Reining in Trouble

by Tyler Anne Snell

  She was off the couch in a second flat. Caleb felt like even more of a dunce. He grabbed after her but she was fast, already weaving her way through the pictures, eyes down and on anything but him.

  Most people called him charming, but when it came to Nina Drake he’d had more foot-in-mouth moments than he cared to admit.

  “Caleb?”

  He was off the couch just as fast as she had been. He wanted to explain himself better, if he could, but Nina didn’t seem to want anything he was selling. She’d gone stiff as a board. It wasn’t until he was at her side that he realized all of her attention was on the picture at her feet.

  “What is it?”

  Nina lowered herself slowly. Caleb followed suit. She picked the picture up. Caleb angled himself so he could get a better look. It was one of the few close-up shots. Not much else could be seen other than her profile and smile. The small stretch of background was out of focus and red. Almost all of the close-ups made it hard to figure out location and time.

  “I wasn’t sure where this picture was taken at first. I mean, where do I even go that has red around me?” Her voice was strained. “But I just thought of something.”

  She took the picture and walked out of the room to the back stairs. Caleb followed, his gut keyed up and in tune with the fear that seemed to have crept into Nina’s movements. They went up to her apartment without any explanation. There she led them to a door along the wall to the right of her bed. She handed him the picture. Her hand hovered for an uncertain moment over the handle. Then she opened it to reveal a closet.

  “How does this look?” she asked.

  At first Caleb didn’t understand.

  Then he saw the red dress hanging on a hook on the inside of the door. Nina stood next to it, staring into the closet. Caleb looked down at the picture. If she had been smiling it would have been an exact match.

  “They were in here with me,” she said, not bothering to wait for his input. Not that he had any assurances to give. He turned and followed the sightline to the only object in its path big enough to hide someone. The only area that offered any cover was the kitchen. It was small and tucked into the corner of the room as soon as you walked in, but had two rows of cabinets.

  Caleb moved around the barstools next to the first row and stood in front of the refrigerator.

  “If you were ducked down right there, I wouldn’t see you,” she confirmed. Her voice fell flat. “And if you were already there when I came in, there’s a chance I wouldn’t notice you. Though it would be easier to come in while I was in the bathroom.”

  The feelings their kiss had created were burned away by an anger so intense, Caleb couldn’t help the unflattering words streaming from his mouth.

  Taking pictures of Nina—stalking her—while she was out in the open was bad enough. But taking pictures of her while in her apartment?

  “Caleb?” Nina’s expression had gone blank again. He couldn’t rightly blame her. “Could you stay up here tonight?”

  He didn’t even have to think about it.

  “I sure can.”

  The truth was, even if she hadn’t asked, he would have stayed.

  * * *

  CALEB DIDN’T FIT on the love seat in the apartment. When Nina offered him to share the bed with her, an offer that would have surprised her a week ago, he turned it down with a little too much vigor. That smarted but then there were bigger fish to fry than the distance the detective kept putting between them.

  Like the fact that someone had been in the apartment with her. She should have seen them. She should have heard them. Yet how often do you worry that people are in your living space, playing a one-sided game of hide-and-seek while taking secret pictures of you?

  Not to mention she always locked the door. A point she made to Caleb after he got off the phone with his brother. According to him the only people who had a key to the living portion of the house were Nina and his mother. She kept a spare in a safe at the main house. Nina didn’t want to wake Dorothy up so he promised to check on that key in the morning.

  Now Nina lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying not to feel so violated. Up until now the apartment had been her safe space, a place where she’d always felt comfortable. But now it was tainted.

  She sighed.

  She heard Caleb shift on the too-small furniture. It was mostly dark in the apartment but, given the new information, Nina couldn’t bring herself to turn off all the lights. Instead, the bathroom light was on, shielded slightly by the door. It cast enough of a glow that when she angled her head just right she could make out Caleb’s legs, hanging over the edge of the love seat.

  It had been a good half hour since they’d said anything to each other. At first that had been fine by her but now it made her skin itch. She hadn’t been lying when she’d first gone downstairs—she didn’t want to fall back asleep. Not after the nightmare. Caleb was supposed to have been her distraction. Yet she’d also wanted his company.

  Not because of her needing a distraction. No, it was more than that. In the last week she’d grown accustomed to him being around mornings and nights. Grown used to the charming smiles he offered every time they talked, the way he chuckled when he was reminded of something from growing up in Overlook and the way he had fallen in sync with her despite her always holding back.

  He’d never pushed her to talk more than she wanted. In fact, he never pestered her at all. The only thing he’d done was listen to her concerns and theories about the fires and whoever was fascinated with her smile.

  She’d never met a man who had treated her with such cool-headed respect.

  Suddenly Nina felt like an idiot.

  She’d bet stopping their kiss before it grew to more was his way of keeping to his good manners. The very same ones that had endeared him to her in the first place. That’s what he’d been trying to say on the couch.

  They just didn’t make them like Caleb Nash anymore.

  And there she had been, keeping the man at arm’s length at every turn.

