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He’s quiet for a few moments. He takes another swig from the bottle and then offering it to me. “What does this guy supposedly want? Or need? What does your all-knowing boss say?”
I take another drink and fight the urge to cough. “She doesn’t know. No one really knows,” I say in a theatrical voice, leaning forward as if we’re telling stories around a campfire. “And that’s the greatest mystery of all.” I sit back, incredibly pleased with myself. Was he this hot when we walked in together? Maybe it’s just the whiskey, but with every passing second I’m more aware that a giant man is in a cabin with me in the midst of a violent rainstorm and it’s all just as cozy as could be.
What would Lacey do?
Well, I already know the answer to that. But what would someone slightly less raucous than Lacey do?
“My name is Hugh,” he says. “And I’m not that mysterious. I just needed to be alone for a while. A while turned into years.” He sets the bottle on the floor, takes up a poker, and stirs the fire, breathing new life into it.
“Hugh,” I say, and now he seems more familiar than ever, although I still can’t place him.
“Yes, and you’re Sam,” he says. “And now, Sam, I have good news and bad news. Which would you like first?”
Is this the part where he takes another ax and I become another naive girl in a horror movie?
“The bad.”
“When it rains like this, it usually doesn’t let up for a few days. You might be stuck here for a bit.”
Could be worse, unless that’s also just the whiskey talking. “It takes time to do a good story, as long as you’re willing to answer my questions. Whether it works for the piece or not, I have to say that I really, really want to know what you’re doing out here and who you are.”
It is obviously the wrong thing to say. Something dark flickers across his face and he gets to his feet. “I’ll show you where you can sleep,” he says roughly. He grabs my suitcase and heads up a small staircase by the doorway. I have no choice but to follow him unless I want to go back out into the rain.
By the time I get to the top of the stairs he is already exiting the room where it looks like I’m going to sleep, or try at least. “Good night,” he says, walking down the hall and shutting a door behind him. He doesn’t quite slam it, but it’s close.
I sit on the edge of my bed and check my phone. Still no service. What have I gotten myself into?
Who is Hugh?
I lie back on the bed, sinking into the flannel covers and the soft mattress. Sleep finds me before answers do.
CHAPTER SIX: HUGH MADDOX
I am such a fucking idiot.
What is wrong with me? I come all the way out here to hide, to get away to forget what happened, to make sure no one can ever bring it up again, and here I am almost daring some stranger to guess who I am. Need a clue? Here’s my name! I offered it up as soon as I could tell she thought she knew me from somewhere!
Time to dial it down. Easier said than done around a lovely woman of perfect proportions. Not just that, her personality! It was like someone had made her for me in a lab! The look on her face when she saw my books was priceless. I never understood where the stereotype that strong and tough men couldn’t also be brainy bookworms came from. Even when I was fighting in New York, it’s not like the guys finished sparring and training and then went home to their Xboxes. Most of them craved something mentally stimulating after a day that took such a brutal toll on the body.
Andrew in particular had been a brain. He made me look like I barely even knew how to read. That was the fine line I meant when I talked about inspiration versus intimidation. I would probably never have caught up to Andrew’s formidable intellect, but I was sure as hell going to try.
Then came the fucked up day when he died and there was no way to chase him anymore.
Fast forward a few years and I’ve got some beat reporter in the bed down the hall, falling all over myself to answer my questions. Did I want to get caught? Found out? Revealed? Whenever I stepped out of the octagon I prided myself on how analytical, objective, and empirical I had trained my mind to be.
It’s not doing me much good tonight. All I want to do is rush down the hall, crawl into that bed with her, and take my chances. Maybe she would kick me out, but maybe not.
It’s been so fucking long. It’s an old cliché: I’m a man. I have needs. Boo hoo. Still true, though. Clichés don’t spring up out of nowhere and they sure as hell don’t stick around for centuries because they’re completely false.
There are other ways to meet my needs. I’ll see whatever happens with her tomorrow, and the day after. She really can’t go out in this storm, and it looks like it’s going to be a historic screamer. All I have to do until I can get her out of here is keep my mouth shut. She wants a story? I’ll invent one for her.
I realize that, whatever story she writes, if it gets published, people are going to know someone is out here. The folks down in Wahay already do, of course, but they respect privacy and there’s no way any of them are going to put people on my trail, not without my consent. Consent, which I am now basically giving this beauty by the name of Sam on a silver platter!
Again, I am a fucking idiot.
Before I knew it I’m wrapping my wrists, the old familiar criss-cross pattern that I have done a million times. I’m opening my door and heading down the hall, down the stairs, out onto the back porch in the rain where the heavy bag is hanging from the rafters.
I settle into the old violent rhythm, something I’ll never forget, even if I never threw another punch in my life. Boom, boom, boom. In time with the rain, the thunder, the tumult of the night. Within a minute I’m sweating so badly that I take off my shirt despite the cold.
