But the coffee shop alone—
She tightened her grip on the cup, squeezing it so hard that splashes of warm coffee stung her skin. There was only one person who would arrange to buy her a fancy cup of coffee from a shop more than an hour away and figure a way to keep it hot before he personally dropped it off in front of her new apartment. It was as ruthless a gesture as it was supposedly kind; he left this particular cup as a telling reminder of their first date while also proving that, no matter how far she ran, he always found her.
Even worse?
Since the coffee was still warm enough to burn her, that meant he had only just left it for her to find.
3
Grace wrapped her arms around her waist, hugging herself, anxiously tapping her fingers against her hip as she waited for someone to answer her knock. The time for discretion—the time for hiding—was over and done with.
Please, please, please.
“Hang on. I’m coming.”
A whisper of a sigh left her when she heard Tessa through the door. She didn’t know what she would’ve done if she faced Lucas alone at that moment. Her nerves were already rattled enough, and that was before remembering the way their eyes locked last night.
Lucas had known something was up and chose not to push it. She didn’t think she’d be so lucky this time.
Even so, nothing could have stopped her from knocking on their door. Because she needed to make sure they were protected, and she needed to make sure that they hadn’t seen something—or someone—that they would need to be protected from.
She didn’t want to live in fear, but there was no denying that Tommy’s actions were escalating. He’d barely gone sixteen hours between finding a way into the apartment complex yesterday afternoon to leave his gifts and then showing off with the coffee out front. She’d purposely turned her phone off last night, just in case. She could only guess what she would discover when she turned it on again.
Tommy was toying with her now, making a point to say he could get at her whenever he wanted to. It was her turn to make her own statement.
But first—
The door drew inward, revealing a Tessa with sleep-tousled dirty blonde hair and a robe pulled tight over her delicate figure.
“Oh, jeez, Tessa. I’m so sorry. I… I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. It’s fine.” Tessa paused, as if just noticing that something was wrong. “Hey, what’s up? Everything alright?”
No. “I just got a silly question for you. You said I didn’t wake you up, right? So, uh, does that mean you’ve been up for a bit?”
Tessa shook her head. “My husband is on-call at the hospital. They didn’t call him in yet, so we slept in later than we usually do. Actually, I was just climbing out of bed to start a pot of coffee when I heard the knock.”
Grace’s stomach tightened at the mention of coffee. “So you didn’t see—”
“See what?” asked Lucas as he appeared behind his wife. A tiny smirk tugged on his lips. “More rats?”
Well, at least Grace knew why they were in bed so late. From the look of him, Lucas must have been in bed when Tessa went for the coffee. A quick glance over Tessa’s head showed that, for decency’s sake, he had stopped long enough to throw on a pair of faded jeans before joining them at the door. His feet were bare, his unbuttoned jeans hanging low on his hips. Lucas didn’t bother with a shirt, leaving his sculpted chest on magnificent display as he rested a hand on Tessa’s shoulder.
Partly because of his nakedness—but mostly because of his comment—Grace purposely avoided looking at Lucas; she chose to meet the concern in Tessa’s gold-colored eyes instead.
How to explain, though? How to get them to help her without putting them at risk like she had with Monica and Buttons?
“Not a rat this time. He’s a man,” she said at last. “About your height, Lucas. Blonde hair slicked back. Dark blue eyes. He’d be wearing a suit, I think.”
The married couple turned to face each other, locking eyes for a second before Tessa said softly, “We haven’t seen him.”
“Okay. He might have waited in the car.” Sometimes Tommy preferred the personal touch, but usually he sent Boone to do his dirty work. “Another guy. Big. He used to be in some sort of the military. Army, or maybe Marines, I’m not sure. He doesn’t talk much. He’s got dark hair, cut super short, and a look like he’d pull a gun on you if you gave him any reason.”
Tessa turned into Lucas again, resting her hand against his bare chest as if she needed to make sure he was still standing there. “Grace, you’re worrying me. Who are these people? They don’t sound friendly. Are they your guests?”
“No,” Grace said firmly. “But I have… I have proof they’ve been inside the building all the same. And they’re not friendly. They’re dangerous.” She gulped. “Very dangerous.”
“What proof?” Lucas demanded.
She couldn’t bring herself to make Tessa look any more horrified than she already had. Leaving out the flowers in her apartment and the bloody cow heart, she gestured down at the cup of coffee she placed back on the floor.
“He left that for me.”
“Coffee?”
“It’s not just the cup,” she told Lucas. “It’s the flavor, and the coffee shop he got it from. From anyone else, the gesture would be sweet. But not him.”
Without going into details, it was hard to make the De Angelises understand. She wasn’t even sure she should try.
“I don’t know if I’m making sense. Sorry. It’s… it’s not what he left behind. It’s that he was able to.” Grace picked her words carefully. “He’s not supposed to know where I am, but he found me.” Her shoulders slumped. “He always does.”
“This sounds serious, Grace. At the very least, if he got in without you giving him the code, he’s breaking and entering.” Tessa glanced around the floor, as if expecting to find someone who didn’t belong. “Maybe we—do you think we should call the police?”
