Echo Page 3

  He wondered just how genuine the smile was.

  “What brings you to our little part of the woods? You don’t look like you need the job.” Lacie was lounging in her chair, long legs stretched out in front of her, covered in some gauzy, broomstick-style skirt. She wore a filmy, baggy blouse over the top of it, and her wrists were weighed down by clunky, wooden bracelets. A matching necklace hung from her neck, strung with enormous wooden beads. Her long, brown hair was braided down the side of her face—an open face, innocent yet wary. She knew he didn’t belong here.

  “I wanted something different. I used to be on the force in San Antonio, but I retired.” Simon was keeping his lie as close to the truth as possible. Having done some undercover work, the lie rolled smoothly off his tongue. “I don’t necessarily need the money, but I needed something to do with myself. I thought working with kids would be nice.” Okay, that last part was a stretch, but he was trying.

  “Well, that makes more sense then. You didn’t realize you’d been hired as a classroom aide? That’s why you wore a suit?”

  He chuckled, feeling more than a little sheepish. “Yeah, I thought it would be some sort of security position.”

  “It probably is,” Lacie mused as she cast her friend a side-long glance. Thankfully, her friend changed the subject.

  “Lacie, you up for drinks Thursday? You’re welcome to come too.” She turned to Simon. “It’s sort of our let-our-hair-down night.”

  His smile this time was genuine. “I’d like that.” He looked back over at Lacie, who was looking at him funny, and his smile dropped. She kept looking at him like that, and it made a volcano erupt inside him. Her mahogany-colored eyes took on this sheen and her cheeks got a little ruddy, and Simon would get slammed with a heat so intense he felt like lava was running through his veins. Then she would drop her eyes to her lap or a kid or something, and he’d look away and everything would go back to normal.

  He shifted in his seat. This kept happening between them. This heat. This was about the fourth time he’d been slammed with the volcano under his skin, and he needed it to stop.

  “Trent will be there,” Lacie told her friend. “He’s gotten weird lately, so I don’t know how long he’ll stay, but he’s trying to make more of a point of spending more time with me.”

  Shit. If Lacie were his girlfriend, he’d be with her twenty-four hours a fucking day, especially if there were guys stalking her. What sort of guy didn’t want to hang out with his girlfriend? Simon slapped that thought straight out of his head. He had absolutely no business going down that road and had no idea where it had come from. Sure, Lacie was attractive, but she wasn’t his type. At all.

  He needed to get laid.

  First, he needed to call the office, see how Miriam was doing with the paperwork, and see if Quinten would help him move into his new house.

  Chapter Five

  Lacie tossed her phone on the couch next to her, trying not to get angry at her boyfriend. Trent never answered his phone, for anyone, and it annoyed the hell out of her. He was in the habit of screening, listening to voicemail messages and gauging their importance before he called anyone back. In her mind, she thought just the fact she was calling should be important.

  But she obviously wasn’t a priority for Trent. If he wanted to talk to her, he would call back in under five minutes. If he didn’t call, she would assume he was busy because the alternative was worse.

  With a sigh, she reached over for her wine glass and took a sip of her crisp Chardonnay. It would probably go down too fast if she got bored. She tried to keep herself at one glass a night, but lately, that one glass was closer to two or three.

  Lacie knew her solitary existence probably had a lot to do with her being targeted. Single woman, living alone, not much of a social life to speak of, but she enjoyed herself. It was total bullhonky that her chosen lifestyle was what had put a target on her back for all this. Most people would have at least bought drapes after what had happened to her, but she couldn’t bring herself to block herself from the outside world entirely. The only thing that soothed her frazzled nerves lately was watching the outside world go about its business. It let her know there was something normal left, and she could get back there someday.

  She’d double-checked the new locks on her doors when she got home, as was becoming her habit, and now she was sitting on her sofa watching the neighborhood out her window while she tried to relax after her day.

  And holy crap-buckets, she was worked up.

  Simon Pierce was going to be a force to be reckoned with, she could feel it. Everywhere. His mere presence lent an air of security, especially after finding out he used to be a cop. Surely, that’s why Dad had hired him for her classroom. Of course, that didn’t automatically mean she could trust him.

  The way he’d looked at her though … It was different from the hungry gazes of those … others. She couldn’t even bring herself to look back at the attacks in detail, but she could compare them to Simon. Those men had looked at her like a predator looked at prey they were about to rip from limb to limb. For the fun of it. For the control. For the pain they would cause. And enjoy. Simon Pierce had looked at her with a different sort of hunger. It told her everything she’d ever thought about men was wrong. He would change her life. That split-second of intensity in his eyes and the way he’d school his features so effortlessly told her everything she needed to know about him. He wasn’t bad, but he wouldn’t be good for her either.

  In fact, the way he made the hairs on her arms stand up was reason alone not to trust him. Nobody had ever had made her skin prickle the way he did. And that had to say something, didn’t it?

