Chapter Eight - Not Alone

Kate was up with the sun, an easy enough feat considering she'd spent the night tossing and turning after leaving Jaxson's bedroom. On any other morning she would have been dead to the world until at least six thirty, maybe even eight. Now that she was pulling a later shift and didn't have to wake Lilly up at seven, she'd planned to start sleeping in until ten or eleven. And here it was at … she yawned and glanced around in a half-hearted attempt to find a clock. There wasn't one, but if the pearl-gray light that was just beginning to seep through the room was anything to go by, it was before six.

Scenes from last night assailed her almost the instant she sat up and put her feet on the floor. What in God's name had she been thinking last night? If her mother had still been alive, Aria Delaney would have been horrified to know her daughter had thrown herself at a stranger. A transvestite stranger. Kate groaned, head in her hands as visions of the previous night tormented her.

She saw herself reaching up to remove the last pin from Jaxson's wig—his wig!—the tips of her breasts grazing his arm. His lips on hers. Her butt on his nightstand. His erection pressed stiffly between her legs, creating delicious friction every time she'd bucked against him. She cringed and squeezed her eyes shut as the full memory of her wantonness rolled over her.

There was no excuse for her behavior. That was all there was to it. Kate let her hands fall to the rumpled bed and forced herself to stand up and face the day. She did the normal, mundane things that would have been done on any other morning. First, she hit the bathroom and made an attempt to look semi put together. After a couple of minutes, she gave up. Her hair was hopeless, and the long, sleepless night had left her looking pale. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and her purse had spent the night in the car.

Hell, what did it matter? Kate sighed, slipped into the same rubber-soled shoes she had worn to work the night before, and did a quick but thorough job of tidying up the bedroom. A glance out the window told her that maybe ten minutes had passed.

She stood in front of the door and took three deep breaths. Would Jaxson be up and about? Would he even still be in the house? She recalled his instructions about locking up after herself, and her mouth settled into a grim line. It didn't matter if he was in the house. He'd made it clear last night that he didn't want to run into her this morning. Well, that was fine because she didn't relish the idea of running into him, either.

She thrust her shoulders back, twisted the doorknob, and strode into the hallway. Despite her intention of breezing past Jaxson's bedroom without so much as a glance to the right, her gaze strayed to the closed door and her stomach clenched. Nerves, and it was no wonder. She jogged down the stairs and made her way through the lower level of the house. In the soft light of day, Kate was able to confirm her first impression from the previous night.

The pale pinks, champagnes, and golds provided the perfect backdrop for the Victorian charm the house seemed to exude. The home was warm and charming—completely unlike the man who lived there! The thick, beige carpet muffled her footfall and a minute later her shoes squeaked against the linoleum in the kitchen and dining room. She was at the front door when a faint scuffling noise sounded behind her.

"Kate."

She turned around. Jaxson was standing in the kitchen doorway, clad in a nondescript, navy blue bathrobe over a blue skirt and white blouse. His close-cropped, dark brown hair was wet from the shower. Kate lifted one hand to tug self-consciously on her own wild hair but quickly forced it back down to her side and steadily regarded her neighbor. "I was just leaving."

"Yeah…" His green eyes traveled the length of her body. "Look, I just came down here to…"

"To what?" she prompted when he fell silent. Keeping her gaze locked on him required a Herculean effort. It was impossible to see him this morning and not picture his hands on her body. Her heart rate kicked up a notch as she waited for him to respond, to make this morning less awkward, to say something, anything.

Jaxson opened his mouth, closed it, and finally dug into the side pocket of his robe. He pulled out a black elastic band and tossed it across the dining room.

Kate scrambled to catch the hair tie.

"You left that on the floor last night."

Now it was her turn to gape. "Thanks," she finally snapped. Without a backward glance, she walked out the door, slamming it in her wake and stomping across the damp grass that separated her house from Jaxson's. She was still moving full steam ahead as she took the steps up the porch two at a time, paused, remembered her purse, backtracked, and retrieved it from the Toyota. Back up the steps she went, slamming her front door behind her, so irritated that for a full minute she forgot to pause, forgot to be afraid.

Kate's bravado deserted her a second later. She stood in the entryway, back pressed to the front door as dust motes swirled around her. Some long-dormant self-preservation instinct made her slow her breathing and close her eyes, listen for any sound in the empty house. Hopefully it was empty. Her pulse sped up, and for a second she reached behind her back and went for the doorknob.

"No," she whispered. Repeated the word with more force. The door had been locked a moment ago. Hadn't it? The house was silent.

"There's no one here." She exhaled, hating that her voice sounded so shaky in the rambling space.

Kate squealed when the crash came. A thud, then the sound of glass shattering. The sitting room—it had come from the front sitting room, just off the entryway. She took two steps forward, a chill racing down her back as she moved away from the safety of the front door. Get out!

Ignoring her internal voice of reason, for the moment, anyway, she scooted closer to the wall and crept to the edge of the entryway, skirting around the dark cherry wood secretary and a bare coat rack in order to get an unobstructed view of the next room.

There was nothing to see. Her gaze briefly swept the space before she turned her attention to the wide, open hallway beside the entryway.

The sudden jangle of bells put Kate's heart back in her throat. She turned tail and fled, her bravado having taken her as far as it was going to. Her feet pounded the floor, and she grappled with the doorknob for far longer than should have been necessary. Panic made her movements jerky, uncoordinated. Once she wrenched the door open, she stumbled out of the house and onto the porch.

Something moved in her peripheral vision. Kate whirled—and locked eyes with Jaxson.

