Waiting for Wyatt (Red Dirt #1) (4 page)

“I’m sorry for . . . wait—no. I didn’t mean to say sorry.” I was rattled, and Wyatt just kept twisting me up even more with his strange behavior.

“Thursday. Come at four,” he muttered. “I’ll be here.”

“Okay. I’ll see you Thursday, Wyatt Caulfield.” I held his gaze for a moment and then walked quickly to the car.

As I drove through the tall grass, I looked over at the towel I’d used to wrap Charlie up in the seat, but my thoughts stayed on the guy who was caring for him. Wyatt Caulfield just might be the strangest and most haunting person I’d ever met.

B
EFORE I GOT BACK TO
the apartment complex, I stopped at McDonald’s. I found a T-shirt in the trunk and replaced my bloody, paw-print-covered tank top. I removed all the evidence of Charlie from my car, stuffing each item in a trash can outside the fast food restaurant. Goodbye, favorite shirt. I wiped the blood and dirt from the seat and door. I needed to be prepared if I expected this little plan to work at my apartment complex.

Driving back home, I hesitated before pulling into the parking lot. Part of me hoped to get this over quickly. Kurt came out of the manager’s office before I even killed the engine. I mentally braced for the confrontation. He was a very intimidating man at six-foot-two, three hundred pounds with about twenty of that being a long, wispy beard.

I would tell my next lie of the day. I would tell that worthless piece of trash that I knew nothing about his dog. Opening my car door, his large head blocked the late evening sun from my view.

“Where’s my dog?” he growled.

“Oh. You still haven’t found him?”

“Don’t play dumb. I searched your apartment. Didn’t find him. So where did you stash the little bastard?”

A vile feeling settled in the pit of my stomach, imagining Kurt standing in my bedroom as he searched for Charlie. I had left my bras hanging up to dry all over the room after I hand-washed the delicate fabric this morning.

If I wasn’t locked into our lease for another year, I would pack up and leave immediately. I hated this place, but we couldn’t afford to pay the cost to break the contract. Another reason I needed to yell at my sister. She’d insisted on signing that stupid two-year agreement because it knocked a hundred bucks off a month. I steadied myself and put on the performance of a lifetime.

“I saw the dog running by my apartment. I tried to catch him, but I’ve got a bad knee.” I pointed at my right leg. The ugly swelling and scrapes were still present around my kneecap.

“Hmm,” he grunted.

“Yeah, I tried to get him in my apartment, but he ran off in that direction.” I pointed to the wooded area behind the complex. “I’m sorry.”

“Is that so?” His face moved a bit, but the wiry hairs around his lips blocked most of the expression. I wished Kurt would get so angry he released us from the lease, but I knew that man was too vindictive and devious to let that happen. Our landlord would force us to stay to the bitter end.

His gaze lingered on my face, then drifted to a brazen stare at my breasts. The brown eyes grew a deeper hue. Images of Kurt rifling through my drawers flashed in my head. He was the type who would get the most from his visit inside my apartment. Even in the heat of the summer, my skin got clammy as the beady eyes returned to my face. I think Kurt half-believed me, but I wasn’t sure.

“Yeah. I wish I could’ve saved him.” I took a few steps backward. “Coyote will probably get him out there.”

“Probably so. He’s a worthless little bastard, but I gotta find him. That pup already belongs to someone else.”

“Well, if I see Ch—the puppy again, I’ll try to catch him.” My backward steps had me within three feet of the stairs. “I have to run.”

With a quick spin, I sprinted up the wooden steps, ignoring the stabbing pain in my knee. It would be a night of freezing ice wrapped around my leg. I pulled my keys from the pocket of my shorts, but my sister had the door open before I could use them. She slammed it behind me, turning both locks on the frame.

“I was afraid he was going to drag you into the office and not let you come out.” Her eyes flashed wide from behind her glasses. Blaire pushed the center piece back straight on her nose.

“Kurt might be a dog abuser, but he’s not going to kidnap me.”

“You don’t know that. He’s got shit for brains.” My identical face stared back at me. That’s the thing about being the Sawyer twins. We were completely the same yet different like two sides of the same coin.

In a huffy turn, Blaire went into the living room, falling down on the couch, knocking over her giant tuba case. It clanked against the coffee table before hitting the carpet. “You just had to take that damn dog. Now we are going to be stuck with Kurt crawling up our ass.”

“How did you know?”

“Mr. Hughes told me. Really, Emma? You climbed out on the
ledge
? Are you that stupid?” Her eyes squinted from behind her glasses in disapproval. I wore contacts. She refused after reading some story about the Loa Loa worm that had grown to five inches in a man’s eye.

“He almost killed Charlie yesterday. I wasn’t going to just sit in here while that man murdered him.”

“That dog has a name now? What am I thinking? Of course you gave him a name. You are just too nice. It gets
exhausting
sometimes. Charlie and Mr. Hughes and all those people at that nursing home. Wonderful Emma. Sweet Emma. Blah, blah, blah. But you need to think sometimes. We have to live here. Unless you’ve got some idea of how to get us out of the lease.”

“You need to figure that one out. It’s your fault we still live here.”

“Oh, please. Don’t try to pin that on me.” She rolled her eyes behind the wide lenses.

Blaire and I had shared a room growing up. As we got older and moved out of the house, it had never occurred to either of us to seek out someone else as a roommate. Not even when she’d gone to college and I technically didn’t.

