Look Again
A Novella
Marliss Melton
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This book is a work of fiction and is a product of the author’s imagination or is used fictitiously. Names, characters, and incidents in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone, living or dead, bearing the same name or names. All incidents are pure invention from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Marliss Melton
All rights reserved.
First James-York Press electronic edition: June 2014
P. O. Box 141
Williamsburg, VA 23187
Edited by Sydney Baily-Gould
Cover Design by Dar Albert Logo by Chauncey Burgazli
Digital Layout by BB Ebooks
ISBN: 978-1-938732-14-0 e-book
ISBN: 978-1-938732-15-7 paperback
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
Excerpt from Danger Close
More by Marliss Melton
About the Author
Chapter One
I’m being watched.
A familiar tingle raced from Katie Crowley’s fingertips to the top of her head, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. The last time she’d felt it had been outside her home two days ago as she stood on her doorstep and realized that her house had been broken into. That same creepy feeling had just come over her again in the middle of the pet food aisle in Food Lion.
Swiveling her head, she glimpsed a wisp of movement at the far end of the aisle as a tall figure darted out of view.
Is it my imagination?
It just might be. An episode that had occurred nearly a decade ago had left her with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that had taken years to subdue.
That PTSD might have made a return last week when she’d come home to find her kenneled dogs in an uproar and the glass pane in her front door shattered. The perpetrator had apparently fled at the sound of her return, but she’d sensed him lurking close enough to watch her reaction to the broken glass, the turned lock.
Since the incident, she’d seen the same dark beater of a car in her rearview mirror trailing her SUV from a distance. And now her stalker had followed her into the store. Or had he? Her heart thudded as she hurried up the aisle, her grocery list forgotten.
She’d reported the attempted break-in to her uncle, the county sheriff, who’d attributed the vandalism to a troubled teen living down the road. If she told him of her present fears, he’d certainly think she was overreacting. Perhaps she was. Nosing her cart into the next aisle, she drew up short.
Halfway down the aisle, a tall stranger blocked her path. Her gaze locked on him. The aisle was wide enough for the two of them, but six feet and several inches of pure testosterone had her gripping her cart so hard her knuckles ached.
Her lungs had trouble seizing air. He didn’t move. With his back to her, he regarded the protein shakes on the shelf. She was not imagining the aura of danger that radiated from his broad shoulders, projected in part by the muscular arms jutting from his sleeveless T-shirt. Thick black hair in need of a comb concealed his neck. As he turned his head to study the various brands of liquid nutrition, she spied an unkempt beard.
This man was too wrapped up in his shopping to be her stalker, she decided.
Braced for the least sign of hostility, Katie proceeded forward. The man’s T-shirt and shorts looked like he’d slept in them. He took a six-pack of protein shakes off the shelf, dropped it in his basket and headed away from her, limping as he pushed his cart. Katie’s gaze dropped to his feet. The man wore a prosthetic foot, strapped to his left ankle.
Wariness melted into curiosity as she watched him swivel toward the checkout lines. The barest glimpse of his profile brought a gasp of recognition to her lips. Was that her old high-school crush, Tyler Rexall?
The glow of warmth that his name engendered faded abruptly as she realized what Tyler’s return to Louisa meant. The former high-school football star and hometown hero had been gone for the last ten years. Everybody knew he was a US Navy SEAL. On a brief visit home a few years back, he’d been offered a spot in the Christmas parade riding on a float with the current football team. The whole town had turned out to cheer him for his service to the country. Whenever the SEALs were credited in the media for slowing the tide of terror, the hearts of Louisa County residents beat with patriotic fervor because Tyler was one of them.
Until now. His current physical appearance suggested an appalling circumstance: His glory days were over.
Stunned and utterly dismayed for him, Katie trailed after him, her earlier fears forgotten. She caught sight of him again piling his purchases onto the conveyer belt at checkout three. Slowing her step, she gave herself ample time to examine her conclusions.
