She still remembered the blue tee shirt Sam had been wearing and the jean mini skirt with the beaded fringe. She still remembered her own cutoffs and the grey tank top, her old beat up sneakers with the tear on the side.

She hadn't given much thought to what had happened to those things...afterward. It just hadn't entered her mind. But, now she knew. Now she that the clothes she and her sister had been wearing that day had been put into a plastic bag and had been kept someplace in the house. And somehow, during the packing and moving, the bag had been found, boxed up, and brought into her new room.

Looking down at that clear zip bag, she felt her heart beginning to pound against her rib cage. She hadn't seen those clothes in two years...not since that horrid day...and seeing them now...seeing those blood stains...  There was so much blood...  Blood that had turned a muddy brown with age... 

 Sam's blue tee shirt was all but soaked...  Her sister must have been bleeding so much...

Clydie felt herself trying to close the box, but she couldn't seem to get her hands to work...because they were suddenly shaking so badly. After a few seconds of struggling, and failing, to close the thing...of failing to shut off her view of...what her sister's final moment's had been like...she saw her hands shoot forward, slamming into the box and sending it flying across the bed. She was then spinning around and heading for the bedroom door almost before it had a chance to thud to the floor on the other side.

"Clydie? You okay?" she heard Matt ask, but she couldn't answer him.

She was out the door and in the hallway, barely feeling her legs moving beneath her. She wanted to get away from those clothes...get away from that physical reminder of what had happened...that horrible day...of what her sister had done. To both of them.

She tried not to think about that day, tried to keep it pushed to the back of her mind. It was better that way. For everyone. But, seeing her sister's tee shirt, stained with so much blood...

That day...had started out like any other. It was just an ordinary summer day, with blue skies and oppressive heat. For some reason, the heat stood out in her mind, even though it really had nothing to do with anything.

She'd gone to the coffee shop with her friends after dinner, but she'd had to walk because Sam hadn't felt like driving her. Sam had been holed up in her room all day, lying in bed, pecking away at her computer. She hadn't thought much about it at the time. Everyone had days when they just wanted to lie in bed and be left alone. And Sam was prone to her moods. The Devil himself wouldn't want to deal with her on certain days, was the way Ella had always put it. She loved her sister, but she did agree with that notion. Samantha Weston could be difficult, when she took a mind to be.

But, on that day, there'd been nothing dramatic. Sam had been quiet and out of the way. In fact, everything had been quiet. The walk to the coffee shop, the time she'd spent there with her friends, things had just been oddly...calm.

She'd stayed longer than she meant to at the coffee shop, though, and by the time she'd started back, the sun was already hanging low in the sky. Hurrying to get home, she could clearly remember breathing in the thick, humid air and looking forward to finally getting inside where it was cool. Turning the corner onto her street, she had instantly noticed the massive storm clouds looming up over the trees in the distance. The look of those clouds had been shocking. She'd never seen such...darkness.

And then things suddenly weren't so quiet and calm. From halfway down the block, she could hear the sounds of raised voices. Somehow, she had just known the screaming and shouting was coming from her own house, so she'd started running, trying to get there as fast as she could. As soon as she'd made it through the front door, she'd seen her mom and dad standing on the stairway, her mother in tears and her father looking pale and drawn.

They hadn't said anything as she'd entered. They merely looked down at her in such an overwhelmed and helpless sort of way. Of course, they hadn't needed to speak. She didn't need to be told that something was going on with Sam.

Even as she'd started up the stairs toward Sam's bedroom, her sister had begun screaming again, the walls fairly vibrating as she let out a string of swear words that would likely have gotten her grounded for weeks. Filled with dread, she'd ran down the hallway, a part of her afraid of what she was going to find. And her fear had not been unfounded. Entering Sam's room, she'd seen that it had been completely torn apart. The curtains had been ripped from the window, the floor was littered with things from the dresser and the books shelves, everything from inside the closet had been pulled out and tossed around. And standing in the middle of all the mess and chaos...had been Sam.

Sam's pretty face had been streaked with tears and her eyes had been dark with rage and for the first time in her life, she had felt afraid of her sister. Standing in the doorway, she had actually feared that Sam, who had always taken care of her and looked out for her, was going to fly across the room and physically attack her.

But, Sam hadn't done that. Instead, the girl had gone on shouting and ranting, her words not making the slightest sense. "How could he do this to me! He said he wouldn't! He promised and he did it anyway!"

