Dozer likes to sleep on the rug right under the mail slot while I’m gone. On several occasions, I’ve seen curious scratches and puncture marks in the envelopes of a few bills here and there. It makes me wonder if Dozer attacks the mail when it comes through the flap. I can only imagine that it would scare the crap out of me if I were sleeping when it landed on me.
I smile as my black-and-gray striped cat snakes his way over to my leg, weaving in and out in a figure eight pattern, rubbing his sides against me and purring loud enough to wake the dead.
“Hey, buddy, were you sleeping?”
I bend to scoop him up and he immediately head butts me. That’s been his greeting since the day I rescued him from a cat-eating dog gang that terrorized my neighborhood two years ago. I think he realizes he’d have been dead meat if I hadn’t intervened. He’s been my loyal companion ever since.
“You’re the only man I need in my life, aren’t you, Dozer?” I croon to him, aggravated that I’m still thinking about Kiefer Rogan.
Dozer jumps out of my arms, walks four feet and flops down on the carpet where he proceeds to groom himself. I stand on the rug, watching him, letting the peace and quiet and familiar smells of my home, of my life relax me.
I love my little house. It’s nothing special—a cute cottage that has yellow siding, a white wrought-iron fence around the yard and cheerful window planters that are blooming with pansies this year. It’s not a mansion, but it’s mine. My hiding place. My sanctuary. The one place that I can be myself, whatever mixed-up blend of Kathryn, Kat and Katie Rydale that is.
I moved here right after I got the job with the studio. I needed to disappear and the small town of Enchantment seemed the perfect place to do so. And, so far, it has been. And that’s the way I like it. I don’t go looking for trouble and I can only hope that it doesn’t hunt me down. I’ve had enough of it to last a lifetime already, and I’m only twenty-four.
Before I can stop them, flashes of flames and fists, of writhing and wreckage, of tears and emptiness spew through my mind like a spray of acid, burning where it touches. Relentlessly, I push those turbulent thoughts to the deepest part of my consciousness. I learned long ago that the less contact I have with them, the less they can hurt me. I learned that if I give them an inch, if I give them even a few seconds of thought, they take over. They incapacitate. They paralyze. They eat away at the carefully constructed person I’ve become, destroying the peace and security that I’ve worked so hard to achieve. And I can’t let that happen. Not again.
I busy myself with the routine tasks I perform each day when I get home from work. I find comfort in structure, in the predictable. I thrive on being ordinary and living an ordinary life. The spectacular can only end in devastation. The bigger the star, the brighter the shine, but the more epic the explosion and subsequent death. That’s something else I learned. The hard way. It’s better not to shine too bright. Or, sometimes, not to shine at all.
At a few minutes before ten, I’m already brushed and washed and lying in bed with one of Mona’s books. I refuse to consider why I picked up another of her silly romance stories tonight of all nights. I also refuse to consider why, when I hear a door slam outside, I think for just a fraction of a second that it might be Kiefer Rogan. And that a guy like him might actually be interested in a girl like me.
I ignore the niggle of disappointment and remind myself that I’m better off without men like that in my life—the kind who love beauty and glamour, the kind who gravitate toward the kind of girl that I used to be. That got me nothing but trouble and pain and regret, and I’ve got the scars to prove it. No, I’m better off by myself and I’ll do well to remember that.
Why, after all this time, I’d let a guy like Kiefer Rogan get under my skin is strange, yes, but I have to keep it in perspective. Not let him get inside my head with his killer smile and charming wink. Letting him in would be a disaster, plain and simple.
I snap the book shut with a definitive thud, glaring at the beautiful laughing couple on the cover. Life isn’t a romantic comedy. It’s more of a light Shakespearean tragedy. Or a cruel joke. At least that’s been my experience.
EIGHT
Rogan
Because Enchantment, Georgia, is a small town—like such a small town that the one restaurant it boasts is actually a diner—the studio had some more . . . luxurious houses built for their stars. They’re designed to be leased on a very temporary basis, meant mostly for those who don’t like living out of their trailer or don’t want to travel back to their real homes on the weekends and between shoots. The place I leased from them for six weeks is perfect for my purposes, mainly because Kurt, my younger brother, has certain living requirements that make trailer, hotel or apartment residences nearly impossible to navigate with his wheelchair.
I’m still surprised that he wanted to come down here with me. He doesn’t like getting out of his element much and, as shitty as it sounds, I was sort of counting on that to keep him at home.
But it didn’t.
Maybe he needed a break from home, too.
For Kurt, home is Texas. He’s comfortable there, but I never will be. Once I left the town I was born in, I didn’t plan to return. Ever. Too many bad memories. I thought my brother and I had both managed to escape when we enlisted in the military. I thought we’d both have a better life. Him not worrying about Dad, me not having to worry about either of them. But when Kurt got hurt, I was all he had. I gave up my career in the military, the family I’d made there, so I could come home and take care of him. I went back to fighting because other than Delta Five, my covert ops team, it was all I knew. It’s what I had to do. Kind of like coming back to Texas to take care of my brother.
I had to put down roots for Kurt’s sake, and Texas is where he wanted to be, so Texas it was. I ended up going all the way around the world only to end up back in the same shitty memories I had just barely managed to escape. Between that and Kurt’s assholery and feeling trapped in a life not entirely of my making, I was sort of looking forward to this gig as a breather, even though I felt guilty as hell for looking at it that way. But that didn’t work out as I’d hoped. Now it’s just the same shit with different scenery. There’s just no avoiding obligation sometimes.
I would feel a lot more thwarted by the whole setup if it weren’t for the lovely and intriguing Katie. She is proving to be a very welcome, very effective distraction. She was the last thing I was expecting. I’m not complaining, though. Just the thought of her brings a smile to my face. In a world of one-dimensional (albeit gorgeous) robots, she’s a breath of fresh air. And it’s looking more and more like that’s just what I needed.
“Where the hell have you been? I thought you were done shooting at six, Keefie,” Kurt snaps from just inside the doorway, bringing my attention back to my current predicament—I’m late.
I take in his posture—spine straight, shoulders squared, arms crossed—and the fact that he called me Keefie—something my father used to do that he knows I hate—and I know he’s furious. Ready to fight. I don’t even need to look at the hard set of his jaw or the angry green eyes so like my own to see it. But I do. And I’m struck for about the millionth time by how sad it is to see such bitterness etched into such a handsome kid’s face. I know I’m responsible for at least part of it. He was angry with me long before he lost the ability to walk.
I keep my reply calm and level. “I left you a voice mail. Didn’t you check your messages when you got up?”
If anything, he gets even madder. “Why the hell would I? Is it too much to expect that my brother might keep his word and be home when he says he’ll be home? Jesus! It’s not enough that I lose my legs in Afghanistan, but now I have to hold your hand like a damn kid who can’t remember to wipe his ass.”