Chapter 4
To Do:
- Call caterers—not Yuffie!
- Plan Nicole’s bachelorette party
An irritating tappingnoise tugged at Claire’s consciousness. She had been in the middle of a dream in which she had to plan a proposal using only a handful of materials given to her by the Prime Minister of Singapore. A miniature Eiffel Tower had been half-constructed from paper clips and ponytail holders when she jerked awake.
Where was she? Was she sleepwalking again?
She shot upright, and the pool float slid out from under her. The shock of the cold water hit her like an uppercut as she slid into the deep end. Sputtering, she rose to the surface and grabbed blindly for the edge of the pool, a mat of wet hair clinging to her face. Rosie barked from somewhere behind Claire.
She coughed, trying to clear the water from her lungs as she made contact with the concrete edge of the pool and dragged herself up and onto the still warm pavement. Her bikini top was now floating several feet away from the edge. Long shadows stretched across the yard. The air had a chill to it now, and she had gotten her stupid bandage wet. Luke was going to be pissed.
“And who, may I ask, are you?” a sharp, nasal voice inquired.
Claire screamed and grabbed the pool skimmer, whipping it around and knocking a lounge chair over in the process. With her other hand, she struggled to cover as much of her top half as she could.
The source of the tapping noise revealed itself to be a tall, thin brunette woman who looked alert and pissed off, like a great horned owl ready to snatch up some field mice. She stood by the pool gate, one talon-like hand clutching a phone as she stared at Claire with narrowed eyes.
“Me? Who the hell are you? This is private property.” Was she press? Claire’s heart hammered in her chest. She did not need a picture of her looking like a damp mop on the cover of the West Haven Times. She held the pool skimmer in front of her like a sword, fairly confident that she could slam the net over the woman’s head and thrust her into the pool to make a quick getaway. But what would she do with Rosie? “How did you get through the gate?”
Rosie growled from inside her float, which was spinning. She stood in the center, barking each time she rotated to face the intruder.
The woman’s arms were crossed so severely over her torso that it looked like she was trapped in an invisible straight jacket. Gray strands peppered the hair that was wound into a serpentine chignon. Large pearl studs adorned her ears, and the Armani pantsuit she wore flattered her trim figure. She certainly didn’t look like a member of the press who had crawled through the woods to harass her. So who was she?
Claire jabbed the skimmer in the woman’s direction. She flinched as a droplet of pool water splashed onto her cheek. An expensive pair of Italian shoes tapped impatiently on the concrete as she wiped it off. Fine lines shrouded her mouth despite looking like she had never smiled before.
“I’m Rachel. Lucas’s mother,” the woman said.
Shit.
“Oh my god. Ms. Islestorm, I am so sorry.” The pool skimmer clattered on the concrete. Rachel looked nothing like the carefree woman in the yellow dress in the picture in Luke’s den. Her cheekbones were more severe, and the light was gone from her eyes.
“We didn’t expect you until tomorrow.” Claire’s face was hot.
Rachel’s perfectly manicured eyebrows raised at the use of the word “we.”
Claire turned her back to Rachel and grabbed the beach towel that was draped over the only lounge chair left standing. She wound it around herself, absolutely mortified.She took a deep breath and searched for composure before turning back to the dragon of a woman.
“I’m Claire. Very pleased to meet you. Luke has a lovely picture of you in the den.” She shook the hand that was coolly offered. Rachel clutched her hand as though she was trying to squash a bug.
“Lucas never mentioned a Claire.”
What the shit? Claire bit her lip. “He didn’t?”
“I daresay I would have remembered my son mentioning that he was employing a topless pool girl.”
Oh no she didn’t. Claire drew herself up to her full height of five feet and three inches, but her eye level still only hit Rachel’s shoulder pads.
“I am not a pool girl,” she said, enunciating very clearly. “I work with Luke, not for him.”
Rachel let out a shrill laugh. It was a strange noise, as though she weren’t used to making it. “In what capacity?”
“We collaborate on various projects. He assists with the filmmaking portion of my business.” Her hands were clenched into fists.
“And what is your business?”
Here we go. Luke’s distaste for marriage was clearly learned from somewhere. Something told her this oversized bird of prey in Prada pumps had something to do with it.
“Event planning. Specifically marriage proposals,” Claire said. She squared her shoulders and stared Rachel down.
Rachel blinked in surprise. “Marriage proposals? Is planning really necessary? Aren’t they supposed to be quite simple?”
“For some couples, yes. Others prefer a greater degree of thoughtfulness. Rosie, hush,” Claire said to her dog, who was still barking in the pool.
Rachel glanced at the dog with disdain. She brushed an imaginary hair from her blouse.
Claire’s hands were balled into fists at her side, but her mother’s stern instruction on manners floated to the surface. Rachel had already seen her topless. But maybe she could mitigate some of the damage. “Could I get you anything, Rachel? Something to drink?”
“That’s quite unnecessary, thank you. I believe I’ll wait in the guest room until Lucas comes home.”
“Let me help you with your bags,” Claire said, picking up a Louis Vuitton weekend bag.
