by Lee Kilraine
Just in case, she also told her sister the breakup with Ivan wasn’t going smoothly and asked her not to mention anything to him if she happened to see him again. Her sister would be here in two days and she’d explain everything to her then. Phew. One very small step for the Ivan problem, one giant leap for her sanity.
Okay. Calm energy settled over her after having dealt with the terrifying fear Ivan kept dishing out to her. This could work, right? No one should be able to terrorize another human being. And if she stayed calm, learned everything Kaz could teach her about defense and keeping a low profile, she might just be able to grab her life back. Maybe it was overexaggerating, but she did feel like this little step was one step closer to grabbing Ivan by the balls. Although ewww. She didn’t want to touch any part of the creep, but you got the idea. Next she was ready to learn to kick ass, but maybe some breakfast first.
She got excited thinking about breakfast for a second until she remembered the disgustingly healthy food choices in Kaz’s fridge. On one hand, the way he was in tune with his body between the black belt martial arts, yoga and meditation, the back-to-nature healthy eating . . . yeah, it was sexy and hot. But it was also too perfect. Why couldn’t the guy have one little dent in his armor to make him seem . . . attainable.
Oh, Mirabel Díaz, you did not just go there.
He probably ate egg-white omelets with avocado and salmon with his morning coffee. Or granola mixed into raw goat’s milk yogurt with kefir and marigold petals. She had a hard time picturing the man eating leftover pizza or Chinese food for breakfast.
Kaz was standing at the refrigerator when she entered the kitchen.
“Can I make you some breakfast? I make a mean egg-white omelet.”
Called it. “You know, thanks, but no—” Her gaze landed on a thing of beauty on the top shelf of his fridge. “Oh my Lord, please tell me that’s a cheesecake and I’m not still asleep dreaming it up.”
“It’s a cheesecake.” He reached in and brought it out, setting it on the concrete counter of the small island in the center of the kitchen.
“No way.” Mira’s mouth actually watered as she stared at the cake, until she realized it didn’t belong in his kitchen. “I mean, I’m sorry for your loss.”
Kaz laughed. “What? What are you talking about?”
“I haven’t known you long, Kaz Cates, but I do know that you don’t eat cake. I figure the only way you’d have a cake in your house is if someone died and a neighbor dropped it by in condolence.”
“Huh. Well, close. My brother’s girlfriend’s computer died and she brought me the cheesecake as a thank-you for setting up her new one.”
“Oh, yay!” Mira began opening drawers in the island in search of a knife to cut it. “I mean, I would eat a slice either way, but I’d feel very sad for whoever passed. Knife?”
Kaz turned and grabbed a knife from the block on the counter next to him. “Plates are in the cupboard behind you.”
“I’m in love with this woman. Have I met her?” Mira didn’t take her gaze off the cake as Kaz cut into it. “Um, bigger please. I’m a big girl and we’ll be doing all that exercise later. I need to fuel up for that.”
He smiled and moved over the knife. “I don’t think you’ve met her, but you’ve eaten her cooking. She’s co-owner of Dave and Lu’s Diner.”
“Fork?” Mira stuck out her hand as if she’d said scalpel.
Kaz’s lips slid into a wide smile and without taking his gaze from her face, he reached down and retrieved a fork, handing it over to her before pushing up his glasses with a finger.
“Oh, that reminds me”—she cut into the cake with her fork and ate her first bite, unable to withhold the moan that escaped—“Oh. My. God. If Lu wasn’t in love with your brother, I would marry her for this cake. What was I about to say—ah! Yes. You should wear those glasses on your date.”
“What date?”
Her response had to wait for the pleasure sensors to let go of her brain so she could attempt speech. “The date we’re going to set you up on.”
“We didn’t discuss anything like that.”
“Why else are we working on helping you pick up on the social cues of women? So you can date, right? Unless you wanted to stay single your whole life . . .”
“No.” He shrugged. “I like the idea of going through life with a partner. I guess I get too busy with work to remember to keep looking.”
