Текст книги "Slut"

Автор книги: Jettie Woodruff

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

My heart beat hard in my chest when I heard her gasp and then nothing. “Izzy? Izzy, stay with me. Tell me more. Izzy!”

Nothing. I heard nothing but the wildness going on around me. A raging river, an angry wind, and rain coming down in buckets. “Izzy, please,” I cried.

“I’m here. Listen to me Gabby. You have to go get him. You have to take care of him. He needs you.”

“No, I’m going to help you take care of him. You’re going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. Someone will find us as soon as this storm passes. We’ll get him. Don’t worry, Izzy.”

Izzy made a snorting noise, a short laugh. “Do you want to know how I found you?”

“Of course. Keep talking, I want to hear everything.”

“Total coincidence. Your husband had an ad in the back of a magazine. A Christmas card with his logo, and his family. It was you, Gabby. You and your family, standing in front of beautiful landscaping, a blue-lit pool right behind you.” Another sarcastic laugh. “I have no idea why that magazine was even in Michigan. It was some garden magazine based out of Sarasota, Florida. A Christmas edition at the garage where I waited for my car to get new breaks.”

“I’ll help you. We’ll go get him, Izzy.”

Her tone turned desperate. “You have to promise to take care of him, Gabby. He doesn’t have anyone else. You’re his only family. He needs you, Gabby. Promise me you’ll take care of him. Promise me, Gabby. Promise.”

“We’re going to take care of him together, Izzy. Don’t you give up on me. Don’t you dare.”

“He’s really smart, but he gets bored easy. He’s just like you. He’s always got to be doing something. I’ve told him that so many times.”

“You told him about me, Izzy?”

“Oh yeah. He knows all about you.”

A sense of guilt fell over me when I couldn’t say the same. I never told Row and Phi about my sister. I couldn’t. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

“He deserves so much better than I’ve given him.”

“We’ll make it better. Just stay with me. I can’t lose you again. I have so much to tell you.”

“You’re not going to lose me. You have my name. I’m always going to be a part of you.” Izzy gurgled and coughed, choking until she was out of breath.

Again the sound of my heartbeat was heard loud in my ears. “Izzy?”

“Gabby, I’m just going to close my eyes and rest. You’re going to be okay. I know you are.”

I tried to push the car from my own legs, but I couldn’t. I bit down hard on the inside of my jaw to keep from screaming out in pain. I didn’t want to scare Izzy, but it hurt. It hurt bad enough to black out for a second, probably from holding my breath.

“No. No you’re not going to rest. Keep talking to me, Izzy. Don’t you give up on me. Don’t you dare. I need you. Your little boy needs you.”

Moments went by before she responded. I thought she was gone. I thought that many times throughout the dreamlike ordeal.

“I got my Clyde, too, Izzy I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, happy when I felt my chest rise from the breath. “That’s why you’re going to be okay.”

Izzy laid still, no movement at all. “Izzy, can you hear me? Izzy, wake up! Please don’t leave me. Izzy! Please! Somebody help us! Help,” I called, over and over, screaming in agony.

The wind whipped a strand of wet hair into my face, stinging my right eye, but I couldn’t rub it. One hand was stuck behind my back, and the other one held something metal, keeping my upper body from sliding. The door frame, maybe. A gasp of air was heard over the howling wind and I felt panic. I didn’t want to lose her. I just found her. I had so much I wanted to share with her. She had so much to tell me. I needed her.

“I’m here.”

“Don’t do that. Keep talking. Someone’s going to find us,” I said with an empty promise. Nobody was finding us. Nobody was out in this. Izzy needed help now. Not when the sun came out and the storm passed.

“Vander Clyde Delgardo. That’s his name. I call him Van mostly, unless he’s in trouble. He’s a typical boy, always into something. You gotta watch him—”

“Izzy?” I said again for the fiftieth time when I heard a breath and then silence.

“He’s a handful sometimes, but he has a big heart. He’s a little love bug when you can slow him down. You have to show him whose boss though. He’s a smart one; he’ll have you eating out of his little hand if you let him.”

“No, don’t talk like that. You don’t need me to do anything. You can do it yourself,” I argued, eyes darting to the trees, whipping back and forth through the wind and rain. My arm hurt from holding the door-jam, but I couldn’t let go. The muddy surface mixed with the rain made my body slide toward the raging river. A river that was rising by the minute.

