And the situation was perfect. No one could find her here. In theory. She was pretty sure her new employer wouldn’t be phoning up any references or doing a background check. The woman must be desperate too. She’d practically hired Uma over the phone, for goodness’ sake.
Someone should have answered by now.
Uma knocked again. Hard, her hand starting to tremble.
Something moved in her peripheral vision, startling Uma into a gasp. The curtain in the front window?
The cloth twitched a second time. The woman was watching. Making Uma wait out here, overdressed in the unseasonable heat, sweat gathering along her hairline. Okay, fine. She could see how it made sense to check out a stranger before letting her in. She’d give the lady a few more minutes to finish her perusal. If only she could get some air. Just a little air in this stifling heat.
When there was no response to her third knock, Uma panicked. According to the oversize watch on her arm, three minutes had passed. Three minutes spent standing on a porch, enduring the scrutiny of a self-proclaimedabuserwho represented her only chance at a job. Not the auspicious beginning she had hoped for.
It was all so familiar too. Maybe not the exact circumstances, but the feelings she lived with on a daily basis—insecurity, worry, fear clawing at her chest, crowding her throat so each inhale was a struggle. Before they could overwhelm her, she shoved them away and walked down the rickety porch stairs and around to the side of the house, where she could gather herself unseen beneath the first-floor windows. She needed tobreathe.
Uma took a shaky breath in, then out, another in, before biting into the meaty pad of her thumb. The ritual was safe, easy to sink back into, the shape of her teeth already worn into her hand.Just a little while, she thought.Until I sort myself out, and then…Then she had no idea what. She had nowhere to go, nothing left to aspire to.
One step at a time. That was her life now. No planning, no future.
She was vaguely aware that the lawn mower drew near, no longer background noise, buzzing close and echoing the beat of her heart. She’d have to push off this wall sooner or later, but the warm clapboard was solid against her back, and along with the sharp smell of freshly clipped grass, it kept her right here, present, in her body. A few more breaths and she’d move. Time to decide whether she’d head up to the house to give it another try or cut her losses and take off, find something else.
Yeah, right.
The problem was she wouldn’t be cutting her losses by leaving—she’d be compounding them. How on earth could she go back on the road with the gas gauge onEand ten bucks to her name?
Strike that. After this morning’s breakfast, she had only $6.54.
Uma sank down onto her haunches, the ground squelching under her heels, and squeezed her eyes shut so hard that black dots floated behind the lids.
She had nothing left—no home, no job, no way of making money, no skills but one…and Joey had destroyed any chance of pursuing her true livelihood when he’d smashed her cameras. Doing that, he’d destroyedher. Six months later, she was still trapped.
If she let herself feel it, there’d be no shortage of pain, inside and out. As usual, her wrist under the watch was raw, and her skin itched everywhere. It must be psychosomatic. It couldn’t still itch after all this time, could it?
Visualizing his marks on her skin was enough to make her hyperventilate again. And the tightness was there, that constriction that had left her constantly out of breath these past several months. She’d thought the miles would clear the airways, but they hadn’t.
And now she was back. Back in Virginia. Shallow breaths succeeded one another, pinching her nostrils and rasping noisily through her throat. Joey was close. Two hours away by car. Way too close for comfort. She swore she could feel him looking for her, closing in on her.
Something cold and wet swiped Uma’s hand, snapping her back to the present. She opened her eyes with a start, only to come face-to-face with adog. A black one with a tan face, floppy ears, and pretty brown eyes rimmed in black, like eyeliner. It smiled at her.
It was something else, that dog, with that sweet look on its face. Like it gave a crap. Weird. The expression was so basically human, it pulled back the tunnel vision and let some light seep in. The dog nudged her chest, hard, and pushed its way into her arms in a big, warm tackle-hug. Uma had no choice but to hug back.
Its cold nose against her neck shocked a giggle out of her. “Oh, all right. You got moves, dog.”
“She does,” said a deep voice from above.
Uma’s head snapped back in surprise, sounding a dullthunkagainst the clapboard. Oh God. Where hadhecome from?
“She’s a barnacle.”
Uma nodded dully, throat clogged with fear.Stop it, she berated herself.You’ve got to stop freaking out at every guy who says two words to you.She tried for a friendly smile. It felt like a grimace.
The man just stood there, a few feet away, looking at her. She waited. He waited. He looked like a big, creepy yard worker or something. Tall. Really,reallytall.
“Gorilla,” he said.
“What?”
“My dog, Squeak. She’s a guerrilla fighter. Thought about callin’ her Shock ’n’ Awe.”
“Squeak?” She stared up at him, craning her neck with the effort. She was wrong before. To say he was tall was an understatement. The man blocked out the sun. With the light behind him, it was hard to see much, aside from the big, black beard covering half his face and the shaggy mane around it. His voice was deep, gravelly.Burly.It went with the hair and the lumberjack shirt. You didn’t see guys like him where she came from.
