My Everything - Seth & Amber (6 page)

And Alex - who was the only brother that Seth
had ever really worried about, due to his romantic history and
seemingly blasé attitude about life - was a firefighter and engaged
to a girl Seth had just met but could instantly tell had her head
on straight. Jamie was a nurse and a waitress, she had a six year
old son, she was stunningly beautiful and seemed to adore his
brother, sordid past and all.

Seth had carried around a lot of guilt over
the past decade for taking off on his dad and brothers. He had left
the second he could and basically hadn’t looked back. Months at a
time would go by and he would have zero contact with them. He had
never really dealt with the loss of his mom, or even her absence
when she had left when Seth was ten. Being around his brothers
brought up a lot of things that Seth had pushed down into the
darkest places of his soul. He didn’t really want them coming to
light.

A young waitress that looked to be a little
intimidated by Seth and his brothers came by to refill their coffee
cups and Seth took out his card to pay the check. Jason and Riley
tried to argue that they had invited him so they would pay. Seth
made it clear that it wasn’t negotiable. He was paying. His
brothers wisely backed down. They all made plans for Thanksgiving,
since it was less than a week away, and said their goodbyes.

As Seth got on his bike and looked at the
diner one last time before pulling out of the parking lot. He had a
gut feeling that this was going to be a long day.

As Amber drove down the frontage road that
ran alongside the picturesque Riverwalk on her way to Bella, she
tried to wrap her brain around the fact that it had been three days
since she had seen her Mystery Man.
Three
days and she
hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Seth Sloan.

Every time her phone had rung or someone came
to her door, she had just
known
it was him. It wasn’t. When
she was at the shop, she kept expecting him to walk through the
door. He hadn’t.

It was driving her a little bit crazy! She
felt off balance. The brief conversation they had had in Katie and
Jason’s kitchen kept playing in her head. Not just the words but
also every look, every movement, every breath he had taken was on
constant repeat in her brain. She was trying desperately to dissect
the exchange, to find some concrete meaning in each second of their
brief reunion.

So far, she hadn’t come up with that
much.

Could she have handled it better? Yes. Did
she wish she would have stayed at Jason’s and spoken more than a
handful of words to Seth? Yes. Did her behavior warrant his
complete and total dismissal? No.

Granted, Amber may have a better memory than
most, but Seth had obviously remembered their night together. I
mean
come
on;
he had asked her to say his name…again.
That wasn’t something you did with people that didn’t have any
impact on you. Right?

Their night must have meant something to Seth
for him to remember her all these years later. Look at the facts.
He had followed her into the kitchen, leaving behind a house full
of family and friends that had gathered for his homecoming.

When she had tried to make small talk –
granted it was awkward small talk, but whatever - the first words
out of his mouth were ‘why did you leave?’- so he must have
wondered about her from time to time. You don’t ask a question that
specific if you
barely
remember someone.

And if Seth had felt even one-tenth of the
same heat that Amber had felt when they were in the kitchen, face
to face, a foot away from each other, then he
had
to still
feel the insane attraction that was sizzling between them.

Their chemistry was almost like a living,
breathing thing. It was not harness-able. It was wild and
unforgiving. It was scary.

Seth did not strike her as the type to be
scared off easily.

Granted, normally the same could be said for
Amber - but this situation was not
normal
by any stretch of
the imagination! This situation was unique unto itself. If it
weren't happening to her, in fact, she wouldn’t even believe it to
be possible.

Now, pulling into the back parking lot of
Bella, she tried to pull her scattered brain together. She needed
to get some sort of a reign on her current emotional state. She
wasn’t going to suffer through another day without having some sort
of a grip on her sanity.

Amber had always prided herself on being
logical. She had an I.Q. that was higher than most. As a child she
had excelled in G.A.T.E. (Gifted and Talented Education). She had
graduated from high school with a 4.0 GPA. And, unlike some of her
other intellectual contemporaries, she was actually street smart,
and not socially awkward in the least.