My mind couldn’t even begin to keep up. I didn’t even try to comprehend what she was saying. I suddenly had something else on my mind. I stared at her with wide eyes, not moving a muscle, not even a breath. Oh my, God. I felt it again. The car moved, barely, but it moved. We were seconds away from being swept away with the storm.

“Keep talking. Tell me more about him,” I coaxed while I stretched, trying to grab a flimsy branch, sticking straight out of the bank. The intention was to pull myself out and make it to a little landing to the right of us. If I could just get there, maybe I could go for help.

“He loves books, transformers, and skateboarding. He’s really good for being four. Wait until you see him.”

I obsessed our situation while keeping her engaged. “Keep talking. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me. I was ashamed of myself. I waited for four hours at the end of your drive, trying to talk myself into walking up to your door. I almost did it when you,” Izzy said and then paused. The silence catching my attention until she spoke again. “When you went to the mailbox, but you didn’t see me. You were looking up to the sky.”

The thought of that situation being as bad as this one crossed my mind. I could see the look on Paxton’s face when he answered that knock. “I’m not disappointed, Izzy. I just need for you to be okay.”

“He’s afraid of storms. I make those nights special, movie night and pizza, to help take his mind off it.

Had we been in a different situation, I would have laughed and told her I did the same thing with my girls. It’s what our mother did, but I really think she was the scared one. She did it more for her than us.

“Izzy, give me your hand,” I said in an anxious tone. Fear filled my blood, but desperation kept me calm. I felt the car shift again and went for it. It was just enough to grab the thin branch. Izzy didn’t listen. Her head shifted and I could see why she couldn’t see. I had to turn away, but I couldn’t hide the frightened gasp. Her face looked like the skin was peeled back, covering both her eyes. A flash of lightning revealed bloody lips. It looked like something from a horror movie, not like my beautiful twin. “Izzy! Give me your hand!”

I realized that I wasn’t half in, half out of the car like I had thought when it slid again. This time several inches. I screamed in pain when the car moved off my body, but kept my composure. I vaguely remembered grabbing Izzy’s hand when the car continued to move. Panic of not knowing what to do set in and I began to freak. How did this happen? Why did it happen?

I have no idea where the strength came from. I didn’t even have time to think about it. There was no time. Just like the wreck, it happened quickly. The car shifted and I held tight to Izzy’s hand, wrenching in pain. Somehow, someway, we both managed to stay out of the river. Even with slippery hands. Somebody was with us that day, somebody held both our hands. Something bigger than me. I held on for as long as I could, but my strength was no match for the pain in my wrist and the slippery substance between our hands. My fingers slipped in slow motion and I let her go. I let her go again.

I cried out for her, noticing she stopped just below me, her body cradled between two trees, side by side. Had it not been for the awkward position of her leg, and her head slumped to her chest, I would have thought she was comfortable. Like the trees held onto her, keeping her safe from the raging water, inches from her broken body.

I laid just above her on a small ledge a couple feet from her broken body. The car slid another foot or so, trees catching it the same way they had Izzy. One tire stuck on a stump and one on a tree. I could hear the water racing through the mangled mess. We definitely rolled it at least once. Maybe twice.

“Izzy?” I gasped with raspy words, trying to deal with my own pain. “Izzy?” I repeated in a desperate tone. My arm dropped and our hands clasped together.

“I need for you to listen to me, Gabby.”

“Izzy, no. Please don’t do this. I just found you.”

Looking up gave me little insight on what had happened. I still couldn’t tell where we’d went off the road at. Not through the wind and the rain anyway.

“Are you listening to me, Gabby?”

“Yes, I hear you,” I promised. My hand brushed hair from her face and I felt the gash in the back of her head. The feeling of something warm, like blood, mixed with the cool rain and disappeared. Her head flopped back and I gasped at the sight of her face again. I could tell she was hurting, and it broke my heart in two.

“I love you so much, Clyde,” Izzy quietly said. I heard deep breaths almost like a wheeze and then quiet.

I looked up the embankment again, scoping a way out. The more I thought about what had happened, how we ended up there, the more real it became. We were driving, barely moving. One minute we were on top of the world, flying away like free birds, and then. And then what? What happened? I remembered Izzy screaming my name, but it wasn’t clear. Dreamlike. And then what? I recalled jumping inside the car, but I couldn’t reach. My hands grabbed the wheel at the same time Izzy’s did, but it was too late. We were already sliding down the embankment. Our eyes locked and then nothing. Darkness.

