Darker Than Desire Read online

  “Leaving…?” she whispered.

  “Abraham is gone. He left the farm to his daughter and I could stay in my house on the hill, but it isn’t right.” He looked around the quiet darkness surrounding them, felt an odd tug in the region of his heart. He’d miss it, he realized. Some of it, at least. “I don’t belong here.”

  “Where—” She cut herself off, but from the corner of his eye he could see the strain on her face.

  “I’ll find a place in town.” He shrugged. He’d already looked around, checked a few things out. Money wasn’t an issue. He had money. The issue was everything else.

  “Town. You’re moving to Madison,” she said, her voice ragged.

  From the corner of his eye he watched her for a moment. “Did you really see me going anywhere else?”

  Her gaze flicked away. “I don’t know. You…” She heaved out a sigh. “But I don’t see you being happy in town.”

  “Happy.” He snorted. “Happy…? Yeah, sure. I can be happy there with half the town staring at me like I’m a freak and the other half like I’m a monster.”

  “You’re not a monster.” Her gaze cut to him. “And you’re no more a freak than I am.”

  Faint amusement worked through him. “At least you don’t lie and tell me I’m normal.”

  “What is normal?” she asked, reaching up to touch his cheek.

  This … part of him wanted to believe this was normal. That this could be normal. “Normal … not me.” He shrugged. “People in town know. Unless they’ve been living under a rock, they know who I am and the ones who aren’t idiots are already figuring out…”

  He stopped, unable to continue. Unable to voice that shame in front of her.

  “Figure out what?” she asked, her voice gentle. “That your father was a monster? Good. People should know he was a monster.”

  Fury pulsed in her voice. “It’s made me sick the past twenty years, watching people mourn him and your mother.”

  Her gaze came to his. “You know…” She hesitated.

  He jerked a shoulder. “You knew he was abusive back then. You were one of a few.” His heart thudded hard against his chest. “One of a very few.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” His laugh sounded like jagged bits of glass. “Because people know? Don’t be. You’re right. Everybody should know he was a monster.” Shaking his head, he murmured, “Yeah. They should know.”

  Her hand smoothed up his back while secrets and shame slithered through him, but for once, it all wanted to come spilling out. Clenching his jaw against the words tearing up his throat like bile, he said, “I can’t leave. There’s too much left undone, unanswered.”

  Sybil’s hand, soft and strong, smoothed up his back. “Some questions won’t ever be answered.”

  Nobody knew that better than him.

  But he had some of those answers himself, tucked away inside his head. And if he’d look deeper, he could probably find a few more.

  * * *

  Sybil watched from the road as he turned the buggy off the main road. She would have liked to follow him, but it was weird enough coming out here just to offer him comfort he clearly hadn’t wanted.

  He hadn’t wanted it, no. But the pain in him was wild. The need enough to take her breath away.

  She’d probably have bruises on her hips in the morning, and although her body felt bruised in that wonderful, blissful way that could only happen when you have good, hard sex, she knew he’d just done the same thing he always did.

  Used her body to avoid looking at his own pain too deeply.

  Used her so he wouldn’t have to think about the fact that he needed her.

  He did need her. She’d seen it in his eyes, on his face, in the way he clung to her as their breathing calmed and their hearts slowed. He needed her, and because he did, he would push her away.

  He’d been doing it for weeks.

  To be honest, she’d been half-expecting this anyway.

  Hell. She was actually shocked David Sutter had ever let her get close to him at all. One look in his dark, tortured eyes and she’d realized that he had demons living inside him. All the truths were coming to light now and she understood more about those demons than she really ever wanted to know.

  She wanted to hunt down the people who’d hurt him as a child.

  She wanted to put herself at his side so he never had to go through anything alone again.

  But David—Caine, whatever he called himself—only wanted to be alone, except on the rare occasions he didn’t. Then he turned to her. When he left in the quiet hours before dawn, she was exhausted, aching, and the need for him was like a drug in her system. More, more, more … that was all she wanted.

  But he gave her less and less.

  Sybil was stupid enough, desperate enough, needy enough, to accept whatever he was willing to give her, to give him as much as he was willing to take.

  And all the while, she hid some truths from him that she’d likely never reveal to him.

  Sighing, she did a three-point turn and headed back into town. She needed to get out of her boots, get into her bed and crash. Alone. Thankfully, she had that option.

  She’d left her nephew, Drew, with her best friend. Taneisha Oakes had a boy about Drew’s age and the two had become almost inseparable. It was a good fit, in more ways than one.

  Taneisha wasn’t going to be intimidated or freaked out if Drew’s mother, and Sybil’s sister, showed up looking for him. It wasn’t likely to happen, because Layla didn’t have a maternal bone in her body and the few times she’d actually tried to get involved with her son she’d been doing it to get something from Sybil.

  But if she tried to square off with Taneisha, Layla would find herself in for a rude awakening. Taneisha might leave a few shards of bone when she was done, but that was it.

  Someday Sybil wanted to think her little sister would get her act together, stop the drinking, the drugs, and kick the revolving-door habit thing she had with men.

