Page 15 of Before the Bond
The man drew closer. Despite myself, my heart began to race. I edged closer to the door. He raised his hand upward.
“Renovations,” he said. He pointed to the ceiling. “The house is old. We keep parts of it closed.”
“Ah.”
“Safer that way.”
“That’s a… very smart idea.”
What is wrong with me?
After Donovan, apparently I forgot how to talk.
“Caleb,” the man said next.
“What?”
“My name.” He grinned a little wider this time. “Caleb Ashwood. I’m Jake’s brother.”
My face heated.
“Oh, right,” I said. I straightened up and pushed myself away from the door. “Olivia Cruz. I’m Jake’s new nurse. Nice to meet the last Ashwood.”
I offered my hand.
Caleb looked at it. Just for a moment — just long enough for me to notice the smallest flinch move through him, there and gone before I could place it. He hesitantly reached for my hand.
The landline rang.
The sound split the hallway in two. Caleb’s hand dropped. He turned toward the phone mounted on the wall near the corridor entrance. His shoulders relaxed.
“Excuse me,” he said. He walked past me.
Once Caleb was at the end of the corridor, he looked back over his shoulder at me. “Try not to get lost.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
When Caleb was finally gone, my own shoulders relaxed.
Something in my chest tightened. I thought about his face, and then the one of the man in the woods.
It couldn’t be…
Taking a deep breath, I left the corridor and made my way back to my room.
The last thing I needed was to get in any more trouble.
I woke up the next morning sore in the shoulders and with a pit in my stomach that I could only attribute to last night.
I buried my face into my hands.
“It’s okay, Olivia,” I told myself. “You’ve embarrassed yourself before.”
At least, I tried to convince myself that was the problem.
If the man in the woods really was Caleb Ashwood, it would explain why no one in town witnessed anything.
That didn’t explain why he was at my cottage, but it was part of the puzzle.
