The Hunt

by Heather Killough-Walden

  Uriel’s eyes flew open to find a woman and a little girl standing a few feet away, beside the door of the first stall.

  “I was obviously wrong,” she continued. “Because you’ve mistaken the women’s restroom for the ridiculously famous sex symbol restroom—which is next door.”

  Uriel’s heart stopped beating. His jaw dropped open.

  He couldn’t be seeing what he was seeing in that moment. He couldn’t be feeling what he was feeling. Not now. Not here, in a bathroom—after two thousand years. Maybe he’d slipped in the rain outside and hit his head.

  No, that was impossible. He was relatively invincible. Being hit on the head would do nothing to him but make him a little cranky.

  She was really standing there before him. She was real; he could see her, hear her—he could even smell her. She smelled like shampoo and soap and lavender.

  Jesus, he thought, unable to refrain from letting his gaze drop down her body and back up again. She was everything that he had ever imagined she would be, from her tall, slim body to her long jet-black hair, and those indigo blue eyes the color of a Milky Way night. Her skin was like porcelain. Her lips were plump and pink and framed perfect, white teeth. She was an angel.

  She was his archess. And she was . . . scowling at him?

  He frowned.

  *****

  The door to the bathroom had shut firmly behind Christopher Daniels, and he clearly had heard what she’d said, but he still just stood there like he was frozen and Eleanore could not figure out why. “Mr. Daniels, is there something I can help you with?” Eleanore asked.

  She had to admit to herself that when Daniels had first entered the women’s restroom, she’d been taken completely and utterly by surprise. First of all, he was even more handsome in real life than he was in his plethora of press photos. And that wasn’t supposed to be the case at all. Wasn’t there supposed to be loads and loads of makeup involved? Tricks of the light? In real life, didn’t actors have acne and scars and wrinkles and un-dyed roots for miles?

  In real life, an actor’s eyes didn’t seem to glow the way they did in the movies. But Christopher Daniels’s eyes did. It was nearly eerie, they were so intense. They instantly called to mind the dreams she’d had of him. It was always his eyes she saw just before she woke up. All of the pictures he had plastered across the nation didn’t do them justice. His eyes were the color of arctic icebergs, so very, very light green that they seemed . . . more than human. They were incredibly beautiful.

  She was standing in a restroom, face-to-face with a famous actor who was, quite literally, the most attractive man she had ever seen. And yet he was looking at her as if she were the gorgeous movie star instead.

  And so she was more than a little surprised at herself when, instead of feeling faint and falling all over him like all of the other girls in the world seemed to do, her first instinct had been to stand up to him. For what, exactly, she had no idea. For coming into the girls’ restroom, she guessed. Of all things! What kind of crime was that, exactly?

  Eleanore’s subconscious mind knew the truth. She wasn’t mad at him for coming into the wrong restroom, of course. She was mad at him for being who and what he was. Gorgeous—and famous. It was an old brain kind of thing.

  He was obviously hiding. That was clear. And from the sound of the giggling schoolgirls beyond the door, she would wager a guess that it was his fans he was hiding from. The nerve! First, these guys fight tooth and nail to climb their way into fandom and then they balk at being loved by the masses.

  What was up with that?

  Meanwhile she’d forgotten Jennifer, the little girl she’d come into the bathroom to help in the first place. But Jennifer had clearly noticed Daniels as well. Her hand slipped out of Eleanore’s own as she spoke up. “Miss Ellie made my stomach feel better!” she chimed in, completely out of the blue. “I was throwing up, but she touched my tummy and made it stop.”

  Eleanore paled. Oh no, she thought. Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet—don’t say any more!

  “Which is a good thing,” Jennifer went on, nodding emphatically, “because the throw up made me want to throw up some more.” Jennifer was only about five, but she wasn’t shy. She grimaced and seemed to want to push the memory away with her little hands. “It was so gross.”

  Eleanore felt herself blanching further. She pulled her gaze off the famous actor and looked at the wall. She needed to compose herself. She needed to get a handle on the situation—take control.

  Finally, she rolled her shoulders and looked back up at him.

  She blinked. He was still staring at her in abject fascination. That was fascination, wasn’t it? Not amusement? Maybe he just thought she was mental. . . .

