Page 12 of Frost and Venom

Raine nodded. “I understand, but if you need to talk, you know you have me.”

“I do know,” Harlow agreed—and she did. Raine had proved herself over and over to be a true friend.

Raine opened the crates so the dogs could leap out. They immediately began inspecting their surroundings, running after one another and sniffing as much of the area as they could take in fast.

Harlow slid out of the Jeep, strapping her camera around her neck. She didn’t want to miss the frost on the building or on the surrounding grounds. And she desperately wanted out of the conversation. Many, many times, their group of friends had utilized information they’d gotten from Raine, putting her in a compromised position. It didn’t seem fair not to reciprocate, especially when Harlow knew Raine would never tell a soul. She didn’t make mistakes when it came to classified information.

But it was Wilder. No one else would ever know, including Wilder, that he would always be Harlow’s choice. She would protect him with everything she was, everything she had.

Harlow pushed him out of her mind and began to walk around the old, sagging barn, looking for the most interesting shots. The barn was a masterpiece, a relic of the history of early homesteaders, it was that old. The walls leaned on three sides, beams sagged, the roof partially fallen in and the front completely gone, the timbers rotted and aged, lying on the ground, marking where the doors to the barn had once been.

She had been determined to catch the early morning frost glistening off the building. She’d seen it several times when she’d come early to climb, and it was beautiful. Wet vines captured the dew in their leaves so when they were full, they would tip and spill water down the warped wood. Spiderwebs crisscrossed the sides of the barn, capturing the early morning condensation so the webs appeared to weep for the loss of the building. Spun silk decorated the span of eaves, blowing gently in the breeze like lacy doilies.

Nature was already reclaiming the grounds around the structure, creeping up the walls and over the roof as well as into the interior, adding to the dilapidated beauty of the barn. Inside, the floorboards had rotted and fallen under the weight of several vines that had crept into the building. Overhead, hanging from the sagging beams, were several rusted old tools. They looked like something out of a horror movie.

Morning light was beginning to shine through the cracks and gaps in the roof to illuminate the old rusty hay hook. The light hit the hay hook and part of the long-rusted blade of an ancient hay saw. The third hanging tool was a billhook. All three tools looked more like weapons to her in the empty interior of the barn.

Beneath the rotting floorboards, she could hear the rustle of mice and lizards. The large, round eyes of a barn owl stared down at her. Very carefully, she stepped over debris and snapped several shots of the tools in the light streaking through the gaps in the roof. It was really the outside of the building and the surrounding grounds she wanted to capture, but she hadn’t been able to resist going inside for a few photos.

“Mice are everywhere beneath the boards and most likely in the loft,” she told Raine. “Going inside is a hazard. It’s early, so I doubt that any snakes are out, but they would have a field day hunting in there. I wouldn’t want to chance it. Too many places for them to hide, and we could step on them if we move around too much.”

“Your best shots are going to be outside, right?” Raine asked.

Harlow nodded. “The sun is coming up and casting the perfect light on the side of the barn. See the way it lights up the spiderwebs and vines? Everything glistens like morning frost and turns it into an icy-looking fantasy.”

As she was speaking, she began taking the shots that she had been planning for some time. She knew exactly what she wanted to capture and how. She loved old barns and felt their historical significance. They often provided a slice of life in the century and location where they were still standing after a good hundred years and often more.

It wasn’t just simple nostalgia to her; there was reverence there, a feeling evoked by the people who had lived in a much more difficult yet simpler time. The barns represented the struggles in their lives, the way they fed their families and worked together as a community.

Harlow knew she was emotional over bygone families because she didn’t have one. She dreamt of having a man who loved her the way Rainier loved Shabina or Sam loved Stella. Those were the kind of men who took care of their family. They protected them and the relationship. She couldn’t imagine the men looking outside their relationships for anyone else.

She could pour her feelings into her photography, capturing images that appealed to others because the emotion in her photos was raw, visceral, very real. And no one realized it was her emotions, that she was standing naked and vulnerable before the world, showing them the pain of her family’s ugly secrets. She was safe behind the camera. No one ever saw her.

She had moved to Knightly to be invisible—to escape from being a public figure and associated with her father and his “family” campaigns. The world had watched her grow up, and those who loved—or hated—her father were far too invested in her life. She’d never been comfortable with having the microscope on her, and once she realized what a depraved deviant her father truly was, she didn’t want any association with him. The fact that she’d broken away, in the eyes of the media, made her an ungrateful brat.

The media hadn’t bothered to uncover the fact that she had worked her way through nursing school. Her parents hadn’t paid a single penny toward her education. They would have if she had asked, but she didn’t want anything from them. She had been determined to separate her life from theirs, and she’d done so—or so she thought.

“Are you all right, Harlow?” Raine’s voice startled her out of her thoughts.

“Yes, this shot is complicated,” she improvised. It was, but it wasn’t why she was wearing a frown.

Harlow wasn’t blind when she looked in the mirror. She knew she was considered extremely good-looking. Usually, looks like hers drew attention, but she’d learned to appear to be very closed off from others, and that prevented a lot of unwanted advances. She also dressed in very casual, loose-fitting clothes or hoodies and sweatshirts. Since she climbed boulders and ran often, she had workout clothes that she certainly didn’t consider chic. Strangely, her friend group always thought she was wearing designer gear. She didn’t waste money on products that weren’t going to hold up long-term, so she always bought very good brands. But they weren’t designer. Just good.

She didn’t have what it took to be in a family. She was far too suspicious of everything and everybody. She didn’t want to be seen, and her background and looks were a detriment to her rather than an asset. It would have suited her far better to be able to fade into the background. That got her thinking about Wilder. He was a good-looking man, even striking, his body very masculine, and yet he could be difficult to spot if that’s what he wanted. Maybe he could teach her.

“Don’t step there,” Raine cautioned suddenly. “Spiderwebs, mole or vole holes, less than a foot in front of you. Or whatever else, who knows?”

Harlow looked down at the ground directly in front of her. The sun was rising, light spreading across the sky and shining in streaks, illuminating the ground around the side of the old barn. There were several holes in the ground right in front of her. Had she continued forward, she would have stepped right in one of them. That was the trouble with getting caught up in her photography.

To her, there was beauty in the symmetry of the holes and the small mounds of dirt pushed up by creatures living or traveling beneath the surface. Beautiful spiderwebs, works of art, were spread along the ground over small rocky crevices and raised soil. The webs glistened like icicles lying in scattered patterns among the grass and rocks. She snapped a few shots and turned back to the barn before she lost the perfect light.

She took a moment to look around for Misha and Daisy. The two dogs were running around in the field of flowers, having the time of their lives. Both knew to stay away from snakes. They’d gone through the training several times.

The sun was climbing high when they headed over to the Twin Devil boulders. “This is the one I’ve been working on,” Harlow explained, indicating the boulder on the left. “I’m about halfway up, so taking it very slow and making certain I can downclimb every foot I advance.”

Raine surveyed the massive boulder. “It looks like an awesome climb.” She arranged her crash pad beside Harlow’s. “I can spot you while you’re climbing, and you can do the same for me when I go up.”

“Were you given the clearance to climb?” Harlow asked. She couldn’t help it. She was a nurse, and Raine had been struggling with her leg for well over a year. “You don’t want to chance ruining all the hard work you’ve put in.”