Page 22 of No Going Back
She wasn’t fat. She was lush.
She wasn’t big. She was fucking perfect.
A goddamned goddess.
EIGHT
GRIFFIN
HE MIGHT HAVE made a mistake.
Griffin stood in the foyer of his new home, hands on his hips as he stared at the space around him. It looked a hell of a lot different in the full sunlight than it had that night two weeks ago, when Nate called him with news they were selling his grandmother’s house in Moss Creek.
It seemed like fate. That the stars had finally aligned and everything was falling into place.
But everything also seemed like it might be falling apart. Literally.
The house was a wreck. The roof had been leaking for God knows how long, leading to damaged ceilings and walls. The constant penetration of moisture meant floors were soft and spongy and peeling paint was everywhere. These were all things he knew and expected to see. They just looked a hell of a lot more overwhelming in the light than they had in the dark.
Griffin picked his way around the items left in the large front hall, rolling his suitcase past the curved stairway and toward the back corner of the large house that held the only room currently safe for habitation.
The large office looked the same way it probably did when Everett, the former owner’s husband, died twenty years earlier. The walls were covered in real wood paneling, and built-in shelves stretched from the floor to the ceiling on two walls. The giant desk that was in there when he looked at the house was now gone, along with the stacks of papers and books that had filled the shelves and covered most of the floor. With all that cleared away, it was easier to see how large the room actually was.
It was flooded with light thanks to the large windows that took up most of the back wall, looking out over a backyard that was probably once manicured within an inch of its life, but now stood overgrown and littered with weeds. Someday it would make a great office of his own, but right now it was just a relief to see it would easily hold the king-sized bed being delivered after lunch.
Which left him six hours to clean out all the cobwebs and clear a path for the movers.
He wanted a project and it looked like he found one.
Griffin tilted his suitcase onto its base, leaving it in the room before going to the front of the house to start sifting through the items he’d told Nate his family was welcome to leave behind. The best plan of attack was probably to organize everything into two piles. One that would find its way into the dumpster arriving tomorrow and one of the items he would keep in the house as a reminder of the family who lived here before.
It was clear Nate and his cousins felt sentimental about the place, but none of them could afford to take it on. It made him even more determined to do right by the house. To make it the kind of home it deserved to be.
Even if it was just him that would enjoy it.
Griffin propped open the front door so he could easily carry in the tools stacked in the back of his truck. The neighborhood was nearly silent as he skipped down the steps, the only sounds coming from the birds in the trees. It was too early on a Sunday morning for anyone to be finding their way to church just yet, so he was the only one moving around outside as he went to work hauling everything in.
He was halfway through emptying the bed when a sharp sound made him pause, going still as he tried to identify what it was and where it came from. It didn’t sound like an animal. It was too high-pitched and too shrill.
It almost sounded like—
A second scream pierced the silent air, sending a chill down his spine and his feet across the overgrown grass.
He’d heard plenty of screams in his life. Screams of excitement. Screams of happiness. Screams of pleasure.
This was none of those.
This scream was one of terror, and it was coming from the tiny house tucked next door to his.
The scream came again as he raced toward the little porch, taking the steps two at a time as he rushed to help the woman inside. He was surprised to find the main door open, the front screen providing the only barrier to his entry.
“Get out, get out, get out!” The pitch of the rushed words made them difficult to decipher.
Difficult, but not impossible.
Someone had come into this house. Someone who was trying to hurt the woman inside.
Griffin yanked open the screen door and stormed into the feminine looking living room on the other side of it, pausing just a second to glance down at his dirty boots before rushing across the pale carpet. “Hello? Where are you?”
