7. Kira
7
KIRA
I skip lunch, hiding out in the spare room as my stomach gurgles and growls at me. Not as loud as that wolf with the gold eyes howled last night, but close.
Food is appealing, especially when the savory scent of frying chicken wafts up the stairs, but I stay resolutely focused on aiming my hairdryer at my damp T-shirt.
If I’m going to be staying, and maybe even interviewing for a job, I can’t do that in a damp, handwashed T-shirt. I need it to be dry, and I need to dig out an iron from somewhere to deal with these damned creases.
My long, black denim skirt is fine. The white sneakers are not ideal for impressing any would-be employer, but it works. So does braiding my hair tightly back so no one can tell that for the last few days, I’ve been combing my fingers through it in lieu of a brush.
I spend nearly an hour sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room in my damp bra and skirt, with the hair dryer I found in the bathroom, periodically blasting hot air at my T-shirt. It’s only periodically because it gets too overheated that it switches itself off every five minutes.
As boredom and frustration sets in, my eyes slide to the chest of drawers on my right. Maybe there’s something more interview worthy than a gray wrinkled T-shirt.
I tell myself not to go digging through a dresser I have no business riffling through.
Dom has given me a place to stay. Keyword being stay . Not root around in a dresser, no matter how tempting it is, especially when no one would even know if I opened just one drawer to check if there wasn’t like a T-shirt I could wear to an interview.
A T-shirt that may help me get a job I so sorely need.
The hairdryer cuts out. Again .
Muttering a curse under my breath, I switch it off, pull my T-shirt back on, hoping the cool air blowing through the open window will finish off my task for me. I get up and cross over to investigate the dresser.
It’s just a T-shirt, I tell myself. And this is a spare room, so anything I find will probably be stuff no one needs or wants. Maybe they use the dresser as extra storage for stuff they’ll eventually donate?
I open the first drawer and immediately slam it shut again.
Then I turn around, stare at the bedroom door, the bed, and every corner of the room to identify if I somehow missed the fact that this isn’t the spare room that Dom led me to believe. This is someone’s bedroom.
A guy’s bedroom, complete with a drawer full of men’s black boxers.
There are no pictures on the walls or décor gracing the bedside table. Just your run of your mill lamp, a simple black curtain, a bed with a gray comforter, and a dark brown dresser. That’s it.
And that’s a problem.
Because I had a brother who was in the Marines. After he enlisted, he preferred a simpler way of living than he did before. Except his Ford Mustang. He loved that car. I wish I could have brought it with me instead of leaving it behind, but I didn’t know I was leaving Bryce until that very moment.
Aaron had no need for pretty décor or clutter. His life after he passed basic was pretty minimal. On the rare occasion he had too much to drink at a party that Bryce and I hosted, and it wasn’t safe for him to drive home, he stayed in our spare room. He would always make the bed up the next morning with tightly folded corners. Probably the way he’d been taught to in basic training.
So this room might belong to someone who also went through basic training.
Someone like Dom.
I stand with my back to the dresser, puzzling what to do next. Do I pretend I don’t know this is his room, that I didn’t just spend the night sleeping naked in his bed, which feels kind of intimate. Especially since I like him.
My cheeks feel hot at the thought of sleeping in a place he had slept until I turned up. Maybe also naked?
Don’t go there Kira.
But I do go there.
“So now what, Kira?” I breathe. “You need a T-shirt, and he’s wandered into the forest like he seems to be in the habit of, what do you do?”
I look at the bed again. Now that I know this is Dom’s bed, it feels wrong to be sleeping naked in it. Not only because he might need something from that dresser and come in, and I would rather he didn’t find me naked.
But I have nothing to sleep in, and there is no way in hell I’m sleeping in the same shirt I intend to wear to an interview. Not after all the effort of handwashing it, and not after wasting an hour blasting it with a hairdryer.
I know I shouldn’t, but I turn back to the dresser, pull open the top drawer and look inside.
He’s folded everything so neatly that I wonder if it’s automatic. All my order and structure came from a fear that I’d be a fuck up.
He has tank tops on one side and black and dark gray boxer shorts on the other side. I pull out a pair of the boxers and one white tank top. Both are way too big for me. The top, more so than the bottom since I’m a pear shape with smaller breasts and wider hips. But both will still fit since Dom is over 6’2.
I walk over to the bed and tuck them under my pillow.
While I’m staying here, I’ll sleep in this, and before I leave, I’ll ask Sierra to borrow their washing machine, wash everything and then put it all away so Dom will never know I’m wearing his underwear to bed.
Trying not to fall onto your food like a rabid dog when you’ve spent the last several days starving isn’t easy. Especially while sharing a large table with strangers, and especially when you’ve been served up chicken parmesan with pasta, tomato sauce, a generous serving of grated parmesan and garlic toast.
Delicious, in other words. Stuff your face and go back for seconds, thirds, and potentially even fourths, good. But I’m in public, so I force myself to eat slowly.
“How are you finding Wylder?” Galen, the big guy with the heavy muscles, dark hair, and intense green eyes, keeps finding reasons to touch the petite woman beside him. Sierra. His fiancée, from the ring on her finger.
I drag my gaze from the meal I wish I could crawl under the table, avoid all conversation and stuff my face the way I want to.
