Page 36 of Necessary Cruelty

“I’ll walk you out, new guy,” she says airily. “And on the way, you can tell me why you’d come all the way out here of all places.”

“I’m wondering the same damn thing.”

The familiar voice raises the hair on the back of my neck, making me shiver like a piece of ice is sliding down my spine. It can’t be him. He would never be caught in the Gulch unless it’s the middle of the night and he’s about to sneak into my window. And it isn’t as if he would let anyone catch him doing that.

It isn’t him.

It isn’t him.

It isn’t him.

But then I look up and meet the cool gaze of Vin Cortland.