His Every Move (4 page)

She wasn’t going to be seeing anyone—this wasn’t a social call.

On the car ride, Kallie played loud, aggressive music and sang at the top of her lungs. She was full of adrenaline and confidence in her decision. She was feeling almost happy for the first time in what seemed like ages.

But when she first caught sight of the castle looming at the top of the hill again, everything changed. A wave of apprehension rolled over her, drenching her in fear and anxiety.

It was like being underwater.

The house was a shadowy presence above her as she started ascending the hill, and it felt like someone inside was looking down at her, laughing and laughing.

All of her good humor was gone. Now, Kallie was simply grim faced with determination, driving upwards at a sharp angle, feeling like she might simply fall backwards off the face of the earth.

When she finally reached the top, she was so nervous that she came within seconds of turning around and going home without ever delivering the necklace.

“Calm down,” she said aloud, but that made things seem even worse.

Talking to oneself was what crazy, desperate people did, she thought.

Get yourself together, Kallie.

Eventually, determination won out and Kallie slowly drove the final few yards to Hunter’s castle.

When she arrived, she was surprised to see two cars in the driveway that she didn’t even recognize. At first, she reasoned that Hunter might have bought something new, but then she decided it was unlikely. After all, neither vehicle was quite flashy enough for his tastes.

Those cars belonged to someone else. One of them likely belonged to the woman who was staying with him.

That thought gave Kallie a strong twinge of jealousy, which she pushed away.

She rolled down her window as she pulled up to his mailbox. Either way, she thought, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to quickly get rid of this piece of junk that he tried to make me believe meant something, and then I’m going to drive away from this haunted house as quickly as I can.

She took the necklace in hand and opened the mailbox.

Now put it in, she told herself.

That’s when she heard the man screaming.

“Open the fucking door, Scarlett, or so help me God I’m going to kick it in.”

The man’s voice was powerful and deep, and immediately her skin broke into gooseflesh.

Kallie held onto the necklace as she craned her neck to see who was yelling. Just around the corner, she could see the shadow of a man. The shadow was large, but that might just be the effect of the angle of the sun, Kallie thought.

But then he backed slightly away from the house and she saw that he was, indeed, large and as frightening as he sounded.

No, he was even worse.

The man was big, bulky, with shaggy brown hair and a goatee. He wore baggy jeans, construction boots, and a flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows. He must have been well over six feet and two hundred pounds. He was shielding his eyes from the sun and staring up at the terrace. “Come down here, Scarlett. I’m dead serious. Don’t make me knock the shit out of you.”

Kallie put the phone to her ear and started dialing 911, but didn’t get the chance to complete the call.

Just then, the large man spotted her. He was probably ten or fifteen yards away, but it felt like much less.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he said, with a note of alarm mixed in with his anger.

Kallie took the chance to be the aggressor. Show no fear, she told herself, or this will end badly.

“I just called the police,” she lied, the quiver in her voice betraying her frayed nerves. “They’re on their way.”

The man stared across at her, as if trying to determine the likelihood that she was lying, and whether or not he was fast enough to get to her car in the meantime. “You fucking bitch.”

She smiled at him, despite the hammering of her heart in her chest. “Tell it to the cops when they get here. I’m sure they’ll be sympathetic to your hatred of women.”

He grinned back at her, but his smile had all the friendliness of a hammerhead shark. “That’s all right, baby. I can see your license plate as good as you can see mine.”

He glanced up at the terrace again and squinted, seeming not to find what he was hoping for. Then he muttered something inaudible, got in his car, and started to leave.

Kallie’s heart was already racing, but it sped faster when the man slowed down as he exited the driveway. He was probably just a foot or two away from her now, and plenty of time to get out and do whatever he wanted to do to her.

He rolled down his window and spat. Kallie moved out of the way just in time, as his spittle splashed the side of her car and some even landed on the seat close to her head.

“You another one of his skanks?” he asked.

She didn’t even respond.