Blaire and I were born as mirror image twins. I’m right-handed. She’s left-handed. We came from the same sack in the uterus. Doctors still liked to brag about that one in our little town. Apparently, it’s pretty rare.

“You met someone this afternoon.” Her voice came with a dry clip.

“I don’t know what you mean. I was busy finding Charlie a place at a rescue. Not meeting people.”

“That’s not all you did this afternoon.” Her brown eyes widened. “Unless you met someone there. I was giving Aaron his tuba lesson, and I felt it right here.” Her polish-free hand rested against the front of her T-shirt. “All bubbly and happy. And I knew because Aaron plays like shit. And is always going to play like shit. Sounds like a cross between a farting cat and someone running over its tail. But I cash his parents’ checks anyway. So what made you
sooo
happy while I was trapped listening to cats dying so we can have rent money?”

I stared at her and she stared back. That’s how I’d perfected the look I’d used on Wyatt. Blaire got my super glare of death almost every day. And well, she could use it back just the same way. I let out a deep breath.

I already knew she would ask when I got home. We didn’t talk about it much, but Blaire and I had this connection. It came across weird and slightly demonic if we shared it in front of the wrong people. My sister and I just knew things about each other, like when we got sad or really happy or scared. Our little secret.

“I don’t know what you felt. I didn’t
meet
anyone. So stop making dramatic accusations. And you know you like giving tuba lessons.”

“I don’t believe you.” She brushed a trickle of sweat off her forehead. Blaire’s hair was piled on top of her head in a ratty mess.

“
Fine.
There was this guy when I dropped off Charlie.” I plopped down next to her on the old, flowery couch. I flipped my soft blonde curls back off my sweaty neck. The air-conditioning was on the brink again, which showed another sign of Kurt’s incompetency as a landlord.

“I knew it. So who is this guy? What’s he like?”

“I don’t know. Intense, I guess. I think he lives with the dogs at the kennel. It’s really sad. He’s out there all alone.”

“He’s like some crazy, recluse dog hoarder? Really, Emma!” Her eyes grew huge. “You’ve sunk to that?”

“I’ve sunk to nothing. We met. That’s it.”

“Emma?” She twirled a strand of stringy hair around her finger. It ratted up in a ball as she peered at me from the next cushion.

“What?”

“That’s not it.”

“Fine. I’m going back there on Thursday,” I muttered.

“Alone? You don't know anything about him. Typical Emma. You are so freaking clueless. This guy could be dangerous. He lives out there all by himself in some compound. Who does that? Killers. That’s who.”

Blaire would have a breakdown if she actually saw where Wyatt lived and that unfriendly glare coming from his green eyes. But she didn’t see him the way I did today. I don’t know what piece got stuck with me more on the drive home: those poor dogs in the cages or the guy locked in the mental one.

I wish I could say everything to Blaire, but I just couldn’t explain what happened today. She wouldn’t understand why I had to go back there. Normal social things were difficult for her. She wasn’t like me when it came to other people. Complicated issues that involved compassion and emotion were hard for her to comprehend.

“It’s not like I’m dating him. I’m just getting to know someone. And I think it makes Wyatt interesting.”

“He’s
interesting
? That’s what girls say right before they get the shit knocked out of them and stuffed in a fucking trunk.”

“
Blaire!
”

“What?” Blaire leaned back against the cushions, tucking her knees against her chest.

“Wyatt’s not gonna hurt anyone.” I leaned over, slipping my arms around my sister’s little body. She hated it when I went for an unsolicited hug. She bristled up like I was squeezing a cactus, but I did it anyway, as a distraction to her current fit. “I watched him with Charlie. He was so meticulous and kind.”

“How old is he, anyway?”

“I don’t know. He’s around our age, I guess. And he’s got dimples, Blaire. They just came out of nowhere.”
And then they were gone.

“Emma. You really are crazy.” She pushed me away and went back into interrogation mode. “You can’t base him being safe on dimples. You are a terrible judge of character. You’d let strangers stay on our couch if I didn’t say no.”

“Not that again. You know Couchsurfing is a legitimate website and we could make a lot of money during the university football games.”

“The answer is still no. And I think the answer to this one should be no too. I can’t believe you’re attracted to some weirdo in the woods. You have lost your damn mind.”

“But you don’t understand. You didn’t see him. The way he looked. There’s something . . . ”
Going on with him. I think he may need help
. “There’s just something about Wyatt. I want to see him again. Spend some time with him. I think he could use a friend.”

“Friend? Hmm.”

“And the dogs. It was terrible, Blaire. They looked like those awful commercials.”

“I’m sure it was very sad. The dogs and
the guy
. But this has nothing to do with you, Emma. Not that any of them ever do, but let this one go.”

“I need to do this. I can’t just ignore what I saw today.”

“Fine. But don’t call me when this
Wyatt
guy
has you tied up in his trunk. I’m not coming to get your stupid ass.”

I smiled at my sister’s joke. She didn’t get out much. Not that I had attended a large amount of wild, raging college parties. But Blaire was a social recluse because she chose to be that way, and I think her personality scared people.

She didn’t even drive. It’s not that she physically couldn’t get behind the wheel. Blaire just chose not to learn. According to my sister, she didn’t want to be responsible for a thousand-pound vehicle, hurling down the road like a shotgun bullet. She had a whole list of death facts to go along with her reasoning. I’m surprised she even rode in the car with me.

But that was my sister. Even with all her quirks, I loved her more than any person in the whole world. How could I not? Blaire was literally the other half of me.