Chapter 4
SEAN
Sean Murphy’s knee bounced like a jackhammer. He leaned forward in his chair, putting his forearms and weight to his legs, then clasped his hands and squeezed so hard his knuckles cracked. But nothing kept his anxiety at bay.
He’d been late once in his life, and he’d made it a point never to make that mistake again. This morning, he’d cut it close. Nearly too close.
He pushed himself up angrily and paced his one-room cabin, casting furtive glances toward the northeast corner and the beautiful redhead lying in his bed.
Kiera still hadn’t woken up, and it had been hours—no shit, hours—since that asshole pulled a gun.
It had taken Sean only half a second to tilt Kiera out of that hell. He hadn’t even taken the time to blink, let alone give a thought to her humanity. He’d just dragged her as fast as he could—straight through the fourth dimension—and now she wouldn’t wake up.
He stopped. Punched the wall—which was stupid because his cabin was made of logs, and that shit hurt—then kept on pacing.
Sure. It was possible for him to take a human along for the ride. But tilting a human was never risk free, and the risks increased significantly when that human was blindsided by it. The right mindset made all the difference.
Like when he tilted Elli Rogan to Lukas’s bedside in Montana. He’d told her what he planned to do. He’d given her time to consider it. In the end, it had been her choice, and she’d stepped into the fourth dimension with a lot of love in her heart.
When they landed in that Montana hospital, she’d staggered before regaining her balance. But that had been the worst of it.
Kiera, on the other hand, had now been unconscious for three hours and seventeen minutes.
He glanced at the bed again. For weeks he’d been imagining her here, but this wasn’t anywhere close to how he’d wanted it.
God, he couldn’t believe he’d panicked like that when he saw the gun.
It was his only excuse for acting so recklessly, because there’d been less risky alternatives.
He was faster than the average human man.
Stronger too. He could have easily overpowered him.
Taken the gun. Tied him up. Called the police…
The possibilities were endless.
But, no. He’d tilted Kiera without fair warning, and though she was still breathing, there was no telling how long she’d be out.
He sat on the edge of the mattress—one of the first things he’d replaced when he’d begun fixing up the cabin—and brushed a few strands of hair off her face.
Man, this hair…
Kiera had a gorgeous riot of curls—some of it tight corkscrews, other parts spirals, others barely more than waves.
The color, too, was equally varied in shades of auburn, red, and even blond. One particular lock behind her ear had the faded remnants of what looked like hot pink hair dye.
She was all the colors of a burning sunrise.
Her skin, though, was cool porcelain with a swath of tiny freckles scattered across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her lips were full, and the most beautiful dark rosy color…
He leaned close to her ear and said, “Wake up, Kiera. It’s time to wake up.”
Her sweatshirt had slipped again, exposing her light green bra strap, and his gaze slid to her shoulder.
She was wearing all the same clothes she’d worn last night and that—based on what he’d learned about her so far—seemed out of character.
Before now, if he’d been asked what Kiera Jones would wear to a shady handoff of presumably stolen cash, not to mention the gun likely used to acquire said cash, to some slick dude on a street known for its not-so-stellar crime rate, he would have thought she’d pick something that conveyed more power and confidence.
Not purple yoga pants and an oversized Led Zeppelin sweatshirt that she could barely keep on her body and which she’d worn the day before and slept in.
Her clothes were one serious clue that the fashionista had not been in her right mind.
Kiera’s chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm. He pressed two fingers to the inside of her wrist. Her pulse was just like before: weak, but definitely there. She’d wake up. She had to.
Sean tucked his favorite quilt around her. It was the last one his mother had made—a patchwork of varied green patterns—then assumed his frequent sentry post at the bedroom window, watching the woods for the woman he hoped would come back to him someday.
He’d been too late and missed her once. He didn’t want that to happen again. And yet, for more than ten years now, she’d kept her distance.
After an hour of watching, he jerked himself out of his stillness, blinked away the moisture in his lower lids, and resumed his place in the ancient but functional wooden chair he’d bought at an estate sale.
The moment his ass hit the seat, his knee resumed bouncing.
