“How did it go?” the other woman asked almost immediately. “Did you make it there okay?”
Phone propped between her ear and shoulder, Julie grunted at a little as she tried to wedge a box of cereal into the cupboard with one hand while shoving stuff aside to make room with the other.
“Oh, everything was fine,” she lied smoothly. “The kids barely made a peep.”
Maureen exhaled. “Oh I am so glad to hear that. I was sure this would be difficult for them.”
“Nah,” Julie assured her. “They were excited to get here.”
“How’s Dustin?”
How is Dustin? Julie asked herself with just a hint of tense amusement.
“He’s fine.” She briefly wondered how many lies she could tell in a single phone conversation before she was struck down by a bolt of lightning. “He’s getting his room together as we speak.”
Maureen sighed again. “He’s taking this so hard. I was hoping to spare him ... but Dean thought the kids had a right to know, you know?” She released another deep exhale. “Thank you for taking them, Julie. I think a change of scenery will help make this easier.”
Julie doubted that, but she wasn’t paid to voice her opinion. “We’ll have loads of fun here,” she promised instead.
After several more reassurances that everything was fine and yes, all the doors and windows would be locked at all times, Maureen let Julie hang up and finish unpacking.
It took her all of one trip to haul her duffle from the car into the house.
The master suite at the end of the upstairs hall was as grand and lavish as the rest of the place. The carpets were an eggshell white and thick enough to swim through. The bed was wide and a dark mahogany that beautifully complimented the soft, mint green coloring of the walls. She even had her own separate set of doors leading onto the terrace that overlooked the lake, which in her opinion, was the best part.
She dropped her bag onto the bed and started the slow process of unpacking. She hadn’t brought much, despite the fact that she would be away from civilization for an entire month. But she had never been the sort to over pack. There was exactly ten of everything, which could be mixed and matched at random. That was enough outfits for two weeks and since it would just be her and the kids, there was no one to judge her for not being a fashionista. Her mother would have a heart attack if she ever learned Julie was traipsing through the wilderness and had only taken along a single pair of sneakers and one set of flip-flops. It made no sense to anyone how she could be so blasé about her looks when her mother lived and breathed fashion. But then, Julie had never been a normal child in her mother’s eyes.
Tessa Brewer, fashion designer by day and home decorator by night, had wanted one child, a girl preferably, who would one day take over her business. Instead she got Julie, who spent a very large percentage of her time examining dead bodies.
Her love of forensics started while watching the Scooby gang solve impossible crimes, later it was Law and Order and CSI. Her mother had been appalled when Julie had announced her desires to dissect and examine crime scenes.
“No daughter of mine is going to sit at my dinner table after fondling a carcass all day!”
So, Julie had moved out, gotten her own apartment a block away from the University of Alberta and started on getting her bachelor's degree. Two years later, she was still as much in love with the whole process as she had been from day one—much to her mother’s eternal despair.
With the last item stowed away in the dresser, Julie dusted her hands and turned to the final item still nestled at the bottom of the bag. The steel coating on the bat glinted in the golden light. The thing had been a gift from an old boyfriend after one of the suites in her building had been broken into. He had wanted to get her a gun, but thankfully she had managed to talk him out of that. The bat usually sat propped in the corner of her apartment, tucked away behind the coatrack next to the door. She had never had to use it, thank God, but she liked having it close. Kind of like a security blanket.
“Julie?” Dustin poked his head through the gap between the doors. “I’m hungry.”
Pulling the flaps on her duffle closed, Julie straightened and turned to face the miniature-sized person shadowing her doorway. “How do you feel about chili?”
Dustin blinked very slowly, watching her through his round glasses. “How do you feel about having your skin melted off? Because that’s what will happen if Wendy so much as smells the stuff.”
Biting the inside of her cheek, Julie moved towards him and slipped an arm around his thin shoulders. “I hear it’s going to be a cold night. We can do with some heat.”
“That’s disgusting.”
Laughing, she propelled him downstairs and nudged him towards the rec room where Wendy and Rick were arguing over whose turn it was on the TV. She walked into the kitchen and began taking out pots and pans and starting the process of chili making.
Supper ended when Rick flicked a bit of meat at Wendy and hit Dustin instead. It was only the threat of no dessert for the remainder of the month, plus a phone call to their mother, that got them to settle them down long enough to march upstairs for a quick shower and bed. They must have been exhausted, because no one argued with her. Teeth were brushed, hairs were braided—in Wendy’s case—and pajamas were donned. She read two chapters of Percy Jackson, tucked the children into bed and slipped back downstairs to stow her car in the garage and clean up.
Once the kitchen was back in order, she did a quick tour of the house, double checking the locks and windows and setting the alarm. She considered parking herself in front of the TV and unwinding, but between the drive and the children, Julie was ready for some shut eye. Plus tomorrow promised to be a very long day.
After checking on each kid and making sure they were tucked in, she slipped into her own room. She left the door slightly ajar in case the children needed her and moved to the side of her bed, digging into the pocket of her jeans as she went. She emptied her phone, loose change, a squished pack of gum, and the piece of paper with the alarm code onto the nightstand. She grabbed a long t-shirt from the dresser and padded into the bathroom to braid her hair and wash up for the night.
