Page 28 of Gather the Storm

“Outside,” I said as we made our way down the front staircase from the second floor.

I was half-surprised Jace followed. He didn’t like being told what to do, not even by Otis or me. I wouldn’t have put it past him to refuse on principle, but he didn’t, which told me he knew he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

We stepped onto the porch and started down the steps. It was nice out, a perfect June day. The sky was clear overhead, the Falls at the back of the house rushing to the river below, birds singing in the trees.

Like a fucking fairy tale right before everything turned dark.

We passed Jace’s bike and I headed for Benji. If we were going to talk about Daisy he could at least help me carry my shit.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked.

He cracked his neck. “Nothing. She agreed to follow my rules, and if I have to live here with her, I’m not going to look at her in those uptight clothes her dad has her wearing.”

“Maybe she likes them,” I said, opening the trunk.

“She has no idea what she fucking likes,” Jace said darkly.

I leaned against the back of the car, glad my back was to the house in case Daisy was watching.

“You don’t know that, and even if you’re right, it’s not your job to show her. You know that right?” I asked. “We’re here to keep an eye on her while we figure out who’s still kidnapping girls. That’s all.”

The words rang hollow to my own ears. We could have kept an eye on Daisy from afar. It wasn’t ideal, but it was possible. We were here — all of us — because we wanted to be here.

Because it was a chance to be close to Daisy.

And the fact that Daisy didn’t know what she liked? That she seemed almost as innocent as she’d been when we’d gone to prison?

That just made me want her more. And if it made me want her more, I fucking knew it made Jace want her more, because there was nothing Jace enjoyed more than defiling something good, something he couldn’t have.

“I’m aware,” Jace said. “But since this is the last place I want to be, I’m going to have a little fun with it.”

I sighed. “Just… don’t be a dick. Or… don’t be an asshole.” I struggled to work my way down the ladder of douchebaggery that was Jace. Was a dick worse than an asshole or vice versa? “Try not to torment her. She’s been through enough.”

“She didn’t go to prison for five years,” Jace said.

“Would you have wanted that?” I asked. “Knowing she didn’t kill Blake?”

He swore.

“I know you blame her for picking up the knife, forcing us to confess to keep her out of jail,” I said, “but she wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place if it wasn’t for us. You can’t punish her forever.”

“Who said anything about forever?” The dark glint in his eyes put me off. “I just got started.”

I turned to the trunk to pull out my duffel and guitar because I didn’t know what else to say. Jace was going to Jace and there wasn’t a person in the world who could stop him.

Gravel crunched under tires behind me and I turned to see Otis’s Corvette approaching the house from the winding path in the woods. We’d need to make that wider, make it more like the drive it must have been the last time someone lived here.

I shook my head when I realized I was making fix-it notes for the house. I hadn’t even officially moved in and I was already getting sucked into Daisy’s project.

Otis parked next to her Mustang. He got out of the Corvette, then ran his hands along Daisy’s car like a doctor looking for a pulse.

“Team meeting?” he asked, walking toward us.

“Just getting my marching orders from Dad here,” Jace said, tipping his head at me.

Otis looked confused.

“Just telling dickhead here to take it easy on Daisy,” I said. “He’s having a little too much fun with his little game.”

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