![\"Innocent-The72web\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Innocent-The72web.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nJay Roberts never expected to fall in love with a man from Hell.<\/p>\n
But she had.<\/p>\n
And now he\u2019d up and cut her off. Out of the blue.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d met Lincoln Dawson online and it hadn\u2019t been at one of those hokey, online dating sites. She didn\u2019t mess with those.<\/p>\n
What was she supposed to put down?<\/p>\n
Hello. I\u2019m a security specialist who works for a think tank\/security group\/troubleshooter group known as the Oswald Group and I\u2019m psychometric. It causes some issues with intimacy because when I touch people, I pick up on what they think and if you compare me to a former lover, I\u2019m going to know. I\u2019m five three, I hate walks in the rain, I kind of enjoy dirty movies, I love dirty books and I\u2019m still a virgin. I\u2019m kinky as hell and I\u2019d love to find a way to get laid, but I don\u2019t see that happening\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n
Yeah, it led to problems.<\/p>\n
It had been pure accident that she met Linc.<\/p>\n
She was online, incognito, naturally. Almost any time she went<\/i> online, it was related to work. She had been investigating the disappearance of a teenager in Florida and he\u2019d been smacking down somebody who had been preying on a couple of preteen girls.<\/p>\n
Granted, the predator had acted like he<\/i> was a girl.<\/p>\n
She had seen through it, just as Lincoln had.<\/p>\n
It was a long and convoluted path, but they\u2019d been talking online for almost a year.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d asked more than once if they\u2019d ever meet.<\/p>\n
She wanted to tell him yes, so badly.<\/p>\n
And she\u2019d been really, really close.<\/p>\n
Despite the fact that she\u2019d been, well, misleading him from the beginning. Despite the fact that she had been hiding some huge secrets.<\/p>\n
She needed to come clean with him because if she didn\u2019t, they had no chance at all.<\/p>\n
And she had been this<\/i> close.<\/p>\n
Planned her entire vacation around coming down here too.<\/p>\n
But then, nearly three months ago, he\u2019d stopped talking to her. Stopped answering emails, cut off contact completely.<\/p>\n
Sadly, one of her jobs had come up that had pushed her off the grid for nearly three weeks. She\u2019d reached out to him as soon as it was over and he\u2019d finally called her back, only she\u2019d been in a meeting.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have time for this, Jay. It\u2019s not working out. Good-bye<\/i>.<\/p>\n
When her boss, Oz, offered her another short-term, off-the-grid job, she took it. It lasted five weeks and when it was done, when she could think past the all-consuming urgency of that <\/i>job, she\u2019d known, in her gut, something had been wrong. With the way Linc had cut her off, the way he\u2019d pushed her away. Wrong with everything.<\/p>\n
Lo and behold, she was right.<\/p>\n
Now she was here.<\/p>\n
In Hell. Literally, and maybe even in the biblical sense of the word.<\/p>\n
Jay had done a double-take the first time she\u2019d seen the name of the little town and she\u2019d asked Linc twice if he was joking. But as she\u2019d driven by the little bank and saw the digital display of the temperature\u2014a balmy ninety-six in June\u2014she had to admit, Hell was aptly named. She\u2019d spent the past ten years living in Texas. She was intimately acquainted with hot<\/i>.<\/p>\n
This place, though, took the idea of hot<\/i> and cooked it up and deep-fried it for good measure.<\/p>\n
But before she hunted down her man and asked how they\u2019d gone from dirty little sexts in the middle of the night to the cold shoulder and I don\u2019t have time for this<\/i>, she needed gas. She needed a cold drink and maybe five minutes in the bathroom.<\/p>\n
The A\/C on her car was questionable at best, and she\u2019d been slowly baking for the past hour. It was coming up nine and still boiling hot outside. This place had to be pure torture come August.<\/p>\n
The gas station looked like it hadn\u2019t been updated any time this millennium. The gas pumps were slower than her great-grandmother had been on seniors\u2019 day at Kroger back home in Louisville, and she was sweating by the time she finished. Pushing inside the store, she was greeted by a cool blast of air so welcome she wanted to cry.<\/p>\n
She was damn glad she always traveled with some cash on hand because there was a sign taped to the door: Plastic is no good here. Cash only. <\/i>Yeah, definitely stuck in the last century, because there was no ATM, either.<\/p>\n
The guy behind the counter looked like he might be stuck in the nineties, maybe even the <\/i>sixties, because he was staring at her like she was some alien life form. Jay was used to that. She actually kind of liked<\/i> the odd attention she received over her pink- and blue-streaked hair and the little gold hoop that pierced her right eyebrow. The gloves tended to catch a lot of notice, but she\u2019d give almost anything to not need them. Her physical appearance was weird enough that the gloves just went with everything else, but they were a necessity.<\/p>\n
Everything else was just preference.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d go crazy without her gloves. She couldn\u2019t function. Not for long, anyway. One touch against the wrong anything<\/i> was enough to put her into a state of shock, something she knew from experience.<\/p>\n
