by Nicole Snow
Will she remember my face?
Will she turn me into the police, or maybe kill me herself, the second she figures out who I am?
“Ms. Lilydale, there's a man here to see you,” the desk clerk says, holding down the button to radio her condo. “He says he has business concerning your cafe.”
“Business with Grounded? Really?” Her voice crackles through, soft and surprised. She hesitates for several seconds. “Okay, whatever. Send him up.”
The man stands up, walks over, and slides his card through the elevator. We exchange friendly glances as he holds it open for me. Soon, I'm heading up to the third floor, second guessing myself more in those agonizing seconds than any other time in the last five years.
There aren't many units to walk past. It's a lot like my place in Seattle, private and exclusive, except here there's fewer luxuries and a more old world charm.
My fist is clenched while I head down the hall, ready to knock with just the right pressure.
Except I don't have to. She's hanging out the door. Blond, green eyed, and beautiful as the day she said yes to me. Prettier than the day I kissed her for the last time and said goodbye.
She looks at me and smiles. I'm still about eight feet away. If she knows who I am, there's no recognition.
The biggest surprise of all is the kid. He's hanging off her leg like a little monkey, a toddler just learning to walk, bashfully pulling behind her when he sees me coming. Maybe he can sense the atmosphere coming undone all around me as I'm heading for judgment.
“I have to say, this is a surprise. I didn't think I'd made any real inroads at that roasters convention last month. Who do I have the pleasure of meeting, Mr. –“
Her tongue turns to stone. I'm standing right in front of her, and I watch her eyes go huge in slow motion, filling up like she's sucked in a storm, desperate to hold it. The kid at her feet smiles, and giggles.
“Oh my God. Come on, Holden, we're way overdue for your nap.” She reaches down, starts scooping him up, ready to retreat back inside and slam the door in my face.
My hand shoots straight past her, knocking it into the wall. “Wait.”
“Leave!” she hisses, one word like an arrow through the ribs. “Leave now, Ryan, or I'm calling the cops.”
“Just like that? The old Kara would at least ask why I'm here.” I smile, gazing deep into her eyes for the first time in years.
They're beautiful. Electric. And so damn alive, even when she's afraid.
I'm placing bets doing this, but I'm also drawing lines. The kid throws a wrench in everything. He's the reason she's being so careful, but I'm not going to take advantage of it. I won't do anything that scares him.
In all my planning, all the times I imagined this fragile moment, I didn't account for any visitors. Fuck.
“I'm a married woman now,” she says quickly, her eyes darting around. “Married, with a family. There's nothing to talk about. You have no right to barge in like this.”
I hold in a nauseating laugh. She's a horrific actor.
What the hell happened to the woman I loved? She never would have lied like this in the past. She's either petrified, or she's changed so much I barely know who I'm seeing beyond the surface.
“We can stop pretending. I know he's Matt's son, Kara. If you want to talk, lying to my face isn't a good way to start.”
“I don't want to talk to you, unless you're going to admit to being a stalker freak. Christ, it's hard to even look at you.” She turns her face so hard a brilliant golden lock of her hair whips across her shoulder. “Nothing you can say will ever change my opinion. You think you're so smart, don't you?”
Yeah, launching a billion dollar company will do that. I hold my tongue, keeping my ego in check, because the last thing I want to do is piss her off more.
“I don't give much thought to my intelligence. I think you're still beautiful.” My hand uncurls and reaches for her face, cupping her cheek. It's like lightning, my skin on hers, a jolt filled with memories, passions, and dreams unfulfilled. “I'm not here to scare you, Kara. I came home to make things right, including with you. Give me a little of your time. That's all I'm asking. We'll meet somewhere after your nephew's home. I'll explain everything, I promise.”
“Time?” It comes out like a curse.
She shakes her head, turns around, and starts walking. Too bad she's got the kid, or I'd be going after her. No, I don't care about tromping on the cheating asshole's Turkish rug. I've got five of them worth thousands more in my own place. I'd roll her fiance up in it and drop him off the nearest bridge if it brought her back to me.
