Beyond the Waves (Pacific Shores Book 1) (5 page)

At the raw desire she saw in his eyes, Taysia’s heart kicked into post-marathon speed, and she opened her mouth to protest.

Kylen let go of one arm and brushed his thumb across her lips, caressing them, and, to her dismay, studying them intently. Her knees weakened, and only the pressure of his hand on her arm kept her on her feet. “Layne, please…just”—a muscle bunched along his jaw, and he tore his eyes away to look at the ground—”be quiet and follow me.”

Abruptly, he let her go and spun on his heel, clearly expecting her to follow.

Taysia stumbled back a step to catch her balance, swallowed convulsively, and only took a second to decide it was probably wise just to do as he asked this once. If she turned toward the beach, he would just come after her.

Like a meek puppy, she followed obediently in his footsteps.

Kylen’s pulse hammered as he banged open the door to his basement apartment and motioned Taysia in ahead of him. He was glad she’d decided to give in to his request, because in his present state of exhaustion he wasn’t sure what his reaction might have been had she refused to comply.

“I’ll only be a minute, have a seat.” He gestured in the general direction of the couch.

Boxes were still scattered everywhere, and he kicked one aside as he made his way into his room. Closing the door, he sank onto the edge of his bed and clutched his head, willing his heart rate to return to normal. The things that woman did to his heart could be enough to kill a man.

He unbuckled his holster and laid it on his nightstand, where his gun would be in easy reach in the night.

In an effort to get his mind off of Layne, he thought back over his day. The woman had been taken to the hospital, where he had interviewed her. Her face had been black and blue and so swollen she could barely respond to his questions. But thankfully she was going to be all right.

Still, even the thought of how he’d feel if anything similar ever happened to Taysia made him feel sick.

It was pretty cut and dried that the woman’s boyfriend, who had been high at the time, had been the perp, but they hadn’t been able to find him today. Kylen had helped as much as he could, but the lead on the investigation would come from the Sunset Beach office.

Wearily he began to unbutton his uniform. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and not come out for ten hours, but the minute he’d pulled into the drive and seen Taysia, he’d known he would have to go jogging with her before he would be able to sleep.

He pulled on a pair of navy jogging shorts and a T-shirt, grabbed his tennis shoes and socks, and stepped back out into the living room. Sinking onto a box labeled “books,” he pulled on his socks. He could feel Taysia studying him.

“You look tired, Ky. You don’t have to do this.”

He bit the inside of his lip, determined to ignore her and his jumping pulse. She hadn’t called him that since the night he’d first kissed her under her mother’s grape arbor. He distinctly remembered it. He had kissed her and then pulled away with a sheepish smile. Her arms around his neck, she had looked up at him and smiled softly. “I think I love you, Ky. But I still say things are going to be different when school starts.” He had promised her they wouldn’t and kissed her again. That was the one and only time he remembered her calling him Ky, and now she had done it twice in the last ten minutes.

Finished tying his shoes, he stood abruptly and gestured toward the door.

“Ky?” She stepped near, concern illuminating her face.

He chuckled softly, knowing good and well she wouldn’t be calling him that if she knew what it made him want to do. He tapped her nose. “Come on. I’m man enough to stay awake for the next half hour and keep up with you to boot. So let’s go.”

She arched her brows. “You haven’t stretched out yet.”

Leaning a hand against the wall, he pulled one ankle up to stretch out his quad. “Ever the instructor, huh?”

She made a small sound of acknowledgment in her throat, and he glanced at her, noticing that her eyes were fixed on his legs, a blush shading her cheeks. He suppressed a grin, his heart soaring with renewed hope. Even if she did have something going with Pittman, she at least still found him attractive. That was a beginning.

She had stolen his heart on a long-ago summer’s day, and he had broken hers on a cold, rainy night, but hopefully with a lot of work and a little of God’s help, they could get all the scattered pieces back together again.

Chapter 3

Taysia woke with a start. It was still dark, and she lay there a moment.
What woke me?
She held her breath, willing herself to hear over the top of her thudding heart.
Could it be Kylen?
No. She shook her head.

The previous evening, she and Kylen had jogged in companionable silence, and when they had arrived back at her house, he’d told her good night with strict instructions to lock her doors. She had done as he asked, baked her cupcakes for tomorrow’s bake sale, then slipped on her usual shorts and T-shirt and gone to bed. Kylen was sleeping soundly in his house next door, she felt sure, but…

A thud followed by a grunt of pain penetrated the silence.

She gasped softly. Someone was in the house! They had stumbled into a piece of furniture!

Suddenly wishing she owned a guard dog, Taysia fumbled for her bedside phone and pressed 9-1-1 with trembling fingers.

Another thud, and something shattered in the dining room. Taysia pressed back against her headboard, clutching the phone like a security blanket.

“9-1-1 emergency, how may I help you?”

“There is someone in my house,” Taysia whispered, willing down the panic surging through her veins.

“All right, ma’am. I’ll get a unit on their way to you right now. Do you think you are in immediate danger?”

“I don’t know.” She dared not raise her voice even a fraction above a whisper. She fixed her eyes on the dark, gaping shadow of her bedroom door, shuddering at the thought of someone stepping through it. Suddenly Kylen’s earlier concerns didn’t seem so ludicrous.

“Okay, ma’am, listen to me. Are you alone in the room you are calling from?”

“Yes.” She pulled the covers up closer to her chin, then rolled her eyes. Like that would prevent her from being discovered by whatever fiend was creeping through her house.

