Seal Next Door Read online

  Chloe

  “I’m worried about you, Chloe. I think we need to hire someone to take care of all of this.”

  I rolled my eyes in exasperation for the hundredth time that morning. Not because I didn’t agree with my mother, but because she wholeheartedly believed she could hire a bodyguard to follow me from my house to the store.

  “You can’t hire a bodyguard,” I said. “I’m not that important of a person.”

  Betty Johnson straightened the turquoise nylon scarf tied loosely about her neck. She sniffed delicately while gazing out at the showroom of various furniture sets.

  “Nonsense,” she said. “You’re important to me. Just say the word, Chloe, and I’ll have somebody over at that apartment—”

  “Mom,” I cut in harshly, shaking my head at her. “Remember what the police officers and social services told us? It’s better to keep my distance right now. We don’t want to tip him off either.”

  “I know that. I just think it’s unfair that he won’t send you your things.”

  “He paid for the things he has.”

  “It shouldn’t be like that, Chloe,” she said, shaking her head at me with a sad frown. “Your father didn’t raise you to believe that sort of thing in a relationship is okay. Then again, we can agree to say you weren’t in a relationship exactly.”

  A headache pounded in my temples. I loved my mother more than anything in the world. She hadn’t even batted an eyelash when I’d called from the hospital with two broken ribs, bruised arms, and a concussion to ask for help. Years ago, my father had passed away from a heart attack, and while his death had been dark and abrupt, he had made sure that my mother and I were taken care of. I had never accepted my inheritance because of Luke. He could take everything else, just not any of my dad’s hard-earned money.

  The last thing I wanted to talk about though was Luke. I’d done enough of it by talking to the police.

  “I appreciate everything you are doing mom,” I said, giving her a smile. “I just want to focus on moving forward now. I can live without a computer and a phone for a little bit until I get a job.”

  “Oh, please,” Betty said. “I’m buying you a phone. There’s no way you can go without a phone.”

  “Mom—”

  “Don’t start, Chloe. Just say you love me, and let’s finish picking out your furniture so it can be delivered later.”

  I embraced her tightly for a long moment, inhaling the smell of sunshine on her clothes. There was one perk at least to moving all the way out to Colorado. I got to be close to my mother again.

  An hour later, I dropped her off at her gated retirement community with sprawling gardens and evergreen pines.

  “I love you, dear,” Betty said, leaning in through the window to kiss me on the cheek. “Call me on that brand-new phone of yours if you need.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, Mom. I will.”

  By the time I arrived back to the house, the handymen my mother had hired to rip out the old carpet were pulling out rolls of rotted pads and stained carpet. I swept the hardwood floors free of nails and dust until the furniture trucks arrived. I stood on the porch while movers came in and out of the house.

  Hope. It trickled through me for the first time in a long time. A new house. New furniture. I can do this. I can start my life over again. I tilted my head up to allow the warm sunshine to fall over my face.

  “What the hell is all this?”

  I started at the sound of Jake’s voice cutting through the morning as sharp as a surgical knife. My heart pounded against my ribcage when I saw him leaning over the fence slightly to watch the movers with an irritated scowl. Erika wasn’t kidding. He hates noise. There were dark circles underneath his eyes, but even rumpled he still looked sexy.

  “Movers,” I said, stepping off the porch to walk up to him. The grass tickled my bare toes as I approached. He eyed me with an indifferent expression. “I’m sorry. Erika told me that you don’t like noise.”

  “No,” he said sharply, “I don’t like noise. I work at night. The only time I ever get sleep is when my son is in school.”

  I recoiled slightly at his agitated demeanor. “Okay, well, they’ll be done soon. I’m sorry. There isn’t anything I can do.”

  Jake swept his gaze along the furniture trucks parked out front. It gave me a few seconds to admire his well-maintained frame. I wanted to reach out and feel those muscles bulging out. It wasn’t just his fit figure that hooked me. It was the haunted air that surrounded him. He kept his emotions well-hidden, though, when he looked back at me.

