by Mia Caldwell
Had Kent seen this under her baggy clothes?
She smiled tentatively into the mirror. Maybe she actually would wear this dress for him on Saturday. She’d need to get some decent heels. She’d also have to ask Sylvie what to do about panties since all Phae owned were the regular kind and the lines of the pair she was wearing clearly showed under the tight dress.
She wondered if that was why some women wore that torturous thong underwear. She’d bought a pair once in Chicago but had been so aghast at how she’d looked that—
“What am I doing?” she asked her reflection.
She scowled into the mirror, wondering if she’d gone temporarily insane. She’d been acting like those women in those cereal commercials she sometimes saw on television while she was exercising.
How many times had she laughed at those women preening before their mirrors? And now, here she was doing it herself.
She hopped off the bench and began to jerkily undress.
She’d looked like a bimbo, she said to herself as she rolled the dress up over her chest. And she’d only been surprised to see herself in something so outrageously provocative and that was why she’d acted so vain.
Phae threw the dress haphazardly over a hanger and shoved it into the back of the closet. She’d keep the dress, but only because Kent gave it to her.
She noticed the clock on her bedside table as she picked up her nightgown from the bed. It was past three-thirty in the morning. She quickly redressed, scooped up the stepper bench, and nearly ran to the spare bedroom.
Kent was fast becoming a nuisance in her well-ordered life, albeit a handsome, sexy nuisance. She wound her way through the various pieces of exercise equipment and yanked open the closet door.
She pulled out the pile of clothing and gear she’d hidden earlier. Tossing the mess onto the nearby weight bench, she sat and began to sort through the pile.
As she swiftly sorted and cleaned, she thought about Kent. He’d created what she’d come to think of as a sexual fog which completely enveloped her senses whenever he was nearby. It even happened once over the phone.
She couldn’t stop remembering what they’d done in that grove of trees at the fair. Her skin warmed at how she’d blatantly propositioned him, and not just once.
As the days passed, she’d become more and more embarrassed. It wasn’t like her to proposition men, or to be embarrassed for that matter.
By the time Kent had called this past Wednesday, she’d convinced herself that she’d never be able to face him again, and that he must think of her as a desperate, sexually starved pity-case. But then his deep, sultry voice had flowed through the speakers and she was lost in the Kent fog again.
She knew she needed to make a decision about her relationship with him, and soon. She was certain that their dinner on Saturday would lead to other, more sensual pleasures. Was that what she wanted?
Her body shrieked yes. She’d never experienced such overwhelming passion in her twenty-eight years. But her heart and mind knew that she and Kent were moving too quickly.
She needed to learn more about him. And he needed to learn more about her. And more than anything else, she needed to detach herself from the boggling confusion of intense physical desire.
She stacked the gear neatly on the top shelf of the closet then retired to her bedroom. As she switched off her bedside lamp and settled under the covers, she told herself to quit making herself crazy about Kent.
If he attempted to seduce her Saturday night, she knew she would never be able to find the strength to stop him. And if he didn’t, well, damn, that’d be the worst outcome. Regardless, she had to leave the problem up to fate.
In the morning, she had a long day in front of her and working in the beauty shop was merely the beginning. She decided that she’d take a long nap after work since she needed to wait until late to make her rounds.
Then there was the special project she had planned for the night. It was probably one of the most complicated and important things she’d ever tried to do. She fervently hoped she’d be successful.
As she fell asleep, her last thought was of Kent, and wondering why he hadn’t kissed her before he left.
KENT PUSHED THE LIGHT BUTTON on his watch. It was almost eleven thirty. He’d been crouched behind the reeking dumpster for over an hour and a half, his only company the tree frogs and cicadas singing wildly in the darkness.
Something needed to happen soon before his nasal passages became permanently damaged by the noxious fumes he was breathing, made all the worse by the hot, muggy night.
He tensed when he saw the lights go out in Phae’s apartment. Finally.
The minutes passed slowly as he waited. He began to relax, thinking she’d simply gone to bed. She hadn’t lied to him. She wasn’t Captain Nice Guy. She was still his perfect woman.
Then her door opened.
There she was, nearly unrecognizable under a coating of thick black face paint, slinking out the door. Though some wispy clouds occasionally obscured the moonlight, he could clearly tell that the woman walking stealthily along the fence line was Phae.
She was camouflaged in solid black from head to toe. She even wore the stocking cap he’d noted the previous night. It must be ungodly uncomfortable to wear such a thing in summer.
Damn. There was no getting around it now.
Phae Jones was Captain Nice Guy.
He could hardly believe it, and felt numb.
As she crossed the alley and disappeared between two buildings, the corner streetlight illuminated her sufficiently for Kent to see that she wasn’t wearing a stocking cap after all. She had braided her thick hair and wrapped it around the top of her head. He wondered if the strange strap on her head held the hairdo in place.
He crept from behind the dumpster and followed her into the shadows.
Her lithe body moved swiftly and silently through the darkness. Although Kent moved as rapidly and as quietly as he could, he found it difficult to keep her within sight. He’d barely traveled two blocks when he lost her.
