Deception Island by Brynn Kelly

Author:Brynn Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2016-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

“Where did you grow up?”

Holly blinked at the sudden question. Rafe really didn’t ease into small talk, did he? “Ah, a place called Carterville. On the outskirts of Los Angeles.”

“What’s that like?”

“No one lives there by choice, if that’s what you mean. It’s a rough neighborhood—a different kind of rough from what you knew, I guess. Why do you ask?”

He pulled a baguette from their food store, cut it open and began spreading butter on it. She liked how he assumed it was his job to feed them. Her father had only ever gone into their kitchenette to get beer. She and Jasper had lived on fast food and TV dinners—or flashy restaurants, when they’d pulled off a con.

“When I was in the refugee camps, America was the big hope. I used to get myself to sleep by imagining the UN coming to choose me and Gabriel, and give us to an American family, who lived in a house in Phoenix with a basement and real beds in the rooms.” He wrapped the bread in banana leaves and laid it in the embers. “I don’t think I knew what a basement was and I don’t know where I got Phoenix from. We thought everyone in America was rich and safe and happy.”

“That wasn’t far from the dream I had.”

“And all this time I’ve been calling you princess. Are your parents still there, in Carterville?” He perched on a box, and began ripping salad leaves.

“I don’t give a damn where my father is, as long as he’s nowhere near me. My mother went missing a few years after I left home.” Home. Huh. She couldn’t even say the word without it sounding ironic. “Rumor was that my father had killed her during one of their epic fights and dumped her body. Sounds like the cops investigated for all of about half an hour.”

He’d frozen and was contemplating her. She must sound like a psycho, talking about her mother’s likely homicide as if the woman had just moved to another town but she’d long ago stopped thinking of her parents with any emotion. Well, hey, if anyone could understand the urge to block out feelings and bury the past, Rafe could. She felt like she could talk to him all night, though her body hummed with other ideas. Would he make a move? Could she—without him thinking it was a ruse? Because, holy crap, she wanted to feel that body against hers again. Just the thought of it—

“Brothers or sisters?” he said.

“No, lucky for them,” she squeaked.

He leaned forward, legs bent and forearms on thighs, and studied her. “So we both bypassed the happy family. This is why we...understand each other.”

She swallowed. “Wait—you didn’t find your happy family, with your wife and son? Not even early on?”

He pulled a mango from the cooler. The aroma of the fish, the fire and the steaming bread swirled around her, better than any perfume she’d swiped from Macy’s as a teenager. Her mouth watered.

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