Frozen Hearts (Beyond Reality Book 3)

by Stoker, Susan

  “You mean after everything we’ve been through together, you’re seriously not going to tell me?” Kina asked, annoyed. “You owe me!”

  Both men laughed at her.

  “Consider this payback for all those horrible shots you took of us,” Roger told her, only half-kidding.

  Kina got over her snit quickly, because honestly she didn’t really care who’d won in the long run. She gave each of the men another big hug before heading off to her gate. “Thanks for being pretty cool about everything,” she told them. “I’ve been on shows with some pretty horrible people, and you guys are all right.”

  They knew she was teasing and told her they’d see her later.

  Kina knew they wouldn’t, but it was a nice sentiment.

  A few hours later Kina’s nerves were getting the better of her. She was more nervous at what would happen next than she’d been for her first job interview as a camera operator. Dean had assured her Jonathan wanted her with him, but until she saw it for herself firsthand, she just wasn’t sure.

  After getting the rental car, Kina checked the map on her cell phone for the tenth time. She couldn’t believe she was just going to show up at the refuge where Jonathan was staying with his parents, but she just wanted to get it over with. She couldn’t go another day without seeing for herself that Jonathan was alive and well. Kina could still remember the feel of his warm blood seeping through her fingers, as she frantically put pressure on his stomach, while they were in the woods on the island.

  Every now and then she’d have a nightmare where he’d be walking toward her holding his intestines in his hands, and asking ‘why.’ She shivered. Yeah, it was time to see him for herself and make sure he was okay.

  Jonathan was sitting at the dining room table talking with his mom and making a list of places to start looking for Kina when the doorbell rang. Bethany got up and went around the corner to the front door. Jonathan didn’t get up, he still wasn’t moving very quickly these days and he was concentrating on his list.

  He heard the surprise in his mom’s voice when she opened the door, but couldn’t hear her actual conversation with whoever was at the door. He steeled himself to entertain another one of his parents’ friends. They’d been coming by at regular intervals to check on him. It was annoying, but sweet at the same time.

  Jonathan couldn’t believe his eyes when his mom returned with Kina in tow. He was stunned. He’d been all ready to set off to find her and here she was!

  Jonathan slowly stood up and held himself steady with one hand on the tabletop. He simply stared at hisOne, as she stood in the doorway.

  Neither noticed as Bethany disappeared into the back of the house.

  Kina shuffled her feet. God, He looked like crap, but so good. He was standing in front of her, alive, and whole. Not knowing how he’d take her being there, she didn’t move.

  Jonathan had no such hesitation. He stepped toward her unsteadily. He had to have her in his arms right now.

  Kina saw him falter as he came toward her and that loosened her feet. She lunged at him and they met halfway across the kitchen. She wrapped her arms around his waist carefully and leaned against him. God. How could she ever have thought for a second about not coming here to be with him? She only felt whole in his arms. She felt his hand come up and cup the back of her neck as he always did. It felt heavenly.

  Jonathan let out a shaky sigh. Kina was here. She’d come. “Thank God,” was all he could get out. “Thank God you’re here.”

  Kina nodded and couldn’t help the tears that coursed down her face and soaked into his chest. “I wasn’t sure you still wanted me to come.”

  Jonathan drew back and took her chin in his hands. He hated to see her cry, but he had to make sure she understood his next words. “I was making plans to come find you, love. I wanted you here. I would’ve spent the rest of my life searching for you so I could convince you to stay with me.” When Kina buried her head against his shirt again he couldn’t help but tease her. “Would you rather have a beautiful woman wipe snot on you after crying or have her sneeze on you?” She laughed as he meant her to.

  Jonathan shuffled with her, still snuggled in his arms, over to the couch. He carefully sat, not jostling his abdomen too much, and settled into the cushions with her in his arms. After she’d stopped crying, he finally asked, “Why’d it take you so long to get to me?”