  But the way he moved, with the grace of a seasoned athlete, or a predator stalking its prey, was enough to have her on edge. And when he’d rolled up that exquisite dress shirt to expose the massively corded muscles on his forearms when he was showing Elija how to draw a dragon? Frack. She was definitely in trouble.

  Looking over at her cell phone, she willed Trent to call her back and even debated calling again. She needed to hear his voice, have some validation from him. He’d been distant lately, and Lacie was afraid he might be fooling around on her. But she’d given him ample opportunity to break things off. She didn’t want him to feel obligated to date her. She had issues she needed to deal with, and Trent was a busy guy. He didn’t need to deal with her stuff along with whatever else he dealt with.

  Trent was a real estate agent and was doing relatively well in this market. They’d met at a bar about three months ago and managed to stay casual. They hadn’t had sex yet, and Lacie was thankful for that, even though the fact she was thankful for it probably told her something.

  He certainly didn’t make her skin prickle.

  But was skin prickling a good thing?

  Did she need that in a relationship?

  Frack. What was she thinking?

  A blur of movement through the window focused her attention on the world she gazed at. Story of her life. Lacie was trapped inside her house, afraid to go out, content to watch the world unfold around her.

  A black Jeep, shiny and masculine-looking and tugging a moving trailer, pulled up in the driveway across the street. Sipping her wine, she was thankful for something besides the neighbor’s dog to keep her occupied.

  Out hopped Simon Pierce.

  Frickety frack.

  Lacie blinked. Slowly. Rubbed her eyes. Yes, it was still Simon Pierce across the street, wearing a pair of workout shorts and a t-shirt—a complete one-eighty difference from the expensive suit he’d worn earlier.

  She had to talk to somebody, to take her mind off her new co-worker whom she didn’t quite trust and brought all sorts of feelings to her surface. Dialing blindly, Lacie tried to reach Trent again, but he didn’t answer, so she called Emily.

  “Do you remember that guy from school?
My new aide?” she asked as soon as her friend answered.

  “Um, do you mean the walking dicksickle I would love to suck all over for a while?”

  “Holy crap, Em. Really?”

  “Well, yeah, except for David, who’s due home in forty-five minutes and will be expecting dinner. But if I were single, I’d be all the fuck over that.”

  Lacie wasn’t sure what brought the two of them together, but her friend’s unabashed shamelessness brought a smile to her face almost every time.

  She eyeballed the man in question as he came out of the house, pocketed a set of keys, and walked to the back of the trailer, where another guy was unloading boxes of stuff. They looked like brothers, although Simon was the smaller of the two.

  “It looks like he’s moving into the house across the street from me.”

  “OHMYGOD! For real? What’s he wearing?”

  “Wait. I am talking to a grownup, right? Or did you give the phone to your twelve-year-old?”

  “Just shut up and let me live a little. Is he all sweaty? It’s like ninety-eight degrees outside.”

  Lacie bit her lip as she studied the men across the street. “Red gym shorts and a gray t-shirt, and yes, he is sweating.” The pits marked with sweat would have looked gross on anybody else, but on Simon, it did look sort of sexy. She couldn’t see details, but the muscle definition was unmistakable. “I think he might have a tattoo, but it’s hard to see from here.”

  “Well, go welcome him to the damn neighborhood!”

  Not likely. Lacie was perfectly content in her little cocoon, or at least, that’s what she was telling herself as her eyes tracked to the front door to make sure it was still dead bolted.

  “It looks like he’s got a brother.”

  “I’ll be over in five minutes.” Her friend hung up on her.

  Well, crap. She was just trying to distract Emily, not make things worse. Sure enough, when Emily’s Toyota showed up in her driveway, the two men across the street stopped what they were doing, whispered something to each other, and smiled.

  Which was all the invitation Emily needed.

  Hoping to thwart her friend’s good intentions, Lacie hustled out of the house to stop her from whatever she was doing.

  “Emily! I live over here!” The two men’s heads snapped in her direction as she yelled her sarcastic remark. Lacie instantly regretted it, though, as now she felt like she was under scrutiny with two pairs of gray eyes tracking her movements.

  Emily had changed into shorts and a t-shirt, showing off the extra weight she was trying to lose. All of it was shaking and jiggling as she gestured wildly to Lacie’s house across the street. With a huff, she jogged across the street to join them.

  Simon’s eyes were locked on her as soon as she left her house, and the guy with him grinned as she made her way down the driveway. Nervous, she squeaked out a hello, waving awkwardly.

  “Lacie! Did you know Mr. Pierce was your new neighbor? And he has a brother … Quinten!” Emily was doing a fantastic job of acting casual and innocent. Not.

  “Uh … yeah. I saw him out the window a few minutes ago,” Lacie managed to stammer. Heat radiated off the cement, and combined with the heat flushing her skin every time she was around Simon, she thought she might pass out. “Welcome. Let me know if you need anything.” Please don’t. I don’t want to know what a man like you needs. “Emily, I have that recipe book you wanted to borrow. Remember?” Thinking fast, she helplessly tugged her friend back across to her house, desperate to not look at Simon Pierce another moment longer.

  Frack.