  “Just tell them to keep it down,” he said. “This is the only time I get to sleep. I don’t have the ability to sleep all day like you do.”

  The insult slapped me hard across the face. I stared at him as he leaned back to go to his house. What is his problem?

  “I don’t have the ability to take a nap all day,” I said, a bit defensively. “I have things to do also.”

  He snorted. “Such as?”

  “I have a job too,” I said, though it was a flat-out lie. I still had to find a job by the end of the week in addition to everything else.

  “You don’t look old enough to have an important job,” Jake commented flatly. “You don’t even look old enough to own a house that needs renovations.”

  Anger skittered through me at those insults. “Well,” I said, hooking my hands on my hips, “I am old enough. I’m old enough to buy alcohol. I’m old enough to do everything. Not that it’s your business.”

  “I didn’t ask,” he said. Jerk. “Just tell your movers to keep it quiet. I need to sleep.”

  Exasperated, I looked over at the movers pulling out the frame for my new bed. They weren’t even that loud while they talked to each other.

  “It’s impossible to keep quiet when you’re moving,” I said. “You’re asking me to do the impossible. Just close your bedroom window.”

  He stiffened visibly at that. I had noticed, well rather heard, him slam his window shut the other night. It had been open again this morning, but the curtains had been drawn closed. I had no idea why I’d even looked at that this morning on my way out. Maybe it was because our bedroom windows faced one another. That thought caused an array of emotions to go through me.

  “Tell them to be quiet,” he said shortly.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but he was already stalking back up his driveway to the front door. He slammed the door shut without sparing me another glance. I walked up to my front porch with a sigh.

  “Great,” I grumbled, shoving my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “I have an asshole for a neighbor who has ridiculously good hearing. How much better could this get?”

  Chapter Four

  Jake

  Crash!

  I jerked awake, one hand instinctively going straight to my Glock. A terrified scream filled the morning air. I shoved the sheets and blankets back. Years of training in the Navy SEALs pumped through my veins as I rushed down the stairs to yank the front door open. I scanned the area for the sound of the crash and scream with my Glock held in front of me defensively.

  The second I rounded the right side of my house, I stumbled upon an alarming sight. There she was, my new next-door neighbor, dangling by her fingernails from the gutter with a tipped-over ladder on the ground. She gave me a frightened look, either from nearly falling to her death or because I had the barrel of my Glock pointed directly at her.

  Irritation swept through me. What the fuck? I clicked the safety back on before slipping my gun into the hoister at my hip.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I snapped, stalking over to stand below her. It was a damn miracle she hadn’t fallen yet.

  “Hanging out,” she said, her arms shaking from holding on. “The ladder fell when I was climbing up onto the roof.”

  “Why were you climbing onto the roof?”

  “Does it matter now?” She looked down at me, her face cherry red from the effort to keep holding on. “If you want to watch me break
my neck, stick around. I’m sure you’d be happy.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I growled. I held out my arms. “Just let go. I’ll catch you.”

  She shot me a skeptical look. “Yeah, right. How do I know you can even catch me?”

  “I trained in the Navy SEALs,” I said. “So, you tell me if I’m able to handle catching a woman dangling from a roof.”

  Her arms trembled violently. I waited patiently before she let go of the gutter, squeezing her eyes shut. She landed perfectly in my arms. She was so light that it surprised me. The smell of vanilla and coffee filled my nose. The bare skin of her back felt hot from the sun as it pressed against my arm. I caught a glimpse of her breasts jiggling slightly from the fall before I forced myself to let go of her.

  “Thanks,” she said, stumbling to her feet when I practically dropped her. “At least I know you don’t want to watch me break my neck.”

  She smiled in wry amusement.

  “I’ve seen people with broken necks,” I said. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

  “I’m sure.” She held out a small hand. “I’m Chloe Johnson, by the way. I never got to introduce myself, because you’ve either yelled at me or ignored me since I moved in.”

