Guarding Sophie (5 page)

He led her out to the huge sectional couch in his living room. They sat down, and he grabbed the remote and said, “Netflix streaming or Amazon Instant Video?”

She had to laugh. The closest movie theater was twenty miles away from Noel. At least the city government had made sure there was high-speed Internet, or they'd be looking for entertainment at the grocery store with the senior citizens. There wasn't a lot of nightlife in Noel either. The tourists exhausted themselves with shopping and outdoor pursuits; most bars and restaurants in the small town were closed by 10:00
PM
.

“Maybe I should make some popcorn,” she said.

“If you want some, that's great, but I'm stuffed,” he said. “I'll be dreaming about that prime rib later.”

“There are leftovers to eat tomorrow.”

“I can't wait,” he said and reached out for her hand again.

She swallowed hard. She looked down at her hand clasped securely in his. There was so much to say, but for once, she'd like to spend a couple of hours sitting on the couch with nothing more pressing to do than enjoy herself.

“I have to tell you this,” he said. “I'm kinda into you. I have been since we were in school.” He let out a long breath. “Are you okay if we take this slow?” He peered at her through a mop of dark, shoulder-length waves. His full lips twitched into a shy smile. “I don't want to screw it up,” he confessed.

It was probably a huge line he'd used with women before, but hearing something so bashful coming from the normally confident, handsome, funny Kyle charmed her. Even if it wasn't original, it worked. She licked her suddenly dry lips. “I like you too.”

“That's good to know,” he said. He squeezed her hand.

“I wonder how things would have been different if I'd gone to the prom with you instead.”

“You were a bit unavailable in those days.”

“Yeah. It wasn't working, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself it was. Of course, then I met Peter, and that was even worse.” Maybe she should change the subject. No one wanted to hear about the train wreck that was her love life. She still had a tiny flicker of hope in her heart that things could be different.

Somehow, law enforcement would keep her ex away from her, she'd meet a man she wanted to be with and who wanted to be with her in return, and her life would be happy. She didn't have to plan her entire future in the next ten minutes.

“I've had some sketchy relationships over the years too,” he said. They stared at each other for a minute or so, and he grinned at her. “How about that movie? What would you like to watch?”

She'd rather spend the evening talking with him and continuing to catch up on the past ten years, but maybe he preferred the relative safety of a shared activity that would not require baring one's soul. They had plenty of time to explore each other's thoughts and dreams. Maybe sitting on the couch holding hands was the best medicine for both of them right now.

“That's a good question,” she said. “Do we watch something we've seen before, or do we take a risk?”

“What's your favorite movie?” he said.

“Pitch Perfect,”
she said.

He clicked the TV on, hit the Amazon Instant Video icon, and located the downloadable movie. “I know I'm supposed to say something like I love the
Fast and Furious
franchise more than anything,” he confided. “Don't tell anyone, but I own the
Pitch Perfect
DVD. It's in Bellevue.”

“You're not a
Fast and Furious
fan?”

“Don't let it get out,” he joked.

“That's aca-awesome, Kyle.”

They watched the bar on the screen as the movie downloaded for a few seconds.

“I'll bet you sing along too,” he said.

“ ‘Titanium' is one of my favorite songs,” she assured him. “And I sing ‘Since U Been Gone' in the car. At least I did when I
had
a car.”

“We can sing it in my car.” He moved closer to her on the couch as the download ended. “Want something to drink before I click Start on the movie?”

“No, thank you. I'm fine,” she said.

“You are, aren't you?”

She laughed as he moved closer.

“I have one more thing to confess,” he said as he reached out to cup her cheek in his hand. He slowly rubbed his thumb against her jaw. Her heart was going as if she'd chugged a four-shot latte, and the memories came rushing back. She remembered a thousand nights of football games, pizza, and hanging around on the beach with her friends. She remembered Kyle as a laughing teen with wavy, tumbled dark hair, sparkling dark eyes, and the confidence of someone who believed life held only good things for all of them. She thought that charmed life would go on forever.

They weren't high school students anymore. They'd both had their share of joy and pain as they'd ventured into the adult world. The stakes were higher now, especially since they'd confessed a mutual interest. The pain in her heart, if this did not work out, would be a momentary annoyance compared with the anguish she would feel if she exposed Kyle or his family to danger as the result of her unhinged, vengeful ex.

“What if he finds me?” she whispered. His couch wrapped them in a cocoon of overstuffed comfort.

“We'll deal with that later,” he whispered back. “I've wanted to kiss you for years now, Sophie. I think you want to kiss me too.”

