Page 1 of Sorrow

1

It’s cold in here. It always is, and I always hate it. It doesn’t matter how many blankets I burrow under, I still feel the chill down to my bones.

Cape Frost is aptly named.

It’s also isolated, polarizing, and utterly boring unless you’re into breaking laws. Unsurprisingly, I’m not.

Our only claim to fame is Bleak River which never freezes no matter how cold it gets. Some say it’s because of all the dead bodies, some say it’s a freak of nature. All I know is that it’s loud, creepy, and almost always a crime scene.

It’s so common that when Boo comes in with mud on his Carhartts up to his knees, Idon’t even have to ask why. “How many this time?”

“Just one,” he mumbles. “Nice change of pace.”

He looks as cold as I feel with snow in his short beard and pink fingertips as he pulls his gloves off. The dull gold shield on his chest falls off for the hundredth time, clattering to the ground and resting on its bent clasp. I unbury myself from my burrito of blankets to grab it for him. The air feels almost violent on my bare legs. “Detective Chad Radley, you’re a mess.”

“Don’t call me that,” he says, also for the hundredth time. He earned the name Boo after readingTo Kill A Mockingbirdsixteen times one summer, and ever since then, he’s refused to acknowledge his government name. Suits me just fine. “Hayes will be here soon. Do you mind cooking for him too?”

“I mind very much, actually.”

“Samara.”

“Don’t full name me,” I snap. Somehow my body temp drops even further. I may hate this town, but it’s nothing compared to how I feel about Hayes Sarro.He’snothing but sorrow in a 6’4, brown-eyed, clean shaven, sharp-jawed, devilishly handsome package.

He’s also been tormenting me since I was a little girl.

“Please?”

I’m too fucking cold to argue. “I guess.” Moving slowly, I brush past him from the cluttered living room to the outdated kitchen I hate to cook in. “Did his latest girlfriend dump him for being an asshole?”

“No. Girls love assholes unfortunately,” my brother chuckles. “On the contrary, this last one was trying to trick him into knocking her up.”

My jaw clenches as I yank our rusted old pan out of the cupboard. “I bet she did.”

“You sound jealous.”

“Hah!” I scoff, even as my stomach comes alive. It’s not my fault my brain immediately wondered what it would feel like to have him come inside of me. It’s not because I’m jealous, it’s because I have no experience in that department. It’s normal to be curious. “I just mean the girls around here are nuts. You’d have to be to want to procreate with him.”

“Is that a bra, Samuel? I’ve seen bigger tits on an alleycat.”

“What are you doing tonight? Oh wait, I forgot who I was talking to.”

“You’re so flat a priest would fuck you.”

Yeah, a girl would have to be insane to go anywhere near him.

Boo laughs. “I don’t disagree. You’d have to be nuts to want to procreate these days at all, let alone with someone like him. Women need to realize he’ll never love them and move on.”

It’s incredible they don’t. I’ve never met a man so blatantly cold in my life.

Shutting down, I grab a pack of thawed ground beef from the fridge and a can of Manwich. I’m not a bad chef, but I’ll be damned if I ever bring out my best for someone like Hayes.

“Manwich,” my brother says with a huff. “I’m gonna go shower, let him in for me when he gets here. They said it’s supposed to start sleeting.”

I hear the trickle of the shower over the sizzle of the meat, but the downpour that starts outside drowns them both out.

When Hayes knocks, I go temporarily deaf.

I bite back a grin when he knocks a little louder thirty seconds later, then lose that battle when he pounds on it after another moment. “Come on, it’s pouring out here, assholes!”

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