Kiera was still unconscious.
Just like the woman in the woods, there was nothing more he could do for her but wait.
“Do you like it?”
Sean’s heart surged to his throat. He hadn’t heard his mother’s voice in so long, it nearly broke him.
“I made it for you, son. It’s the color of your eyes.”
Warmth enveloped him as she lay the soft quilt over his body, tucking the edges around his shoulders. It was almost as good as one of her hugs.
“Mom?” he asked, and she laughed softly in response.
He cracked his eyes open. The light from outside was fading, casting a golden-hour glow around the cabin.
He opened his eyes a little more, hoping, though not expecting—that would have been ridiculous—to catch a glimpse of his mother before she disappeared.
Instead, he saw Kiera Jones, kneeling in front of his chair, her hands resting lightly on his thighs, strands of her red-gold hair glinting in the light.
He blinked once. Twice. His pulse quickening. Another dream? “Kiera?”
“You looked cold,” she said.
He looked down. The well-worn quilt with its green patches—the same quilt he’d used to cover her that morning—was now wrapped around his own body.
You looked cold.
She was awake.
You looked cold.
He hadn’t put her in a permanent coma.
The relief of it was so overwhelming, he lunged forward and down just as she rose off her heels.
He threw one arm around her neck and yanked her to him. Apparently, he’d spent enough time over the last several weeks staring at her mouth, that—even as fast as he was moving—he didn’t miss his target.
He kissed her. Hard. So hard, her lips smashed his lips against his teeth, and he tasted blood.
It was a terrible kiss. He never should have done it. And when Kiera planted her hands on his chest and pushed, he let her go.
“Sorry,” he said. “God, I’m sorry.”
Her eyes were wide. “What was that?”
“A mistake. Adrenaline. A gut reaction. It’s just…” He pulled her back against his body and though he didn’t kiss her again, he held her tight. “Christ. You’re alive!”
“For now,” she said, her laugh sounding a bit strangled. “Maybe.”
Right. If his tilt hadn’t done enough damage, apparently, he was now hell-bent on crushing her to death.
Get it together, he thought and forced himself to loosen his grip.
“Any reason why I shouldn’t be?” she asked. “Alive, that is?”
“I tilted you.” Sean sat back and curled the fingers of one hand into the quilt that was pooled in his lap.
She nodded. “It took me a second, but when I realized I wasn’t bleeding on the sidewalk or in one of those drawers at the morgue, I assumed that’s what happened. This is your cabin, right?”
“Yeah.”
Before the image could take root, Sean forcibly crushed the mental picture of Kiera’s corpse in one of those drawers.
She stood and, taking his hands, pulled him up with her.
He caught the quilt before it fell to the floor. “You’ve been unconscious for…” He glanced at the clock mounted high on the wall over the kitchen sink. It was five-twenty. “Nearly twelve hours.”
She gave him a little smile that he didn’t know how to interpret. It was amused, maybe? Or a little apologetic? Maybe her head was still messed up, and she didn’t know how to feel.
“You can rest more,” he said. He didn’t mind. She could stay as long as she liked.
Kiera shook her head. “I don’t have time for that. I screwed everything up, and now Braden’s in danger.”
Right. Her brother. Try as he might, Sean was having a hard time working up any empathy for the guy.
“Can you call him?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “You can’t call an inmate. They can only call out. And only at certain times.”
“I’m sure,” Sean said, though he didn’t feel sure of anything right now, “if something bad happened to him, the authorities would call you.”
“I’m not waiting around for a call like that,” Kiera said, sounding incredulous. “I need to get that bag back.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Sean said.
“How?” she asked.
That he didn’t know—in fact, he was pretty sure the money was long, long gone—but he didn’t want her to lose hope. Not when she was still recovering. Besides that, the plaintive tone in her voice nearly broke his heart.
She wrapped her arms around herself. Now that it was so late in October, the evenings were cold, and he’d resisted switching on the furnace, preferring the fire.
“I’ll make you a hot drink,” he said. “And after a tilt, it can help to have something sweet.”
