Beauty and the Billionaire

It was Chris. He had pulled up in front of his garage in a black Jeep. He was unloading some very large duffel bags. Each of them looked to be very heavy and he set them down gently, one at a time. My mind raced with thoughts of what could be in those bags. Each bag was about four feet long and was filled with some obscurely shaped objects. The odd shapes poked and pressed the fabric of the duffle bags in weird places. I pushed my body back as close to the building as I could. The last thing I wanted was him to see me really stalking him.

He left the bags on the ground as he pulled his Jeep into the garage. He quickly came around and grabbed two of the six bags and carried them inside his house. I fought the urge to run over and look inside one of the bags. It was just too risky, so I waited. It took him about a minute to bring the first two bags into his house. So when he grabbed the second two bags, I made my way quickly over to the last two and unzipped one.

It was dark and I couldn’t see a thing inside the bag, so I pressed my hand into it. The cold metal of what I thought to be a gun greeted my hand. I quickly pulled away and ran back to the cover of my garage.

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Oh no, I forgot to zip the bag back up!

It was too late now, there was no way I could make it back over to the bag and get it zipped up before he was there to grab them. I watched in anticipation for him to return. Luckily the dark of night camouflaged my mistake. He grabbed the bags with ease and headed back into his house.

Guns! Why was he hauling bags full of guns into his house? Maybe I had not felt right, maybe they weren’t really guns? I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but my stomach was in knots.

This gorgeous guy comes to my small little town and starts making out with me and sure enough he turns out to be some sort of gun dealer or something. He didn’t seem like the type of guy who would be part of such an illegal line of work. Granted, I didn’t really know what type of guy he was, but he seemed more honest than a gun dealer would be.

Chapter 8

My mind swirled with thoughts of Chris. I was confused, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid of him at all. Shouldn’t a person be afraid of a man who had a house full of guns? There was just something about him when he was there next to me; I could feel he was not some evil monster.

I could be wrong though. There was that man in the bar when I was out with my friends. I thought he seemed like a totally nice guy. Then before the night was over, I watched as he punched and choked another man until the police were called and took him away to jail. So maybe I wasn’t that good at telling a good guy from a bad one. My body said he was a good guy for sure…my mind was trying to talk me out of it.

I watched out my bedroom window as the lights in Chris’s house turned on and then off again. He seemed to have moved the bags into the second bedroom and had the light on in there for a good twenty minutes before he turned it off. I then watched as the light in his kitchen came on and his face appeared at the kitchen sink. He was doing dishes. It struck me as odd that a man who just unloaded probably six bags of guns into his house was now domestically washing his dishes.

Laughing to myself, I finally laid down. My sleep schedule had been off for weeks. Really, it had been off since that night out drinking with Rebecca and my other friends. Now I was up until three or four in the morning almost every night and sleeping until noon during the day. I didn’t mind the schedule very much, but it just made me feel a bit lazy.

Tomorrow I would again have to stay up late because I needed to hike into the woods to get my final photograph for my show. I had scoped out the perfect spot at the top of a steep hill. If I lay just right on the hill, I will be able to see the Milky Way, a huge fir tree, and a half moon. I was hoping the moon would have a ring of red around it like the forecast I followed had suggested. But there was no way to confirm that for sure. I would just have to see if the weather worked in my favor.

I slept in the next day and waited until after ten at night to hike into the woods. Throughout the day, I had looked for Chris, but he was nowhere to be found. I decided against stopping by his house. The thought of all those guns inside was freaking me out a bit. As I walked to the wooded area I couldn’t help but look up at the stars; they were beautiful and there was not a cloud in the sky. The moon was perfect also. It had the red ring around it and I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect picture to end my show with.

I moved slowly and deliberately up the wooded hill. It was much steeper at night than it had been during the day. Without being able to see each step I was taking, it made me extremely uncomfortable. I let my foot settle into each step, ensuring that my boots had a firm grip on the land before moving. It was hard to see if something was loose or if I was about to run into a branch or anything like that. I kept my arms out to ensure I didn’t run right into something.

The higher I got up the hill, the more light from the moon shown down on me. I could see my way much easier when I got near the top. Finally, I stood and enjoyed my perfect view. I took a couple pictures standing and then lay in the spot I had thought was going to be perfect. I took more and more pictures trying to find that feeling. I wanted the feeling that I had my perfect picture, but it eluded me.

I repositioned myself to the side of the hill that I had climbed up, hoping that my perfect picture would be there. I took more and more pictures. Nothing! None of them looked like I wanted. I tried to reposition myself again, but as I moved my foot I slipped on a rock and went tumbling down the side of the hill. Head over feet, I tumbled at least three times before my leg struck a tree and stopped my momentum. The shock of the moment had me screaming out in pain.

As I calmed myself, I started to realize I wasn’t actually in a lot of pain. I inventoried my body from my head to my toes. I had a gash on my forehead that seemed to be bleeding pretty profusely but most everything seemed to be working alright. My ankle was probably broken, as it hurt horribly when I tried to wiggle it. All in all, I wasn’t in that bad of shape. I felt around for my camera and it was still strapped around my neck. Then I looked up at the moon.

This was the perfect picture, I held the camera up and snapped a couple frames.

“Are you alright?” I heard a voice yell from the bottom of the hill.

“Yes!” I yelled back. “I’m just taking pictures and I slipped. I think I broke my ankle.”

“Katelyn?”

“Yes,” I said tentatively.

Within a minute, Chris was standing there. It amazed me at how fast he was able to climb up that hill. I had taken at least twenty minutes and he just moved swiftly and with precision, just fast quick steps up the hillside and straight to me.

Chapter 9

“What are you doing up here in the middle of the night?” Chris scolded me.

“I had to get a photo.”

“I hope it was worth it, you look like you almost died.”

He took off his shirt and pressed it up against my head. Again with the shirtless body, it was an immediate distraction. Even in my state of pain, I could still appreciate the defined muscles of his body.