Between Octobers Bk 1, Savor The Days Series (32 page)

I grapple for the strength to press forward
and up. The shaking in my captive hands has spread through my body.
I clamp my jaw shut to keep my teeth from chattering. My muscles
lock as I slump onto a small ridge. My breath blows hot against my
icy hands. I draw deep breaths, forcing the warm exhale into them.
Then, lay my head back, giving into the relief of rest.

I can’t take another step. I should’ve
followed the car tracks out. I could’ve figured out how to turn off
the safety. But, no, I wanted to hide and ran straight into the
dang wilderness.

The moon’s past mid-sky now. Wind sends an
embracing, stinging frost and I can’t stay here. If the pursuing
shadow doesn’t get me, the cold will.

My legs won’t hold me. Even if I could
stand, the mountainside is too steep. Working onto my knees, I
ignore the screaming in my shoulder and bound wrists. The thickness
of my sweatshirt helps cushion my elbows, but crawling is still
excruciating. It takes every ounce of effort.

It’s another thirty, maybe forty feet before
I feel the tapering climb begin to even out. Soon the ground levels
off. Reflexively, I look back. A thin beam of light bounces around
below, keeping mostly to the ground, bobbing up and down, back and
forth.

The clouds break apart. A large orange moon
looks down, my bright center in a gloomy circle, casting its
temporary light, turning black to gray, and solving my mystery. The
beam is a flashlight. The searchlight of my tracker moving towards
me. What I thought was a beanie is actually a ski mask. The kind
bank robbers wear in movies. She’s closer than I thought. A
sadistic cackle carries on the breeze as she climbs the sheer
hillside in double time.

That cackle . . . I recognize it. The name
bounces around inside me, wreaking havoc, ripping at my flesh. I
shake off the lagging surprise to focus on my retreat.

Up here, the ground is slightly graded down.
I have a small lead but a clear advantage. She’s still stuck on the
rocky wall, fighting her way up. I try to use the ambient light
from the sky to make out the land ahead, but it’s too rugged to
find a clear path. There aren’t many trees, but lots of rocks and
bushes and brambles. The thin shadows throw off my depth perception
and I stumble.

Ignoring the pain and exhaustion, I pump my
captive arms from side to side, take steady breaths, and stretch my
legs as far as they can reach with each gait. The speed is amazing,
almost effortless as I bound. Leaping up the small boulders and
over shrubs is short work compared to the long climb.

I glance back to see the bouncing beam of
light still rising. It’s small, too far back to catch me now. The
prospect of escape propels my feet more hastily. Soon, the dim ray
is no more than a speck.

Time to double
back
.

My feet respond, flying to the base of a
small hillock. I stay in the natural cranny, scurrying along the
line of the bottom that twists like a dry creek bed in a narrow
valley.

As soon as I get back to the Jeep, I’m home
free. I hope my hide-a-key is still in place.

There was a girl outside. She was the same
one I’d met at his hotel the night he first told me he loved me. I
thought she’d leave when I told her Evan was gone. But that was
three days ago. I’d told Evan about her. He said to give her some
autographed pictures, so I did, and then I apologized for leaving
her hanging that first night. I thought that would have been enough
to send her packing, but she was determined to stay in the area
until he came home. Evan told me to call security to come get her,
but that seemed like an overreaction. She was just a harmless girl.
And she had got a long wait. We both did.

Evan was progressively stressed out
each time we spoke. A perfectionist where work was concerned, he’d
been convinced it was his fault production was running behind. He
was having trouble understanding what the director wanted. Other
actors had been going off script, too, which threw him off. On top
of that, Emily Black—the girl they had to replace, ended up being
replaced with Gretchen Bakker, a popular actress he’d worked with
before and also happened to be his ex-girlfriend. She was doing her
best to make his life miserable. On top of
that
, he’d been having trouble
sleeping.

I planned to fly out to Toronto to see him
on Friday. Valentine’s Day was next week and we wouldn’t be
together the day of, so we were observing over the weekend.