  Kina sat up part way and rubbed her hands over her face. Gah. She knew she had to talk to him, but she wasn’t a pretty crier. Some women could cry crocodile tears and not mess up a speck of their makeup, not her. She got blotchy and her eyes swelled up terribly. When she looked up at Jonathan, he was looking at her as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world. God, she loved him. Yes. Loved. Him.

  “I love you.” She couldn’t hold it back anymore. Being here in his arms was a miracle. She hadn’t known if she’d ever feel the strength in his arms again. That bear had scared the crap out of her and made her understand just what she had in Jonathan.

  “I love you too, Kina.”

  Kina nodded. “I know.” She smiled sheepishly at him. “I should’ve told you before now, but I was scared. I wasn’t sure how you could love me.Me. I’m nobody important. I haven’t done anything important in my life. No one will remember my name. I didn’t understand. Then you got hurt and I was literally holding your life in my hands and I knew. We don’t have to do anything, we don’t have to be famous, we can just love each other and be happy together. I wanted that. I wanted that more than I wanted my next breath, but you were lying under me and I was holding your intestines in my hands. I was scared to death.”

  Jonathan interrupted her, “But you did what you had to do, didn’t you, love?” Kina nodded. “You did what you had to because you’re strong on your own. You don’t need me to be strong; you’re independent and a hell of a woman. Any other woman might have fallen apart and panicked. You did everything right, Kina. I’m here. I’m alive. You’re a hell of a woman. My woman.”

  Kina smiled. “Hey, this is me talking, not you.” Jonathan smiled and nodded as if to say ‘go ahead.’

  “So there you were, lying unconscious in a hospital bed and I had to bully the doctors into not giving up on you, because I knew deep down, you’d fight. You’d fight to get back to me. And you did. Once I knew you were going to pull through, I had to make it so I could move down here and be with you.” At the look in his eyes she hurried on. “I know, I know, I could’ve quit my job and sat around eating bon-bons and you wouldn’t care.”

  She loved watching him laugh. She didn’t love the wince that came along with the laugh, though. Obviously, laughing pulled at his still-tender stomach muscles.

  “I went to see Eddie. I had to wait until he’d finished filming on that damn island. Then he gave me hell and negotiated with me for a few days before we could sign our new contract.”

  Jonathan scowled at her. “New contract? Wait a minute…”

  Not letting him continue, she put her hand over his mouth to shut him up. She felt his tongue caressing the palm of her hand and she pulled her hand back. “Don’t distract me!” she scolded him, “or I’ll never get to tell you.”

  Jonathan pulled her hand back to his mouth and kissed the palm. “Go on love, I’ll be good, but this story had better end with you living with me and spending every night in my bed and in my arms, or I won’t like it.”

  Kina shook her head. Every now and then his alpha tendencies would come out. She tried to tell herself it was annoying, but the truth was, she loved it.

  “I didn’t want to move here and not have anything to do. I actually like being behind a camera and I’m good at it.” Kina said the last with no pomposity in her voice. She was a good camera operator and she knew it. “I talked with Dean…”

  Jonathan interrupted her for what seemed like the millionth time. “You talked to Dean? You mean, he knew where you were this entire time?”

  Uh-oh. She didn’t mean to get Dean in trouble. She tr
ied to hide her smile. Jonathan was so cute. “Uh, yeah, but anyway…” Jonathan growled and pushed Kina backward until she was reclining on the couch. Kina didn’t fight him because she wasn’t sure how hurt he still was. She giggled.

  “I’ve been going out of my mind trying to figure out how to find you and my brother knew where you were and was actually talking to you this entire time?” Jonathan asked again, in a mock-gruff tone.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t see you texting me at all. I would’ve answered.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  Kina shook her head. She hadn’t meant to hide away from him, and she was telling the truth. She would’ve texted him back in a heartbeat if he’d contacted her.

  “Why didn’t you textme?” Jonathan asked, hurt.