  “Mr. Daniels, I’m going to find Jennifer’s parents and then I would be happy to announce your arrival over the intercom, if you’d like—”

  Daniels pushed himself off the wall and stepped toward her. His motorcycle boots made a heavy thud on the linoleum floor. It sounded dangerous. A warm, erotic warning thrummed through Eleanore’s body.

  “You’re the reason it’s storming,” he said. “Now it makes perfect sense.”

  Eleanore’s world tipped on its axis, and fear gripped her. Her vision began to tunnel. “P-pardon me?” she asked. Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears.

  What is he talking about? He can’t know.

  She almost shook her head against the possibility. She thought about taking a step back, suddenly needing space. But there was a tiny hand in hers, squeezing tight, and she couldn’t escape.

  “You’re a man and this is a girls’ bathroom,” little Jennifer said.

  Christopher Daniels glanced down at the child. Jennifer’s nose was scrunched up and her gaze was reprimanding. The actor seemed to be considering the girl for a moment and then he looked back up at Eleanore.

  “Ellie,” he said softly.

  Eleanore swallowed hard. Her mouth and throat had gone dry. “It’s—it’s Eleanore,” she stammered. And then, realizing that she’d just given out her name and that perhaps she shouldn’t have, she looked away from him and shook her head. “Mr. Daniels,” she tried again. “Excuse me. I really do need to find Jennifer’s parents. She’s just been pretty sick.”

  She brushed past him to push open the door and as she did, the air seemed to thicken around her; it suddenly felt cloying and confusing. It took forever to get by the actor; she could feel him watching her as she came near and he made virtually no move to get out of the way. His nearness was electrifying and disarming, his body tall and hard and very real. Time seemed to slow down as she opened the door and stepped out into the store.

  But once she was past him, she walked as quickly as she could with a five-year-old tethered to her arm, which wasn’t very fast at all. She heard footsteps behind her and glanced back to see that Daniels was following her. He kept pace easily, a small, determined smile playing about his lips.

  Christopher Daniels is behind me, Eleanore thought. The famous actor, Christopher Daniels, is behind me! He’s probably looking at my ass. She tried not to groan out loud at that thought. As if it mattered!

  She wasn’t sure what her bottom looked like from his vantage point; she never bothered with the mirror that much in the morning. And she was nearly as horrified by the fact that she cared what she looked like to him as she was by the fact that he seemed to be looking at her. Was he looking at her butt?

  Of course he’s looking at my butt, she thought. He’s a guy! That’s what they do!

  She berated herself for the internal monologue of Clueless-worthy concerns and once more wondered what he’d meant by his storm comment. Did he know that she’d caused the storm? If he did—how?

  There’s no way, she thought. He must have meant something else.

  Eleanore stopped beside the customer service desk and bent to whisper into Jennifer’s little ear.

  “This is our secret
, okay?” she said, hoping against hope that the child would catch the urgency with which she made the request.

  Jennifer looked up at her and then glanced over at Daniels, who was leaning against a bookshelf a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression both bewildered and amused. Then she nodded and smiled up at Eleanore, and Ellie’s fear dropped down a notch.

  Eleanore straightened and picked up the phone at the customer service desk. She saw Daniels peek over the racks at the crowd by the front doors. A woman dressed in a suit with a name tag glanced nervously at her watch and then stood on her toes as if to look for someone. They were wondering where their star was.

  There was a tall man in a suit with them. He was pushing his way through the women—and a few men—to the front of the store. Eleanore wondered vaguely who he was, but let it go as she made a “lost child” announcement over the intercom to get the attention of Jennifer’s parents.

  When she’d finished, she put the phone back in its cradle and turned to face a harried-looking couple who instantly knelt before Jennifer to console her. Jennifer’s mother scooped her up into her arms and with a quick thank-you to Ellie, they were on their way out of the store.

  Now Ellie turned to face Daniels, who was still leaning against the bookshelf, watching her. In the next split second, he straightened from the shelf, closed the distance between them with two purposeful strides, and pinned her to the customer service desk, one strong arm braced against the counter on either side of her.

  Eleanore inhaled sharply and her heart did a somersault in her chest.

  “I have to go to a big party Thursday night. Come with me,” he said. He was so close, his breath whispered across her lips—it smelled of licorice and mint.

  “W-wha . . .” she stammered. Then she dry swallowed and tried again. “What?”

  She heard a faint cracking sound and glanced down to see that his grip on the desk behind her had tightened. She turned back to face him and watched as his gaze flicked to her mouth and back.

