Or was that just me?
“What’s the matter?”
She jumped, nearly falling face first into the stove. She caught herself, swiveling on her heels.
“The power went out at some point during the night. Without it, all we have is this stove to keep us warm.”
I sat up, pushing the heavy blankets off of me. The fire was going out because she threw a new piece of wood in it and it was wet from the snow. I gently pushed her out of the way and filled the lower portion of the stove with dry paper and other pieces of kindling sitting nearby and lit it, hoping it would dry out the wood enough to help it catch. After a few minutes, it did just that.
“You have to be careful about putting wet wood in there.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“You might want to bring a few pieces of wood inside and set them aside so they can dry out before you need them.”
“Okay.”
She got up and went to the backdoor in the kitchen, yanking it open. The wind blew a cloud of snow in, catching her by surprise. She gasped as the cold hit her full in the face, forcing her bathrobe back, revealing the thin nightgown she wore underneath. I got up to help, but she clearly didn’t need me. She simply brushed the wet from her eyes and leaned out, grabbing a handful of wood that might have been too much for a different woman to carry. But she held them tight against her chest, managed to not only shut the door, but lock it too, and then carried the wood to the little rack by the stove.
She brushed her hands clean when she was done.
“Want some breakfast?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She snatched a dozen eggs from the fridge, warming an iron skillet on the stove before breaking them inside of it, seasoning them lightly with salt and pepper. I sat at the counter and watched her work, finding it oddly entertaining.
“You were visiting a friend?” she asked.
I nodded. “A guy I was in the service with. He comes up here during the winter to get away from it all, you know?’
“I know exactly.”
“What about you? Why would a lady come up here alone?”
“To get away from the city for a while.”
“Sounds like fun.”
She shrugged. “I’d almost rather be at work. It seems like fun, the idea of having the time to sit around and read or whatever. But when you have the time, you suddenly realize that having too much time is just as bad as not having enough, you know?”
“I do.”
She flipped the eggs and put a couple of slices of bread into the toaster. “Do you like yours over easy, or hard?”
“Hard.”
She nodded, focusing on the eggs a minute longer.
“Do you have family?”
“Like a wife and kids?”
She nodded again.
“No. You?”
“No, not me.”
“It’s easier to run away like this when you have no one.”
“There’s more reason to run away when you’re alone, I think.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I had some family issues once that made me want to run for the hills.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I just joined the military.”
She looked me over for a second. “I thought so. You have that look about you.”
I reached up and ran my hand over my slowly growing buzz. “The haircut?”
“That and the tucked t-shirt. There aren’t a lot of guys who do that anymore.”
I nodded. “Marines are hard about that. It’s kind of ingrained in everything I do now.”
“Not such a bad thing.”
“No, I don’t suppose so.”
She set a plate in front of me and then served herself. I watched her move around the kitchen as she grabbed a couple of glasses and took a container of orange juice from the fridge.
“We’ll have to stick everything out in the snow if the power is off too long.”
“There are some benefits to this weather, I suppose,” I said.
She came around the counter and paused to look out the window. “Doesn’t look like it’s slowed down at all.”
“I’ll go out to check how deep it is here after breakfast.”
“If it’s too deep…”
“Sorry. If I’d realized there was such a storm coming, I would have stuck it out at my buddy’s a while longer.”
“Don’t worry about it. Might be nice to have a little company for a day or two.”
“How long were you planning on being up here?”
“Don’t know. A couple of weeks at least. After that, I’m not sure.”
“Hiding from someone?”
She smiled, a little bit of a blush touching her cheeks. “No, nothing like that.”
“No violent ex-boyfriend in your past?”
“No.”
The blush deepened. She was clearly flattered that I would even think that.
“But I bet there’s a whole stable of exes looking for you,” she said.
“What makes you think that?”
She glanced at me her fork raised to her lips with a small bite of egg congealing on the tip of the tines. “A guy who looks like you? I would assume you’ve had plenty of girls and I’m sure most of them wouldn’t mind hooking up with you again.”
“That’s quite an assumption.”
“Am I wrong?”
I studied her face a second. “Would it surprise you to know that the love of my life, the girl I thought I was going to marry, cheated on me with a guy I thought was my friend?”
“It would, actually.”
“Why? Because of the way I look?”
She regarded me for a long moment, her eyes moving slowly over my face and then my chest, stopping before they went much lower. She blushed again, her eyes falling to her plate.
“I guess I just assumed that people who look like you don’t have the same problems that we mere mortals tend to run into.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. She got up and rounded the counter, shoving the last of her breakfast into the trash.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to offend.”
She shrugged, grabbing the iron skillet and scraping the egg remnants out of it.
“I just…I think you’re beautiful. More so than I could ever be. So, maybe I look at you the same way you look at me.”
She snorted. “I’m not beautiful.”