  Sure, she had been about to open up to him in the barn, but after the commotion she’d been slightly relieved for the interruption.

  What was she so afraid of?

  Was sharing such a key moment in her life what really scared her or was it being vulnerable?

  Nina sat up in bed.

  “Caleb?” she whispered, hoping she wouldn’t wake the man if he had fallen asleep. Judging by how quickly he answered, she hadn’t.

  “Yeah?”

  Nina took a deep breath. The darkness was oddly emboldening.

  “I was fourteen when my mom died,” she started without a segue. She just needed to finally get it out. “We were supposed to go shopping in town but I’d followed some friends to the beach after school. This awful girl named Samantha Novak had shown up with her cronies and we all started doing that high school thing where you just kind of insult each other before the winner eventually leaves. I realized too late that I’d lost track of time and had to run home. There was this street that was a shortcut between our house and the private beach. No one really used it. There were potholes everywhere, it was uneven, and it had trees and construction on either side of it. Not something most people took when they could stay on the main streets and have an ocean view.”

  The image of the street from her dream rose to the front of her mind as well as Caleb sitting off to the side of it with his coffee and paper. “Mom knew I was at the beach and, since she’d shown me the shortcut when I was little, knew I’d take it home. Dad had said she’d told him on the phone that she’d had a bad day at work and was impatient to get out and stretch her legs.” Nina paused, smiling slightly at that detail. Only her mother counted walking around the outlet mall and eating snow cones or giant pretzels as “stretching her legs.”

  That smile didn’t last, and neither did the affection there. Now
she was diving into the worst day of her life.

  “Her car was already on its side when I got there. Another car had hit her and pushed her off the road. It took me longer than it should have to realize she wasn’t the one standing in the middle of the road. It was a man. He was just looking at the car. That’s when I saw the smoke and flames. Then I realized she was still inside.”

  Pain lit up Nina’s chest. She pushed past it. “I ran as fast as I could, but a boy met me before I could get there. He was the son of the other driver. He’d run to a nearby house to call the cops, and when he saw me running toward the fire had decided it was too dangerous. He held me there as the car became engulfed in flames. Held me there while I screamed and cried. Stayed until my dad showed up...which is why he didn’t see that his father watched my mom’s car burn with a smile on his face. I’ll never forget it for as long as I live. He just smiled.”

  Nina took another steadying breath. This part of the story brought in a deep, dark anger. She became lost in it. Caleb’s voice sounded far off, like an echo in a dream.

  “I’m so sorry, Nina. I can’t imagine going through that.”

  Nina snapped back to her senses. She still wasn’t through with her story but she’d already come this far in sharing it with him. She might as well end it.

  “I’d like to say all the horrible ended with that day, and every day after was just us trying to grieve and move on, but then the trial happened. Apparently my mom’s bad day had to do with a man she worked with named Rylan Bowling. She’d had to fire him that afternoon for harassing another female employee. He hadn’t taken it well. Threatened her. And, well, you can guess how it played out from there. He saw her on the road, followed her, rammed into her when no one was around and didn’t help her when he could have. You would think this was an open-and-shut case, but he got some fancy lawyer from up north. Said it was an accident. It made everyone nervous that he’d get away with it. So I offered to be a witness.”

  Another detail Nina wouldn’t forget was how her palms got sweaty, her stomach turned and how truly terrified she was during the trial. But she’d wanted nothing more than to have that man pay for what he’d done. “I told them about the smile and then his son, Jeremy, told them he couldn’t confirm or deny it since he’d been too focused on keeping me safe. Along with everything else, the jury was convinced. Rylan Bowling went to prison, and Jeremy and I made all of the papers. The daughter who was saved by the son sends his father to prison for killing her mother. The media really loved the poetry of it. They even ran anniversary stories once or twice.” She snorted. It held no amusement. “Jeremy left town to live with some relative and I stayed. After everything that had happened, I guess I started hating the spotlight. Then that kind of turned into shying away from any normal attention, too. It became who I was. Then, one day, I realized that, even though the spotlight had faded, the memories of it never would.”

  “So you came here, hoping to stay beneath the radar. And instead got caught up in whatever the hell it is that’s going on.”

  Nina nodded in the dark.

  “I used to not believe in bad luck, but I tell you what, I’m starting to lean toward believing it,” she half-joked. “Either way, I wanted you to know.”

  Caleb was quiet a moment. Then his voice was a whisper in the dark.

  “Thank you,” he said simply.

  It was enough to make a difference. The weight of her memories somehow felt lighter now that she’d shared them. Maybe there was something to talking about things.

  Nina settled back into the sheets.

  Caleb continued to move around, undeniably uncomfortable on the small furniture.

  “And Caleb?” she called.

  “Yeah?”

  “Let me sleep on that ridiculously small couch or come to bed. Those are your options.”

  The detective played it smart.

  He came to bed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It started out innocently enough.

  Caleb stayed, fully dressed, above the covers; Nina didn’t think it nice to force him beneath them. She kept as much distance between them as she could in the full-sized bed. They said goodnight and then quieted.

  But then Caleb got a call and that put them on a downward slope that only really had one outcome.

