Page 37 of Cook

We walked across the dirt, both of us sidestepping a cactus. It seemed like the prickly plant, one of a dozen or more, served as protectors for the decrepit house. We stepped up onto the porch, and Cook extracted a key from his pocket.

Locked? Not something I would’ve expected in a house like this.

The porch under my feet groaned, and the railing looked like it would blow over with a strong gust of wind. Curtains covered the closed windows. He walked into the house and held the door open for me, blocking my view of the interior, but I stepped around him.

Something about the crumbling walls whispered to me, welcoming me home.

Chapter 8

Cook

Unlike Celt and Bou’s childhoodhome, this lonely old house several miles south of the Ridge had never been a home. It was the place where I locked away all the shit from my childhood, but it also offered me a place to sleep. Surprisingly, it withstood the harsh Arizona winds and dust storms, even though the desert winds rattled the walls and windows.

The stucco, a dusty pink, had cracks that should’ve been repaired years ago, but I never brought people here. Hell, I rarely looked at the place until this moment.

Maddie stepped around me, and I curled my hands into fists.

My parents’ old house couldn’t be called homey. Dust littered almost every surface, tinged with orange Arizona desert sand. Daddy didn’t like personal items, so we had no photographs, no decorations, and certainly none of the nostalgic trinkets a happy family will collect. If I close my eyes, I could vaguely see Mom hanging one of my kindergarten paintings, a five-year-old’s masterpiece, on the fridge. But before he came home, she had taken it down and tucked it into an old chest.

By the age of five, though, I had figured Daddy out. Nothing had ever pleased him. The house was just like it was when I had killed him, minus the blood splatter and his body. Aside from changing the sheets every now and again, that day was the last time I had truly cleanedthis place.

“This is it,” I grumbled, snagging the windblown tangles out of my hair, and hoping she didn’t look too closely at the mess. Now standing here with a woman, I realized how this place reeked. I marched over to the nearest window and muscled it open to let out the stench.

“It’s nice,” said Maddie, stepping into the living room right beside the door.

A laugh launched from my lungs. “Nice? It’s a piece of shit.”

She deserved better, but I didn’t have more to give her right now. I just didn’t know where else to take her. Or what I was going to do with her. Or why I allowed her to cling to me the way I had at the mill.

Or, or, or . . .

I didn’t intend to hide her but a need to protect her, to shield her from anything traumatic, flared white hot when she came near. But now that I considered the fact, maybe I was fucking hiding her... from Melanie, Angel, and definitely from any of Signora’s perverts. More of them had to be out there, and she’d chosen me to keep her safe.

“It’s not a piece of shit,” said Maddie, taking two steps that moved her from the tiny living room into the even smaller kitchen. “I’ve seen worse.”

I bit down until my teeth and jaw ached. If she’d been kept in a place worse than this, I’d resurrect the bitch Amaranta Gambino from the grave and kill her all over again. Then I’d raze that old mill to the ground with my bare hands.

Maddie started going through the cabinets and the pantry. I didn’t have any food here because I mostly ate at Louie’s Diner in town or at Bou’s shop. But then she was going through the closet and pulling out cleaning supplies.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, my voice harsher than intended.

Immediately, Maddie stopped. The mop fell from her hand, clattering onto the floor. She stepped over it and walked up to where I waited by the door. I bent my knees and leaned back on my heels, like I could grab her and escape my past. Where else could I take her, though?

Melanie had worked in law enforcement. She probably had resources to deal with someone recovering from—

Maddie shifted her weight, dropping one knee to the floor.

“What the motherfucking...?” My hands reached to keep her in a standing position, but it was too late. She slipped right through my fingers.

Maddie fully knelt in front of me, sitting back on her heels with her hands resting on her thighs. She lowered her gaze, her eyes on my shitkickers. “I can clean, Cook. Wouldn’t that please you?” she asked in a small voice, then she added at an almost inaudible volume, “Daddy.”

My heart sputtered. A lump formed in my throat, and I forced a breath over it. My cock filled. How could it not with this striking woman on her knees in front of me?

I’d never been a prude and always thought of sex as a damn good time, as proclaimed by the majority of my wardrobe. When she sank to her knees, an image of one shirt in particular popped into my mind. A silhouette of a woman kneeling with the words beside her:Wars can be won on the knees.

But fucking hell, I couldn’t let myself lust after someone who had been sexually abused for... how goddamn long? I tried to clear my mind.

Slowly, she stood. Her head was still bowed. She walked over to the closet again and grabbed the mop and bucket. My brows shot up and my jaw dangled. She was actually about to start filling the bucket.

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