Sam had yanked one of the drawers out of her dresser and hurled it across the room, the noise of it slamming into the wall sounding like a small bomb going off. As Sam had gone for another drawer, she'd started to go to her sister, wanting to try and calm her down, but Sam had jerked the drawer out and slung it blindly, sending it whipping right past her, only missing her by mere inches. And Sam hadn't even seemed to notice.

Her sister had just kept on screaming and raging and pulling out the drawers that were left, throwing them across the room and sending their contents scattering out across the floor. In those moments, she had been too frightened to get near Sam, too frightened of what her sister might do to her...and for two years she'd had to wonder what might have happened if she'd pushed that aside, walked over to her sister, and just...held her.

She hadn't done that, though. She had never seen Sam so upset and out of control, not even on her worst day, when she was in her worst mood, and having one of her worst fits. She'd never seen that Sam before and that Sam had scared her so that she'd turned around and ran back down the hallway.

She'd found her parents still standing on the stairway, looking...lost and terrified. She would always remember how unsettling that had been, knowing that her own parents, the adults in the house, were afraid of their own daughter. And in that instant, she'd felt that her life the way she knew it was falling apart. That everything was going to change, for everyone.

Frank and Ella had began talking to each other in low tones as she'd hurried down the stairway toward them, but she hadn't gotten the chance to hear what they were saying, because the screaming and raging and noise coming from Sam's room suddenly stopped, plunging the house into a throbbing silence.

As she and her parents had stood there, listening, waiting...and hoping that Sam had gotten whatever it was out of her system, a clap of thunder had exploded above the house, shaking the windows and causing Ella to let out a startled shriek. And then Sam had coming racing down the stairway, pushing past them and rushing toward the front door.

"Sam! No!  You can't leave!" Ella had cried out, but Sam had ignored her.

She'd thought her parents would go after Sam, try to stop her from making it out of the house, but they hadn't moved. It was as if they'd been frozen in place. She'd certainly had no thought of going after Sam. After all, if her parents couldn't do anything, what could she possibly hope to do? But, then...Sam had jerked the front door open and she'd gotten a glimpse of the blackness that had taken over the world outside.

Without stopping to consider what she was actually doing, she had bolted down the stairs after her sister, dashing out into the dim light and the hot, humid wind that was pushing at her like angry hands. It had almost seemed that wind was trying to force her to turn around, to go back inside, back to where it was safe. But, she hadn't turned around because...she hadn't wanted Sam to go out into that storm all alone.

Sam had headed straight for her car and she'd followed her sister, racing over to the second hand SUV and jumping into the passenger seat, barely having time to slam the door shut before her sister had hit the gas and tore out of the driveway.

She'd never seen her sister so...undone, so hysterical. She hadn't know what to say to the girl and a part of her was afraid to say anything at all, so she'd kept her mouth closed and buckled herself in as Sam went careening away from the house, the booming thunder seeming to come chasing after them.

As she'd sat, frozen and gripping the edge of her seat, Sam had driven blindly, blowing through stops signs and zipping past the cars that were parked along the streets of their neighborhood, missing them by mere inches. A part of her had thought Sam would eventually get herself under control, but the girl had seemed incapable. Her angry tirade had turned into a torrent of guttural, frantic sobs that just kept pouring out of her and the longer they drove, the more frantic those sobs became.

At some point, amid the snarling claps of thunder and bright flashes of lightning that she could have sworn were pursuing them, the nearly black sky had opened up and a torrent of rain had been released, blotting out everything just beyond the headlights that Sam had been forced to turn on. But, even that hadn't prompted her sister to slow down. And all she could was sit there, holding on for dear life and praying harder than she'd ever prayed that Sam didn't slam into another driver and kill them all.

It wasn't until she'd realized they were heading toward the bridge that would lead them straight out of town that real terror had struck. The road just past Cheney's Bridge became narrow and winding and with the rain pouring down, one wrong turn of the wheel would be the end of everything.

"Sam, please, stop! Please! Let's go back home!" she'd beseeched, sounding like a frightened little girl.

"I'm not going back home! I'm getting out of this fucking hell hole!" Sam had sobbed.

"What! Where do you think you're gonna go! Please, if you'll just pull over, we can figure this out!" she'd tried to reason.

But, Sam had been beyond all reasoning. "I don't care where I have to go! I just want to be away from here!"

"Why! Sam, tell me what's going on! Maybe I can help!" she'd plead as the shape of the bridge appeared just ahead of them.

"You can't help me! No one can!" Sam had hollered at her. "You don't know what he did! He lied to me and now everything is ruined!"