He hid behind a telephone pole and scanned the long row of houses. She’d disappeared. He ran behind the nearest house, hoping to gain a long view down the back yards.
He’d only taken two steps into the yard when he heard a low, menacing growl from a dark corner. Great. A dog. Slowly, Kent retreated. When the dog burst into frenzied, deafening barks, Kent turned and ran.
He went full-out for a good block before he glanced over his shoulder and saw that the dog wasn’t pursuing him. Ducking behind an overgrown forsythia bush, he attempted to calm his racing heartbeat.
The dog must have been penned or tied, he realized. He hadn’t been able to see it in the dark, but if its bark bore any relation to its size, then it must have been a monster.
When his heartbeat returned to normal and the dog quit barking, Kent resumed his search for Phae. After wandering down the next street, trying to stay cloaked in shadows, he realized that the search was pointless. He should return to her house and wait for her to come home.
A second later, less than five houses down from where he stood, he saw Phae cross the street. Bingo. He loped after her.
He was chasing her down a residential street when she stopped by a car parked on the curb in front of a small house. He slipped behind a massive oak tree to watch her.
Phae crouched down to open the car door, reached inside then noiselessly shut the door again. She dashed to the front porch of the small house, opened and closed the mailbox, then slipped back into the shadows at the side of the street.
Kent raced to the porch to see what she’d left. He reached into the mailbox and pulled out a set of car keys. Shaking his head, he lowered the keys back into the box then set out after Phae again.
As they traveled farther and farther from Phae’s apartment, Kent watched her repeat her act with car keys several times. He wondered how all these people would find their keys in the morning.
She must be crazy, he thought, or at leas
t woefully misinformed about the rate of car theft in Zeke’s Bend. If people left their keys in their cars, then there probably wasn’t much to worry about. If there were, people would lock their cars at night on their own. They didn’t need a night-time do-gooder to do it for them.
Kent thought he’d lost her again when she disappeared along the fence between two houses. He hastened after her, but when he cleared the side of the house, he found himself in an enclosed back yard, and Phae was nowhere in sight. Carefully, he searched the yard. Nothing.
He ran back to the street and barely stopped in time to prevent her from seeing him. She was creeping out the front door of a house on the other side of the fence. How had she gotten over there? And what was she doing inside?
When Phae moved on down the street, Kent checked the door of the house she’d exited. It was locked. He began to wish he’d brought along a notepad so that he could write down all the questions he wanted to ask her.
He couldn’t help but be amused a short while later when Phae carefully rolled away a kid’s bicycle from behind a car. There was no question about her motives in that one.
He became confused again, however, when he watched her remove something from her belt and attach it to the bike. After Phae left the scene, he investigated.
Taped to the handlebars was a note with a sucker glued to it. He could barely read the typed words in the moonlight:
Please remember to put your bike away at night. Your parents would be very sad if they accidentally ran over it in their car. Love, your Secret Friend.
Kent wasn’t surprised when, a few minutes later, he investigated a different bike Phae had fiddled with and found another note. This bike hadn’t been carelessly left behind a car. The note read:
Good job! You put your bike away. You should be very proud of yourself. Love, your Secret Friend.
Instead of a sucker, this note had a chocolate bar glued to it. Kent frowned in annoyance. How did she know this kid didn’t have allergies or diabetes?
He continued to follow Phae on what he could only term “her rounds.” Unused to the stifling humidity, he found it difficult to maintain Phae’s pace. He lost sight of her several times, but she always appeared again, sometimes half a block or more away from where he’d last seen her.
She traversed a route that wound up and down and around what must have been half the streets of Zeke’s Bend. Her good deeds consisted mostly of checking locks on doors and windows.
At one house, he watched in irritation as she lugged three big trash cans to the curb. He could only assume that she’d done this so the homeowner wouldn’t miss pickup. Important work indeed, Kent thought.
Steadily, though circuitously, they made their way toward the outskirts of the town. Phae had no particular destination that Kent could discern, so he was surprised when she picked up speed, stopping at fewer and fewer houses until at last, Kent had to jog to keep up with her.
In no time, his shirt was soaked with sweat. He felt like he was racing through a rain forest as he tried to inhale the heavy, moisture-laden air.
They soon left Zeke’s Bend behind. Kent could barely see Phae in the moonlight as she loped silently through the undergrowth alongside the deserted country road. She leapt and bounded and covered ground at a steady pace.
Kent opted to run on the road itself since it was easier, and he couldn’t travel as quickly and quietly through the underbrush as Phae. Twice, he had to dive into the ditch to avoid being seen by passing cars.
Kent cursed when Phae veered into the dense woods at the side of the road. He had no idea how he could find her in the nearly complete darkness under the trees, but he trudged behind her nonetheless. At this point, what option did he have?
Chapter 12
DRY LEAVES AND TWIGS CRACKLED loudly under Kent’s heavy feet, forcing him to attempt a tiptoe through the forest. He clearly heard Phae ahead of him, loud enough to be heard over the shrill calls of bugs and frogs, making it easy for him to follow. She must have let down her guard since this area appeared to be devoid of human life.
