Chapter One

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Kaarina glanced behind her as she stepped inside her restaurant. It was early in the morning, too early, but she couldn't sleep last night. She needed this. This freedom and independence. Her mother was at home, hopefully sleeping. Kaarina knew she was, especially when she left the house with the sturdy walls vibrating from her mother's loud snoring.

Shaking her head, Kaarina looked up to once again suck in a deep breath. This was it. Finally her dream had materialized in front of her. Fresh out of college, this was quite an establishment. Of course, she had planned this for years, but it still was a shock to her. Did she really own this?

Distractedly, Kaarina ran her hands along the beautifully polished and carved counter and table tops. It was absolutely not invisible. This wasn't a fantasy.

"Probably Alec was right," she muttered to herself. "My dreams were never logical. They're optical."

New York City was quite amazing with its dazzling lights that winked at you like stars. It was very different from New Oregon. Here was dry and maybe not completely warm, but there was enough busy bodies around to not even notice the loss of warmth.

Her gaze was now focused on the ceiling that held aspects of her Spanish heritage. Her father's heritage. She smiled to herself knowing her father would approve. He had died when she was in college three years ago and that's when it had hurt. It was worse than an earthquake.

Her eyes dropped to the menu which held both Italian and Spanish meals, some of her father's meals before remained. Stepping back into the middle of the large expanse of the room filled with tables and chairs, she looked through to the kitchen where she would be cooking and shut her eyes. This was hers now. The one thing her father loved. One of the few things she had inherited before it was all spent on her mother's illness a couple months back. Thanks to her wise investments online, she was able to bring this baby back to life after it had closed down at her father's sudden death when it just seemed he would recover from his illness and gave them hope. But boy, were those hopes crushed immediately as they risen.

Last night, this place was packed with so many persons it had lifted her faith. Opening it up was the best, as suggested by so many persons who came to the opening night. The memories were lodged into Kaarina's mind and they brought a beaming smile on her face.

She then remembered the duffel bag she had left at the door with the pictures from last night. Turning towards the doorway, her caramel eyes widened into shock and then molded into terror.

"No, no, no!" She practically screamed as she ran to the bag where a gigantic brown creature was playing with. "Shoo boy! Get out of here."

Kaarina felt handicapped as she had no idea what to do. Animal control was not one of the courses she had taken in college. She didn't even think they offered such a thing there. Although at that moment she wished that they had, even if she was barely floating on top of the ocean that was the pressure and stress of school, work and family.
"It isn't a play thing," she said to the dog and made the mistake of grabbing on to the bag. The thing snarled at her and she jumped back realizing that doing such a thing probably was not a good idea.

She could basically see the venom in the animal's dark eyes and knew that it wouldn't mind snapping her neck in half. But then it did something unexpected as its eyes softened. The dog jumped up to her in a flash and nuzzle her as it let out some type of whiny noise.

Shell-shocked, Kaarina remained unmoving, scared out of her mind that the thing would actually kill her. She was never good with animals, but if her death was by one, she really wished she had been nicer to them. At least not staying as far as possible from them. Although she did not understand why she hadn't done the same thing earlier. The pictures were probably already gone. So much for the early bird catching the most worms, she thought and at the same time she wasn't sure that was how the saying went.

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