Page 35 of Shadow's Surrender
“Okay.” The dancer’s voice was flat.
Shadow patted her on the shoulder then strode over to the back door and went outside, smiling wryly at the colored lights the women had strung around the back fence. He leaned against the brick wall, lit a joint, then inhaled deeply. He exhaled smoke into the air and watched the wisps curl and dissipate. A light, warm breeze blew in from the east, carrying the perfume of roses, and he let it wash over him. The scent took him back in time to a vivid evocation of summers past. Roses had always been his mother’s favorite flower, and even though the trailer park they’d lived in was rundown, dirty, and smelly, his mother had planted two rose bushes at each side of the steps leading up to their front door. How she’d loved them and taken pride in those bushes.
“‘Beacons of hope,’Ma used to say,” Shadow whispered.
A soft rustling of the leaves as crickets chirped brought a smile to his face. As a kid he used to catch crickets and fireflies, but his mother always made him let them go so they could live like“God intended them to.”His mother’s voice was as clear as day in his mind.
The screen door squeaked behind him and he glanced over and saw Bones coming toward him.
“You got an extra one?” his buddy asked, pointing to the joint between Shadow’s teeth.
He handed one to Bones, and the two stood in silence, smoking and looking at the swaying branches of the oak trees in the yard.
“Honeysuckle’s singing your praises,” Bones said.
Shadow grunted as he tried to push down the jealousy he’d felt when he recognized the douchebag. The feeling had surprised the hell out of him because he’d never experienced that before when it came to a chick.What the hell is she doing to me?He didn’t know the answer, but all he knew was that he wished Scarlett were here with him now, watching the strings of colored lights swing slowly back and forth in the soft breeze.
Brows knitted into a frown as he realized that she had burrowed in his brain nice and tight. No woman had ever affected him this way before, and it angered and intrigued him at the same time.
Yeah … there was no doubt about it: she was getting to him.
He took another long drag then dropped the roach on the ground; he stubbed it out under his boot heel and went back inside.
