Seal All Exits (Tangled Web #3)

by Jade C. Jamison

HEATHER HAD SLIPPED her shoes off and upzipped the bag holding her laptop. She turned the little computer on and, while it warmed up, she slipped off the jeans and put on the soft PJ bottoms she’d brought with her. After pulling her hair up into a low-riding ponytail, she returned to her computer and sat on the bed where she leaned against the headboard, pulling the laptop onto her thighs.

  She pulled up Media Player and started playing a mix of some of her favorite songs, and then she opened up the online college interface. She’d been teaching for this particular online school for a few semesters and, overall, she enjoyed it. She missed the in-person interaction, but she was teaching undergrads and knew she was also missing a lot of freshman shenanigans—in-class hookups, blatant plagiarism (because the students could see as well as she did if they’d borrowed too much material from any particular source), heated debates over certain topics, lame excuses for not turning in work. Online, either the work was turned in or it wasn’t. She allowed one freebie for internet troubles or other problems, but she was pretty much a hard ass otherwise. College was tough and one of the ways her students would survive would be to know that they couldn’t get away with shit. They had to meet the rigors of higher education or go elsewhere. Online school would be no different.

  She had just logged in and started reading responses to the discussion questions she’d posted the day before when she heard a knock on her door.

  Heather picked up the laptop and set it on the nightstand. It could only be Katie…probably wanting to make sure she’d managed to hook up to the Wi-fi okay. She grinned, spanning the expanse of the room to reach the door.

  But when she opened it, it wasn’t Katie. It was Kiefer. And why the hell did her stomach do such a flip-flop?

  She took a deep breath, hoping her shock wasn’t too obvious on her face. She felt a little self-conscious about the pink flannel PJ bottoms paired with the halfway dressy blouse she still had on, but it was a little late to worry about that. And what the hell did he want? Hadn’t he gotten the clue that she was freaked the hell out? Her lips couldn’t manage to form words, nor could her lungs back them up with air. She simply stood there, mute and frozen, until he asked, “Can I come in for a minute?”

  Her tongue still wouldn’t cooperate, but she managed to step back and wave him through the doorway. She observed this man from behind. When she’d met him three years ago, she’d quickly developed a mad crush on him, because he was sweet and charming, and they’d had a long, silly (and, on his part—she was certain—completely high) conversation about everything they could imagine. They’d clicked in a huge way. And then they’d reacquainted online a few months later and she’d found him to be one of the most genuinely sweet guys she’d ever met.

  Geez. Made her seriously wonder how she could have forgotten his face, but she often had that problem—another reason why online teaching was ideal for her. She didn’t have to try to remember faces. Kiefer, though…he was a lot different from the one time they’d met. He hadn’t had the hand tattoos, or that would have helped. He had longer hair, too, and she thought it had been a platinum blonde when they’d first met. Now it was a dark blonde. Why hadn’t she recalled the depth and beauty of those eyes, though? Why? Because their online friendship had allowed her an emotional connection with him, and she felt him in her soul, rather than seeing him in her mind.

  That had made her forget how outrageously hot he was. Still, though…she hadn’t remembered him being quite this insanely attractive. And she’d managed to snag him to boot? That was crazy.

  From the vibes coming off him, though, she didn’t get the feeling he was making a booty call, so she had no problem letting him in for a few minutes. She closed the door and stood still as he turned to face her. She waited for him to talk. He looked around the room and then said, “Can you believe this place?”

  Heather smiled. Yeah, okay. So this felt like the Kiefer she knew. She couldn’t help but smile. Now, all of a sudden, it felt natural again. “Exactly. I drove up and was like, cabin?”

  “No kidding.” He glanced around again. “Mind if I sit down for a few minutes?”

  “No, that’s cool.” She walked over to the bed and sat down while he found a chair just a couple of feet away. She paused the music and then shut the lid on her laptop. “I was just grading papers.”

  “You’re not gonna take a few days off while you’re here?”

  “I really can’t. I’d never catch up if I did. There is so much more grading and monitoring of students online, and if I go for more than half a day without responding to a question, they freak out. Besides, I expect a lot out of my students and so they, in turn, expect a lot out of me. If I were to miss a few days of interaction, they’d mutiny.”

  Kiefer nodded. There was a space of silence between them that grew, but Heather didn’t feel uncomfortable—not yet, anyway. “So…what was that earlier?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you seriously not recognize me?”

  “No. You didn’t recognize me, either.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  Oh, she knew where this was going and it was already pissing her off. “But what?”

  “You look so different.”

  Okay. He was trying to be nice. He didn’t say what had been in her mind…so fat. Yeah, and that just led to the next thought: so self-loathing. She’d been pretty good at hiding all her internal ideas about herself—at least she thought so, because even her closest friends (Katie, most recently) had no idea about all the demons stuffed inside her. In fact, Heather did her best to convey the exact opposite—happy, bubbly, not a care in the world—and so far it had helped. She let the demons out in her writing—her stories and nonfiction essays—but she kept them hidden from view otherwise.

