Chapter 7: Pull Me In

I drove Dean's old pickup because it was the only vehicle in the yard nobody would miss.

It had a bench seat, a cracked dashboard, and a mix tape that had been stuck in the deck since the nineties.

I didn't know where I was going until I got there.

Tiernan Sterne's house sat alone on a point on the north shore of the lake.

It was long and low and made of glass, with one light on in the kitchen.

He had texted me the address on Friday with a note:

Dinner is still owed.

It was ten o'clock on Sunday night, and I had not eaten since breakfast.

I sat in the truck with the engine ticking, holding a card that said I am so sorry.

Then I got out.

He opened the door before I knocked.

He was barefoot, in grey trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves pushed up, and his forearms were corded and tanned.

He took one look at my face and did not say a word.

"I don't want dinner," I said.

"No," he said.

"What do you want?"

I walked into the house, past him.

I turned around in the middle of the kitchen, under the one light.

"I want one night where I am not anyone's daughter," I said.

"Not Margaret. Not Alexis. Nobody's. I want to be a woman in a room."

He closed the door.

He turned the lock without taking his eyes off me.

"You are very much a woman," Tiernan said.

"In this room."

He crossed the kitchen and stopped an inch from me.

He smelled of soap and cedar and something warm underneath.

He was a head taller than I was, and I had to tip my face up.

"Tell me to stop," he said, very low.

"No," I said.

I took hold of his shirt in both fists and pulled him down.

His mouth was hot and it was not gentle.

He kissed me.

One hand slid into my hair, and the other lay flat across my back to haul me against him.

I made a sound against his mouth that I didn't know I could make.

He walked me backward until my spine met the counter.

He lifted me onto it.

My jeans were ruined from the cemetery, and my sweater had grass stains.

He did not care.

He peeled the sweater up over my head and tossed it.

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