The hour wait had given Livie time to think about her elevator man. She’d alternated between telling herself that he’d been following her and calling herself crazy for blowing one small coincidence out of proportion. She’d had a few other thoughts about him, too. In vivid detail. She’d never been one of those women to get all gooey looking at a man. She was too sensible for that. But him...she certainly thought about sex with him. Mostly likely, the fantasy would be better than any reality, but her fantasies had been pretty spectacular.
God, she really did need to get sensible about this. She needed to think about her sister.
Where the hell was Toni? The restaurant was about halfway between them, though definitely in Toni’s favor since Livie worked in San Francisco and Toni worked in San Jose. Toni was always at least fifteen minutes late for everything. Livie, on the other hand, was always fifteen minutes early. She’d left three messages. All remained unanswered.
Five more minutes, that’s all she’d give Toni.
“Can I bring you another cocktail while you wait?” The handsome waiter smiled sympathetically. With the weekly dinners, he’d grown used to seeing her alone for long periods before Toni arrived.
Livie glanced at her empty glass. Another champagne cocktail and she wouldn’t feel comfortable driving back up the Peninsula to her condo in Belmont. “Just water, please?”
The water glass had barely stopped sloshing when her cell rang. Toni. Finally.
“Where are you?” Livie snapped instead of answering with her usual pleasant greeting.
“Oh my God, Livie, it’s terrible. I’ve had the worst day.” Toni sniffed, then a sob bubbled out.
“Are you crying?”
“Yes, I’m crying.” The duh was in her tone. “I can’t even see to drive.”
“So where are you?” The diners at the next table glanced up at Livie’s rising voice.
“I don’t know.”
Livie took a deep breath for patience and kept her tone low. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll come get you.”
“I’m in the parking garage at work. I can’t drive.”
Reaching into her purse, Livie yanked a few bills from the side pocket and slipped them onto the table. “All right. I’m on my way.” She waved goodbye to her waiter, then pointed at the table to assure him she’d covered her cocktail and given him a hefty tip, too.
“Don’t hang up.” Toni’s voice rose to a screech as Livie headed out to her car.
“I won’t. But the phone will cut out for a minute while the Bluetooth connects.” Without waiting for an answer, she beeped the remote and settled into the car. Toni tended to be on the melodramatic side, to put it mildly. At least she wasn’t threatening to drive into a lamppost.
“Okay, I’m back.” She tossed her purse onto the passenger seat. “Now tell me what happened.”
“He dumped me.” Toni’s pitiful voice filled the car.
It was after seven, and the freeway was blessedly clear when she merged onto it. “Who dumped you?” Livie couldn’t keep up with her sister’s dating schedule.
“Reese.”
If she recalled correctly, Toni had been out with the guy two or three times after encountering him at some soiree she’d crashed in order to scope out fresh meat. Rich fresh meat. Toni preferred events put on by financial institutions. She had to sit through an hour-long talk about the state of the economy, but the payoff was fancy hors d’oeuvres and men in expensive suits.
“You had a date with me,” Livie said, trying to distract Toni. “Why did you go out with him?”
“I didn’t.” Toni let out a wail. It took Livie a few minutes to calm her down and get the story out of her. “He dumped me over the phone. He didn’t even have the guts to do it face-to-face.”
“Well, that was shitty.” Livie had to admit that in the guy’s place, she’d have used the phone method, too. Toni was prone to scenes. “So what was his reason?” she asked.
“He’s a man. They never have reasons.”
“All right. What did he say was the reason?”
“That he was entering a busy time at his company and wouldn’t be able to give me the attention I deserved.”
Which meant he didn’t feel like putting up with Toni’s histrionics and his work was a convenient excuse. “Did you sleep with him?”
“Liv-ie. What kind of question is that? And what does it matter anyway?”
It mattered because the greater the physical intimacy, the greater Toni’s level of attachment. “So? You’re not answering me.” Livie had reached the freeway exit for her sister’s workplace faster than she’d hoped.
Toni snuffled and sniffled, then blew her nose. “No, I didn’t.”
Toni managed to get emotionally involved far too easily. “Do you want to spend the night, sweetie?”
“Yeah. Please.”
Livie would therefore have to drive Toni to work in the morning—from Belmont to San Jose—then head back up to San Francisco, but she couldn’t leave her sister alone in this state. “Okay. But we have to get up really early,” she stressed. “Before the traffic becomes a nightmare. All right?” She wanted to make sure Toni understood.
“Yeah, sure. Thanks, Livie.”
“Where are you parked?”
“Second level, right side, halfway down.”
She pulled into the garage. The Bluetooth hissed with static. “I’m almost there.”
“I love you, Liv.” The phone went dead.
Livie wasn’t so sure about that. Toni needed her. It wasn’t the same thing as love.
* * * * *
Bern toweled himself off. He’d fantasized about his mystery woman in the shower. Visions of hot, steamy sex that made him hard as stone. The cold water had done nothing to alleviate his basest desires.
Nor had his earlier talk with Antonia, though it should have. The woman could screech. He’d had to hold the phone twelve inches from his ear. She had a hell of a vocabulary.
