Chapter 7

The next morning I stretched my muscles into consciousness. My bones, however, creaked in protest.

Adam stood over me: legs apart, arms folded (shirtless I might add), with the most self-satisfied smile I’d ever seen. Yep, this was definitely going to be the day we had the talk.

His body was kept in exquisite shape—toned and strong, but not muscular. He acquired strength from the pull-up bar on the back porch and endurance from his morning runs. And when I say runs, I don’t mean jogs. I once caught Adam on the trail and that man was hauling ass, giving those sneakers a run for their money.

Without a shirt, I could see the V-cut in his lower belly. A jagged scar on his side caught my eye where one of his hands rested.

“Get dressed,” he said, scratching one of his pecs. He was freshly showered and still flushed from his run.

I pulled the sheet over my head and grumbled, “You first.”

While Adam was anxious to know the details of my attack, blood and gore would have to wait until after bacon and eggs.

Adam ripped the sheet down. “Get up out of that bed or I’ll drag you out.”

“I want to sleep in.”

My body nearly catapulted off the edge when Adam sailed over and collapsed beside me.

“Sounds like a plan. What shall we talk about?”

I ripped the sheet over him and stormed into the bathroom where I showered up and dug through my bag of clothes. He could be a real pain in the ass when he wanted.

Unfortunately, my old clothes no longer fit my taller frame. I slid into a pair of distressed jeans and a red, sleeveless blouse, applying a thin layer of peach-scented lotion to my skin. I combed out the tangles of my long, dark hair and gathered it up, neatly pinning it back. My hips were narrow and less hourglass, but there was enough there to keep my jeans from slipping too low. My shoulders were broader than before and my arms slender and toned, even though I never worked out. What stood out the most were my green eyes framed against midnight lashes.

“Five minutes, almost done,” Adam called out from the kitchen as I sat down to a very lovely table setting.

The silverware rested on cloth napkins beside the colored plates. He even scooped out the apricot preserve and put it in a pretty crystal dish. Nice touch.

“What’s the occasion?” I called out, staring at the handpicked wildflowers in the vase with an arched brow.

He ignored me, whistling a made-up tune.

Adam strolled in barefoot with a black shirt neatly tucked in a pair of tan slacks.

“I like the pants,” I said as he set a glass of juice on the table. “I was beginning to think you were having a love affair with Calvin Klein.”

He looked nice—very put together. Even jazzed it up with a smart leather belt.

“We agreed to see other people.”

Adam set down a bowl of strawberries and slid an omelet on my plate.

“Many women would see you as the holy grail if you didn’t hide yourself in a wilderness retreat. Good looks, good food, so-so sense of humor.”

Adam turned back to the stove, clearing his throat.

I didn’t bother to wait before diving in. “This is so delicious,” I said with a full mouth.

“It’s nice to have someone to cook for.”

A ladybug crawled across the table from the flowers and spread her wings, threatening to leave. When Adam took his seat, I figured she was enchanted and decided to sit for a spell.

I turned my neck at the sound of birds stirring up a frenzy outside by the feeder. “You were up early.”

But Adam didn’t want to talk. Not yet, perhaps not wanting to spoil the breakfast he put so much effort in preparing.

When we finished, a half strip of bacon sat on a plate between us. I reached for it when the plate disappeared, hovering out of reach.

“Don’t make me put the hurt on you, give .”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl eat as much as you. I don’t know where you put it.”

True. I hadn’t gained a single ounce since the day we met, and he fed me very well.

“You trying to tell me I’m a pig?”

“Just observing your overzealous appetite.” He grinned.

I waved my fork in the air and narrowed my eyes. “I’ve got a fork and I’m not afraid to use it.”

“Well then, I’ve got a glow stick and I’m not afraid to use it.”

“You need to keep that stick in your pants.” I laughed as Adam cleared the table. “You really should quit your day job,” I yelled out. “Open up your own bistro. I could waitress and flirt with the customers, if I’m flirt-worthy.”

“You’re definitely flirt-worthy. I bet you had to beat the men off with a stick.”

I carried the remaining plates to the sink and stood beside him. He washed, I dried.

“You saw what a ravishing delight I used to be.” Sarcasm dripped off my tongue. “Sunny was the flirt, I just hung back and observed the master.”

“Some men prefer beer over a fine wine. That doesn’t mean much.”

“So what am I in this scenario—the beer or the wine?”

Adam dropped his chin and frowned. “The wine, of course.”

“Sunny would kick your ass for calling her beer.”

“It’s not a put-down. Some girls are the kind that every man appreciates, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

He ran the plate under the faucet, scrubbed it with the bristle sponge, and passed it over to me.

Part of our perception of our looks is shaped from a lifetime of comments, opinions, and reactions to it. I always knew where I stood before. But now, I had none of that to go on outside of what I saw in the mirror—was I still wine, or was I beer? Hell, maybe now I was moonshine.

“I’m sorry I slapped you and said what I did,” I said guiltily.

“Don’t apologize, you were right. I shouldn’t have left you alone like that; you could have been hurt.” There was a delicate stretch of silence. “So who was I chasing?”

I tensed. Here it was, the moment Adam would decide how farfetched this whole thing really was. He knew what he found and he knew what the paper said, but he didn’t know the whole truth of it.

“I was crossing a field that night on my way home when someone jumped me.”

Adam played statue, holding a bowl under the running water but not looking up. Perhaps afraid if he startled me, I might quit talking.

I continued to dry the plate, every square inch of it.

Three times.

As I told him the details of what happened to me, my pulse quickened and I was out of breath. While I had replayed the events in my head a million times, I didn’t realize how much it would still affect me when I actually verbalized it. When I finished, I recapped.

“I didn’t even hear him come up on me; he just knocked me over and was doing something with our hands.”

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know, it was like he was sucking the life out of me, and then it was back. It was electric, like you described. He tried choking me after I kicked him in the groin, but then…”

“Zoë.” Adam’s expression tightened. The water was no longer on. My name was a single request to keep going.

“He said he had done the same thing to others and that he was going to make mine so much worse. It hurt, Adam, it hurt so much when he cut my throat with that knife.”

An angry curse sliced through the conversation.

It wasn’t mine.

“You feel it when you die. You just know. My heart stopped and I had this weightless, disconnected sensation.” Remembering Adam’s sister, I didn’t want to give him nightmares. “Once it was done, it was okay. Your soul wants to go… somewhere. I wanted to hold on, too. But there was a familiarity to it. That’s all I remember until I woke up in the body bag.”

My arms wrapped around my waist. “I don’t know how or why I’m still here. He wasn’t normal; and somehow whatever he did changed me. I don’t think he meant to kill me; that’s the strange part. Do you think he made me this way on purpose?”

I stood there, trying to remain stoic. I wanted to shut it off like a faucet and just not feel anything.

Adam captured my hands and wrapped them around his body, pulling me against him. He cradled me and even with the uncertainty of knowing I could hurt him again, he held me with such devotion. I fell against his chest and closed my eyes.

Adam wiped strands of my hair away from my forehead.

“Zoë, you can stop being a tough bitch now. Cry if you need to.”

“I don’t cry in front of people.”

I was not a crier, especially in front of someone else, because that was showing too much vulnerability, which I wasn’t willing to give anyone.

“Would it make you feel better to know that I’m going to kill him?”

The threat hung at the end of the conversation like a stinger on a bee. No more words were spoken, and we remained like that until I felt ready to let go.