Page 43 of Nightfire

And that was the thing. Because though Mike’s rejection of her as a woman was complete and total, insulting in its thoroughness, every time she turned around, it seemed, Mike was there. He moved in all her new furniture, set up all her shelves, fixed everything in sight. He drove her to the shelter, picked her up after work, took out her garbage, carried in her groceries.

Her little family ate together at most meals and Mike was always right next to her, passing her things, cajoling her to eat more.

He took her to work, to the shelter, to the supermarket.

And in all that, he never touched her, not once.

He was driving her insane.

Nicole and Ellen were no help. They didn’t understand it either. Mike had stopped, cold turkey, what Ellen delicately called his ‘fooling around’ and Nicole crudely called his ‘fucking on an industrial level’.

Both of them thought he was in love with her, but by the same token were totally unable to process the fact that he never touched her. Maybe because their own husbands couldn’t keep their hands off them. For the Mike they knew, formerly known as the ‘man-slut’, this behavior was incomprehensible.

He now led the life of a monk.

He rarely left her side.

He never touched her.

It was driving her crazy.

How could she get Mike out of her mind, how could she get over him, how could she move on, when he was always around?

And then of course there was the delicate issue of maybe dating someone else, though she found it impossible to drum up interest in the bank manager, the building superintendent, the orthopedic surgeon and the journalist for the Union-Tribune—all of whom had asked her out at least once.

It would be nice to want to go out with someone. But how could that happen when the sexiest, strongest, most vital man in the world was always in her face? Right next to her?

And—in the case of the journalist—glowering so menacingly the man had backed away, palms up.

Though Chloe wasn’t confrontational by nature, maybe the best thing to do would be to just say it. Tell him to stay away from her because the truth was, he was breaking her heart. Having him so close, every day, there every time she turned around, but so far away emotionally…well, it was almost unbearable.

He’d snared her heart that first day and he wasn’t letting it go.

The door that gave off an inner courtyard opened and she whirled, grateful for a distraction from her thoughts of Mike, stuck in her head like a burr. Maybe it was the director of the shelter, Marion. Kind, gray-haired, no-nonsense. Or maybe Consuelo, her favorite of the women who showed up for informal group therapy. She was stunningly beautiful and had a kind heart. And was being ground down into dust by her job as a high-class prostitute.

But it was neither. Two big men pushed their way into the room. Very big men.

Chloe’s heart rate picked up immediately, started beating wildly, a primordial response she was trying to learn to control. Not every big man was a source of danger. Look at Sam and Harry and Mike. She had to stop this instant panic every time a larger-than-normal man stepped across her path.

She’d seen a mugshot of Rodney Lewis, the man who’d killed her mother and had sent her to the hospital for ten years. He’d weighed over 300 pounds and he was the origin of her panic. Knowing what caused it didn’t make it abate, however.

Chloe schooled her face to blandness, wiped her suddenly-wet palms down her linen shift. She had to stop reacting to big men like this.

The closer the two men came, though, the more her Alarm-o-meter dinged red. They carried themselves well, like athletes. Both blond, not badly dressed, not well dressed. The clothes of busy men who had money but weren’t obsessed with fashion and needed to do physical things in their clothes.

What terrified her were the eyes. Light blue and as remote as the eyes of dolls. Their body language was neutral, the only menace their utter and complete fitness. She watched them as they crossed the room to her.

Chloe planted her feet firmly and straightened. Grow a backbone, Chloe. She couldn’t be a slave to her past all her life.

The two men weren’t supposed to be here and she’d tell them that, after which they’d leave. A normal human transaction, the kind she’d been having for only the past six months, since reuniting with Harry. This needed to become permanent—this ability to speak to large men who weren’t Harry or Mike or Sam without being terrified.

“Miss Chloe Mason?” the taller of the two asked. He had a guttural voice and foreign accent. Only a foreigner would call a 28 year old woman ‘miss’.

Chloe’s heart was thudding hard against her rib cage. Her body was sending her signals she tried to ignore.

“Yes? May I help you? Though I have to tell you that men aren’t allowed here in the shelter. The door on the wall to my left will take you directly out into the parking lot.”

The only men allowed into the shelter were Mike and Harry and Sam, since RBK was such a big supporter. Not to mention the fact that they helped women who were in immediate danger disappear.