“I’ll get that, thank you,” Rachel said, snatching it away. She turned in a whirl of CHANEL N°5 and stormed across the patio tiles to the house.
Claire fought the urge to flip her middle finger at Rachel’s retreating back.
“Oh my god,” she whispered to herself, retrieving her phone. She dialed Luke’s number.
“Lucas Eugene Islestorm.”
“Oh, shit. What did I do?”
“Remember that time that you told me your very rigid, very stern, perpetual-stick-up-the-ass of a mother was coming for dinner at your house tomorrow?” She glanced behind her, fully expecting to see Rachel rounding on her with a machete.
“Yes?” He sounded clueless.
“Remind me. What day is today? Is this tomorrow?”
“No,” he said slowly.
“Then why did a velociraptor disguised as a businesswoman named Rachel who claims to be your mother just drop in unannounced? And while we’re at it, maybe you could explain why she has no idea who I am.” Claire picked up the lounge chair she had flipped over.
“Oh, shit.”
“‘Oh, shit’ doesn’t even come close, Luke. I almost assaulted her with the pool skimmer. Your mother has seen my breasts, in broad daylight. But it’s okay, because she thinks I’m just your topless pool girl.”
“You were topless?”
“So not the point.”
He paused. “I was going to call and tell her about you tonight. Before she met you tomorrow. I guess she decided to come early.”
A likely story. Claire righted another lounge chair so aggressively that it almost flipped into the pool. “I have been practically living with you for the past week while I recover from the worst night of my life, and you couldn’t tell your mother you were harboring that stab victim who’s all over the news? Does she even know what happened?”
“Not exactly.”
Claire swore. “I won’t be here when you get back. I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow.” She ended the call and flung her phone into her bag. Her fingers brushed the stack of legal papers, and a knot grew in her stomach. She ignored the phone vibrating in her purse as she scrambled to get her things together.
She dragged the unicorn float to the edge of the pool and picked Rosie up, almost tripping over the edge of the towel that was starting to unwind. Was there a judgmental gaze emanating from the oval-shaped window in the guest bedroom? She shuddered. Tossing on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, she abandoned her floating bikini and stormed over to her car. Goosebumps prickled her skin as the sun sank below the trees.
A white Infiniti sat in the driveway, as shiny as if it had just been driven off the lot. Claire fought the urge to kick the tires as she skirted around it.
She tucked Rosie into her car seat and pulled her phone out again. Her hand froze on Nicole’s contact. One of her best friends was finalizing her flower choices today. No bride needed an emergency call in the middle of that.She dialed Mindy’s number instead.
“Yeah?” Mindy answered, sounding distracted.
“Mindy, I need you. This is an emergency. Even worse than the me-getting-sued thing. Can you meet at my place?”
“What the hell happened?”
“I’ll explain when you get there,” Claire said.
“I’ll see you in thirty. I’ll bring ice cream.” There was the sound of a laptop snapping shut on Mindy’s end.
“Thanks. I’ll pick up the wine.”
“Red or white?”
“Both,” Claire said firmly.
“Oh boy. This must be a big one. See you soon.”
Claire’s face was still hot when she hung up. Rosie whined from the back seat, looking at her inquisitively. Claire practically pulled her arm out of its socket to scratch Rosie behind the ears.
Claire’s anxiety slowly died down as the rolling hills of the country turned into a slew of Mexican restaurants and mom-and-pop stores. She pulled into the liquor store on the outskirts of town, leaving Rosie with the car running and the air conditioner on.
She treaded the familiar path through the store, tucking wines into the crook of her arm. When she reached for a top-shelf cabernet sauvignon, a camera shutter sound came from the cashier’s desk. Claire whipped around, expecting to see a reporter. Instead she saw a sheepish looking twenty-something woman with stringy black hair. Her brown eyes were wide with surprise, and her bubble gum popped in her face.
“Sorry, ma’am, I was taking a screenshot and forgot the sound was on.”
“It’s okay,” Claire said, turning back to the shelves. She glanced at the woman out of the corner of her eye but resumed her shopping. Surely a liquor store employee didn’t moonlight as a reporter for Channel Eight News.
Claire walked carefully to the register, gingerly setting four bottles on the counter.
“Are you that girl? The one who escaped the Widowmaker?” The faded name tag on her brown smock read Monica.
Damn it. “I am,” Claire admitted.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you. I think you’re real brave.”
“Thank you. Bravery had nothing to do with it though. It was fight or die.”
“Would you sign this for me?” Monica dragged a pack of menthol cigarettes out of her back pocket.
Claire cringed. “Oh, I don’t think that would be appropriate. Tobacco is responsible for preventable deaths of over like eight million people a year.”
“Please? It’s really for my daughter, Emma. She’s four. Every time your picture comes on the TV she runs to watch.”
