“Cal –” Kenzie Elise started, her hands lifted, placating.

“Shut the fuck up,” I heard his growl, his voice low, deep, rumbling and as sinister as his appearance. I heard it but I didn’t see him and Kenzie’s back was turned to me. He was still out of eyesight but, wherever he was, she was watching him.

All of a sudden I realized my goal had been attained. The music had stopped. Therefore it was time to go home and let this domestic situation play out without an audience.

I turned to leave but heard his voice again.

“You.”

Stupidly, I looked into the house to see his eyes on me.

“I –” I began to make my explanations that I was going to go home but he came at me and I stared as he did. His powerful body was moving in my direction and I was caught, seeing the danger but somehow my limbs were useless even though my brain screamed at them to move.

Faster than it seemed possible, he was right in my space, his big hand was wrapped around my upper arm and he pulled me into the house. This didn’t hurt, not his hand on me or him dragging me into the house and it probably didn’t because I didn’t struggle and I didn’t struggle because I knew this man could break me like a twig.

So I found myself standing in my next door neighbor’s house, me in hot pink daisy wellingtons, a nightie and Tim’s robe; my neighbor in faded jeans, black motorcycle boots, a black t-shirt and a black leather jacket; and Hollywood movie star Kenzie Elise in a barely there, emerald green, lace teddy and platform stripper shoes.

How did this happen?

It was like a dream, a weird, bad dream that you woke up from and felt strange and unsettled and it left you thinking, What the fuck?

But, it was happening, I was there, breathing, conscious and all I could think was, God, I miss Tim.

“Stay,” my neighbor commanded to me in his deep, scary voice and I tipped my head back to look into his clear blue eyes and I could do nothing but nod.

Then he let my arm go and stalked into the depths of the house.

“Cal, darling, I just wanted –” Kenzie Elise started but he disappeared from sight so she stopped speaking.

I wondered why she didn’t go after him instead of standing there with me in the room, the front door open, wearing nothing but that teddy that left little if anything to the imagination.

Then again, in his frame of mind, I probably wouldn’t follow him either.

It was at this point I wondered why she didn’t run to her Porsche and get gone.

I didn’t run because he’d told me to stay and I didn’t think it was a good idea to defy him. He didn’t seem mad at me, not at that juncture, and I wasn’t fired up to make him that way.

She didn’t look at me and I eventually pried my eyes away from her but I was able to do this because he returned, carrying in his arms a bundle of clothes. He walked right by her, right by me and right to the door where he threw the clothes into the snow.

My mouth dropped open again.

“Cal!” she shouted. Rushing on her stripper shoes to the door, she peered out at her clothes then whirled back around again to look at him, her eyes never once hitting me. She was avoiding me or ignoring me. I didn’t know which but I thought both were good ways to play it.

He had her purse in his hand and he was sauntering back into the room. He yanked out a set of keys as she turned back to him.

“You threw my clothes in the snow!” she shrieked then jumped to the side as he tossed her purse at her. It was open and stuff flew out everywhere as it sailed through the air and then more stuff flew out when it landed on the floor.

“Cal!” she screeched, bending, bony knees to her chest, ass to the ground and scrambling to get her things.

I started to bend too, to help her but stopped when his voice sounded.

“Don’t.”

My head snapped back to look at him and his eyes were pinning me to the spot. He was so angry, visibly livid, and so frightening, I forgot how to breathe.

I slowly straightened, forcing air into my lungs as Kenzie scrambled on the floor, now on her hands and knees in her teddy and stripper shoes, shoving stuff into her purse.

“This is insane,” she snapped and she was definitely right.

He was taking a key off her keychain and had this task accomplished by the time she made it to her feet with her purse again intact which was lucky for her because he tossed her keys to her without hesitating to make sure she was prepared. She lunged to grab them, bobbled them but kept them in hand.

“Out,” he ordered tersely.

“Cal –” she started.

“Get the fuck out.”

“This scene is ridiculous,” she hissed, leaning toward him which, I thought, was not a very good idea.

“You’re right,” he agreed.

She changed strategies so fast I wasn’t keeping up.

Her voice was a purr again when she began, “Darling, I thought –”

“What, Kenzie?” he asked, his eyes moving the length of her, his lip curled in disgust. “You thought what? Fuck, woman, I had better head in junior high. You think I’d come back for more from your mouth? Sloppy. So sloppy, I was fuckin’ embarrassed for you.”

At his words I’d drawn in breath but Kenzie’s face had gone paler than her signature flawlessly-pale-skinned pale.

When Kenzie stood still as a statue and didn’t speak, he noted. “You’re still here.”

“I –” she started.

“Need to get a fuckin’ clue,” he finished for her. “Christ, how many times do we need to do this? It was a mistake, biggest fuckin’ mistake I’ve made in years. When I was doin’ you, I faked it. I had to jack off in the shower to get off after I was done with you.”

I swallowed, wanting really badly to be anywhere else, anywhere but there.

“You faked it?” she whispered, sounding horrified and beaten, her voice like a little girl who, way too early in her young life, just found out there was no Santa Claus.

“Yeah and if your head wasn’t so far up your ass, you woulda noticed. Instead, you keep playin’ out this fuckin’ drama and, swear to Christ, it happens again, it’s not gonna make me fuckin’ happy.”

He seemed to be pretty unhappy currently but I’d just met him, maybe he could get more unhappy which meant I never wanted to be near him again.

