Page 25 of Tourist Season
Nolan looks down at my offered truce. He gives so little away in his expression, his eyes fixed on my bloodstained glove. It takes a long moment before his focus finally meets mine once more and he uncurls his grip from my throat, one finger at a time. Morpheus caws in the shadows. Maybe it’s a harbinger of doom. Or fate, sealed in an ominous song. His cry falls into the background as Nolan tugs the gardening glove from my hand and tosses it to the grass, then slips his palm against mine, his stare unblinking. “Make no mistake,” he says. “If I go down, I’m taking you with me.”
“I’m sure.” I can’t help the wicked smile that creeps onto my lips as I pump his hand twice. “Starting tomorrow.”
With my other hand, I raise the bottle of Piss-Off! and spray him in the face.
Nolan drops my hand and backs away, raising his arm in defense. “What the fuck? What are you doing?”
“Getting you toPiss-Off! I’ve had enough of your shit for one day.”
“Itburns.”
“Good,” I snarl. Three more sprays land on his hand. “Get the fuck off my property. Take your fucking head with you. I’m not interested in cleaning up your mess.”
I toss Jake’s head at Nolan and it hits his chest with a dull thud. He’s wiping the spray from his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie when I open the valve on the garden hose lying next to the tarp and toss it in his direction.
“Come back tomorrow afternoon and we’ll figure this shit out,” I say, picking up the knife and the gun as he fumbles for the hose, a string of curses tumbling from his lips. He points the end toward his face and blinks into the trickle of cold water. “And if I see you before then, I’ll be putting you through my woodchipper before our deal even begins.”
With a final glance, I turn my back on the man who has come here to kill me and walk away.
TREASURESHarper
“YOU’RE SURE ABOUT THIS?THEPocket Rocket is basically a deathtrap,” Lukas says as I whip back the canvas cover from the old soapbox racer.
“Aren’t they all?” A cloud of dust envelops us, catching the morning sun through the filmy window of the shed. I wave a hand in front of my face as I step closer to the makeshift car, its body constructed from two whiskey barrels that have been cut up and welded together with extra panels of steel. Arthur’s ingenuity might as well be stamped right next to the Lancaster Distillery logo that’s branded into the aged oak. “I can’t believe Arthur let you name it the Pocket Rocket.”
Lukas chuckles, sliding a palm over the faded name painted above a decorative wing. “He wasn’t really up on his penis slang, you know? When Bert nearly pissed himself announcing my turn and started cracking some pretty obvious innuendos while commentating on my run, he caught on pretty quick. I was grounded for a solid two weeks after that.” Lukas’s smile turns bittersweet and his gaze grows distant, as though he’s looking back in time. “Even still, it was worth it. That was the best day.”
My heart sinks as I watch Lukas run a hand through his short black hair and rest it on the back of his head, something he always does when the weight of his life seems too heavy a burden to bear. Though he meets my eyes for only a fleeting moment, it’s long enough to see the raw edges of a wound that’s never healed. A wound named Maxine, the girl he loved all his life. The one who picked up and left Carnage in the dead of night on their graduation day with no explanation, as though she couldn’t wait another moment to get away.
It broke him irreparably. And despite being tall and fit, independently wealthy before thirty, and painfully good-looking in a broken soul kind of way, I’m ninety-nine percent sure Lukas is a virgin. Not that it’s any of my fucking business.
“Are you sure you’re okay with me using the Rocket?” I ask, pulling my thoughts away from the “Is Lukas a virgin?” debate I’ve had with myself many times, even though it skeeves me out a bit as he feels like he could be my brother. Lukas is already shaking his head and dismissing my concern. “I can find something else—”
“No way. It’s totally fine, Harp. I’d love to see it reclaim its former glory.” Lukas whacks the barrel with a loving pat and something clunks in the undercarriage and falls to the floor, rolling off into the shadows. “Yeah … I suppose a decade of sitting idle hasn’t done the recycled parts any favors. You’re gonna have to take her apart and really make sure she’s at least more roadworthy now than when we first made her.”
I only have two weeks before the race, so realistically a full overhaul is not in the cards. But I just smile and nod. “Yeah, I’ll make sure she’s ready to fly. Might give her a new name, though. I don’t need to throw myself under your grandfather’s judgy bus.”
“I’m still pissed at you for sacrificing me to the bus. Thosegutters are such a bitch. It’s going to take me all afternoon, and I’m not going to have time for a shower before theater rehearsal. Ross is still jealous that I scored the Beast role in the production. He’s definitely gonna call me out on my stank in front of the cast.”
“Then you shoulddefinitelybe thanking me for not suggesting the septic system.” I smile as Lukas rolls his eyes and tosses a dusty rag in my direction. “Don’t worry, I called the guy to come in and fix it. That job is off your shoulders. For now.”
Lukas’s expression softens as he swipes a hand over the surface of a stool and lowers himself onto the cracked vinyl. “Thank you for always looking after my grandfather. This place would be falling apart without you.”
“It’s no trouble.”
“It’s Arthur Lancaster. It’s always trouble.”
Lukas is right about that. Arthur isalwaystrouble, but in a way I admire. And his most troublesome behavior reflects a hidden life that even Lukas isn’t privy to. I’m one of only two people who know what he’s truly capable of. Me, his greatest ally. La Plume, his formidable enemy. And I guess now a third person.
Nolan Rhodes.
My focus cuts toward the bag I shoved beneath the soapbox racer yesterday before Nolan showed up at my cottage. “Actually,” I say, picking up the backpack, “I do need to call in a favor.”
Lukas’s brows hike in a silent question and I give him a grave smile in reply as I hand him Nolan’s backpack. “I need you to hide this. Put it somewhere I won’t find it. And don’t tell anyone where it is. Not unless something happens to me.”
His brows knit. He stares at the backpack as though it might blow up if he touches it. With a swallow, he finally takes it, settling it on his lap. “What do you mean, ‘unless something happens to you’?”
“Like I go missing. Or if I wind up badly hurt, like the kind of hurt where I’ll never wake up to tell you what happened. Or if I turn up dead.”