“You are.”
She shook her head. “My nose is crooked. And my hair is thinner than it should be. And I’m too short.”
“You have a nose with character. Your hair is wavy and full and silky and beautiful. And you’re petite.”
She peeked at me from under her eyelashes. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I don’t have to know anything about you to see you.”
She seemed to think that was sort of profound. She stared at me, her eyes a little wide. Then she abruptly put down the skillet and marched off to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. I laughed, but I was careful to keep my laughter quiet so that she might not overhear it.
I wandered out into the snow, watching it come down all around me as I trudged through the wetness to the SUV. The snow was already covering the tires and it was still coming down just as heavily as it had been last night. We easily had gotten two feet overnight, maybe more. At this rate, it would be up to the mirrors by morning.
There was no way either of us was getting out of here today.
I went back into the cabin just in time to catch Cadence coming out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her body. She let out a small scream when she saw me watching her.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Forgot my clothes.”
She quickly snatched some things off of the top of a duffle bag and disappeared back into the bathroom. I watched her go, surprised to see a small tattoo on her shoulder. It was a date written in roman numerals. May 10, 1990. I wondered what the significance was.
&n
bsp; I slipped my jacket off and shoved another piece of wood into the stove. It was chilly in the cabin, but not nearly as cold as it was outside. It was going to be a long night if the power didn’t come back on soon.
She came back out with a board game in her hands.
“I know it’s a little corny, but they had Monopoly in the closet in there. I thought maybe it would pass the time a little faster.”
“Sure.”
“Have you ever played?”
“I used to play it all the time when I was a kid. My brother always kicked my ass.”
“I played with my grandma. She said I had natural skill.”
We set up the board and began to play, each of us accumulating properties as quickly as we could. Cadence laughed when she managed to snag Boardwalk and I promptly landed on it. But then I made her pay when I got a hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.
We played for several hours, laughing at each other as we each managed to take a little piece of hide from the other. But it wasn’t as much to play to win with only two players, it was more for the companionship. I got up to grab a couple of bottles of water. When I turned, she was staring at me, her eyes wide again.
“What?”
“I do know you!”
I tilted my head just slightly. “What makes you say that?”
“You were at the gas station outside Abilene early yesterday morning.”
I shrugged. “Might have been. I don’t really remember where I stopped. It was a long drive.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Lubbock,” I lied.
She saw through it instantly. “That doesn’t make sense.”
I shrugged. “It’s where I came from. I came up here to find a friend, but I started in Lubbock.”
“Do you live there?”
“I’m working there. But I come from back east.”
“Where?”
“Chicago.”
That was true. I was from Chicago, originally. But I hadn’t been there, but for a brief stop months ago, in years. I’d learned a long time ago that the best lies were all rooted in truth.
“Why are you in Texas?”
“Work.”
That, too, was true. At least partially.
“Have you ever been in Houston?”
I crossed the kitchen and rejoined her at the coffee table where we were playing. I knew I had to be careful here because this was where I could screw up.
“A few times. But not recently.”
“You look so familiar…if it wasn’t you outside of Abilene, where else have I seen you?”
I looked her in the eye, letting my eyes bore through her. “I have no idea.”
She looked away, just as I’d known she would. She picked up the dice and weighed them in her hand, studying the board as she did. The wheels in her head were clearly spinning. I watched, wondering if she would make the connection. What would I do if she did?
She suddenly put the dice down.
“I call it a truce. It’s time to make dinner.”
“Can I help?”
She glanced at me as she walked past to go to the kitchen. “You can put the game away.”
I did as she asked, then snuck away to take a shower in the narrow stall that was shoved in a corner of the tiny bathroom like some sort of afterthought. She remembered seeing me in the restaurant, that much was obvious. Had she seen my face in the little green car? I’d been careful about that, but there was that one moment when it seemed like our eyes met. Would she remember?
I hoped not.
Chapter 6
Cadence
I heard the water come on in the bathroom and I crossed over to the chair where he’d laid his jacket. I wanted to see if he had some sort of ID in there, if maybe something there would lend truth to what he’d said to me. I didn’t even know his name. I’d never bothered to ask. And he didn’t know my name. But the way he kept looking at me…there was something so familiar about him. And it felt like there was something he knew about me.
I lifted the jacket and nearly screamed when it snagged and then this gun was just right there, jutting out of the top of a light leather holster. What the hell? Why was he carrying a gun?
Who the hell was this guy?
I carefully put the jacket the way it was and rushed back into the kitchen, busying myself with the salad I’d been about to throw together. I felt like I’d stepped into a bad horror movie, stuck alone in a cabin with a man whose name I didn’t even know. Was he here to hurt me? If so, why? What had I done that suddenly grabbed the attention of all these people who wanted to hurt me? Was it about Blake or was there more to it than that?
