Howling In The Darkness. B.J. Daniels
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any moral stand or because of my father. I’ve just never liked it. I’ll take the chicken,” she said to the waiter.
“Kat,” Jonah said, trying out the name. He liked it. It fit her. “You must know practically everyone in town.” Cause for concern.
“Everyone,” she said, and laughed.
She would know his family. The thought left him cold.
“It’s one of the problems of living in a small town,” she said. “Everyone knows everything about you. And you them.” She shrugged. “But it’s home, you know?”
He didn’t know. He glanced out the window toward the wharf. The neon from the bars at the end of Waterfront gave the fog an eerie glow.
“You can’t even see the lighthouse tonight the fog is so thick,” Kat said, following his gaze to the night, sounding worried about fishermen who might be trying to get to safe harbor.
Jonah looked out past Raven’s Cove, where he knew the lighthouse loomed up from a jagged island outcropping of rock, then back at her as the waiter brought their salads. He couldn’t stop thinking about Arabella’s warning. Or his own uneasiness. He told himself it was just the fog. Just being back here.
“So tell me about your work,” Kat said.
He watched her take a bite of her salad, captivated by her mouth. “My work?”
“Computers. What is it exactly that you do?”
He let out a laugh. So he was supposed to be a computer nerd? Great. “It’s too boring for words. I’m sure your job is much more interesting.”
She shook her head, smiling. “You aren’t one of those people who thinks the private-eye business is like on TV?” She had a great smile. He felt heat as his gaze locked with hers.
“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.
Chapter Two
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.