  “I wasn’t sure whether you were pissed at me or not, and when Dean told me you were all right and not mad at me, I figured it was better if I just came here and talked to you in person. Besides, the more time went by, the more awkward I felt about contacting you out of the blue. I convinced myself you were better off healing on your own and didn’t need my issues holding you back.”

  Jonathan shook his head in amazement. “I can’t believe I didn’t think to just pick up my phone and shoot you a note. I’m an idiot.”

  Kina put her hand on his face. “You’re my idiot.” She leaned up and kissed him briefly on the lips. Before he could deepen it, she pulled away. “Do you want to hear the rest of this or not?”

  “Not.”

  She laughed and pushed at his chest. Jonathan briefly laid his forehead on hers. Then he sighed in mock aggravation. “Okay, okay, please continue. But as I said before, I hope this story ends with you living here in Arizona with me.”

  Kina decided to just get it out so they could move on to more pleasant things. “I consulted with Dean and we worked out a deal with Eddie where I’d film documentaries on women who are in need of security, and their stories. I wanted to tell the world about the plight of people who are stalked and to try to see if we couldn’t help change the stalking laws in this country. I figured, the more we highlight the personal side of these women, the more people will see they’re just regular people who happen to have had the wrong kind of person get obsessed with them. Do you know that in a typical one-year-period there are six point six million people over the age of eighteen who are stalked? And over a lifetime, sixteen percent of women and five percent of men feel they’ve been a victim of stalking or thought that they, or someone close to them, would be hurt or killed? That’s crazy! People are crazy!”

  Jonathan could only smile in wonderment at his love. She was so passionate, he was lucky to have found her.

  Kina continued, “And not only that, but I told Dean he needed to look into helping not only women, but men too. Did you know that twenty four percent of stalking victims are men? That’s a quarter of all victims! There are crazy women out there terrorizing people too. Women aren’t the only victims!”

  Jonathan couldn’t stop himself from kissing the hell out of his woman.

  Kina was surprised, but quickly joined in with enthusiasm. She’d never take this for granted again. Jonathan’s lips were devouring hers and she loved it.

  He pulled back and between nips of her luscious lips and asked, “Is there more?”

  Kina tried to remember what she’d been talking about. Oh yeah. Stalking, Dean, Eddie, her job. She summed up the rest of her story quickly. “So I have the job of filming you guys as you help out stalking victims and working with Eddie’s company to get the documentaries produced and aired.”

  “And you’re here for good?”

  “Yes, if you want me.”

  “I want you.”

  Kina smiled up at the most handsome man in the world. Her man. If someone had told her a year ago she’d meet the man of her dreams while working, she’d have said they were crazy. Her heart had been as frozen as Alaska was in the winter. She’d never thought she’d meet anyone who could thaw it out and make her love him as much as she loved Jonathan. As she thought back over the last year, she reflected on how she’d almost died in Australia, had spent a crazy couple of months filming a show that would never air,and finally, came face-to-face with a bear and lived. Most importantly, she’d met Jonathan,her One.

  As she settled back onto the cushions of the couch and reached up to her man, she knew she’d finally found paradise.

  Epilogue

  Sam, Becky, and Kina sat around the small table in the bar just off the beach and raised their glasses toward each other.

  “To life-long friendship!” Becky said a bit too loud. Since this was their tenth toast to nothing in particular, none of the friends seemed to notice the volume of her toast.

  “To life-long friendship!” Kina and Sam repeated, then downed their shots.

  After moving into their small house, both Jonathan and Kina wasted no time in settling down. Kina didn’t think his parents had forgiven them yet for running off to Vegas to get married, but Kina had never dreamed of a big wedding. Truth be told, she never thought she’d ever get married in the first place. So they’d followed Becky and Dean’s example and headed off to Nevada. They’d had a quick wedding with just Dean and Becky, and Sam and her husband Alex there as witnesses. It was perfect.

  Kina had missed Sam and was happy they were able to at least see each other now and then, but they made sure they kept in touch via weekly phone chats to just catch up.

