Page 7 of Fearless
And then Australia tried to kill her.
Unsure where to go or even what this Noah Carver might look like, she stepped out of the airport into the full blanket of the Australian sun and a gigantic wasp flew straight into her hair. Kitty dropped her luggage right there in front of the revolving doors. Screaming and leaping around, she tried to disassociate herself from her hair. She could feel it crawling in the long strands. That the angry buzzing she could hear would eventually precede a sting, she knew without doubt, and she was so terrified of the coming pain that she didn’t even react when a strange man grabbed her around the waist, bending her straight forward with all her hair hanging to the pavement.
“Hang on, love. I’ve got you,” the man said, tugging and plucking at her hair in a ginger attempt to get the wasp out without getting stung himself. She could not have cared less that he accidentally pulled a couple strands out. All she cared about was that blessed moment when the buzzing ceased to be right by her ear and he flung it away. He jerked her upright, jumping back as it dive-bombed them with a single pass and then flew off somewhere where people weren’t half so crazy.
Hugging herself, Kitty stood frozen in that strange man’s steadying embrace, shaking, panting, and struggling to swallow her pattering heart back down into her chest.
“You’re all right now, love,” he said, low and comforting, his hand petting down the length of her dark hair from the top of her head to the middle of her shoulder blades. “You’re a good girl, and you’re all right.”
Her whole body shuddered, but not in an unpleasant way. Rather, it was the first small measure of relief that she’d felt in almost eight weeks, and it came from the hand of a stranger, caressing the back of her head.
The relief lasted only a heartbeat or two. As the fear dissipated, suddenly Kitty became aware of the squeeze of masculine arms. It was a very odd thing, to know with such certainty that Ethen had not caught up with her and yet to also know it was him. Her panicking body chose the irrational over the logical, and with a violent twist, she shoved against the stranger’s chest, knocking them both back a step.
Her fists came up, which was laughable. She’d never taken a defense course or been in a fight in her life. Also, she was shaking. If she hadn’t visited the ladies’ room on her way out of the airport, she’d have wet herself before taking a swing.
“Get away from me!” she gasped through a throat grown hoarse and tight.
His hands were already up in the air. Although smiling, he also backed away. It was the smile that stopped her first. She tried to see it as ugly at first, mocking. But the more she blinked and the further he backed away, the more that smile turned open and friendly. His had to be the whitest teeth she’d ever seen, but maybe it was because his skin was so bronzed from the sun.
She was tall, but he was taller, by at least five inches. His shoulders were broad and his forearms muscular, which made the rest of him—dressed as he quite casually was in loose-fitting tan khaki trousers and a white button-down business shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows—look chiseled, lean, and completely relaxed. He was handsome too, in a rugged, outdoorsy kind of way. His hair beneath the cover of the cream-colored cowboy hat he wore was short and more blond than brown. Like his mouth, his bright blue eyes were friendly and smiling.
“Sorry about that,” he said gamefully. “Wasn’t my intent to give you such a fright.” Tipping his head, he edged closer and lowered his voice, as if they were playful conspirators. “Truth be told, you looked to be in a bit of trouble. Me manliness overcame me. I couldn’t help myself.” Dropping his arms, he stuck out his hand. “Name’s Noah Carver. I believe I’ve been sent to fetch you.”
Kitty didn’t lower her hands an inch and she certainly didn’t shake his. His accent was thick and she was having trouble processing what he was saying. “Wh-what?”
Smile fixed firmly in place, he held up a finger and reached into the square leather holster on his belt. It was a crocodile belt, shiny and mottled in colors that ranged from brown to yellowish-green, and it had more than one holster clipped to it. They dotted all the way around his waist—some for pocket knives, sheathes for longer knives, a hook for his keyring and, of course, his cellphone, which was what he pulled out of its square holster once he unclipped it.
“Here.” He turned it on, tapping the touch screen. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he edged even closer, turning his big body until he was standing beside her, showing her a picture of herself on the screen.
She looked traumatized. That was her first thought. That Garreth must have taken it was her second, because she was dressed in a pair of Hadlee’s hand-me-down shorts and t-shirt, sitting on the window bench in his apartment living room and hugging her knees to her chest. She didn’t know what day that was, but she was pretty sure what she was staring at outside that window had to be Ethen.
“You’ve lost weight,” Noah said, still cheerful, without a hint of censure in his tone. Reaching down, he picked up her dropped duffel bag and shouldered it. “Come on. We’ll grab some burgers before we head for home.”
Glancing back once, encouraging her with a smile and a wink to follow, he started across the airport parking lot. Presumably towards his car.
Feeling stupid, Kitty lowered her fists. Belly and legs both quivering, she chanced a quick look around. This was an international airport. From wasp-induced panic all the way to now, there were people around her and some were openly staring. They’d probably been staring the whole time.
Heat, that had nothing to do with the 80° sun, burned her face and chest.
This Noah Carver person was leaving with her stuff. Cheerfully leaving, in fact. He was whistling, as if picking up unwanted burdens at the airport and hauling them around Australia were the most natural thing in the world. His grin was wide and friendly and he waved her on to follow with a laughing, “Come on, love. Can’t rightly stand here all day. The boys in blue’ll shove us off.”
Kitty didn’t know what that meant, but she did know Noah was right about one thing. She couldn’t keep standing here, an object of pity and curiosity for heaven only knew how many strangers to gawk at as they hurried on about their lives.
She also knew that thing people liked to say about first steps being the hardest… well, it was true. She didn’t know where she was going, and she didn’t know what she was going to. That made cutting the roots her feet had sprouted, anchoring her to the airport sidewalk, one of the hardest things she’d yet done in her life.
What people didn’t say was how every step that came after did not magically get any easier. She followed Noah to his pickup. Candy-apple red, extended cab, it wasn’t anywhere near as beat-up looking as she imagined vehicles belonging to a man as rugged as Noah should be.
He put her bag in the backseat, then held the front door for her. “Up we go.”
He smiled, but he didn’t help her. He simply waited for her to make the choice. For almost one perfect second, Kitty lost track of where she was. The warmth of the sunshine vanished. Australia and Noah vanished. Instead of standing in the parking lot looking into his truck, she was standing on Ethen’s front porch, enveloped by cold, knowing if she took that first step nothing would ever be the same again.
Reaching up to grip the interior handle, Kitty climbed into the front passenger seat. She barely noticed it was on the wrong side of the car from what she was used to. He waited beside her, door open and silent, for what she didn’t know. Not until, slowly and gently, he took hold of the seatbelt strap, stretched it down and around her, and clicked it into place.
He’d done his best not to touch her; Kitty swallowed hard and did her best not to flinch the entire time he was close by.
“Good girl,” he said again as he withdrew from the car.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, but she didn’t correct him. She stared out the front window, her posture as straight as she could make it and her hands clasped tight in her lap. Now and then she pushed on her knee but it never stopped jiggling. Not once.