She looked into his soft eyes. He moved even closer, and his hand slid to the back of her neck. His mouth was a breath away from hers. She reached up to hold his face in her hands too. Her fingertips slid over the stubble on his cheeks. He was a man, not a teenager. She was a woman who knew how painful love could be, instead of a girl who still believed in happily-ever-afters.

She wished she could let go of the fear she carried around like a knapsack day in and day out and, for once, just feel.

“You can tell me no if you're not into it,” he said. “I can handle it.”

“I don't want to say no,” she said.

He closed the space between them and covered her mouth with his own. He tasted like the wine they'd been drinking. His lips were soft and gentle on hers, and she smiled as the tip of his nose tickled her cheek. He pulled her closer.

She heard the
Pitch Perfect
soundtrack start on his TV. She opened her eyes long enough to see him reach out with the remote control and click the “Power Off” button with one finger as he kept kissing her.

“Hang on,” he muttered as he pulled his mouth off hers, clicked again, and succeeded in getting the TV to shut off. Night had fallen; the only light in his living room was the spillover from the kitchen. He flopped back on the couch, tugging her with him, and dropped the remote onto the cushion. “I'm such a smooth guy, aren't I?”

“Don't worry about it,” she said. She'd never forget watching him blindly stabbing at the “Power Off” button. His momentary awkwardness was adorable. She wished for a love that made her laugh instead of cry. “You taste so good,” she said.

“You're sure I don't have food in my teeth?”

“Nope.” She snuggled up to him and laid her head on his shoulder. “We could try it again.”

“We could,” he said. “There's something we should probably talk about before we do any more kissing.”

“Is this when we're supposed to talk about what's going to happen next?” She nodded at the staircase leading to his bedroom.

He got the message. Despite the dimness of his living room, she could see fresh color rising in his cheeks. “Well, yeah, we should talk about that, too, but right now, maybe we should discuss whether or not you'd like me to drive you home.”

“Are you kicking me out?” she teased.

“No. No. I didn't want you to think that I expected you to stay if you needed to get home—I—shit, I'm happy to do whatever you'd like to do, up to and including driving you anywhere you'd like.” He let out a breath. “I know we said we were taking this slow.”

If Sophie had had any hope of resisting Kyle before, it was gone. He'd made it clear he was interested, but he asked her what she was comfortable with rather than talking her into spending the night and regretting what they'd done the next morning.

“I hope you don't think I'm teasing you,” she said.

“I kissed you first, remember?”

“I do,” she said. She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I enjoyed it.”

“Are we going to be those people who go to a movie and kiss through the entire thing?”

“Probably,” she said. She felt his chest move as he laughed.

“I guess this means we'll at least have to start the movie first.”

K
YLE POINTED THE
remote control toward the flat-screen on the other wall and clicked. The movie they downloaded popped up as the TV flickered on. He hit some more buttons on the universal remote someone had programmed before he moved in; the flames in the gas fireplace leapt to life too. He could envision a lot of happy evenings cuddled up with Sophie on his living room couch in the future, or at least during the six months or so a year he didn't have to be back in Bellevue for football.

She'd made a home here. He might live in Noel a few months a year between football seasons. He didn't want to get ahead of himself, but he'd like to spend more time with her. He wondered if the sparks of strong attraction he'd felt for her would grow into a flame that might warm them both. Obviously, they hadn't seen each other for years, but now he didn't want to dwell on what would happen when he had to go back to his life with the Sharks, and she'd be here for months on her own.

He wasn't entirely kidding when he told her he had two guest rooms upstairs, either. She was in love with his kitchen; he had a state-of-the-art security system—it could work well for both of them. She could save the money she was forking out for rent to buy a car. He could sneak into Noel on his day off each week during football season and spend some time with her.

They'd kissed each other a few times, and he was already moving her into his house. Maybe he needed to slow his roll.

Maybe he should kiss her some more instead of planning their entire future in the next thirty seconds.

He glanced down at her.

“Sophie?” he said.

“Mmph,” she said.

Her head was on his shoulder, her arms still around him, but he grabbed the remote again and turned the volume down. Her breathing was deep and peaceful. She was fast asleep. He clicked the movie off and settled back into the cushions too.

They could solve their problems tomorrow.

K
YLE DIDN
'
T DRIVE
Sophie home last night. The combination of a delicious dinner, a little wine, and an evening full of laughter and conversation (and the luxurious couch the designer installed in his living room) was enough to lull them both to sleep. The sun was flooding his living room with industrial-strength light when he awoke. He glanced over at Sophie, who was still curled against him. She rubbed her nose with her free hand and made a little snorting sound in her sleep. She was adorable, and it was all he could do not to laugh.