Why won't she look at me?
I'm pissed. Volcanic blood surges through my veins, electrifying my temples. I try to look cool, holding myself up in her doorway, waiting until I hear her footsteps coming toward me again. I'm surprised she doesn't have her phone out, ready to make good on the threat to dial the cops.
She's empty handed. Her arms are folded. She's glaring, and I've never seen those eyes I fell in love with burn with such hatred.
“You want time, Ryan? That's what you came to ask me for?” I open my mouth to answer, but she never gives me the chance. Her little hands fly out. They're slapping my shoulders. I'm so taken aback I stumble into the hall, and she follows, still hitting me, this time in the face.
“The nerve...you're a sadistic, creepy, backstabbing asshole! I can't believe you have the fucking nerve to ask for time after everything you stole from me. You robbed away years from my life.”
“Kara-bou – stop!” Catching her wrists, I squeeze them hard, and push her against the wall. “It isn't like that.”
It's not my hands that overpower her. She locks up when she hears the old pet name, the one that's as alien to her as Ryan is to me.
“Let go. And don't you ever call me that again.” Her eyes are daggers, eager to cut me to pieces.
Growling, I slowly release her, lowering my arms. My hands go out. Pleading, imploring, desperate to make her listen for one golden minute.
“I didn't come back to turn your life upside down again,” I tell her. “Your fiance, Reg, he's not who you think he is. There's something you need to know, Kara.”
“No.” Her eyes narrow, sharpen, and cut me like green knives. “You fed me the biggest lie of my life, Ryan. If you think I'm going to stand here and listen while you try to ruin my marriage, you don't know me. Hell, you don't have a clue anymore.”
I stare her down, trying to find the right combination of words. “Give me one chance. Five minutes of your time. Please.”
“Get out! Leave, leave, and never come back.” She closes her eyes, forcing a hot tear down her red cheek. “I'm not going to say it again, you fucking murderer.”
Ouch. Hell is hearing her say what she thinks I've become.
I blink, too pissed at how badly this is going to do anything else.
Murderer. It's the dreaded word, one that's kept me up at night for five years, imagining its weight on her lips.
I told myself I was ready to deal with it. I must've been insane to believe it.
“Kara –“
“Fuck off!” She swats my hand away when I reach for her, backing into the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. “How many times do I have to ask you to leave? Turn around and go. Now. I'm not interested in excuses, catching up, or whatever big secrets you think you're entitled to drop in my lap. You abandoned me, Ryan. You missed everything. My suffering, Matt's purple heart, the night daddy got diagnosed with cancer, the night he fucking died!” Sighing, she closes her eyes for a second, shaking her head.
It's hard not to wince. She doesn't know how torn up reading her old man's obituary made me not so long ago. If it weren't for Bart, I wouldn't be standing here, taking this abuse, absorbing it patiently because I deserve every last word.
I left her. If I'd had another choice, it's the last thing in the world I ever would've done.
“Kara...” I try to reach out to her, but she gives
me a look like she's going to bite me if I touch her again.
“No. We're way past over. You took weeks, months, years off my life,” she says. “Let that sink in for a second, jackass – years. I'm going to count to five. If you aren't on your way to the elevator by the time I'm through, you'll be in prison.”
I study her eyes. It isn't just fear clouding them.
It's real hate. Loathing. Years of pain fermented into poison, inflicted by me, unearthed when she least wanted it.
I can't give up on this. I need to convince her, but her face is telling me the obvious – today isn't the day to do it.
Fury churns in my guts while I turn away, put one foot in front of the other, and force myself to leave her a second time.
Before I'm to the elevator, I hear her door slam shut. The metal doors close, locking me in. There's a few brief, hot seconds where my fists are flying and I'm screaming, before I hit the button. I'm so sick and disappointed in myself I can't even remember to check whether or not the elevator has a camera.