  Until that day, though? Sybil’s goal was simple—keep Drew out of his mother’s destructive orbit.

  He’d be safer. Happier.

  And if Sybil knew what was good for her, she’d pull out of David’s orbit before it was too late.

  But that point had already come and gone.

  * * *

  Within minutes of his leaving her, that raw, edgy energy returned.

  David knew he should be doing better than this—it shouldn’t hit him so hard that he’d lost Abraham, shouldn’t hit him so hard that he was alone in the quiet, again. Without Sybil.

  He’d been alone in the quiet for most of the past twenty years and this was how he’d wanted it, why he’d deliberately set out to shut himself down, shut himself off, so he couldn’t feel, so he didn’t feel.

  Maybe it had all been a lie, though.

  Brooding, he stared out into the night. It was past midnight. It was quiet, the air in the house cool and still. And his brain wouldn’t shut down. He’d wanted to collapse and just sleep, but he couldn’t.

  There was too much inside him. The grief for Abraham, the need to leave here—now—and find Sybil, wrap himself around her so the nightmares wouldn’t find him. They never did, not when he was with her.

  He’d told himself that was why he let this go on so long.

  Except it was a lie.

  He knew it now, just like he’d known it then. The escape from the nightmares was a plus, but the reason he couldn’t pull back was because it was Sybil. Because he enjoyed the way she felt, the way she smelled, the way she moved against him in her sleep and the way she looked him dead in the eye with that unflinching way she had.

  Some part of him might think he loved her, but he knew that wasn’t right. David was too flawed, too fucked-up, to love. He didn’t buy into the shit that he’d done something to make his father hurt him, or that it had happened because of something David was—that wasn’t why he couldn’t love.

  David couldn’t love s
imply because he’d spent the past twenty years smothering those emotions inside him. He’d killed those urges until he might as well have destroyed the part of his soul that made him able to feel. Even with Abraham, a man David wanted to love, a man who had him grieving and hurting inside, he knew it wasn’t love that he felt.

  He did care, though. Because he did, and because he cared too much, he knew he needed to end things. Too much of the ugliness in his past was about ready to come spilling out, ready to stain and ruin everything he touched.

  Once she really understood all of that—

  His hands started to shake and he made a deliberate effort to block everything out. If he just didn’t think about it, it was easier. That slow crawl of red didn’t creep in on his vision and he didn’t think about slipping out of the house, taking the old truck or even just making the hours-long walk into town and trying to find one of them.

  Were there any left?

  David didn’t know, but there were times when he’d been ready to paint the town with swaths of murderous blood-red just to find one of them. Especially over the past few months. Because it hadn’t stopped.

  That, he knew, was what had him so close to the edge now.

  Why he woke up choking and clawing his way out of the nightmares, still hearing their voices. Voices that echoed, lingered, a stain on his soul.

  “Stop.” He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth and spun away from the window so he could pace.

  The shaking would stop. The rage would ease.

  Then he’d be able to think again, as long as he didn’t give in to that rage.

  He’d given in to it before. Just a couple of times. He’d never killed anybody … yet. But he’d taken back some of the blood, and he’d reveled in it as agonized cries managed to break through gags or muffling hands.

  David didn’t regret it. If he stood before a judge one day over it, they’d probably lock him away or send him to a home for the mentally unfit. He’d smile and say, I’d do it again.

  Two men. Two men who’d never be able to tear into a boy the way they’d torn into him. Maybe he should be sorry for it, but regret was another emotion he couldn’t feel.

  As the edgy, broken rage spun inside him, he started to pace, the four walls of the plain home he’d built for himself closing in around him. Suffocating him. The silence beyond these walls was doing the same. Abruptly he turned and headed toward the closet where he’d been stowing boxes. Not many, just a few. But he didn’t need more than that.

  He grabbed them and hauled them out, dumped them on the bed.

  There was duct tape in the truck and he went outside, the cool air washing over his overheated flesh. It brought little relief. He found the tape and a utility knife and headed back inside.

  Within five minutes, all of the boxes were ready to be filled, and he went about do just that.

  * * *

  It took an hour for that red haze to melt back.

  Having a task, a chore, something to accomplish, helped him focus, helped to center him.

  Everything at the farm down at the bottom of the hill was quiet. A few days ago, during a family meal—the last he’d ever share with Abraham and Sarah—David had told them the truth he’d been keeping to himself over the past few weeks. It was time to leave here, time to return to the life he’d run from years ago.

  Sarah had looked at him as though he’d slapped her. Go back to the English? Why?

  Abraham had simply studied him, but in the back of his eyes David had seen understanding. Abraham, unlike Sarah, had known the truth: David had never belonged here.

  Now that Abraham was gone, there was nothing to hold David here and it would be better if he left before the mess in town followed him.

  He couldn’t let it happen.

  Sarah would never understand that.

  As he looked around the small house, he realized the entirety of his life had been packed away into five boxes. Twenty years of living and he’d tucked everything that mattered into a few boxes.

