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Nolan. He had to find Nolan, but now this... Now he understood what she’d gone through. How it wasn’t a sudden death that Declan was sure was a blessing. It was a moment that would always be able to reach back and rob seconds from her life.

“That girl!” she said again. “Look, I get it. Whatever we are, it repels as much as it attracts. I get I’m some girl you knew back home and the way you see things, where you’re going, doesn’t have room for this weight. Let’s just stop fucking with each other, okay? Why rip it open right when we find a way to agree with the pain?”

Oh hell no, she was not throwing that excuse at him. “There was no fucking girl!”

“What? You’ve had so many you can’t even remember?”

He slammed the bathroom door shut, thinking he trapped her, but all he did was push her to escape out the other way into an empty room. At one time it was a guest room fully furnished with antiques, but now, after selling everything they could to start to pay the debts of her father, it was nearly empty, only a lamp and few frames against the wall remained.

He gripped her arm and then turned her, stopping her from going out another door. “
One
fucking girl. One name: Justice.” He moved in closer to her face. “Now, I’ve had a
hell
of a day, all the more a blur now that I’m here with you, but if I remember correctly my cousin’s wife was hugging me when I first saw you today.”

She furrowed her brow. And he smirked, but not because he was boastful but because he was full of disbelief. She was jealous. She cared. She was not some girl too young for him fucking ‘Jody’ while he was gone. He meant something to her.

“Is that what the lip biting shit was about? You thought I was making my rounds like some man whore?”

“What the hell was I supposed to think? You gave me the first breath I could remember having in months when I found your letters. You made me see out of the fog of it all. Then what? You just stopped. I didn’t even see you graduate!”

He dropped his head and shook it, his smirk still in place. “I get nothing from you. And after swallowing every inch of my pride I get Atticus to ask you if you had gotten any of my letters—giving you the benefit of the doubt, thinking that you had thought of me in all that time, and you did remember I was writing and were looking for a letter at your post but I was sending them to the wrong address or some shit.” He looked right at her. “Then it turns out no, I hadn’t, you never even thought to check, or about me. During all your shit. Not
once
.”

She leered. “You’re an ass!” He lifted his brow in question. “What was this? Your punishment? Mad you didn’t get attention for a few weeks? Mad I had shit to deal with?” She stepped up to him. “Let me assure you,
Rawlings
, you were in
every
thought. Every time I wanted to stop the BS from getting more out of control, from pulling me deeper, I thought of
you
. When I thought of why I was in the right, I thought of
you
.” She glared. “When I thought of how I ever found the courage to do something like this, how I managed to live past that night, I thought of
you
—your words.”

All the new information in his mind was settling, knowing her side, his side, what his family had done—and the result of it all so far, he got it. And he was pissed. “You were threatened,” he said, pointing at her. “A Stouter threatened you and used me as a grudge.”

Her eyes flashed over him questioning but not questioning how he understood the possibility so easily.

“Murdock,” Declan said, reading her perfectly. He stepped closer, now she was against the back of the door. “What did he do to you?”

She never heard his tone so venomous, so it took her a second to process his words. “He said it would be bad. That my dad was asking around about you and me already. He said I had motive and they’d make it look like more than it was.”

“What did he
do
?” he asked harshly, searching her for the answers he wanted. All he could see was red and his overactive imagination was running wildly toward the horrid dark side of his thoughts.

“A spark...Dad was gone already. Flames came, the story a second later.”

He rushed his hand across his short military cut as he turned. “You should have told
somebody
.”

“Why? Feel like being a martyr? My choice. My consequence. I don’t need your permission to give a damn about you or your family.”

He met her stare once more. “I’d be a martyr for you any day of the week! Getting twisted with a Souter is only going to pull you right back into the trap your dad had you in.”

“Right.”

“What does that mean? Murdock holding this over you?”

She stared helplessly at him. “Paranoid. So am I.”

“Of losing you, yes. I’m sure he is.”