Thankfully, this town is so small, even the million dollar condos don't need to be crawling with surveillance. The attendant looks at me when I stop next to his desk, fish out several hundreds from my wallet, and throw them on his desk.
“Sir?”
“That's for the damage in the elevator, plus extra for your trouble.” I also leave Becky's card, knowing he can reach her if he needs more. “I'm sorry.”
I'm clenching my hand, trying to stop the bleeding. I only glance back once, over my shoulder, before I'm heading through the big glass doors to my car. The entire floor inside the elevator is covered in sharp fragments from the mirrors that used to line its walls. I shattered every single one of them with my bare fists.
Later, when I'm at the hotel where I'm staying with a drink in my hand, I realize my mistake. I'm staring across town at her condo. It's the only building taller than this one, before my new factory was finished. Now, it dominates Split Harbor's vacant skyline.
I never should've confronted her at home. There were too many unknowns, like the kid she had to put down for a nap before she could even talk to me. Plus it meant invading her personal space – something she'd never welcome since she's chosen to believe the worst about who I am, what I did, and why.
For a second, that night flashes through my head again, and I swallow the rest of my drink. I can only remember the blood, the panic, the gut-wrenching pile of evil shit I found in that old man's car, and then sailing for my life across Superior's inky unsettled black waves. Each one crashing down over the hull, threatening to snuff me out like a mountain falling on a mouse.
I'm staring at my phone, watching the line on the map. The GPS tracker I put on Reg's car rolls into Marquette. He's so predictable it hurts.
Asshole goes straight to their usual place, the big hotel by the lake, where he lies to her again every time he buries his dick in his dirty little secret.
Maybe she can't forgive or forget what I did. If she hears me out, and still decides we're not meant to be, then I'm ready to walk away. Move on. Know that I did everything I could to win her back.
But I can't give up without opening her eyes. She can't marry this sonofabitch.
Whatever mistakes I've made, however I've stumbled back into her life this afternoon, I won't screw this part up.
Next time we meet, it's going to be on my terms. I'm giving her the truth about dear old Reg. Then I'm going to open my arms, pull her in, and put my mouth on hers until neither of us can breathe.
Yes, I'm officially a stalker, peeking into their lives, hellbent on chasing a second chance I don't know if I deserve.
I'm obsessed, guilty, and proud of it. I can't live the rest of my life saying what if.
We're meant to be. I'll live, breathe, and worship this last chance to have her back until it's crushed out of me.
Until it's gone, the last hanging shred of my old life, forcing me to bury what's left of Ryan for good.
Maybe I'm a fool, I can't save us, and I'm going to have to suffer to realize you can't bring back what's long dead. Doesn't matter.
I'm done looking through this peephole, staring into a life I'm never supposed to have.
I won't let go before I've exhausted every option, every chance, every ounce of wishful thinking.
I'm taking her back. I'll have her under me again, moaning my name, or else I'll feel every last drop of blood squeezed from my heart when she pushes me away forever.
7
Shaken (Kara)
I'm too shaken the rest of the evening to do anything.
There's a fugue hanging over my head when I wake up Holden, kiss him goodbye, and hand him off to my brother, who's comes by to collect his little boy sometime around ten.
I don't know where Reg is. Again.
Working late again. Ask me about the chat with Dr. Evans later.
That's what his text reads, anyway. I shrug, instead of getting angry. There isn't any point. I don't think it's possible to know rage after seeing Ryan. There's too much confusion numbing my nerves. The cloudy, maddening blur sends me back through time and space, making me think about the bastard all over again.
He's just as mysterious as the day he disappeared. Getting him to leave was my only concern when we were standing face-to-face. Now that he's gone, I'm able to sit and wonder about the fancy suit clinging to every inch of him, plus the high end black car I watched him climb into through the window.
Did he come here dressed to impress me? Or is it just one more part of who he is – someone who's a total stranger?
