Beyond the Waves (Pacific Shores Book 1) Read online

  She gasped softly. Someone was in the house! They had stumbled into a piece of furniture!

  Suddenly wishing she owned a guard dog, Taysia fumbled for her bedside phone and pressed 9-1-1 with trembling fingers.

  Another thud, and something shattered in the dining room. Taysia pressed back against her headboard, clutching the phone like a security blanket.

  “9-1-1 emergency, how may I help you?”

  “There is someone in my house,” Taysia whispered, willing down the panic surging through her veins.

  “All right, ma’am. I’ll get a unit on their way to you right now. Do you think you are in immediate danger?”

  “I don’t know.” She dared not raise her voice even a fraction above a whisper. She fixed her eyes on the dark, gaping shadow of her bedroom door, shuddering at the thought of someone stepping through it. Suddenly Kylen’s earlier concerns didn’t seem so ludicrous.

  “Okay, ma’am, listen to me. Are you alone in the room you are calling from?”

  “Yes.” She pulled the covers up closer to her chin, then rolled her eyes. Like that would prevent her from being discovered by whatever fiend was creeping through her house.

  “Do you have a place you could hide? Maybe someplace you could lock yourself into? Like a bathroom or a closet? If you do, I want you to take the phone with you and go there now.”

  Taysia eyed her parents’ old armoire and tried to imagine opening its creaky old doors and climbing inside quietly. She shook her head. No way. The hinges on that thing groaned like a dam about to break. And the bathroom was two doors down the no-pinprick-of-light-to-be-found hallway. A tremor of fear slithered down her spine. There wasn’t one thing that could entice her to step out there for even a second. She glanced at her bedroom’s one window. Even if she could get the jam-prone wooden frame to open, she hadn’t removed the storm windows yet. Blast this old house!

  “No. No place to go.”

  “Okay, ma’am. Hang on. Our unit should be there shortly.”

  Suddenly Taysia remembered. “Kylen,” she whispered. “He lives next door.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Who?”

  “Officer Sumner. He’s my neighbor. Can you call him?”

  Kylen groaned and rolled over, ignoring the phone. Two more rings and he flopped back and fumbled for the receiver.

  “‘Lo,” he mumbled, squinting at his clock. Three twenty-eight.

  “Officer Sumner?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Candy Bower from 9-1-1 dispatch. Your neighbor, ahh”—she paused, a keyboard clicking in the background—”Green, Anastaysia Green, is on the phone with us. She says there is an intruder on the premises and requested we call you.”

  Kylen came wide awake, lurched out of bed, and dropped the phone onto his nightstand. Grabbing his gun, he sprinted for his front door.

  Barefoot and wearing only a pair of jogging shorts, he stepped out into the darkness, gripping his gun with both hands. He studied Taysia’s house carefully. Jesus, let her be okay. Please keep her safe.

  He ran toward the back of her house where her bedroom was. Pistol held at the ready, he pressed his shoulder against the siding at the corner and peered into her backyard. Empty. He slid along the wall, heading for the sliding door. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and he tried to quiet his breathing. Feet planted next to her door, he quickly glanced into the room’s interior, then jerked his head back. Everything looked still. He tried the door. It slid open easily, and he grimaced in frustration at Taysia’s naïve irresponsibility. Quietly he pushed the door open farther and eased inside.

  All was silent except for the crunch of something under his feet. Shards of pain pierced through him. He hissed a flinch, then gritted his teeth and moved on. There was no time for pain right now. He had to find Taysia.

  He peered down the hallway. Nothing. Moving methodically, he cleared each room until he arrived at her bedroom. He stepped through the door. No one was there! His heart threatened to stop. “Layne?” He was surprised his voice sounded so steady.

  With a soft gasp, Taysia leaped up from between her bed and the wall. “Oh, Ky!” She pressed a hand to her throat, moonlight reflecting off her tears as she rushed to him.

  Holding his gun away at a safe angle, Kylen caught her to his chest with his free arm and kissed the top of her head. Looking toward heaven he rasped, “Thank You, God!” He blinked hard and rested his cheek on her hair. “Thank You!” He kissed her head again, and then with sudden swiftness, he put her from him. “Tell me what happened.”