“Ah. Okay. Let me see if I have something else in here.” Claire dug through her purse. For a moment she wished for Luke, who always carried a tiny notebook in his pocket in case inspiration struck. She fished out an old receipt and a permanent marker. Claire scrawled “For Emma—always stand up for yourself” and her name on the back and handed it over. Her cheeks burned again. What was she doing? She wasn’t a celebrity. As Monica took the receipt, the handwritten, itemized list on the front side materialized.
1 Penis Cake Pan
12 Light Up Pecker Necklaces
12 Bags Gummy Dicks
1 Pack Metallic Dick Glitter
Claire’s mouth gaped open in horror, and she almost reached across the counter to snatch it back. The list was for Nicole’s upcoming bachelorette party. Did a four-year-old have the reading comprehension necessary to understand traditional bachelorette party décor? Before she could demand it back, the clerk folded the paper and slid it in the back pocket of her jeans.
“Thank you. That’ll be $51.07,” Monica said, tapping at the register.
Apparently, there was no attempted-murder-victim discount on wine. Claire dug her credit card out and handed it over, already mentally cataloging the routes of the other liquor store in the area. She couldn’t come back to this one after autographing such a penis-heavy shopping list.
The bottles rattled in the back seat of her car as she drove over one of West Haven’s infamous potholes. A glass of wine, a pair of leggings, maybe a pint of ice cream. Those were the only items in her arsenal that could turn this day around. Thanks to the Rachel snafu, she didn’t even get Chinese.
As Claire turned onto Beaumont Street and slapped her turn signal on for the parking garage, her heart jumped. Ever since Barney had held her in the underground parking garage of his new hotel, the sight of one sent her into an emotional tailspin. Her heart rate climbed as she pulled into her parking spot and opened the door. A light overhead flickered. Something felt wrong. The walls were too close, the air too dense. Her footsteps echoed in the emptiness. She rubbed the healing marks on her wrist from the cords that had bitten into her skin.
The unease lingered as she let Rosie out to pee. She peered into the face of each passing stranger. Barney wasn’t eligible for bail. There was no reason for her to be nervous. So why couldn’t she shake the feeling that she was being watched? A tingle ran up her spine as she ushered Rosie back inside and half-ran into the stairwell. They climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, where Claire unhooked Rosie’s leash so she could sniff each neighbor’s beige, unremarkable door.
Were her eyes playing tricks on her, or was her front door ajar? She narrowed her eyes. Oh, shit. The front door to her apartment hung open.
Her stomach clenched like she was hurtling along in a car that had just slammed to a stop. She had definitely locked the door before she left that morning. One of her least-endearing qualities was performing a dance move every time she did something important, like locking a door or turning off the stove. Her right elbow was still tender where she had banged it into the doorframe while performing a step-ball-change on the way to the office. So, who was in her apartment?
In an instant, she was beneath the Heirloom Hotel, hands bound behind her as a dark shadow approached. She fell against the wall, scrabbling for her Taser and fighting to take a breath. Her pulse beat behind her eyes. Did she call the police? Luke?
Rosie wandered into the apartment, completely unperturbed.
Claire found her voice at last.
“Rosie!” she shouted, dropping everything she held and diving headfirst into the apartment. Bottles rattled in the hallway. She landed hard on her elbow as she fell next to Rosie and rolled to cover her body with her own.
“Miss Hartley?” came a vaguely familiar voice from her kitchen.
A man stood next to the island. Scratch that—a mountain of a man. He was easily the tallest person she had ever seen. A ton of electronic equipment was scattered in front of him. His face was half in shadow.
Claire leapt to her feet, holding Rosie on her hip like a baby. She reached for her Taser, but she had dropped her purse in the hallway. She grabbed a wooden croquet ball from a basket on her bookshelf and threw it as hard as she could at the intruder’s face.
He caught it with one hand, as easy as breathing.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, backing away.
The man stepped into the slender beam of fluorescent light. “It’s okay, Claire. I’m not surprised you don’t remember me. You were a little indisposed when we met last week. I’m Sawyer.” He held a hand the size of a dinner plate to his chest. “I run a security company, and I’m here to install a system for you—Luke said you wouldn’t be home, so he gave me your spare key. Sorry for startling you.Is your dog okay?”
He was talking fast, clearly embarrassed. He wore a black polo with Sanctum Security stitched into the left breast…make that gigantic pec. Bulging arm muscles threatened to rip through the hem of his shirt sleeves. His eyes were a warm amber color, and they crinkled kindly in the corners. A no-nonsense crew cut topped off his look. He stepped between the island and the bar and closed the gap between them. One hand that was bigger than her torso extended, and she shook it reluctantly.
Claire glanced down. The dog was wiggling and whining, fighting to get down, but seemed unhurt. “She’s fine. Sawyer? The one who found me?—”
“Outside the hotel, yes.” He held onto her hand a beat longer than was necessary.
A memory struck her like lightning—staggering down a dirt road in her wedding dress, trying to stay conscious as a wounded, panty-stealing psychopath had chased after her. Pine needles had bitten into her palms when she‘d fallen. Her dress, drenched with blood, had weighed a thousand pounds as she’d half crawled down the driveway. A sedan had roared down the road, nearly running her over. Sawyer had jumped out and incapacitated Barney with his stun gun. Claire’s only words of thanks to Sawyer that evening had been a plea for extra guacamole when she mistook his 911 call for a taco order.
