Page 22 of Dark Secrets

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

When he glanced up at the catch in her voice, she had tears in her eyes. The look on her face shot straight to his heart.

“No thanks necessary.”

“Let me give you some money.” She reached into her duffel bag and pulled out a small change purse. “It’s the least I could do.”

“Absolutely not,” he said, and she jerked. “I’m not going to charge you for the two minutes it took to jump your car, Delaney. I’m glad I could help.” Her brows knit together. “Really.”

She stuffed the purse back in her bag and nodded, blinking rapidly. She still didn’t trust him, not all the way, but that was fine. He didn’t require praise for doing a good deed, and she’d either figure out that he had no ulterior motives, or she’d move on to a new city and he would never see her again.

“You probably want to let that run for a good twenty or thirty minutes to make sure the battery is nice and charged,” he said, breaking the heavy silence between them.

She nodded and lifted her bag from the front seat of his car before sliding it into her own and climbing behind the wheel.

“I really do appreciate your help,” Delaney said, though she didn’t sound convinced.

He smiled and nodded. “Any time.”

She closed her door but held his gaze through the windshield for a beat before backing out of the spot and maneuvering around his haphazardly parked SUV in the small lot. He watched until her car turned the corner and disappeared from view.

He wouldn’t do anything stupid. He shouldn’t. Couldn’t. But fuck if he didn’t want to.

ChapterTen

Delaney deftly picked her way through the poorly plowed parking lot and let herself into the thrift shop she’d found online the night before. Scouting good thrift shops had become a sad but thrilling kind of hobby.

Find one in the right part of any city, and you were bound to uncover a treasure trove of expensive items for pennies. Rich people who clear out their closets, kitchens, or basements and donate their designer, name brand, barely worn, barely used items to the less fortunate. She’d been that person once.

She’d first learned this trick in Boise after spending hours looking through thrift store after thrift store and finding nothing but matronly tops circa 1982. Someone had taken pity on her and directed her to a shop right on the edge of Hills Village. For the first time in months, she’d run her fingers over designers she recognized.

There was a balance to be struck, though. It was dangerous to be caught at a fleabag motel wearing Prada, no matter how little you paid for it. It made you an easy target.

After learning that lesson the hard way, she stuck to simple tops and jeans, donating what she was replacing so someone else could get some life out of it. Today she was in the market for some new sweaters. The ones that had lasted her through early winter in Ohio felt thin now that February loomed.

She wanted some color to chase away the gloom. Her desire for some brightness was in no way influenced by the way James had looked at her in the red sweater she’d worn the other day. She’d felt him watching her when he picked her up, his brilliant deduction about the battery saving her hundreds if not thousands of dollars in repairs.

He confused her. The man she saw with her own two eyes was at complete odds with the man she expected him to be. He was slow to anger. In fact, she’d never seen him angry at all. Not at drunk and belligerent customers, not at his staff, not at women who flirted with him openly. If it was an act, it was the best she’d ever seen.

Still, the evidence went against every sharply honed instinct. Not just from all these months on the run, but from the years of experience before that. Experience that told her people acted one way in public and another way in private, and the only mistake was assuming they wouldn’t.

She wished he didn’t call out to a part of her she thought she’d buried a long time ago, the part of her that was lonely and sad. She thought she was over needing to be held, to be touched, to be wanted. Apparently she wasn’t, and that pissed her off.

Getting attached to anyone, even Clara or Addy, would only serve to do her more harm than good. This was the choice she’d made when she decided to run. She’d known it then as much as she knew it now. She’d adapted. Only the loneliness persisted. But there were worse things than loneliness.

“Let me know if I can help you find anything!” the young man behind the counter said with a smile.

She gave him a little wave, and he went back to adding price tags to the plates stacked in front of him while she went back to rifling through the hangers, looking for her size. She found a thick cable-knit sweater in her favorite color and tossed the bright pink shirt over her arm. In another life, she’d have spent weeks searching for the perfect shade of lipstick to match.

She grabbed another sweater in blue—definitelynotbecause it reminded her of James’s eyes—and two long sleeve shirts in case she needed to layer them to keep warm. Despite complaining multiple times to the skeleton that passed for a manager about the heat, it never seemed to get any warmer in her room.

She’d taken to sleeping fully clothed and was seriously contemplating splurging on a nice warm quilt. Something she could easily keep in the car when she was out.

The man paused what he was doing to ring her up, and she was grateful when he avoided making polite conversation. She hated talking about the weather, and she knew absolutely nothing about sports. Once outside, she added her purchases to her duffel and slipped the t-shirts she was donating into the donation bin.

The key to survival was packing light. Well, one of the keys to survival. It hadn’t taken her long to discover what was actually essential and what was unnecessary dead weight. Hair care products were essential. She still had a few hours before her afternoon shift started, and she wanted to pick up some replacements for her stash.

Of all the things she missed about her old life, good hair care products were probably the biggest. She’d never lug around all the tools necessary to maintain her old routine, too much dead weight, but she’d grown to love her natural curls and the process of taking care of them. It gave her something to keep her mind and her hands busy. A mindless task to get lost in when things felt overwhelming.

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