  “Ellie,” he said, as if testing her name out on his tongue. “Here’s the thing,” he continued softly. “I need a date to a big promotional party in Dallas. A gala. I don’t know anyone in Texas. You were kind enough to let me hide in the women’s restroom.” He smiled an incredibly charming smile. “And I appreciate it,” he added. “So I would be honored if you would consider being my date next week on Thursday.”

  Eleanore took a few seconds to digest this. There was a part of her that simply couldn’t believe her position at that moment. She was being cornered by Christopher Daniels, against her own customer service desk, and asked out on a date. But despite the impossibility of it all, she knew she wasn’t dreaming. This felt too real.

  He was so big. So tall and . . . he looked hard—everywhere. And his nearness was doing strange things to her. He smelled good. The leather of his jacket and whatever aftershave or shower gel he’d used were a heady, highly tantalizing combination. There wasn’t an ounce of him that wasn’t pure masculinity, from the set of his jaw to the smooth, determined sound of his voice.

  “You’re not answering,” he said, once more glancing at her lips as he’d done before. He seemed to be leaning in closer now, and Eleanore was finding it more difficult to breathe. “Does this mean you’re considering it?”

  Christ, I’m falling for this jerk. I’ve barely met him and I’ve already got it bad.

  She tried to swallow past a spot in her throat that had gone dry. She wondered then, as she gazed up into those impossibly colored eyes, how many women he’d done this to lately. He was good at it.

  He’s an actor, she told herself. Of course he’s good at it.

  That was a sobering thought. She blinked and felt her own gaze harden. He seemed to notice, because something flashed in his eyes and his gaze narrowed in response.

  “You’re serious,” she said in a low voice. “You don’t know anything about me and you want me to just agree to go out on a date—in another city—with you.”

  “I know enough,” he told her plainly. “And yes. I want you to go out on a date with me.” He paused and then added meaningfully, “Very much so.”

  She stared back at him for several more hard beats, and then, before she realized what she was doing, she had the customer service desk phone to her ear and was pressing a button behind her on the carriage.

  Daniels seemed as surprised as she was and only watched as she put the speaker to her mouth.

  “Attention guests! It is my pleasure to announce to you all that the star of the evening, Mr. Christopher Daniels, is here with us now and is making his way to the front of the store to begin signing autographs for all of his much-appreciated fans.”

  The sound of cheering rose from the front of the store and spread through the aisles. Daniels glanced up, not moving from where he had her ensnared between his arms.

  Eleanore glanced behind her to catch frantic movement at the front of the store.

  When she turned back to face him, it was to find Christopher’s jaw tensed and his teeth clenched in obvious irritation. But his ice-green eyes returned to Eleanore’s face and once more trapped her gaze in his. He took a deep, calming breath and seemed to ponder the situation.

  Then he smiled and straightened, stepping away from the desk. Eleanore stayed where she was and watched him warily. For a moment, his eyes flicked to her neck, her shoulders, and back up again. She could have sworn she saw a troubling indecision cross his handsome features. He looked as if he were tempted to grab her, throw her over his shoulder, and abscond with her.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you, Ellie,” he said instead, locking gazes with her a final time. “I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

  With that, he turned and strode down the aisle toward the front of the store.

  Eleanore was too stunned to move. She watched him go, and as he disappeared, she listened. The ecstatic greetings started up almost immediately. They were crazy about him.

  And now she could see why.

  He asked me on a date, she thought. The gorgeous, famous movie star from Comeuppance asked me on a date.

  A part of her wanted to be thrilled at the thought. But there was another part of her that knew better. It was that other part that had forced her to cut their exchange short by announcing his arrival. Because that part of her had a feeling that Christopher Daniels was not who he pretended to be. Not just on the screen—but in real life.

  He knows something, she thought.

  She didn’t know how it was possible; even the very idea was unfathomably weird. But somehow, Christopher Daniels seemed to know that Eleanore had caused the storm. He’d told her as much. You’re the reason it’s storming, he’d said. She was willing to bet a dollar that he even suspected her healing powers after Jennifer’s untimely exclamation in the bathroom.

  And now he also knew her name and where she worked.

  Several more long, tense seconds passed and Eleanore’s body finally relaxed a little and she slumped against the desk. She closed her eyes and ran a somewhat shaky hand through her long hair.

  Life had just gotten a little too interesting for her taste. Maybe it was time to move again.