Those words had flown all over her, turning a measure of her fear into anger. "Who cares if some guy lied to you! You need to stop this shit and we need to go back home! Now!" she'd demanded as they'd hit the bridge at what felt like warp speed.

"I am not going back to that place! I hate that fucking place and everybody in it!" Sam snarled, mashing down on the gas pedal.

"Sam, slow down! Whatever that guy did can't be worth dying over, for God's sake!" she'd snarled right back, a part of her unable to believe that her sister was losing her mind over a guy, of all things.

"You don't know anything about it, Clydie! You're still a little kid!" her sister had screamed as they barreled off the opposite side of the bridge and onto the road that had become a two way lane.

"I know enough not to lose my shit over some stupid boy!  I mean, what in God's name is wrong with you, Sam!" she'd screamed in return, having to fight the urge to reach over and slap Sam in the face.

Her sister hadn't responded to her and after a few more moments of hysterical sobbing, Sam, with a startling abruptness, went quiet. Almost, it seemed as if someone had just...flipped a switch. A heavy silence had then dropped onto the car, broken only by the rain beating against the SUV and the thwack of the wipers as they tried to keep up with the deluge.

And then...Sam had turned to look at her.

She would never forget that expression on her sister's face. It was if Sam wasn't even inside herself anymore. Her sister had seemed so empty, so hollow...her eyes completely vacant and...soulless.

"You have no idea what life is like, Clydie, because you're just a little girl," Sam had said in a voice that had been completely flat and dull. "And I'm going to make sure that you stay a little girl."

Sam had turned her gaze back to the road and stomped the gas pedal to the floor. Before her mind had even had a chance to comprehend what was happening...her sister had whipped the steering wheel to the left... She had heard herself scream as she'd seen the trees coming at them through the swath of the headlights...

*  *  *  *  *  *

The rest of that night was nothing more than broken memories and halting images. She remembered opening her eyes and looking over at Sam...hanging halfway out the open door of the SUV, the steering wheel almost...pressing into...her still body. She remembered thinking that Sam...Sam had tried to kill her. Sam...who'd always looked out for her and taken care of her...had tried to kill her...because of some boy.

The next time she'd opened her eyes, she'd felt the hard, rough asphalt beneath her cheek and the rain pouring down onto her. She'd been looking back at the SUV, at the plumes of smoke billowing upward and the headlights that were somehow still shining brightly through the darkness...though she'd wondered why those headlights had cast such an orange glow....like the glow of a campfire...

And then she was opening her eyes again, realizing her phone was clutched in her hand. She had no recollection of dialing a number, only a vague memory of trying to get her voice up and out of her throat, but she'd felt so strange...like being bogged down in the deeps of a dream, unable to claw her way out of it and into wakefulness.

She could remember, with absolute stark clarity, the next time she'd opened her eyes because...that had been the moment her mind had begun to turn against her. She'd laid there, feeling the rain beating down on her with such force, she thought she might drown, her bleary gaze focused on the SUV out in front of her...  And that's when she'd seen the shadowy figure that had been silhouetted against that bright orange glow. That shape had seemed to hover there for a brief moment, the plumes of smoke swirling around it...and then it stepped up to her sister's open door...stepped up to Sam, who was dangling there...and it had simply melted into the SUV...melted directly into Sam...

The next thing she remembered was hearing the wail of a siren in the far distance...and then she had awakened in a hospital room, where she'd learned that everything in her entire world had been destroyed.

Sam, her big sister and her protector, had died that night. But, she might as well have died, too, for all the good being spared had done her. 

 Having to deal with the fact that Sam had taken her own life was bad enough. But, even worse was being left with the knowledge that Sam had been pregnant at the time. Nearly four months pregnant... And no one would have known had her body not started to hemorrhage after they'd plowed into the tree.

Her sister had died. Her sister's baby had died. Her own life had been left in a shambles. And all because of some stupid little boy who had done that to Sam and then had walked away, leaving her to deal with it on her own.

One stupid little boy had decided to ignore consequences and had ruined the lives of an entire family. One stupid little boy who had to have known what type of person Sam was, what type of problems she was prone to. Yet, he had helped to create a situation that he then ran away from like a spineless coward, going on with his life as if nothing had ever happened...

They'd never managed to find out who the boy was. Sam had dated more than her fair share of young men around Summerville, but of course, not one of them stepped forward to admit what they'd done.

That cowardly boy, along with Sam, had both been not only irresponsible, but they had been complicit in the events that had led up to that horrid day. Those two people had caused...all that. Yet, even though she herself hadn't been the one to make the mistake, she was the one who'd been left so suffer the fall out.

