Chapter 7
Chloe
Fred rattles down the empty street, a tin can in the wake of the freight train called Kolya. The steering wheel vibrates under my grip, or maybe that’s just my hands, which are still unsteady from what didn’t happen in the restaurant parking lot. For a moment, I was convinced he would kiss me.
Greg’s voice, a fading drone of football and lawnmower statistics, echoes in my head. The man’s safe, predictable, and mind-numbing.
Everything I’ve always insisted I wanted. Everything I’ve always hated when actually presented to me.
Kolya’s the opposite. So why…
The streetlights blur into orange streaks as I blink back confused tears. I jack up the radio, hoping the DJ can drown out my thoughts.
The tactic doesn’t work. Nothing could.
Kolya barely spoke to me. We sat together for the duration of a single glass of wine, and somehow, the world rearranged itself around his silence.
The way he stared at me. The way he leaned in, almost kissing me against my car, then pulled away at the last second, leaving me disappointed and yearning for more.
My stomach somersaults at the fresh memory. My body still hums from his proximity, every nerve ending awake and aware in a way they haven’t been in…maybe ever.
“He’s dangerous. He broke a man’s arm and knee.” I heard the other teachers gossiping today about how two known purse snatchers were “stopped cold” at the local farmers market. Saying these words out loud should sound absurd. I should realize how insane this attraction is.
Instead, my traitorous mind replays his fluid grace, along with his absolute control and willingness to hurt those jerks to protect me.
I grip the steering wheel tighter. My rational mind screams warnings, pointing out red flags big enough to carpet a football field.
The intense, unpredictable man shows up in places he shouldn’t be. He drove away my date with nothing but a glare, for heaven’s sake.
So why do I want to sail past all the caution signals?
The menacing vibe he exudes is real, but the wanting…the wanting is worse.
I turn onto my street, the familiar row of homes and bungalows calming my racing heart. My little blue-and-white house waits halfway down, the porch light cutting a weak yellow square into the dim evening.
My safe space. The place where I’ve built my careful, normal, quiet life.
I love everything about the cottage. The sagging charm, the brightly painted porch and railing, the way it sits on this mostly forgotten street while perfect cookie-cutter suburbs stretch away on all sides. My home is a tiny, unique island of character in a sea of planned communities.
The gravel crunches beneath my tires as I pull into the driveway.
For a moment, after switching off the engine, I linger in the car, gazing at my front door.
At the welcome mat I painted with sunflowers last summer to greet visitors and the wind chimes my third-grade teacher gifted me when I got assigned my first classroom.
The little ceramic gnome from Mrs. Perez after I helped her son overcome his fear of reading aloud squats in the flowerbed.
All normal things. Safe things. Teacher things.
Not the kind of items that belong in the home of a woman experiencing dirty thoughts about a man who breaks bones as casually as I cut doll chains out of construction paper.
I shake my head while gathering my purse and keys.
I don’t live in the wealthiest part of the neighborhood, but the community’s still safe enough. The neighbors here watch out for each other, especially for the children.
Mrs. Smithwick three doors down bakes cookies for the neighborhood kids at least twice a month. The retired police officer across the street keeps his porch light on all night.
I’m just rattled by Kolya. That’s all.
Inside, I drop my purse on the entryway table and kick off my heels with a sigh of relief.
I flick on lights as I glide through the living room.
The house envelops me like a hug. Mismatched furniture, bright throw pillows, bookshelves crammed with everything from mysteries to self-help books to the romance novels I hide from the principal when she visits… It’s all mine. Every last inch.
Even at night, the yellow walls have a warming effect. The tension bleeds from my shoulders as I pad barefoot across the worn hardwood floor of the living room.
The hall is a short walk to my room. My clothes come off piece by piece, discarded across the bed. The blue dress that I considered perfect for date night, the uncomfortable strapless bra, the silver necklace that kept snagging on my collar…
I pluck the hair tie from my ponytail, releasing the waves so they can tumble around my shoulders. My scalp tingles as blood flow returns.
I slide my pajama drawer open and hear that familiar squeak—the same one it’s had since I found the dresser on the side of the road.
I pull out my favorite bottoms, the color dulled from too many washes, and a t-shirt with a sun that one of my kids drew for me years ago during my student teaching days.
The soft cotton feels like home as I tug the shirt over my head.
This is the real me, not the woman in the blue dress who almost let a dangerous man kiss her in a parking lot.
I head back to the living room, switching off lights as I go.
Time to reset.
Tomorrow will be normal again, filled with cleaning, prepping, and shopping. Preparing for Labor Day.
A noise outside stops me cold.
A scrape against the front path. Not the wind or a branch.
Footsteps.
My pulse leaps, beating a panicked rhythm against my throat. I freeze and listen. More footsteps draw near. Then all goes quiet.
They’ve reached my door.
Don’t be ridiculous, Chloe. It’s probably just Mrs. Chen checking in. Or the wind. Or a stray cat.
But my body knows better. Every instinct shrieks of danger. I creep toward the door, silent on bare feet, and peer through the peephole.
Oh my god.
Kolya’s impossible to miss silhouette eats the yellow porch light. He stands motionless, hands at his sides, staring straight at the door like he can see through the wood grain.
