A Stranger's Touch -- Wattys2015

Chapter Nine

"Are you sure you don't want company? We could order in dinner."

"I'm fine," she said, and all but shoved Jenna over the doorstep. "I'd rather be alone tonight." For various reasons, she thought, and taped the last moving box shut across the top.

"Okay," Jenna said, giving her a thumbs-up. "See you tomorrow. Yo­­­­­­­u'll see, the move will be a walk in the park!"

She smiled and waved through the glass window as Jenna slid into her car.

With Jenna's help and two hired hands, they had packed up her professional equipment faster than expected. Now all that was left were a few odd items in her apartment, which she planned to pack before the moving truck came in the morning.

Walking up the stairs to her bedroom, she felt as if the last four weeks had passed in a busy blur—the negotiations with the bank to help with immediate cash problems and to support her new business plan. If only she had opened their letters to her sooner, then she'd have known that they were willing to help her, provided she met all their conditions.

But the final piece was still missing—her new retail site. The bank manager had made it quite clear that it all came down to picking a highly visible, highly trafficked area. But the properties to lease in those kinds of areas weren't exactly affordable. Something she would continue to worry about tomorrow.

She sank down on the mattress, curled her fingers into the sheets and then ran her hand along the bed's footend. As always, the cool metal made her palms itch and her heart flutter. It was easy to imagine a pair of handcuffs dangling from the thick iron bars of the foot- and headboard.

The nerve of him, sending her a new bed.

She'd been so flabbergasted when she saw the two delivery guys pack up her old bed, by the time she protested, they just gave her a customer service number if she wanted to complain and left her with a king-sized bed that made her bedroom look dainty.

She'd slept like a baby for the last four weeks tucked inside it while occasionally waking up panting because her dreams had taken on a decidedly erotic edge.

The bed was the only evidence she hadn't imagined Ben.

The bed...and the check for fifty grand.

She stripped off her sweaty work clothes and stepped into the shower. After a quick rinse down, she wrapped herself in a towel, looking forward to a dreamless night.

Shaking her head to get rid of the droplets of water clinging to her hair, she froze. The wind was howling louder than before, as if someone had opened a window. A cool draft wafted into the bath from the gap underneath the door and tickled her bare legs.

Her stomach did a somersault as she stared at the closed bathroom door. She pulled her shoulders back and looked around for something to wear. There was nothing. Securing the towel more tightly, she opened the door, thinking she was prepared.

"This is breaking and entering," she said, crossing her arms so he wouldn't see her shaking hands. He sat on the windowpane facing inward. Goose bumps erupted on her skin, but not because of the cold air streaming into the room

"Only entering," he said casually. "The window wasn't locked." He shot a look around the room, lingering on the bed, then on a stack of cardboard boxes.

She'd forgotten how big this guy was, but not that he had a dimple in his chin when he smiled.

Flustered, she grabbed the pile of clothes she had laid out for the next day and went into hiding inside the bathroom again. Trust him to turn up when she came fresh from the shower.