Was it really Tyler? His classically handsome face, always open and inviting, looked haggard and closed. Jet-black eyebrows formed a V over his deep-set eyes. His mouth, buried in the beard that furred his jaw, was crimped with either pain or irritability. Stark cheekbones and a body that was all brawn and bone testified to recent weight loss. Still, there was no mistaking his devastating good looks or the breadth of his shoulders. It was Tyler; only he’d changed, and no wonder.
Would he remember her if she said hello?
She’d never counted him among her friends in high school, but not for lack of trying. Tyler was older by a year. His popularity with both the staff and the students was something a pudgy nerd like her could only dream about. As their all-star quarterback, he’d earned Louisa High School football team their one and only state championship. He might remember Katie from their few advanced classes together, but he’d never given her the time of day, so probably not. Besides, his expression was as inviting as a lit stick of dynamite.
He looked up suddenly, catching her staring. Not a flicker of recognition brightened the lusterless quality of his whisky-colored eyes, so Katie looked away, shifting her attention to a sign behind him. Then she ducked into the soda aisle, feeling insignificant. By the time she glanced back, he was gathering his purchases and limping out of the store.
I could help him, she realized. There wasn’t any question as to why. Recalling the glowing, confident being he’d been before, it was simply unacceptable to see him beaten down. Plus, at last, there was something that she—Katie Crowley—could do for him that he couldn’t do for himself.
The only problem was that he would refuse her offer of help, she was certain. Most of her clients had to hit rock bottom before
they acknowledged their need for a service dog. The intrepid T-Rex, as he’d been dubbed in high school, would probably rather kill himself than admit to any weakness.
But she wasn’t going to let that fact impede her. Oh, no. The scowl of defeat on Tyler’s face plucked at every heartstring. Therefore, even if it meant telling him some white lies, she would get him to take the dog she had in mind.
Making life easier for people—that was what she did. Actually, the dogs did that. Katie just trained them.
Ensconced in a recliner in the TV room of his parents’ ten-bedroom farmhouse, Tyler flipped through the dismal array of channels. His parents had finally gotten cable, but they’d obviously opted for the cheapest package. The only programs on TV in the middle of the day were reruns of Friends, and the lineups on CNN, HGTV, and ESPN. He would have been content to watch the latter, except that golf had never captured his interest. The only reason it was even a sport, in his opinion, was that, aside from whacking a little white ball into a hole, it required a lot of walking—which meant he couldn’t even play fucking golf if he wanted to.
Disgusted, Tyler shut off the TV and let the silence of his parents’ estate surround him. He hadn’t come here looking for solitude, not really. He’d come for the solace of his mother’s voice, only she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere, actually. A victim of dementia, she’d been moved to the nursing facility fifteen minutes up the road in Gordonsville. She hadn’t even recognized him when he’d gone to visit.
His father, every bit the rock he’d always been and devoted to his wife of thirty-nine years, had opted to move in with her, leaving the farmhouse empty. Tyler’s sister attended med school at nearby UVA but was too wrapped up in her studies to stick around for long. The last time he’d seen her was when she’d popped by to help him move back home.
It didn’t feel like home anymore. He felt unsettled, haunted by the ever-present question of What am I going to do now? As far back as junior high school, he’d been certain of his career path in the military. Not once had he considered that he wouldn’t make it as a Navy SEAL, let alone ever asked himself what he would do if he weren’t a SEAL.
When he closed his eyes, he still lived in Virginia Beach, in a condo on the oceanfront. He was still T-Rex, leader of the premier platoon in SEAL Team 12. Well, Echo Platoon was pretty sharp, too. But Charlie Platoon was strongest, in Tyler’s opinion, because his men loved their jobs. They loved training for missions, honing their skills, driving themselves to the next level. They loved executing operations, arriving by air or sea like monsters out of the abyss to wipe out a present threat. They loved seizing intelligence or hostages or illegally transported weapons; it gave them purpose. Every day, they made the world a safer place for the average American citizen.