  Taysia pressed a hand to her forehead. Her whole body trembled. “I don’t know. I—I woke up and—and I heard a noise in the living room like someone stumbled into a piece of furniture and grunted. So—so I called 9-1-1 and asked them to send you over here. Then—then something broke. It sounded like”—her eyes widened—”my new crystal vase!” She started for the door, but he reached out and jerked her back. There were still a couple rooms he hadn’t cleared on down the hall past her room.

  “Keep talking.”

  “After I heard the glass break”—her teeth chattered and her head came up with a start, and her voice dropped till it was barely audible—”whoever it was went into the bathroom, and I hid between the bed and the wall.”

  “You mean someone is still in your bathroom!? You should have said that first!”

  Her eyes narrowed, and her hands clenched into fists by her sides. “Well, excuse me for being a little scatterbrained in the middle of the night when a person has just broken into my house!”

  Just then they heard the toilet flush. Kylen blinked in disbelief. The perpetrator was flushing evidence! But of what?

  Kylen motioned her to get down. “Stay here!” he whispered as he dashed into the hallway and flipped on the light.

  Back pressed against the wall, gun held at the ready, he slid toward the bathroom. Taysia had ignored his command and crawled to her bedroom door. She poked her head out to peer down the hall. He started to motion for her to get back just as the bathroom door opened.

  With a swift jerk, he leveled his gun. “Freeze!”

  An old man stepping from the room halted so suddenly he almost lost his balance.

  Eyes round as tennis balls, the man thrust gnarled hands straight up. The tips of his fingers rammed into the lintel above his head with a loud crack. “Ow!” His bulging eyes never left Kylen’s gun as he scuttled a reluctant inch forward and again stiffened his arms, pinning his ears to his head.

  “Taysia! I’m Taysia’s father. Don’t shoot. Please. Don’t! Shoot!”

  Recognition hit Kylen at the same time as Taysia screeched, “Daddy! Kylen, it’s Daddy! Don’t shoot!”

  Kylen lowered his gun, a release of breath easing his thundering pulse.

  Mr. Green, arms still ramrod straight, looked from Kylen down to his gun, then glanced at Taysia and swallowed thickly. Slowly he lowered his arms, patted his chest, and ran a hand back over his disheveled white hair. He looked back at the gun. “I need to use the restroom again. Excuse me, please.” Turning, he closed the bathroom door.

  Kylen slumped against the wall and glanced at Taysia. She too had sagged in relief, forehead pressed to her knees.

  The bathroom door had only been shut for three seconds when it jerked open and Mr. Green charged out like a bull that had just seen a red flag. “Young lady, what are you doing with that man in your bedroom?”

  “Daddy!”

  “Sir!”

  Kylen wanted to laugh at the crazy turn of events, but instead he looked at Taysia, motioning for her to explain.

  “Daddy, you remember Kylen Sumner—”

  “Of course I remember him! He broke your heart! So what in thunderation are you doing with him in your bedroom?” He sized up Kylen’s bare chest and legs with a glare of decided distaste.

  Kylen ejected his mag and the remaining round. Weariness hit him in a wave, and he pressed his lips together grimly. He needed a moment to clear his head, and besides, the bottoms of his feet felt like they were on fire. He hobbled toward the dining room and a chair.

  Taysia pressed one palm to her forehead, unable to believe what had just transpired. “Daddy! Please, just listen for a minute.” She tried to calm her father. “Kylen lives next door. I heard you in the living room and thought you were a robber or…something. I called 9-1-1, and they sent Officer Sumner over right away. He wasn’t sleeping here!” She shook her head. “Heavens, no!”

  Kylen grunted from out in the dining room.

  Taysia ignored him. She had probably hurt his feelings with her vehement denial. Good, maybe he’ll get the picture! “What in the world are you doing here anyway, Daddy?”

  Daddy had the sense to at least look sheepish but didn’t answer the question.

  Frustrated, Taysia glanced down. Bloody footprints marred the length of her hallway! She gasped. “What on earth?” She flipped on her bedroom light. They were in her bedroom too! Her heart lurched and she rushed down the hall. “Kylen?”