She couldn't say whether it was the head injury, the trauma of the crash itself, or the fact that her own sister had tried to kill her...or perhaps it was a mix of all those things combined...but, that night had set off her own downward spiral.

That night, on that dark stretch of road, Sam had died...Sam had died...but, her mind simply refused to let Sam go.

No amount of therapy, no amount of hospital stays, no amount of prescription pills, no amount of crying and swearing...had been able to make Sam go away. Sam had haunted her since the crash, plaguing her dreams and even showing up in her waking life on a more and more consistent basis. 

 Well, what was haunting her was mostly Sam. At least, it was the leftovers of what had once been Sam, but was now a faded image with voided, blacked out eyes.

At times, she was almost convinced that whatever part of her was hanging onto Sam wouldn't be satisfied until she herself was drawing her last breath, convinced that her damaged mind was trying to drive her to that point, just to make up for the fact that she hadn't died along with her sister...

"Miss!" the voice exploded in her ear, causing fear to streak through her like a jagged line of lightning.

Clydie's body jolted and a shriek burst out of her and with a physical surge, she was back in reality, the inky darkness of her thoughts swiftly evaporating...and leaving her confused and shaken. As the fog around her lifted, she shot a glance about, and was stunned to find the brooding grey harbour right in front of her, the waves close enough to lap her feet, the wind pushing past her hard and fast. A brief instant later, she received a second jolt as she rather abruptly realized that she wasn't alone.

The presence right beside her brought her head whipping around in that direction, and she stiffened in disbelief. Finding a strange man looming over her was startling enough, but finding a strange man who looked like that looming over her was enough to cause her to wonder if she was dreaming him up.

It took her a full few seconds to understand that he was in full color, that his eyes were vibrant and clear and filled with...life. Which meant that she wasn't imagining him, which was perhaps even more startling.

He was tall, probably slightly taller than Matt Tanner, and shockingly handsome...though, not in the same way as Matt. Her certainly had nothing of the star quarterback, All-American look about him. And if she'd had to guess, she would have put his high school years behind him by at least a decade, if not more.

He had an unruly shock of reddish brown hair and a couple of days' worth of matching stubble shadowing his square chin and jaw. His nose was shapely, but slightly off-center, as if it had been broken at some point in the past, and his mouth was firm and thin and slightly down turned at the corners. And sitting beneath a pair of unruly, reddish brown brows were a pair of large eyes—perhaps too large for his face—that nearly matched the color of the lowering grey sky and the tumultuous grey harbour lying beneath it.

They were a bit off-putting, those eyes, simply because they were so hard and...guarded. She was struck with the sudden sense that no one would ever be able to ferret out what was lying behind those large eyes unless the owner allowed it. And she'd be willing to bet that happened only rarely, if at all.

Tearing her focus away from those deeply grey orbs, she took in the rest of him, noting his faded jeans and beige fisherman's cardigan, neither of which could hide the moderate amount of whipcord lean muscle that made up the man's physique.

All in all, given the sum of the parts, he was a rugged looking man, with a bit of a hard edge and a somber sort of air about him. And staring up...and up...at him, she wasn't sure whether she should be scared enough to run away, or if she should just stand there...staring at him.

"Miss? Are you okay?" he suddenly spoke and the sound of his deep voice that was slightly gravelly made her flinch. "Do you need help?"

Well, wasn't that a loaded question...

"Can I call someone for you? Or...maybe walk you back to your house?" the man offered, his brows drawing together as his hard grey eyes studied her.

She wanted to answer him, but his voice seemed to addle her already stalled mind. His words came out sounding as coarse as sandpaper and she couldn't help but notice that they were threaded through with something of a Southern drawl...conjuring up pictures of dusty desert towns and cowboys on horseback...

She'd never heard a voice, nor an accent, quite like that in person and frankly, she found it all but bone melting. A panty dropper, Sam would have called it.

"Miss? Can I call your folks for you?" the man pressed and it seemed as if his accent actually deepened by a measure.

Realizing that she was making a boob out of herself, she gave her head a shake, struggling to catch hold of her own voice enough to speak.

"Well, can I at least take you home? You seem really upset and I don't think I should leave you out here alone," he stated firmly.

She seemed really upset...

That statement sent a jolt through her that was sharp and painful enough bring her mind and body back together with a practically audible snap. Almost instantly, she became aware of the tears that were spilling down her cheeks and the uneven rhythm of her breath, letting her know that she'd been sobbing.