Her chest wound ached as she pulled her hand back and clutched it to her heart. “I never had the chance to say thank you. If you hadn’t found me, I would almost certainly be dead.”
“You did. I got the gift basket yesterday. The beef jerky was fantastic. And I never had the chance to apologize. I can’t believe I was working for a serial killer.”
She flinched as though she had been slapped. That was right—Sanctum had been contracted to provide security around the hotel as construction was being finished.
“Sorry,” he said, taking a step back. He tapped his head with a knuckle. “Don’t always think before I speak. You were handling yourself really well before I got there, if that makes it any better. Most people wouldn’t have gotten that far. I’m sorry for what happened to you, and I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”
His gaze drifted to her gray scoop neck T-shirt and the exposed bandage. Shit, she hadn’t changed it today, and she had totally gotten it wet when she plunged into the pool. Luke would have a fit. Not that she cared what he thought. He couldn’t even manage to tell his own mother than he was seeing someone. Sort of.
She shrugged and tugged the neckline of her shirt to cover the bandage and the other, more shallow mark on her neck. As if the stabbing wasn’t bad enough, Barney had also thoughtfully traced a mark of some sort into her neck.
“Do you mind if I install the system while you’re here?” He picked up his toolbox, as though certain she was about to banish him from the premises.
“That’s fine,” Claire said slowly. How was it possible that she was so frequently surprised by strange men letting themselves into her apartment?
Sawyer picked up a complicated-looking LED screen the size of a sandwich and began tinkering with it. “I’m also one of Kyle’s groomsmen. We played lacrosse together in high school.”
Ah. So this was the towering Samoan who had accidentally broken another player’s jaw with a lacrosse ball in eleventh grade. The legend suddenly seemed more credible.
“I’m the maid of honor. It’s good to formally meet you,” she said, smiling a bit. Sawyer exuded warmth, and he had a gentle demeanor despite his gigantic stature. “You said Luke gave you a key? Did he authorize this system installation?”
He glanced down at a work order. “Yep. Already paid in full.”
Claire swore. If she wanted a security system, she would have bought one herself.
“You’re free to refuse the service, of course. But considering your unique circumstances, I think you would feel safer with it.”
“Let’s hope I never need it.” She was confident that she had paid her dues in the crime victim world. One traumatic kidnapping should surely earn her a couple of crime-free years. She was a proposal planner, not a detective, despite the murder binder she had put together on the West Haven Widowmaker. It was currently collecting dust in her living room. The mystery was solved, the case closed. She was ready to take off her investigator hat and return to the world of happily ever afters. If she could just kick the crippling anxiety that seemed to have cropped up in the last week, she would be unstoppable. Oh, and the sleepwalking. What was the deal with that?
Rosie wiggled and Claire set her on the floor. Ever the guard dog, she immediately ran over and sniffed the hem of Sawyer’s pants. She sat on her hindquarters and looked up at him happily, tongue flopping out of the space where she was missing a few teeth.
“Who’s this little princess?” Sawyer’s head disappeared behind the bar.
Claire cocked her head. She walked around the corner of the bar to find Sawyer splayed out on his back next to the kitchen island, hugging Rosie to his chest and scratching her behind the ears.
Rosie barked and licked his face, rolling around on his barrel of a chest.
“Rosie,” Claire scolded. “Sorry,” she said. “She loves meeting new people.” She opened her junk drawer, fondly known as her Drunk Drawer because it was the one place in her apartment that she allowed to be completely disorganized, and handed Sawyer a lint roller.
“The best part of this job is meeting all the dogs,” he said, rolling over and standing back up. He brushed halfheartedly at the dog hair spread over his chest, then shrugged and set the roller down.
She laughed. “That is an unexpected perk.” She walked back to the hallway and brought her purse and bottles of wine inside. Fortunately, none of the bottles had shattered during her dramatic game of hallway hot potato.
“Are you having a party?” Sawyer asked, gesturing to the four bottles of wine. “I can come back at a more convenient time.”
Claire sighed. “No, just me, my assistant, and our inability to cope with life.”
She hadn’t noticed the night before, but the apartment smelled stale. She sat her purse down on the table and swiped her finger across the wooden surface. Her finger left a trail through a thin layer of dust. This was her safe heaven, her second office. Or at least it had been before Barney Freakin’ Windsor had broken into it and stolen her wedding dress.
She crossed to the window by her kitchen table and slid it open, pulling at the screen out of habit. It didn’t budge. The sun had dropped low on the horizon. Families flocked down the sidewalks, ducking into the pub on the corner. A full moon had already risen, out of place against the blue sky. Her mom, the self-proclaimed psychic, would surely blame the moon for the chaos that was unfolding. Or maybe Mercury was in retrograde.
