The Darkest Embrace by Megan Hart Page A

concentrated on the road ahead, occasionally glancing at the GPS to confirm they were still on route. Five months of being together almost every day, if not in person, then on the phone or messaging, had taught her a lot about Max. Jessie knew his favorite color, his brand of cologne, that he hated raisins cooked in anything and called them “Satan’s boogers.” She knew the name of his first dog, where he’d grown up, his shoe size and that he loved pecan pie but hated lemon meringue. She knew so many bits and pieces of him that she didn’t doubt she knew the whole...except for the parts about his ex. That was an open, blank space in the lexicon of Max.
    They were both in the early thirties with several relationships under their belts. Jessie, in fact, had been married once already to her college sweetheart, Doug. He’d been vindictive and nasty, fought with her over money and levied accusations at her with such vehemence that Jessie had found it difficult to believe she’d ever once loved this guy enough to think she could spend the rest of her life with him. Yet, to her, Doug still had a name. He was an asshole, but she wouldn’t have called him crazy. She wasn’t afraid to talk about the mistakes she’d made with him, but she didn’t feel like she had to go over them ad infinitum either. She understood Max’s hesitance in moving forward, but not his completely closed-mouth attitude about it. Whatever had gone on with Max and his mysterious ex must have been horrifying to have affected him that way.
    “In point two miles,” Karen intoned, “take exit 4A on the left.”
    “We’re almost there.” Max tapped the steering wheel and gave Jessie another grin. “Just about another forty-five minutes or so once we get off the highway.”
    “Good.” Jessie shifted in her seat. She needed to use the bathroom, stretch her legs, soothe the growing rumble in her stomach. They hadn’t stopped since lunch, both of them eager to make the four-hour trip as fast and easy as possible.
    “It’s so beautiful here,” she said a few minutes later when they’d taken the exit as Karen instructed and then another couple of side roads. Tall evergreens rose on both sides of the road, so thick she couldn’t see more than a few feet beyond the twisting two-lane road. “How’d you find out about this place?”
    Max shrugged. “Online. A buddy of mine told me about this site where you can book out-of-the-ordinary weekend getaways—stay in a castle or a tree house, things like that. I figured a cabin in the woods wasn’t all that exotic, but I wasn’t sure you’d be into something...weirder.”
    “So long as there’s indoor plumbing and hot water, I’m good.” She looked at him when he didn’t answer. “There is indoor plumbing, right? And hot water?”
    He burst into laughter, looking at her. “Yes, there’s—”
    “Look out!” Caught up in looking at him, Jessie hadn’t been paying attention to the road in front of them. A dark flash of something big moving in front of them caught her gaze.
    Max swerved. The Chevy Suburban shuddered as it crossed what would have been the center line on a bigger road. The tires dipped into the rut on the side of the road as Max yanked the wheel in the other direction, keeping the big vehicle from going into the ditch but sending them bouncing so hard that Jessie’s seat belt locked against her shoulder and neck. The suitcases in the back rattled, the clink and clank of bottles in the boxes of food they’d brought along becoming the alarming crunch of broken glass. Jessie was sure the SUV was going to cross the road completely and hit the trees on the other side, but it came to a skewed stop with a squeal of brakes.
    “Are you okay?” Max unbuckled his seat belt to lean across to her. “Jessie?”
    Touched that his first thought was for her but a little too shaken to speak, she nodded. Something big and dark moved at the passenger side window, skittering around the back of