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“That’s not what you said before,” Paul said, running the barrel of the gun up and down her ribs in a way that was almost playful, making bile rise in Mia’s throat. “When you testified against me, you said I was trying to kill you. You said I would have murdered the woman I loved if you hadn’t hit me over the head with your mother’s statue. I still have a dent in my skull, Mia, beneath my hair. Did you know that? The doctors say I’ll never be the same.”
Mia swallowed, her pulse leaping in her throat as she tried to think of the best thing to say. The moment was eerily reminiscent of the last months of her and Paul’s relationship, when any innocent remark could become a trigger, turning her sweet, sensitive boyfriend into a jealous, spiteful man who was beginning to scare her.
But back then, she’d only been worried about losing her steady date, not her life.
“I was afraid,” she finally said, voice trembling. “I was just so afraid.”
Paul clicked his tongue, making atsk-tsknoise that made it clear he wasn’t buying it. “You should never have been afraid. You had to have known I would never hurt you. Not back then. We still had our entire lives ahead of us. We were still in love.”
Mia nodded as if she agreed with him, as if what he’d said wasn’t ludicrous considering he’d tried to strangle her, and now had a gun jabbed so deep into her side it pressed painfully into her abdominal muscles every time she inhaled. “I should have known. I wish I’d been thinking more clearly, but I was scared and… I’m sorry. I’m sorry I misunderstood.”
Paul’s arm relaxed and the gun eased an inch away, still pressed against her, but not hard enough to hurt. “I knew you would apologize if you had the chance. I told the doctor at the prison it had all been a horrible misunderstanding, but she said I was delusional.”
He made a disgusted sound. “They were the ones making me crazy. They pumped me full of so many drugs, half the time getting out of bed in the morning felt like running a marathon. But I made myself get up, Mia. For you. I made myself get up and volunteer for every shit job that would shave even half an hour off of my sentence. I was determined to get back to you, no matter what. I’ve always known we’d be together. In the end.”
Mia pressed her lips together, refusing to panic, even if the way Paul had said those last three words made her positive he was thinking of side-by-side graves, not happily ever after.
“Where are we going?” Mia asked with a sniff, blinking away the tears in her eyes. “This road dead ends at the ghost town.”
“I know,” he said, his voice more pleasant now that he’d had his apology. “I want you to show me around. I want to see where your family helped settle the West. I read all about them while I was in prison. I probably know your family tree better than you do.”
Mia shot him a look out of the corner of her eye, trying to figure out what he was really up to, but his face was the same peaceful mask it had been for most of the night, barring the moment he’d seen Sawyer standing on the front step and his features had twisted with terrifying rage. Gram always referred to jealousy as “the green-eyed monster,” but not until Paul had Mia seen how apt the comparison really was. Paul’s jealousy transformed his handsome face into something monstrous, something hungry, craven, and barely human.
Still, Mia didn’t trust that this was just a sightseeing trip. Paul was jealous and deluded, but he hadn’t completely lost his ability to reason. He had to know that if his shot had missed, then Sawyer could be calling the police right now. He had to know there was a chance that someone had heard the gunshot, and looked outside their window in time to see the truck pulling down the road toward Old Town. If he wasn’t worried about getting cornered in the ghost town with no way out, it was only because he didn’t care if he got out, so long as he had time to accomplish what he’d come here to accomplish.
Mia knew what that was. She knew, the same way she knew that Paul wouldn’t stop coming for her until he was dead. Even if they had kept him in prison for fifty years, he still would have ended up back by her side, determined to finish what he’d started. It didn’t matter that there was nothing between them anymore. It didn’t matter that the Mia who existed in Paul’s mind bore little resemblance to the woman she was now, or even the woman she’d been when they were together.
There was no logic in fixation, there was no reasoning with someone in the grips of an obsession, and unless something or someone interfered with Paul’s plan, Mia wouldn’t be leaving Old Town alive.
“So where do you want to start?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice steady as her mind raced. “I can show you around the usual tourist exhibit, or we could go to the section that’s closed to everyone except family.”
The part that is still dangerous.
The part where a man could lose his footing, and fall through a hole in the floor.
Aloud she added, “It can be interesting to see the things that haven’t been completely refurbished.”
“I want to see it all,” Paul said. “But I’m not sure we’ll have time.”
Mia nodded slowly, trying to conceal the panic his words inspired. He knew there might be people coming after them, and was prepared to step up his schedule accordingly. “Well, then I think we should start with the building that has the most meaning to my family. I’m named after the woman who ran the hotel and saloon. It might be nice to walk around there.”
“That does sound nice.” The closer they got to the ghost town, the more relaxed Paul seemed, but he still had the gun trained on her and Mia didn’t doubt that he would shoot her if she tried anything. She was going to have to get him to drop his guard.
“The original Amelia was only seventeen when she and her fiancé started construction on the hotel and saloon,” she said, increasing her volume to be heard over the churning gravel beneath the tires as she turned onto the narrow road leading past the working exhibit. “Rupert died not long after they broke ground, when the mining company was still living out of tents and the backs of their wagons. Most people assumed Amelia would hand over the project to one of the older men once she was widowed, but she insisted on opening the saloon alone. She supervised the building and served the first shots of whiskey herself.”
Paul made a considering sound, and a moment later Mia felt his hand in her hair, twirling one of her curls around his finger. She suppressed her shudder, trying to remember the times when she’d found the feel of his hand teasing through her hair comforting.
“I wish you’d told me stories about your family before,” he said, releasing her hair with a gentle tug as Mia pulled the truck over to the side of the road, parking near the gate. “I wish you’d trusted me.”
“I trusted you.” The words came out sounding like the lie they were. She was a decent storyteller, but she was a terrible actress.
“No you didn’t,” Paul said, his voice echoing in the silence as Mia shut off the car. The rain had stopped, and now there was only the keening of the wind outside as it whipped across the desert, bringing in more clouds from the west.
“You lied to me,” he continued. “So many lies, Mia. It hurt me so badly to remember them, but then I realized something... Do you know what that is?”
Mia turned to him, shaking her head slightly, unable to keep her eyes from dropping to the gun in his hand, still trained on her midsection.
“We’re soul mates.” He smiled the crooked smile she’d once thought was adorable, a charming bit of asymmetry in a man whose features were otherwise perfectly balanced. “We might have screwed things up this time around, but we’re going to find each other again. In heaven, or hell, or our next life.” He shrugged. “I’ve never been a religious man, but I know that whatever comes next we’re going to be together. Iknowit, I believe in that like I’ve never believed in anything.”