The thought about how smoothly we drove off the cliff crossed my mind. We missed the guardrail completely. Nobody would ever find us. They wouldn’t even know to look. I screamed out to the tropical storm while my mind whirled frantically. Empty cries, being lost in the violent wind. Her little boy. He would grow up without a mommy. All because of me. I thought about alligators and the rain, and then I screamed some more. Help me. Over and over again.

My teeth chattered, but I don’t think it was from being cold, more from my body going into shock. The pain was unbearable and I was all alone. I closed my eyes when all I could do was give up, look for something happy. Something from within. Ignore the pain. Ignore the wind. Ignore the rain. Ignore the river. Ignore Izzy.

“If I leave here tomorrow,” I sang through a soft voice, barely even a whisper, tears mixing with the rain. I was sure what happened next was the corporate of my brain injury. My mind and my memory fine before that. I heard the splitting of wood, and the branch as it fell. Everything went away. I couldn’t see the darkness, hear the wind and river, or feel the rain. I felt warm and happy. And then at peace.

“Gabby? Can you hear me? You’re okay. You’re here with Mi and I. I’m going to count you back now, starting with ten. When I get to one you can open your eyes if you want to. You’re safe if you choose to stay asleep. All thoughts will stop at the count of one. You’ll either open your eyes, or you’ll sleep. Do you understand me, Gabby?”

“I don’t want to wake up. She’ll be gone.”

My hand covered my mouth and I looked to Mi, standing right in front of me, wearing a sad smile.

“She has a little boy, Mi. Oh, God. That was over three months ago. What if I’m too late?”

“Don’t you start with that. I hate what ifs. I found her car. It’s in a junkyard over by Lincoln Park. Let’s start there.”

Nothing could have prepared me for that. I had a four-year-old nephew. Izzy came for my help and I let her down. I let her die, and I left her little boy without a mommy.

“Mi, what happened to Izzy? I still don’t know where she is.”

“I don’t know, you didn’t say.”

“He has to do it again. I need to know what happened to her.” I said in a desperate tone.

“I don’t think you know, Gabby. I think you woke up in the hospital after that. Let’s go check out her car, okay?”

I nodded in agreement and sipped my coffee, feeling even more lost than I already was, terrified that I was too late. Too late for my twin and her baby.

Four

Mi was crazy, not that I didn’t already know that, but even more so. She was an expert con man, even bigger than Paxton.

“I’ll do the talking. Just follow my lead, okay?” she coaxed.

Of course I agreed. I didn’t know what to say.

“Hi, I called earlier. I’m Mi Chin, head of the Department of Diagnostic Medicine.”

“Oh yeah, I’m a little busy, but you can go on back. It’s the Honda with the missing bumper along the fence,” the guy explained while searching for a key amongst a thousand other ones. There was no way in hell he would find it in that mess. No way. “Here you go. Lucky for you it was stuck underneath the front bumper in one of those magnet things. Stay on the path, don’t go wandering around out there. It’s dangerous. I hope you feel better,” he added, sincere eyes on me.

Mi responded, and I nodded with a smile. “For sure, we will,” she agreed. Mi took the key and shoved me along.

I walked out the backdoor with Mi, praying to God that we found something. Anything.

“I thought you delivered babies,” I questioned. Mostly for my nerves. I needed something to distract me.

“I do, but I figured I’d say it was your car, and we needed to find answers for your condition. House breaks into people’s homes all the time to diagnose people.”

I refrained from telling her she wasn’t Gregory House, frowning instead.

A sadness fell upon me when we neared the car. It wasn’t a good car. Izzy didn’t have things like I did. I couldn’t even fathom the thought of that car making it from Michigan to Florida. I felt guilty, wondering if I had given her the better life. Maybe hers was worse. Maybe I should have stayed Izzy.

The feeling that came over me from sitting in her car was surreal, eerie, like she was with me. I instantly smiled when I looked up, seeing the dark haired little boy pinned to the sun visor. A definite Delgardo grinned back at me through a badge. Had it not been for his Superman shirt, he could have passed for a little girl. Shiny black hair curled at the nape of his neck, and his long eyelashes bowed up. Just like mine, Izzy’s, and Ophelia’s. The similar guilt about leaving my twin blanketed me once again, knowing I let him down, too.

I took the button from the visor and pinned it to my shirt. Mi’s shirt. It had some dumb saying about changing the way you look at things. Exactly what I pictured Mi in.

