The bitch.
His blood boiled as he thought of her, but then again, she’d gotten hers, hadn’t she? Been found out fucking her professor, a married man with two small children. And her next lover, an engineering student, had one day opened his mail to find photos of Lissa in a compromising position with a kid. Did he realize she could be jailed for what she’d done with a minor?
The engineering student left her and married someone else. The professor had been replaced, and Lissa, poor, poor Lissa, had been exposed for the Jezebel she was. She lost her scholarship and was forced to return home, to attend the local junior college.
He’d never spoken to her again.
Refused eye contact.
After all, he’d been the victim, right?
Oh, Lissa, sexy little seductress, payback stings like a bitch.
Lissa had been his first, and she’d opened so many doors for him. Some portals to ecstasy, others doorways to hell.
He’d made a few mistakes.
He couldn’t afford another, no matter how he was tempted.
He had only to think of Lauren Conway and feel the burn of his own foolishness climb up the back of his neck.
Through the falling snow, he caught a glimpse of movement, a shadow tracking along the wall of the rec building.
What the hell?
Who would be out at this time of night? More importantly, why? He felt a tingle of anticipation sing through his blood.
On silent footsteps he followed.
Nona ducked beneath the frigid leaves of a rhododendron and along the well-trodden path away from the heart of the campus to the barns. Here, it was tricky. She had to be super quiet. Any noise would wake the dogs, and they’d start baying, barking, and raising hell. That could wake all the stupid animals in the sheds—God, those chickens! Squawking, noisy, dirty things. Although she gave the kennels a wide berth, one of the dogs barked sharply and another took up the cause.
No, no, no!
Curling her fists, she waited by a storage shed, mentally counting off the seconds as the dogs growled a bit, then settled back to sleep. She gave them a good ten minutes or more as she shivered in the dark. Maybe they’d heard her … but she’d been so careful.
Not you, Nona. They heard him! He’s never as cautious as you are, you know that. Don’t be a ninny.
She gave the dogs another minute or so, then crept stealthily to the stable. All the while, she had the odd feeling that she was being watched.
Her scalp crinkled with gooseflesh, and she glanced over her shoulder.
Nothing seemed out of place.
No dark figure was huddled against the cedar walls of the rec room or hiding in the overhang of the garage. It was just her own nervousness getting the better of her.
She reminded herself: He was here somewhere, too.
Nothing to worry about.
And yet …
Did she hear footsteps?
Breathing?
Her insides curdled and she froze, ears straining, eyes searching the darkness. There was the tiniest light in the chapel, behind the soaring windows, but that light was always visible, supposed to represent Jesus’s claims of being the “light of the world,” a quote that was similar from the book of John.
She kept walking, her skin freezing, her mind running in circles of anticipation and fear. No one was following her, of course not. She was just anxious because she knew she was breaking the rules.