“That’s where I come in. I’m going to help you with that while I’m here.”
“You remember you’re only here a few more days, right? Your car should be ready in five or six days.”
She swallowed her bite of cake, nodding her head and waving her fork at him while she finished chewing and swallowing. “About that . . . Would it be okay if I stayed longer? I’ve thought it over. I want to learn everything I can about self-defense and staying off the grid. I don’t have any money to pay for room and board, but I’m not without skills. I’m sure I could figure out some way to repay you.”
He didn’t answer right away, only stood staring at her with a narrowed gaze, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Or . . . or . . . not. I can go back to the—”
“No. It’s fine. You don’t need to repay me. My guest room was sitting empty. What’s one more mouth to feed?”
“Two.” Mira sliced herself another piece of cake while he was distracted.
“Two?”
“You agreed it was okay if my sister came for a visit.”
“I did?”
“You did. You were on the phone. Sorry about the interruption, but she’ll be here the day after tomorrow and stay a few days. Unless it’s not okay . . .”
“No, it’s fine.”
Although Mira decided he looked a bit twitchy, as if the computer geek loner wasn’t really fine with so many strange women invading his space. She felt a twinge of guilt, but remembering her sister and crazy Ivan made it easier to bulldoze right on over Kaz’s polite Southern gentleman hospitality.
“Great. Do you have any paper?” Mira rinsed off her cake plate in the sink and Kaz took it from her and dried it with a white dish towel from a drawer. “We should make a list for each of us.”
Opening the drawer in the built-in desk off to the side, he withdrew a notepad and a pen, passing them over to her. “What are the lists for?”
“The things we each have to work on.” She wrote two things on her list before tearing off the top page and setting it to the side. “There’s mine.”
He picked it up and read it: “Learn self-defense. Learn to hide digital footprint.”
“Yes, the things I have to work on. Now for yours.” Mira nodded and kept writing the next list before pulling it off the pad and handing it over to him. “Here you go.”
* * *
Kaz took the list and glanced at it. What the hell was this? “First of all, why is my list so much longer than yours?”
“Because we know exactly what I need to learn. But right now, your issues are a mystery we need to solve—thus, your longer list.”
“Eating? Holding a conversation? Too much cussing? Sweaty palms? Kissing? Lovemaking?” Kaz’s gaze shot up to hers. “Yesterday we talked about missing social cues. How did we get from there to lovemaking?”
Mira shrugged. “I’m just trying to troubleshoot your woman problem.”
“What woman problem? Choosing to be single isn’t necessarily a woman problem.”
“I dated a guy once—nice guy, funny too—but I couldn’t get past his mushy kisses.”
“Mushy kisses?”
She nodded and her shoulders did a quick shudder. “Yeah, like kissing a slug. Or maybe Jabba the Hutt. Not that I’ve ever thought about that. Ew, yuck no. I mean, maybe Chewbacca, yes. Or Lando Calrissian and, of course, Han. But, ugh, my point is—mushy kisses are bad.”
“I don’t even know what that means. A mushy kiss? How would I even know? It’s not like women tell you these things.”
“Fine. I’ll
kiss you and tell you if that’s your problem.” She sighed like this was a huge sacrifice, then wiggled her lips a bit, probably trying to warm them up. “Pucker up.”
He did. And he didn’t mess around either. He wrapped his hands around her jaw before pushing them into her hair. Gazing down into her green eyes, looking from one to the other until he had her complete attention. “Close your eyes.”
And he pressed his lips tentatively at first, a small taste and a nip at one corner of her mouth, before committing to more. Adding pressure, he slipped fully into the kiss, tasting the sweetness of her. Slowly caressing her lips with his, taking his time and discovering every softness until her mouth opened on a gasp and he took that as an invitation to deepen the kiss and stroked into her warmth with his tongue, a small, teasing touch before pulling back.