  She wasn’t going to ask Kiefer why she looked so different to him, because she knew the reason. She’d lost a lot of weight and her hair wasn’t the same as it had been before. It was lighter and styled differently. “So do you. That’s why I didn’t recognize you.”

  “But…it’s not like I’ve been hiding. My picture’s all over the damn place nowadays.”

  Heather felt her cheeks warm. “Yeah, I bet it is. But…since I last saw you, I’ve been busy.”

  He grinned. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I write and teach college classes nowadays, but I started writing my MFA thesis right after we met.”

  “MFA thesis?”

  “Oh, uh…the thesis for my MFA, a master of fine arts degree. It was in creative writing, and it involved hundreds of hours of writing…a book.”

  “So what the hell is the thesis part? If I remember correctly from high school, it was some kind of sentence, like the main idea for an essay, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but a thesis in grad school is different. Basically, you have an idea, one that no one else has explored in your field of study, and you examine it. You posit a theory, examine it, and then spend the rest of your time making a case. A fine arts degree is a little different, though. We had to write creatively on a big scale.” Kiefer smiled but said nothing. “Anyway, it involved a lot of time. And then, before I even graduated, I was applying for online teaching jobs, and I’ve been teaching and writing ever since. I made a pact with myself right then and there that my computer was for three things and three things only, especially since I’d seen a few of my friends get sucked into the whole addicting Facebook thing…and I don’t dare play around with crap like that.” No…she had an addictive enough personality.

  A knowing grin brightened his face. “What are the three things?”

  Heather flashed a smile at him. Stinker. She knew he had a wicked sense of humor sometimes, but she wasn’t going to go there. “Research, teaching, and writing.”

  “So what’s it like, teaching online?”

  He really was interested. “I haven’t told you before?”

  “No, you talked about it, but you never said what it was like. Is it like real school? Is there a video and you talk to your stud
ents?”

  “Well, no. Some schools might work like that, but the university I teach for is set up for asynchronous learning.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Oh…the modules are there on the platform and students can access them anytime. So, for instance, this week in my comp class, my students are learning about argumentative essays. They have all week to read all the materials online and their textbooks and they have to participate in discussions surrounding the readings. By Sunday, they have to have their essays posted and then they have until Wednesday to give feedback to two other students in class.”

  “So where do you come into it?”

  “I moderate the discussions, ask additional questions, monitor student feedback, and grade their essays and other assignments.”

  “That’s cool.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, but sometimes it interferes with my writing schedule.”

  “Writing?”

  “Yeah, if I want to get a job teaching creative writing and creative writing only, and if I want to do it for a nice school, I have to have some serious publishing cred behind me…and so that’s why I haven’t seen a recent picture of you. I’ve been pretty busy with teaching and writing. I can’t even tell you the last time I watched TV or a movie.”

  “Yeah. You said short stories and essays? What about poetry?”

  She grinned. He was paying attention. “I’m not very good at poems, but I love reading them. Stories and essays are what excite me and what I think I’m pretty good at.”

  “I think I might have known that about you…but I think there might be a poet lurking inside you.” He was quiet for a few seconds, long enough for Heather to wonder what he was thinking. He acted like he was gearing up to something. Please, please don’t let it be another uncomfortable moment. He inhaled sharply and blurted it out. “I’m going to try to convince Johnny to let me write the lyrics on our next album. If I…” He looked down at the carpet, squinting, and then made eye contact again. “Could I have you look at them before I pass them on to Johnny?”

  That was simple. She’d evaluated student writing for a while now and felt like she was pretty good at offering helpful feedback. She knew giving advice to an already famous rock star might be a little different, but she knew Kiefer inside. He was handsome as hell, irresistible—something she hadn’t remembered about him—but she knew he was a sweet guy down to the core. He had to be one of the nicest men she’d ever known. “I’d love to.”

  “Thanks.” Kiefer looked like he felt a little awkward then, as though he’d overstepped a boundary that he was regretting. He stood and said, “I guess I should let you get back to work.” Heather stood, walking over so she could show him out. Things felt a little more comfortable finally, more like the Kiefer she’d discovered online and had grown to care about very much, a kind, thoughtful man willing to listen to whatever she needed to say. He narrowed his eyes as she got closer to him. “You really didn’t recognize me?”

  Heather felt her brows furrow even though she didn’t want them to. “You think I made that up?”

  He walked the two steps between them so he was standing right in front of her. “No…I just…I just wanted—now that we know we are somehow attracted to each other—I wanted to let things happen, see where it took us.” Heather couldn’t—and didn’t—stop him as he lifted his hands to cup her cheeks, his warm fingers touching her delicate skin as his lips met hers. It was a gentle kiss, like he was trying not to spook her, but there was definitely some message in it. She just couldn’t translate it. He had something on his mind…something heavy.

  Oh, it would have been so easy to just give in, to take him again and damn the torpedoes. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She cared about him way too much. He had no idea what he was inviting her to do…and where she was in her life right now? No. She had to push him away. He had no clue what he was asking from her, and he had no way of knowing that Heather was in a bad spot right now. She might have told him so many personal things, some things she’d never shared with anyone else, but there were plenty of things she hadn’t told him, either—things that might make him decide he didn’t want her as a friend anymore.