He felt his cell phone vibrating in his pants pocket and grabbed it out to look at the time. He stared at the readout in shock. He couldn't remember the last time he slept until 10
AM
on a weekday. Maybe it was the quiet. He didn't hear traffic noise in Noel. There weren't sirens. Nobody came to the door. The first night he'd stayed in his cabin, he couldn't sleep because it was too quiet. He went out the next day and bought one of those white noise machines. He made a mental note to unplug the machine later. His lack of sleep didn't have anything to do with the quiet. It was because he hadn't been this relaxed in years. He was having the time of his life hiding out with Sophie.

Speaking of Sophie, maybe he should wake her up. She didn't have to work, but she might have things to do. He heard another little snort from her as she shoved herself into a sitting position. She smiled sleepily at him as she stretched.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Her hair was rumpled. She was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. A delicate flush rose in her cheeks, and he remembered how soft her skin was as he held her last night.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked. “You weren't uncomfortable? I didn't mean for us to fall asleep on the couch.”

That wasn't the whole truth. He didn't want her to leave. He'd promised to take things slowly, which was now biting him in the butt. He got that she was scared. He was too. That didn't mean he wasn't going to do whatever he could to spend as much time with Sophie as possible.

“I did,” she said. “I'll be right back.” She scrambled off the couch and hurried into the downstairs powder room.

Twenty minutes later, she'd pulled eggs, milk, and cheese out of the refrigerator to make them an omelet with toast and more fresh fruit. He glanced at his phone's screen again after feeling it vibrate.

His mom. He shut the phone off.

“Still want to go on a picnic by the river today?” he asked.

She glanced up from cracking eggs into a bowl. “I'd love to,” she said.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Sophie opened her eyes to an initially unfamiliar room with a soaring ceiling flooded in the pinks and oranges of dawn. It took her a moment to remember exactly where she was.

Beautiful house.

Noel.

Kyle
.

She heard his quiet snores. He was still holding her. His long legs sprawled out over the upholstered coffee table/ottoman he'd shoved up against the sectional to give them more room last night. They'd spent the past couple of days hanging out at his house when they weren't visiting the sites around Noel.

They went on a picnic yesterday. They'd stopped by the town square for a weeknight concert by a Scottish band called Sassenachs Gone Wild. She could now say that she'd heard “Silent Night” played on bagpipes. Kyle had asked her if she wanted to go to her place for a while.

“Do I have to?” she had said.

She still loved her little apartment, but she didn't want him to leave, either. She knew she'd told him she wanted to take things slow, which made her a huge liar. She knew they'd camped out on his couch two nights in a row because he didn't want her to feel pressured to get physically involved. She also knew she should try to maintain some air of mystery (or make him chase her a little; guys didn't want what was easy to get) but she was having so much fun with him she didn't want to go back to her quiet, solitary life quite yet.

“We still haven't finished watching
Pitch Perfect
,” he had said.

“Are we ever going to finish watching it?”

“If we can stay awake long enough,” he had joked.

She extracted herself carefully from his embrace.

He muttered something she couldn't make out and wrapped his arms around his midsection. If she was quiet, he might sleep for a while longer.

She used the bathroom and walked into the kitchen. It wasn't 7
AM
yet. Maybe she should go back to sleep too. Right now, she'd like to stand on the deck off Kyle's living room and admire the view.

She glanced over at him as she passed the living room couch. He didn't stir. She unlocked the French doors leading outside, strolled onto the deck, and took a deep breath of fresh, pine-scented air. It was one of those mornings she wished she had a really good camera. There was an okay one on the burner phone she was using right now. The really good camera was on her Samsung, which was shut off and buried in the bottom of her purse. She wondered why she couldn't bring herself to throw it away. Then again, it hadn't been cheap. Maybe she could sell it to someone else.

She stared at an impossibly blue sky, puffy white clouds, and evergreens as far as the eye could see. She saw the snow-capped mountains ringing Noel, and she could hear birds calling out to each other. She laid one hand on the railing that surrounded Kyle's porch.

An odd flash caught her eye. She glanced in that direction. The sunshine was almost blinding, and she saw the flash again. She shielded her eyes with one hand and peered in the direction of the two flashes.

A tall, broad-shouldered man with sandy blond hair stood next to a late-model car with a pair of binoculars in one hand. She didn't call out to him. In an instant, with the shock of recognition, she was too afraid to cry out or to scream. She knew who he was. And she couldn't figure out how he'd managed to find her, despite all of her efforts to leave no trace of where she'd gone.

He lifted his other hand in a half wave as he started running toward Kyle's house.

She turned and ran back inside.