Claire opened her refrigerator and unloaded the wine. An old, wrinkled lemon sat by itself in her produce drawer. After pulling it out, she sliced it quickly on a wooden cutting board and dropped it in her sink. She ran the water and turned on the garbage disposal. Old lemon smell was better than stale apartment smell.
Rosie, who was completely incapable of handling any appliances that made noise, stopped sitting on Sawyer’s foot and scrambled into the kitchen. Her ears bent backward as she bared her teeth, barking at the disposal until it was turned off.
“Drama queen,” Claire muttered, shaking her head and scrubbing the sink with a sponge. Luke shouldn’t have scheduled work on her apartment without giving her a heads up to clean.
She turned the water off and surveyed the rest of her kitchen. Her grandmother’s simple white vase, which had been shattered when Barney broke into her apartment, had been clumsily glued back together by Mindy. It now served as a bookend for a binder of Claire’s favorite recipes, which she kept on the counter.
“You must have had a shitty day. There’s a lot of tension in your shoulders,” Sawyer observed.
Huh. She hadn’t even noticed, but he was right. She rolled her shoulders and neck. “You’re not wrong.”
“Want to talk about it? I’m happy to listen, free of charge,” he said as he opened a laptop.Golden eyes framed by thick, dark lashes peered over the top. The best eyelashes were always wasted on men.
“Not really,” Claire said. Certainly not with a stranger who had last seen her looking like an extra in a horror movie. She pawed through her cutlery drawer. Where the hell was her backup corkscrew? Her good one was at Luke’s, and all she had left was a novelty one shaped like a mustache.
Sawyer nodded and looked down at his screen. There was silence except for the tapping of large fingers on keys.
But then again, he was an impartial third party. He had been there that night, saw what no one else had witnessed. No need to hide her crazy from him.
“It’s just,” she began, stabbing the corkscrew into the first bottle. “I thought I was done with shitty things happening to me. I was stalked, kidnapped, and almost murdered. You would think that would be enough bad things for a decade at least, if not a lifetime. But no. My wacko nemesis is suing me because I punched her in the face after she showed up uninvited to Nicole and Kyle’s engagement dinner and insulted the bride.”
Claire yanked on the cork, but it wouldn’t budge. Her phone vibrated. Luke was calling. There was no way in hell she was about to answer. All the thoughts she had been keeping deep down were suddenly rushing to the surface, ready to explode all over this man she barely knew.
“And then,” she continued, letting her voice raise with her frustration, “she decided my ex-fiancé, whom she is currently sleeping with, was the perfect person to serve the summons to me in the middle of a meeting with a client. Then I got chased by the paparazzi, wound up at my sort-of boyfriend’s house where his extremely stern and terrifying mother showed up out of the blue and startled me so much that I almost drowned. Then some girl asked me to sign a pack of menthols for her four-year-old like I’m a Kardashian. Oh, and let’s not forget the minor fact that today was supposed to be my wedding day.”
Sawyer gently closed a hand over Claire’s. He tugged her fingers off the corkscrew and took the bottle from her. He tugged on it once and the cork slid out smoothly with a satisfying pop.
“And now I can’t even open my own damn wine.” She buried her hands in her hair. All that dumping and she hadn’t even mentioned the sleepwalking and possible dumpster taco. What a freakin’ day.
He poured a glass and set it in front of her. He then crossed to the corner of the dining area where she had abandoned her rolled-up yoga mat after a class. He handed it to her and she looked at it. Was he telling her she needed to clean up despite everything she had just said? If so, he was going to be leaving without his testicles.
“You do yoga? I think you need this.”
Ah. So he wasn’t telling her to clean up. Good. “I think you’re right,” she said, clutching the roll of foam. “Thank you.”
“I won’t be too loud,” he said, moving some complicated-looking electronics to the bar so they were closer to the front door. “Take your time.”
Claire wandered into the living room and took the strap off her mat. She shot a glance over her shoulder at Sawyer, who had pulled out a measuring tape and a stud finder. She unfurled the mat in one swift motion. A small cloud of dust soared into the air. Between proposal season and the abduction, it had been awhile since her last class.
“Gross,” Claire said, immediately sneezing.
Before she could center herself with yoga, there was still work to be done.
She walked to her bedroom and popped the door open with her foot. Keeping her back to the wall, she crossed to the far side of the room and took down the sword that was mounted between the two windows facing the street. It had arrived in a care package from her mother and stepfather a couple days after the abduction. Even though Barney was behind bars, her home hadn’t felt secure since he broke in a month ago. Sawyer probably would have noticed if there was an intruder in her apartment, but it didn’t hurt to double-check.
Gripping the weapon tightly, she dropped to the carpeted floor and flipped her bed skirt up. She stuck the sword under the bed and waved it around for a moment before ducking to inspect. There weren’t any murderers lurking under the box springs, but she had accidentally stabbed the emergency escape ladder her mother had sent her despite Claire having a functioning fire escape outside her bedroom window. The closet was clear too. She crossed to the window and dragged the blinds down with one finger, peeking through the hole.
