Unbound (Crimson Romance) (7 page)

Even over the noise, she heard the gentle tapping at her window. She jerked around to look at the small window on the wall adjacent to the desk. The light of the room reflecting off the glass made it impossible to see out the window.

She tried to shrug it off.
Probably just the wind moving the tree.

In spite of her rationalization, she moved to close the curtains over the window. She had to take a deep breath before she could force herself to get close enough to actually reach the curtain.

She glanced at the clock and decided to go to bed. She planned on baking the next morning before she went to the diner. She was looking forward to it. She hadn’t been able to do any baking since before New Year’s Eve. Several days of not baking felt like a long time for her.

She turned off her music and shut down her computer. Flipping the light off, she headed toward her bedroom. She slowly moved through her nightly routine in the bathroom. When she finished, all she had to do was crawl into bed and fall asleep.

Half an hour later, though, she was still awake. The house was so quiet she could hear herself breathing. She never had trouble falling asleep. Her head hit the pillow, and she was out. It was unsettling to her that she couldn’t sleep.

She gave herself all sorts of reasons.
You’re still too stressed from the past couple days. You slept too much today. Your internal clock is wacked out from the weird hours lately.

When the phone rang, though, she knew none of those reasons were true. That phone call was why she couldn’t sleep. It was why she was jumping at shadows and why she was lying in bed listening for every creak of her house.

She reached out to grab the phone from the nightstand. She knew — was absolutely positive — there wouldn’t be anyone talking on the other end. She answered it anyway.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?”

When there wasn’t an answer, she hung up the phone.
It’s just kids. Just damn kids. They probably think it’s funny. We’ll cure this. First thing tomorrow, I’m getting caller ID.

The phone rang again, causing Payten to nearly jump out of her skin. She stared at it stupidly for a minute. They had never called back so soon. She knew she should let it go to the answering machine, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Hello?”

She strained to hear something, anything. There was still nothing. She hung up the phone. She thought about turning the ringer off again. In the end, she decided against it. She knew she’d want to know if they called again.

When the phone rang again, she threw herself out of bed. She jerked the comforter off her bed with a quick yank. With the comforter and her pillow tucked under one arm and the phone in her other hand, she ran into the bathroom. She slammed the door behind herself and locked it.

After turning on the bathroom light, she sank to the floor. The phone kept ringing. She was terrified.

Happy thoughts,
she told herself.
If it isn’t kids, the bathroom is safe. Nobody can get in here. You’re safe. Completely insane, but safe.

The phone stopped ringing. She stayed huddled on the bathroom floor. She thought about calling the police. She seriously considered it for a long time. When the phone didn’t ring again, she decided she could wait until morning to complain.

This time she really would. She wasn’t going to talk herself out of it as she’d done that afternoon. Even if it was just a prank, it was annoying and disturbing. Surely the police would take her seriously. She was going to the police station right after she got her caller ID.

In the meantime, she planned on staying locked in her bathroom until daylight. She sighed.
I’m crazy,
she thought.
Completely insane.

She still didn’t leave the bathroom. Lying on the cool tile floor, she put her head on her pillow and wrapped herself in the comforter. She shivered a little. She convinced herself to think about something else.

Dean. That’s a nice, warming topic.
She felt herself blush even though no one else was around to guess her thoughts. She fell asleep thinking about his kisses.

Chapter Nine

Teddy stood at the grill in the back room of the diner. He stared down at it, thinking. He felt old. It was an unusual feeling for him.

In his younger years, he had been a handful. Skipping school, getting into fights, drinking like a fish, and getting stoned while staring at the lights of town from the bluffs had been normal for him. His junior year of high school, he had even managed to talk every cheerleader into his bed except one. He had definitely been a wild child.

One day, out of the blue, his parents gave him the keys to the diner. His mother kissed his cheek and told him to grow up. His pop had shrugged. That was the summer before his senior year of high school.