The police couldn’t help. “I’ve tried, but what’s a restraining order really but a fancy piece of paperwork?” Her laugh was hollow, the pit in her stomach growing heavier. “Know what? Forget I said anything. Tessa, Lucas, I shouldn’t have bothered you with this. I only wanted to know if you saw anything. You didn’t so maybe we should leave it that way.”
She turned away from the door, pausing as Tessa called after her.
“Grace, wait. Where are you going?”
Grace faced them again, a sorry halfway to her lips. What else could she say?
“You knocked on our door for help,” said Lucas. “Let us try. Okay. No police. That suits me just fine. But I’d like to learn more about these men. Having them prowl around the complex whenever they please isn’t good for any of us.”
Lucas had a point, damn it. She’d let her fear take over and do the one thing she swore she wouldn’t do after she changed homes again: she involved someone else. Tommy hated when she did that. He was convinced that whatever was between them needed to stay between them.
And Boone, of course.
But no one else.
She bit down on her bottom lip. She’d already said too much. With the laser focus of Lucas’s icy stare and the sympathy written on Tessa’s pretty face, she knew she’d involved them far more than she should have.
What was a little more information?
“They ride around in a fancy car. A Jaguar. Black. It might be out in the lot somewhere if they’re still here. I have to know… I should check. If they’re still here, I’ll tell you.”
Lucas shared another glance with his wife. She took his hand and nodded. “You go.”
“What?” yelped Grace. That’s not what she wanted. “No—”
“Stay here,” Lucas said in a clipped voice that brooked no argument. “Both of you.”
He strode back into his apartment, returning a few minutes later fully dressed. He pulled on a t-shirt and grabbed a black leather coat, an expensive pair of running shoes o
n his feet. Instead of waiting for the elevator, Lucas took the stairs, eating them up two at a time as he hurried out of sight.
Torn between feeling relieved and terribly guilty that she was hiding out in the apartment complex while Lucas went searching for Tommy, Grace started to make her apologies again—and her excuses—to his wife when she noticed the strange way Tessa was looking at her.
“Tessa?”
“It wasn’t about a rat yesterday, either, was it?”
Since the cat—or the psycho ex, as it were—was out of the bag already, she didn’t see much use in continuing with her ridiculous lie. “No, it wasn’t.”
“You moved onto our floor about two months ago, right?” When Grace reluctantly nodded, she asked, “Is this guy the reason you moved here?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
Grace was so thrown by the change in subject, she didn't understand what the other woman meant. “What?”
“How many times have you moved?”
“Twice so far.” Her heart sank. It was all too easy to think about running off into the night to make a flashy statement that Tommy hadn’t caught her yet. It was harder to have to admit that to Tessa. “When I leave Strawberry Village, it’ll be the third time.”
And she’d have to leave—and soon—especially now that she’d confessed so much of her troubles to Tessa and Lucas. Sure, she might’ve managed to keep Tommy’s name out of it, but that was more for her sake than theirs. As soon as anyone discovered the lengths she went to avoid Thomas Mathers’ attention, they thought she was being stupid. She didn’t want her newest neighbors to question her, either.
Especially when, as the days passed with no sign of him stopping, Grace couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t just give in.
Tessa’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve got no choice. I thought Dayton would be safe enough. He’s too smart.” Too determined. “All it takes is one of his tools or… or his gadgets and I can’t hide from him.”
“Do you want to?”
There was something in the way that Tessa said that. As if she knew something about what Grace had just admitted to her.
“Do I want to hide from him? God, yes.” Glancing behind her, she spied the coffee cup again. To open her door and not have to worry about finding something—or someone—waiting for her? “You have no idea how much.”
“Have I ever told you about my husband’s hometown?”
Most of the conversations she’d had with Tessa were of the Hi, How are you?, Lovely weather we’re having sort. Mindless chit-chat when they rode the elevator together. She might even go as far as knock on their door if she needed to borrow sugar or something and didn’t want to risk a trip to the store. That was all.
And now?
Now Tommy’s appearance had rattled her enough to give her verbal diarrhea, confessing things she shouldn’t have dared spill when the whole idea of keeping to herself was to keep everyone else safe.
So… no. Tessa had never told Grace about her husband’s hometown because Grace had worked very hard to keep any relationship they formed as shallow as possible.
“No. I don’t think you have.”
“Okay. So Hamlet? It’s this super small town, maybe five or six hours from here. I think it would be perfect for you. Its natural boundaries made it almost impossible for cables to be put down—or maybe the locals didn’t want it. I’m kinda hazy on that point. But I do know that there’s no TV there, no cell service or reliable internet, and probably no way for a man like that to follow you there.”
The last time Grace was looking for a new place to live, she briefly debated going off the grid. It sounded like a simple solution to her problem except for one thing: she wasn’t a survivor. She was a ballerina. She didn’t know anything about how to live like that.
In a town like this Hamlet, would she have to?
“I don’t know, Tessa—”
“Do you have a car in good condition? One that could get you that far?”
