B.J. Daniels - Howling In The Darkness

“You mean it’s not?” he asked, trying to sound disappointed as he looked deep into all that blue. It was like looking down into the sea. Bottomless and full of mysteries.

She licked her lips, her cheeks flushing again, and dropped her gaze to her salad, her fork poised above a piece of endive. “It actually consists of tedious, time-consuming hours spent digging up facts. But I started the business because I wanted to help people, so I don’t mind.” She shrugged and let her gaze lift to his again.

He didn’t know if the jolt he felt came from her look—or the realization that she was the P.I. of Ridgemont Detective Agency. Bad news. But although he was more than a little attracted to her, he wouldn’t be seeing her again after tonight. In fact, he planned to be out of Moriah’s Landing as quickly as possible. As soon as he finished what he’d come here to do.

He managed to steer the conversation away from himself throughout the rest of their dinner date, careful not to give anything away—or let on that he wasn’t her real date. He even got her to relax a little.

“I had a nice time,” she said shyly outside the restaurant after dinner, sounding surprised. Why did he get the feeling that she didn’t date much?

“I had a nice time, too,” he said, realizing it was true. He hadn’t meant for the date to last this long. He could no longer pretend he was just buying time. And yet he felt off balance again out here in the fog, being with this woman who should have been with someone else. “Can I walk you home?”

She shook her head. “I just live a block or so from here.” She tugged her jacket around her and shifted her feet. Her gaze came up to meet his. Oh, those eyes. And that mouth.

Stirred by a yearning stronger than the force of the moon on the sea, he bent to kiss her good-night. Goodbye.

Her eyes fluttered closed. Her lips parted. A hairbreadth from her wonderful mouth Jonah felt something brush the back of his neck, something cold as the kiss of death.

He jerked around, only to see wisps of fog streaming past as if blown up from the sea by a gust of wind. Except there was no wind, just as there was no one right behind him. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a presence out there in the mist watching them. “Let me walk you home.”

She opened her eyes in surprise, licked her lips and turned her face away, unsure. Again. “I am more than capable of walking myself home.” Obviously upset with him for not kissing her, she took a couple of steps backward.

“I had a great time,” he said, not wanting to let her go. Suddenly afraid to let her go.

She nodded, turned and disappeared into the fog.

He waited and then followed her at a distance as she walked to her clapboard three-story house at the edge of the town green, unable to shake the feeling he’d had that instant before he’d almost kissed her.

Before turning back to the wharf, he listened for the sound of the bolt sliding on her door, and then for the footsteps he’d heard to retreat, shaken by the fact that someone else had followed her home as well.

Kat couldn’t lose the odd feeling that had come over her outside the restaurant. It wasn’t just that her date hadn’t kissed her. Or that he seemed to cool toward her. As she’d walked home, she’d heard footsteps behind her on the brick pathway. Two sets.

When she’d stop, so did the others, which only strengthened an illogical but growing fear that someone was after her—just as someone had been after her mother twenty years before. The Beretta in her purse and the fact that she was an expert markswoman, had given her little comfort tonight. She’d been spooked and running scared, both highly unlike her.

Once inside her house, she closed the door behind her, locked it, then pulled aside the curtain to look out into the fog, seeing nothing, hearing nothing but her own ragged breath and the erratic thump of her heart. Logically, she knew the sound of the footsteps had probably been some weird echo because of the fog, just as she knew what had caused this sudden case of paranoia. The very mention of her mother.

She kicked off her heels and padded barefoot farther into the first floor of the house she’d lived in her whole life, noticing as she looked upstairs that a light shone from under her sister Emily’s bedroom door. She could hear music playing and Em on the phone talking with one of her friends, both reassuring sounds. She was glad the seventeen-year-old was home on a school night and would be graduating next week, although it worried her that her half sister didn’t seem to have any plans after graduation. But tonight, Kat was just glad not to be alone in the house.

As she passed the phone on the small table at the bottom of the stairs, she noticed that the answering-machine light was flashing. Distractedly, she hit Rewind. She still felt a little scared and wished she’d taken her date up on his offer to escort her. But wasn’t that possibly the mistake her mother had made? Trusting a man? The wrong man.

She hugged herself as the answering-machine tape stopped. What was wrong with her? Her date had been perfectly nice. He’d made her laugh. He’d made her forget how uncomfortable she’d felt about online blind dating. He’d seemed interested in her, in her work. And she couldn’t discount the obvious attraction she’d felt for him.

But once they were outside the restaurant, he’d started to kiss her and hadn’t—as much as she’d wanted him to. Why was that? Not out of shyness, that was for sure.

And yet he’d seemed almost scared of her at first. The way he’d come into her office, appearing confused. Late. Showing up looking as if he’d just gotten off work at the docks. She’d been nervous about meeting him. But he’d seemed nervous, too.