  “I’m in here. Careful when you come in here. There’s glass everywhere. Get the light, would you?”

  Taysia rushed toward the dining room and paused on the threshold as she flipped on the light. Her heart began a tympanic rhythm. She stared at the ground in horror. Shards of her new crystal vase winked and glistened like diamonds sprinkled across the floor. But it was the bloody footprints that set her heart to racing. Kylen’s bloody footprints.

  Kylen sat at the dining room table with one foot on a pile of paper napkins he’d spread on the floor while the other, resting on his knee, turned up at an odd angle as he blotted it. The napkin holder sat empty in the middle of the table next to his gun. He bent his head closer to his foot. “I think I’m going to need tweezers.”
r />   Taysia swallowed. Splinters of glass in his foot could not be good. “Daddy, could you please sweep this mess up while I help Ky get the glass out of his feet?”

  She turned without waiting for an answer. In her bedroom she slipped on some flip-flops and then headed to the bathroom, where she gathered tweezers, hydrogen peroxide, Neosporin, and Band-Aids. Quickly, she headed back to the dining room, grabbing a roll of paper towels from the kitchen on the way.

  “Here, let me,” she said, taking the wad of napkins from Kylen and trying to ignore the long stretch of muscled leg attached to his foot. She couldn’t let his good looks lure her into the trap of falling for him again.

  She pulled out a chair and sat down, looking at her father, who was quietly sweeping. What in the world was Daddy doing in her house in the middle of the night? Was his mind that far gone? She pressed her lips together, fearing the answer.

  She would have to talk to him about it later. Right now she needed to help Kylen.

  “Why don’t you just put your foot up on the table. I think I will be able to see better that way.” She unscrewed the cap from the bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

  “Whatever you say, Doc.” Kylen rested one leg on the table’s edge and clasped his hands behind his head.

  Her attention snared on the well-defined bulge of his biceps. The muscular shoulders. The rigid six-pack of his abdomen. Her father cleared his throat, and heat infused her face. She met Kylen’s quizzically amused glance for only a split second before she ducked her head to examine his injury.

  There were several small cuts across the middle of his foot and one larger slice near his toes. She probed the cuts gently and heard his sharp intake of breath just as she felt a prick to her finger. A small piece of glass protruded from the end of one cut.

  She met Kylen’s gaze. “This might hurt.”

  “Remember, ‘Vengeance is mine’ is God’s line not yours. So be gentle.” One lid dropped in a bold wink, and her heart gave a little flip.

  She grinned and clacked the tips of the tweezers together with an evil pump of her brows.

  He chuckled, and she was tempted to join him, but the sight of Daddy moving slowly through the kitchen turned her thoughts to more serious matters. He had finished sweeping and was now filling a mop bucket at her sink.

  She forced her eyes to the bottom of Kylen’s foot and bent to the task of getting the shards of glass out. “I think you might need to go to the emergency room.” She pressed on the cut she had just pulled the glass from. “Did I get it all?”

  “Feels like it. I’ll be fine.”

  Outside, a car crunched across the gravel drive, and Taysia glanced up, wondering who it could be.

  “That will be the police,” Kylen said.

  Daddy began to mutter and swish the mop with more vigor. Taysia glanced at him as she stood to get the door. He was blushing! She stopped and arched her brows. “Daddy?”

  A loud knock sounded at the front door. “Police! Open up!”

  Daddy just kept mopping, face pointed at the floor.

  Taysia moved to the door and opened it. Two policemen stood on the porch, guns drawn. “Hi. Please come in. Everything is fine. It was just my dad.”

  “Ma’am, I’m Officer Wilkes. This is my partner, Officer Rogers. You’re sure everything is fine?”

  “Please come in.” She stepped back out of the way and motioned them inside, not at all sure everything was fine.

  Officer Wilkes immediately noticed the bloody footprints. “What happened here?”

  Kylen spoke up from where he sat. “Hi, Carl.” He dipped his head. “Tim. I cut myself on some broken glass when I came over to check on Taysia. Dispatch called me, since Taysia told them I lived right next door.”

  Apparently convinced the situation was under control, both officers sheathed their weapons.