The rusty, rickety fire escape swayed in a sudden gust of wind, and no murderers clung to it. She breathed a sigh of relief and mounted her sword then rifled through her drawers. She hadn’t done laundry since getting out of the hospital, so it was slim pickings. Leggings with a hole in the knee was stuffed all the way in the back.
Claire returned to the living room and stepped onto her mat. Sawyer tapped at a small console he had installed on her wall. She wasn’t about to let a strange man fiddle around in her kitchen unsupervised. The muscles behind her knees burned as she bent forward, craning her neck to keep him in her eyeline. What were the odds that she could escape if Sawyer turned out to also be a homicidal maniac? Slim to none.
Her phone vibrated in the pocket of her leggings. Luke again. She ignored the call.
The edge of Aaron’s proposal binder stuck out of her purse. A knot twisted her stomach. Aaron was by all accounts a normal, non-murderous person. His background check had come up clean, he wasn’t on any dating websites, and his date with Jane that Claire and Mindy had spied on had been nothing short of endearing. But Barney had been equally unsuspicious. What if Claire was wrong again?
She dipped lower until her fingers touched her ankles, then her toes, then the mat. There would be time to worry about her clients later. She bent and breathed, relaxing into the pose. The fabric of her bandage scraped against her holey leggings.
Even though she was getting sued by a venomous demon disguised as a proposal planner and she had just had whatever was the opposite of a meet-cute with Luke’s mom, there was so much to be grateful for. Her friends, family, and dog were safe. The West Haven Widowmaker was behind bars, and she had put an end to his killing spree. Despite the psychological damage and feelings of panic she had every time she encountered a parking garage, it was over. Life could return to normal.
She stretched, reached, and breathed through several rounds of sun salutation, feeling calmer after each repetition. She blocked out everything that was wrong with her life and instead focused on the rhythm of her breath. In, out. Easy, controllable. There was no Wendy, no Jason, no stab wound burning with each breath.
She promptly lost any sense of Zen when someone knocked on her front door. Her heart staggered. But she was being an idiot; she was expecting company.
By the time she made her way to the front door, Sawyer had already opened it. Mindy entered, raven hair piled into a messy bun on top of her head. A lavender-colored sweatshirt with a coffee-colored stain on the arm hung off one tanned shoulder. Her green eyes locked on to Sawyer as she crossed the threshold. A flush crept over her cheeks, and she tugged at her sleeve.
“Hey, Min,” Claire said, unable to keep a hint of amusement out of her tone.
“Hey, boss,” Mindy said, offering a large paper bag that had a wet spot in one corner.
“Thanks.” Claire took it from her and set it down on the kitchen island, withdrawing two pints of ice cream.
Mindy gave Sawyer one last look and followed Claire around the bar and into the kitchen. Mindy backed up to the kitchen sink, which was out of view from the front door.
“I didn’t realize Sawyer was going to be here,” she whispered furiously, so quietly Claire almost didn’t hear her. “He puts the moan in Samoan.”
Mindy grabbed a spoon from the dish drying rack and looked into it. She tugged the elastic from her bun and let her hair fall to the small of her back. After running her hands through it, she tugged her top down an inch.
Claire smiled. Her mother’s persistent etiquette lessons resurfaced. An introduction was necessary. “Oh, Mindy, I don’t know if you’ve met Sawyer. He’s one of Kyle’s groomsmen. Luke apparently commissioned him to install a security system. I was not expecting it.”
“She almost decapitated me with a croquet ball,” Sawyer called from the front door.
“Yes, we met…uh, last week,” Mindy said, tactfully skirting around the exact circumstances of their encounter. “Thank you for saving my best friend’s life. I owe you one,” she added, crossing back to the front door and firmly shaking Sawyer’s hand.
“Any time,” he said, smiling as he turned back to the security system. If he noticed that she had suddenly taken her hair down, he didn’t say anything.
“Speaking of lifesaving,” Mindy said, digging through her purse. “Put this on.” She handed Claire a smart watch.
“Ooh, I love it! But my birthday’s not for another two months. You didn’t need to get me anything.” Claire slid the watch on her left wrist and admired it.
“It’s not really for you. It’s for us. It has GPS, so if you ever get abducted again, we’ll be able to find you.”
“You are a lifesaver,” she said to Mindy. “Let’s hope I never need it. So, about this impending lawsuit.”
“Oh, Claire. We’re going to ruin that bitch’s day.” Mindy drew Claire in for a tight hug. The smell of honeysuckle engulfed them.
Mindy took a step back. “I hope you don’t mind, but I called in some reinforcements.”
As if on cue, there was a knock at the front door. Sawyer glanced through the peep hole and opened it again. Nicole and Kyle entered, smiling sympathetically.
“Dude.” Kyle, lawyer extraordinaire and Nicole’s boyfriend since their college days, greeted Sawyer with an overly enthusiastic back slap, then pulled him into a bro hug.
“I thought you were working on your flowers,” Claire said. Her friends had just dropped everything on their very busy schedules to help her at a moment’s notice. The weight of the day lifted off her.
“Screw the flowers. Roses, lilies, they all die the next day,” Nicole said, elbowing her way into the foyer and dropping a bag of junk food on the counter.
