looked at her yesterday, and she’d shaved off almost half a second on Bloodline’s best time,” King informed me.

“She’s fine,” I said through my teeth, although I’d seen it too.

I wasn’t enjoying seeing her frown when one of the dumb fucks ignored her or walked away from her. But that wasn’t sending me into a blind rage, so this would have to be the way it was. Miller was our top trainer though. I was gonna deal with him. He didn’t need to make her feel unwanted, but he needed to be careful with how he spoke to her.

“She asked Jim this morning if she’d done something to offend him. He feels like a shit for the way he’s having to treat her. The man is happily married with kids. He’s not gonna flirt with her. Can I at least let him talk to her when she tries to make conversation?”

I inhaled deeply as I watched her slowing down. Jim would probably be fine, talking to her. She liked all that chatty shit. She was nosy as fuck too. Why that made me want to smile, I didn’t know. I wasn’t about to actually do it, but the tug on the corners of my mouth was there. I’d heard her asking him about his kids more than once. He seemed happy to talk about them and his wife. Might as well let her have that. Maybe it would stop her from frowning so damn much. It was her smile that I craved.

“Yeah,” I said as she made her way over toward us.

“Yeah, he can?” King asked.

I cut my eyes at him. “Yeah,” I repeated.

“He needs this job. He needs the insurance for his family,” King said.

“I get it,” I snapped at him, then turned to watch Capri as she came to a stop in front of us.

It wasn’t like I killed every man who spoke to her. I just punished the ones who upset her and steered away the ones who wanted to fuck her. I didn’t see Jim doing that. He was one of those decent guys who lived a boring-ass life.

“He’s incredible,” Capri said, grinning down at me.

She glanced over at King, and the wariness in her eyes didn’t go unnoticed. Had he told her she was supposed to be focused on Bloodline? Fucker needed to mind his own business.

“I’m going to go get Bloodline out here next,” she told him.

I didn’t like her trying to appease King.

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