returning to the man who seemed determined to ruin every aspect of her life. Because not coming up with any goods on him to make her case just wasn’t enough. No, he’d had to touch her, to kiss her, to make her want, need something she’d never thought to have before.
She did not do relationships—sex maybe, and not even that except solo for a very long time. She’d never imagined being the other half of a couple, wasn’t even sure she’d know how to be with someone on a long-term basis.
And really, what the hell was going on with her? Two men hitting on her in two days was definitely out of the ordinary.
“I get it,” he said with a contemplative look on his face. “You’re already seeing someone.”
“No,” she answered quickly. “I’m not. I mean, I don’t have anyone. I’m just not really into dating right now.”
“You’re not into dating me.”
She sighed. “I’m really not seeing anyone.”
“But you’d like to be. Does he know?” Stephen’s voice was friendly, his eyes just a little pensive.
“Does who know what?”
“That you’re interested in him.”
“I’m not—” she started, then paused. She didn’t know Stephen well. Hell, she didn’t know anybody well thanks to her self-induced solitary status. She could talk to her therapist, but she despised him and would much rather stick toothpicks in her eyes and walk on hot coals then sit on that couch and open up to his sick, leery glare. She was a mess. Beyond a mess really, but Stephen seemed game for listening to her so she figured what the hell.
“I think he knows.”
Still smiling, but not totally happy with her admission, Stephen added, “And? Is he interested?”
“I think, in a way.” Admitting he wanted to sleep with her didn’t really seem like the politically correct thing to say. Besides, how did she explain that she thought that was all Rome wanted to do?
Taking another swallow of his beer, Stephen leaned back in his chair. “He’s an idiot if he isn’t.”
She couldn’t help but smile at the serious way in which he’d said that, as if he really saw something in her he thought another man should appreciate. The thought warmed her, just like watching the other two couples together planted the smallest seed of hope inside her.
Maybe she could be relationship material after all. Drinking her soda she laughed off that idea, because it was ridiculously stupid. Stephen was talking off his fourth beer, he could say anything and not mean a thing. What Kalina knew definitely was that the orphan who was trying to make a difference didn’t need the added stress of falling in love with the wrong man.
Instead she decided to enjoy the moment. She’d wanted badly to come to this cookout, to be included in the normalcy of friends on a Sunday afternoon, just this once.
As night settled over the deck, crowded with folding chairs and plastic-covered tables, a light breeze began to blow. Kalina sat at the table with Mel, Pete, and Stephen.
Lifting to her lips the soda she’d grabbed in exchange for the beer she couldn’t quite stomach, she took a sip. The cool liquid slid over her tongue and down her throat with a gentle motion. She let the taste of lime mingle in her mouth and was just about to say something when she heard it.
A moan, or a groan, or something akin to an animal sound. She looked around, but it didn’t appear that anyone else had heard it. Maybe one of the neighbors had a big-ass dog that could growl that deeply. Somehow Kalina really didn’t think that was the case.
Her body tensed as she sat up straighter in her chair. The sound came again, this time closer, and she wished she’d figured out a way to squeeze the 9mm in her glove compartment into her super-small purse. There was danger, that feeling she knew well as it gripped her insides, sending quick messages to her brain to be on alert. She’d always had this kind of intuition, these feelings that she knew were different from anything anyone around her felt. Right beside her the conversation between Melanie and her guests moved with casual ease, but Kalina’s ears tuned that out, pushed it to the far recesses of her mind. In return she homed in on the sound of whatever was coming, waiting so she could react.
It was the strangest thing, a sense of deja vu so strong she felt dizzy with it. She would have to fight; her fingers tingled with the notion. But who? She was at a cookout for crying out loud, who the hell was she gonna fight? The brother-in-law who came over thinking he’d been hooked up? The dad who burned her hamburger?
It didn’t make sense.
But at the end of the yard where fat bushes lined the tall tiers of the privacy fence she saw a movement. Just a shadow, but definitely movement. Instinctively she stood, her eyes narrowing, focusing on that spot.
“Hey, you need something?” Stephen asked, already at her side.
“Ah, no. I um, I just need the bathroom,” she replied. “Be right back.”
And then she was gone, slipping through the back door into the kitchen. Walking swiftly through the rooms, Kalina searched for the basement door. It was there, along the foyer wall. She headed down the steps, hearing the blare of what she thought was the SpongeBob SquarePants theme music. At the bottom of the steps, she looked to her left into the room that was carpeted and paneled and again filled with furniture, including a big flat- screen television. Matthew was lounging on the couch and Madison sound asleep on the love seat across from him.
Tiptoeing past the doorway, she entered what was obviously the laundry room: cement floor, washer and dryer, clothes hanging or folded all about. But none of that mattered; the feeling that something was out there taunted her. There was another door and Kalina quickly opened it, grabbing a baseball bat she’d spied in the corner of the laundry room beforehand.
Slipping out into the night, she recognized that the adults were still talking and drinking just above her on the deck. She moved slowly, hoping their beer-muddled minds wouldn’t see her creeping across the elongated length of the yard. Using the cloak of darkness and the dense line of bushes, Kalina moved deeper and deeper into the yard until a sound had her stopping.
It wasn’t a groan this time, more like a chuffing she knew was animal-like because she’d heard it before. Last night and that night long ago. Still, Kalina prayed she was wrong. What she thought she’d seen didn’t exist. Moving closer to the bushes, she let that thought play in her mind.
Through the bushes there was a flash of light. Green. Two orbs of green. Eyes?
Her heart pounded in her chest as recognition beat into her brain.
She paused, unable to move another inch.
Eyes in the bushes.
There was a sound behind her and she flinched, turning quickly with the raised bat in hand. What came at her was large and moved fast. But she was faster, swinging until the bat connected with a loud thunk. She would have hit it again or at the very least moved closer to verify what “it” was, but she was grabbed from behind.
A hand went over her mouth, another around her waist, pulling her into the bushes she’d thought were her shield.
Kalina struggled, but it was futile as whoever had grabbed her moved quickly. The privacy fence gave way, probably the opening where the trash cans were lined. But there was almost no sound—or maybe they were moving too fast. She felt wind whipping over her skin as if they were traveling at a high rate of speed.
The chuffing grew louder, into a sick-sounding mewl. But her captor kept moving and moving until she was being thrown into the back of a truck.
“Go!” a man’s voice yelled.
The truck pulled off, wheels screeching along the asphalt.
Kalina rolled over on the leather-covered seat, turning until she stared into eyes that freaked her out more than the green ones she’d seen in the bushes. They were gold, like flecks of the sun dropped into the face of a man with skin the color of night.
Now she really wished she had her gun.