  There was the furniture. He’d have to come back for it. Abraham had helped him build it and each piece mattered. Aside from those pieces they had built together, nothing else had any value.

  This place had been for Caine, or the person Caine had pretended to be.

  Caine was gone, buried under an explosion of ash the day the Frampton house burned down. Or maybe even the day those bones were revealed, under that rotting floor, when Trinity Ewing fell through the floorboards.

  Caine was gone. David was back and David didn’t belong here.

  There was a quiet sound behind him as the door opened. She didn’t knock, but then she never had. He’d gotten over being irritated by it a long time ago. Sarah was who she was and she wasn’t going to change. Like her father, she loved David. Unlike her father, she thought loving David would somehow change him, make him fit in here, somehow. As if she prayed enough, it would somehow smooth out all the rough edges, fill in the void inside him.

  That wouldn’t happen.

  She insisted it would, if he gave it time.

  He had stopped fighting her a long time ago. Her words rolled over him and sank into the ground around him like rain. They meant nothing. And he suspected there was another watering to come.

  “It’s late, Sarah. You should be home asleep.”

  “I buried my father today. I don’t need you telling me what to do.” She looked around, stared at the boxes, her mouth pinched, her eyes dark and unhappy.

  “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. But it’s been a hard day. We could all use our rest.”

  She flung out a hand. “That’s what you are doing? Resting?” Nudging a box with the toe of a plain black shoe, she glared at him. “How can you leave me now? We’ve just buried my father. I need help. I need you here.”

  He thought about just ignoring that simply spoken, soft statement but instead met Sarah’s stark blue-grey eyes. She’d been pretty once. Time and unhappiness had worn that gentle beauty away. It wasn’t right and he wondered how much of her unhappiness could be laid at his feet. “I don’t belong here, Sarah. I always knew that. Your father knew it. And you don’t need me. Your cousins are ready to help you. They’ve already told you that. Thomas will be here at dawn. He’ll always be here for you.”

  “You should be here. This is your home.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  “It could be, if you would simply let it.” Sarah set her jaw and squared her shoulders under the plain blue dress she wore.

  Was it as simple as that? He didn’t waste more than a minute on it. If it were as simple as that, he would have found the peace that Abraham tried to offer him a hundred, no, a thousand times over the past twenty years.

  “Then I guess I’ve chosen not to.” He shrugged and tucked the flaps of the boxes in, closing them up.

  “Everything will change for you if you return to that life,” Sarah said, her voice stiff. “Nothing but trouble will be there. How will you explain the past twenty years?”

  He jerked a shoulder in a shrug. “That’s my concern.”

  “You have—” She stopped, her mouth puckering with distaste. “It’s been twenty years since you used that name. You’ve worked. You’ve made money. Under another name. Won’t that cause problems?”

  He saw what she was getting at, especially considering how he had just been thinking about some of those complications. Shrugging it off, he said, “I’ve always been aware it could be a problem. There was never any guarantee things from back then wouldn’t come back to bite me. They have. Now I deal with it.”

  That seemed to catch her off-guard. “So people already know.”

  “By now?” He pretended to think it over. “Probably half the town, if not more.”

  He had slipped into the hospital twice, but each time he’d gone in quietly, left the same way. There for one reason, to check on old Max. His condition was no longer critical, and the last time he’d opened his eyes they met David’s. Max had recogn
ized him. But other than Max and the handful of nurses who’d done their best to chase David out, nobody had seen him for long enough to say a word. Toot Jenkins had almost wrecked his truck when they’d passed each other at a four-way stop. All up and down Main Street, David had felt the eyes on him. He wasn’t a fool. People knew.

  Right now, Lana was in town facing the heat all on her own.

  He’d planned to be there, dealing with it as well, but then Thomas had found him, told him about Abraham. So for four days David had been here.

  He couldn’t continue to linger, though. The longer he was here, the more likely it was that Sorenson was going to hunt him down. That was one thing he’d promised he’d never allow. David didn’t want that evil to come here, taint this quiet, peaceful place.

  “Why?”

  He whipped his head up at the low, angry thread he heard in Sarah’s voice. Narrowing his eyes, he studied her. “That’s hardly your concern.”

  “You’re part of the family.” She paused, her head cocking as though she was thinking something through. “If you leave, people are going to want to know why. What made you run. You’ll have to talk about it. Those are your secrets, secrets that should stay within the family. We always protected you. Stay here, and we’ll continue to protect you.”

  “Abraham was the closest thing to a father I’ll ever have.” It was nothing but the truth. There was no way in hell he’d claim the monster who’d spawned him. He turned his back on her. “And yes, he spent a long time protecting me, but that time is over. I haven’t needed protection for a long time, Sarah. And I’m not part of this family. I don’t belong here. If I choose to talk about all those secrets, then that is my concern.”

  He was quiet for a moment and then said, “But people already know.”

  Sarah’s lids flickered. “What do they know?”

  “Who I really am.” He tried not to think about what else they might know, what they might be thinking—guessing. All the speculation … would it even come close to the reality?

  “How do they know?”

  At the soft, almost scared question, he looked up. “Because I stopped hiding.”