These qualities had served her well in life.
These natural-born gifts had given her an inner confidence that she
could handle anything that came her way. She had never doubted
herself.

Until Mystery Man. Until now. Until Seth.

Amber was at a loss as to how to internally
deal with the volcanic eruption of emotions Seth's (aka Mystery
Man’s) appearance in Harper’s Crossing had caused. She was equally
uncertain as to what she should do externally about the situation.
She knew their paths would inevitably cross. Then what?

That was part of the reason she was so
frustrated by his non-appearance over the last few days. She had,
in a way, been banking on the assumption that Seth would seek her
out. Take charge. That he would take control of the situation just
like he had done all those years ago in room #511 of the Four
Seasons.

Unfortunately, that had not been the case,
which was the main reason for her unbalanced and somewhat foul
mood. Never one to rely on others' actions for her own happiness,
Amber decided that after work today, she would make a game plan.
She would find out where he was staying (how hard could that be,
after all, she knew his whole family), and then she was going to go
and have a little chit-chat with Mr. Seth Sloan.

Even though, at this very moment, she had no
idea what she would say to him, she was fairly certain that over
the course of an entire day at work she could come up with a rough
idea. She was resilient. She was smart. She could figure it
out.

Amber unlocked the back door and made her way
into Bella through the employee break room. As she walked the
familiar path, a strange sensation crept through her veins. She
stilled for a moment. Something felt…off.

She tried to ignore the odd feeling, to shake
it off as she pushed through the black-beaded curtain that
separated the dressing room area from the back of the shop. As she
drew even with the red painted doors of the dressing rooms her
entire body tensed up as if it was on alert.

A strange smell hit her nostrils. She was
trying to figure out what it was when she heard a sound behind her
and sensed furtive moment. She whipped her head around to see what
the movement was just as she heard a loud cracking sound echo
through the silence.

An intense pain shot through her head as she
felt her legs give way beneath her. Her body crumbled to the floor
and the last thing she clearly saw was the black blades of the fan
above her as they spun around and around…

--- ~ ---

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Amber!” Haley’s
panicked voice penetrated through the fog in Amber’s throbbing
head.

Amber opened her heavy lidded eyes and saw
Haley hovering over her, tears streaming down her cheeks. Amber
remained still. She moved her eyes, scanning the area without
moving her head.

She was lying flat on the ground beside the
dressing rooms. Haley knelt beside her. She held a phone to her ear
as she cried.

“I think there was a break-in,” Haley’s
shaking voice was telling whomever was on the other end of the
phone. “I found Amber unconscious by the dressing rooms. The place
is trashed.”

What?! Bella, her store, was
trashed
?
She needed to find out exactly what was going on. She tried to sit
up.

Haley’s big brown eyes shot down to her.
“You’re awake!” she cried.

Amber tried to nod, but the pain that shot
through her head convinced her that that was a bad idea. Haley was
a clever girl. Amber was sure she could gather enough evidence to
support her conclusion about Amber being awake without the benefit
of the nod.

“Yes, she’s awake,” Haley announced excitedly
into the phone.

See? Amber thought, my confidence was not
misplaced.

Looking back down at Amber, Haley instructed,
“They said you need to lay still. Don’t move, Amber. The paramedics
should be here shortly.”

Paramedics. Store trashed. Throbbing
headache.

None of this was adding up. She tried to
piece it together, to make sense of the events, but it felt like
trying to escape from quicksand. She just kept getting pulled back
under. She closed her eyes figuring she would rest. Then she would
be able to think more clearly.

“No Amber, stay awake, talk to me,” Haley’s
voice had more than a little hint of desperation in it. “They want
me to keep you awake!”

Amber felt bad for Haley. She seemed really
upset. She opened her eyes to make sure Haley was okay.

She saw Haley’s face light up, “Good, that’s
good! Keep looking at me.”