Teddy worked harder in that one summer than he ever worked before. Up at dawn every day that summer, he flipped pancakes and fried bacon until he couldn’t look at either. When the one waitress who’d remained after his parents left him floundering up and quit, Teddy had been forced to do something he had never done before.

He’d swallowed his pride and asked for help. It was only after he had tried everything else he could think of, but he did it. He called the only cheerleader he hadn’t had wrapped around his finger.

He knew from personal experience that she was tough as nails, reliable to a fault, and more than intelligent enough to remember orders, unlike some of the other girls he had tried. He needed her. He called and begged her. After some groveling on his part, she came.

“Teddy?”

He looked up at the sound of his wife’s voice. She stood with her hands on her hips. Her hair curled wildly around her shoulders. He knew she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

She came, and she never left.

“Hey, beautiful.”

“You plan on staring at that grill all morning, or are you actually going to put something on it?” she asked him.

Laughing, he reached out to grab her hand. He pulled her to him with her back against his chest. When he wrapped his arms around her waist, she let her head fall back to lean against his shoulder. She began to sway gently in his arms until he followed her lead.

“Let’s go away,” he whispered.

Her sway faltered a little, but she picked it back up quickly. “Teddy, we just got back.”

“I’m not talking about a vacation. Let’s run away. Let’s pack up and not come back for months. Let’s go see the world like you’ve always wanted.”

She stopped swaying and turned to look at him. “You’re serious?”

“I’m serious.”

She laughed nervously. “Teddy, we can’t just leave. What about Payten? What about the diner? What about our house?”

Teddy pulled her back against him. “Payten is a big girl,” he told her. “She’s older than I was when my parents gave me the diner. She can work it. Hell, as it is now, she runs the damn place.”

“Not by herself,” Sarah protested. “And Cooper just left. Who will cook?”

“She has Dean to cook. She already does the paperwork.”

“I don’t know.” Sarah pulled away again to look at his face. “You really mean this?”

“You’ve been squirreling away our money since we were eighteen. We can retire tomorrow and never need a cent. Besides, if we do, I’m sure Payten will let us work here.”

Sarah laughed. “Let me think about this, okay?”

“Sure.”

“I mean it, Teddy. Don’t breathe a word about this to Payten. Give me some time to think.”

He kissed her forehead. “Promise.”

It was at that moment that Payten came stumbling in the back door.

“Sweetheart, are you all right?” Sarah asked.

“I’m late. I know. I’m sorry.” Her words came out in a jumble, a jumble that sounded more angry than apologetic.

“Don’t worry about it,” Teddy told her. “I’ll go empty your car.”

“There’s nothing in it,” she snapped.

“Really?”

“I know. I was going to do some baking this morning, but — I overslept, all right?”

Teddy held up his hands in surrender. “I’m just going to go hide until you leave.”

“Pop,” Payten called as he moved toward the pantry. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be cranky. I had an awful night.”

“Tell us about it,” Sarah ordered. She took Payten’s hands in hers and worked Payten’s gloves off her rigid hands.

“I keep getting these stupid prank calls. In the middle of the night, too. It’s so frustrating. I know I should turn the ringer off, but I can’t. I have to know, you know? They call all the time. It’s so annoying.”

“What’s the number?” Teddy asked.

“No idea.” Sarah took Payten’s coat off her. He could almost see the internal debate she was having about telling her mother to back off. She must have decided against it, because she let Sarah continue to fuss over her. “I don’t have caller ID. I never thought to get it.”

“That’s cured easy enough, then. Call the phone company,” Teddy told her.

“I was going to this morning, but I overslept.”

“I think you should talk to the police, too,” Sarah decided.

“I was going to, but I overslept.”

“You already have this all figured out, don’t you?” he asked.

Payten smiled at him. It still turned him to mush. “Yeah.”

Sarah kissed her cheek. “Why don’t you go take care of that now? We’ve got it here.”

