Going Under

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Something tells me there’s not much you don’t have a yen for.”

  “An excellent observation. At this moment my yen is all about this beautiful, long-legged woman who’s going to have breakfast with me.”

  She shook her head, sighed dramatically, but a small smile curved her pink lips. “After a run. Stay there and I’ll be right out.”

  Chapter Twelve

  She locked the door behind her, since Fox couldn’t be trusted not to come in uninvited. He’d surprised her, showing up on the deck. What really got her was that the sound of his knocking had dragged her out of such a lovely dream that she’d drifted downstairs in a lingering haze of happiness, without once giving an alarmed thought to who might have found her.

  Almost as if the past four years hadn’t happened. Unsettling.

  Dressing quickly in her running clothes—the man knew how to tempt her, since she itched to get out there, stretch her limbs and work up a sweat—she decided to put it down to the dream’s aftereffects. She’d been younger in her dream, carefree and full of hope, dancing through a field of poppies, their color an intense scarlet. Who knew what it meant.

  She’d worked most of the night, so she could afford to play for a few hours. Who needed sleep?

  Fox waited on the deck, sitting on the steps, scratching Anansi’s ears. They both stood when they heard her, Fox giving her that easy smile of sensual appreciation that never failed to make her toes curl, even when she thought she was mad at him.

  One of the good things about him—he didn’t have to talk all the time. They made their way to the beach and started in with an easy pace, in the other direction from his place, in a silence that felt nearly companionable. It gave her the head space to mull over his theory, even though she was still wading through a pool of scalding embarrassment. The way she’d reacted—both in and out of the closet, and how was that for a metaphor?—ultimately baffled her. She’d never been given to a ton of introspection, and the past few years of making up lies about even her most basic likes had created a kind of shadow over what she understood of herself.

  One of the levels in Labyrinth used a magic mirror as a portal. Characters had to face themselves in it. Sometimes the mirror showed a simple reflection, sometimes it lied, other times it might offer them a truth, a clue to improving their power in a flawed area. She’d drawn that, of course, from any number of story tropes and it proved a popular feature. An entire forum had been created to track iterations of what the mirror showed and for players to debate its properties—with the ones who insisted that it worked off a random number generator and others pointing to evidence that a complex algorithm factored in.

  It was some of both, but no one needed to know that.

  Last night, as she’d worked up the new concept, she’d played around with the mirror, taking her test avatar through it. With her head in that creative space, the thought occurred to her that she didn’t know who she’d see in the mirror, if she created a character with her personality. Because, whose personality would she use? Phoenix? Em? Emily? Silar?

  Certainly not stupid, naïve Lisa White, who had ceased to exist to most of the world. Who deserved to be dead, according to most opinions, including her own.

  She also couldn’t avoid the simple truth that Fox had inspired her. Working his spin-the-bottle question game into the new module—including a variation on Seven Minutes in Heaven—had brought a sense of fun she hadn’t experienced in a while. Along with that special rush of creating good stuff, she’d begun kicking herself for blowing it with Fox.

  And had been contemplating whether she could show up on his doorstep with her tail between her legs. He’d saved her that particular walk of shame by showing up with his sexy smiles and teasing ways.

  “Something funny?” He slanted her one of those exact smiles. Hiddleston, eat your heart out.

  “Run feels good.” She let herself smile at him. “I’m glad you talked me into it.”

  “Damn, and me without a pen to write that on the calendar.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Isn’t that the ferry dock up ahead?” He nodded his head in that direction.

  “Yeah. The island is kind of deceptive. The way the beach curves around, it’s a much shorter distance to town than taking the road around.”

  “Let’s run to breakfast then?”

  “And after?”

  “Walk back. Work off the enormous pile of pancakes I intend to eat.”

  “I’ll be all sweaty.” No makeup. Hair in a very untidy, hasty ponytail. Not like she didn’t go to town that way all the time anyway, but—”

  “So will I.” He tossed an appreciative look her way. “And you’ll look gorgeous across the table from me, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Shit! I didn’t bring money though.”

  “That’s all right, I did.”

  “Really?” He glanced over with curiosity. “In case you need to indulge your shopping addiction?”

  Because she always carried money. Cash, alternate ID, credit cards in two different names. In case she had to disappear fast. Not something normal people did, right?

  “That’s right. You never know when you’ll see a sparkly you simply can’t live without.”

  He snorted, as if he spotted the lie. “Well, this is my idea, so I’ll pay you back.”

  * * *

  Fox snagged the two-top in the window bay. They’d made it barely in time, the mist becoming a drizzle that condensed into an earnest rain by the time they reached the Sunshine Café—an ironic name, if there ever was one. Anansi curled up under the bench out front, out of the rain but where he could keep an eye on everyone coming and going. Always looking out for her safety.

  “You need to invest in some Gore-Tex,” she told him, as he struggled out of his soaked sweatshirt. It caught at his T-shirt beneath, raising the hem to expose his amazing abs. Her mouth nearly watered at the sight, and more than one woman in the busy café stared. A new experience for her, being seen with a guy this attractive—one interested in her, if only for the sex. In some ways, that was better. Because he had no idea who she really was, the power she wielded, albeit in her circumscribed realm, when he said he wanted her, it must be true.