“Cal, I –” she started again but he leaned forward and her mouth slammed shut.

“Not gonna say it again. Get. The fuck. Out.”

Thankfully, she’d had enough. She turned, avoiding my eyes, and walked in her teddy and stripper shoes out the open front door into the snow and bitter cold.

I stood unmoving as he stalked to the door, slammed it and, to my extreme discomfort, locked it.

I swallowed again.

Then I said softly, “I’d like to go home now.”

He turned to face me and his eyes leveled on mine.

I pressed my lips together and my stomach clenched.

He didn’t speak and I didn’t know what to do.

Finally, his eyes dropped and I watched as they slid, slowly, from my face down my body to my feet and, just as slowly, starting back up to my face.

During this journey I realized that my robe had fallen open and he could see my nightie. Pale lavender satin, short, hitting me at the upper thighs but there was a three-inch hem of smoky gray lace below that. The same lace was at the bodice over the cups of material covering my breasts. The nightie fit close at my chest and midriff but there was room to move around my hips and thighs. It was nowhere near as risqué as Kenzie’s teddy. It left something to the imagination and that was good, unless you had an imagination.

Carefully, I pulled the edges of my robe together and his eyes speeded up to hit mine and I knew the instant they did, without any doubt, he had an imagination.

My mouth went dry.

“I’m Joe Callahan,” he stated.

“Hello Joe,” I said quietly.

“Cal,” he corrected me and I nodded but remained silent.

When this stretched the length of the Porsche firing up and reversing out of the drive, Joe Callahan prompted, “You are?”

“Your neighbor.”

His heavy, dark brows went up. “Does my neighbor have a name?”

I shook my head and his heavy, dark brows drew together.

“You don’t have a name?” he asked.

“I think I want to leave,” I told him.

His face got hard but his voice got soft when he said, “Listen, buddy –”

“No, please, Joe, I want to leave.”

“Cal.”

“Whatever, I’d like to leave,” I repeated.

He started toward me and I backed up, lifting a shaking hand and he stopped, his eyes dropping to my hand before cutting back to my face.

“I live next door, that’s it,” I said softly. “I wanted the music to stop. It’s stopped. Now I’d like to leave.”

His eyes held mine and something was happening in them, I just didn’t know what and, after witnessing that scene, listening to the way he spoke to her, what he said, how he said it and the utter humiliation he inflicted, I didn’t care. Then his gaze dropped to my body again, he closed his eyes and stepped to the side.

I wasted not even a second. I ran to the door, unlocked it, threw it open, ran out and across the snow to my house. I threw myself through the side door, closed it, locked it, threw the chain and then armed the alarm.

Then, quaking head to foot, I slid off the wellies, made my shaky way to my bedroom and got in bed with Tim’s robe on, pulling up the covers to my neck.

I turned my head to the frame sitting on my nightstand. I could barely see it in the dark but I didn’t need to see it, I had the picture it held memorized. Tim and me, close up, he was behind me, both his arms around my shoulders, wrapped across my upper chest, his jaw pressed to the side of my head, my head slightly turned into him. He was looking at the camera. I had my eyes closed.

We were both laughing.

“Miss you, baby,” I whispered to the frame, my voice shaking as hard as my body still was.

The frame had no reply, it fucking never did.

* * *

The next morning, Joe Callahan’s house was quiet and the shiny, black, new model Ford pickup was gone.

It wouldn’t come back for three weeks.

* * *

It was four o’clock in the afternoon, I’d been at the garden shop all day and during the day it had snowed.

I was sick of snow and I wished I’d picked Florida or Arizona or somewhere that didn’t have snow when I’d packed up my girls and fled Chicago.

Furthermore, Kate was driving now. She’d turned sixteen and she got her license and I bought her a car. Tim would have been pissed I bought her a car. Then again, he’d have been pissed I bought myself a Mustang. As a cop, he’d seen too many accidents so he was all for staid, sturdy cars that were built so tough you could drive them through a building and only have to buff out a few scratches. He might have driven like a lunatic (which he did), but he wasn’t a big fan of me doing it (which I didn’t unless I was in, say, a Mustang) and he wasn’t a big fan of spoiling the girls.

Then again, with a dead Dad, spoiling them had become something of a habit.

And anyway, I didn’t have Tim anymore to help me take them places and pick them up. I also didn’t live in a household with two cars unless I bought one for Kate.

So I did.

She was a good driver, responsible, my Kate. Keira, now, Keira would probably be picked up joyriding when she had her learner’s permit with me in the car. Keira was a magnet for trouble. Kate would rather die a thousand bloody, painful deaths than break a rule or get into trouble. Keira would make a deal with the devil for a killer pair of shoes and not even blink.

Even if Kate was responsible and a good driver, I still hated it when she drove in snow.

This was what I was thinking as I drove home from the Bobbie’s Garden Shoppe, my now full-time job. I found out that morning that I was now full-time since Sabrina had her twins a week ago. She’d called Bobbie the night before and told Bobbie that her maternity leave was indefinite.

“Thank God, the bitch could moan,” Bobbie had said this morning when she gave me the news and asked me to go from part-time to full-time. “Saves me from firing her ass, ‘cause, when she wasn’t moanin’, she was jackin’ around even before she was luggin’ them twins around. Yeesh, two babies in that belly of hers, looked like seven.”