“I’ll see you around,” he said. “Don’t you worry.” And then he sped off, leaving a cloud of dust and the smell of burnt rubber.

Kallie breathed a deep sigh of relief and put her cell phone back into her purse as she heard his engine fading into the distance.

She was shaking, really shaking in a way that she hadn’t done before. That was the closest she’d ever come to truly feeling as though her life might be in danger.

Who the hell was that guy? She wondered.

Kallie grabbed some tissues from her purse and wiped the spittle off her seat. Just looking at it and knowing it came from that man made her wrinkle her nose.

“Hey, are you okay?” a woman’s voice called from nearby, startling Kallie so much that she actually jumped in her seat.

Kallie looked up to see the front door open and the dark haired woman from the bar coming down the path toward the car. She was dressed in trendy blue sweatpants and a little t-shirt that showed plenty of cleavage and even some belly as she jogged toward Kallie’s car.

“I’m okay, it’s fine,” Kallie said, trying to laugh it off.

“What did you say to get rid of Terrence?”

That guy did not look like a Terrence, Kallie thought. He looked like maybe a Bubba or a Frank—but definitely not a Terrence.

“I told him I’d called the police and they were on their way,” Kallie told her.

The woman’s eyes widened. “Are they?”

Kallie shook her head. “No, but I probably should call them. He was threatening you—and me.”

“Please, don’t. I’ve called them before and they don’t do anything.”

Kallie was skeptical, but kept her mouth shut. “Okay, it’s your life.”

“Thanks for doing that. You were very brave,” she said. “My name’s Scarlett.”

“I’m Kallie,” she said, trying to smile, but not quite making it.

Scarlett nodded. “I remember you. From that restaurant.”

“Yup. That’s me.” She tried again to smile. No go. “Anyway, I should probably head out if you’re okay and you don’t think he’s coming back.”

“I’m okay. And I really appreciate it.” Scarlett smiled at her, and Kallie had to admit that the girl had a beautiful smile. It brightened her entire face.

“No worries,” Kallie told her, and started to put her car into drive.

“Hey, I should explain what’s been going on with me and Terrence,” Scarlett said.

“I owe you an explanation.”

“No, thanks,” Kallie told her.

“But if you’re mad at Hunter—“

“I’m not mad at Hunter. And I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m not interested in hearing all the gory details about you and Terrence and why he’s angry that you’re staying here with another man.”

Scarlett shook her head. “Listen, if you’d give me a chance to tell you the whole story…”

“I don’t want to know the whole story. The less I know, the better for everyone,”

she said. She was finished with trying to dig up the details of Hunter’s life, let alone the details of the women he was sleeping with. This was just the cherry on top, as far as Kallie was concerned.

She didn’t need any more signs from the universe. This last one had been a doozy.

Scarlett seemed to finally accept Kallie’s decision. She pursed her lips and shrugged. “Okay. Well…nice meeting you, I guess.”

“There is one thing,” Kallie said, suddenly. She held the necklace out the window, her arm extended. “Can you please give this to Hunter for me? Tell him I wanted to make sure he got it back.”

Scarlett took the necklace uncertainly. She looked at it, and her expression was unreadable. “Okay.” She looked up again at Kallie. “I’ll pass it along.”

“Thanks.”

There was nothing more to say and she left.

***

The next few days passed without incident, other than a vivid nightmare in which Terrence decided not to believe Kallie’s story about calling the cops, and instead called her bluff.

Kallie had awoken just as Terrence’s large hands had closed around her throat and cut off her oxygen completely. Gasping for air, she’d been grateful to find herself home in her nice, safe bed, as far away from Hunter’s castle as was humanly possible.

That was the one sour note in an otherwise happy period of time at the Jameson household.

Baby Riley was doing great—she had a huge appetite and was actually sleeping enough to keep them all sane. Kallie got up with her around six in the morning, since Nicole usually did two feedings in the night and needed to rest.

Other than that, her job was to help Nicole with whatever she needed, watch Riley when Nicole was resting or if she and Red wanted to take some time together.