He left the bedroom corner of the cabin and strode toward the kitchen corner.
It wasn’t much of a kitchen yet: just a few knotty-pine cabinets and some old appliances.
But he’d already replaced the 1970s flame-orange countertops with a natural stone, sanded and oiled the butcher block island, and refurbished the ancient cast iron sink that he’d found in a junkyard.
The new enamel was snow-white and gleaming. Was Kiera impressed by any of it?
“I can’t believe that guy pulled a gun in broad daylight,” she murmured to herself.
Sean took his kettle to the sink, fighting the memory of a short barrel and the flinch of a finger against a trigger.
“For a second, I thought he’d actually fired.” Kiera followed him to the kitchen, wringing her hands, then stopped on the opposite side of the island. “Weird how imagination plays its tricks.”
Sean filled his kettle with water and plugged it into the wall. “He did fire. That was real. But we were already tilting out.”
Kiera’s eyes widened. “You can tilt faster than a bullet?”
“Never had reason to test it before, but fortunately…yeah.”
A strange expression crossed her face, another one he couldn’t define. Gratitude. Worry. Relief. Fear. Regret.
She turned, putting her back to the island and looked around his space. In total, it was nine hundred square feet with seven windows. No curtains.
There was the bedroom corner, the kitchen area, the corner with the entryway and storage, and the living room zone that was designated by the stone fireplace and the braided rug that covered most of the floor.
There was just enough space for two top-end leather recliners with cup holders—in case he ever had a buddy over.
Besides that, he had two framed, autographed posters of Savage League greats: Liam Boyd and Thor Magnusson and a TV.
His single bookshelf was piled with a dozen books, mostly mystery and suspense but also three DIY books—one on carpentry, another on plumbing, and a third on motorcycle repair.
His newest book was a cookbook because Lukas told him women liked men who cooked. He had yet to crack the spine on that one, but he planned to.
“What do you think?” he asked, genuinely curious what this human city girl would think of his home. He wanted her to like it, though he knew it was a long shot. He’d barely made a dent in all the remodeling he planned to do.
She made the tiniest one-shouldered shrug. “It’s pretty much what I pictured.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “How’s that?”
“Rustic.” She wandered over to the shelf and picked up the book that lay open and upside down on top of one of the piles. It was the crime novel he was in the midst of reading. The detective had just gotten the lead he’d been hoping for.
“That’s it?” he asked, now wondering less about his cabin and more about what the book might say about him.
“And woodsy.” Her eyes skimmed down the page.
“Right.” The trees were thick outside his windows. They were what made it feel like home. It was like having his family close again. Made him feel less alone.
“It suits you,” she said, setting the book back on the shelf just as she’d found it so he didn’t lose his place.
“It does,” he said, though something about her assessment didn’t feel like a compliment.
He undid the twist-tie around a bag of mini marshmallows and opened the canister of hot chocolate mix.
She smiled weakly. “Sean, you’re being really sweet with the cocoa and all, but I need to get back home. I need to call a tow for my car.”
“I had your car towed to a body shop.”
“You…” Kiera’s eyebrows drew together. “What?”
“There’s a guy I know. He’s trustworthy, and he’ll get your car all fixed up. The broken window and the roof. He said the bullet gouged a path across the top of your car.”
“Thank you,” she said, and she said it with so much meaning, Sean wasn’t sure how to take it. He thought it had been such a small thing, but her expression said it was a bigger gesture than he’d realized.
“Of course,” he said. “No problem.”
“But…” She gave her head a little shake, making all that gorgeous red hair shake with it. “I also need to start looking for that bag. I need—”
Kiera’s whole body stilled, and her face went blank.
“What?” he asked, bracing.
“How…?”
“How, what?” He really didn’t like the look on her face—part confusion, part irritation. It seemed nothing was straightforward with this perplexing woman—not even her expressions.
She tipped her head to the side. “How did you know I was at that bodega on Caspian Street? And how did you know when I’d be there?”
Oh, right.
That.
The moment he’d been dreading.
The kettle whistled, then let out a high-pitched scream.