  Rogers pulled out a pen and notepad.

  Carl Wilkes took in Daddy silently mopping the kitchen. “Is this the man who broke into your house?”

  “Yes—uh, no.” Taysia wanted to pull her hair in frustration. “Well, yes, he was the intruder, but…oh, Daddy, will you just tell me what you are doing here, please? Did you use your key to get in?”

  “So you did lock your doors when I told you to earlier?” Kylen interrupted.

  Taysia spun toward him in aggravation. “Yes, I locked the doors.” She sighed and rolled her eyes with a “What? Do you think I have a death wish?” glare.

  Kylen raised his hands and shrugged.

  Everyone in the room looked at Daddy, who turned redder than the apples in the bowl on the counter.

  Taysia stomped back to her chair and snatched a Band-Aid from the box.

  “Sir, we need to know what you were doing in your daughter’s house in the middle of the night.” Officer Rogers tapped his pen against the notepad.

  Taysia held her breath. Daddy leaned the mop handle against the wall and rubbed his palms down the front of his shirt. “Well…” He licked his lips. “I was at the beach with a…friend.”

  Taysia sat up straight. Daddy at the beach at this hour of the night? The Band-Aid dangled from her finger, momentarily forgotten.

  “And it got kinda late…and I needed to…so I came here instead of going home.”

  Taysia narrowed her eyes. Was he even speaking English?

  “Your car is still idling out front, sir,” Officer Rogers said.

  “Yeah. I wasn’t planning on being here this long.”

  “Daddy, what are you saying? You just wanted to stop in and check on me? At three thirty in the morning? You’re not making any sense!”

  Daddy scuffed a toe across the floor. “I didn’t say that.”

  Taysia threw an exasperated glance at Kylen. His face suddenly held a light of understanding. She looked to the other two officers. Both men were doing their level best to suppress grins of mirth. What was she missing? She was now the only one who had no idea why her father was here, right now, at 3:47 a.m., in her living room. Irritation with her father and, in fact, the entire male half of the species made her want to scream.

  Officer Wilkes cleared his throat. “I see. Well”—he turned to Taysia—”will you be pressing charges?”

  Unbelievable! She opened her mouth to demand that Daddy tell her what was going on.

  “Layne.” Kylen’s tone held a note of warning.

  She turned to look at him.

  He gave a small shake of his head and mouthed, “Tell you later.”

  She snapped her mouth shut. Pressing one hand to her forehead, she closed her eyes. “No, Officer. I won’t be pressing charges.”

  “Well, then, if there is nothing more you need, we’ll be leaving.”

  Taysia looked at Daddy, worry niggling like a barbed hook. “No, I don’t think we need anything, thank you.” Except the return of some sanity.

  “See you on Monday, guys.” Kylen raised a hand of farewell as the officers left the way they had come.

  “Daddy, come sit down, please. I can finish mopping in a minute.” Taysia pressed the Band-Aid over Kylen’s cut and gestured for his other foot.

  “I really best be getting home.” Daddy shoved his hands into his pockets.

  Kylen hissed as her probing found another splinter of glass. “Easy, Layne. I kinda need that foot for a while longer.”

  “Sorry.” She concentrated on a gentler application of the tweezers.

  “Don’t swear much, do you, young man? A lesser man’d be scorching the room right about now.”

  Taysia and Kylen both lifted their heads and looked at each other. Hope pounded in Taysia’s chest. She had been praying for this kind of opportunity for months.

  Kylen rubbed his temple with one forefinger. “Well, sir, I used to swear with the best of them, but not anymore. Not since I gave my life to the Lord.”

  Daddy huffed. “Oh, you’re one of them.”

  Taysia’s heart sank.

  Kylen didn’t look offended. “If by ‘one of them’ you mean someone who has found joy and happiness by finally deciding to do things God’s way instead of my own, then yes. Giving my life to the Lord was the best decision I ever made.”

  Taysia could see the sincerity on his face.

  Daddy jingled some change in his pocket. “Well, I’ll have to admit to admiring a man who stands by his convictions without flinching.”

  Taysia felt hope, like the first green glimpse of a spring tulip, shooting through the soil of doubt in her heart.