Though she wasn’t sure the reason behind the question, Grace nodded.
“Good. You’ll need one. There’s no public transportation in Hamlet, no taxis, no Uber. If you want to get in or out, you’ll need a car you can trust.”
Grace had to admit, this Hamlet was sounding exactly like the type of place she would need. If she had to move again—and she did, if she wanted to stay one step ahead of him—then why not find a home somewhere Tommy would never be able to search?
“This Hamlet… it’s that small of a town?”
“And that secluded. Those boundaries I mentioned? It’s got a mountain on one side, a… a gulch on the other.”
“Gulch?”
“Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it.” Tessa paused for a moment, then said, “On second thought, try not to get close enough to see it.”
“See what?”
Grace jumped when she heard Lucas’s voice a few seconds before he appeared on the landing. He had his hands in his pockets, his olive skin tinged with red from his exertion. His dark hair was windswept; he must have jogged the length of the parking lot and back.
Tessa met her husband near the steps, rising up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to the edge of his stubble-covered jaw. “Find anything?”
“I did a quick sweep, searching for anyone who didn’t belong here. No Jaguar, no men in suits. I think they’re already gone.”
Phew. One good thing, at least.
“That’s good to know. Lucas, thank you. This might be the only chance I have to get a headstart.” It was impulsive, but it was essential. Tommy would never expect her to flee this quickly. The element of surprise would be on her side if she didn’t waste time. She turned to Tessa. “It might be worth a trip to check it out. Do you think you can give me some idea of where it is so I can look it up?”
“Look what up?”
Tessa stared down at her feet. Grace followed her direction and noticed that her nails were painted a soft pink shade.
Lucas sighed. “What were you girls talking about while I was gone?”
Grace kept her mouth shut. If Tessa wanted him to know, she could tell him. Grace wouldn’t be the one to blab in case it got the other woman in trouble.
“Tessa...”
Tessa wrapped one of her dirty blonde waves around her finger. “Grace was just saying how, if that guy could find her here, maybe it was time she found a new place to stay.”
Lucas’s handsome face darkened. “I think I know where you’re going with this.”
“What?” The defensive tone in Tessa’s voice was obvious to Grace. “I think Hamlet would be perfect for her.”
“Tessa, baby, I don’t know about that.”
“Why not?” If there was a downside to this town, Grace wanted to know up front.
His glance flickered in her direction for a heartbeat before his gaze returned to Tessa, like it bothered him if he looked away from her for too long. “I’m sure my wife told you that it was a quaint town and it is. But locals in Hamlet, they’re not so fond of outsiders.”
“Outsiders?” echoed Grace. “You mean like people who aren’t from there?”
“It’s a very close-knit community,” Lucas explained. “Outsiders are rare. You might think it’s a good place to hide, but that might only be from another outsider. Inside of Hamlet, you’d have to be prepared for everyone there to know who you are. And wonder what you’re doing there.”
Tessa leaned her head back, meeting her husband’s gaze. “Luc, you know what it did for me and I was an outsider.”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts. When you ran downstairs, I started to think about it. I owe Hamlet. Maria, too. It’s a win-win. Grace goes somewhere she can be safe, where this jerk of hers can’t find her, and Maria gets a new guest. Ophelia would be perfect and you know it.” A hint of a devilish grin crossed her innocent lips as she used her pointer finger to nudge him in the side. “Might go a long way in ge
tting her to forgive you, too.”
“Forgive me for what? As far as I’m concerned, she has nothing to be upset about.”
“That’s only because she doesn’t know yet.” As if remembering that Grace was still there, Tessa explained what she meant. “Lucas hasn’t told his sister that we eloped. It’s been almost a year and she still thinks we’re only dating.”
Lucas wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her back up against his chest as he rested his chin along the top of her head. He nuzzled her gently. “Is it a crime to want to keep you all to myself?”
Tessa giggled. “Not at all.”
Grace found it hard to swallow. Watching their sweet display roused a whole mess of emotions in her. Anyone with eyes could see how in love the two of them were. Lucas’s devotion to Tessa was absolute.
In the beginning, she thought she found that with Tommy. But there was a thin line between devotion and obsession. She learned very quickly that Tommy didn’t only want to love her.
He wanted to own her.
Would Lucas act the same way if his beloved wife decided she’d had enough of his affection and wanted to leave him?
She didn’t know, and she hoped to God that Tessa never had to find out.
4
There wasn’t much that Grace had that she couldn’t replace. All of her pictures and keepsakes were stored safely at her parents’ house in Connecticut. Her costumes and mementos from her time in her ballet company were in storage under a phony name. There were clothes, her well-worn and broken-in toe shoes, a couple of books, her laptop. Everything else she could buy again when she needed it.
Her twin set of luggage was stowed in her bedroom closet. It felt like only yesterday since she unpacked it last, hoping she wouldn’t have to look at the black and white floral print for a long, long while.
Ah, well. Maybe… maybe next time.
Zipping open the larger of the two cases, she plopped it on her bed and got to work. After two successful moves, she’d become a pro at fitting all of her essentials into a pair of suitcases.
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