And she certainly wasn’t expecting anyone. How could she be, when the only people she knew in Denver now were the few strangers who had offered help since the fire?
She considered ignoring whoever was there and keeping the door safely closed. But she couldn’t risk a second round of those heavy knocks, so she got off the bed as fast as she could and made her way to the window beside the door.
She was careful to only open the drape a crack, just enough for her to peek at whoever was out there before revealing herself.
There were lights in the overhang outside each room’s door, so she could see that there was a man just outside.
A really big man. Tall, broad-shouldered, standing ramrod straight, muscles barely contained by a white polo shirt that stretched tightly over his shoulders and biceps.
He didn’t look like the truckers she’d seen when she’d arrived. This guy was meticulously groomed and there didn’t seem to be a relaxed bone in his impressive body. In fact, between the way he was standing there—almost at attention—and the short cut of his espresso-colored hair, there was something about him that said military.
Military and strikingly handsome.
He had a square brow, deep-set eyes that stared straight ahead at the door, a nose that was a little flat across the bridge and somehow ruggedly distinguished, full, sensuous lips and a jawline that a sculptor’s knife couldn’t have shaped any better.
Good looks—a serial killer’s best asset, Kyla thought.
But as he raised his massive fist to knock a second time she decided she was less afraid of a serial killer than of waking Immy, so she poked her entire head past the curtain, opened the window just a crack and said a hushed, “Can I help you?”
His head alone turned in her direction, giving her a fuller view of his face.
Oh yeah, he was fantastic looking...
Now that he was peering directly at her, she could see that those deep-set eyes were an incredible, intense cobalt blue. A remarkable, unusual blue.
And it was those blue eyes that suddenly sparked familiarity.
“Kyla?” he said.
It couldn’t be...
“Can I help you?” she repeated as she convinced herself that she was imagining things.
“You don’t recognize me?” the man outside said.
“Who are you?” she asked even as she began to think that she knew.
“Beau. Beau Camden,” he said.
Despite confirmation, Kyla stared at him in disbelief.
She couldn’t help wondering if she was hallucinating. She’d refused pain medication because she hadn’t wanted to be impaired in any way when she had to take care of Immy. But she still wondered if something they’d given her in the hospital had come back to haunt her.
That seemed more likely than that Beau Camden could have materialized from the past. At just that moment. And here, of all places.
Yet, as she studied the man outside, she began to see in him small images of the boy she’d once known.
Most definitely in the eyes. Although while the color was the same, the innocence she remembered was lost.
There were also hints of the boy in the features that time had fine-tuned and chiseled, accentuating cheekbones and giving a leaner line to the face that had had more roundness to it fourteen years ago.
At seventeen, Beau Camden had been tall. Maybe not quite as tall as this guy, but close. And his hair had been the same color—though there had been more of it as a teenager that summer.
More hair and far, far smaller muscles...
Still, the longer she looked at him, the easier it was to believe that this was, indeed, Beau Camden.
And with that belief, resentment came back to life.
“Beau...” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not sure where to start,” he said. “Could I come in?”
Had the hospital given her anything that could cause weird flashbacks and hallucinations? Because she just didn’t know how this could possibly be happening.
“Are you for real?” she heard herself ask.
He took a wallet from his back pocket, opened it and held his driver’s license close enough to the window for her to see it.
It looked new and the picture was exactly of the man standing there. Beaumont Anthony Camden.
Beaumont...
She’d teased him about that that summer...
A good memory all twisted up with bad ones, causing a pain that had nothing to do with the escape from the fire.
“Or it’s nice out here—you could come out,” he suggested as he put his wallet away.
Since she didn’t think hallucinations had driver’s licenses, and it began to sink in that he really was who he said he was, she didn’t have reason to fear him. He wouldn’t hurt her—not physically, anyway. And resentment or no resentment, she was curious about what he was doing there, not to mention how and why.
But she couldn’t let him into her room and take the chance that Immy would wake up.
So she said, “Give me a minute and I’ll come out.”
“Take all the time you need.”
Kyla ducked behind the curtains and held them tightly closed in front of her.
Then she opened them just a slit and peeked out again to see if Beau Camden really was out there.
He was. She hadn’t imagined this. She wasn’t hallucinating.
And he was waiting for her, now standing near a big black SUV parked outside her room. Still posture-perfect, with his long, thick, jeans-encased legs spread shoulder width apart and hands behind his back.
Military for sure.
But now that she knew who he was there was no surprise in that.
She closed the drapes tightly again, suddenly realizing that she didn’t know how presentable she was.
She went to the mirror over the small bureau near the bathroom.
Once she got there and took a look at herself she thought maybe she shouldn’t have.
She’d showered at the hospital that morning, but everything she’d brought with her from Northbridge had been lost in the fire. That meant no makeup, let alone anything to camouflage the dark bruise on her temple or any blush to put color into the pallor that the trauma had left her with.
Luckily there was only one bruise on her face—the rest of her injuries were under her clothes.
Her dark amber eyes weren’t blackened or swollen—she counted that as a good thing. Her thin, straight nose was unmarred. And while she wished she had lip gloss, her lips were a natural pink color that hadn’t paled along with the rest of her face.
Basically she looked like what she was—someone who had just finished a hospital stay. But there wasn’t much she could do about that, so she focused on her hair.
It was about an inch longer than chin length, cut to turn under at the ends, with long bangs that she wore swept to one side. She’d had highlights added to its reddish-brown hue just before leaving home, and neither her hair nor her eyebrows had been singed.
But without her own shampoo and styling products or a curling iron, her hair