Sophie Oak - Chasing Bliss

She sat back, her whole soul going soft. She would fight for Cade because this was a meaningful fight. And she should look into Calvin Township. They had craptastic lawyers who couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag if it was open, and there was a big arrow painted on the side. She couldn’t take the case, but she could ask around and see if there was any way to help the town.

Her mind started working in an odd loop, making connections. The heart. The letters. The pictures. So little time in Bliss and so much debt already accrued. The offer. The easy way was often the worst way. The pictures. She needed to figure out a way to get those pictures out of her head. Now that she was settling down, she couldn’t help but think about those kids. There was only so much time anyone had. The idea of those kids having less time than they should have was unsettling. Sure the EPA had cleared the company, but the EPA wasn’t infallible.

Jesse kissed her neck, working his way down to her breasts.

She was drugged by sex. That was why she wouldn’t even think about going back to Giles and Knoxbury. She’d turned into a raging sex maniac. If they had wanted her back six months ago, she would have run back to New York, but no, they waited until she’d gotten to Bliss and found a going-nowhere job where a crazy lady brought her muffins and guilt pictures and hot mechanics fixed all her girl parts up so she hummed just right. The firm had terrible timing. Not even Patrick’s lame-ass attempt to kill her would get her out of Bliss now.

Timing. Location. Pictures. Fuck .

She sat up. “They didn’t give a shit about me until I came to Bliss.”

Jesse’s eyes were glazed with heat. “What are you talking about?”

Her mind was a whirling dervish. She hoped she was making a lick of sense. “Think about it. Patrick didn’t call me until I was here. The firm didn’t care if I lived or died until I came to Bliss. Bliss, a town just an hour away from the site of their biggest case right now.”

“How do they know where you are?”

She’d been so dumb. “I had one friend at the firm. And I wouldn’t even call her a friend, per se. More like a work buddy I had lunch with every now and then. I was a little surprised when she called a couple of months back and asked how I was doing. I called her right before I came to Bliss to see if I could get her to sign the paperwork to close my storage shed. She asked where I was going, and I told her Colorado. She had to have been keeping tabs on me.”

“What do you know that you shouldn’t?” His eyes were sharp now, and he reached for his jeans.

“The fact that they’re coming after me means they think I know something. I just have to figure out what I know. It was just coincidence. Mom wanted to come home.” She sighed. “How well known is Nell Flanders as an activist?”

Jesse chuckled. “Uhm, I think she’s very vocal and has a website called Activists Unite that connects that whole world. And she gives away recipes.”

“So I come to Bliss and suddenly I’m connected with an activist who wants to publicize the Calvin Township case. What am I supposed to know?” She got out of bed. The stuff with Cade would have to wait. “I need to talk to Nell.”

Jesse frowned. “Damn it. I’m going to have to eat tofu. I hate tofu.”

Cade took a long pull off his beer, wondering what the hell he was doing here. He’d ordered the beer an hour before and hadn’t even gotten through half a bottle. He couldn’t even drink properly anymore.

He shrank back in his booth as the door opened and someone he actually knew walked through. Michael McMahon strode in, his dark eyes looking around the bar. He was dressed in jeans that had seen better days, a black T-shirt, and a beat-up leather jacket. He looked dangerous and mean.

Crap, Cade really hoped he wasn’t looking for Lucy. She took a shift here sometimes when the tourists were light at Trio. What Lucy saw in the man, he had no idea. But her eyes got soft when he walked in the room. Lucy seemed to be a little masochistic.

And so was fucking Cade Sinclair. He was an idiot and a masochist. He’d had every chance to get his shit and run. He’d walked straight out of the shop and gone to Gemma’s with one thought. He would get his duffel and be gone before she could turn those blue eyes on him again.

And the first thing he’d seen was the enormous bill from the hospital.

And he’d come here because the dude who ran Hell on Wheels had always wanted to buy his Camaro.

He had the money to pay Gemma’s bill. He did not have his freaking duffel bag.

What was he going to do? Walk in and hope that Gemma thought he was a fucking hero for selling his car? It had been an easy decision to make. He loved his dad, but he was gone. Gemma was here.

He loved Gemma.

He was stuck. He knew he didn’t deserve her, and he still couldn’t walk away.

A huge figure loomed above him, shutting out most of the light from the bar. Sawyer stood roughly six foot six with the shoulders of a linebacker and a perpetual frown that would send most men running for their lives. His long black hair hit just below the shoulders, and despite the fact he worked the bar, he didn’t pull it back or put it in a hair net. He let those locks flow and didn’t bother with a shirt. His massive arms were on display along with a sleeve of some scary-ass tats that ran from his right hand all the way up to the base of his neck. He wore only a leather vest and some jeans that had seen better days.

Nell Flanders had described him as trapped between two worlds—his Native American culture and the modern world. Cade kind of thought he was trapped between asshole and violent asshole.

“You going to make love to that beer now that you’ve played with it?” Even over the loud rock and roll thumping through the dive, Cade could hear Sawyer’s low growl.

And if Sawyer wanted to mess with him, he just might take that beating. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. “You going to try to throw me out now that you have what you want?”

Sawyer snorted and slid his body into the other side of the booth. “You sound like a whiny female. And I didn’t exactly get what I wanted. I wanted to pay five thousand less.”

“I’m not running a fucking charity, Sawyer. You’re getting a damn good deal as it is. That car is in mint condition.”

“Why now?” Sawyer leaned over, sliding a bag to Cade’s side of the table.

Cade stared down at it. “I just need the money. It’s just a car.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard.”

Cade opened that bag, his eyes going wide. “Cash? You’re giving me thirty thousand in cash?”

Sawyer’s frown deepened. “Well, you won’t keep it for long if you keep shouting out that you have it. Do you want to get knifed on the way out of here?”

Cade looked around the bar. Yeah, it was the kind of place where a knifing would be considered an everyday activity. The crowd was rough, the owner even rougher. “It’s not like I can’t handle myself.”

Sawyer stared.

“I know how to handle myself.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll excuse me if I escort you to your bike. I don’t need more trouble with the sheriff. He doesn’t care that the place is under new management. He just cares that his wife almost died here.”

“Died?”

Sawyer shrugged. “She wouldn’t have been the first. Won’t be the last. But I try to keep the murders outside. Less cleanup that way.”

Yeah, he needed to find Lucy a new second job. “If Lucy gets raped or killed, I swear you’re going to answer to me.”

Sawyer’s eyes got infinitely dark. “Yeah, you give a shit about Luce. I bet you do. You think I haven’t seen a hundred of your kind come and go? You give a shit about her until something better comes along. I grew up with Luce. She’s like my sister. She was supposed to marry my brother.”