Jennifer Estep - Web of Lies

It didn’t take him long to climb up the ridge. He didn’t even bother to dust the mud and leaves off his jeans. Instead, he came straight to me and stopped, his violet eyes flicking up and down my body, assessing my injuries.

“You look like you’ve been to hell and back,” he murmured.

I almost managed a smile. “You might say that.”

Grayson took off his leather jacket and carefully draped it over my chest. His scent drifted up to me — that rich, earthy aroma that made me think of metal.

“Can I do anything for you?’ he asked. “The detective asked me to call your friend Finnegan Lane. I had a rather interesting conversation with him at Mab Monroe’s party last night. I don’t think Mr. Lane believed me when I told him you were standing on the ridge above the coal mine. He called me a cruel, lying bastard, but he said he was on his way. And that if I was lying, he’d beat me to death with his bare hands.”

“Finn was probably just upset. He tends to be emotional in times of crisis.”

“And what do you do in times of crisis, Gin?” Grayson asked.

I stared at him. “I survive.”

A grin spread across his face, and emotions flashed in his eyes. Admiration mixed with amusement. A look I’d never seen in Donovan Caine’s golden gaze.

“Did Donovan say anything else to you down in the basin? Anything at all?”

Grayson’s face shuttered. “Nothing important.”

His voice was so kind, so pitying, it made me want to stab him with my walking stick. I hated being pitied.

“Donovan wasn’t happy to see me, was he? He thought I’d died in that mine with Tobias Dawson and the others, and he was happy about it. Or at least relieved.” My heart twisted as I said the words, but I knew they were true.

That was the only way to explain the detective’s cold reaction to me. “He didn’t want me to be alive. Not really.”

Owen Grayson shrugged. “I don’t know what Detective Donovan Caine thinks or wants, but I consider him to be an enormous fool.”

“Why’s that?”

He stared at me. “Because he’s down there looking for Dawson, and I’m up here with you.”

I didn’t say anything. My emotions were too raw, too fresh for that. Owen Grayson opened his mouth again, but the sound of a car engine cut him off. He got to his feet.

“I think your friend Finn is here,” he murmured.

Grayson held out his hand to me, but I didn’t take it.

Instead, I heaved myself to my feet, using my crude walking stick for support.

“You know you can lean on me if you need to.”

I shook my head. “No need. I’m fine.”

Again that small smile quirked his lips. “I think your definition of the word fine needs a serious overhaul.”

The sound of the engine grew louder. Whoever it was, they were in a hurry. A few seconds later, Finn’s Cadillac Escalade burst through the trees and skidded to a stop in front of us. The tires turned and threw mud all over me and Owen Grayson. I grimaced. A final, messy insult on what had been one hell of a night.

The SUV doors opened. Finnegan Lane stepped out first. His green eyes swept over me, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The other doors popped open, and Jo-Jo Deveraux got out of the car. So did Sophia. The three of them stood there by the vehicle just staring at me.

Finn looked flabbergasted, overjoyed, and stunned at the same time. Jo-Jo had a thoughtful, knowing look in her pale eyes I didn’t like. And Sophia, well, the Goth dwarf was actually smiling at me — as much as she ever smiled at anyone.

“Did you guys miss me?” I croaked.

There was a lot of hugging and crying. Finn did most of the hugging, gently putting his arms around me and squeezing as tight as he dared. Jo-Jo did most of the crying.

Tears ran down the dwarf ’s face as though her eyes were the epicenter of a waterfall. They quickly overpowered her waterproof mascara. Sophia remained stoic as always.

“How did you get out of that mountain?” Finn asked.

His green eyes kept sweeping over my body as if he still wasn’t quite sure that I was alive.

I opened my mouth to answer him when Jo-Jo cut me off.

“Later,” the dwarf said. “Look at the poor girl. We need to get her back to Warren’s so I can start working on her. Right now. Sophia, if you will, please.”

The Goth dwarf came over to me and scooped me up.

Her touch was far gentler than I’d imagined it could be, and she held me as though I were some delicate crystal statue she was afraid of breaking.

“I can walk,” I protested in a weak voice. “I’ve been doing it all night and day.”

“Which is why you’re going to rest now,” Jo-Jo said.

“You’re going to need your strength for when I start healing you. Because it ain’t going to feel good, darling. Especially your face.”

Sophia strode over to the vehicle. Jo-Jo opened the backdoor for her. Owen Grayson walked over and stopped the Goth dwarf before she could set me inside.

“I’d like to know how you got out of the mountain too,” he said. “Maybe you’d like to tell me one night over dinner.”

I thought of Donovan Caine and the way he’d turned his back on me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the detective at the moment, much less someone new like Owen Grayson. But I thought of the way Grayson had looked at me — openly, directly, with no hint of judgment in his violet eyes. “Perhaps.”

“You have my number,” Grayson replied.

I snorted. “Oh yeah, I do.”

“I’ll be seeing you, Gin. Real soon, if I have my way.”

I wondered at the confident promise in his tone — and the strange bit of eagerness it stirred in me. The thought crossed my mind that maybe it would be… nice to be chased, to just be… wanted, without any guilt or strings or morals attached. Either way, I knew I hadn’t seen the last of Owen. Whatever his interest in me was, it wasn’t going away anytime soon.

He gave me another grin before Sophia put me into the back of the Cadillac, and our eyes locked. Gray on violet. Oh yes, I thought, staring through the tinted glass at him.

Owen Grayson was definitely someone worth watching.

——

Finn drove slowly, but it was still a bumpy ride down the access road. Every jar made my bones rattle together. Now that I was among friends, I could let my guard down, let go of that cold, hard will I’d held on to for so long. And it made everything hurt that much worse. I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew I was lying on top of the square counter in the front of the Country Daze store.

“What are we doing in here?” I murmured, staring up the ceiling fan spinning above my head.

Jo-Jo’s face hovered over mine. “Because when you collapsed the mountain, it created a gigantic sinkhole out back. It’s already filled in with water. It hasn’t reached the house yet, but it might. So we brought you to the store where it was safer. Now, relax, Gin, as much as you can. Because this is going to hurt.”

Jo-Jo’s eyes flashed a brilliant white, and her Air power rolled off her like invisible waves. The dwarf put her hand against my forehead. The hot pain of her magic filled me, and I knew nothing more.

——

The next time I woke up, I was lying in a bed that wasn’t my own. I felt better, but bone-tired at the same time, which told me that my body was still recovering from the trauma I’d been through and being blasted with Jo-Jo’s healing Air magic. I shuddered to think how much the dwarf had had to use to put me back together again. But while I’d been unconscious, someone had bathed and dressed me in a pair of oversize black sweatpants, a matching long-sleeved T-shirt, and thick socks.