In the brightly lit mirror, her reflection stared back at her with all the exhaustion thrumming through her. Deep, purple rings haloed her gray eyes. The pallor of her round face made them seem prominent like someone had punched her in the face, giving her two shiners. That, unfortunately hadn’t been the case. The truth was that she had been running herself ragged the last year, throwing herself into her studies and work and babysitting, plus trying to appease her mother by volunteering at the clothing boutique twice a week. Getting away for a month to do nothing but sunbathe and swim had been almost a godsend. Had Maureen not offered the money, Julie probably would have still said yes, just to get away for a few days.
Sighing, she ran the water in the sink before splashing her face in hopes of reducing some of the puffiness. She brushed her teeth, applied a thick coat of moisturizer and shuffled her way back into the bedroom. The sheets were cool and silky as they slid against the bare skin of her legs. Julie moaned quietly with a profound happiness to be off her feet and snuggled into the downy folds of her pillow. She closed her eyes and let herself drift comfortably into a dreamless sleep.
Unfortunately, she didn’t stay there.
It was two in the morning when the alarm shrieked to life.
Chapter Two
Julie bolted upright as though the pillow had shocked her. For a moment she simply sat there, amidst a sea of rumpled silk with her heart in her throat, stuttering with terror and disorientation. It took her five seconds to remember she wasn’t in her apartment and that there could only be one reason why the alarm would be sounding.
Fingers fumbling, she groped for the lamp chain and lit the room with its soft glow. The sheets were thrown back hastily as she scrambled out of bed and hurried to the duffle she had kicked beneath a chair. The alarm continued to shriek with a
vengeance that made her eyes cross and her brain rattle.
The bat’s rubber grip was cool between her clammy fingers as she hauled it free of the duffle’s confines. A spark of light slid down the metal length to glint at the curved top. Julie whacked it once on her palm before she shoved apart the doors and sprinted from the room.
“Julie...?” Wendy shuffled out of her room, rubbing her eye with a small fist.
“Everything’s fine,” Julie said, never slowing her pace. “Get back in your room and close the door. You too,” she told Dustin as the boy stumbled out of his room.
She took the stairs at a quick, cautious clip, keeping against the wall with all her senses on high alert. The hard clap of her heart counted off the seconds until she hit the bottom landing.
The front door stood wide open to the star speckled night. Balmy summer air swept into the foyer, circled around her bare ankles and faded deeper into the house.
Her insides writhed with confusion and fear as she edged closer. Her mind scrambled trying to remember if maybe she hadn’t locked the thing properly, because there was no other sound, except the blaring of the alarm. The night was quiet and. Julie wasn’t used to that level of silence, or darkness. It creeped her out and stole a chill through her. How could there be that many stars glittering in the sky and the night still be so damn black? It made no sense. But she didn’t dwell on it.
Moving quickly, she shut the doors and flipped the latch. She slid the chain into place for good measure before hurrying to the alarm control panel in the wall. She keyed in the passcode and the shrieking instantly died. But her ears continued to ring as though the alarm had recorded itself onto her brain.
She blew out an exasperated breath and rubbed a hand over her face. She made a mental note to examine the locks more properly in the morning. It was impossible to tell if she just hadn’t locked them as tightly as she’d originally thought, or if something was actually wrong with them, but she would make sure it didn’t happen again. Four weeks of that would drive her insane.
Relieved that it was nothing but the wind, Julie started for the stairs, eager to return to the warm folds of sleep. There were still a few precious hours before she had to deal with the world, and the Vance children, and every second of sleep counted.
Her hand had just closed on the railing when she heard it.
“Took you long enough!” came a deep, male voice from somewhere in the house.
Ice cold terror washed through her in a wave. It shrilled between her ears so she couldn’t even hear her own heart accelerate until her chest began to ache. She tasted bile when she tried to moisten her lips and swallowed rapidly.
The hallway was stamped with pale patches of moonlight that spilled freely from the windows in the kitchen. Whoever was in the house hadn’t bothered turning the lights on, which furthered her assumption that it was a burglary and they hadn’t yet located the light switches. That gave her some advantage and that was all she needed.
Keeping on the toes of her feet, Julie scurried to the opposite side of the hall and pressed her sweaty back against the wall next to the sitting room entrance. She paused just long enough to suck in a breath and hold it for two heartbeats before darting a quick peek inside.
Light shone through the sheer curtains over the high windows, creating shadows over the furniture. But the room was void of human life. Yet in no way did that comfort her.
Shifting her weight to put her strongest foot forward, Julie darted further along to the next door. The kitchen. She took another breath, braced herself and started to move forward only to have something tall and menacing lurch out into her path. It would have barreled into her had she not jerked back.
Instinct, and eight years of kickboxing, took hold and Julie reacted. The bat spun expertly lengthwise in her grasp. Her arms swung left and in that same fluid motion, she thrust with the butt of the bat like a battering ram straight into her assailant’s face. The satisfying crunch of bone was swallowed by the howl of agony. The shadow stumbled back, collided into the doorframe.