“Okay,” Amber weakly replied, trying to
reassure Haley. She winced at the sharp, high-pitched sound of
several sirens blaring through the air, growing louder as they
approached.

“Oh, thank God! They’re here. Just hold on.”
Haley sat beside her holding Amber’s hand as her fingers wrapped
tightly around it.

“Hey, girls, looks like you threw quite a
party in here.”

Alex. Amber heard Alex’s voice. She instantly
felt more relaxed. Alex was here. He would take care of Haley. She
could go to sleep. She closed her eyes.

“Uh, uh, uh, sleepy head. No shut eye just
yet,” Alex said, and Amber realized that he was now beside her.

“Back’s clear.” Amber heard a man’s voice,
one she didn’t recognize, announce.

She looked up as Alex shone a bright light in
her eyes. He had placed something hard beneath her back and was
taking her blood pressure and checking her pulse. She heard a hiss
escape her mouth as she tried to lift her head to look around.

“What hurts?” he asked, his green eyes filled
with concern.

“Just my head,” Amber moaned.

“Lay still,” he instructed, with a tone of
authority Amber had never heard him use.

As Alex continued to examine her, she noticed
several police officers walking around her. She wanted to sit up.
She needed to see what kind of damage had been done to the store.
But she knew it was no use fighting Alex, he wasn’t going to let
her get up until he was sure she was okay.

Sloan men were so frustrating.

The
hard metal chair dug into Seth’s bad shoulder as his patience
quickly evaporated. He was once again seated in his childhood
friend Cameron’s small office at Titan Security. He had only been
there for a half an hour and was already wondering if he had made a
big mistake.

“Come on, dude. Just one time. Let me take
her out,” Cam pleaded. He had not let the subject of Seth’s bike
drop since Seth had walked through the door.

“No,” Seth repeated the same answer he had
been giving his friend for the last thirty minutes.

“Damn, you were a lot more fun in high
school,” Cam complained as he pushed a laptop across the small desk
towards Seth. “This is yours. For work purposes only. No looking up
porn. We monitor it.” Then, waggling his eyebrows, he added,
“Unless it’s really good porn, then please peruse away…because we
monitor it.”

Seth shook his head at his friend.

“Alright, so here’s the deal. You will be
hanging with me the next few days, getting a feel for the ins and
outs, so to speak. Then after the holiday, you'll be out on your
own. Think you can handle that?”

Seth stared directly into his friend’s eyes
as he leaned forward giving his shoulder a break, resting his
elbows on his knees.

Cam’s blue eyes sparked as a huge smile
spread across his face. “You realize when you are dealing with
clients you will have to speak...like, with actual words? Not just
the intimidating body language which seems to be your preferred
method of communication?”

Seth felt the corners of his mouth pulling up
into a grin. Cam had always had the gift of gab. He tended to rub
people the wrong way at times, but Seth had always appreciated his
friend’s ability to say exactly what was on his mind.

“We have a consult over at the new office
building on Eleventh St. It's for a company called Lifeline
Insurance. You can ride with me. Next week, we'll have a company
truck for you. You can’t roll up to appointments on that beast. A
hog doesn’t exactly scream safety and security,” Cam explained as
he stood, gathering his keys, and then grabbed what looked like a
gym bag on steroids from a locker in the corner of the room.

A quick glance inside the bag showed security
cameras, monitors and several other devices that Seth assumed they
would be presenting to their new clients.

“I know we haven’t really gone over your job
description, but basically what I need is for you to do the initial
consult and analysis. I have plenty of guys that can install and
I’ve got a great marketing and sales team, but I haven’t found
anyone - other than myself, that is - who can quickly survey an
area and see where the blind spots and weak areas are, the ones
that would need to be covered. I know that sounds crazy, but these
idiots just don’t see it.”

“Not a problem.” For Seth this job would
literally be the equivalent of Picasso doing a paint by numbers
portrait.