Fanning his heavy, wet shirt, Kent came to the edge of the woods, stopping behind a tree to scout ahead for Phae.
The tree line broke on the top of a low hill overlooking a paved road which fronted a small lighted building. Kent heard the faint strains of country music.
A large sign stood in the parking lot. He squinted to read it: Trapper’s Tavern. He knew where he was now. He’d been there a few times with James in the past. If he remembered correctly, it was several miles outside of town. Running in the dark had made it seem much farther.
He kept looking for Phae as he picked off the debris he’d accumulated during his forest jaunt. He snarled as he pulled small twigs and leaves from his hair and clothing. And stick-tights. Oh, how he hated stick-tights.
A small piece of paper clung tenaciously to his knee. Lifting a corner of the paper, he was disgusted by what he saw as he peeled it away from his jeans. Gum. He must have picked it up during one of his ignominious dives into the ditch.
He flicked the scrap of paper away and steadfastly ignored the gooey mess that remained on his knee. Phae was going to have a lot to make up for, he thought darkly. And gum was just the beginning.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone moving in the parking lot. He stared closely at the vehicles parked in front of the building. The interior light came on in an old pickup truck. Phae leaned inside the vehicle and the hood popped up.
Kent could only watch and wonder as she raised the hood and bent over the engine.
He muttered softly, “Phae Jones, if I’ve run all this way to watch you give somebody a free oil change, so help me …”
She reached inside the engine, then after a few seconds, stood up straight and lowered the hood quietly. Kent inhaled sharply when the tavern door swung open.
The soft light from inside the bar silhouetted the outline of a stocky man big enough to nearly fill the doorway. He lurched drunkenly into the parking lot.
Where had Phae gone? He couldn’t see her now.
Another, smaller man exited the building. He trotted after the man who was making a bumbling attempt to enter one of the parked cars.
Kent heard their voices but couldn’t make out the individual words. The smaller man pulled the drunken man to a different car, then shoved him into the passenger seat.
Kent didn’t relax until the smaller man got into the car and drove away, tail lights fading into the distance. He watched Phae reappear magically from around the side of the tavern and run spryly across the parking lot. Once on the other side of the road, she stopped on the side of the ditch nearest Kent and hunkered down into the undergrowth.
He couldn’t guess what she was waiting for, but he took advantage of the time by sitting down and resting. He checked his watch. It was shortly before two a.m. The bar would be closing soon.
Minutes later, the strains of music filtering out of the tavern abruptly ceased. Two more men left the building then drove off in a beat-up truck. Three vehicles remained in the parking lot, including the one Phae had tampered with.
Her dark figure remained immobile in the bushes as two more men left the now dark and noiseless tavern. One of the men locked the front door while the other man walked in less than a straight line to the old truck.
He’d reached for the door handle when the other man called something to him that Kent couldn’t understand.
Part of the obviously inebriated man’s shouted reply was clear. “I’m not in any hurry to get home to …” then it faded away.
The man’s voice sounded familiar.
Kent watched in disgust as the sober man got into his jeep and drove away. The drunken man collapsed into the driver’s seat of the truck, not bothering to close the door behind him.
When the man turned his head to the side, Kent recognized him in the glow of the cab light. Phae’s Uncle Leon.
This was an interesting turn of events.
A faint clicking sound
coming from the truck was soon overwhelmed by Leon bursting out into a loud string of curse words. He stumbled out of the cab and pulled up the hood.
Kent smiled. Phae had disabled her uncle’s truck. Leon wouldn’t be driving anywhere tonight. She’d finally done a good deed that made sense.
Cursing wildly, Leon fumbled with the engine, the beam from his flashlight bobbing haphazardly in the darkness. With a cry of disgust, he slammed down the hood then stomped his way back into the cab of the truck.
Kent watched him pick up what looked like a bottle and began to drink from it. More beer, perhaps? More beer was the last thing he needed.
Leon quickly finished the drink and flung the bottle into the bed of the truck, then attempted once more to start his truck.
All the while, Phae couched unmoving in the bushes below Kent.
Before long, Leon’s swearing began to die down. Less than ten minutes had elapsed when he slowly slumped over the steering wheel and slid to his side across the seat.
“Finally,” Kent whispered. Leon had passed out. Maybe now Kent could go home.
His wish did not come true. He watched in surprise as Phae eased herself out of the undergrowth and padded across the paved road toward the tavern’s parking lot.
What did she think she was doing? Leon could wake at any moment and Kent didn’t want to think about what might happen if Leon saw a mysterious midnight ninja poking around his pick-up truck.
Kent exploded out of the forest and rushed down the slope. He was battling his way through the roadside bushes when he noticed Phae standing less than five feet in front of him.
She whispered angrily. “Be quiet! If you wake him up and ruin my plans I’ll never forgive you. Now sit down and be quiet until I come back.”
Kent watched in stunned (and outraged) silence as Phae crossed to the parking lot and her uncle’s truck. Something wasn’t right, he thought as she popped up the hood. She hadn’t acted surprised to see him.