“It’s nice,” I say politely, hoping no one hears the quiet rumble of my belly when I stop feeding it.
“Well, we hope you’ll stick around,” Sierra says, leaning her shoulder against Galen’s. “If only to encourage Dom to be a little more talkative.”
My eyes dart to Dom, who has his plate full and isn’t showing much interest in clearing it. “I’m not sure I can do that.”
Given he couldn’t wait to get away from me back in Missouri.
His dark brown eyes hook mine, and I forget about my cooling dinner. “I’ve lacked the sufficient motivation. Until now.”
I’m sure I’m wrong about what I’m seeing here. In fact, I’m positive I’m wrong, because Dom is not acting like he hates me.
Eyes flick from me to Dom and back again as the silence creeps from two seconds to five. Dom literally spent two months doing everything humanly possible to avoid me in town.
Then he joined the Marines.
The dinner sounds soon resume, forks and knives hitting plates, and a low murmur of conversation as my dinner mates discuss Wylder, work on renovating an out-building, and other ordinary things that help me forget I’m among strangers.
It is… strange to eat a meal with so many people. During breakfast, I was so tense I couldn’t relax enough to enjoy it. Now I do.
My parents died when I was thirteen. Aaron was older, nearly seventeen, and he pretty much took over raising me, until he joined the Marines, since small town Palmerston, Missouri, had little going for it, career-wise.
Until I married Bryce, it was just me and Aaron. Then Aaron joined the Marines, and it was me and Bryce.
“You want more, Kira?” Sierra asks.
I shouldn’t. When I open my mouth to say no, that what I have is fine, that I’ve eaten plenty, everyone is digging in with abandon. They clear their plates and go back for the seconds and thirds I’d wanted to but was too embarrassed, thinking it would make me look greedy.
Bryce’s sweet wife eats what’s on her plate and portions out the rest of the meal for her husband to take some for his lunch the next day. The rest she disposes because good wives do not let themselves get lazy, relying on leftovers to feed their husbands who work hard providing for them.
But Bryce isn’t here, I tell myself. And the hardest work he ever did was convince you that you were useless.
“Uh, sure, thanks.” I accept another piece of chicken and because I’m having another piece of chicken, I have to have more pasta, more sauce and another piece of garlic toast.
And I do not let myself feel bad about it.
I’m heading upstairs, stuffed beyond words, when Dom calls after me. “Kira?”
I turn. He’s at the bottom of the staircase, hands in his pocket, and his expression is thoughtful. “Yeah?”
Suddenly, the kitchen I just walked out of after I wished everyone good night is suspiciously quiet. I was the first person to leave when they refused my offer to help clear up. I’m not sure what their plans are this evening, since none of them were making any moves to leave, but I’m edging toward a food coma. I need sleep.
“You said you wanted to know if anywhere was hiring,” he says.
I perk up, swallowing my yawn before it can slip out. “Uh, yeah. You know of a place?”
He shakes his head. “Not yet. Since you don’t know Wylder and it would take me too long to tell you about each business, I thought I could take you into town tomorrow, show you around. That way you could see it for yourself.”
I want to say no.
Within hours of getting to Wylder, Bryce was already putting out his feelers. Sure, the sheriff lied to cover me, but, truth be told, I’d kind of hoped to hide out in this remote farmhouse with any work I pick up being in an equally remote place.
Like in a field surrounded by cows.
Town, even though it’s tiny, is scary.
If Bryce figured out where I was, all it would take is one person to tell him they’d seen me. I bet everyone would know Dom from the farmhouse on the edge of town, and then Bryce would know exactly where to find me.
My funds are dry, and my car is hungry for gas. If I want to make it to Alaska, which feels increasingly like a pipe dream, my answer has to be yes.
“So, there are a lot of businesses?”
Please let the answer be no.
I want to zip into town, ask a few questions, and get the hell back to this remote farmhouse with incredible food and friendly house guests who don’t ask probing questions.
“A few. It’s all Mom and Pop stores, so no big chains here. You’d be working alongside the owners, who would want to meet you first before they decided if they could work with you,” he explains.
So there’s going to be no getting out of this.
Shit .
“Even if I was only going to be here for a few days?” I hold my breath as I wait for his response.
His jaw hardens, but he doesn’t speak for several seconds. “You have somewhere you’re heading?”
No. But living on the charity of others isn’t something I’m happy to do. I’m desperate, but I’m not willing to take advantage of Dom and his friend’s any more than I have already. It wouldn’t be right. Even if I have nowhere to go.
“Kind of, but it’s far away, and I could do with the cash.”
His expression doesn’t change as he nods. “Well, we’ll see what we can work out then. I have a few errands to run in town tomorrow, so we’d be killing two birds with one stone.”
I smile, relieved I’m not dragging him out for my benefit alone. “Well, thanks. I appreciate it.”
I turn to go upstairs.
“And Kira?”
I stop again, turning at the serious note in Dom’s voice.
He gives me a long look. “I’m not sure what happened with you and…” His gaze darts to my empty ring finger. “I just wanted to say that you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.” I won’t, but I appreciate the offer. “Goodnight.”
I walk up the stairs, and I swear I feel his gaze track me all the way up.