Small-Town Redemption by Beth Andrews Read Free Book Online Page B

forced his fingers open. He was getting paranoid. Small-town living. It got the best of people. Wherever he ended up next would have to have cars and bright lights and tall buildings. And people. Plenty of them.
    It was easier to lose yourself in a crowd.
    Mreeow.
    A yellow cat darted out from behind the garbage cans. Kane didn’t jump—but it was close. The cat took off across the parking lot, its tail down, ass swinging side to side as if its back legs were unable to keep up with its front ones.
    As if it was trying to outrun itself.
    Kane knew the feeling.
    He tipped his head back and shut his eyes as the rain cooled his face. Inhaled to the count of five, then exhaled until his lungs were empty and his head light.
    But the hunger inside him remained. The need, not quite as desperate as it had once been, a constant presence, a reminder of what he’d almost lost. It was nights like these where he was most vulnerable. Times when he was alone with his thoughts. His memories. When the monster inside him reared its head, demanding to be fed no matter the cost. No matter who got hurt.
    Kane ground his back teeth together until his jaw ached. It was the middle of the night and he’d just spent nine straight hours on his feet followed by another hour of setting chairs onto the tables and scrubbing the bar’s floor and bathrooms. Exhaustion tugged at the outer edges of his consciousness, reminding him it’d been over twenty-four hours since he slept. He should go inside, drag his sorry ass and weary body up the stairs to his apartment, then into bed.
    But he’d been here before, too many times to count. The setting might change—different town, different apartment and bed—but the plot remained the same. He’d spend hours tossing and turning while the sneaky, hypnotic voice of his past whispered in his head, testing his willpower. Tempting him into giving up. Into giving in to his body’s demands, just this once.
    He whirled around, and with long, determined strides crossed to the small garage in the corner of the parking lot. He unlocked the side door. Inside, he pressed the automatic opener, then swung his leg over the seat of his bike while the garage door lifted. No, sleep wouldn’t come tonight. Rest never came. Not for him.
    He started the motor, revving the engine a few times before shooting out into the street, not bothering to lock up behind him. The wind blew his hair back. Rain stung his cheeks and eyes. At the corner, he barely slowed, then took a hard right, his rear wheel swerving for a moment on the wet pavement, much as the cat’s back end had done.
    Unlike the stray, Kane had learned he couldn’t outrun himself or his past. But for a few hours, he could outrun his demons.
    * * *
    “H ELLO ?” E STELLE M ONROE called as she poked her head into the doorway. “Anyone here?” She waited a beat. Then two. “Hello?”
    Silence.
    She frowned. She didn’t even want to think about why he wasn’t home, safe and snug in his bed in the middle of the night. A man who looked like Kane, with his rough edges and bad-boy attitude, never lacked for female companionship.
    Her mother had warned her years ago that if Estelle was going to love Kane, she couldn’t be jealous of his flings, the time and attention he gave other women. She had to learn to share him.
    And console herself with the fact that he always, always came back to Estelle.
    With an inner shrug, she walked into the dark apartment, slipping her key into the front pocket of her jeans.
    She felt a little bit like Goldilocks.
    She even had the blond hair. Well, Goldilocks minus the breaking and entering, running into angry bears and eating porridge, of course.
    She’d never had porridge but it did not sound very tasty.
    Hefting her backpack onto her arm, she took a cautious step only to hear Kane’s stern voice in her head.
    Lock the damn door.
    Even in her imagination, he was a grouch. That man needed more laughter in his life. For Christmas this