Page 49 of Forbidden Hearts

He smiles and leads me to the kitchen. “I don’t have cooks. I make my own meals. Like art, cooking is a good way to keep the demons at bay.”

“What demons?”

“Nothing. It’s something I heard on TV once. Here, take a seat. I’ll make us something. How do you like filet mignon?”

???

Dinner is delicious. The stake is so soft it almost melts in my mouth. But the primal voice behind my head tells me it’s a different type of meat I’m craving tonight.

“Um,” I cough, trying to shut the voice out of my head.

“Are you okay?” Alonzo stands and rushes to my side.

“I’m okay. Sit. It’s just a cough.”

Reluctantly, he sits back down and stares at me. I avert my eyes and look around, trying to start a conversation to ignore the voice in my head. Sure, I’m going to give in to it later, but for now, I want to finish the meal in peace.

“I notice you have paintings of the same woman throughout the house,” I say. “Is she…”

Alonzo works his jaw. “That’s Esmeralda.”

“Your sister?”

“Partner.”

A pit settles in my lower stomach, and the sudden urge to throw up the dinner I just ate surges from my lower belly. I don’t want to be a home wrecker, much less his mistress, hisothergirl.

“It’s not like that,” he says, as if reading my mind. “She passed away a few years ago. I loved her dearly, but she’s just a happy memory now. I keep her paintings as a reminder to myself.”

“A reminder of what?” I ask, hoping I’m not being too intrusive.

“To be better. Stronger,” he says. He shakes his head as if trying to shake away a bad memory. “Do the paintings bother you?”

“No,” I lie. “They’re nice.”

I feel terrible because they do bother me. It’s like I’m competing for his attention with a dead person. And why do I feel like this anyway? I’m here to find out where he keeps his money and to have some fun along the way, not to gloom over his previous love life.

After dinner, we grab a pair of flashlights and walk out into the dark backyard. The iron fence runs along the sides of his property and disappear in the wooded area behind his cabin. I can’t see where the back of his property ends. It must be further away, beyond the trees and what I can see at night.

“Do you hear that?” Alonzo asks when we’re a good distance behind from his cabin.

I listen carefully. Owls hoot in the distance. Nearby, bugs and other nocturnal critters sing what I assume are mating calls.

“The animals?” I ask.

“No,” he says, leading me deeper into the wilderness in his backyard. “Listen closer.”

It’s not until we’re a few feet from the water that I realize what he means. A stream flows across his property, hidden between trees and bushes. The water trickles along the rocks, creating a staticy noise.

“Wow,” I say, admiring the stream. I can only imagine how beautiful it looks during the day.

“Sometimes deer show up to drink here,” he says. “I stand a few feet away and paint them. They linger by the stream so long as they don’t see you as a threat.”

“I would love to see that someday,” I say, imagining him painting a masterpiece in the middle of nature itself.

“You will.”

After exploring more of his backyard, we head back to his cabin. Nerves spark a tingle between my legs. I want him already. I want him inside me. The craving is so intense that I basically pace to the cabin.

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