And now his platoon was without him and he without them, all because of one fateful night in Malaysia when the roof he’d been scuttling across had given out beneath him. He’d found out later when he’d awakened in ICU in Hong Kong that an explosion on the first floor had made the roof cave in. He’d gone with it, managing to land on the top of all the rubble. While most of him had emerged unscathed, his foot had been crushed to a pulp from the ankle down. In that one unforeseen event, his family—his band of brothers—had been snatched away.
With a groan of agony, Tyler threw himself out of the chair only to recall that he’d eschewed the temporary prosthesis this morning since it chafed his ankle. He went pitching forward, hopping like a one-legged stork to keep from plowing into the wide-screen television. After a near tumble, he regained his balance, straightened to his full height, and swore.
It still came as a shock, even four months after the incident, to see his foot missing. He shook his head, disgusted with himself and with his limitations, not to mention furious with Walter Reed Hospital for taking so damn long to get him a new prosthesis that wouldn’t chafe.
What now?
Lifting his head, he sent a long, thoughtful look at the antique liquor cabinet. If he were a man of weaker character, he would drown his misery in alcohol. No one would miss the liquor. Those bottles had been meant for guests who would never come again. But the house that was always bursting at the seams with fun and laughter now stood silent.
Tyler tore his gaze from the cabinet. A SEAL was made of sterner stuff than that.
You’ll always be a SEAL, man. The words of his close friend Lt. Sam Sasseville echoed in his head. He could still feel Sam’s firm grip on his wrist, still see the compassion and grief welling in the Echo Platoon leader’s dark green eyes.
Tyler’s throat closed up as he fought the urge to bellow like a wounded bear. The unexpected jangle of the doorbell startled him into losing his balance again.
He cast around for his crutch, found it, and hobbled toward the foyer. Who could this be? Not the pastor from New Life Church, he hoped. As much as he respected the man, he didn’t need him dropping by on a daily basis. A glance through the parlor windows showed a black Honda SUV in the driveway with a dog in the back. Who the hell? That was not the pastor’s car.
Unlocking the door, he cracked it open. The pretty woman with chestnut hair whom he’d noticed at Food Lion yesterday stood on his doorstep looking about as comfortable as a worm in hot ashes. She sent him a forced smile that made her look suddenly familiar.
“Yes?” he prompted.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” Her husky voice sounded oddly familiar and extremely nervous.
“Not really,” he clipped with no patience for a guessing game.
“Katie Crowley,” she said, extending a dainty-looking hand. “We went to high school together.”
Katie Crowley. The name did sound familiar. He pinned the crutch under his arm in order to return her handshake when the vision of a chubby girl with glasses and braces flashed through his mind’s eye.
“Oh yeah,” he said, stunned despite his preoccupation that she’d transfigured into such a pretty thing. Her slim hand felt a little moist, confirming her nervousness, but not at all unpleasant to hold onto.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, pulling it back to gesture at the back of her SUV, “but I’ve got a problem. See that dog?”
“Yeah.” It appeared to be some kind of shepherd mix, ugly as hell, staring at them from the interior of a crate.
“I need a temporary home for him.”
He set his jaw, but she plowed on.
“See, I own a kennel and a dog school, but I don’t have room for him. He’s housebroken and quiet and not an ounce of trouble. If you could just watch him for ten days, I’ll take him off your hands then.” She sucked her full lower lip into her mouth and regarded him hopefully.
Tyler frowned at her. “How do you know I’m not a cat person and I hate dogs…of any kind?”
“Because you used to have a black lab named Sadie who followed you everywhere.”
Well, hell, she had him there! Plus her cat-like eyes and that dusting of freckles across her nose made it hard for him to let her down.
“Please?” Her eyebrows, darker than her wavy hair, flexed in an earnest appeal. “I have all of his food and everything. He’s really no trouble. It’s just ten days,” she repeated. Then she licked her upper lip in a way that made his groin tingle unexpectedly.
He cleared his throat. The setup here was so bizarre he briefly wondered if he might be hallucinating, except he’d stopped using pain meds a long time ago.
“I can’t take care of a dog.” His refusal came out in a defensive snarl.
“Why not?” She appeared genuinely mystified.