The car seat in the backseat hit me harder than I expected. I couldn’t believe it. I had a nephew. I reached for a manila folder next to Van’s seat, flipping the flap to see her orders from children’s services. She’d been seeing him every other week, preparing for his return home. A drug completion form, and a suggestion of a different job. I wondered why they suggested another occupation while I looked around.

I lifted the lid to the console between the seats and dug through the compartment, taking everything. A blue whistle on a yellow string, a CD with Van’s name in red marker, her insurance information, a pay stub from Hooters, explaining why CPS wanted her to find another job, a little blue bowtie, plastic like part of a costume, and a change purse with nothing but pennies. Mi piled my collection in the bottom of her t-shirt, and I continued to plunder, hitting the jackpot when I reached below the driver seat. A silver wallet with pink ice diamonds. Her driver’s license, social security card, debit card, library card, multiple discount cards from different stores, and nine dollars. Once I had taken everything that wasn’t fastened down I closed the door, feeling a mix of emotions.

“Check the trunk,” Mi said with a nod of her head, hands too full to point.

“Good idea,” I said as I slid the key into the hole. Again I felt like a piece of shit. A red backpack with a birthday present. “She missed his birthday,” I sadly said as I retrieved the things from the back. A brand new skateboard with a Batman bow, the backpack with the tags and a wrapped gift. There was also a shoebox with a new pair of sandals, a red Transformer on the top strap, blinking lights on the bottom.

“You can give it to him. Come on, I think you’ve had enough for one day. Oh, can you get that? It’s in my back pocket,” she asked, turning her butt to me.

I fished her ringing phone from her pocket and put it on speaker. “You answer,” I said, not really wanting to talk to Nick. I had more questions than answers, and as silly as it sounded, I was annoyed at Nick, that he left me like that. It was his fault for not hypnotizing me more or better. I hated having all these questions and no answers. I kept collecting pieces to a puzzle, piling them higher and higher with nowhere to fit.

“Hey, muffin. What’s up?”

“Mi, where are you? I want you to stay away from Gabby. This is way more than just an accident. Lane just announced his resignation. Just out of the blue.”

My eyes met Mi’s, and I worried even more. Now what?

“She can hear you, Nick.”

“Gah! I knew I should have never shared a cab with you. I should have left you in the rain.”

“It was my cab. I let you share it with me. Nick, I’m not about to leave her like this. She just found out she has a nephew. He needs her help. I’m going to help her.”

“Mi, listen to me. This is bigger than some guy with Alzheimer’s. Something else is going on here. I heard Lane in the stairwell talking to her lawyer. Her husband dropped the charges, played it off as a misunderstanding with proof.”

I brought the phone closer to me with that information. “He did? What proof?”

“I thought I told you to leave.”

“You did, but Mi said I could stay. What else did you hear? Does he know I’m at your place?”

“No way, and he’s not going to either. I don’t want any part of this, and I don’t want Mi involved either.”

“Mi’s already involved,” my new best friend called into the phone, smiling brightly at me.

“I heard him tell your attorney that he would call him back because of another call. It was Paxton. He called him a low life motherfucker, and then they argued about where you were, and why you weren’t in your hotel the night before. Lane swore he didn’t know, but I don’t think your husband believed him. He kept saying he did what he was supposed to do. He posted your bail, gave you some cash, and made sure you got to your room safely. He’s going after the car right now. Mi, if you can hear me, you stay the hell away from that car. Do you understand me? Something’s not right here, and I don’t like it. I don’t want to be a part of it. You need to leave.”

“I’m still keeping her,” Mi said while ensuring him of her intentions. God, I loved her. We exchanged a look and walked quickly away from the car, afraid of running into Paxton. Why would he want the car?

“Thanks for the information. If you hear anything else, let me know,” I coaxed while overruling him, just like Mi did.

“I didn’t call to give you information. I called to get rid of you.”

“Mi wants to keep me. I’ll see you later.”

“Hang up,” Mi whispered.

With my sister’s belongings, and my nephew’s birthday presents, we left the row of cars.

“Thanks for your help,” Mi called to the guy who let us in.

The guy held up a finger and we stopped. “I’ll call you back, Pete. What about the bill? The car? This isn’t just a place to park your car until you want your stuff.”

“Does the car run?” Mi asked, once again taking control.

“Mi, we don’t have time. We’ve got to go.”

“Beats me. The tow truck driver found the key when he hooked up the car. We don’t drive them.”

“What do we owe you?” Mi asked as she dropped my things into Van’s little backpack.

“Mi, I can’t let you do that. Nick is going to kill us both.”

