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CHAPTERONE
Jamie
It’s one hell of a feeling pulling up outside this house. I sit in my car for a while, looking across the sunny street, the outside still feeling intimidating in a way I don’t like at all. It makes me feel weak. I never felt weak inside.
I was never one of those bullying idiots, extorting other prisoners, trying to make a name for himself by causing the most harm possible. I held my own when it came down to it. More than once, I had to hurt some men who thought they were big, bad wolves, but really, they were yapping pups who needed to be put in their place.
The lawn has been freshly mown, and the curtains are open. It’s a small box-shaped house, probably only one or two bedrooms, but it looks like it’s been cared for. Lucy Hutchinson lives here.
A few days ago, I finished my sentence for killing her father. The warden told me she’d written, asking if I’d like to meet. It’s a risk being here, but I couldn’t refuse. She deserves respect after everything she’s lost.
I should think about my sister, Kylie, and my nephew—confusingly named Kyle—living on the West Coast. It’s an unseasonably bright day on the East Coast today. However, they live in the land of always sunny, a world of soccer practice, TV, and ice cream. They never have to worry about being shanked with a carved bar of soap.
It’s been so long since I’ve had a run-in with the so-called bogeyman. It should be safe. I wish it were only me who was in danger. That way, I could face it all without ever having to worry.
I’m forty-two now. I went to prison when I was twenty-nine. That’s a big chunk of my life in prison. Sometimes, this feeling of hopelessness touches me. This feeling that my best days were lost, rotting in a cell. Enough, goddamn. I’m getting macabre.
I walk across the street, taking slow breaths. We arranged this meeting through the system. They advised Lucy to meet somewhere public, but she said she was fine meeting at her home.
The street is fairly busy. A few kids cycle up and down. A woman is sunbathing in her front yard, lying in a chair, wearing a bikini. I remember how the other inmates talked about their plans with women when they reached the outside and the sexual adventures they’d go on. However, I find I’m not interested. Maybe I’m just numb.
I knock on the door.
“One second,” a woman calls.
It’s definitely awoman’svoice. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Lucy Hutchinson became a woman while I’ve been inside. She was nine when I went in. She’s twenty now. She’s lived most of her life without her dad. I’d say she was better off, but it’s not my place to make judgments like that.
Rage boils in me for a second. It rises from a deep, ignored place, a section of myself I attempt to keep closed-off. If I let it out, this fire will burn everything up. The anger infuses andfloodsme whenever I think about those years inside. The fights. The boredom. Nothing to do except read and write and lift weights.
When Lucy opens the door, I stare. I stare like a real creep. I can’t help it. There must be some mistake. This can’t be the same little girl who I once saw sitting in the back of her father’s car, the tiny terrified-looking thing with wide eyes, fidgeting endlessly.
I’m looking at a woman who pierces the numbness. I’m looking at a woman whobelongsto me. How the hell can I think that? I went to prison for killing her dad, but it’s not a thought. It’s an instant tsunami of certainty.
She’s on the shorter side, with an open, friendly face. She’s got the sort of face I can imagine glowing with motherhood, which is an insane thought to let into my head, but there it is. She looks maternalandsexy at the same time.
Her hair is long, dark brown, and wavy. She has bright green and vibrant eyes. She’s wearing a plain T-shirt and jeans that don’t distract from her figure, curvy all the way, with wide hips made for grabbing, for childbearing, forme.
I’m almost panting, beast-like. I need to calm down. Of all the reactions I expected to have when first seeing this woman, it wasn’t this. She wanted to meet, so I thought I’d do my duty, but I never guessed she’d provoke this in me—an explosion of pure want.
“J-Jamie?” she says, with a gorgeous stutter, narrowing her eyes. “Jamie Williams.”
She says my full name almost like it’s a curse.
“Yes,” I reply, finally finding my voice. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you.”
Christ. Real smooth.
“Yeah,” she murmurs, then laughs awkwardly. “Well, not nice.”
“I get it.”
“I thought we’d have some soda on the porch. Is that okay?”
“It’s your house.”
She steps onto the porch, coming extremely close to me. She’s so near I can smell her perfume, or maybe it’s just her. It’s a pheromone that has me almost growling with how badly I want to tear her clothes off and glide my hands over her curves.
Or hold her close, savoring her scent, her heat,her.