“What?” she breathed. “There is no us! Never was. Did you even bother to read a single letter I wrote back?”

“No.”

“You ass.”

He was back in her face in a beat. “The day your letters arrived was the day I was pulled in to discuss a ‘concern’ that had been brought to the attention of my drill sergeant. Obsessive behavior, flooding a barely seventeen-year-old girl with correspondence to an unhealthy level—a troubled girl who was picking fights with authority figures and damn near starting a public confrontation. Oh, and she had just lost her dad and was now running wild with little to no real guardians. Trouble waiting to happen one way or another.”

“What?” her voice echoed in the empty room.

Declan sneered, not at her, but at what had happened. She had dug herself in right next to a Souter for no reason—they were always going to lash out, no matter what deal you made. “Sheriff Souter thought to pass along his concerns.”

She gasped. “Murdock, he said that was a threat that night!” She went down to a squat so she wouldn’t faint, then up again. She had almost convinced herself, after weeks of working at the garage, that the Souters, their influence, wasn’t nearly as profound as she thought—the threat was nothing like Murdock led her to believe.

“It’s nothing,” Declan said, meaning it. He may have gotten some shit about it, but all it did was make him sharper, a better warrior. It put things in perspective, too. She was here, young and blameless; he was gone and not. Common sense would tell any fool what kind of chance either of them had. None.

“How can their reach be that far? Seriously? How did they even know you wrote me? Why lash out months down the road?”

Declan breathed out. He was over being mad about this lash, at least in that moment he was. He didn’t have long before he had to go and he needed to know she was okay, he needed to tell her Nolan would be okay.

“Dad’s pretty sure someone saw you at the post office, maybe the same person at the diner when granddad stood up for you. They could’ve gossiped a bit, poked fun at Murdock or even the Sheriff.” He pressed his lips together to calm his anger before he went on. “Apparently, this town thought you and Murdock were ‘sweet’ and then they had the fat to chew on that I had an interest in you. The Sheriff didn’t like the slight. Thought to nip it in the bud as quietly as he could. His concerned phone call was his move.”

A phone call? Whatever. Justice shook her head. “We have enough issues without letting these people stand between us. It’s not right. I’m not a kid and my one and only guardian is very aware how—of how I feel about you.”

Declan’s anger and tension in his body deflated a bit. “What issues are those? You defended yourself and your dad dies? Murdock, a sorry sack of shit has now hooked you to him forever because of a secret that had no weight in the first place? Or, is it the fact that it is what it is. I’m not here, and you are.”

She shook her head, telling him she had accepted the time they had to be apart, that wasn’t a problem. It was a price that has to be paid. “No. The issue is that you make no sense. You’re hot and cold and I can’t keep up.”

Him? Ha! “I
told
you why I didn’t write back. Even if the Sheriff’s boy weren’t into you he’d still fuck with us just because he could. Because he was your father’s buddy.” He shook his head. “I can’t let him give you shit, you or my family. I can’t give him a reason when I won’t be here to answer for it.” Declan cursed. “To keep you safe I have to give you space.”

She was so mad she had to stop herself from hitting him again. “You
told
me five seconds ago, Declan! What do you think has been going through my head for weeks on end? Life doesn’t stand still here, resume when you decided to enter it. It moves, and sometimes the minutes are a bit too long when you share them with as many demons as I have.”

His hands reached for her face, in a cradle position, but not touching. “I don’t know how to tell you how I feel. How I’ve always felt. I don’t know how to ask you to wait. I can’t.”

Even if he did, she wasn’t listening to another word that came out of his mouth. Hearing that he felt anything at all, seeing what he could not say in his eyes was enough for her—her lips crashed into his.

Their kiss was hot and grasping, their touches harsh, fast, and starved. “We can’t,” he said, even though his hands were everywhere, soaking her in. He was sure that the two scraps of cloth she had on could be ripped away with little effort, hell they could stay in place for all he cared.