The least you could have done was talk to me face-to-face when you dumped me, you asshole.
That was one of the more polite names she’d called him. Whether it was a Dear Jane letter, phone call, email, voice message or one-on-one dinner, the result would have been the same, as were Antonia’s potentially ballistic theatrics. Asshole that he was, he’d decided driving all the way down to San Jose would only prolong the unpalatable confrontation.
Antonia could be downright scary. On their second date, one moment she’d been as delicious as the Cakebread chardonnay he’d ordered, the next she’d lit into the waiter because her steak was too rare. Bern had been uncomfortable enough with her bad behavior to suggest she chill out. When the steak was delivered a second time cooked to her perfection, she was all smiles again. The scene left a bad taste in Bern’s mouth. He should have listened to his instincts right then. During their next date, she’d cut off a minivan on the freeway, almost sending the vehicle into a spin. She’d claimed the woman had been tailgating her and she was only teaching her a lesson. Bern had to wipe the sweat off his upper lip at the first-hand brush with road rage. At that point, he’d had enough of Antonia Scott. The woman needed some serious anger management therapy.
They’d met a little over a month ago. He could be honest about it now; he’d experienced a slightly negative gut reaction when she’d first shaken his hand. But she’d been pretty, charming, and sexy, and he’d told himself he was an idiot, especially since they appeared to have much in common. She asked about his work, his interests. She’d looked at his card, wanted to know what his middle initial stood for, then said she’s use his middle name so that she’d be different from everyone else. He’d thought it endearing at the time. It was only later that he realized she’d been adept at saying whatever she thought he wanted to hear. He’d ignored the warning signs. He wasn’t twenty-three, he was forty-three, and he should have known better. Thank God he’d figured her out before he’d slept with her. He could only imagine how much worse the situation would have be
en.
Even before he’d seen his mystery lady in the lobby, he’d started making polite face-saving excuses to extricate them both with dignity. Antonia hadn’t accepted those; she kept calling, trying to pin him down. Then this afternoon she’d demanded to see him. He’d laid it on the line, telling her they didn’t suit each other. And she’d gone ballistic the way he’d known she would.
Bern flopped down on his bed, waiting for his phone to ring again. Her last voice mail—the sixth—had come in about seven. It was only a matter of time before she called again. Antonia did have a point, though, he was an asshole. He hadn’t listened to his gut that first night, and he’d left himself get involved, however slightly. And when he knew it was over, he hadn’t told her plainly, unequivocally. Then again, no matter what he’d said or how he’d done it, Antonia would have taken the discussion badly.
Hell.
He thought of the beautiful woman who worked in his building. He knew, with an unmistakable gut reaction, that she was so much more to him than a mere sexual object. This was one gut instinct he wouldn’t ignore.
His stomach muscles clenched suddenly. What if she was in a serious relationship? Or engaged? Even married? He’d checked her ring finger, but some career women didn’t wear the usual accoutrements. No, not possible. The powers that be wouldn’t be so cruel.
Tomorrow, he’d make his move. Maybe then he’d figure out why she haunted him.
* * * * *
Livie buried her arms elbow deep in hot, soapy water. She enjoyed doing the dishes by hand. The water warmed her down to her toes. She loved a clean kitchen. She loved order and neatness and everything in its proper place. She loved an established routine and—
Something hit her on the cheek with a splat, slid down her face, and landed with a plop in the water, sinking before she actually saw what it was. She brushed her cheek with a wet hand, soap suds settling close to her eye. She wiped them off on against shoulder, then skimmed her hands through the water searching for what had struck her.
Something slimy slithered across her fingers and skittered away. She jerked, suds splashing over the edges of the sink. In the kitchen doorway, her sister giggled, a girlish giggle laced with malice. Another watery splat, this time on the back of her head, and the thing, whatever it was, slid down her neck into her blouse.
Just then, the one in the sink poked its head above the water. A snake, a slimy, horrible, fat snake with huge fangs that sank into the soft flesh between her thumb and forefinger.
Livie started screaming when she felt the snake down her blouse wriggle and slither all over her...
“Wake up, Livie.” Toni shook her.
Livie woke to find her nightgown was tangled around her legs and the snakes were only in her nightmare.
“Je-sus. What’s wrong with you?” Toni hunkered down on her pillow and stared. “I thought you were going to start screaming out loud any moment, instead of just that awful moaning. It gave me the creeps.”
Her throat dry and tight, Livie laid there a moment, letting her breathing return to normal. She hated lizards, frogs, slugs, but snakes were the worst. The worst of the worst was not being able to get them off. This was the second night in a row she’d had a similar nightmare.
She mumbled a quick Sorry, then glanced at the clock. Two thirty. They had to be up in three hours. “Go back to sleep.”
Toni gave her a sisterly jab. “You’re a freak. Do you want to talk about the dream?”
“No.” She just wanted to go back to sleep.
“You should see a doctor about that.”
“It was just a dream, Toni.”