“This isn’t Nick’s money. How much?” she asked again, totally blowing me off.

“It’s been here for almost four months. We charge a hundred and fifty a month for a salvage yard fee. It’s taking up room you know.”

“Yeah, whatever. How much?”

“Five-fifty, I’ll cut you a deal.”

“That’s not a deal. I’ll give you three-hundred. Take it or leave it,” she countered while offering him the key.

“Fine, I don’t want the piece of shit sitting around here, and I wouldn’t give you fifty bucks for it. Take it and get out of here.”

Mi pulled a wad of bills from a secret compartment in her wallet and counted out bills. Nick would turn purple if he saw that. My wide-eyed expression moved to the dude behind the counter when he asked for I.D. The car was registered to Izabella Delgardo, that’s the only person he could release it to without an affidavit.

I didn’t even think about it. I took the license from her wallet and handed it over. The funny part was the fact that it wasn’t even a lie. I could be Izabella again if I wanted to. Had it not been for leaving my own little girls, I might have thought about that one.

Mi and I exchanged a glance, both nervous for no reason. The guy didn’t even question it. Why would he? I looked just like my photo.

“Well, now you have a car to drive around,” Mi boasted as we rushed back to the car.

I swear the girl never saw anything half empty. There was something good in every situation. I wondered how she would handle it had she been in my shoes. I betted she wouldn’t be so giving with the positive attitude.

Mi opened the back door and tossed in our findings, and then handed me the key.

“What?”

“You drive. It’s your car.”

“It’s a stick. I can’t drive this thing.”

“Seriously?”

“No,” I said with assured fact.

“Well, it can’t be that hard. You get behind the wheel since you might need to drive it, and I’ll help you figure out what to do.”

That was such a bad idea, but for the first time in a very long time, I laughed ridiculously hard with Mi. YouTube has a video for everything. I wouldn’t suggest it for learning how to drive a stick though. Despite the fact that we almost met him face to face, I laughed so hard I cried. Literally. Mi had just moved the car into first instead of fourth and we both took nose dives toward the dash. My hysterically laughing switched like a light. Emotions flooded from my soul and cried.

“Ahhh, honey. It’s okay. We’re going to figure this all out. I promise, and I’m going to help you get that little boy. Please don’t cry. It’s really a horrible emotion. You have to be stronger than that one. Change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change. It’ll work out.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You can spit positive energy all you want, and it’s still not going to change the fact, my life is fucked. Lane was right. This is like box office worthy. I bet I could call up the Lifetime Network and sell them my story for millions of dollars. I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel like you do. It’s dark. It’s so fucking dark and I can’t see anything. I have all these questions and zero answers.”

“Turn here,” Mi said, her tone not changing a bit. She could have run over a bunny and smiled about it. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. You’ve learned a lot today. Look at the answers you found. Plus I think you found the only reason you need to keep going. Do you really want all the answers at once? Can you handle that? I think you should just hand it over to the universe and let God decide when it’s enough. In the meantime, this whole sad attitude is depressing me, you need an aloe vera plant.”

I wiped my tears with the back of my hand and laughed again. “What?” I asked confused as hell.

“It’ll help with all the negative energy you got going on around you. I’ll tie a crystal on some hemp rope later, too.”

Nope, didn’t even go there. My friend was crazy and I loved her, appreciated her, and thanked God for placing her in my path when I needed her most. Crazy or not, Mi was my savior.

The next call from Nick brought more confusing information. Paxton just stormed in his office, demanding to know where Gabby was, and who the fat Chinese girl was, helping her.

Mi heard one thing. “Fat? I’m not fat.”

“You’re not Chinese either. That’s the only thing saving my ass. If he would have said a short Korean girl, Lane would be right here. You took the car, didn’t you? Why the hell did you take the car?”

“Well, I don’t know. The guy told us to.”

“You suck at this. Stop, Mi. Please, stop this.”

“And do what, Nick? Do you want me to turn my back on her? Leave her to claw her way out alone?”

“Yes. Yes, Mi, that’s exactly what I want you to do.”

“But you know I’m not going to do that. You could help us. That would make it easier on all of us.”

“I’ll see you when I get home. I don’t want her there, Mi.”

“Catch you later.”

“I’m serious, Mi.”

“Mi, we just missed him. We almost ran right into him.”

Mi’s tone changed, but I wasn’t sure why. “Yeah, we need to ditch this car. What should we do with it?”

