I’m just about to do something very unprofessional when another voice intrudes.

“Coffee’s here! Extra hot, extra cream,” comes her friend Mona’s announcement.

Katie jerks back like she’s laid her hand down on a red-hot stove. Her curl slips right through my fingers. It escapes me. She escapes me. Just like this moment has.

SEVEN

Katie

Seconds after Mona’s timely interruption, one of the director’s assistants came to escort Rogan off to the set of his character, Diamond Drago’s, steamy underground club. As I clean my station and get ready for my next job, Mona stands beside me, gripping my cup of coffee and staring at Rogan as he goes. Her mouth is still hanging open long after he’s gone.

When I finish tidying, I ask, “Did you bring that for me? Or did you just need something to molest?” I tip my head toward the cup that she’s practically massaging.

She glances down at the steamy brew and then grins up at me, handing over the mug. “Sorry. I just . . . I mean, I can’t . . . He’s just . . . Wow!” Her eyes round even more. “And ohmigod, Katie? It looked like he was about to kiss you. Did you notice that?”

Did I notice that? How could I not notice? But surely that couldn’t have been what he was about to do. Surely not . . .

I frown. “Do you think?”

“God, yes! For sure!”

“I thought maybe he was just . . . I don’t know.”

“Well, I know. He was definitely about to kiss you.”

“But . . . but that makes no sense. I mean, why would a guy like that¸ surrounded by women like Victoria, have the slightest interest in me?”

“I told you this morning, silly. Most. Wanted. You just don’t see it.”

And I still don’t. Nothing Mona can say will change my mind. I’m scarred. Damaged. No man in his right mind would want me. And if Kiefer Rogan does, it’s only because he hasn’t seen the real me yet. The bad parts. The ugly parts.

Mona tilts her head to one side, her expression softening. “I wish you could see how beautiful you are.”

Reflexively, I smooth the wave of hair that falls over my left shoulder, concealing the source of my unease, the evidence of my past. “I know exactly how beautiful I am and exactly how beautiful I am not. We work in a forest of exotic creatures, Mona, but I’m not one of them. I’m no different than grass or moss or the leaves on the ground. Unimpressive, something most people walk by every day and pay no attention to. I’m invisible.”

“You’re so crazy, Katie! You don’t—” Mona argues, but I interrupt her, taking her hand and jiggling it to get her attention.

“Hey, I don’t need a pep talk. You forget that I like it this way, that I want it this way.”

“But why? Just because you aren’t . . . Just because you don’t look like every other bimbo around here, myself included, doesn’t mean that you don’t shine. Because you do, Katie. Maybe even brighter than the rest.”

I smile at my sweet, well-intentioned friend. “That can be our little secret.”

Mona sighs, her eyes a little sad. “One day someone will make you see how gorgeous you are. And that day might not be too far away.”

I shake my head at my friend’s unflappable optimism, irrational though it is. “You’re such a romantic, but Rogan isn’t interested in me, Mona. And even if he was, it wouldn’t last more than a few heartbeats. Maybe he thinks I’m a challenge because I didn’t fall at his feet. I don’t know, but whatever it is, it won’t take him long to realize that I’m not a challenge. I’m nothing. I’m not worth his interest. His time. His attention. I’m nothing special. When he sees that, he’ll move on. If he’s even interested at all, which I doubt.”

She cocks her head and considers me. “You ever gonna tell me what happened to make you this way?”

“What’s ‘this way’?”

“So . . . alone. And so content with it.”

“I’m not alone, Mona. I have you. And Dozer. And Janet, my nosey neighbor.”

Mona pushes her bright pink bottom lip out in a pout. “Dozer’s not even a person. He’s a cat. And cats don’t count. Besides, that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Well, it should.”

“I just want you to be happy, Kitty.”

Somewhere along the way, Mona started calling me “Kitty” as a term of endearment. She began with Kat, but I couldn’t let her continue with that. It made my chest feel tight and the room spin every time I heard it. Kat was another girl from another life. A life that ended in tragedy. Kat died a long time ago and I want no reminders. Mona took it well, though. That’s when she started calling me Kitty. I let her keep that one.

Kitty.

I shake my head.

Some days it makes me feel like a porn star. Some days it makes me feel like I should have a hip holster and a gun so I can go around shooting up saloons. But other days . . . days like today, it makes me feel loved, something that I haven’t felt very much in the last few years.

“I know. And I will be. I mean, I am.”

“I won’t be satisfied until you can say that a little more convincingly. And with a smile.”

I nod, desperate to change the subject. “I’ll come get you for lunch.”

She claps enthusiastically. “Lunch! Yay!” And then she turns and blows out of my space just as quickly as she blew in.

•   •   •

I twist the knob and gently push open my front door. I peek around the wooden panel to make sure my cat has moved before I swing it wide enough to get through.

Dozer likes to sleep on the rug right under the mail slot while I’m gone. On several occasions, I’ve seen curious scratches and puncture marks in the envelopes of a few bills here and there. It makes me wonder if Dozer attacks the mail when it comes through the flap. I can only imagine that it would scare the crap out of me if I were sleeping when it landed on me.

I smile as my black-and-gray striped cat snakes his way over to my leg, weaving in and out in a figure eight pattern, rubbing his sides against me and purring loud enough to wake the dead.

“Hey, buddy, were you sleeping?”

I bend to scoop him up and he immediately head butts me. That’s been his greeting since the day I rescued him from a cat-eating dog gang that terrorized my neighborhood two years ago. I think he realizes he’d have been dead meat if I hadn’t intervened. He’s been my loyal companion ever since.

“You’re the only man I need in my life, aren’t you, Dozer?” I croon to him, aggravated that I’m still thinking about Kiefer Rogan.

Dozer jumps out of my arms, walks four feet and flops down on the carpet where he proceeds to groom himself. I stand on the rug, watching him, letting the peace and quiet and familiar smells of my home, of my life relax me.

I love my little house. It’s nothing special—a cute cottage that has yellow siding, a white wrought-iron fence around the yard and cheerful window planters that are blooming with pansies this year. It’s not a mansion, but it’s mine. My hiding place. My sanctuary. The one place that I can be myself, whatever mixed-up blend of Kathryn, Kat and Katie Rydale that is.

I moved here right after I got the job with the studio. I needed to disappear and the small town of Enchantment seemed the perfect place to do so. And, so far, it has been. And that’s the way I like it. I don’t go looking for trouble and I can only hope that it doesn’t hunt me down. I’ve had enough of it to last a lifetime already, and I’m only twenty-four.

Before I can stop them, flashes of flames and fists, of writhing and wreckage, of tears and emptiness spew through my mind like a spray of acid, burning where it touches. Relentlessly, I push those turbulent thoughts to the deepest part of my consciousness. I learned long ago that the less contact I have with them, the less they can hurt me. I learned that if I give them an inch, if I give them even a few seconds of thought, they take over. They incapacitate. They paralyze. They eat away at the carefully constructed person I’ve become, destroying the peace and security that I’ve worked so hard to achieve. And I can’t let that happen. Not again.