Page 18 of Overkill

My engine rumbled to life as I watched the sheriff’s taillights fade into the distance.

“We’re still friends, VD. Don’t be a cunt.”

“Backatcha!” I put the car in drive and hovered my thumb over the disconnect button. “I gotta go, T. Stay out of trouble.”

“No.” Then she hung up first. No goodbye. Just a go-fuck-yourself click.

That was what friendships were made of.

Chapter 6

Open Up

Melody

“Melody?” I knew that voice. I knew it very well. Too well. “You in there?”

It was a little bright spot in my existence. A guy too pretty to be real. A rugged lumberjack mountain man next door with wild green eyes and long, wavy, nutmeg hair.

The hottest thing I had ever seen was when I’d visited the McClanahan farm one day, and he was outside chopping wood without a shirt on. I’d driven by in my truck, my mouth hanging wide open. He gave me a nod before putting his axe into a nearby stump, lifting his arms—biceps perfectly rounded—and pulling a hair tie from his wrist, gathering his hair into a ponytail at the crown of his head.

I stared so hard that I’d almost crashed my truck right into the McClanahan front porch!

And then Lottie McClanahan called him over to help unload the fresh vegetables from the bed of my truck, and I almost squealed when he held out his hand.

“Lemme get that, Miss.” His voice was slow, drawled, and with a rhythm like the lapping waves on a rocky shore.

Had I had long, inappropriate fantasies of him? Maybe. Maybe he was shirtless. Chopping wood. Carrying them over to me in slow motion under the light snowfall to get a fire started in my fireplace before he made himself at home on my couch. Or perhaps he’d cook a meal for me and the kids, bring over a couple of beers, then wash up afterwards.

What did it say about me that such an easy, domestic vision made me weak in the knees? A man who washed dishes? Drool worthy. There was nothing sluttier than a man who folded laundry. Nothing.

So what the fuck was he doing at my door now?

I hid like chicken shit, my back to the wall between the kitchen and the foyer. If I stepped out there, he’d see me. The damn door had a stained-glass pane that looked like trees and pine. He’d see me through the warped glass, and I didn’t want to be seen. The last thing I wanted was be seen for what I was.

“Melody?” he called, the knocks getting faster, more desperate.

I held my hands over my heart, trying to calm the frantic beating that threatened to escape through my ribs.

I’d avoided crying or panicking in front of Sheriff Whitlaw. Then the lawyer, and the text message. It was a performance so good, I should have won a Lawrence Olivier!

But to keep my shit together in front of a man who turned my brain to mush, and who made me stand like an idiot with my mouth open, tongue rolling out like a Looney Tunes wolf seeing a hot piece of tail walking by…?

If he was wearing a button-down that showed just a little bit of chest hair, then I’d be done. Brain would be gone.

He already thought I was some ditzy girl next door who didn’t have her shit together, who was one paycheck away from losing her house or losing her family to foster care…I was always at the McClanahan’s for handouts, and the hand that did the handing out was always—always—his.

And that made it so much worse. The way he looked at me with those gorgeous green eyes. Why couldn’t he have been normal? Like a five out of ten, instead of an eleven out of ten? Why couldn’t he have been a normal looking guy of medium build and medium height, with a normal face? No, he had to look like Captain America’s more muscular stunt double!

“Melody, I know you’re in there. I’m parked right behind your truck.”

He was bluffing. He had to be. Maybe I’d gotten a ride from someone else. How’d he know?

I heard a thud. Just one. Not a knock or a knuckle, but like he had put his forehead against the glass.

“Honey, I was there when they fished the body out of the lake. I’m here to make sure you’re okay.”

Shit.