  Better, he seemed willing to put up with her emotional handicaps to get there.

  He got the sweatshirt off, hung it on the back of his chair and tugged the shirt down, frowning at her. “Real men don’t wear raincoats.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “They do if they don’t want hypothermia, California boy. It might be fifty degrees out, but if you get wet, that’s more than enough to lower your core temperature enough to kill you. Happens all the time. To tourists.”

  He seized her hand and kissed it, glancing slyly up at her. “I’d rather get you wet.”

  “Don’t start with me.” She yanked her hand away.

  “We already did start. Do you need reminding? Yesterday, on the beach, you—”

  “Stop it,” she hissed at him, but laughed at his outrageousness.

  He looked enormously pleased. “I made you laugh.”

  “I laugh all the time.”

  Shaking his head, he perused the laminated menu. “Not true. You have that little breathy chuckle, a definite girly giggle and the snorting sound, but you only rarely laugh in that all-out way. Beautiful sound, like bells on Christmas morning.”

  “Oh brother. This is what I get for dating a writer.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “We’re dating?”

  “Well, since we’re not doing the just...other thing.” She glanced at the elderly couple eating in companionable silence barely an arm’s length away.

  “I dare you to say it.”

  “Not in here!”

  “Yes, here. Hurry, Betty White is headed our way with a coffeepot the size of China.”r />
  She laughed, then covered her mouth, self-conscious of it now.

  “Coffee?” Penny Waters set down the white mugs, yellowed inside from years of use, and began pouring before they answered. “Hey there, Em. I already told Charlie to put in your usual. You know what you want?” She pinned Fox with the look she reserved for strangers. If Penny could, she’d eliminate menus altogether and serve people what they always ordered.

  “Tall stack. Two—no, three eggs, over easy. Home fries. And a side of ham.”

  Penny sniffed with a bit of approval. She liked the hearty eaters. “Biscuits or toast?”

  “You got sausage gravy for those biscuits?”

  “Of course.” And Penny smiled at him. A day for the calendar for sure.

  “Sign me up.”

  Penny bustled off happily and Fox threw a mock-frightened look after her. “She’s scary. What if I wanted decaf?”

  “In the Pacific Northwest? You’d be shipped out on the next ferry.”

  “Seriously? They don’t make it at all?”

  “Well, Penny might serve it to you if you brought in a doctor’s note for high blood pressure or something. But then she’d take away your biscuits and gravy.”

  “A high price to pay.”

  “Indeed.”

  A silence fell between them, awkward and not so companionable. Finished with the business of prepping her coffee, she had run out of things to do with her hands. She sipped, making herself enjoy it the way everyone thought Em liked it. Looked out at the rain, pounding in earnest now, so that the drops bounced up again from the pavement like a watery flea circus.

  “This is the part where you ask me questions about myself.” Fox leaned on the little table, the coppery hairs on his forearms a brighter version of his tan.

  “Oh.” What did people ask? More important, what would Emily want to know? Her carefully trained society self would know all the correct, socially easy conversational gambits—though not many people here knew her current identity claimed that background—but after years of keeping to herself, she might wonder different things. If she’d known she’d be put on the spot this way, she could have brainstormed some questions. She sipped from her coffee, added more sugar, even though it was so sweet already it hurt her teeth. “Let’s see,” she said, to stall.

  Fox’s lips twitched. “As fascinating as it is to watch you struggle to dredge up some curiosity about me, maybe I should offer some topics. You could choose a category, like in Jeopardy.”

  “It’s not that I’m not curious about you.” She made herself set the mug down. “I’m just aware of not invading your privacy.”

  “That’s not a thing for me.” He tilted his head a little. “I can always choose not to answer. You do know that goes for you, too, right? If you don’t want to tell me something—or do something—all you have to do is say so.”

  She felt the blush warm her cheeks at the sensuous way he said do. Mrs. Lennon glanced over at her and gave her a little nod hello. Okay, a question for Fox, something to steer him away from sex, if that was even possible.

  “So, tell me about your novel.” There. Writers loved to talk about their work, right? Maybe he’d ramble on about it all through breakfast.

  But he knocked his knuckles thoughtfully on the table and shook his head. “Uh-uh. I see what you’re doing there, but that’s not getting to know me. Ask something else.”

  Crap. Hmm. “Okay. What do you do for fun? Besides running? And, obviously, spending most of the day at the gym.”

  He laughed. “Cute. I don’t work out all that much anymore. I got lucky with a lean build—less body fat makes you look cut with less effort—and I like to do a lot of stuff that helps me stay in shape. So, running, yes. Also rock climbing, hiking, swimming, diving, surfing.”

  “There’s some good rock climbing around here. Hikes too. You should check them out.”

  “I grabbed some maps. Maybe when this storm finally clears out.”

  She shouldn’t laugh at him, but she couldn’t help giving him the local stare-down. “You mean, July fifth?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “It can’t rain straight through to July.”