Those innocent little touches, the things people took for granted, were the very things that could drive her insane. A brush of a hand, even if she was shielded, could flood her with all a person\u2019s fears, anxieties and secrets. If the person was having a bad day, it got even worse.<\/p>\n
And if the person was in pain, physical or mental, the effects were so much worse.<\/p>\n
Psychometry wasn\u2019t picky when it decided to wreak havoc on her life. Her gift tied in to emotions and she didn\u2019t have to take off the gloves to know the guy behind the counter was a mess.<\/p>\n
His thoughts were\u2026dark.<\/p>\n
She approached him with more than a little bit of caution, wishing she\u2019d thought to strap on her weapon, but it was a pain in the ass, even if she did have a concealed carry permit. Although, hey, she was kinda sorta involved with the sheriff.<\/p>\n
Well, she thought<\/i> she was.<\/p>\n
Maybe.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t matter, though.<\/p>\n
This kid was more involved in whatever was twisting up his<\/i> mind than anything else.<\/p>\n
She pulled her money out of her pocket and peeled off three twenties, putting them down on the counter.<\/p>\n
The kid just stared, rocking back and forth on the stool, staring at nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh, hey. Can I get my change?\u201d<\/p>\n
His gaze skittered over to hers.<\/p>\n
A chill raced up her back.<\/p>\n
The lights aren\u2019t exactly on. Nobody is home<\/i>, she thought.<\/p>\n
The door opened behind her and the kid went stiff, his gaze bouncing to the men behind her and she shifted, turning so that she had them in her line of sight and could still see the kid.<\/p>\n
Sweat beaded along his lip and, abruptly, his body relaxed and a sigh shuddered out of him.<\/p>\n
He blinked and looked at her. \u201cMa\u2019am, that will be fifty-seven dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
She gestured to the counter, focused on the men who moved to fill the empty space between the counter and the door.<\/p>\n
Rednecks, she thought. And not the hardworking kind she\u2019d come from. Her daddy had been a redneck and he\u2019d busted his ass from dawn to dusk to make sure she never wanted for anything.<\/p>\n
These guys, though, weren\u2019t rednecks in the nice sense of the word. Already, the one in the middle was eyeing her in that way that made her feel dirty. Trouble, trouble, trouble.<\/i><\/p>\n
Some people just gave off a certain vibe. Most women eventually learned to pick up on that vibe. It was that vibe that had them crossing the road when she saw a certain sort of guy, the one that made her realize she didn\u2019t want to be anywhere alone with him, the guy that set off every internal alarm she had. He was the guy who stood too close, stared too long, and generally just creeped her out.<\/p>\n
There were three of them standing in front of her now, and the one in the middle was the worst.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem of them all was that he had a rough psychic skill.<\/p>\n
In her line of work, she\u2019d come to learn that psychic ability wasn\u2019t as uncommon as some might think. It was estimated that one percent of the population had some sort of psychic ability\u2014it sounded like a low number, but that added up to one in a hundred. With billions of people on the planet, that wasn\u2019t as low as it seemed.<\/p>\n
The abilities varied, though, and the typical \u201chomegrown\u201d psychic, like this guy, was weak. Most of them just had better than average instincts. Some were going to be sensitive to things\u2014might feel really uncomfortable in a house where a lot of violence had happened, while another might be really good at guessing a winner at the Derby or occasionally picking four or five lottery numbers. The lucky sort of bastard.<\/p>\n
He really had no idea what he was dealing with, either. Knowing her <\/i>luck, he\u2019d picked up something just odd enough about her to keep him intrigued, but he was too stupid to be scared.<\/p>\n
She shifted her attention back to the boy and waited for her change, using the mirror mounted in the corner to watch the newcomers. If she was lucky, she could get out of here without messing with him.<\/p>\n
When he whistled in her direction, Jay ignored it.<\/p>\n
She was good at ignoring things.<\/p>\n
All she had to do was get out of there and everything would be good.<\/p>\n
She scooped up her change, careful not to make contact with the kid behind the counter, careful not to let him touch her, even with the gloves. Tucking her cash into her pocket, she turned to go and wasn\u2019t surprised to see all three men blocking her way.<\/p>\n
\u201cExcuse me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe looks like a piece of candy. Look at that pink hair.\u201d It was the one with the mild psychic ability and the leer in his eyes made her skin crawl. His gaze raked over her from head to toe and then zoomed in on her chest. She wore a tank with a fishnet top stretched over it. It fit close. Most of her clothing did. Once upon a time she\u2019d hid behind baggy clothing, cowered in her room, convinced she was going crazy. Her dad\u2019s death, the emergence of her ability, it had all hit at once. Sanity had been a touch-and-go thing for a while.<\/p>\n
She might be a little crazy but hiding hadn\u2019t helped.<\/p>\n
