His hand moves to cover it immediately. “What about it?”
“The stones. They look different.”
“Trick of the light.” His voice is casual. Too casual. “Old building, remember? Strange shadows.”
“I could have sworn?—”
“You could have sworn you’d never ask me to dinner, and yet here we are.” He’s already moving toward the door, and the moment is lost. “Coming?”
I follow him out into the cool evening air.
Bellamy Cove at night is a different creature than its daytime self. The tourists have retreated to their bed-and-breakfasts. The shops are dark, their cheerful facades turned mysterious in the streetlight glow. The ocean whispers in the distance, salt tang mixing with the smell of early autumn leaves.
My cottage is a five-minute walk from the studio, down a winding lane lined with old oaks that arch overhead like a tunnel. I’ve made this walk thousands of times—after late rehearsals, after failed competitions, after arguments with my mother that left me too wound up to drive. I know every crack in the sidewalk, every patch of uneven cobblestone, every shadow.
Which is why I notice immediately when something is wrong.
Tap-tap-tap.
I stop walking.
“Isadora?” Mal pauses beside me. “What is it?”
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Tiny footsteps. Quick and light, almost like a child running. But when I spin around, the lane behind us is empty. Just shadows and streetlights and the rustle of leaves in the breeze.
“There’s something?—”
“I don’t hear anything.”
I stare at him. His face is perfectly composed, perfectly innocent, but there’s a tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there a moment ago.
“Footsteps,” I press. “Small ones. Like someone’s following us.”
“Probably a cat. Or a raccoon. Or the wind playing tricks.” He places a hand on my lower back, gentle but insistent, steering me forward. “Acoustics do strange things at night.”
I want to argue. I want to turn back and investigate, demand an explanation for the prickling sensation at the back of my neck that says we’re being watched. But his hand is warm through my jacket, and the cottage is just around the corner, and maybe I am just tired. Exhausted. Imagining things.
Tap-tap-tap.
I don’t look back again.
Mal takes in my cottage and the dance memorabilia filling the living room with that sharp, assessing gaze of his.
“You dance here too.” It’s not a question.
“What?”
He gestures at the worn patch in the hardwood floor near the window, at the full-length mirror propped against the wall, and at the small speaker system clearly positioned for optimal coverage. “You practice here. When the studio isn’t enough.”
“Sometimes.”
“Often, I’d guess.” He moves through the space like he belongs there, trailing his fingers along the edge of my bookshelf. “These are competition programs. Going back... fifteen years? Twenty?”