I laughed again, this time a nervous laugh. “What is he up to? Why would he drop my charges? Why does he want this car? I don’t get what’s going on here.”

Mi looked out the window with a deep sigh, and I knew what she was about to say. “I’ll help you all I can, Gabby, but I sort of have to keep Nick happy, too. I’ll get you a room in my name.”

“Nah, you don’t have to do that. I’ll figure it out.”

“No, I’ll get you a room, and I’m still keeping you,” she smiled.

“It’s okay. I understand. I sort of have a plan anyway.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Tell me,” she insisted.

I explained my plan while we walked through the parking lot of her workplace.

“I don’t like that plan. I mean, if you knocked on my door after I thought you were doing my husband, I’d probably kick you in the knee. Do you think you did? Do you think you were cheating with him?”

“I honestly don’t know. He’s hiding something that he doesn’t want me to remember, and I don’t know why. He told me that I had planned to leave Paxton. New identities and all. I think he was helping me do that, but I don’t know why,” I clarified.

“I still don’t like it. Just go to the room tonight and we’ll talk about that tomorrow.” Mi opened the door for me and I walked in.

“I’m not going to stay in a hotel, Mi. I’ve got somewhere to stay. I don’t want to cause any more trouble with you and Nick. He’s very uneasy about all of this.”

“Thanks for understanding, but you don’t have any money. Where are you going to stay?”

“I have nine dollars,” I teased while flipping my hair to my back and smiling at her. “We have a little cottage out by my husband’s workshop. He’ll never know I’m there, and I’m hoping to get lucky enough to see my girls. I miss them like crazy, and I don’t know what he told them. They must be worried about me, and I hate that. I don’t want them to feel lost. You know?”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I have some binoculars. Remind me to give them to you.”

Afraid of Paxton looking for an old white Honda, I dropped Mi off behind the school and she walked home, trying to keep Paxton from seeing the car. I drove toward my house, and left the car in the back parking lot of a busy Mexican restaurant and walked. I took back streets, carrying my bagful of clothes with a kids backpack across my shoulders. I ran from a dog, broke my flip-flop, and then crossed a patch of swamping woods to the beach. That was no fun. A wild boar scared the hell out of me, and I walked right through the biggest spider web I had ever seen in my life. I screamed with that one at the same time my mind thought about alligators.

Paxton’s shop was locked when I tried to use the side door, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. I’d seen his guys come in at nine, sometimes ten o’clock at night. I crept along the side, wondering whether he’d come and locked everything up like he always did, praying that he hadn’t. The main garage door was open and the rollback was gone. That meant they were moving equipment. It also meant Paxton was with them. Another one of those things I wasn’t sure why I knew. Just like the key to the cottage. No, wait. I knew that because Paxton told me. I slithered around the side of the building with cat-like precision, remembering the day I had ask him to see the cottage.

He was in his office with a blueprint clipped to his drafting table. The old fashioned kind. For whatever reason, I loved that about him. Seeing him sketching a backyard plan with a pencil, wearing dark-framed glasses, was the sexiest thing I’d found about him. I remembered standing in his door watching him work. He sensed me before he saw me. I told him the girls were asleep and asked where the keys to the little cottage were. I explained how I wanted to check it out and walk along the beach. He dropped his glasses and pencil and told me to shut the door.

“Jesus, Gabby,” I mouthed without audible words. I was about to break into the only empty place I knew and I was thinking about the spanking I had gotten over Paxton’s lap for interrupting his work. At least he told me the key was in his shop before punishing me. The throb between my legs reminded me that I got more than that. Hence the reason for chastising myself. Good grief.

The sudden arousal left as soon as I realized what I was about to do, replaced with a thump. My heart pounded out of my chest as I tiptoed around the inside wall, looking for keys. Everything started to settle when I saw the row of keys hanging by the side door. The garage was empty and I was alone with some sort of backhoe, and a lot of tools. More tools than five businesses needed. I took the key, slid out the side door, and jogged the short path to the little cottage. Once again, my nerves calmed a little more.

Using the little door on the opposite side of our house, I stood in a daze just inside the two-room house, a feeling of déjà vu permeating the air around me. Pale yellow curtains hung in front of French doors, and although they weren’t moving with a cool breeze, that’s how I saw them. The familiar way I instantly felt assured me that the house and I were well acquainted, but why? I stepped in swiping a cobweb from my face, looking around the quaint little space. Sand tinted walls decorated with a beach theme on every wall. A large net with a collection of starfish hung in one corner, and seashells lay on every flat surface.