So she\u2019d stopped hiding and she\u2019d learned how to deal. With everything, just about. Including guys like this.<\/p>\n
As he continued to stare at her tits, she said again, \u201cExcuse me.\u201d<\/p>\n
A wide, unpleasant smile spread across his face.<\/p>\n
She steadied herself and bolstered her shields. She could only keep everything<\/i> locked out for short periods of time. More than ten or fifteen minutes and she felt like she was going through some sort of serious bout of sensory deprivation. That didn\u2019t help her state of mind.<\/p>\n
Touching thugs like this? That wasn\u2019t going to help, either.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d have to touch one of them, probably several of them.<\/p>\n
The ringleader stepped up and reached out.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t react as he trailed a finger down her cheek. \u201cYou lost there, sugar?\u201d She felt nothing but the physical contact, his finger rough against her skin. She could almost imagine a slimy after-trail. Dirty\u2014he was so dirty and he contaminated everything he touched.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d She lied through her teeth and did it with a smile as she angled her head away, breaking contact. Keeping her shields up kept her from feeling too much, but she still caught enough\u2014too much\u2014lust and greed and a need to hurt. She wanted a shower. \u201cIf you\u2019ll excuse me, I need to go. I\u2019m meeting somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t you tell me where you\u2019re heading? I can give you a hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t need\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
The bell over the door rang.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t look away from the men in front of her.<\/p>\n
\u201cLloyd. Why don\u2019t you step away from the lady?\u201d<\/p>\n
A shiver raced down her spine. That voice. Familiar.<\/i><\/p>\n
The man in front of her curled his lip, a slow, smirking sort of smile. It was the smile of a man she wouldn\u2019t trust at her back. She didn\u2019t even trust this man at her front<\/i>. \u201cWell, hey there, Sheriff\u2026 Oh, wait. You ain\u2019t the sheriff no more. You know what? I think I\u2019ll stay right here. I\u2019m talking to this pretty little piece of candy here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sheriff\u2014<\/i><\/p>\n
She tore her eyes away from him and stared at the man she\u2019d come to find.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Lincoln Dawson, the man she\u2019d found herself falling head over heels in love with over the past year.<\/p>\n
The man who, according to this thug, wasn\u2019t the sheriff anymore.<\/p>\n
Okay, that could wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you\u2019ll step away.\u201d Lincoln\u2019s voice came a little closer and she took a deep, steadying breath.<\/p>\n
His eyes cut to hers.<\/p>\n
She watched as his gaze passed over her and then immediately came right back.<\/p>\n
Cocking her head, she said softly, \u201cHello, Lincoln.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The very last person he\u2019d expected to see in Hell was Jay Roberts.<\/p>\n
As she turned around and gave him a slow smile, he was hard-pressed to do anything but stare for almost a minute. Her hair, a pale, almost white blonde, was colored in streaks of blue and pink here and there. It might have looked silly on some, but it suited her.<\/p>\n
Half-way down her neck, he could see where her tattoos started and, just like the first time when he\u2019d see her\u2014only in a picture, of course\u2014he wanted to peel her clothes away and learn each and every one of those tattoos, each and every curve. Killer curves, deadly attitude.<\/p>\n
And the attitude he\u2019d sensed in their online communication, and picked up on even more in their phone and Skype sessions, was every bit as sharp as he\u2019d suspected.<\/p>\n
A slow smile curved her lips and he wanted to cross the floor, grab her and cover her mouth with his. Taste her, like he\u2019d wanted for almost a year.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d waited that long to finally meet her.<\/p>\n
Now his life was in shambles and Lloyd Pritchard was threatening to put his hands on her.<\/p>\n
Lloyd was an idiot.<\/p>\n
But then again, he always had been.<\/p>\n
He might be an idiot without arms or legs if he touched Jay.<\/p>\n
His heart, so bitter and broken over the past few months, gave a slow, ragged beat in his chest. Part of him wanted to go to his knees in front of her and wrap his arms around her waist, press his face to her belly. She would listen. She would talk him through this and he wouldn\u2019t hear any of the false sympathy, the false hopes\u2014there was<\/i> no hope. He was a cop. He knew what was going on.<\/p>\n
The other part of him just wanted to tell her to get her ass in the car and go back to her nice, safe little job in Dallas.<\/p>\n
He had no place for her in his world now.<\/p>\n
Although he had to admit, she didn\u2019t exactly fit into the safe<\/i> little picture he\u2019d had in mind. She\u2019d sent him a few pictures and they\u2019d Skyped, but she didn\u2019t quite fit the images. The blonde hair was right, but it was done through with stripes of pink and blue. Her face was the same\u2014heart-shaped with the most fuckable mouth ever\u2014and he wanted to grab her up against him, lose himself in her.<\/p>\n
The look in her eyes, somehow both wary and challenging, had him keeping his distance.<\/p>\n
