I watch a rerun of Desperate Housewives on late night television and can’t help but wonder what it would be like to settle down. To stop running. To find someone who makes me want to plant roots and spread my wings. Someone who actually wants to give me my dream instead of a nightmare.
As I close my tired eyes, I picture those blue-green eyes that I’ve been seeing all day. Eyes I’ve seen ever since I slammed the pan against his skull. Twice.
For the first time since I ran, I feel content.
Safe.
*****
I’m startled awake from the dark recesses of sleep by another nightmare. They’re always the same.
I feel his warm, angry breath against my skin as he wraps his hands around my neck. He usually avoids touching me in places where the public can see his marks, but tonight, my black sequined gown has a full neck which gives him the perfect cover for his markings.
The air is sucked from my lungs as I struggle to breathe. I feel my feet dangle off the immaculate cherry hardwood floor as his livid, dark eyes bore into me.
“Why must you test my patience so much, Amelia?” he seethes through gritted, pearly white teeth.
I blink back the tears as the fog of the nightmare slowly fades away. My breathing is labored, coming out in short little pants. You’d think I would be used to the never-ending nightmare that was my life, but I’m not. It still affects me like it happened yesterday, not nine months ago.
The alarm clock on the used nightstand reads four a.m. Almost time to get up anyway, so I roll out of bed and step onto the cool hardwood floor. It’s not nearly as nice as the hardwood floors I became accustomed to during my previous life, but these may actually be better. There’s nothing perfect about these floors. They are marked, scarred, and battered. Like me.
I take a hot, relaxing shower as I wash away the sweat from last night’s sleep. I need to be downstairs at the bakery at five to prepare the first batch of dough. The bakery doesn’t open until six-thirty, so it gives me an hour and a half of uninterrupted time to get the day’s products ready to be made.
Yesterday, I didn’t get the bakery opened at six-thirty the way I had planned. After Nate left, Avery went up front and found three customers standing on the sidewalk waiting for the door to open. Oops! I never made it to the front to unlock the door. Avery was cool about the entire thing. Actually, a little too cool, if you ask me. I felt her smiling eyes on me all morning and could see the questions in her eyes.
I exit my apartment, locking the door securely behind me, and trek down the metal steps. The back door of the bakery is positioned underneath the metal staircase that runs parallel to the older brick building. I unlock the back door and flip on the lights. Bright florescent lights bathe the entire kitchen area. I relock the door behind me - I learned my lesson yesterday - and deposit my purse in the small office. As I step into the kitchen, I begin the process of preparing dough.
Forty-five minutes later, the first batch of cinnamon rolls is in the oven and the mixer bowl contains all the ingredients for the delicious cream cheese frosting. As I get ready to start the mixer, a knock sounds at the back door.
I contemplate opening it. If it were Avery or Mrs. Stevens, they would use their key. But someone up to no good probably wouldn’t knock, would they?
I hesitantly make my way over to the back door, take a deep breath, and turn the lock. I slowly pull the door open to view Nate Stevens standing there in running shorts and a sweaty gray tank top wrapped snuggly against his ripped torso. Hello, lucky sweat.
I pull the door open, allowing him to step inside. Once he’s clear of the doorway, I close the door and throw the lock again.
“I see you decided to lock the door to avoid being surprised?” Nate asks with a hint of a smile.
His hair is tussled in a delicious I-want-to-run-my-fingers-through-it way, and he’s breathing hard as if he just finished up a run.
“Yeah, the pan was dirty so I figured I’d save myself the energy of washing it right now and just lock the door,” I tell him with a hint of my own smile.
Nate laughs. It’s the sexiest laugh I’ve ever heard - with deep timbers and a throaty growl to it - and does weird tingly things to my dormant lady parts. “Well, I’m personally glad you answered the door without brandishing a weapon,” he retorts with another award-winning smile.
I cringe when I recall how we met yesterday morning. “Yeah, I’m still so sorry about that. I never meant to hurt you,” I tell him.
Nate crosses his long, lean, muscular legs as he leans back against the stainless steel island. Seriously, his legs are crazy-hot. Like the kind of legs that could do serious damage when used as a weapon and even more damage to a girl’s already overheated body. They’re practically tree trunks holding up his body. Thick, hard muscles and sexy as sin dark blond hair.