The more time passed, the more I was convinced it had been a trick of my mind. Of fear. Eventually, my body unwound. Relaxed back.
Still, my insides felt cold at the thought of Joshua out there. His email surfaced back through my mind, unbidden. Emails from Joshua weren't unusual. There were twenty of them unread in my inbox. But that one had been oddly sinister. Combined with seeing him today?
No, I didn't know that was him. I couldn't play this game. Couldn't make up false realities that felt so real. But if it was real, the implications were terrifying.
Joshua had been more than just a manager. He'd shown interest in me to a level that, over time, equated with a stalker. Physical touches. Requests to have drinks. He'd happen to take his lunch break at the same time as me. I'd never gone with him on a date because I didn’t date married men, and he wasn’t my type anyway. Sometimes, I could sense his frustration, which only drove me farther away. Which seemed to make him chase harder.
Me, the forbidden fruit.
For a moment, I knew a shot of fear. What if Mark ended up being like Joshua? But I instantly dashed that. No, Mark was many things but he was not Joshua.
The man in question dropped back into the chair across from me with a wide smile that wrenched my heartstrings. I tried to conjure up one in return, but I couldn't. Something inside of me felt too cold.
16 Mark
Stella's face had gone white as paper.
“Stell?”
“I'm fine,” she whispered. “I just . . .”
A jumbled explanation rolled out of her, but after a few quick questions, I was able to make sense of the conversation. Joshua at large, basically. Possibly here. I slid out of the booth.
“Be right back.”
“Wait, no!”
Ignoring that, I stepped outside the restaurant, gazed around, and headed to the right, where she'd indicated she'd seen him. But nothing was there except the empty side of the building and the hill that dropped away from it, into a river ravine. I hung out there for a few minutes, watching for an orange parka. None appeared.
When I returned, she was an adorable mixture of furious and terrified. Her first question, however, was telling.
“Did you see anyone?”
“No one wearing orange or fitting that description.”
She bit her bottom lip and frowned. She shook her head as she huffed a breath. “It's . . . it's kind of hard to believe, right? A little wild for him to be here of all places? I feel like I'm making a big deal out of something that isn't that big of a deal.”
“Seems wild, yes. But has the potential to be a big freaking deal, Stell. You have to assume the worst in a situation like this. Joshua doesn't sound stable. He sounds like he seeks for power over women, and then exploits it.”
She sighed. “I don't . . . I don't want this to come back on my grandma or on you.” Her concerned expression lifted to mine. “I should probably go somewhere else, just in case. What if he is really here?”
Panic ripped through me at the thought, but I set that aside. “As the king of bad ideas,” I said instead, “I think that one is the worst I've ever heard.”
A twitch of a smile appeared before her hyper-focus on reality stepped in. “Mark, this could be an unsafe situation. Between the email last night and this today . . . but then . . . maybe it wasn't him? Maybe I'm paranoid. Or not.”
She growled, more frustrated than ever.
“Which is why you shouldn't go anywhere. That would make it more unsafe for you. Who would ever look at Adventura, Stell?”
She shrugged. “I don't know? Who would ever do the things Joshua has done? He called my clients. Found my number. This isn't a game of logic and it never has been.” She threw a hand in the air. “Joshua is possessive and brilliant and a little scary. I don't want that to have an impact on you.”
“Could be positive,” I reasoned. “Think of the free advertising we'd get from the news announcements if he came to Adventura.”
She glared at me.
“Okay.” I lifted a hand in surrender. She needed logic now. “Granted that's not a great spin either. Regardless, Stell, where else would you go and be safe?”
The image of her curled up on my couch filtered back through my mind. My jacket covered part of her cheek as if she'd smelled it and then fell asleep. She hadn't even felt safe in her very-secure cabin. The thought of her in an RV in some forsaken park in the middle of nowhere was . . . not going to happen.
But Stella had to realize that herself.
“I don't know,” she mumbled.
“Besides,” I said, “you said you were my friend and friends don't just abandon each other when they most need saving. Adventura still definitely needs saving, so there's that. You're a cold-hearted woman if you leave me to handle this myself.”
If possible, the smallest crack formed in her stubbornness. Maybe she felt awkward about being at Adventura or something. I'd always had family and friends to crash back on. I spent ten years of my life flopping around like a dying fish without any apology. To ask others for help bailing us out of a bad streak had sort of been . . . a Bailey-twins thing.
But not for her, obviously.
“Stell, I want you at Adventura. We have so many 007 movies to go through that I don't even want to number them. We haven't even gotten to Moore yet. I can't watch those alone now. Who's going to spit stupid movie-making accounting figures at me if you aren't there? They totally ruin the movie and it's way more fun that way. And who's going to stop me from renting