Humiliation slammed into her as surely as a slap through the face and she spun on her heel, starting away from the ruggedly handsome man with the rough voice and cowboy accent. Honestly, she couldn't catch a break. Hardly a week went by that she wasn't embarrassing herself in some horrible way!

"Hey! Hold on a second! Where are you going?" the man questioned, easily falling into step beside her.

"I'm just...I'm going home," she answered hoarsely, her voice sounding so...tired...that it was a bit jarring.

But, she was tired. Of everything. Of just...every single thing.

"If you don't mind, I'll walk with you," he said and it was clearly more of an edict rather than an offer.

Clydie lifted her shoulder, bringing her hands up to swipe at her damp cheeks. It was a free country. A person could walk anywhere they chose.

"Where do you live?" came the question.

"In the old house back..." her words halted as she shot a glance over her shoulder, thinking she'd see the house right behind her...only it wasn't there.

Confused, she forced herself to actually look around, to take in her surroundings. She was on the hard-packed grey sand of the shoreline, the sweeping harbour to the right and a rocky slope with a thick stand of trees to the left. Straight ahead, farther down the shore, she could see a couple of houses, sitting fairly close to one another, but neither house belonged to her. Spinning on her heel, she looked in the other direction, seeing nothing but an empty stretch of beach and more towering trees...

"Exactly where is it that you live?" the man repeated and she could tell by the way his tone softened a fraction that he figured...something with her wasn't right.

And he was right to assume that. Something with her absolutely wasn't right.

"I-I live on SeaWind Lane," she responded, a little thrill of fear shooting along her limbs as it fell in on her that she had no idea where home was.  

"Do you mean the old house with the iron fence around it?" came the response.

"Yeah. That's the place," she answered, wrapping her arms around herself to try and stave off the damp wind that was gusting by, only then seeming to notice just how chilly it actually was.

"I know the house. But, its a fair piece back that way," the man stated, cocking his head in that direction.

A little wave of relief broke over her and she changed course again, turning about and starting toward the houses just up the way. In the back of her mind, it dawned on her that she probably shouldn't be telling a strange man she'd bumped into on the beach the exact location of her home, but then...when it came down to it, what more could be done to her? Getting hacked into small pieces would just mean the end of all her troubles, would it not?

"I didn't know anybody had moved into that place. How long have you been there?" he questioned easily, as if making friendly conversation.

"The movers unloaded our stuff this morning," she replied, keeping her gaze on the dark grey sand winding off into the distance.

She didn't want to look at the man walking beside her. She didn't want to see the pity that would probably be there, written all over his handsome face. She'd seen that pitying expression from time to time. Either people were unsure and slightly afraid of her, or they regarded her as if she was some wretched thing that needed to be put down.

A sudden weight around her shoulders startled her and she gasped, her mind taking a beat to comprehend that the man beside her had draped his thick cardigan around her "Oh, I-I...thanks, but I'm okay," she denied the gesture, trying to shrug the sweater off.

"No, you're not.  You're shivering," the man pointed out.  

"Really, you don't need to bother.  I'm fine," she told him, but he kept his hands firmly on her shoulders, holding the sweater in place.

"I feel like I should bother.  What kind of neighbor would I be if I let you freeze to death?" he wondered, prompting her to look at him then.

"You...you're our neighbor?" she echoed, sounding openly suspicious.

"I am.  I live right down the street from the old Harrison place.  You're place now, I reckon," he answered.

The old Harrison place. If the Harrisons were the people who'd spent decades filing the house with cigarette smoke, then she vehemently hoped the Harrisons were now residing someplace that was highly uncomfortable. And perpetually sticky.

"You know, it tends to get pretty nippy here this time of year, so you probably shouldn't leave the house without a jacket.  If you're not used to these temperatures, you can actually go hypothermic pretty quick," the man pointed out in a somewhat parental sort of way, as if she was an errant child who'd ran out the door without heeding the warning about the weather.

She ignored the comment and the tone. What did she care if a total stranger thought she was a pitiable, wayward child? He could think what he wanted of her and her day would go on.

But, all the same, she slid her arms into the sleeves of the cardigan, a little curl of relief rolling through her as the warmth engulfed her, forcing her to realize how cold she really was. The man's scent, clinging to the sweater, engulfed her next, the clean, sharply masculine fragrance striking her senses and fairly catching her breath.

"I don't mean to pry, but you were pretty hysterical a minute ago," the man stated, causing her still damp cheeks to flush with heat. "Will you be okay when you get back home?  I mean...everything's okay there?"