After putting dinner in the Crock-Pot, there
was nothing to do but fold laundry. I picked up my notes and the
phone before walking out to the patio to enjoy a small ray of
sunshine peeking through the wet afternoon. I’d tried contacting
Lily several times, but she was still bent on avoiding me. I’d left
recorded apologies on her machine, her voicemail, and email. I’d
even called Maria. I hung up though, so it didn’t really count. I
was not quite ready for that meeting of the minds.

Arnold was sleeping in a warm patch of
sunshine that touched his kennel. The sight set me at ease, though
I was still on edge. The unsettling feeling hadn’t gone away. It
loomed overhead like an ominous cloud, casting shadows over
everything I touched. That, and the swirling gossip that seemed to
bleed into every part of life on the outside.

I’d always thought of myself as
strong-minded because I never cared what other people thought about
me, or if they liked me or not. It was easy to think that way when
no one ever talked about you. The constant speculation about Evan
and me was starting to take its toll and I needed to talk to my
friend.

It was partly my fault. I never should have
typed his name into that search engine. Over three thousand
so-called “news” stories came up. The first ten pages were story
after story of fabricated garbage—rubbish, as my favorite Brit
would call it—most of them starting with the comment I’d made to
the man in the pink shirt. According to the public, Evan was a
stand up guy, trying to do the right thing and I was the greedy
witch who seduced him. He and Gretchen broke up because of me. And
I was only after his money. Rumors spread like The Gospel since the
night I made that thoughtless remark.

Lately, they’d been focusing on the fact
that Evan was working with his ex, claiming to have inside
information about how the sparks were flying between them. Those
stories didn’t bother me, though. I had complete faith in him.

It was hard to believe those stories passed
as news when there were so many important things happening in the
nation, and around the world. Evan insisted that the public would
lose interest “if not perpetuated by a small-minded media, which
insisted on reporting the minute details in the personal lives of
unimportant people in order to maintain profit margins in a
crumbling economy.” He said that in his business, everything was
about money, even when it was not.

The search results offered pictures of Evan,
too. Millions of them. Some were candid shots showcasing his very
sweet smile. Others showed sexy stares he gave while working the
red carpet, wearing a mouth-watering navy suit. There was one shot
where Evan had his hands stuffed into his pants pockets as he
leaned forward, over a barrier to take pictures with gathered fans.
The way the fabric hugged his backside made me grateful he was
mine. Some photos were stills from movies and others were gorgeous
outtakes from magazine photo shoots. All intermingled with creepy
pictures of my house. The selection was as just as wide as it was
vexing.

I glanced at Arnold, again. Some moments
were more wary than others. It seemed to be an automatic reaction
to the smallest quiver of the leaves—probably a side effect of
being held under a microscope—even if I was only the means by which
they tried to get closer to him, it made me anxious to the point
where the slightest shift in the breeze caught my attention.

I’d started journaling again. Mostly because
I was lonely without Evan, but also because Dr. Lena said it was a
good way for someone like me, who suffered from mental
constipation, to get the words out. Throughout my whole life,
anytime I’d been faced with conflict, or a situation where I needed
to speak up, my mind would go blank. By the time I found my words,
it was too late. So, I began writing everything down.

I dialed Lily’s number and waited for the
voicemail.

“Hello?”

“Lily.” My relief was audible, but my
stomach balled up with nerves. “Um . . . Hi.”

“What do you want, Grace?”

“I’m sorry.” My voice was almost a
whisper.

She sighed. “I know. Me too. It just really
hurt when you let Evan buy him the truck. But I never should’ve
brought it up in front of my mom. Listen, I can’t talk right now,
she’s on the other line. I’ll come by later, okay? And don’t worry,
I’m still staying with the kids this weekend.”

“That’s not why I called, but okay. Thanks.
Later, then.” The line clicked. I looked down at the piece of paper
in my hand. All the scribbled notes on things I was supposed to say
to Lily about how sorry I was that we were fighting. How I didn’t
mean it when I told her she was exactly like her mother. And that
she is more to me than just my very best friend. She was the sister
I always wanted and like a second mother to my children.

