Page 45 of Shadowing Her Stalker

“You can’t go to California.”

“I’m not going to California,” she replied in a tone so placid he wondered if he’d imagined the whole phone call.

“But you—”

“I asked Zarah to buy an airline ticket,” she interrupted. She pulled a pink hooded sweatshirt from the bag and snapped the tag off with a vicious yank. “I didn’t say I’d be on the plane.”

He blinked twice. “You’re not going?”

“I’m not a fool,” she said, shrugging into the hoodie.

Narrowing his eyes, he assessed the woman in front of him. “I would never mistake you for one, but do you care to clue me in on your plan?”

She started pacing the room, phone clutched in her hand and movements jerky with pent-up frustration. “I don’t have a plan. All I know is some joker posted my private information for all to see, and my neighbor got attacked in front of my house. I try to get out of town for a few days, and a random guy I’ve never laid eyes on tries to kidnap me. I get away from him, but then, said random guy ends up dead. Meanwhile, back on the coast, someone set fire to my house, Wyatt. I don’t know if they thought I was in it, or if they even cared—”

“They know you weren’t in it,” he interjected.

She whirled. “How do you know?”

“We’re monitoring the chatter online.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eye sockets in a vain attempt to quell the throb building in his brain. “Can I please take a shower and have some coffee before we play twenty questions? We need to talk, and I can’t think,” he said, exasperated.

“Fine.” She waved a hand at his rumpled clothes. “Go take your shower. I’ll go brew a fresh pot.”

“Thank you.” He exhaled the words in a gust, then turned and trudged down the hall to gather his stuff. If they were going to go multiple rounds on how best to handle this fire situation, he needed to be as clearheaded as possible.

CARAPOUREDSTEAMINGcoffee into two mugs as she waited for Wyatt to shower and change. The scent of her mother’s fluffy biscuits still filled the kitchen. She lifted one corner of the tea towel covering the ancient iron skillet. Her stomach rumbled like distant artillery as a battle of will raged inside her. Cara knew the heavy pan had been greased liberally with the bacon drippings collected in the can on the counter. But the biscuits themselves were made from the same self-rising flour her grandmother had used, and fresh butter and buttermilk from a neighboring farm.

Nostalgia made her chest ache. The sight of those golden brown biscuits made her mouth water. Her stomach gurgled again, and she abandoned her principles.

“Desperate times,” she murmured as she pulled one from the still-warm pan.

She split the biscuit, slathered it with butter and drizzled fresh honey on top before taking an enormous bite. Closing her eyes, she hummed her appreciation as she chewed. It was a taste of her childhood. A bite of a time when things were simpler. Safer.

Absently, she licked at a drip of buttery honey oozing down the side of her hand.

Cara popped the last bit into her mouth, chewing slowly as she doctored the other half. This time, she nibbled at the edge of the biscuit, letting the butter and honey flow onto her tongue as she peered out the window over the sink. The land where the old house once stood had long since been reclaimed by Mother Nature, but it was still vivid in her mind’s eye.

“What’s your plan?”

She jumped at the sound of Wyatt’s voice, and the remains of the biscuit crumbled in her hand. Butter and honey oozed between her fingers. She’d been so deep in her thoughts, she hadn’t heard him approach. Her face flamed with embarrassment and a touch of shame as she shook the clumpy mess off into the sink.

“Sorry,” he said as he approached. “I thought you’d have heard me talking to Roscoe.”

“No, I was...” She turned on the tap and cool water rushed out, coagulating the goo coating her hand. She closed her eyes and drew a steadying breath as she waited for the water to warm. “I was in another world.”

One filled with biscuits baked in grease-coated cast iron and dusty memories. A world where she envisioned herself being the next Meryl Streep rather than an internet-famous—or infamous—voice-over artist being terrorized by internet trolls.

He lifted the corner of the towel and eyed the leftover biscuits still nestled in the pan. “These look great. My MaMaw used to make biscuits in a cast-iron skillet too. Refused to eat the kind out of a can.”

His use of the pet name for his grandmother triggered an involuntary smile. “Mine too. This was her pan.”

Wyatt eyed the pan covetously. “I buy the frozen ones once in a while. They’re better, but not like this.”

“They’re okay, but so full of preservatives.”

“Californian,” he muttered.

Cara chuckled as she wiped her hand on the dishcloth hanging beside the sink. “Plates are in the cupboard in front of you. Gravy is in the microwave.”

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