Read Online The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel) by Loreth Anne White - Free Book Online

shorter. “Can I borrow that four-wheeler?”
    He frowns. I can see him mentally calculating risk, the insurance ramifications of a nonemployee having an accident on a company vehicle. His gaze dips quickly over my body, taking in my short skirt, tights, knee-high boots. A small appreciative smile curves at the corners of his mouth. “In that gear?”
    “Levi, you know I can handle an ATV. I need to get down.”
    He hesitates, then says, “I’ll have one of my guys drive you. Come.” He takes my arm and escorts me over to a metal-sided outbuilding. Inside he finds a spare helmet, hands it to me as he asks a young mountain employee named Garth to chauffeur me down.
    “We don’t have spare goggles,” he says as I yank the helmet down over my thick hair.
    “It’s fine.” I mount the backseat, skirt riding high up my thighs.
    “You going to be okay in that gear, Rach? I can look for some coveralls or something?”
    “I’m fine. Thanks, Levi. I owe you.” I tap the driver on his shoulder and he fires the engine. We bomb down the dirt switchback toward the village, glacial silt billowing in a gray cloud behind us. I squint into the dust, the wind forcing tears down my cheeks. And suddenly I miss Trey. I feel the hole in my heart. I miss being part of a team, having someone to call, to lean on. Even after six months of living with Quinn, I still have no idea how to handle her. It was her surly presence, the constant reminder of Jeb, that strained our relationship to the brink until Trey suggested we take a break. A break that became permanent.
    Bastard, you didn’t have the balls to stick it out and help me through thi s . . .
    But I know, deep down, that I’d also made it impossible for Trey to stay. Quinn changed everything. Clearly she wasn’t done yet.

    Yellow buses pulled into the school parking lot, exhaust fumes puffing white clouds into the air as they waited for their loads. Temperatures were dropping fast, the sun already dipping behind the peaks. Jeb parked his bike behind a row of mountain ash red with berries. From here he could watch the school entrance without being seen. He cut the engine but kept his helmet on.
    He should leave, head out to the Wolf River Valley, check out his old home and set up before nightfall, but he was incapable, knowing Quinn was still in that building, possibly in trouble. She’d drawn blood. There would be consequences, possibly even police.
    Seeing his child snap like that had left a quivering, uneasy feeling inside him. Was her violent temper shaped by blood or by circumstance? How differently might he himself have turned out under different circumstances? With these thoughts came something new—a paternal guilt, the weight of responsibility. He knew what it was to be an outsider in this very school. He felt he was to blame for Quinn’s circumstance now. And it sharpened his determination to prove his innocence, because he could not allow his daughter to think for one moment she was the product of violence, of rape, the child of a murderer. To be ostracized and bullied for it. He knew all too well that once a kid began to assume a label, it could become impossible to shake.
    The buzzer sounded and the double doors bashed open, kids spilling out with screeches and laughter and yells and backpacks and hair flying in the wind. Cars and parents came, went. The school buses filled and left.
    An old beater of a blue Ford truck drew into the parking lot, a young woman with striking red hair behind the wheel, someone Jeb didn’t recognize. She waited in her truck, engine running. The grounds grew quiet, cars left. No sign of Quinn. The woman finally cut her engine, got out of her truck, and made for the entrance. Her flame-red hair hung almost to her waist. She wore jeans, a down vest, hiking boots. She entered the school.
    Another twenty minutes passed before the redhead exited. She stood for a moment outside, looking a little lost. Then she moved into a protected corner