“Actually, you can donate your flowers to nursing homes after the—oof,” Claire said as Nicole swooped in and hugged her tightly.
“Plus, we all wanted to be with you, considering what today could have been.” Nicole pulled back and held Claire at arm’s length, looking her up and down as though she were searching for physical scars from the trauma of her cancelled wedding.
“I heard you could use some legal advice,” Kyle interrupted, reaching for the manila envelope Claire had tossed onto her table. His words slurred slightly. All the papers promptly fell out onto the floor.
Nicole laughed as she ducked and gathered them into a neat pile. Kyle settled into a chair at the dining room table and pored over the documents.
“Sorry—Kyle had a rough day between work and not giving a shit about flowers, so I made him a mega margarita before we came. He’s a little tipsy,” she whispered in Claire’s ear.
Sawyer had retreated to her dining room window, where he was setting up a small, complicated-looking device. As her friends bustled around making snacks and pulling glasses from her cabinet, warmth filled her from head to toe. When so much of her world was changing, it was a relief to be surrounded by friends. Mindy gripped the neck of a bottle of sparkling wine, wiggling the cork with her thumbs and grunting. A vein stood out on her otherwise flawless forehead.
The cork rocketed out of the bottle and smacked off the ceiling. Whoops. Hopefully, her landlord wouldn’t notice the dent at his next visit.
Mindy poured the champagne into four glasses and handed them out. The crisp bubbles hit Claire’s tongue like Pop Rocks. Kyle drank his in one gulp and banged the glass onto the table. He walked over to Sawyer, who had moved back to the front door, and started a conversation about football. Apparently, his sage legal advice would have to wait.
“So, what else is going on? I can tell it’s not just the lawsuit that’s bothering you.” Nicole mopped up Kyle’s splattered champagne and rinsed the rag in the sink.
Claire frowned and leaned against the kitchen island. “I met Luke’s mom today.”
Nicole whirled. Water dribbled onto the hardwood floor. “Today? I thought she was coming tomorrow?”
Claire retold the harrowing tale of her encounter with Rachel. “And that’s not even the worst part.”
Nicole’s eyes were wide. “What could possibly be worse than assaulting your potential future mother-in-law with a pool skimmer while topless?”
It was definitely too early to label Rachel a possible future mother-in-law. Yikes, what a nightmare that would be. “He didn’t tell her that we’re…whatever we are. She didn’t know who I was.”
Nicole’s mouth fell open. “Oh my god. He didn’t tell her anything about you? Not even the part where he knew the girl who got kidnapped and almost murdered? Sorry,” she apologized quickly at the look Claire gave her.
“I guess not. I didn’t stick around long enough to figure out. He’s called me like fifteen times since I left,” Claire said, sliding her phone across the island. “I guess I should be glad I’m not the only person he withholds information from.”
Nicole flipped the phone over and twisted a strand of her thick brown hair between her fingers, her signature stressed-out move.
“Kyle always said Luke’s family was never very touchy-feely,” she said in a hushed tone. “Maybe he just didn’t know how to bring it up to her. What was she like?”
“Like a dildo made out of ice. She was stamping her Prada shoes on the concrete when I woke up and then she proceeded to judge me.”
“To be fair, you were topless.”
“It was an accident,” Claire said, picking up her glass of wine and downing half of it in one swallow. First impressions were so important. When she’d first met Jason’s mom, she’d worn a perfectly pressed blouse and had a hostess gift in one hand and a homemade dessert in the other. How had her first encounter with Luke’s mom gone so horribly wrong?
Nicole stopped twisting her hair. “What are you going to do about dinner tomorrow?”
“Drink a lot of wine and say as little as possible.” What were the odds that a combination of carefully selected wine and an overly elaborate dinner menu would erase the memory from Rachel’s mind? Maybe the situation was still salvageable.
There was another knock at Claire’s front door, and everyone froze. Kyle held a karate pose. Sawyer glanced through the peephole and turned to Claire.
“It’s Luke,” he said to her with a question in his eyes.
Ugh. “It’s fine. Let him in.”
It would be easier to yell at him if they were in the same room. Sawyer cracked the door open.
Luke, looking slightly disheveled and alarmed, burst through the front door, carrying pizza boxes. “Claire,” he said, zeroing in on her. “We need to talk.”
Nicole picked up her champagne flute and walked straight out of the kitchen into the living room. She started a loud conversation with Kyle and Mindy about cloth napkins. Sawyer walked back into the hallway and fiddled with the window between the bedroom and bathroom. Hopefully, he was planting a motion sensor and not rigging it so he could sneak in and murder her later.
“I don’t really feel like talking, Luke,” she said, leaning against her refrigerator. She wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and sleep for a year. “This has been the worst day since… well, since last week.”
He crossed over to her and put his keys and the boxes on the kitchen island. He slipped his hand over her cheek, caressing with his thumb. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell my mom about you. But to be fair, we don’t talk about anything but work and the stock market. It’s the Islestorm way.”