When her hands rushed under his shirt then dove past his waistline grasping the hard length of him, a grunt left his throat, as his kiss fell to her chin then down her neck.

His hands moved down her back, past the cup of her ass, pulling her leg up so he could find a way in. And as soon as the tips if his fingers slid inside, her hand gripped him tighter and they both moaned.

“We can’t,” he said again, even though his hips glided him along her grip. He just wanted to feel it for one more second. Her and him. He wanted to breathe in the scent of strawberries and champagne. He wanted to feel like he was home. Really home.

Justice couldn’t handle him saying no. Not because it was a confusing rejection, but because she knew it was because of others he was saying so. It wasn’t their choice. Her and him could love each other as they wished.

Right then they may be prisoners of time and circumstance but that was fine. Every prison has room to move in, and time flows. Everything is temporary.

She was taking control of this. In a beat, she had him free from his jeans and his shirt pushed as high as she cold push it, her kiss was wild as it moved down his chest, gliding her teeth across the ridged edges, shakily grinning when she felt him shudder, as she sensed every response his body was making.

He said her name, more than once, even grasped at her, but she was determined and a breath later her lips carefully slid over his crown, just as a deep, growling moan left him.

Hearing his surrender gave her reason to go slower, to drive him wild. Feeling his hand rush through her hair, how carefully controlled yet trembling his touch was, made her feel even more connected to him. Somehow she knew she may not be his first anything, she may not be his last, but she sure as hell was the only one who’d ever made him
feel
.

Suddenly, he pulled her up and pushed her against the wall, putting her right back in the position he had her in before, only this time, he’d managed to pull her tank up. Feeling her chest-to-chest.

He moved against her as his fingers dove deep inside swaying just so.

“Declan,” she breathed when she felt herself building.

He didn’t stop. Instead, for a moment it felt like he was everywhere, his kiss was ravenous, his touch was both hard and soft, and knew exactly how to move with her.

Each throb of her body grasped for release, she panted his name. And then she screamed it. Right as she did, she’d reached between them and grasped him working him with each pulse of her body. He let her but he pulled back a second later. His kiss broke as his forehead leaned against her collarbone and he did his best to catch his breath, come down from his own rush.

“Fuck them all,” Justice said, feeling her whole body relax, endless stress simply melting away, obliterated. “If we want this it’s ours.”

He swayed his head. “We gotta be careful. Nolan could pay the price,” he said, slipping down to a squat, still trying to catch his breath.

She followed him. “What are you talking about?” she asked, reaching for his face, pulling him to face her. It was then, after all the confusion and doubt between them had a chance to subside she saw there was more, something else ripping at him.

“Can’t find him, and the Sheriff was being a dick. Kept dropping lines on me like I was some fucking pedophile. Not even caring.” He rose again and started to put himself back together the best he could, ending up vanishing into the bathroom for a second.

Justice paced like a lion waiting on him, but somewhere in the middle of it the smoke alarm went off and she took off toward the kitchen. She didn’t burn the brownies but came close; another burner she left on had caused the sensitive alarm to squawk.

She’d turned it off and the fan on and was pulling on a hoodie when he made it to the kitchen looking like he was ready to face any enemy.

“What do you mean you can’t find him?” she asked fanning the smoke out the door.

“No one’s seen him, not one call, or letter. His phone hasn’t been used in months. He didn’t show up for his first hike.”

Justice dropped the bowls in her hand in the sink then abruptly looked over her shoulder before turning. She pointed to herself as she made her way to him. “I was supposed to mail the letters.”

His eyes rapidly searched hers. “What?”

“Me. He said there was box full and that he had a calendar all mapped out for them for when I needed to mail them.”

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know—he was supposed to give them to me the morning I saw you. That’s why I was there. And when he didn’t we texted back and forth.” She walked double time to her bag and pulled out her phone.

When she found the text she was looking for she gave him the phone.

“The ditch across the street? Did you look under this porch?”