Page 171 of Letters From A Stalker

For one strange second, another room overlaps this one. Another man looking at me over the edge of a notebook after I say the same thing. The ache arrives softer now than it used to. It’s still there, just no longer sharp enough to take my breath with it.

Daniel doesn’t notice. He has already returned to the event notes.

The property appears several minutes later behind a long drive flanked by bare trees, the main house sitting farther back from the road than I expected. It is beautiful without being showy, an older, substantial home with dark trim, broad porches and enough surrounding land that the nearest neighboring property is barely visible. There are security cameras at the entrance and another gate farther in, discreet but impossible to miss once you know what you’re looking for.

The event itself is intentionally private. No address appeared on the materials our firm received until travel was finalized, photographs are restricted to designated areas and residents are not part of the donor-facing portion unless they personally chose to participate. The residential spaces remain off limits altogether. A large heated canopy has been erected off the back of the main house, transparent side panels keeping out most of the wind while allowing the winter setting sun to fill the space. Inside, tables are covered in cream linens, discreet arrangements of pine and winter greenery sitting between stacks of brochures about the foundation’s work. Nothing looks extravagant. It looks cared for.

The second I step out of the SUV, the cold gets beneath my coat and makes me deeply regret ever doubting Tessa’s insistence on boots.

“Jesus,” Daniel mutters as the wind catches his coat. “Why do people live here voluntarily?”

One of the senior partners laughs ahead of us. “Ask that again in February in Minneapolis.”

“Fair point.”

We make it inside before the wind can freeze anything essential. Renee finds us almost immediately. I recognize her from the materials, though photographs did not fully capture the kind of presence she has. She is probably somewhere in her forties, dressed simply in dark trousers and a cream sweater, her hair pulled back while she moves through introductions with the calm efficiency of someone keeping six things running at once.

When she reaches me, her smile is warm. Michael joins us, followed by Daniel and the senior partners, and the conversation moves toward the foundation, donor reporting and some of the pro bono work our firm has handled over the last year. I am mostly there because I coordinated more of the administrative side than anybody realized until the event planning began, which means I know enough faces and names to be useful without having to pretend I’m an attorney yet. Daniel has continued harassing me about the bar with enough consistency that the word has started appearing in my head without him having to say it. I haven’t told him that. He would become unbearable.

The next hour passes easily. There are speeches, although thankfully none are long. Renee talks about the women who moved through the program this year without sharing details that belong to them, about transitional housing, childcare assistance, legal advocacy and education. One of the board members announces that the residential program has now helped more than two hundred women since opening, and the applause that follows feels different from the corporate events I am used to attending. Nobody here is celebrating quarterly growth. They are celebrating people getting out alive.

By the time the formal portion ends, I understand why our firm became so invested in this place. I eventually escape the crowd by telling Daniel I need air. He looks toward the transparent wall of the tent where the wind is moving the bare branches hard enough to make them scrape together.

“You need that air?”

“I’ve had two hours of attorneys.”

“That is fair.” He lets me go.

I pull my coat on before stepping outside and walk around the side of the house, grateful when the building cuts most of the wind. The cold still finds the strip of skin between my boots and the hem of my dress, but after almost two hours beneath the heated canopy, the sharp air feels good against my face. The property stretches farther than I realized from the entrance, the main house giving way to smaller buildings, a fenced play area and a detached garage partially hidden by bare trees. I follow the path without much purpose until something parked behind the house catches my attention.

I stop. The motorcycle is black, low and unmistakably familiar, and my body recognizes it before my brain does. A Kawasaki ZX10R. I know that now because apparently heartbreak turns me into the kind of woman who Googles motorcycles at one in the morning. My pulse stutters. Before my first appointment with Kai, I had found vague mentions of charity work connected to Pine Ridge, but nothing about a safe house or this property. Still, as I look back toward the main house, pieces begin fitting together in a way that makes my heartbeat climb. Could this be his? I hadn’t seen him anywhere inside, but then again, I hadn’t been looking. Once Renee started speaking, most of my attention stayed on her. He could have been here the entire time.

The thought sends something warm and nervous through me because the longer Kai stayed away, the more complicated his absence became. At first, I needed every bit of the distance I demanded. Then the anger began to loosen around the edges, not because what he did became less wrong, but because nothing I remembered about him felt fake. The work we did in therapy had been real. So had his concern, his insistence that I stop making myself smaller, the way he pushed me to believe my choices belonged to me. Ghost had been real too. The tenderness, the passion, the laughter, the way he stopped whenever I asked and the quiet moments afterward had never felt performed. He had lied about who he was, but eventually I stopped believing he had lied about how he felt.

The final shift came three weeks ago, when I searched his name again and found the disciplinary order from the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice. Kai had reported himself within days of me leaving his office. He admitted what he had done, stopped practicing while the investigation moved forward, entered therapy and accepted the conditions placed on his license. He had no way of knowing I would ever see any of it, which meant none of it had been done for my forgiveness. That mattered more than I expected. Somewhere after that, forgiveness stopped being a question I kept arguing with and simply became true. I still hated what he had done, but I no longer wanted him to suffer for it forever. I wanted him to have learned from it. And once I admitted that, I had to admit the more inconvenient truth underneath it. I loved him.

Not Ghost, not Dr. Blackwood — Kai. Just him.

I look back at the motorcycle, my fingers tightening inside my coat pockets. If this really is his property, then he might be here. I have barely begun to turn toward the house when the back door opens behind me. My heart seems to stop before I turn toward the sound and look. Kai stands a few feet from the house. For one suspended moment, neither of us moves.

He looks different, although there is nothing dramatic about the change. He is still unmistakably Kai, tall and broad beneath a dark sweater and black jacket, faded jeans tucked into riding boots instead of polished shoes. There is no three-piece suit, no glasses, or balaclava obscuring everything except his eyes. His hair has grown just enough for the wind to catch it.

Something crosses his face before he can stop it, surprise giving way to such naked longing that my chest tightens around it. He hides it quickly, his entire body seeming to lock into place as though even standing here requires restraint.

“Julia.” Hearing my name in his real voice after all these weeks hurts in a way I wasn’t prepared for, warm and aching at once.

His gaze shifts briefly toward the event behind me. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“I know.”

He takes a slow breath, and I can almost see the decision settle over him before he glances toward the garage. “I’ll leave.”

I don’t want him to.

“Kai.” His name leaves my mouth before I have time to think twice.

He stops immediately, not even finishing the turn, and the familiarity of that response sends another ache through me. Whatever else changed between us, he still stops when I ask him to.