It was a nice, quiet routine, if a little dull at times.

Kallie was bound and determined not to continue obsessing about Hunter—so much so that she took up going to the gym every day for an hour.

One day, while she was on the elliptical, a man got on the machine next to her and started working out.

He was a good-looking guy around her age, with broad shoulders and light brown hair, fashioned into a crew cut. He wore sleek black shorts and a black tank top that revealed a great set of biceps.

The funny part was that he’s propped a magazine up on the dashboard of the machine, and he was reading an article about The Kardashians.

Kallie couldn’t help but smile as she glanced over and saw what he was reading so intently.

He looked over and caught her staring. Immediately, a grin appeared on his inordinately handsome face. “Hey, it was the only magazine I had around the house.”

Kallie nodded, aware that she’d been on the machine for nearly forty minutes and was sweating up a storm. “But the real question is, why did you have it in your house in the first place?”

The guy grimaced. He was breathing heavily, but still very much able to talk as though he wasn’t moving at an incredibly brisk pace. “Shit. I have no good answer for that. I guess I have a thing for The Kardashians. I probably shouldn’t admit that to a complete stranger.”

“I guess I’m not a complete stranger now that I know your deep, dark secret,” she smiled.

He gave her a longer look, and his brown eyes were kind, maybe even interested.

Am I flirting? She asked herself.

Maybe I am. And what’s wrong with that?

“My name’s Levi,” he said. “Since we’re no longer strangers, I figure you should at least know my name.”

Kallie nodded, took a deep breath that was more than just from her workout. “I’m Kallie,” she told him.

“Beautiful name,” he replied.

“As beautiful as Kim Kardashian?”

He thought about it. “Close. Maybe. I need time to think about it.”

Kallie laughed. Okay, so he was good looking and he had a sense of humor. She was even feeling the tiny stirrings of butterflies in her stomach. “Okay, well get back to me when you’ve made your decision,” she told him, powering down her elliptical. She’d already been on the thing for ten minutes longer than usual.

Toweling her face and arms, Kallie grabbed her keys and water and shot Levi another quick smile as she stepped off the machine.

He gave her a tiny wave but kept diligently doing his workout as she went to the other side of the gym to do her weights routine.

Kallie was on a high after the exchange. It felt like a big deal, even though she knew it was just some harmless conversation. She sat down and started doing the shoulder press machine.

When she got to a break between her second and third sets, she had to refill her water bottle, and it just so happened that Levi got in line behind her at the water fountain.

“Hey,” he said. “We keep running into each other.”

“Seems like it,” she agreed, filling her bottle.

“You know, I was thinking about that Kardashian question.”

“It’s a tough one.”

“Maybe I’d be able to figure it out if I got to know you better.”

“Maybe.” She felt color blooming on her cheeks. Her bottle started overflowing and she moved away from the fountain.

Levi was grinning at her. “You have time for a cup of coffee or something? Tea?

Scones?”

“When? Now?”

“No time like the present. Besides, I always get coffee after I’ve just spent an hour sweating in the gym.”

“Somehow I find that hard to believe.”

He shrugged. “Care to join me?”

She hesitated. What would Hunter think if he knew?

That thought alone made her angry enough with herself to immediately agree.

“Absolutely, I’d love to join you,” she said.

“Awesome. Want to meet out front in like five minutes? I need to change and have a quick shower.”

“Sure.” Luckily, she had a change of clothes in her gym bag, so she could take a shower too—even though she normally waited until getting home to do so.

Kallie went and took a very quick shower, wondering what this coffee date actually meant. Was he the kind of guy she could truly be interested in, or was it just a way to try and convince herself she was over Hunter?

In the end, maybe it didn’t matter, Kallie decided. All that mattered was that she try and do new things and take control of her life again.

When Kallie walked outside, Levi was waiting for her. He looked even better now, dressed in slim jeans and a light green long sleeve shirt, sunglasses perched on top of his head. “Want to just walk there?” he asked, pointing down the street. “It’s only about a block from here.”