Julie swooped down. Her leg shot out and she kicked the figure off his feet. He went down and she kicked him straight in the ribs. She was rewarded with another exclamation, then a weak whimper that would have been amusing any other time.
“Shaun?”
The second voice from somewhere deeper in the kitchen had Julie sidestepping to press her back into the wall just outside the door for a second time. She swung the bat over her shoulder and planted her feet shoulder-width apart, bracing her weight.
The second figure, blind in the dark and confused by the commotion, scuffled forward. Julie could hear their hesitant steps towards her. The first one snarled in pain when his buddy trampled on him by accident. Julie heard the second one stumble and catch himself on the doorframe.
“Dude, what—”
Julie swung without a second of pause. She kept her her aim low for the abdomen. It made contact with a satisfying thwack and a sound like a mouse being stomped on whooshed through the air as the second figure dropped on top of the other, earning a loud grunt of pain from his friend. He was shoved unceremoniously off and he collapsed on his side, cradling his abdomen and whining like an injured puppy.
Breathing hard, Julie scuttled back, keeping a close eye on the pair.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you doing here?”
Neither spoke. There was a sound like air being released from a balloon, but that was all.
“Who are you?” she snarled a second time.
Deep in the kitchen, a lock clicked. The terrace doors slid on their grates and then banged shut as a third person joined the party. Then a very bedroom-worthy voice vaulted through the room, cutting through the darkness to muffle the groans at her feet.
“Very funny locking me out, you assholes.” The soft clip of feet beat against the silence. It was moving across the room, towards Julie and the two still trying to catch their breaths. “Guys?”
Lights burst to life. Julie grimaced as the sharpness off it chased away the shadows and burned her eyes. The two on the floor groaned even louder. The one nearest her, the one that had gotten the bat to the gut, flopped over onto his back.
“Run!” he squeaked. “T-1000’s are attacking!”
The footsteps were hurried now. A shadow fell over the two on the floor. Julie tightened her grip on the bat.
“What the fuck—”
Julie swung, determined to take the intruder down before they could get the upper hand.
“Whoa!”
He was quick. He ducked and Julie’s bat struck the doorframe inches from his head, chipping wood and sending slivers of pain shooting up her arms. She cried out as her weapon rebounded and flew out of her hands. It clattered noisily to the floor and rolled out of reach.
Julie opened her mouth to curse only to be slammed into by a hard body. They both struck the ground, with her taking most of the blow. The impact, combined with the immense weight coming down on top of her, crushed the air from her lungs so she couldn’t even cry out. Her assailant took advantage of her momentary weakness by wrenching her arms over her head and locking them to the hardwood by the wrists. Toned thighs settled on hers, anchoring her completely so all she could do was thrash uselessly.
“Get off me!” she snarled.
“Easy, love,” the smoky voice soothed, like he were pacifying a child who was having a wee tantrum.
The light behind him shone through dark hair, tinting the tips a soft red. Shadows painted over his features so all she could make out was the glimmer in his eyes and the slight flash of teeth in what she could have sworn was a grin.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
“Honestly? I wouldn’t say no to a beer,” he replied evenly. “Maybe a smoke.” He paused. Then added more seriously, “Definitely a smoke.”
Confusion pulled at Julie. “What?”
But whatever he was about to say was interrupted by the soft scuffle from a
bove them. His head came up so she had a view of his throat. Julie had a harder time twisting her head around to see what had caught her attacker’s attention.
It was Dustin. He stood on the bottom step in his Tony Hawk pajamas. His glasses were slightly cocked on his nose and his eyes were enormous behind the silver frames.
Julie’s heart missed a full beat before she found her voice.
“Dustin!” She struggled against the hold still pinning her to the icy ground. “Get back upstairs!”
The boy looked from her to the guy on top of her, then at the two shuffling gingerly to their feet, but didn’t move. He seemed to be frozen in place.
Cursing inwardly, Julie acted.
With her companion’s attention fixed on the boy, Julie thrust up sharply with her hips, sending him teetering forward in surprise. He had no choice but to release her arms in order to catch his balance.
Julie rolled, twisting her torso and dislodging her hands free. He didn’t stand a chance once she was loose. He certainly wasn’t fast enough to stop her when she slammed her fist into his jaw, following it up with a knee straight up into his groin.
“Motherfaaa...”
He dropped sideways off her, holding himself and expelling a series of very creative curse words that Julie hoped to God Dustin didn’t memorize. She scrambled to her feet and threw herself at Dustin and grabbed him.
“Run!” she shouted even as she shoved him up the stairs. “Dustin, get the others. Lock yourself in my room and call the police. Go!”
But the boy was fighting her, craning his neck, and trying to look around her at the figure hunched over on his hands and knees, still swearing vividly. Then he narrowed his eyes behind his glasses and spoke the last name Julie ever expected to hear.
“Mason?”
It was as though someone had torn the very ground out from under her. Her stomach lurched and dropped somewhere around her ankles as a whole new surge of dread coiled up through her body. A wave of dizziness had her swaying into the banister. She clutched at it as her insides trembled with pain and horror.
Kissing Trouble Page 2