It was a recurring nightmare she’d had as a child, the frequency of them decreasing as she got older. She distinctly remembered her mother picking imaginary snakes out of her bed after one of her dreams. Mom’s repetition of the story cemented it firmly in Livie’s memory. Though not exactly the same, the dreams followed a common pattern, theme, and tone, starting out pleasantly, a sense of warmth and well-being suffusing her. Then Toni threw a snake or a lizard or something equally disgusting at her.
She hadn’t dreamed like this in years. But she’d had one the week before. And the week before that, too. Why had they returned?
When Livie settled back into her pillow without another word, Toni huffed and rolled over. Livie’s condominium was a two-bedroom. She couldn’t afford to waste the space, and she used the second bedroom as a home office. So when Toni stayed over, they had to share her bed. At least it was a queen with enough room for the two of them. Moments later, her sister’s breathing slowed, but Livie didn’t fall asleep so easily. She couldn’t say how long she lay awake, but when the alarm went off in the morning, she pounded the snooze button and cracked one eye open to view the clock.
Damn. She’d slept through the first two alarms. She was going to be late. Again.
Chapter Three
His lady had broken her routine. Bern hadn’t seen her enter the building, though he’d been near the elevators at her customary arrival time. He’d heard on the radio there’d been a snarl-up near the airport. If she came from the Peninsula, she’d have been stalled for hours.
Missing her whacked out his day. He envisioned her in a crushed, mangled car, the jaws of life brought in to extricate her. Consequently, he hadn’t accomplished a thing all morning, hadn’t even prepared for his lunch meeting with Gillespie and Sons. Bern had made his name in the architectural field by specializing in manufacturing facility design. The company planned to install a new production roll coater in their Red Cliff plant. The small Northern California town was relatively close to his hometown of Freedom. There were innumerable considerations, from city ordinances on chemical use to the best layout for the proposed tandem coating process to smooth production flow from coating machine to clean room. All of this was made more difficult by installing everything in an existing building. Since they were still at the investigatory stage, he could wing it with the pages of notes and questions he’d drawn up right after scheduling the meeting, but he’d have to be a hell of a lot more organized when he went up to Red Cliff the week after next to tour the facility and start mapping the layout. His brother Wade, who was a structural engineer, would be joining him.
Due to the Gillespie lunch, Bern had been unable to shadow the lobby for a lunchtime sighting of the woman. On the drive back from the meeting, it occurred to him that he’d moved beyond strong attraction into absurd obsession when he considered following her home tonight to find out where she lived. Yeah. What he’d already done bordered on stalking. Following her home was beyond the pale.
Cool your jets, bud.
The warning didn’t stop him from haunting the elevators.
Damn. What was there about her that caused a rational man to start acting irrationally? Honest to God, he didn’t know. At seven, he stepped into the empty elevator for the fourth time and put his finger on the button for the twelfth floor. Her floor. Casual observation had shown that she worked in the suite of offices directly across from the bank of elevators.
What the hell was his excuse for knocking on the suite door?
I was worried about you.
She’d asked why, since she didn’t even know him. Or she’d freak and call security.
He’d lost his mind. Pushing the garage level button, he went straight down without stopping at the twelfth floor. Because he wasn’t a crazed, obsessive stalker.
The doors parted, and there ahead of him, just having exited one of the other elevators, his beautiful yet mysterious obsession sashayed down the parking aisle as if his very imaginings had conjured her. Relief rushed to his head, leaving him semi-dazed and dizzy.
He drank in the sight. Her earrings flirted with the collar of her jacket, and her hair swished across her back as she walked. She’d traded out the usual dark suit for a black-and-pink blazer—hot pink and extremely sexy—paired with a polka-dot dress, a chic but very short dress that caressed her mouth-watering thighs. The hemline was barely lon
ger than the jacket and displayed firm, muscled legs developed during her daily walk.
She glanced back once, almost furtively, then hurried on.
Speak, man, or she’ll be gone before you open your mouth.
* * * * *
The clack of Livie’s heels bounced off the walls of the dimly-lit garage yet didn’t mask the footsteps behind her. At seven o’clock, few cars were left after the workday exodus.
God. A tingle zipped up and down her arms, half wanting to run, half needing to turn and look straight into his amazing jade-green eyes. She hadn’t had time for her walk at lunch, but she’d thought about him. She’d done a lot of thinking about him. If Toni hadn’t been there last night, if she hadn’t had a nightmare, Livie was sure she’d have been dreaming about him. Sexual dreams. She’d even dressed this morning with him in mind. It wasn’t like her. It was madness. But there it was. Her heart beat rapidly, matching the tap of her heels.
They were alone. Yet Livie wasn’t afraid. The man exuded an air of protectiveness. He actually made her feel calm, when he wasn’t making her feel warm all over. That was the most ridiculous thing. She should have been afraid. Any normal woman would be. He’d followed her yesterday. True, he’d saved her from that homeless man, but she couldn’t get away from the feeling that he’d been watching her. But then she’d been watching him, too.
Her best friend Julia had passed on a bestselling self-defense book for women written by some well known security expert. His most salient point had been that evil came from seemingly benign sources: a man offering unsolicited help, a harmless man asking for help. Ted Bundy had sometimes used a fake arm cast.
Twisted By Love, Reincarnation Tales, Book 1 Page 2
