Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
R ayna ran back upstairs, dropping her phone on the counter and snatching the high-powered flashlight from under the sink. She shoved her feet into her boots and grabbed the plastic container of cat treats before clattering out the back door. The basement window faced the backyard, and the brief hope that Molly might be in the fenced-in yard died as she swept the yard with her flashlight.
“Molly,” she called, “here, kitty, kitty. Come to Mama.” She shook the container hard, then waited, holding her breath and trying to hear over the pounding beat of her heart for Molly’s distinctive meow.
She shook the container again and again as she walked the yard, searching every inch of it, her flashlight piercing the darkness. Her nose and ears started to burn from the cold, and her teeth chattered, but she kept grimly calling. Beyond the yard was nothing but woods filled with animals more than happy to devour a cat-sized snack.
“Molly,” she called, making her voice the high-pitched wheedle that cats loved. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
She listened intently, relief washing over her when she heard Molly’s meow. “Molly! Here, kitty, kitty!”
Molly meowed and then kept meowing as the moonlight made the snow gleam. Shivering wildly, Rayna followed the sound across the yard to the fence. She could hear Molly meowing, but she couldn’t see her anywhere, and she swept the flashlight along the top of the fence, wondering if the cat wasn’t balancing on it like a furry tightrope walker.
It was empty and feeling panicky, she called for Molly again. Molly responded with a loud meow that sounded like it was right above Rayna’s head. Her stomach landed in the snow at her feet as she shone the flashlight at the big elm tree in the yard beside hers.
“Oh, Molly,” she said.
The cat meowed at her from her perch on one of the branches. Rayna shook the container again, “C’mon, sweetheart, come down from the tree.”
Molly stood and stretched in the circle of light, her pregnant belly lightly swaying as she walked back and forth on the narrow branch before making a plaintive meow.
“Oh honey, come on, please,” Rayna said as her teeth chattered loudly. “You got up there. You can get down. Please?”
Molly meowed again before settling on her haunches on the branch and staring directly at Rayna. She could practically see the ‘help me, Mama’ look in the cat’s green eyes.
“Well, fuck,” she muttered before glancing at the house beside hers. A few months ago, she would have just walked into the backyard without any hesitation, but that was when Josie Walters owned it.
Now, the house and the land were owned by resident millionaire, cocky asshole, and her sworn enemy, Isaac Stark. A man with more money than God and an attitude to match. He’d bought Josie’s property, along with Sean Barr’s property to the left of Josie’s. Now, he wanted Rayna’s property, as well.
He’d spent the last few months offering increasingly higher offers through his real estate agent until he’d finally shown up in person on her doorstep. They’d hated each other on sight, and after calling him out on his less-than-subtle threats to make noise complaints and/or get her rescue shut down, he’d given her his final offer for the property. Although way above the value of her property, it still hadn’t been enough to sway her. She’d told him to get the hell out of her house and she hadn’t seen or spoken to him since. Thank God.
Oh, please. You wish you could see him. He’s hot as fucking hell, and you know it.
Fine. Maybe she could appreciate how aesthetically pleasing he was to the eye, but he was also an arrogant asshole who thought Rayna would say how high just because he said jump. She’d garnered an immense amount of satisfaction from refusing to give him what he wanted like everyone else in his life apparently did.
She sighed and studied the cat in the tree. Not selling him her house was a stupid decision. With the money he’d offered, she could get a better house and have plenty of money left over to not just keep her animal rescue going but also improve it.
Despite that, she couldn’t sell the house. She loved her home, and after growing up in poverty and moving from rental to rental every few months, her ability to not only stay above the poverty line but also do something as incredible as buy a house on her own meant something to her. This house meant something to her, and despite its flaws and how many things needed to be fixed - and there were so many things - she couldn’t see herself living anywhere else.
Molly meowed again, and Rayna stopped hesitating. She shut the flashlight off, tossed it and the cat treats over the fence and said, “I’m coming, sweetheart.”
