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OTHER BOOKS BY SAMANTHA TOWLE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The receptionist replaces the phone handset and looks at me over the glasses perched on her nose. “You can go through. Down the hall, and it’s the fourth door on your left.”
I push up from my seat and walk where directed. My boots thud heavily against the tiled floor. Reaching the fourth door on the left, I knock on it.
“Come in,” a female voice calls from the other side of it.
I’m surprised for two reasons. First off, I figured that my parole officer would be a man. Not that women can’t be parole officers, but I just had a stereotypical image in my head. Guess that’s what happens when you spend a lot of time with only men. And second, that voice sounds familiar.
With that familiarity sliding through my thoughts, I push the door open, and I instantly see why I know that voice.
Because I know her. Knew her.
Eden Briars. She was my high school crush. I guess crush is putting it mildly. I was in love with her. Only I was never on her radar. I was a gawky, awkward-as-fuck teenager. The kind of kid who went to the Scouts and sat at home, playing on his computer.
Eden rolled with the popular crowd. Dated the quarterback.
We had some classes together, so she knew who I was. She was always nice to me—unlike some of the crowd she hung with. But she never looked at me in that way.
Honestly, I didn’t blame her. I was nothing like I am now. Let’s just say, I grew into my looks, and using the prison gym daily definitely helped. Still, in this moment, I’m vaulted back to all those years ago, to that weak, insecure kid.
“Axel Turner.” She remembers me … recognizes me. I hear it in the warm inflection in her voice and see it in her gorgeous green eyes.
Eden was always pretty in high school. But now, as a woman, she’s fucking beautiful. All that long, thick red hair, just begging for a man’s hands to get tangled up in it … preferably my hands. Her cute, little, pert nose that turns up at the end and those plump lips that I spent way too many hours obsessing over.
Jesus, the thought and sight of her almost give me a stiffy. I never forgot Eden Briars, and clearly, neither did my cock. Not that he got anywhere near her. Not even close. Wet dreams and imagination were all I ever had of Eden.
“Please sit.” With a smile, she gestures to the chair across from her.
Swallowing hard, I take a seat.
I’m nervous, and I don’t know what the fuck to say or what to do with my hands. I settle for folding them over my chest and clearing my throat. “So …”
“How are you doing?” she asks, leaning forward, resting her elbows on the desk.
A floral scent wafts over from her side of the desk, and it’s fucking decadent. And, yes, I know what that word means. I might have gone to prison instead of college, but I’m not dumb.
Just fucking stupid.
“Good,” I grunt.
I’m usually a one-worded answers or a grunt in response kind of guy. She got both. Lucky gal.
But when you spend as much time in prison as I did, with the scum of the earth, you learn to keep everything close to your chest. You don’t share with any fucker, and the way to do that is to not talk much. Although, to be honest, I never was what you would call chatty as a kid. Having a voice in high school meant bringing attention to yourself, and I definitely never wanted attention. Only from her. Not that I ever got it. Well, not in the way I wanted it.
But I got it from her boyfriend, his friends, and the bitches she called friends, and it wasn’t the attention I wanted.
They were dicks to me. But I wasn’t alone in that. Anyone who wasn’t considered part of their elite group was a target for them.
I never got why Eden hung out with them. I mean, I get it in the sense that it’s better to be popular than not. But Eden always seemed so different to those dicks. She was better … although she couldn’t have been that much better. Even if she didn’t participate in their stupid fucking pranks and bullying, she knew about it, and knowing and not doing something is just as bad.
Still, it didn’t stop me from wanting her though, did it?
Didn’t stop me from thinking about her for a lot of those nights in prison. I never forgot about her.
And I bet she hasn’t thought of me in all this time—until my name turned up on her desk.
Funny though, of all the places I would have expected to run into her, this never would have been it. I always thought she would marry that prick she was with in high school or some other rich, good-looking dude she met in college and popped out a couple of kids. But from what I’m seeing here, there’s no ring on her finger.
And, yes, I looked her up on the odd occasion when I was on the prison computer, but she kept her social media locked down tight. Which is smart when there are fuckers like me in jail, looking her up.
“So, it tells me here that you’re living back home,” she says, looking down at the file in front of her on her desk.
My file. Which lists all the details of my time in prison and why I was there, which she already knows, obviously. But I wonder if she knew when I was arrested and sentenced. I know she was in college at the time, but this town isn’t nearly big enough that everybody here doesn’t know what I did and where I’ve been for the last eight years of my life.
“Yeah.”
“With your grandpa?” She looks up at me.
A jolt of surprise and old longing rushes through me. I’m surprised that she even knew that I’d lived with my grandpa back then. Unless that’s also in my file. But then she’d know that he died.
“No. He’s dead.”
Her expression turns sad. “I’m so sorry. I know you were close.”
Did she? Did I tell her that? I don’t remember the extent of our conversations ever moving past schoolwork.
“Thanks,” I say in that automatic way that people do when condolences are given.
She looks back to my file. “You’ve gotten a job as a lumberjack?”
“Yes.”
The owner of the company, Alfie, was a good friend of my grandpa. I’ve known him pretty much my whole life. He’s a good guy, and I feel lucky that he offered me a job because I know it’s hard as hell to get a job with a criminal record. Especially one that has me down as a convicted murderer. Nobody wants to hire a killer.
“And you start on Monday?”
“Yes.”
She leans back in her chair, and a smile touches her lips. “Still as chatty as ever,” she quips.
I actually find myself smiling. “I’m more of a doer than a talker.”
“True. You always were good with your hands.”
That has me lifting a brow.
“In class. I meant, woodwork.” She sounds flustered.
I suppress a smile. “Gotcha.”
“Okay. Good. Great. Well, everything seems in order. I’ll need to see you next week, so be sure to, make an appointment out front. Oh, also, I’ll need to do a home check, but I’ll call you to arrange that. Do you have a cell phone I can contact you on?”