Sighing, I walked back inside. The house was
clean, the laundry was done. The dog had been fed, cleaned, and
walked. I just ate lunch. Dinner was simmering. I couldn’t do
anything outside because of the rain that was starting up again and
there was nothing on TV. I still had another hour before school got
out.

When I was out shopping a few weeks ago, I
ran into the Med Center’s D.O.N. She and I went to school together.
When I mentioned that I’d applied for the opening in post-op
cardiac, she put in a good word for me. Well, I assumed she did,
because the next day, I got the call. Starting tomorrow, I’d be
working three days straight. Each was a twelve-hour shift. Then I’d
get four days off. Three of them, I would spend with Evan in
Toronto. I could not wait.

My flight arrived early, but the trip from
the airport to his set was taking forever. I fidgeted, touching up
my makeup in the back of the big navy blue van. My face actually
looked pretty good. I wished I could say the same for my hair. The
misty cold of Toronto had rendered all product useless. I threw it
up in a messy knot before the static ruined it entirely.

Lily helped me get ready, choosing a black
ruffled skirt and clingy top. She paired them with a turquoise belt
and a pair of her giant hoop earrings. I took the hoops off after I
got on the plane and stuffed them into my carry-on with the jeans I
planned to put on after I got to Evan’s trailer. The large earrings
caught on my shoulders each time I turned my head.

Everything I’d worn was to look great for
the first thirty minutes. From the time I got off the plane until
about five seconds after I saw him. I could not guarantee any
longer than that.

As soon as we passed the locations’ gated
perimeter surrounded by bundled girls and their signs of support,
it was a few more blocks before the grouping of diesels and large
pieces of equipment being shuffled from one place to the next came
into view. Everyone was dressed in giant parkas and rubber boots,
shuffling through the snow. Some people were shoveling the stuff.
When the van stopped, I grabbed the door handle.

Danny, the driver, turned to me. “I’ll be
right back.”

For insurance and safety purposes, I was
only allowed to walk around with an escort.

Faster than I expected, Angelique appeared.
She was walking with a large man, conversing as she waved to me. I
scrambled from the heated van, out into the bitter cold.

“You’ve got about thirty minutes until they
call him,” she informed me with a wink.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to pretend I wasn’t
embarrassed. “I was hoping he’d be free.” As much as I enjoyed
watching Evan work, it was miserable when I arrived and he was
stuck in front of a camera.

Angelique led around the back of another
diesel truck and his giant trailer came into view. A piece of tape
across the outer door showed his name printed in thick, black
letters. Several men were standing around. Some were working,
others smoking. Most dispersed when I appeared, politely nodding as
they sauntered off in different directions. I passed without a
word.

“See ya,” Angelique called, watching as I
knocked, waiting for my entrance to take her leave.

A high-pitched voice (Sheri, I presumed)
answered, “Come in!”

A voluble scoff sounded. “Get out
already!”

I climbed the first step and set my sights
on him. His frustrated face softened to a wide smile. He stepped
towards me as I climbed inside. Evan took my hand, and drew me
against him in a long embrace.

“There’s my Valentine,” he whispered, his
hot breath tickling my ear.

I kissed his neck, searching until my lips
found his lips. Barely able to control my stimulation, I fumbled
with the buttons of my jacket. I wanted his hands on me, not the
encompassing wool. Evan helped by starting on the buttons at the
bottom while I worked my way from the top. His arms swept inside my
coat, wrapping around my waist and lifting me from the ground. I
giggled with delight.

“I missed you.”

“Mon seul
amour
,” he whispered, placing a sweet kiss at the
corner of my mouth.

Someone cleared their throat. I remembered
the high-pitched voice and turned to greet Sheri, but she wasn’t
there. There was a slender female—bone thin, actually. She was
blonde with big, blue eyes—very cute, but she would have been much
cuter without the heavy makeup. I was slightly embarrassed that it
took so long to notice she was there.