The door opened, allowing her to slip in with Mr. Bixley, slamming and locking it behind her. Although if it was a predator like herself, they might’ve been able to break through most glass doors but not theirs. Ridge had thought of everything when he’d remodeled after his parents had moved South. She cocked her head, trying to detect where Ridge was at. Behind the glass she continued to watch for signs of anything that shouldn’t be there. A glint of silver that could’ve been a hunter’s rifle caught her attention.
“What’s got you spooked, little bit?”
“Jeezus H Christ, Ridge,” she screamed, spinning around with her hand on her heart. “Are you trying to scare me to death? Why are you skulking around like a creeper?”
Ridge raised one brow. “Skulking and creeper in one sentence? What the hell has you on edge?” He walked to the doors, staring out before looking back at her.
She rubbed her arms, trying to dispel the heebie jeebies from her mind. “I’m sure it was nothing. I ran into Jackhole at the hardware store. He was being his normal dickweed self, and when I was out back putting some fence around your tomatoes, I felt...a disquiet.” There was no other word to describe what she’d felt. Off was another word, but even that didn’t seem quite right.
“Did that fuck hit on you?” Ridge looked back at her, green eyes glowing.
“You do realize I’m twenty-three, right? I can go out with guys, and you know”—she paused, raising her hands in a very deliberate show. First, she made a fist with her left one, making sure her thumb and forefinger opened to a large circle. With her right hand she poked her pointer finger in and out of the middle of the other hand. The suggestive gesture was one she’d used to tease Ridge with hundreds, maybe thousands of times in the past. “Do the dirty dirty.”
“Not with that fucker, Torrance.” He took a step toward her. “I forbid you to have anything to do with that male.”
She jerked backward. Ridge had never forbidden her from anything, let alone being with anyone. If her panther had wanted a male, truly wanted one, she knew Ridge would’ve allowed it. It was the way of their kind. Why her female had never chosen another, she didn’t know. Heck, she had almost wondered if the beast was into other females, but one time, at camp, that notion was dispelled. “Why?” she asked.
Ridge snapped his teeth together. His jaw looked like he was grinding his back molars so hard she feared for them. Seconds ticked by while he appeared to be thinking before speaking. Smart male.
“Ridge, just give me the truth. You and I both know I have a good head on my shoulders. If you tell me he’s bad, I’ll ask what he’s done. You don’t have to give me the gory details, but I will need more than a curt, ‘he’s a dick’. Actually, let me ease your mind. I have zero plans to have anything to do with him and me, in a horizontal get nekkid and do the wild monkey dance way. However, that doesn’t negate the fact you need to tell me why you hate him.”
“Torrance, fuck.” He turned away nodding. “Remember the girl who killed herself out by the lake?” he asked, looking down at the floor. Slowly his gaze came up to meet her stare.
“Oh goddess, Ridge,” she whispered.
“Her name was Solei. She’d been pregnant by that fucker. He didn’t want the kid and told her if she didn’t get rid of it he’d have nothing to do with her. She went to a clinic, and...anyway, afterward she said he drove them home and told her it was over. The same fucking day she did what he asked. Stupid kid thought they were gonna get married and be able to have more babies or some shit. Anyway, he left her on the front lawn, heartbroken and torn up. She walked to the lake and kept walking until she couldn’t anymore. In her purse she had a pocketknife her granddaddy gave her. She said she just sat down and slit both wrists, didn’t even think twice about it. When I stumbled upon her, I ripped my shirt off and tried to stop the blood. Fuck—there was so much already soaking the ground under her.” Ridge ran a hand down his face.
Torrance went to where he stood and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You did everything you could. You were there with her. She didn’t die alone, Ridge.” She wouldn’t tell him she’d felt Solei’s spirit in the soil. She had been a year younger than Torrance and part of the cool kids.
“Her skin was so fucking pale, her lips blue from blood loss. Yet she still wanted me to tell that little fucker she loved him. I agreed just so she wouldn’t cry anymore. I carried her through the woods, even though I knew she wasn’t gonna make it. Her blood was on my hands. I had plans running through my mind of how I was going to kill him. Instead I had to answer a dozen motherfucking questions about if I knew her. If I’d had carnal relations with her. She was a fucking kid,” he growled.
She’d had no clue he’d gone through all that back then. “I didn’t know all that.”
He shook his head. “It was easy to prove I had nothing to do with her or her death. The little fucker was seen with her all the damn time. Plus her blood was out where I’d said it was. The sheriff just