Claire bit her lip. She had been known to conceal things from her mother. Maybe she had reacted too harshly. The back of her neck prickled. Someone was watching her. Sawyer’s golden eyes shone from the end of the hallway, half in shadow.
She dropped her voice. “You’re still in trouble. She saw my boobs. My boobs, Luke. Painfully white as a freshly sliced bagel.”
“You were really topless?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Due to an unfortunate near-drowning incident, yes, your mother was the lucky fifteenth person to accidentally see my breasts this month.” Policemen, friends, paramedics—a literal parade of people had witnessed her blood-drenched bosom. She should probably never go out in public again.
“You are the sexiest woman alive.” Luke lowered his mouth to hers and pulled her roughly toward him. He dipped her right in the middle of the kitchen.
Claire balled her hands at her sides and went as rigid as a board. Luke kissed her harder and eventually she wrapped her arms around his neck, laughing in spite of herself. The longer she knew Luke, the harder it was to stay mad at him. Strength rippled in his neck and shoulders as he held her, and desire stirred deep in her belly. Surely her stab wound had healed enough to take a ride on the Luke Express.
When he brought her back up, she took a step back and crossed her arms. “I’m still eighty percent mad at you.”
“But I brought your favorite pizza,” he said, gesturing at a pair of cardboard boxes on the island.
“Fifty percent mad at you,” she corrected.
“And a cannoli.”
“Damn it. Okay, fine.” She leaned forward and gave him a tiny peck on the cheek. It was getting too late in the day to murder him anyway.
“So what’s going on? You said something terrible happened today.”
“Oh,” she said, picking up her wineglass and immediately downing what was left. She shuddered and made a face.
“This can’t be good.”
“It’s not good. It’s awful. Do you remember Wendy?”
“Your psychopath stalker?” He crossed his arms, clearly bracing for the worst.
“One of many. She’s suing me.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope. Jason served me the papers this morning.”
Luke’s face reddened, and his eyes narrowed. “She got Jason involved?”
“Yep. Just what I needed.”
“What did he say to you?” There was danger in Luke’s eyes.
“Whoa, calm down there, alpha male.” She laid a hand on his chest. “Just the usual. He was sorry I got kidnapped, et cetera. Not sorry enough to decline serving me papers, though, I guess.”
His frown deepened. “What’s she suing you for?”
“Assault and battery,” Kyle chimed in from the other room. “It’s a pretty clear-cut case, unfortunately. You did kind of beat the shit out of her. But don’t worry, we’ll figure something out.” Apparently, he had sobered up enough not only to provide legal counsel but also to eavesdrop.
Claire grimaced. “I still maintain that she deserved it.”
“She did,” Luke said, drawing her into his arms again.
She breathed in his familiar scent and relaxed, smiling in spite of her shitty day. They picked up the pizza boxes and made their way into the living room.
Halfway through her second slice, a hand landed on Claire’s shoulder. She nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Sorry.” Sawyer withdrew his hand. “I’m pretty much finished installing your system. Can I show you a few things?”
“Of course. Thank you.”
He brought her to the front door and showed her how to operate the video doorbell and alarm. Luke’s eyes burned into her as she connected the system to an app on her phone. What was the deal with all the staring? He was the one who had hired Sawyer to install the stupid system in the first place.
Sawyer stepped into the hallway and closed the front door to demonstrate how the camera worked.
“What’s the password?” Claire called through the door. Only the bottom of his chin was visible on the monitor.
“Shiraz?” he guessed.
She opened the door and welcomed him back inside. “I’m entirely too predictable if you guessed it on the first try,” she joked.
Sawyer smiled, revealing shockingly white teeth. “Do you have any questions?”
“I think you covered it all,” she said.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a business card. “If you think of anything, here’s my work number. Or,” he said, shooting a glance across the room at Luke, “if you’re interested in learning some self-defense techniques, I teach classes. After seeing your reflexes earlier, I think you would do great. The foundation is there, all you need is practice. It might bring you some peace of mind.”
“Thank you, Sawyer,” she said, smiling warmly. “I may have to take you up on that.”
She held out a hand, and he clasped it in his own, completely engulfing hers.
“See you later, guys,” Sawyer said as he stepped out the door. “Kyle, see you on Sunday for the game?”
“You know it,” Kyle said over a mouthful of pizza as Sawyer disappeared.
Luke stood and walked over to Claire. “What’s the verdict?” He gestured toward the control panel.
“It’s nice, I think. You didn’t have to do it, but thank you.” She looped her pinky through his.
“Welcome,” he said, pulling her to him. His hand burrowed in her hair as he lowered his mouth to hers. Tingles shot from her fingers to her toes. As far as apologies went, this one was right on the money.
Kyle cleared his throat loudly. Claire and Luke broke apart, laughing. Luke swatted her on the butt as they sat back down on her overstuffed couch and spent the evening with their friends. Today had been a far cry from the perfect wedding day Claire had imagined, but even flashing her (maybe) boyfriend’s mother and getting sued by her archnemesis was better than marrying an adulterous douchebag.