He displayed the crutched. Duh! “I can’t hold a leash.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter.” With a toss of her head, she obliterated his excuse. “Your yard is fenced,” she pointed out. “Just keep him back there with you for a while, and he won’t try to leave. It’s the shepherd in him.” She started backing down the steps, clearly taking his silence as assent, and going to fetch the dog.
“Wait,” he sna
pped, growing more flustered by the second that this woman was ignoring him. “I never said I’d watch him for you.”
“I know.” She paused one step down to look up at him, her gold-green eyes as pretty as springtime. “But I really need you to, for old time’s sake.”
What the fuck? He barely even remembered her.
“I’ll be right back. You’re going to love him.” And then she was jogging toward her car. His gaze fell to her bare, shapely legs, and his protest sputtered. Early May had brought in warmer weather, a circumstance for which he was suddenly very grateful.
He watched her heave open the back end of her vehicle, pop open the crate inside, and call the dog out. Tyler took one look at the silver and beige speckle-coated canine and amended his earlier opinion. The dog wasn’t ugly. He was hideous—more like a dingo than a dog. Fighting the urge to back up and shut the door in Katie Crowley’s face, he watched her snap a leash onto the dog’s collar and lead it toward the house.
Did she not even notice he was missing a foot? “You do know that may be the ugliest dog on the planet, right?”
“I can’t thank you enough,” she gushed, ignoring his comment as she tugged the dog up the steps when it paused to sniff the railing. “This is Bronson. He’s a blue heeler, also known as an Australian cattle dog, about a year old. His people left him at my kennel and drove off. I have no idea why they would do that. He’s honest-to-God the smartest dog I’ve ever known.”
Tyler eyed the mutt dubiously. It had finally made its way up the steps where it sat at her feet and looked up at Tyler. The heat had him panting with his mouth wide open, tongue hanging off to one side. Bright blue eyes shone out of a dark mask. His muzzle was beige, his ears perky.
“Ten days?” he heard himself say.
“Yep. One of my dogs is graduating and then I’ll have room for Bronson to come back.” She reached down to pat the dog’s head.
“I’d better not be stuck with him,” Tyler warned.
She looked back up. “Oh, you won’t be.”
Well, that was sincere enough. And she was so strangely appealing with her curly brown hair and cat-like eyes that he dared to ask, “Am I going to get something in return for this?”
Those same green eyes widened with surprise. “Well…I can’t exactly afford to pay you,” she demurred.
A wave of resentment tempered his interest in her. “Forget it. I wasn’t asking for a handout.”
“Tell you what,” she said, overlooking his surly reply. “I’ll treat you to dinner at Tim’s,” she said brightly.
“Where’s that?” The promise of a date occupied a spot on his utterly empty calendar.
“Oh, it’s fairly new, so you don’t know,” she realized out loud. “It’s next to the campground, right on the water.” She beamed at him as she handed him the leash.
The nylon tether tempered his anticipation.
“I’ll go fetch his food and crate,” she offered. “Stay, Bronson.” She dashed back to her vehicle, and to Tyler’s surprise, the dog actually stayed, though he whined pathetically. Katie swept a big bag of food out of the back, put it on the ground, and reached for the heavy-looking wire crate.
“Damn it,” Tyler muttered, watching her struggle to lower it. “Just leave it by the car,” he groused. “I’ll get it later.”
She shot him an uncertain look. “You sure?”
So she did know about his injury even though she hadn’t looked at it. “Positive.”
“Okay then.” With a shrug, she closed up the back of her vehicle. Clang! “Truth is,” she said walking toward him again and rubbing her hands on her hips in a way that warmed his blood, “he’d prefer you didn’t lock him up too much. Bronson doesn’t like to be confined.” She stopped at the bottom of the stoop to pet the dog as he strained at the leash to get near her. She stretched out a hand to pat him. “Do you, buddy?”
Then she squinted up at Tyler. “Being a shepherd, he’d prefer to case the perimeter at night. It’s an instinctive thing. I’m sure you understand.”
Her gold-green gaze peered deep into his soul.