  Kina loved traveling with Jonathan and Dean when they went to help set up security for someone who was being stalked. Dean was true to his word and had started including men in his business as well. He told her he’d honestly not even thought about a man being stalked, but after talking to some of the victims, he’d changed his mind pretty quickly. Women were just as crazy as men, and sometimes even more so, when they were stalking someone.

  Kina loved being married to Jonathan. It was inevitable that they’d fight, as they both had such strong personalities, but making up was so much fun.

  The first time Kina had seen Jonathan’s scars, she’d broken down. She’d traced them over and over with her fingertips and with her mouth, trying to reassure herself he was whole again. They’d had another long talk about guilt afterwards. Kina admitted she still felt guilty that he’d been the one who had been hurt when she felt it should’ve been her. They’d even gone to see the same counselor Becky had seen after she’d been violated, and it seemed to help both of them. The woman had talked them through their feelings and they’d both agreed to let it go. They were both here and alive and together. It was enough for them both.

  They’d never found out who was ultimately named the “Extreme Alaskan.” Their last paycheck arrived in the mail and that was the last either thought about the show. As far as Kina was concerned, Jonathan had more than earned that title all by himself. Her friends were amazed she didn’t care who won, but they respected her wishes to not talk about it. All it did was bring back bad memories for Kina. She was way too busy with her documentaries and helping out on the animal refuge to give it any thought, anyway.

  The couples’ weekend had been thought up by Becky and Kina one night. They’d had a tough week and decided they wanted to get away. Knowing their husbands wouldn’t let them go by themselves, they let them come too. Kina thought about Sam and asked if she and Alex could come as well. Becky had agreed wholeheartedly. She’d met them while her reality show was filmed and liked them on sight. Sam had given her some great advice and she was happy to get to know her better.

  So now, they were sitting at a bar on the beach, ignoring the looks from the men at nearby tables and drinking themselves silly. They knew their men weren’t far away, watching over them. They’d had a conversation once after the last time they’d all gotten together and compared notes. They realized that none of their men ever got drunk when they did. Kina asked Jonathan about it and he’d responded that the guys agreed to let them have their fun and they’d be there to make sure no one harassed them a
nd to keep them out of trouble, if it came to that.

  It was overprotective and sweet at the same time. The three women also realized how good the sex was after their nights out. It was as if the men looked forward to them going out simply because of the uninhibited sex that happened afterwards. They’d all laughed and shrugged. They loved their men and loved the long, lovemaking sessions after their nights of drinking just as much.

  “I think we should give ourselves a name!” Becky said excitedly. “We all met because of stupid Eddie and his reality shows…let’s call ourselves the ‘Reality Chicks’!”

  “No, the ‘Reality Bitches’,” Sam said, laughing herself silly, thinking it was the funniest thing ever.

  “You guys know what?” Kina said semi-seriously, hammered, but wanting her friends to know how much they meant to her. “We’re bound together because of reality shows. That’s amazing. I’m so glad I met you all. We’re like the six shades of reality.”

  Kina felt Jonathan’s arms around her waist before she could see him. He leaned down and put his cheek against hers. “Having fun, love?” Kina turned and blindly sought his lips with her own. How long had it been since she’d had him? She couldn’t remember, but it had to have been too long. The feel of his hand curling around the back of her neck never failed to make her melt.

  Alex picked Sam up and sat down on her stool, holding her tight in his arms. She giggled and wrapped one arm around his neck, but kept hold of her drink with the other. She leaned in and latched onto his neck, sucking hard. “Hey! Watch it!” he told her, knowing she’d ignore him. She loved marking him, especially when she was drunk. She always said she had to put her mark on him so no other woman would get any ideas.

  Dean turned Becky and stepped into her space. She spread her legs, inviting him to stand between them. He put his forehead against hers and just held her. She was his life and he felt like the luckiest man alive having her in his. He knew how precious life was and how easily it could be taken away.