Page 4 of The Stars

She blinked and a dark figure formed across the space.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“Hey,” the voice came again, sounding more worried.

She blinked and looked up into dark eyes filled with concern. Eyes she oddly knew. Eyes that awakened something deep down in her soul.

A blast of something she’d never felt before caused every fiber of her body to jolt. She screamed and jerked under its power.

“Hey!” Drip, Drip. “Wake up!”

Her eyes jerked open as she sat up, breathless, covered in sweat. Her body shook.

It took her a few moments to get herself back under control. Everything she was wearing was soaked. Either from sweat or… had she been in that damp room? No, that was impossible.

Besides, there was no way that she’d just seen her high school crush, Dante Hicks, standing over her wearing some sort of a gladiator’s outfit.

Chapter Two

“Time is relative,” Jacob told him as they strolled into the Coffee Corner just past five in the morning.

Winter had yet to fully settle in the south, but it was cold enough that he had on his heavy jacket to ward off the early morning mist. The fog was so thick, it had taken him an extra ten minutes to get to work. Which is why he was getting the lecture from his boss.

“Well, relative or not, when the fog is too thick to even see your hand in front of your face, it’s gonna take a little longer to get into work,” Dante said as he held the door open for his boss to walk past him.

Jacob chuckled. “You know, you could always head in early?”

“The fog wasn’t this thick up the hill,” he pointed out. “Besides, breakfast with my boss isn’t a requirement for me to keep the job.”

Jacob slapped him on the back, hard. “True, but it helps next time you want a day off.”

Dante nodded and then waited until Jacob ordered his coffee and food before putting in his standard order.

For the past five years or so, Dante had been working under Jacob. He’d worked under Jacob’s old man briefly before he’d retired and Jacob had taken over. He’d known Jacob all his life. The same as he’d known pretty much everyone in his small hometown of Hidden Creek, Georgia.

Fresh out of high school, he and Jacob had started police training and had slipped into their uniforms to serve and protect the town of roughly ten thousand. Many of those residents had been added in the past few years, thanks to all the publicity the town had recently gained.

The police job had allowed him to purchase his cabin home on top of one of the hills overlooking the town. Hidden Creek was nestled in the valley and straddled the actual creek, which ran directly through it like the veins in a heart. Hidden Creek was more than home, it was probably the best place on earth. Or so Dante believed.

Sure, he’d spent most of his hard earned money fixing the place up. Within the first six months, he’d had to replace the metal roof, gut the bathroom and kitchen, and add a new sump pump. Now, however, every time he walked into his home, it was like walking into a dream world. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so… right.

Except for that one night at prom during his senior year. For a few short hours, he’d felt the same way. Everything had been as it should be.

While he and Jacob waited for their food, they went over a few details from yesterday’s reports. After the food arrived, the topic changed to town gossip.

They were halfway through their breakfast when Jacob mentioned that Amy Reed was back in town. He tried to hide his interest in hearing more, but something told him that Jacob already knew about the lifelong crush that he’d had on her. It was obvious in the way the man talked to him and watched him as he spoke.

“Lay off,” he grumbled to Jacob, who chuckled in response.

“Dude, you never laid off me when I was toiling with Jess,” Jacob pointed out.

“Toiling?” Dante teased. “You mean avoiding her like the plague.”

Jacob laughed, a burst of it echoing in the coffee shop. He glanced over and winked at the woman behind the counter. “She was worth the wait.”

Dante glanced over to Jessica St. Clair and agreed with a quick nod of his head.

“Enough about your perfect life,” he said, and took a bite of his breakfast muffin.