  “Nope. But it won’t dry out until then, either.”

  “Huh.” He shook his head and drank from his coffee, expectant.

  “Tell me about the surfing. Do they make you learn if you live in southern California—like a requirement of residence?”

  “Pretty much,” he agreed. “Actually, it’s great fun. Both challenging and relaxing. You’d enjoy it.”

  “I don’t know. Trying to keep from being dragged under by huge waves doesn’t sound all that peaceful.”

  His eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “But, see—that’s just it. The challenge is to ride the wave, instead of drowning under it. It’s kind of Zen.”

  “You don’t strike me as a very Zen guy.”

  “Which is why I strive for it. Don’t we all have our fatal flaws?”

  No way would she answer that, so she tried to think up another question. Fortunately, Penny brought the food right then. Em sighed at the whipped-cream-mounded Belgian waffles and eyed Fox’s ham, biscuits and gravy with more than a little envy.

  “That smells good,” she told him. “Looks good too.”

  He eyed her breakfast. “I can’t say the same of yours. Is that Cool Whip from the spray can? It looks like something my five year-old niece would eat.”

  She mentally groaned for the truth of that but pasted on a smile. “That’s me—eternally five years old.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The lies were starting to get under his skin. It shouldn’t matter, really, and most of them were harmless enough. In truth, most people would never detect the slight hint of disgust in the turn of her mouth, the way she unconsciously licked her lip when she looked at his food.

  Just as she’d done when he “accidentally” let his shirt ride up. God, he loved the way she looked at him—especially when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. It had been the truth that his gym rat days were behind him, but he kept in shape pretty diligently for the investigative side of his work. You never knew when you’d need to run or defend yourself against an angry landowner. As his one ace in the hole with her, he planned to use it to maximum advantage.

  Why do you order food you don’t like? He burned to ask the question, but she’d never relax around him if he poked at her. All the curiosity filled his side of the table. She might appreciate his body, but she couldn’t care less about him as a person. An ironic role reversal there. Not that he minded being a sex object so much, but it goaded him to try to breach her defenses even more.

  When he had her in bed, their bodies meshed in the most intimate way, she’d have to pay attention to him then. He’d crawl inside her, one way or another. No, in all ways.

  “Here.” He cut the ham in half from his side plate and scooted it onto the pancake plate. Then dished a generous helping of biscuits and sausage gravy on top of the ham. “Potatoes too?”

  “Oh, you don’t have to,” she protested, but her heart wasn’t in it and her hungry gaze fastened on the heap of home fries with hearty chunks of browned onions. He added a big scoop of those, too, and slid the plate over to her.

  “Now you won’t have enough.” She picked up her fork, took a bite and hummed in pleasure. Her face transformed with it, the way he imagined she’d look when caressed just the right way. Next time he touched her intimately would be in the light, he promised himself, so he could savor every nuance.

  “There’s plenty more where that came from. Hey, Penny!” He gave the waitress his most effective smile and moved his mug so she could refill it more easily. “Can we get more ham, biscuits and about a gallon of this amazing gravy? Emily’s not feeling the Belgian waffles this morning.”

 
The woman—who looked uncannily like Betty White—gave Emily an astonished look, then scowled at the side dish and the incriminatingly soiled fork. Absurdly, Emily squirmed with guilt and discomfort.

  “But you love Charlie’s waffles! It’s what you always order. He even added extra strawberry syrup for you.”

  “I do. I don’t need anything else, really. I only wanted to taste—”

  Out of patience with the pretense, he picked up the waffle plate and handed it to Penny. “Let’s get rid of this. She hasn’t touched it—maybe someone in the kitchen wants it? Our treat. More of these excellent potatoes too. They might be best I’ve had in my life.”

  Slightly mollified, but with a last perplexed look at Emily, the woman went off.

  “What’s gotten into you?” Emily demanded. “What kind of person does that?”

  “Aha!” He pointed his fork at her while he chewed the truly excellent potatoes, though the ones at the Green Flash on the beach in San Diego were better. “A real question. And one that speaks to my fundamental life philosophy, so I’m glad you asked. What got into me is that I believe people should always do what they most want to. As long as you’re not hurting anyone else, why not have exactly what you want?”

  “There might be other reasons,” she retorted. Truth there.

  “Such as?”

  She backed away, internally, but the movement was as palpable as if she’d scooted her chair back. Shrugging, she cut her ham into smaller pieces. “Who knows? You can’t know what someone else’s motivations are.”

  “If you’d ordered the fruit plate or the steel-cut oats, I’d have thought, ‘Okay, she’s watching what she eats, in order to maintain that truly spectacular figure.’ But no.”

  “Also,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “It’s rude to send back food. Penny thought she was being thoughtful and you hurt her feelings.”

  “You don’t strike me as a person who’d be consumed with what other people thought of her.” No, this came from maintaining a low profile, he figured. Except, she wasn’t good at it. She didn’t blend. Always she stood out from the background, vivid with her intense personality. People here remembered what she liked because they wanted her to like them.