  Back in her own home, Lacie shoved the first book she could find into her friend’s hands. “Go. Just … go.”

  “His brother’s pretty hot too. Call Trent and break up. You know you want to.” Emily’s eyebrows waggled like fuzzy caterpillars, desperate for escape. “Hit that, Lace. You deserve it. I bet he’s interested too. Did you see the way he watched you cross the street?”

  “Go home, Em. Please.” Her phone’s ringtone sounded from the couch where she’d dropped it when Emily hung up on her. It was Trent.

  Frickety frack.

  Chapter Six

  Simon had most of the stuff he would use moved in, the rest were empty boxes designed to throw Lacie off. He didn’t need much, just some surveillance equipment, some clothes, and dishes. The house was furnished, but he brought a mattress set just because. He liked his mattress.

  Evan came by after dark to hook everything up and helped him install motion-sensing cameras in her yard. They were set up with an alarm to go off if anything moved outside, which would wake Simon. Hopefully.

  As he sat drinking coffee the following morning, he mused about what was happening to Lacie. He had copies of her police reports, which had her vague recollections of what the men had said to her, along with generic descriptions of the men. It wasn’t surprising. Under attack, victims do well to remember the basics, with all the adrenaline pumping through their system.

  After the completely awkward incident with the lady from school yesterday who had shown up on her doorstep, Simon had subtly watched her. The friend had left with a book shortly after arriving, and Lacie had stayed indoors the rest of the evening. Her living room drapes remained open, so he could watch her as she sipped wine and watched TV. She talked on her phone, laughing some, and then hung up to watch more TV. She read a little before turning off all the lights and going to bed.

  During the night, four dogs, three cats, and a family of raccoons had set off the motion detector alarm.

  Simon dressed more appropriately for work today, wanting to kick himself yet again for the major faux pas yesterday. Casual in washable khaki slacks and a blue, button-down shirt, he certainly felt more normal.

  And a little bit odd.

  His suit was sort of a uniform for him. His parents had always been formal, his father always in a suit. When he’d been on the force, the uniform was a welcome change for him, undercover work brought more suits as that was what the job dictated, and upon his retirement, he’d fallen back on the formality of the suits. Sure, he owned khaki slacks and wore them when the occasion dictated, but he felt out of place.

  Of course, after a day on this job, he was getting accustomed to the feeling. Simon pocketed his keys, drove the trailer back to the drop-off point, and went to the school.

  He hit the ground running, his newest experiences commanding a new respect for public education teachers.

  Simon didn’t get a chance to breathe until lunchtime. He spent the morning walking a child to the nurse after having an accident and needing new clothes, helping kids arrange shapes, manning the “centers”, and reading the students a story about a brown bear. To make it interesting, he came up with some voices, which tickled the kids. He liked hearing them laugh at him. For some reason, it evoked a feeling he didn’t know and couldn’t understand. But he was proud to make them happy, especially because some of the kids didn’t look like they smiled all that much. And when the kids laughed, Lacie smiled. He didn’t want to understand why that made him feel so good.

  Protein shake in hand, Simon hustled to the teacher’s lounge, eager for some time to talk to Lacie. The teacher gig was all good, but he still didn’t have any information on her case. This twenty-minute break each day was the only chance he had.

  Today, she wore another long, flowing skirt and gauzy top, but in different colors. Her jewelry was made from polished rocks and hung from everywhere. She was natural, in more ways than one. Her clothes, sure, but her look was something out of a fairy tale. Lacie wore no makeup, her nails clean and clipped short. He did notice, though, that her toenails were painted a whimsical green, the color of leaves or grass, adding to the natural theme she had going on.

  He sat across the table from her and Emily, the only two teachers who came to the lounge during this lunch
period. Since it was summer enrichment, there weren’t that many teachers on staff.

  They were already deep in conversation.

  “I just got my bead in the mail yesterday. It took me most of last night to download everything for it. David was so pissed, but after explaining to him how hot I would look again after I finished my buddy-up system with you, he mellowed out a bit,” Emily explained to Lacie, fiddling with a bracelet on her wrist.

  Simon looked closer and noticed it was one of those StrongArm things, the bracelet that kept track of your fitness regime. Emily’s had a large, glass bead on it. As he studied the women while they talked, he noticed Lacie had one too.

  Knowing a thing or two about fitness, he figured he would join them. Besides, this might give him the in he needed. Lacie hadn’t opened up around him, and he understood her lack of trust with him, but Simon really needed her to talk more, aside from, “Help the kids with calendar time, if you don’t mind.”

  “Does it work? Do you like it?” He directed the question at Lacie.

  She fiddled with the bracelet. “Yeah. The mod makes it better though. I found this off-brand modification for my StrongArm basic that turns it into a pro for half the price. It tracks everything, my heart rate, calories burned, down time. It even has a little kit you can get that will analyze finger sticks and tell you your cholesterol and blood oxygen content and stuff.” She was using her teacher voice with him, but he didn’t mind. Simon liked her voice. At least she was talking to him about something besides five-year-olds.