Of course, he was gorgeous. More handsome than any heartbreaker with blood on his hands has any business being.
The years have been good to him. The muscular, sexy boy became a man. Full bodied, broad shouldered, his trousers tucked around hips that look like they could slam a woman into the next century.
It's hard to remember he's probably a killer. Probably.
I'm not going to get my hopes up about anything daddy whispered an hour before he left this world for good. Secrets almost killed me once. They'll do it again if I give them a chance.
I hate this. But damn, it's hard not to get wet when I picture what that body looks like underneath the suit, or whenever I remember how his hands didn't hesitate when he backed me against the wall.
His touch stopped me in my tracks. Owned me the way he used to during our brief, beautiful nights together. Reg never touches my face. I'd forgotten how good it is to have a man's hand there. Raw, masculine strength that can be as rough or as gentle as I want it to be.
God. Did I mention I'm shaken?
Nothing will take the edge off. I'm going to get sick if I resort to wine.
I settle in on the balcony, wrapped in my robe, a steaming cup of black tea in my hands. It's my fault I wouldn't let him speak, but I couldn't let him give me a mental breakdown.
I don't know what kind of game he's playing. If he really killed Nelson that night five years ago, then there's a good chance I'm dealing with a genuine psychopath.
There should be no sympathy. It shouldn't hurt to touch my phone every time I think about reporting him. One quick call to the sheriff's office, letting them know Split Harbor's most notorious fugitive is back, and I won't have to worry anymore.
He's not who you think he is. Ryan's words stick. They're death threats if they're right. Every one of them promises to detonate everything I think I know.
I couldn't survive it from any man, but hearing it from him? From the strange, heartless bastard who lost his mind, killed a man, and threw my heart in the trash half a decade ago?
No, I can't. I won't listen.
I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't.
I'm about to throw my mug three floors down to the parking lot when I hear someone behind me. Whipping around, pulling my robe tight, there's Reg standing at the door with a glass of wine, a worried look on his face.
“You're out here awfully late, Kara-bell. Come in and warm up. I just tur
ned on the fireplace.”
“It's almost eleven. You didn't call.” Yes, he's taking the brunt of everything Ryan stirred up earlier, but I don't care. I really need to know where he was, especially after hearing he's not who you think he is.
“Babe, what's wrong? I sent you a text. Had a pleasant conversation with our doctor this morning. I told him about last night, with the party. You know what he said?”
“I don't care. You're deflecting my question,” I step inside, resisting the urge to throw my mug again, this time at his face.
“He said we did good, Kara.” Reg stops, sips his wine, and waits until I look at him before he goes on. “We're making real progress. Sure, there's a long way to go, and we're going to keep stepping on each other by accident once in awhile. Every couple does it. He said so himself.”
His wine glass goes down. Hits the counter with a resounding clink, and then he's coming toward me, holding out his arms. His embrace is just about the last place in the world I want to be today.
But as soon as his lean, firm arms are around me, I fold. I'm only human. There's no resisting comfort right now. I think I'd accept it if a grizzly bear walked into the room offering a hug.
Desperation sucks.
“I have to ask you something,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around him weakly. “You can't get mad. Just be honest.”
“Anything, babe.” He pushes his fingers through my hair, wearing a smile as soft as the sun.
I don't remember the last time I felt this much at peace with him. Shame it's going to go up in smoke as soon as I drop my question.
“Are you having an affair?”
His fingers slip through my hair a little more quickly, tangling the ends of my locks. He's extra fluid when his eyes find mine, every part of him animated at once. Just like the way he used to get when we'd stay up half the night, talking about the places we're going to see after we're married, trekking the globe together as husband and wife.
“No. That's crazy, babe, and not something you'll ever need to worry about.” He leans down, his voice strangely soft. His warm lips touch my forehead. “I'm not mad, but I'm going to ask you where the hell you got the idea?”