Looking at the handsome, stubbled man, she felt her stomach tighten a fraction. He thought her family might have something to do with the state he'd found her in. It was understandable. These days, everyone was on the lookout for signs of abuse, be it physical, verbal, or otherwise. Everyone wanted to be the good guy, the one who charged in to save the poor soul who was being in some way harmed. Or at least, they wanted to report it to the proper authorities, who would then charge in, which would give the person a good story to tell and a nice ego boost to go along with it.

But, the handsome neighbor with the cowboy accent could put his ideals of being the hero away. Her parents weren't hurting her. It was the ghost of her dead sister who was behind her torment.

Choosing not to reply, she picked up the pace a bit, huddling into the sweater, breathing in the scent that was clinging to the heavy knit. She'd never smelled anything so masculine. She'd never actually thought about it before, but a man should smell that way. Clean and heady and...comforting. It was nice, and it caused something quite ethereal to go wafting through her belly.

The man at her elbow lapsed into silence then and she turned her focus to the world around her, to the harbour that was so massive and all consuming, to the white capped waves that filled the air with their angry roar, to the strip of grey sad that ran on for miles, fading away into a mist of shadows and shapes.  It was such a gloomy, rather menacing sort of scene, but in that moment, she didn't exactly mind.  The bleakness, the tumult, exactly matched how she was feeling right then, so she did feel something of a kinship forming.

And part of that tumult roiling around inside her had to do with the fact that she'd strayed from home without the slightest awareness of what she was doing.  It was flat out terrifying that she could slip out of reality so completely merely because of a few memories.  It truly seemed that anything having to do with Sam sent her spiraling downwards into the inky depths.

That was a terrible blow for her, too. Her sister's memory should be something beautiful and comforting. It should not be something that sent her off the deep end.

After a short while spent trudging along, the man's presence beside her became such that she couldn't help but slide her gaze back over to him. He was looking outward, down the shoreline, his features unreadable, giving her a chance to take in his strong profile, his olive green tee shirt that clung to his lean waist and flat stomach, showing off his chiseled biceps and the long, rope-like veins that were snaking up his forearms.

Taking him in, she had to admit that Sam would have gone after him, had he been a tad younger.  Her sister seemed to have a taste for guys like him, guys that were somber and stoic, perhaps even a bit foreboding.  The man beside her had an intense sort of aura about him and she'd be willing to lay money down that he could be bad news, if he chose to.  

Indeed, Sam would have gone straight for intensely brooding Mr. Neighbor Guy.  Of course, her sister had preferred the sort who could cause the most trouble.

She wouldn't say it out loud, not for anything, but there were moments when she really wished that she'd kicked the crap out of her sister, just for being so problematic. If only Sam had tried to be a bit more stable....

"Clydie!" a far off voice fell on her ears, bringing her gaze away from the handsome man beside her and pulling her attention down the beach, toward the small figure waving to her.

Even from a distance, she could make out the wheat colored hair and the muscular frame and seeing Matt Tanner's form there on the dark sand pushed a little sigh past her lips.  She found herself picking up speed, suddenly wanting to be away from the man looming next to her like an ominous shadow.

Despite moving at a steady clip, it seemed to take far longer than it should have to reach Matt, who seemed to finally give up on walking and decided to jog the last bit of distance separating them.

When they finally met up, he took hold of her shoulders, letting out a heavy breath as his vivid blue eyes ran her up and down. "Clydie, are you okay? I've been looking for you!"

"She's okay. I was just seeing her home," the man at her elbow stated.

Matt's gaze went to the man, his brows drawing together and those large, frank eyes sharpening with a measure of hostility. Pulling Clydie a few steps forward, he put his arm around her, tucking her firmly against his side. "Thanks. But, I'll get her home from here."

Without further discussion, he started them forward down the beach, his pace rather brisk. But, as they went, she could feel those steel grey eyes on her, boring straight into her back, sending a little skitter of something...something...crawling along her spine.

"Do you know that guy?" Matt asked, glancing behind them.

"No. But, he said he lives down the street from my house," she replied, feeling uneasy.

"Really?  He said that, did he?" said Matt in a disbelieving tone, casting another look over his shoulder. 

"That's...what he said," she returned, finally glancing back toward the man, finding him exactly where they'd left him, staring after them, his hands shoved into his jeans pockets.  

Again, the word foreboding came to mind.  And that notion only increased as he continued to watch them as they hurried down the beach.