Debts by Tammar Stein Read Free Book Online

barely visible, high on a manicured hill. A wrought-iron fence stretches in either direction as far as she can see.
    He’s strolling toward her, hands in his pockets, hat tipped slightly back. He’s wearingone of those big cowboy belt buckles and it has a familiar stylized flame on it. She smiles when she sees it. Little puffs of dust rise with every footfall, so that there’s a smoky sort of haze behind him. Her heart thumping pleasantly fast now, she walks to meet him halfway, leaving the car door open with the keys in the ignition and an annoying repetitive chime meant to remind her that she shouldn’t do either.
    She hasn’t seen him in seven years. While the businesswoman side of her knows that seeing him again means he’s here to collect her part of their agreement, the stupid, fragile side of her wonders if maybe her broken heart called to him, and maybe, just maybe, he’s going to do something to fix it. The irony or symbolism or whatever this is isn’t lost on her. The first time she and Emmett broke up brought him to her. And this second, final break between them is bringing him back.
    “Baby girl,” he says with that small smile on his lips. “You’ve grown up.”
    Her breath hitches in her chest; her heart beats even faster. She’s almost forgotten what it’s like to be near him: that electric presence, the simultaneous sense of danger and excitement, how with him around,
anything
is possible. His eyes flit over her and she can feel every place on her skin that they touch.
    “It’s been seven years.” Her voice sounds breathy.
    “Time flies when you’re having fun,” he says, and he seems so amused that it’s like an inside joke, but she’s on the outside.
    A car drives by, kicking up dust and leaves, tangling her dress around her legs. She feels his appreciative gaze on her and knows she makes a tempting sight. It gives her confidence.
    “So what brings you to these parts?” she asks, heavy on the humor.
    He grins.
    “The scenery, of course, and the small, inconsequential matter of a debt owed.” The grin vanishes as he pauses, tilting his head to study her from a different angle. “To me.”
    She shivers.
    “I know,” she says. “I waited years to hear from you.”
    “Seven years,” he says mildly, but it’s like a rebuke, an unfair one since he’s known where she was the whole time. She stiffens at the implied criticism.
    “Well, here I am,” she says sharply, and his gaze flares for a moment into something truly scary.
    “You owe me,” he hisses, the charm, the grinning pleasure at her spunk and courage, gone. “Your debt to me has come due. Do you fulfill it now?”
    His language is weird, all arcane and specific.
    “You never told me what you want me to do,” she says. She hasn’t run a successful business for almost five years without learning you don’t sign before reading the contract.
    “Will you fulfill your vow to me?” he asks again. This time his voice squeezes through a throat constricted by fury. His eyes glint red. Another car whizzes by them, unpleasantly close. Startled, she turns to look at the road, and when she looks back, he’s there, right in front of her. He closed the five-foot gap between them in a split second. He’s taller than she remembered, menacing and overwhelming. She takes a step back, but he grabs her, hands whipping out so fast she never sees them move. His skin burns hot on her bare skin and she gasps.
    “Wilt thou fulfill thy vow to me?”
    She’s scared in a way she’s never been scared before. She’d allowed herself to forget so much about him, to buff away the details that made her uncomfortable, to only remember the excitement and sense of possibility. But possibility was a two-edged sword—if anything waspossible, then nothing was safe.
    “I won’t hurt my family,” she cries. “I told you that from the start!”
    “You’ll hurt them,” he says with a sneer, “but on your own, not working for me.”
    “I