On the third night, the brandy slid across the top of my table and her eyes fluttered down to mine. “A sketchy black truck has been seen everywhere I’ve been for the past three days. Intense steel-grey eyes staring me down and peeking in my windows. You’re the worst stalker I’ve ever met. What are you going to do now? Ask me to help you find your lost puppy? Offer me some candy and shove me in your truck? Or will it be something subtler, like asking me if your napkin smells like chloroform as you grab me from behind? Or wait, maybe you’ll just sit here and stare at me menacingly and pet your imaginary cat while collecting strands of my hair to knit a sweater for yourself later.”
“Wow. Don’t hold yourself back. I really get under your skin, yeah? Kind of hate me, huh?”
“If I gave you any amount of thought in my head, I probably would.”
I choked down the mouthful of brandy and almost spit it out all over the front of my laptop. “Are you always this witty? Or should I be afraid? And I haven’t peeked in your window since the mop dance. My heart wouldn’t be able to handle it again, although I do find myself listening to that same damn song every night. And I can’t knit…yet.”
Then, for the first time since seeing her in the diner, she smiled at me. “You should be terrified, actually. You never know when that little stalking plan of yours will backfire and I show up everywhere you are, like a crazy woman with zero self-esteem.” She leaned over the table, hands laid out flat across the wood top, “I’d keep repeating in a high pitched voice…that we were made for each other…that I couldn’t bring myself to shower after being so near you. You’d find me stealing your clothes and wearing them just to have your scent all over my body. Maybe I’d crawl into your window at night and slip under your bed and poke you every so often so you couldn’t sleep.”
“I will definitely be leaving the alarm off tonight,” I said, chuckling.
“Why?”
“Because I like the thought of you under me in bed,” I stated.
“No, Kade. Why are you following me?” She whispered.
Fuck. I had nothing to say to that. She would probably slap me if I told her I had trouble breathing when I wasn’t near her.
“My TV is broke?” Cold harsh humor laced my tone. I really was trying to be funny and flirtatious, but I needed to work on the lack I had of this talent.
She crossed her arms, “Try again.”
“I like the view?”
“Well, that’s not creepy at all,” she said, dryly.
Laying my palms flat against the table, I just let go. “Because Lainey, you somehow soothe the chaos that’s inside me. You heal me.”
Chapter 7
Kade had been at the bar every night for almost a week, staring at me so hard that I feared he might burst a blood vessel. I peeked out of the door in the bar’s kitchen and watched him walk in. He was scanning the room, dark serious eyes searching. Was he looking for me? Was it fear that had my hackles up? Or was it excitement? I wanted to punch myself in my head for thinking it.
I mean his actions were incarceration worthy, but then what he said to me last night…it just…touched me. Because, Lainey, you somehow soothe the chaos that’s inside me. You heal me.
You heal me.
You heal me.
“Let me guess. My brother is out there, yeah?” Dylan’s voice rumbled behind me. He settled himself next to me and peeked beside me behind the door. The closeness of his arm to mine made me shiver and I moved away. When he realized what I’d done, his eyes widened, “Ah shit. You’re scared of him? Damn, Lainey, is he scaring you? I swear Lainey; he’s not a bad person. He’s just not right in the head.”
What the heck did that mean?
“We need to talk.” Tears burned my eyes out of sheer frustration, and I ran. I ran down the hallway into his office, hoping he’d follow me so I could get some sort of answers. This was too intense. His brother was vile towards me one minute, then the next, he was apologizing and following me around, being flirty in a weird way. I got that there was an attraction there. I mean Kade Grayson was glorious to look at. I now understood the idea of being attracted to someone at first sight, or whatever you wanted to call it. There was no denying something was there that drew us to acknowledge one another and to look at one another. I couldn’t remember another time where I’d felt this instant attraction so strongly with somebody, and I saw it in him, the way he watched me, I saw that same strong pull in his eyes. But he’d been following me. Conveniently showing up in places I frequented, just watching and waiting. To say I was worried was the understatement of the century. I was ready to pull out my claws.
Dylan’s serious face was in mine instantly, worry lines creasing his forehead, making him look so much older.
I paced back and forth in front of his desk, wringing my shirt in my hands. “Look, Dylan. I appreciate everything you have done for Bree and I, showing up here all messed up as we were, and letting us stay and work here, but you had to realize by now that I’m running from a really bad situation and I don’t want to get myself mixed up in another one. So, please tell me what it is that is wrong with your brother.”
Dylan’s eyebrows rose with a sad expression, his shoulders slumped and he just seemed to give in. “Take the night off, Lainey. Go home and Google Kade Grayson. He’s got his own damn Wikipedia page. You’ll find everything that everybody thinks about him there. Once you read all the articles on what happened and what he did, then look up his books. His pen name is Cory Thomas.”
I stood there staring at him. This whole town was bat-shit crazy, and the Graysons seemed to be the supreme rulers. Ever since we got here, I’d been waiting for someone to ask me to drink whatever weird Kool-Aid they were passing around. He couldn’t just give me an explanation? I had to go on a freaking treasure hunt?
Slipping out the back door, I yanked on my coat as fast as I could. It was freezing outside, but thank God, I had less than a ten-minute walk to the trailer park.
I had no idea what I would find when I looked up Kade. What could possibly make an entire town fear him? What could possibly make a grown man choose a reclusive existence and have such a strong distaste of other human beings? And, why the hell would he take it out on me? Climbing the icy steps to my trailer, I was determined to find out.
Warming my hands around a steamy cup of freshly made coffee, I turned my computer on. Logging online, I immediately typed Kade Grayson into a search engine, and clicked on the first site. Not prepared for what I saw, my coffee cup fell from my hands, stinging a burn across my fingers and splashing down my legs. The cup shattered into pieces across the crappy linoleum of the trailer and echoed itself in my ears.
Saint Benedict’s High School Massacre.
England.
School shooting.
1998.
A sixteen-year-old student killed a total of twenty-eight of his fellow students and three teachers.
Oh my God.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.