“You’ll be back in ten days?” he reiterated, ignoring her insinuation.
“Ten days,” she promised. “Here, you can call me if there’s a problem.” She pulled a card from her back pocket and bounded one more time up the steps to hand it to him.
As their fingers brushed, he caught a whiff of gardenia. Glancing down, he read the card’s bold lettering: CANINE COMPANIONS. Boarding. Training. Therapy.
“Number 4 Old Pine Road,” he recited. “Where’s that?” It sounded familiar.
“It’s the old Roberts place where you and your friends used to drink.”
He pictured the dilapidated Victorian house with its rotten floorboards and dripping spider webs and frowned. “You live there?”
“I bought it and renovated it,” she explained. “Been running my business there for about five years.”
“I thought the place was haunted. Didn’t the previous owner murder his wife or something?”
She grimaced. “Not exactly. He was an investment banker who stole his client’s money. When he went to jail, his wife hung herself on Day’s Bridge.”
Tyler flinched. “Damn.”
“Sad story,” Katie agreed. “And, yes, there’s a rumor that the house is haunted. Some ghost hunters even asked if they could film a show there, but I persuaded them that they’d be wasting their time. Anyway, I can’t leave my dogs for long so I need to get back.” She started down the steps. “Thanks again, Tyler. I owe you.”
As his gaze slid to her cut-off jeans and the legs that testified to an active lifestyle, he thought of several ways she could pay him back.
She hopped nimbly behind the wheel, started up the engine, and rolled down the window to wave. Tendrils of her chestnut hair drifted across her cheek as she turned her car around, tearing her gaze from him to look into the rearview mirror.
He and the dog stood watching until she disappeared. A whimper from the dog shook Tyler out of his trance. “She’ll be back,” he said, counting on it.
Basking in the warmth of her accomplishment, Katie neared her home with a dreamy smile. The wind whistling through her open window smelled of young leaves and freshly cut grass. Life was good! In all the years that she and Tyler had grown up together, she had never exchanged as many words with him as she had just then.
The encounter had left her giddy with euphoria.
He’d been terse, yes, but still polite. His grudging acceptance of the dog betrayed a strong moral character and willingness to lend a hand if he thought it was needed. Add to that his devastatingly handsome looks and she couldn’t wait to see him again. Ten days was an awfully long time.
Perhaps she could take him to dinner before then. Had he taken her up on the offer? She couldn’t recall. She’d been too enamored of his intense, brooding gaze and the way it affected her skin.
In ten days, Bronson would have surely won Tyler over, making it easier for Katie to say, “Oh, by the way, he’s a certified therapy dog.” She would have to admit it eventually and teach Tyler the commands to elicit specific behaviors. Otherwise, Bronson’s hard work in learning them would go to waste.
Sunlight dappled the winding country road, brightening the shadows under the tall trees on either side and keeping her spirits lifted. But then the sun glanced off the roof of the dark car behind her, and Katie’s contentment fled. It was him, her stalker—not following at a distance this time but accelerating until he rode practically on her bumper.
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, heart thumping as he surged closer still. My God, is he trying to hit me? She searched the older man’s pinched expression, trying to guess his intent. Suddenly, with a roar of his engine, he swung into the oncoming lane, hemming her between his oversized sedan and the narrow ditch. The deadly tree trunks flashed in her peripheral vision.
She glanced over at him as he gained on her. But with her SUV higher than his vehi
cle, all she could make out was the lower half of his face. He bared his teeth in a determined, ghastly grin as he edged his car ever closer.
Oh, no you don’t. Katie stepped on the brakes to keep his car from bumping into hers. The Chrysler barreled past, leaving her with a clear view of its missing license plate and broken taillight. As it continued to distance itself, she eased her foot toward the gas again only to pull off the road into the nearest driveway.
A clammy sweat enveloped her. Her stalker had tried to push her off the road, or at the very least intimidate her.
With a shaky hand, she fumbled inside her purse for her cellphone and dialed her uncle’s number directly.
“The intruder’s not a teenager,” she announced when he answered her call.