My heart pounds, wildly and frantically. He followed me home.
Of course he did.
That’s what dangerous men do.
He doesn’t ring the bell. Just waits like he knows I’m peeking out at him and expects me to open the door for him.
No. Nope. Not doing that.
Oh, heck.
My hand spins the doorknob before my brain can process my actions. Because I refuse to succumb to cowardice, I open the door a tiny, brave crack. The chain I leave on couldn’t stop a determined cat, but it’s the principle of the matter.
If I pretend everything’s normal, it will be.
He doesn’t shove his way in. Simply radiates that strange, heavy stillness.
I’m vulnerable despite the chain, despite my nighttime attire, despite the facade of normalcy I’m desperately clinging to.
“Kolya?” I whisper his name. “What are you doing here?”
I swear his dark eyes never blink. “You dropped this. At the restaurant. The server ran it out to me right after you pulled out of the parking lot.” He lifts his hand, and my phone screen flickers in the porch light.
My stomach drops straight through the floor.
“Oh, wow. I didn’t even realize. I would have, though, when I tried to listen to my bedtime podcast.”
My attempt at levity doesn’t earn me a smile. Tough crowd. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned bedtime.
I poke my hand through the space between the door and frame.
For a second, he keeps hold of the phone, then he drops it into my waiting palm.
I snake my arm back inside with my cell in hand, breathing heavily for some absurd reason. “Well, thank you again. You caught me just in time…I was about to go to bed.”
I try to sound breezy, but the declaration comes out closer to please-don’t-notice-my-pajamas.
While he doesn’t respond, I can sense him engaging in a silent battle with himself.
My heart thuds.
Close the door, Chloe. Just close the door.
A tiny beat of stubbornness rises up. Who does he think he is, standing on my stoop, staring at me like that? Kindergarten teachers specialize in weaponized patience. I can outwait the worst tantrums and meltdowns.
He’s just a man. A sexy, disturbing, I can’t tell if he wants to hurt me or screw me kind of man, but still. I wrangle two dozen five-year-olds on a daily basis. I can handle one man.
He gives a tiny nod and steps back.
My shoulders slump with a mixture of relief and disappointment.
He spins and retreats down the path.
Stops. Shifts not toward me but my driveway, where my little car huddles under a dim light. “Is your tire supposed to look like that?”
“Like what?” Crap. Is that the real reason tonight felt like driving a tin can?
“Your front tire is flat.”
I unchain the door and venture outside. “Seriously?” The sad, droopy front tire is indeed smushed into the concrete. Not completely flat, but not full either. I crouch down and poke ineffectually at the rubber. “This sucks.”
He squats beside me. “I can fix it in the morning.”
At the end of the road, a dark sedan slides to a halt, the rumble of the engine echoing down the empty street. The vehicle idles. No one gets in or out. The occupants simply wait.
Like those boys before they tried to steal my purse.
The hair at the back of my neck prickles.
Kolya notices the sedan, too, and his body goes rigid.
He works in security, I remind myself. That’s why he’s on alert, his hand drifting toward the inside of his jacket. That’s also why his other arm is shifting slightly in front of me to create a barrier between my body and whatever threat he perceives.
He breathes out a suggestion. “Let’s go inside.”
I don’t argue. His tone bypasses all my defenses, tapping directly into that primal part of my brain that recognizes danger.
Nerves jangling, I scurry toward the porch and open my front door.
I enter on unsteady legs, and he follows. That’s when realization strikes.
Kolya’s inside. My house. With me.
As the door clicks shut behind us, I’m acutely aware of how small my place is. How Kolya’s presence seems to shrink the walls further, his broad shoulders and tall frame dwarfing my cozy furniture. Instead of relaxing, he strides to the window and peers through the curtains at the street outside.
“Is that car still there?” I scrunch up my toes, suddenly chilly despite the warm night.
“Yes.”
The single word lands with the weight of a stone, heavy with implications I don’t understand. What I do understand is that Kolya is in my living room, looking at the dark sedan that materialized at the same time as my sudden flat.
Changing a tire at night would’ve put me at a serious disadvantage if someone snuck up behind me.
Cold slithers over my skin.
“Do you know them?”
When he finally responds, his voice is careful and measured. “No. But they might know me.”
Goosebumps prickle my arms. What does that mean? Who would know him? Who would follow him? All the answers my mind supplies terrify me. Criminals, enemies, people who want to hurt him. People who might hurt me to get to him.
I shake off the wild trajectory of my thoughts. This is real life, and I’m not a character in one of my novels. There must be a reasonable explanation. “Maybe they’re just lost or waiting for someone.”
A flicker of emotion crosses his face. Amusement? Pity? “Maybe.”
He doesn’t believe it. Neither do I. Not really. But pretending is easier than confronting the alternative, that danger has stalked Kolya to my doorstep. That my little haven isn’t safe anymore.
I wrap my arms around my waist. I’m standing in my living room, in my pajamas, with a man I barely know who causes my pulse to race with equal parts fear and desire.
The man who broke bones to protect me, who scared away a date with nothing but a few glances, and who showed up at my door with my phone.
This whole situation is crazy. Even so, despite—or maybe because of—all the warning signs, I can’t deny his magnetic pull or the electricity that hums between us.