  “Sorry,” Caleb apologized for the third time before he reached for and answered his phone.

  Nina didn’t mind. A phone call this late had to be important. She just hoped it was good news and not worse news.

  “Caleb Nash here,” he answered, voice flipping straight to business.

  Nina wanted to inch closer to hear the person on the other end of line but thought better of it. Caleb had been nothing but forthcoming about everything so far. If he thought she should know what was going on then he’d tell her.

  Though that didn’t stop her from straining to listen.

  Whoever was on the other end must have been soft-spoken. She couldn’t hear anything.

  “Okay, yeah,” Caleb rattled off at intervals throughout his conversation before ending with, “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The bed shifted under his weight as he put his phone back on the nightstand. Nina tried not to seem overeager. And immediately failed. “Everything okay?”

  The bathroom light outlined the detective. He had moved onto his side and was facing her now. It made Nina’s body react more than she cared to admit.

  “That was a friend of mine at the hospital. I asked her to let me know of any significant changes with Daniel Covington.”

  Nina wasn’t a fan of Daniel’s, by any means, but for a moment she worried he’d passed away. Sure, being a creep wasn’t the greatest, but he definitely hadn’t deserved the beating Caleb described. “Apparently the kid made a turn for the better. He might even be able to talk to us tomorrow.”

  She wondered if she was a part of the “us” but decided not to ask.

  “Hopefully he can tell us what happened and who almost killed him,” Caleb added.

  Nina heard him sigh. She couldn’t help but reach out. She fanned her fingers across his chest, hoping to offer some kind of comfort.

  “You’ll figure it all out and everyone will get what’s coming to them,” she said, confident. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my limited time with you all it’s—you don’t give up.”

  She couldn’t see his smile but imagined it there as she felt his touch when he placed his hand over hers. Nina worried that she’d overstepped until he ran his thumb across her knuckles. It was a slow, tantalizing motion.

  That’s when Nina knew they were doomed to fall prey to the inevitable. Their kiss earlier had pushed over the first domino in a series of pieces leading to a conclusion they could no longer avoid. At least, Nina didn’t want to. Not after being this close to the man she should have realized sooner made her feel absolutely safe. A feeling she hadn’t had in a long, long time.

  “Caleb—” she started, unsure of what she was going to say. Thankfully, she didn’t have to figure it out. His touch transferred from her hand to her wrist. From there his fingers skimmed along her bare skin up her arm. Nina barely contained a shiver of pleasure at the contact. When his hand trailed over to the side of her neck, Nina knew whatever resistance she might have had in reserve was gone.

  The space between them disappeared.

  Nina angled her lips up, easier to be found in the dark.

  Not that Caleb had any problems.

  His lips were warm and diligent. They pressed against hers with insistence. Nina had to dig her fingers into the fabric of his shirt just to steady herself from the onslaught of excitement running rampant through her. He deepened the kiss at her display. Nina moaned against him, unable to hide how much she wanted this.

  Caleb seemed to agree.

  He let go of the side of her neck and grabbed her
hip through the blanket. On reflex Nina tried to push closer. Frustration broke through her haze long enough to break their embrace. Caleb was on the same page. She didn’t have to complain about the layers separating them. He was already sliding beneath the same sheets.

  They collided again. This time there was more urgency there. One of his hands wound into her hair while the other grabbed her hip again, pulling her flush with him. Nina moved against him, feeling his excitement, before she decided she needed to be closer. She slid her hands up his shirt, marveling at the firmness beneath, until he was forced to pause so he could rid them of the annoyance. Nina took that time to mimic the action. She threw her own shirt away from their island of sheets and darkness.

  A gasp escaped her lips as Caleb appreciated her now-bare chest. He kissed down the slope of her breast before directing his tongue to her nipple. It beaded instantly. Nina moaned again.

  Another instantaneous reaction.

  Caleb crashed back into her lips, his hands hungry against her body. Nina reached out, just as ready. She pulled at his jeans and before she knew it they were gone in the darkness, too.

  Then Caleb was above her, straddling her.

  He was gentle as he lowered himself to her lips. His kiss was a whisper.

  “You’re one hell of a woman, Nina Drake.”

  Nina couldn’t help but grin.

  She had spent so long trying to live a quiet life that she’d forgotten that not all excitement was worth missing.

  “You’re not so bad yourself, detective.”

  * * *

  CALEB WOKE WITH the sun on his back and a beautiful woman in his arms. Not what he had planned but he definitely wasn’t complaining. Nina was fast asleep, her bare back against his chest and her hair splayed out on the pillow they shared. When Caleb had first gotten into her bed he had noted its small size. Now he appreciated how it worked perfectly when he held her.

  Nina stirred against him. Caleb enjoyed the sensation. He wouldn’t have minded exploring it further when she woke up, but along with the sunlight, the duties he needed to perform for his job started to filter through. As carefully as he could, he pulled his arm from beneath the pillows and lifted the one around Nina’s waist. The raven-haired beauty shifted onto her stomach but didn’t wake. Caleb checked his phone.