I grabbed a couple of steaks and threw them onto the small grill attachment on the back of the stove, watching for a moment as they sizzled on the heat. Then I turned back to the cutting board, working the romaine and then the cucumbers quickly, precisely, just as my grandmother had taught me. It was the tomatoes that got me, one of them slipping just right so that the knife sliced over the top of my finger.
“Fuck!” I cried, the word slipping out more naturally than I would have imagined under other circumstances.
“You okay?” he said, rushing out of the bathroom.
I already had my finger under the faucet, watching the blood wash away under the water. He came up behind me, only partially dressed in jeans, but missing his shirt. The heat of his skin pressed against the length of my back, his muscles like a bed of rock that had been molded by the hands of a master.
“I cut it,” I said, stating the obvious.
“Is there a first aid kit around here?”
I shook my head. I had no idea. But I wished he would just keep standing behind me instead of moving away, searching through cabinets and drawers. He finally disappeared into the bathroom, crying in triumph before reappearing with a white metal box in his hands.
He came up behind me again, a bottle of peroxide in his hand.
“This might hurt a little.”
He poured the clear liquid over my finger and bubbles appeared at the same time pain sliced through my hand. I bit my lips, trying not to cry out.
“Sorry,” he mumbled next to my ear.
My lower belly quivered, my thoughts suddenly moving away from the injury on my finger, or the soreness of my leg. His lips were so close to my ear that I could feel the heat of his breath against my earlobe. I could already imagine what it would feel like for his lips to touch my ear, to feel the slight nibble of his teeth against my flesh. Just the thought made my stomach tighten, made my nipples suddenly rise up and press against the front of my bra and t-shirt. I wanted to press back against him, feel more of his body against me, but I was afraid of being too obvious.
Besides, I wasn’t supposed to do this. Not now. I was supposed to be the virginal vessel waiting to take on the blessing of Blake Zimmerman’s child. I wasn’t even supposed to have thoughts like this right now.
But then he lifted my finger and blew gently on it and all logic just went flying out the window.
“I don’t know if this helps, but my mom used to do it all the time.”
“Thanks,” I murmured, not sure if I was thanking him for his help or for his closeness.
He blew again, his position forcing me to lean harder against him. I closed my eyes, realizing the last time a man had held me this close had been the day after my grandma died. It had been Leon, the young doctor who’d taken on her care there at the end when she wouldn’t allow anyone else near her, especially not Leon’s father, Dr. Lloyd Willis, the same man who’d been her doctor for twenty years.
Leon was kind. Gentle. But he hadn’t made my knees knock quite like this.
“It doesn’t look too deep,” he said.
“That’s good,” I whispered.
“Just a bandage should be good.”
He reached over for the box of first aid supplies. I stayed tucked into his arms, my head braced between his cheek and his shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice, or to mind
.
It only took a second to wrap the bandage around my finger, his fingers moving deftly. Then he held my hand up where we could both see it.
“All better.”
“Thank you.”
He turned to look at me, his lips barely a hair from mine. I felt the tension suddenly rush through him, as though he’d just realized what he’d done. He quickly stepped back.
“Any time.”
He was gone and I was left standing there, my hands on the edge of the sink holding me up as my knees refused to be still.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Dinner was a nearly silent affair. I guess we’d run out of questions for one another. When it was done, he did the dishes, insisting that I shouldn’t get my hand wet. I thought about taking a bath, really wanted to take a bath, but it seemed like an unwise choice with him in the room. If it’d had four walls around it… Instead, I ducked into the bathroom and changed into a pair of shorts and a long t-shirt. My bandage was irritating my skin, so I carefully cut along the edges and cut it off. I hadn’t done a very good job replacing the bandage the doctors had put on it, anyway. Probably shouldn’t have bothered at all.
I stepped out into the main part of the cabin and he was sitting on the couch, his long legs resting on the coffee table, an iPad in his lap. He was watching some video, earphones in his ears. He looked up when I came into the room, his eyes falling to the bruised and battered flesh of my thigh.
“Wow! What happened?”
I looked down, running my fingers lightly over the heavy stitches. “Fell at my apartment.”
“Yeah? How did you manage to cut the top of your thigh?”
“Just lucky, I suppose.”
“You’re a little accident prone, aren’t you?” He touched his finger to indicate what I’d done tonight.
I chuckled softly. “I suppose so.”
I went to the stove and checked the flames, wondering if I should pop another block of wood inside.
“I just stoked it. It should be fine till morning.”
“Thanks.”
I turned, my eyes falling over him again. He was wearing his t-shirt again, a plain blue one with no adornment except for the small pocket over his heart. It was a good color for him. It brought out the color of his eyes and the deep tan of his arms.
DRAGON SECURITY: The Complete 6 Books Series Page 51