And he hadn’t been the nervous type. Nor had he been anything like she’d expected. The strong jawline, dark from a day’s stubble, the deep brown eyes, a shade lighter than his short brown hair. He’d looked more muscular, rugged..dangerous than she’d expected.

The thought startled her. She’d already been the dangerous-man route. Just the once. But a smart woman learned the first time. Or she ended up dead on the town green. She didn’t want to be the kind of woman who picked the wrong man. Like her mother.

Kat shoved that thought away and hit the play button on the answering machine.

“Hi, it’s Ross.”

Her head jerked up, her attention dragged from her date—to the voice on the answering machine.

“Sorry about tonight. I really wanted to meet you in person, but something came up at the last minute. Maybe we could do it another time? See you online.”

Disbelieving, she pushed rewind and listened to the message again. Her online date had stood her up?

She felt a chill. Then who had she just spent dinner with?

Desperately, she tried to remember what the man had told her about himself during their meal. Only vague generalities that could have fit any man! No wonder he’d seemed surprised when he’d come into her office. No wonder he’d seemed so interested in her, in her work. Because he knew nothing about her! And he didn’t want her asking too many questions about him. She’d been so nervous, she hadn’t even noticed. Until now.

A thought struck her. Maybe his interest in her hadn’t been just to cover his deception. Scared, she tried to remember what she’d told him about herself. Why had he pretended to be her date?

She felt sick inside. Normally, she was damn good at reading people. But dating—God, it made her so anxious. Probably because it had been so long and she’d been so scared that he would turn out to be another Mr. Wrong. Mr. Dead Wrong. And maybe he had been. Thank God she hadn’t let him walk her home. She hugged herself, suddenly cold. Had his been one of the set of footsteps she’d heard following her home? The thought froze her to her core.

“Sorry about your date.”

Kat looked up the stairs as Emily leaned over the railing in her favorite, worn-thin teddy-bear pajamas. Emily was small and slim with their father’s gray eyes. She’d pulled her dark, shoulder length hair into a ponytail, making her look even younger than her seventeen years. “I saved the message for you. What a jerk. He didn’t even come up with a decent excuse for standing you up.” She frowned. “Have you been working all this time?”

She considered lying. “No, I…went out to dinner.”

“By yourself?” Emily made it sound as if she couldn’t imagine anything worse. She probably couldn’t.

“No, actually, I met someone.” She tried to assure herself that it had been innocent, needing desperately to believe that. He’d just taken advantage of the situation. What man wouldn’t who saw the chance to have dinner with a young woman in a sexy black dress? An honest man. A man with nothing to hide.

“Who was this guy?” Emily asked, coming down the stairs to eye her more closely.

Kat wished she’d lied and said she’d worked late. “No one you know,” she said defensively, unable to forget that she’d been attracted to him, a man who lied to her. “I don’t need to have my dates checked out by you.” She flipped off the downstairs light, picked up her black platform heels where she’d dropped them by the door and started up the steps past her sister, hoping that was the end of it.

“As if you don’t give me the third degree about every guy I date,” Emily said, trailing after her.

“That’s different,” Kat said, stopping on the landing. “I’m twenty-three. You’re seventeen and you still have a lot to learn about men.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “As if you’re the authority on men. I’ve dated more this year than you have in your life!” She swept into her room, slamming the door behind her. Emily always had to get in the last word.

Kat stared after her, just wishing the last word hadn’t been the truth. Tonight proved how little Kat knew about men. In spades.

She climbed to her own bedroom on the third floor, not bothering to turn on a light. The room was large with two bay windows on each side and a tiny, railed widow’s walk at the end facing the town green and, past it, Raven’s Cove and the Atlantic. Light filtered in from the pale gray fog.

She dropped her shoes beside the bed and, opening the French doors, stepped out onto the walk into the damp mist, feeling oddly vulnerable. She no longer felt safe—not when she couldn’t trust her judgment any more than she had tonight. Who had she gone to dinner with?

She drew in a breath of the cool, wet night air and looked out at the wisps of mist moving like ghosts through the town green, trying to convince herself that she wasn’t her mother. But more and more when she looked in the mirror, she saw the startling resemblance to the old photographs of her mother.

Worse, she feared the similarities were more than skin deep, since her first choice of a man had been deadly wrong, a choice she’d paid for dearly a year ago. Now, it seemed, she’d made another mistake tonight, and to think she’d been tempted to let him walk her home.

The fog drifted across the green, weaving in and out of the trees. She caught a glimpse of the gazebo just beyond the wide sweeping branches of the witch-hanging tree, the white lattice of the gazebo dark with its cloak of dense ivy. It had been on a night like this almost twenty years ago—she shuddered and stepped back inside to close and lock the doors. How could she not help but think of her mother tonight?

KAT WOKE IN A SWEAT, the sheets tangled around her, her heart pounding. She sat up, terrified. Her hand shook as she reached to fumble on the lamp beside her bed, frantically trying to fight off the horrible images that surfaced to consciousness within her. The clock beside her bed read 2:28 a.m.