Kaz slid his hands from her tumbled curls and stepped away to rein in his own breathing while he waited for his report card. Mira stood draped up against the refrigerator, eyes closed, head still angled up and chest heaving. “Well?”
Her eyelids fluttered open and she gazed at him with dazed eyes. “Um, so . . . kissing isn’t your problem. You’re checked out on the kiss.”
“Well, I didn’t think that was the problem. I haven’t had any complaints so far.” Okay, maybe he cocked a bit of an attitude, but when he learned things, he believed in thoroughness. He didn’t half-ass anything. So, over the years, he’d done quite a bit of scientific reading and study of women and pleasure points and the nervous system. When he’d exhausted the scientific, he delved into the Eastern arts. His study of tantric sex had yielded some eye-opening and rewarding results in his last two relationships. Yeah, he knew his problems with women didn’t start in the bedroom.
“It was an okay kiss. There was room for improvement. But we can move on to conversation next.”
“Conversation?”
“It’s possible small talk is what’s hanging you up. But the kissing—you’re fine, really, really fine—on the kissing, so very fine . . . I’ve lost my train of thought. What was I saying?”
Kaz smiled. “You said I was fine on the kissing.”
“Right. So small talk. What did you think about the game the other night?”
“What game?”
“Well, I don’t know, but there’s always a game.”
“That was a trick question. You don’t even know what game.”
“It’s still small talk. Small talk could definitely be a problem.” She made a note on his list before looking back up at him. “You’re a man of few words, Kaz Cates. Which is often sexy and mysterious and hot but can be a challenge on a date.”
He shrugged. “What can I say?”
“Apparently not much, but I can help you with that.” She pointed a finger at him before consulting the list again. “Next we’ll take a look at how you eat. I once dated a guy who talked while he ate. You know that old joke about a see food diet? Yeah, that. Ugh. So, anyway, there are a few more areas we can evaluate to see where you’re having your problem.”
“You know, suddenly being single doesn’t sound that bad.” He wasn’t too keen on having every aspect of his life flayed open and examined.
“Don’t be a wuss. In the few days I’ve been in Climax I’ve seen at least four women sending you signals. Just ask one of them out.”
“Fine. Now I think we need to work on your list. Let’s talk about safety. It’s almost impossible not to leave a digital trail in our world anymore. But it can be minimized to better your odds of staying out of someone’s radar. Plus, there are things you can do to spread disinformation, making it harder for a stalker to find you.”
“A stalker? God, that word scares me. Makes it all sound so . . . I don’t know . . . dangerous.”
“Stalkers are dangerous. But you know that, Mira. Why else did you come all this way and put all this effort into finding me to disappear?”
“I know, I know. And even though I’ve been dealing with it for a year, sometimes it seems like it can’t be real. Like this can’t really be happening, you know? Sometimes I’ll think I’m overreacting or letting my fear see things that aren’t really there.”
“I think you know the answer to that already. Trust your intuition. What does your gut say?”
Her breath left her lungs in a whoosh and she sat back heavy against the couch, eyes closed, mumbling under her breath. It sounded almost like a prayer, but as Kaz listened he realized she was defining geometric shapes.
“An isosceles triangle has two equal sides and the angles opposite the equal sides are equal. An equilateral triangle has three equal sides and three equal angles.”
“Don’t forget scalene.”
* * *
“Right. Scalene. How could I forget scalene? A scalene triangle has no equal sides and no equal angles.” Trust your intuition. She opened her eyes, staring at her clenched hands before lifting her gaze up to Kaz. “Trust my intuition? Well, there are a few problems with that. The first is, my intuition sucks. But when I started thinking everything through, to tell my friend Gwen what was happening, the more I went over it, tried to figure out how to explain what was happening—the more it sounded too crazy to be real.”
Just like the police had said, there was truly nothing concrete she could point to. She couldn’t prove Ivan had gotten her fired from all four jobs. She had absolutely no proof that he was connected to the numerous hang-up calls from unlisted numbers she received each day. Running into someone wasn’t a crime, even if it seemed too coincidental. Stalking? Was it stalking?