  I didn’t take a hold of her hand. Her skin had felt way too soft and good against my own. I didn’t want to think of how those hands felt.

  “Jake Mason,” I said. “What were you doing up on the roof?”

  Chloe glanced up at the gutter that was now twisted from her desperate attempt to hold on. A grimace contorted her freckled face. “I was trying to fix a hole in the roof before it got too hot. I found a raccoon in my attic last night, and I’m confident it’s getting in through the hole up on the roof.”

  “Do you even know how to patch a roof?” I asked skeptically. I know she had taken offense to my previous comments about her young age, but she just didn’t seem like the type of woman who could climb up on a roof and know what to do up there.

  “It’s not that hard,” Chloe said, puffing up slightly. “I just have to take some of the shingles and nail it down. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

  A chuckle escaped my lips of its own will. She paused in picking up the ladder from the ground, visibly surprised at the sound.

  “That is not how you patch a roof,” I said, shaking my head. “If you don’t do it right, you’ll have snow and rain leaking into your attic. That will turn into an even bigger problem.”

  “Right,” Chloe said. “So I’ll do it right then.”

  I admired her stubbornness and pride; we had that in common. But I wasn’t in the mood to rescue her from the roof again because she didn’t check to see if the ladder was level and steady on the ground.

  “Let me do it,” I said. I reached for the hammer that was tucked in the waistband of her jean shorts.

  Chloe started back from me in a panicked fashion. I looked up in mild surprise to see fear, such intense fear, flicker there briefly before shame colored her cheeks. That was when I caught sight of the faintest hint of bruises that looked exactly like fingerprints on her forearms. Realization dawned on me then. Her skittish behavior, checking the locks excessively at night, and eyeing me with wariness made sense. All of it made sense. The defiance. The sharp attitude. Every single bit of it clicked into place.

  “I can do it,” she said shortly, crossing her arms to hide the bruises. “Thanks, but I’ve got it covered.”

  “You’re going to break your neck if you do it,” I said.

  “Not that you care if I do,” she said. She turned on the heel of her bare foot. “Sorry to have bothered you. Better get back to sleep before your son comes home.”

  Observant landed on that list too, far too observant if she’d already figured out my schedule. My eyes went straight to the tight curves of her ass cheeks in those frayed jean shorts she wore. I tore my gaze away when she turned to look back at me with a frown.

  “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have come out here,” I said, walking back around to the driveway. “It’s better to fix the roof when it’s cool out, too, like in the evening.”

  “You only want me to fix it in the evening because you’re awake then.”

  “That too,” I said. “Keep it down.”

  I heard a mumbled word that sounded exactly like “asshole” thrown at my back. I slammed my door behind me. Leaning against it, I rubbed the sweat from my forehead while I willed my heart to cool. There was no point in trying to lay back down to get a few hours of sleep. I couldn’t get those images of her bruises out of my mind. Whoever had hit her, he’d hit her hard enough to put her in the house next to me. She wasn’t from around here. That much I could tell from how sun-kissed her skin was. Somewhere from the coast, I imagined. Maybe Florida.

  My blood was running hot from feeling Chloe’s body cradled perfectly in my arms, a little too perfectly. I glanced down at the partial bulge in my pants. Sleep was definitely out of the question now.

  “Great,” I grumbled, locking the front door. “Something I have to take care of on my own, just like everything else.”

  Chapter Five

  Chloe

  The longer you ignore me, the worse it is going to get. Those words echoed in the back of my mind as I clicked out of my email with a trembling breath. At least I got notifications from my social media in my email account. It was the only way I could check things without alerting anyone to where I had gone.

  Luke was the only one who suspected I would use my email account to check my social media pages. Everyone else just messaged me out of concern of where I had gone. I couldn’t tell them, though, as much as it hurt my heart to lose my circle of friends back in California. The thought of Luke trying to hassle them for information put cold fear in my heart. He was angry. He wanted to find me, and I had blind hope that moving to a large city would be enough to deter him.

