Running Blind Read online

  She should’ve left this place weeks ago.

  She could leave now. Tonight.

  But she wouldn’t. She was caught in a balancing act: this was a safe haven from Brad, she was socking away money, and damned if she didn’t like what she was doing. On the other side of the seesaw was the emotional cost of staying here, and that cost was growing larger with time. There had to be a tipping point, but she could only trust that she’d know when that time came, when she sensed the cost of staying outweighed the benefits. That was when she’d move on.

  But right now, she had to deal with her sleeplessness. No matter what had happened today, in the morning she still had to get up at the same friggin’ ungodly hour to start breakfast. She needed to relax, settle her mind.

  She threw back the covers and stepped into the warm slippers that were sitting beside her bed, then grabbed the bathrobe that hung over the footboard and headed for the door with great purpose. There was one piece of apple pie left. That and a glass of milk would help her get to sleep. And if not, well, she’d be sleepless and happy instead of sleepless and fretful. Maybe it wasn’t a win-win, but it definitely rated a win.

  There was a nightlight in the hallway, another in the kitchen. The house was quiet except for the sound of the buffeting wind. Zeke was an early riser, which meant he went to bed early, too; he’d probably been asleep for a couple of hours. It was unlikely that he could hear her from his upstairs bedroom, but still, she made an effort to be quiet as she raided the fridge.

  She sat at the small kitchen table with the last piece of apple pie, a fork, and a small glass of milk. The simple task of gathering the midnight snack hadn’t stopped her mind from spinning, and it certainly hadn’t done anything to settle the wind, but still … apple pie would make everything better.

  She didn’t hear him coming, didn’t have a clue, but without warning he was there, looming in the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, filling the space and charging the air with the electricity that seemed to be part of his aura. When he entered a room, he owned it, somehow.

  He stopped in the doorway, surprise flitting across his face. Of course he was surprised; if he’d expected her to be in the kitchen, he probably wouldn’t have come down in nothing except a pair of jeans, which told her he didn’t sleep in pajamas—but then, she already knew that, because she did his laundry, and there had never been even a pair of sleep pants. Whether he slept naked or in his boxers, she didn’t know, and damn, she sure wished her mind hadn’t gone there, because, damn, he looked good. No shoes, no shirt. Long and lean and hard. He hadn’t worked out in a gym for those muscles, he’d gotten them the old-fashioned way, with hard labor. The bare skin on his shoulders gleamed, his arms were sinewy and thick with ropes of muscles, his big hands rough with calluses, the knuckles raw from the fight that afternoon—

  This time she didn’t panic; panic was the furthest thing from her mind. She looked at him and had to swallow hard, because she knew what those muscles felt like, knew how his skin smelled, how warm, how heavy he was—oh, thank God for the pie, because it gave her an excuse for swallowing again. Her mouth was literally watering.

  “Sorry,” he said, and then he turned to go back the way he’d come.

  “Wait.” She knew she shouldn’t have said it. Bad idea. The smartest thing would be for him to go back to bed. Maybe she could forget what he looked like, barefoot and shirtless. Maybe she could forget how he smelled. Yeah, and maybe she’d find a magic wand under her bed and she could wave it around and all her troubles would be gone.

  But this was his house, after all, and she really shouldn’t run him out of his own kitchen, even if she considered it her kitchen, for the duration.

  He stopped, turned. The light from his new position didn’t offer as tempting a view, since he was almost entirely in shadow, which was just as well, she supposed. She swallowed another excess of saliva. “What do you need?”

  He gave a short, sharp exhale, not quite a snort. “I came down for that last piece of apple pie. You beat me to it, fair and square.” She heard the soft humor in his voice. There was none of the bite she often heard when he gave her a hard time.

  “It’s a big piece. I’m happy to share.” Before he could protest she got up and fetched an extra plate from the cabinet. She grabbed another fork, too, and a knife to cut the pie in half. “Milk?” she asked. He wasn’t much of a milk drinker, but there was no decaf coffee made.

  “I’ll get it.”

  He poured a glass while she returned to the table, cut the piece of pie in half, and slid the bigger half to another place—one on the other side of the table. Zeke sat, flicked an assessing look between their two slices of pie, winked at her, and then dug in. Carlin found herself playing with her pie, taking a small bite, flaking the crust with a tine of her fork. Jesus God, he’d winked at her. No flirting! She couldn’t allow flirting.

  The wind picked up, a gust howling like a wolf as it swirled around the house. “The wind is something else,” she said.

  “Cold front,” he replied.

  “I figured as much.”

  “Supposed to be snow by the end of the week.”

  Oh good lord, she was sitting in the dimly lit kitchen at midnight with a half-naked man who made her forget that she should be on the move, who made her mouth water, who drove her crazy in more ways than she could count, and they were talking about the weather. How pitiful was that? And even more pitiful was that she was grateful they were just talking about the weather.

  “I’ve never seen much snow.” Unless flurries counted—and rare flurries, at that. She still couldn’t believe that she, who loved sun and beaches, was about to willingly go through a Wyoming winter.

  He made a sound that might’ve been a half laugh. “That’s about to change.” His gaze lifted, hard green lasers boring into her. “You’re not going to run, are you?”

  How had he guessed that every day she was more and more torn? She wanted to be here, she did, so much that she was becoming more and more afraid to stay. She tried for a nonchalant tone. “I thought you didn’t want me here. Spencer will be out of his sling in a few days, and he can always—”

  “Just promise me you’re not going to run.”

  Carlin picked at her pie, took a small bite, chased it with some milk. She could feel Zeke looking at her. She could feel him waiting. “No,” she finally answered. “I won’t promise. But I’ll do my best to stay until spring.” That was as close to a promise, and a warning, as she could get.

  She finished her pie and milk, took her plate and fork and glass to the sink, rinsed them out, and left them for when she ran the dishwasher after breakfast. So much for a nice, relaxing piece of pie. So much for getting to sleep anytime soon. The man she worked for had worked his way under her skin, and she liked it. Damnation.

  And then he was there, moving silently on bare feet, placing his dishes in the sink beside hers. He was so close she could feel his body heat, and she could swear every little hair on her body was standing at attention. It was like electricity was running through her veins, like her insides had turned to fire and ice. She waited for him to move away, but he didn’t. He just stood there, close, warm, a temptation.

  She turned her head and looked up. She wasn’t sure why, but she was compelled. It was like the stupid girl going down into the dark basement in the slasher movies. He was right there, that bare chest was right there. She could lean forward just a few inches and put her mouth on him, taste him.… She squirmed, but didn’t move away, not even when Zeke’s head moved toward hers, his focus on her mouth, his intent so clear she had plenty of time to back away, to tell him to stop … but she didn’t.

  He kissed her. Kiss was much too simple a word for what happened, much too small a word for the powerful connection that rocked her to her core. She felt that kiss in her toes, in the top of her head, all through her body. She felt alive, really alive, for the first time in a long while. With his mouth on hers she wasn’t thinking abou