  So she let the kiss find its natural end and definitely didn’t encourage it to move further. Oh, Kiefer was an amazing kisser, and it would have been so easy to simply give in and let their desires progress, but she wasn’t going to. She placed her hands on his chest and said, “Kiefer, I care very much about you…but what happened earlier tonight was a mistake, plain and simple.” Oh. He looked sad and confused. It made her feel guilty and she considered saying To hell with it and tossing back her bed covers so she could snuggle with him all night long. But that was an awful idea. “We are friends—you’re one of my best friends, Kiefer. I’m really sorry about the bar. I feel like such an idiot, because yeah. I should have recognized you. But we didn’t and, well, things happened, things we can’t take back.” He acted like he wanted to say something, so she had to stop him right there. “I hope you’re okay with it, but I need for us to just be friends. I can’t do more than that.”

  “I don’t mind moving slow, if that’s what you need.”

  Heather sighed and tried to smile, but she could feel that her lips weren’t cooperating. “That’s not it. I wish it were that simple. I just…need us to go back to the way we were, and I hope you can.”

  She bit her lip as she saw the look wash over his face. Oh, yes, she’d hurt him. But he swallowed and forced half a smile. “If that’s what you need.” He let his hands fall to his sides and said, “I care about you, Heather, so whatever you need…”

  “Thanks, Kiefer.”

  They shared an awkward hug before he left the room, and she couldn’t quite remember the moments in between. All she knew was that the rest of this vacation was going to be hell if they couldn’t get past this. She was even beginning to wonder if she’d be able to carry on any more online conversations with him.

  God, how the hell had her life become so damned complicated?

  Chapter Six

  KIEFER SLEPT FOR shit that night. He’d often heard, most recently from Johnny, that sleeping in the high country was easy and the rest was peaceful and deep. He could now say, from personal experience, that it was complete and utter bullshit. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so poorly. Winchester, Colorado, was clearly not everything Katie and Johnny had made it out to be.

  It might have been better—tolerable, even—if Heather hadn’t shot him down so definitively the night before. But she’d let him know in no uncertain terms that she would absolutely not—as in never, ever—have slept with him had she known the attractive stranger at the bar was him. He really found it odd that she would have gladly fucked someone she didn’t know from Adam and not someone with whom she had a deep connection.

  Never mind the fact that he thought he’d done the same goddamn thing—slept with someone he thought was a stranger and then had to deal with the awkwardness of finding out he actually knew her.

  Unlike Heather, though, he was thrilled to find that the gorgeous blonde he’d had an amazing, though short-lived, time with was someone he knew. Now, at least, he knew why she’d seemed so damned familiar. Getting back to Johnny’s place only to find he’d slept with the woman who’d become his best friend over the past few years was icing on an otherwise dry cake. It wasn’t that he hated it here, and it definitely wasn’t that he didn’t like any of the people in this place, but he hadn’t connected with anyone—really connected—in years. Yeah, he loved his bandmates. Those guys were on the verge of feeling like brothers to him, but...he needed something more. Lots more. And he hadn’t even fucking realized it until he’d seen Heather tonight. She was what he’d been missing. She’d already done so much more than she’d ever know. She’d been a lifeline for him, a buoy in a stormy ocean when things otherwise felt meaningless and impossible.

  Maybe—no, definitely—that was why her ultimate rejection
of him was hitting him so hard. And he wasn’t exaggerating it—it was most certainly rejection. She’d tried to sweeten it up by saying he was the best friend she’d ever had, telling him that he too had helped her through some difficult times, but she was letting him down; there was no denying it.

  But Kiefer was nothing if not an optimist. He hadn’t slept well at all, but he woke up feeling hopeful, his usual way of looking at life. Things were always better in the morning. He was going to wait for the perfect time, the ideal moment...and then he was going to give Heather one last shot. If she chose to turn him away one final time, then he would respect her wishes and move on.

  He just honestly didn’t know if he would be able continue their friendship after, though.

  Maybe he really was the bitch his bandmates constantly accused him of being.

  No, he refused to accept that. He was a thinking, feeling man, and just because he couldn’t or, more accurately, refused to be any other way made him more courageous than most people he knew.

  Unfortunately, he had to wear a bit of a shell around that tender part of him. He was teased enough by the guys. If they’d ever seen him completely exposed, he was certain he’d never hear the end of it.

  But...new day. He pulled the covers from the lower half of his body and slid his legs off the side of the bed while running his hand from his forehead to back over the top of his head to his neck. He stretched out his back a bit, lifting his shoulders and shoving out his chest, trying to force the rest of his body into wakefulness.

  Something he hadn’t realized under the covers, but it was damn chilly. He’d left the window wide open last night, because one thing he’d say about the mountains above Winchester—the air smelled fresh. There were no smells coming from car fumes or hot asphalt, no dog shit odors or greasy restaurants. It smelled clean—like the rain had just cleared the air. He’d had no idea it would get so cold during the night, though. Now he knew why there’d been a comforter on the bed even though it wasn’t winter.