The pale blue skirt swished around his thighs, and his low-cut blouse gaped open to reveal a smooth, muscled chest as he bent to retrieve the morning paper.

"Problems?" he called out to her, immediately straightening.

Before she could answer, the bells jangled again and with a cry, Kate spun around to confront—nothing. She paused, then looked down.

The scrawny gray cat stared up at her with baleful eyes and let out one of the most pitiful mewling cries Kate had ever heard. Hand still on her chest, she exhaled and slumped forward to grip the faded, splintered porch rail. "Just a cat," she murmured, rolling her eyes skyward when the cat shook itself like a dog and set the bells around its neck to jingling again.

"Kate." She craned her neck to find Jaxson leaning over his own porch, corded muscle looking tense as he braced his arms on the glossy white railing and glanced from Kate to her open front door. His gaze dropped lower. "Is that a cat?"

"Yes, it's … my cat," she finished lamely, her face heating at the way she'd just run screaming from her own house.

"Ah." Jaxson leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, making the satiny-looking material of his blouse pull down just a little.

Belatedly, Kate noticed that he'd put on a wig before stepping outside. An ash blond bob today, instead of yesterday's platinum vixen.

Her mouth tightened, and she fought a strong urge to cringe. Seeing him like this made her question her judgment—to say nothing of her sanity—all over again. What was with her? Whenever she pictured Jaxson, her mind brought forth images of pale green eyes and short, dark brown hair. But that wasn't him at all. She turned around and threw an assessing glance in her neighbor's direction. No, Jaxson wasn't some green-eyed Justin Chambers. He was Florence Nightingale and Ru-Paul rolled into one.

"Is everything okay over there?" he asked, staring hard at the second-story of her house.

Kate frowned and automatically glanced up, but of course she couldn't see anything except the worn timbers of her front porch ceiling, that and miles of chipped paint that may or may not have been blue at some point.

"Fine?" she said, the word coming out like a question as she raised a brow at Jaxson.

"You're sure?" His attention switched from the second floor of her house to her face, which he seemed to study intently.

"Yes," she replied, stubbornly refusing to explain her earlier actions. Nothing had happened, other than a stray cat sneaking into her house and knocking stuff over. Besides, she'd already made a fool of herself in front of her new neighbor, and once was more than enough. "My, uh," she glanced down at the animal that was now winding itself around her ankles, "cat and I were just about to go to the hardware store."

Once again, Jaxson's gaze flicked up before it settled on Kate's face. He opened his mouth only to close it a second later without having said anything further.

This time, Kate leaned over the railing and craned her neck to peer up toward the roof. Not seeing anything amiss, she shrugged, bent down, and cautiously scooped up the cat, then headed back toward the house.

"If you have any problems…"

She paused long enough to toss a look at him over one shoulder. "Yeah, I remember. Don't worry, I have no intention of inconveniencing you again with my problems." Still cradling the cat, she marched back into her own house. She used her foot to shut the door, not bothering to latch it since they'd be leaving again in a minute.

"Yes, you're going to have to go, too, cat," she said, absently stroking its short, rough fur as she entered the front sitting room. "Sorry, but you can't stay."

The cat meowed and its tail swished against Kate's arm. She refused to look into its eyes.

"Forget it, buddy. Right now, the last thing I need is someone else depending on me. As you can see, I'm not doing so hot at the moment." Kate exhaled. "Besides, I work all day, and Lilly will be at school." She paused. "Although, I don't suppose you require a whole lot of upkeep."

She did look at the cat, then, wincing over the pale scar that cut a path through the animal's fur, only a few inches from its left eye. The old wound dipped down the side of its face, ending somewhere beneath its chin. "I can't keep you," she repeated. The cat settled itself securely in her arms and rested its head on Kate's forearm.

She sighed. "I just became a cat owner, didn't I?"

Glass crunched beneath her shoes, and she stared down at the mess on the floor of the sitting room. Muted light filtered in through the sheers that hung on the wide, dingy windows and reflected little prisms of light from the shards of glass that littered the floor. Glass, glitter, and fake snow was strewn over most of the intricate but threadbare Fleur-de-lis-patterned gold-and-burgundy rug. A glance at the black marble fireplace mantel showed two empty spaces.

"You're here for less than a day and you've already broken two snow globes." She tsked and bent for a closer look. "And you've nicked the floor." She frowned at the fresh, chipped groove in the wood floor. Tightening one arm around the cat, she reached with the other and gingerly picked up the base that had belonged to the larger of the two globes, testing its weight.

"How did you manage to gouge the floor like this?" she mused.

A clock chimed six times, the gong reverberating throughout the house. The cat stiffened in her arms, and Kate made little shushing noises in an absent attempt to comfort the creature.

"Come on, we'll hit the hardware store for some cleaning supplies … and a new lock," she said, snagging her purse from the floor of the entryway where she'd dropped it earlier. She got as far as the driveway before she stopped and groaned. Would anything in Crystal Cove except the hospital and maybe a diner or two be open this early? Probably not. But there was a Walmart about twenty minutes down the highway. She remembered seeing it on the drive in yesterday. Weren't those usually twenty-four hour?

Depositing the cat into the passenger seat of the car, she plopped down into the driver's seat, tapped a quick text message to Lilly, then cranked the ignition. She rolled her window down to dispel some of the humidity, then shifted gears and backed out onto the street. The whisper of the wind as it moved gently through the large, towering old trees and merged with the swish of tires on damp pavement was the only sound to be heard as Kate made her way onto the main road and left the silent neighborhood behind.