“Are you sure, Mom?”

“Positive, sweetheart.”

Payten shrugged. “All right, then. I’ll go do that.”

A familiar voice called from the front room of the diner. “Sandy! It’s time for breakfast!”

“Don’t forget to buy a phone that has caller ID, too,” Sarah reminded Payten as she left the kitchen.

Payten smiled. “I hadn’t thought of that one.”

Teddy smiled back at his baby girl. “Your mom thinks of everything. Where do you think you got it?”

“Same place I get my good looks,” she teased.

He chuckled. “Not from me. That’s for sure.”

She laughed. “I’m going to steal the phone to call the phone company. Is that all right?”

“Go for it.”

• • •

Dean was not looking forward to another trip into the police station. He never knew who would be there when he got there or how things would turn out. He hated showing up when his father was there. It was awkward for both of them.

Dean’s growing-up experience had been difficult. He didn’t blame his father for it. He had been through enough therapy —
thanks a lot for that, Dad
— to know that his father wasn’t responsible. He and his father had simply never learned to how to talk to each other.

Dean could remember his early years surprisingly well. He remembered eating breakfast sitting next to his father every morning. His mother made happy faces with his pancakes. She did the same with his father’s.

He remembered playing on the floor of his dad’s office after school until it was time to go home. He remembered his father helping him do his homework at the dinner table while his mother cooked. He remembered doing dishes as a family. His mother washed, he dried, and his father put them away. At bedtime, his mother read to him. Then his father helped him say his prayers.

He remembered them as a family. He remembered them happy. It was sad to remember, though, because he knew it hadn’t stayed that way. He hadn’t understood what was happening then. To be honest, he still didn’t understand why things had changed.

He remembered that it did change, though. She changed. He could remember his mother screaming and yelling. He could remember her crying, too. He remembered her crying a lot. He remembered the day she threw his father out. He remembered it clearly. He cried with her that day.

She didn’t scream anymore after his father moved out. She still cried, though. It was just Dean and his mom for a while. His father would take him for the weekend sometimes. For the most part, though, it was the two of them.

His mom remarried when he was nine. It lasted a year. Then it happened. The tragedy. His grandmother had called it that. After it, Dean and his nightmares went to live with his father.

His father was devastated by his ex-wife’s death. His father was a true Whitley man and loved Liv even after their marriage was over. He and Dean were both trying to survive her loss. It should have brought them together. It didn’t.

When it came down to it, they didn’t know each other. They had learned how to deal with and how to avoid one another, but really nothing beyond that. It tended to make things awkward when he and his father had to talk.

Dean sat in his truck in the small parking lot in front of the police station, debating not going in when he saw Payten walking down the sidewalk. She stopped in front of the police station and went in.

What the hell?

He grabbed the uniform he was there to return off the seat and bailed out of the truck.

• • •

“Hey, stranger,” Kalvin hooted when Payten came through the door of the police station.

“Kalvin!” She launched herself across the room and flung herself into Kalvin’s open arms. She hugged him tightly. The two were good friends, and she hadn’t seen him for almost two weeks.

The week before she’d had to cancel on their standing plans for Saturday night dancing at the local bar. She’d been too tired that night to keep up with Kalvin. He must not have had time to stop in the diner lately because she hadn’t seen him there, either.

“How are you, pretty Payten?”

She released him and stepped back. “I’m feeling much better now.”

“Please tell me you’re taking him with you.” Sitting at the desk behind Kalvin, a woman Payten had never met before was watching them. “He’s the most annoying son of a — ”

“He grows on you,” Payten told her.

“Like mold?”

She laughed. “Exactly.”

“Sounds like she really likes you, Kal,” Dean called from the front door.

“I’m growing on her,” Kalvin informed him as he started across the room.

“I don’t think so,” Smith grumbled.

“Hey, Smith,” Dean greeted her. “Is anybody else around? I have to return this uniform.”