Like everything else on her property, the fence had seen better days, and she hoped like hell the wooden planks wouldn’t simply disintegrate as she grabbed the top and boosted herself up. The fence creaked alarmingly but held her weight as she hauled herself over the top of it and dropped with a gentle thud to the other side.
She picked up the flashlight and treats and brushed off the snow from her yoga pants as she stared furtively at the house. The blinds were all drawn, but muted light shone out from behind them. The asshole was home, and she had no doubt he’d call the cops on her for trespassing if he caught her in his backyard.
She stood at the tree's base, softly calling Molly’s name and shaking the treat container. The cat meowed and paced on the branch but made no effort to climb down.
“Fuck,” she muttered. With another look at the house, she shut off the flashlight and set it and the treat container beside the tree. She snagged one of the hair bands from her wrist and used it to tuck her hair into a messy bun on top of her head as she studied the tree. The moonlight reflecting off the snow made it plenty bright enough to climb the tree, and she grabbed one of the lower branches and, grunting loudly, boosted herself up. She climbed carefully from branch to branch, the cold bark turning her fingers numb almost immediately.
“You are the worst, Molly,” she called as she inched closer to the calico. “I can’t believe you’d even put your unborn children in danger like this. You have a warm bed, a clean litter box, food, and friends at my house, and you pull this happy horseshit? You’re lucky you’re cute.”
Molly meowed at her, and Rayna studied the branches above her. They were getting thinner, and she needed to be very careful to choose ones that would hold her weight. She glanced down, her stomach churning at how high up she was. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but she didn’t fancy falling from a tree and breaking her leg… or her neck.
She held her hand out toward Molly. “C’mon, sweetheart. Jump down a couple of branches. What do you say? Just a couple, sweetie.”
Molly stood, and Rayna watched in disbelief as she jumped to the branch above her.
“What the fuck, Molly?” she snapped. “Are you being a dick on purpose tonight?”
Molly meowed plaintively, rubbing her face against the tree trunk before peering at Rayna.
With another sigh, Rayna boosted herself up onto the branch above her. It was thinner than she liked, but it felt sturdy enough and -
The crack of the branch as it broke and the immediate sickening drop as she plunged toward the ground was enough to bring a truly epic horror movie girl scream from her throat.
She was going to die. She was going to die in Isaac fucking Stark’s backyard, and her only solace in that knowledge was that he’d never get all of her splattered brains hosed out of his goddamn backyard.
She let out a strangled yelp as a fire burned across her back, and she was pulled up short, her sweatshirt snagging around her neck and rucking halfway up her stomach.
She dangled and swayed, her feet nowhere close to the ground, and for some reason, she could feel the bite of a cold, hard branch against her back. Craning her neck, she stared at the thick branch that had somehow slid under the bottom of her sweatshirt as she fell and now poked out from the neckline of her sweater and pressed against the back of her head. She’d been hooked as neatly as a fish.
“Holy fuck,” she breathed as she twisted and swayed midair. “It’s a friggin’ miracle.”
It really was a miracle, and while she was incredibly grateful not to have her skull smashed open like an overripe pumpkin in her enemy’s backyard, she was still in a bit of a pickle.
Actually - she stared down at the ground below her swaying feet - it was a significant pickle.
She was still at least eight feet from the ground, maybe more, and her back hurt like a motherfucker and based on the liquid dripping down her back, it was entirely possible the branch had scraped off a layer of skin right to the damn bone.
Also, she had no fucking idea how she would get down. If she lifted her arms and wriggled, she could probably slither right out of her sweatshirt, but did she want to fall eight feet? Nope, she fucking didn’t. That was still break your neck height.
The light above the back door of Mr. Dickhead Millionaire’s house flicked on, and she groaned loudly, tempted to just wiggle out of her sweatshirt and risk broken limbs.
Instead, she continued to dangle limply as Isaac Stark, his feet shoved into boots and his stupid perfect body clad in sweatpants and a thick hoodie, walked out of his house.