The police hadn’t thought so. Even with slashed car tires, three dead birds on the hood of her car, and anonymous deliveries of flowers and gifts to her offices. She’d called the police for each of those, but to what avail? They took the slashed tires seriously, but with no witnesses, no one seen hanging around the block, the only thing they could do was file a report.
One cop suggested a cat was leaving the dead birds, but Mira’s gut wasn’t buying that. When did cops stop believing in a preponderance of evidence? When it meant more paperwork? When the perpetrator made large donations to the Fraternal Order of Police’s retirement fund? The end result was, Mira felt isolated. Alone and afraid. She’d taken her last boss’s advice and left town.
Her instinct was to run and hide, but that had proven harder than she’d imagined. So she’d gone looking for help. And even now, when she had someone to help, tension built like an unvented pressure cooker. It was too much. Like things were crashing down on her. She slammed her eyes shut and went back to running pages of her college geometry textbook through her mind. Anything to distract herself from the tangle of emotions that thoughts of Ivan stirred up.
“An obtuse triangle has—oh, hell, I’ve been obtuse. Of course, he’s a stalker. I’ve read a lot about them in the last two months—so, yes—it’s just I’ve never said it out loud before and it scared me to hear it.” It still scared her, yet there was also a small easing of tension now that she’d shared her burden. Her soul felt a little less lonely, as if Kaz had joined her around her solitary campfire out in the wilderness.
“You haven’t told anyone? No family or friends?”
“No.” She hadn’t told her sister. Not only had her sister helped raise her but she had her own problems. Getting fired and breaking up with her boyfriend in the same week meant Vi’s plate was already full. “No. I . . . I couldn’t.”
And not her mother either. Her parents had had a picture-perfect relationship. How in the world could her mother relate to this? After struggling as a single mother for ten years after her husband’s death, her mother had finally opened her heart to another man. Mira loved seeing her mother happy and there was no way she was messing that up anytime soon.
“I tried to tell my friend Gwen, but . . .” She’d tried to explain that it was more than just the break up. More than Ivan getting her fired. Her friend had said she believed her, but Mira had seen the doubt on her face after the police said there was no proo
f.
“You talked yourself out of it. It’s not unusual. Because stalking isn’t normal behavior so your brain tries to discount it because it isn’t rational. But statistically, one in four women will be stalked at some point in their lives. Usually by someone they know and usually an ex-husband or ex-boyfriend. In a convoluted way, the statistics back up what you’ve experienced and you can stop telling yourself you’re crazy.”
“How did you know?”
“I had a friend who went through this. The denial went on for a long time. Too long.” His expression darkened, but then he gave a quick shake of his head and he was back to all business. “Disappearing isn’t easy. Physically, mentally, emotionally—it carries its own stress and challenges.”
She nodded. There was no easy answer, and it was beginning to look like no matter what she did she’d never shake the feeling of having to worry about when he’d show up in her life. When he’d find her next.
“Based on everything I’ve read, the safest thing you can do is tell everyone around you about the situation. Family, friends, work. So that you aren’t dealing with this by yourself.”
Everything Kaz said made sense—it just wasn’t easy. And Ivan seemed to intimidate people in her circle of the business community. Could he get her fired from her next job too? How long was his reach? Was he a big fish in a small pond? Would it be safe to apply for an accounting job outside of Florida?
“Right. I’ll work on that, but either way, I obviously need to learn about making it harder for someone to find me, so I’d appreciate any lessons on that while I’m in Climax.” She ran both hands over her hair, pushing the curls off her face only to have them spring back. “I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to computers. I mean, I know how to turn one on, but that’s about it.”
“Mira, love, you’ve come to the right place. Not only am I the Wizard you were looking for, but I’m a wizard on the computer.”
Chapter Twelve
Kaz and Mira arrived for the first official self-defense class, stopping by the front desk to check in with Gage, one of the co-owners of the gym.