She was trouble in a pair of combat boots. He\u2019d figured that out even as he\u2019d caught his first glimpse of her through the plate glass window. He hadn\u2019t recognized her from outside.<\/p>\n
The soft, throaty voice\u2014a little too rough, a little too raspy\u2014stroked against his senses like a caress and he wanted to kick everybody out of the gas station and ask her why she was here.<\/p>\n
Instead, he forced his mind away from the skin-skimming clothes and shifted his attention to Lloyd and his pack of ass-kissing hyenas.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d been about five seconds away from a whole world of trouble and he suspected she knew it. The new sheriff wouldn\u2019t get off his ass to scratch it and city police force consisted of exactly two full-time cops and one part-time. None of them were worth the price of two postage stamps.<\/p>\n
The best thing Linc could do was get her out of here. It seemed like the rest of the world had forsaken this town. Maybe God had too. He\u2019d had a hard time during his tenure as sheriff, dealing not just with the assaults, but also with the disappearance of several local girls, a handful of unusual suicides but he hadn\u2019t let that deter him.\u00a0 He\u2019d had a job to do and he\u2019d see it through.<\/p>\n
Over the past two months, ever since his daughter\u2019s disappearance, an even darker pall had settled itself over the place.\u00a0 Since the last night he\u2019d seen DeeDee, a local hunter had gone missing, as well as a pretty high school junior and a kid from the basketball team.<\/p>\n
He no longer cared.\u00a0 All he cared about was finding justice for his daughter.<\/p>\n
The oppressive weight was just getting worse. This town was plagued by a dark curse.<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t any place he wanted Jay to be.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t want anybody<\/i> here. If he could build a wall to keep everybody out, he\u2019d do it.<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t an option, but one thing he could do\u2026beat the shit out of Lloyd if he so much as touched Jay.<\/p>\n
Lloyd eased closer to her and Jay watched him impassively, her hands hanging at her sides, loose and ready.<\/p>\n
Linc shot out a hand and grabbed the back of Lloyd\u2019s thick neck. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to go messing with her, son,\u201d he said levelly.<\/p>\n
Lloyd jerked away and swiveled, driving a fist into Linc\u2019s gut. Or, that was the intention. Linc was already spinning away. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jay, and what he saw was such a distraction that Lloyd managed to sucker punch him. He didn\u2019t get another hit in, though.<\/p>\n
A wet, cracking sound filled the air and Lloyd screamed, going down after Linc took his leg out.<\/p>\n
Linc turned just in time to see Jay balance her weight on the edge of the counter and drive her booted feet solidly into the skinny chest of one Johnny Hutchins.<\/p>\n
Willy Lee was the last one standing and as he wheeled around, Linc smashed his fist into the bastard\u2019s thick neck, watched as he went red. Gasping for air, he stumbled into a stand of chips and jerky and then crashed to the floor.<\/p>\n
Jay looked back at him and the vivid, intense green of her eyes laid him low.<\/p>\n
\u201cJay.\u201d<\/p>\n
She cocked her head at him. \u201cHello, Linc.\u201d<\/p>\n
He would have said something else, anything else, but Bryce Atkins came barreling around the counter, his face pale and strained, eyes wide. \u201cI called the cops.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jay shifted her attention to him, her eyes a wide and vivid shade of green, focused on him.<\/p>\n
Arching a brow, Linc said levelly, \u201cI\u2019m sure the lady appreciates it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bryce blinked. \u201cI called because of you<\/i>. You broke his leg.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh, for fuck\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was hassling her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe shouldn\u2019t be dressed like that,\u201d Bryce said, jerking his chin up.<\/p>\n
Linc ran his tongue along his teeth and then closed the distance between them, eyeing him narrowly. \u201cYou might want to watch it, kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bryce\u2019s eyes widened and then he jerked his gaze away, staring at the men on the floor. \u201cYa\u2019ll tore up the store. The manager is going to kick my ass. You know how Dave is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do.\u201d He shrugged and turned away. \u201cYou can tell Dave that these guys were harassing a woman in here.\u201d My woman<\/i>.<\/p>\n
His\u2026<\/p>\n
He sighed and dragged a hand down his face, then turned to look Jay. Yeah, she still felt like his. Never mind that he had never actually laid eyes on her, in person, before today.<\/p>\n
She felt like his and if she\u2019d come to him any time other than now\u2026<\/p>\n
Abruptly, anger surged inside him and he shoved past her, storming outside the doors.<\/p>\n
Why now?<\/p>\n
Why couldn\u2019t she have come to him back when he still had any sort of life left inside him?<\/p>\n
Amazon<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0BN<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0iBooks<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Kobo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"