“Do you have a place you could hide? Maybe someplace you could lock yourself into? Like a bathroom or a closet? If you do, I want you to take the phone with you and go there now.”

Taysia eyed her parents’ old armoire and tried to imagine opening its creaky old doors and climbing inside quietly. She shook her head.
No way
. The hinges on that thing groaned like a dam about to break. And the bathroom was two doors down the no-pinprick-of-light-to-be-found hallway. A tremor of fear slithered down her spine. There wasn’t one thing that could entice her to step out there for even a second. She glanced at her bedroom’s one window. Even if she could get the jam-prone wooden frame to open, she hadn’t removed the storm windows yet. Blast this old house!

“No. No place to go.”

“Okay, ma’am. Hang on. Our unit should be there shortly.”

Suddenly Taysia remembered. “Kylen,” she whispered. “He lives next door.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Who?”

“Officer Sumner. He’s my neighbor. Can you call him?”

Kylen groaned and rolled over, ignoring the phone. Two more rings and he flopped back and fumbled for the receiver.

“‘Lo,” he mumbled, squinting at his clock. Three twenty-eight.

“Officer Sumner?”

“Yes.”

“This is Candy Bower from 9-1-1 dispatch. Your neighbor, ahh”—she paused, a keyboard clicking in the background—”Green, Anastaysia Green, is on the phone with us. She says there is an intruder on the premises and requested we call you.”

Kylen came wide awake, lurched out of bed, and dropped the phone onto his nightstand. Grabbing his gun, he sprinted for his front door.

Barefoot and wearing only a pair of jogging shorts, he stepped out into the darkness, gripping his gun with both hands. He studied Taysia’s house carefully.
Jesus, let her be okay. Please keep her safe
.

He ran toward the back of her house where her bedroom was. Pistol held at the ready, he pressed his shoulder against the siding at the corner and peered into her backyard. Empty. He slid along the wall, heading for the sliding door. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and he tried to quiet his breathing. Feet planted next to her door, he quickly glanced into the room’s interior, then jerked his head back. Everything looked still. He tried the door. It slid open easily, and he grimaced in frustration at Taysia’s naïve irresponsibility. Quietly he pushed the door open farther and eased inside.

All was silent except for the crunch of something under his feet. Shards of pain pierced through him. He hissed a flinch, then gritted his teeth and moved on. There was no time for pain right now. He had to find Taysia.

He peered down the hallway. Nothing. Moving methodically, he cleared each room until he arrived at her bedroom. He stepped through the door. No one was there! His heart threatened to stop. “Layne?” He was surprised his voice sounded so steady.

With a soft gasp, Taysia leaped up from between her bed and the wall. “Oh, Ky!” She pressed a hand to her throat, moonlight reflecting off her tears as she rushed to him.

Holding his gun away at a safe angle, Kylen caught her to his chest with his free arm and kissed the top of her head. Looking toward heaven he rasped, “Thank You, God!” He blinked hard and rested his cheek on her hair. “Thank You!” He kissed her head again, and then with sudden swiftness, he put her from him. “Tell me what happened.”

Taysia pressed a hand to her forehead. Her whole body trembled. “I don’t know. I—I woke up and—and I heard a noise in the living room like someone stumbled into a piece of furniture and grunted. So—so I called 9-1-1 and asked them to send you over here. Then—then something broke. It sounded like”—her eyes widened—”my new crystal vase!” She started for the door, but he reached out and jerked her back. There were still a couple rooms he hadn’t cleared on down the hall past her room.

“Keep talking.”

“After I heard the glass break”—her teeth chattered and her head came up with a start, and her voice dropped till it was barely audible—”whoever it was went into the bathroom, and I hid between the bed and the wall.”

“You mean someone is still in your bathroom!? You should have said that first!”

Her eyes narrowed, and her hands clenched into fists by her sides. “Well, excuse me for being a little scatterbrained in the middle of the night when a person has just broken into my house!”

Just then they heard the toilet flush. Kylen blinked in disbelief. The perpetrator was flushing evidence! But of what?

Kylen motioned her to get down. “Stay here!” he whispered as he dashed into the hallway and flipped on the light.

Back pressed against the wall, gun held at the ready, he slid toward the bathroom. Taysia had ignored his command and crawled to her bedroom door. She poked her head out to peer down the hall. He started to motion for her to get back just as the bathroom door opened.

With a swift jerk, he leveled his gun. “Freeze!”

An old man stepping from the room halted so suddenly he almost lost his balance.

Eyes round as tennis balls, the man thrust gnarled hands straight up. The tips of his fingers rammed into the lintel above his head with a loud crack. “Ow!” His bulging eyes never left Kylen’s gun as he scuttled a reluctant inch forward and again stiffened his arms, pinning his ears to his head.

“Taysia! I’m Taysia’s father. Don’t shoot. Please. Don’t! Shoot!”

Recognition hit Kylen at the same time as Taysia screeched, “Daddy! Kylen, it’s Daddy! Don’t shoot!”

Kylen lowered his gun, a release of breath easing his thundering pulse.

Mr. Green, arms still ramrod straight, looked from Kylen down to his gun, then glanced at Taysia and swallowed thickly. Slowly he lowered his arms, patted his chest, and ran a hand back over his disheveled white hair. He looked back at the gun. “I need to use the restroom again. Excuse me, please.” Turning, he closed the bathroom door.