  The library was quiet for a Thursday morning. Everyone was in school or at work. I had spent the past hour applying for jobs that were posted online. Anything at this point would be better than nothing. I could rebuild my life as I went.

  I hesitated in gathering my purse. Since falling from the roof, I had done my best to avoid Jake as much as humanly possible with us living so close. Nothing seemed to make that man happy. A cricket would set him off, but not like Luke. He was in control, guarded, and never once seemed physically threatening.

  Except the one time he came tearing around his house with a gun pointed directly at me.

  Navy SEALs. He’d had combat training at one point in his life. That much I could sum up him from the day he had rescued me from the roof. Running toward the sound of danger had been instinctive for him. Maybe having Jake next to my house wasn’t such a bad thing.

  I left the library. Along the way, I rummaged through my purse for my phone to call my mom.

  “Luke messaged me,” I said the second she answered. “He emailed me, actually. He knew I’d check my email.”

  “You’re supposed to close those social media accounts,” she scolded, sighing into the phone. “I know this is hard, Chloe, but you need to listen to what the police told you. You know that jail only pissed him off. When he got out—”

  “I know.”

  A headache pounded in my temples. The hot summer air settled heavily on my shoulders. The sound of traffic washed over me. The first stirrings of dread started in my chest.

  “He’ll come to Colorado,” I said quietly. “He knows where you live, Mom. Remember? We visited you once at Lone Tree.”

  Betty blew an angry breath into the phone. “I’m not afraid of him,” she said defiantly. “Hell hath no fury like a mother protecting her child who has been hurt.”

  That did not help my fears. It made everything way worse. I rubbed at my eyes tiredly as I climbed into the driver’s seat of my car.

  “You should be,” I said.

  “Honey, men like Luke live off threats. I’ll contact someone here, though, to see what they say about the situation.”

&nbs
p; “Thanks, Mom.”

  I pulled up to the house at 8:20 a.m. to find Erika and Jake talking with each other on the sidewalk. I felt Jake’s gaze threaten to burn holes into me as I climbed out of the car.

  “I wish I could say that I could watch him,” Erika said. “It’s just too much, Jake, to do that every night. He needs a steady schedule, and he’d sleep better at your house.”

  “I know all that,” Jake said, pointedly turning away when I approached them. “It’d just be for a little bit until I can find another permanent babysitter who can stay here overnight with him.”

  Erika caught sight of me approaching. Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “What about Chloe?”

  “Me?” My eyes widened at the thought of staying in Jake’s house overnight. “I don’t know if—”

  “You’re in a need of a job, dear,” Erika said. “That’s what you told me the other day. Jake pays $100 a night Monday through Friday.”

  That’s $2,000 a month. I looked up at Jake, who looked less than thrilled judging from the sharp glare he sent Erika.

  “Well—”

  “I have no idea who Chloe is,” Jake said flatly.

  Erika rolled her eyes. “Does she honestly look like a criminal to you?”

  “Appearances aren’t everything,” he replied. He ran a hand through his hair in visible frustration. “Please, Erika. I just need this until I can find—”

  “I can do it,” I said. They both turned to look at me. “I can do it. I love kids. I took a couple of courses in child psychology as part of my degree.”

  “There you go,” Erika said cheerfully. “Problem solved, Jake. It’ll be a good thing to get know your next-door neighbor.”

  I caught sight of the wink she sent in Jake’s direction. Realization dawned on me then why Erika had suggested me.

  “Erika —”

  “Well, I better go,” she said, checking her wristwatch with a smile. “I have to get some errands done before picking up Julie from school. Chloe, call me if you need anything.”

  She left us standing there on the sidewalk. I scuffed the heel of my sandal against the concrete while I waited for Jake to say something. I wasn’t thrilled about babysitting for Jake, but the pay was too good to ignore. I needed something to keep going.