Kayla squinted at David’s pajama bottoms. They did, indeed, have the very subtle label of the men’s designer firm, and she had to admire the officer’s professional powers of observation.
She also had to bite back another giggle as she realized her own attire, her summer-weight, white nightie, might be worthy of a painting, but it was way too revealing. She maneuvered back into the shadow cast by David.
David shot her a warning look over his shoulder when she had to bite back another giggle.
“What do you think of AIM?” the policeman asked, putting the dark writing pad he’d held in his hand back into his shirt pocket. He snapped a flashlight onto his belt.
“Personally, I think it’s a dog,” David said.
“Unfortunately, not the dog we are looking for,” Kayla inserted helpfully.
David gave her a look over his shoulder, and then continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “If you have it, now’s the time to dump it. If you don’t have it, don’t buy it. Try—” he smiled a bit “—Slugs and Snails. It trades as SAS-B.TO.”
“Really?”
David lifted a shoulder. “If you’re into taking advice from a half-naked man in his pajamas in the middle of the night.”
The policeman finally relaxed completely. Now it was all buddy to buddy. He laughed. “Well, the pajamas are Slugs and Snails. How far are you from home?”
“Sugar Maple,” David said.
“I can give you a lift back over there.”
“No!” David’s answer was instant. “Thanks anyway.”
“Speak for yourself,” Kayla said firmly. “It’s a perfect finish for this day—a ride in the backseat of a police car. Plus, it’s on my bucket list.”
David glared at her. “Why would that be on your bucket list?”
“Because it’s what everyone least expects of me.”
“You got that right,” David growled.
But a deeper part of the truth was that Kayla knew David wouldn’t get in the police car because he would be aware, as she was, that everyone had phones and cameras these days. He was the CEO of a company that relied on his reputation being squeaky clean. He was publically recognizable because of his success and his involvement with well-known and high-profile people. Kelly O’Ranahan was only one of a long list.
David Blaze was a public figure. Kayla didn’t really blame him for not getting in, but she was aware as she smiled at him, as the policeman opened the door for her and she slid into the backseat, that she needed for this encounter with David to be over.
She felt she had, somehow, revealed too much of herself on the basis of a starry night and an old friendship.
Now she felt the vulnerability of her confessions, felt faintly ashamed of herself and as if she had betrayed Kevin.
But worse than any of that? The yearning she had felt when David had reached out and touched her hair.
Kayla felt she had to escape him.
Being determined that he would not see any of that, she gave David a cheeky wave as she drove away in the police car.
And then she let the relief well up in her, a feeling as if she was escaping something dangerous and unpredictable and uncontrollable.
She liked being in control. Especially after Kevin.
“Hey, good luck with your dog,” the cop said, a few minutes later. He very sweetly got out and opened the car door for her before he drove away.
Despite the fact her day had unfolded as a series of mishaps, and her dog was missing, and she had discovered, within herself, an unspoken bitterness toward Kevin, Kayla was uncomfortably aware of something as she climbed the dilapidated stairs to her house.
She felt alive. She felt intensely and vibrantly alive, possibly for the first time since she had left Blossom Valley.
She could not even remember the last time she had laughed so hard as when the police light had been turned on her and David.
Her life, she realized, had been way too serious for way too long. When had she lost her ability to be spontaneous?
But she already knew. Her marriage had become an ongoing effort to control everything— fun had become a distant memory.
Yearning grabbed her again. To feel alive. To laugh.
Despite the hour, Kayla didn’t feel like sleeping. She didn’t feel ready, somehow, to leave the night—with its odd combination of magic and self-discovery and discomfort—behind. She went into the kitchen, turned on the light, opened the fridge.
Somehow, drinking lemonade on her front porch and watching the sun come up sounded wonderful in a way it would not have even a day ago.
And who knew? Maybe she would even see Bastigal wandering home from his own adventure.
But it was the thought that maybe she was really waiting to see David again that made her rethink it. She closed the fridge door—and the door on all her secret longings. She turned off the lights and ordered herself to bed.
But not before having one last peek out the window. She told herself she was having one last look for Bastigal, and yet her stomach did a funny downward swoop when she watched David come down the street.
Kayla sank back in the shadows of her house as she watched David take the front steps of the house next door. He pulled up the screen and tried the handle.
Kayla realized the care aide had decided to do her job now. The front door was locked up tight.
Telling herself it was none of her business, she went to a side window and watched him go to the back door of his house. It was the same. Locked.
He tried a window. Locked. Kayla noticed all the windows were closed, which was a real shame on such a beautiful night—but she realized all sorts of precautions would be in place to try and ensure his mother’s well-being.
As she continued to watch, David went back to the door and knocked lightly. Kayla could tell he did not want to wake his mother if she was sleeping. Presumably the care aide was not, but she did not come to the door, either. Watching television, maybe?
He stepped back off the steps, and Kayla could tell he was contemplating his options.
She could offer him her couch, of course. He had rescued her today—no, given the lateness of the hour, that was yesterday already—after she’d been stung.
She’d only be returning the favor.
But she remembered his deeply sarcastic tone when he had said earlier today: Kayla to the rescue.
And then, a certain wryness in his tone, he had remembered her working at that camp, those children trailing her through town.
Really, more of the same.
Kayla to the rescue. It made her aware that she needed to resist whatever was going on in her.
She was going to go to bed, and she was going to mind her own business and not feel the least bit guilty about it, either.
Not even when she peeked back out her window and saw him dragging a thick cushion off the patio furniture down the deck steps and onto the lush grass of his mother’s backyard.
She watched him lay it out a few feet from the bottom of the steps, and then lie down on top of it, on his back, his face toward the sky as if he could not get enough of the stars tonight. Some tension left him, and she was not sure she had ever seen a person look more relaxed.
And she envied him for the place he had among the stars. Had she offered her couch and had he taken it, she would have deprived him of this moment.
It