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She smiled sympathetically. “That’s my best shot.”
A few guests had begun to arrive, and a man’s voice, lightly accented, drifted toward her. “The house is amazing. Look at that view.”
She stiffened and turned her head in time to see Michel step into the living room. He was part of Kissy’s workshop group, so she should have realized he’d be invited. Her pleasure in the weekend vanished.
They’d run into each other twice in the year since they’d met, and both times they’d exchanged the barest minimum of conversation. Michel’s companion was a muscular young man with dark hair that fell over his eyes. A dancer, she decided, as his feet automatically came to rest in first position.
The glass doors were her closest escape. She gave him a brief nod, excused herself from Charlie, and slipped back outside.
The moon had come out, Kissy had disappeared, and the beach was deserted. Fleur needed a few minutes to put her armor on before she went back inside to get cleaned up. She walked down to the water, then wandered along the cool, wet sand away from the house. She had to stop letting herself get thrown off stride so easily, but every time she saw Michel, she felt as if she’d been thrust back into her childhood.
She stubbed her toe on a rock she hadn’t seen sticking out of the sand. She’d walked farther than she’d intended, and she turned to go back, but just then, a man stepped out from the dunes fifty yards ahead of her. Something about his stillness, combined with being alone on a deserted beach, made her instantly alert. He stood darkly silhouetted against the night, a tall man, bigger than anyone she wanted to tangle with, and he wasn’t trying to disguise his interest in her. She automatically glanced toward the distant lights of the beach house, but it was too far away for anyone to hear if she yelled for help.
Living in New York had made her paranoid. He was probably one of Charlie’s guests who’d drifted away from the party just as she had. In the moonlight, she dimly made out a shaggy head of Charles Manson hair and an even shaggier mustache. The words to “Helter Skelter” skimmed through her brain. She picked up her stride and edged closer to the water.
Abruptly he tossed down his beer can and began coming toward her. He covered the sand in long, swift strides, and every cell in her body went on full alert. Paranoid or not, she had no intention of waiting around to see what he wanted. She dug in her feet and began to run.
At first, she could only hear the sound of her own breathing, but she soon grew aware of the soft pounding of feet on the sand behind her. Her heart thudded. He was coming after her, and she had to outrun him. She told herself she could do it. She ran all the time now. Her muscles were strong. All she had to do was pick up the pace.
She stayed in the hard-packed sand near the water. She extended her legs, pumped her arms. As she ran, she kept her eyes on the beach house, but it was still agonizingly far ahead. If she headed for the dunes, she’d sink into deeper sand, but so would he. She grabbed more air. He couldn’t keep up with her forever. She could do this, and she pushed herself harder.
He stayed with her.
Her lungs burned, and she lost her rhythm. She sucked in ragged gasps of air. The word “rape” rattled around in her head. Why didn’t he fall back?
“Leave me alone,” she screamed. The words were garbled, barely comprehensible, and she’d lost more precious air.
He shouted something. Near. Almost in her ear. Her chest was on fire. He touched her shoulder, and she screamed. The next thing she knew, the ground rushed up, and he was falling with her. As they hit the sand, he shouted the word again, and this time she heard.
“Flower!”
He fell on top of her. She gasped for air beneath his weight and tasted grit. With the last of her strength, she clenched her hand into a fist and swung hard. She heard a sharp exclamation. His weight eased, and the ends of his hair brushed her cheek as he raised himself on his arms above her. His breath
fanned her face, and she hit him again.
He pulled back, and she went after him. Scrambling to her knees, she hit him again and again with her fists. She didn’t bother aiming, but caught whatever she could reach—an arm, his neck, his chest, every blow punctuated with a sob.
Finally he made a vise of his arms and squeezed. “Stop it, Flower! It’s me. It’s Jake.”
“I know it’s you, you bastard! Let me go!”
“Not till you’ve calmed down.”
She gasped for air against the soft fabric of his T-shirt. “I’m calm.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yes I am!” She slowed her breathing, quieted her voice. “I’m calm. Really.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Gradually he released her. “All right, then. I was—”
She slugged him in the head. “You son of a bitch!”
“Ouch!” He threw up his arm.
