A Dark Lure (A Dark Lure, #1)

by Loreth Anne White

All sorts. Mothers, fathers, aunts, brothers, cousins, kids, searching for their castaway blood.

This place, this ranch was where she had finally found a sense of peace. Of home.

The victim role had near killed her. She was a different person now.

“How’s he doing?” “Full of piss and vinegar, if that’s what you mean.”

“Why do you do this, Olivia?” She turned. “Do what?” “Push a dying old man around. Humor him. What do you want from me?” A bolt of hurt cracked through her. “Don’t, Myron,” she said quietly. “Do not think you can push me away too, now. I’m not that easy.” He glowered at her, his hands fisting on the armrests of his chair. “You think I pushed my kids away? You think I alienated my own son—is that what you think?” “Did you?” He spun his chair around and wheeled himself through the door into his room. “Go to hell, Liv.” He slammed the door behind him. “Been there,” she yelled back at him. “Done that!”

“Ah . . . yeah. Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are. But—” Anger lashed into the woman’s voice. “Your own father is dying. I thought you might like to know. I thought you might like a chance to say good-bye. But if you don’t the hell care, if you think sitting in some Cuban bar—” “Florida. I’m in Florida.” “Whatever. Wherever you’re wallowing in your own self-pity, drinking yourself into a stupor every night is not going to bring your family back to you. You’re no survivor, you know that? You know dick about surviving. All you know is your own narcissistic pursuit.”

“At least you will sober up. Don’t know how many more nights like this you could tolerate before you kill yourself. Who was it? On the phone?” “Some woman called Olivia.” Gavin regarded him steadily. “Some woman called Olivia probably just saved your sorry ass, you know that? Come, let’s go.”

Survival is a journey. It is the quest that underlies all Story. No matter the geography, or culture, or era, in one form or another, the story of survival is the same story we listen to, riveted, around the flames of the hunter’s fire. Or hear from the mouth of the astronaut returned from a burning spaceship, or from the woman who trumped cancer. We listen in the hopes of learning what magic they used to conquer a great beast, to deliver a decisive victory, to make it alone down the peaks of Everest alive . . .

it was not just his looks but his mind. She was turned on by the masculine beauty of his prose, the clean, muscular sentences that bespoke a latent empathy in the author. He was an acute observer of the world and human nature in it. The idea of a man like Cole McDonough was both alluring and threatening.

Ace had been the U-turn in her life. He’d forced her to act outside of herself, given her a simple purpose.

The vet figured the dog was about four years old but said it was hard to tell given his malnutrition. He’d been chained probably most of his life, a rope still partially embedded in flesh around his neck. That had slayed her. She knew what that felt like. And from that moment she’d known she could never let this dog down. Ace had saved her. Ace gave her unconditional love. And she gave it back in buckets. Loving had started to mend the dead things inside her.

A coal had been ignited, and it burned down deep.

But Cole had cracked something open in her. Emotion. Need. Desire for human contact. And it was killing her because it hurt. It hurt like all hell. And she couldn’t have it.

When she first came here, I saw in Olivia a love for this wilderness, the fishing, the rivers, mountains, all echoes of Grace’s passion for this place. Olivia blossomed here, Cole,” he said, uncharacteristically gently, talking to the fire. “Like a desiccated flower on the vine she was when she arrived. This place healed her. Those scars on her wrists that were so red and angry, they began to fade.”

“She began to laugh. Her and that dog . . . they wormed their way right into this place. Into my goddamn heart. She became my friend. My only friend. And I . . .” He faltered. “Last night I thought that if I could do right by her, I would also do right by Grace.”

An iridescent bug landed on her knee. It had a thin, stick-straight body marked by bands of black and blue—a deep, luminescent blue that didn’t seem natural. Its wings were a translucent gossamer, its eyes big round balls at the tip of its head. Its little body pulsated, and its wings quivered. “Wow, look at that,” her father said. “A damselfly this late in the season—that’s unusual.” Some exchanges are as subtle as the touch of an iridescent damselfly alighting on the back of your hand. Some are seismic, rocking your world and fissuring into your very foundations and setting you on a new path . . .

“A damselfly nymph can live deep underwater for two years,” Olivia said. “A whole lifetime for a nymph. Then when it’s ready, it will swim to a plant and crawl up the vegetation into the air. Its skin then breaks, and it unfolds delicate little wings. That’s a vulnerable moment for the damsel. It must pump body fluids into its abdomen and wings, which causes both to lengthen into the form you saw on your knee. And once the wings are dry it takes flight and starts a whole second life cycle outside the water. It’s like getting a second chance where everything is new again.” She smiled. “Or that’s what I like to think—that there can be stages in life where you become a whole different creature. Where there are new possibilities.”

“When I was a little girl, when I got really down about something and felt like there was no hope, my mother would take me aside and say, ‘Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.’”

It was like a ballet. So beautiful, the way the wet line arced and droplets sprayed like little diamonds in the dusk.

“Grief isn’t linear,

And in that instant she was certain that from up there, everything must look like it had a plan. A reason. A pattern. She just couldn’t see it from down here.

Olivia’s dearest dream, her deepest hope, was to be whole again.

“There’s no shame, Liv,” he whispered, taking the mug from her and setting it on the small table next to her. “No reason to hide yourself from me. You’re the strongest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting, and I mean it in more ways than one.”

“It’s not me,” she said softly. “Sarah Baker is not me.” “I know.” “I left her behind.” “Most of her,” he said, quietly. “But you brought the strong parts with you. You brought the survivor in Sarah here to Broken Bar. And you’ve taught me something—you were right. I know dick about surviving.” He smiled.

Slowly she breathed in deep. It was almost overwhelming to just be held like this. Loved. No pressures. Accepted. Not reviled for the grotesque mutilations on her body. You are enough . . .

It started, as all dialogues do, when a path crosses that of another. Whether in silence, or greeting, a glance, a touch, you are changed, irrevocably, by an interaction. Some exchanges are as subtle as the touch of an iridescent damselfly alighting on the back of your hand. Some are seismic, rocking your world, fissuring into your very foundations and setting you on a new path.

Melody was the one who told Olive that.... My heart

He was crusty. But she decided she liked him. He said things like they were. Tori placed a high value on this.

“I think the dead see everything. And from up there in the stars, everything makes sense. It has a design.”

If she’d learned anything, it was how much pain a human could bear without letting it kill you.

She would not let Tori down this time. Never. One more time, she would fight for her child. And by God or the devil, she would win this time. She would kill this fucker.