Chapter Fourteen

All eyes at the table were on her. Kara didn't know what the hell to do. How could he?! He said he wouldn't tell if she paid his money back!

And she agreed to pay him back!! Her lips trembled with unspoken words as she looked hastily at Lucas and everyone around the table. Kara swallowed hard, avoiding looking at Celeste as she stared quizzically at her.

Just as she was about to flee the table, Isabelle -her freaking savior- picked up a paper towel and tossed it at Lucas with a mocking chuckle. "Get over it, you big baby!" she laughed.

Kara's heart did a dangerous ram against her rib cage. Did Isabelle know about the money she stole from Lucas. Oh, God.

Celeste chuckled nervously. "Uhm, pardon? Get over what?"

Everyone looked at Isabelle for explanation, Kara the least eager of them.

Her skin prickled from nerves. *Please, don't. Please. I don't want to lose her.*

Isabelle grinned. "Karen outsmarted Lucas at a very expensive bet and he won't stop whining about it," she explained.

Kara stared at Isabelle in confusion, but being wise enough not to show it, she let a little smirk play on her lips, pretending to be in on it. When really all that was in her mind was 'What the hell is she going on about?' Not to mention that she looked rather confusing, wide eyed yet smirking. It was a facial expression confusion.

Why on earth was Isabelle making up a story? Kara didn't understand. She probably knew the truth, didn't she? And now she was trying to... cover up for Kara. Tears threatened to blur her vision and she blinked them away rapidly.

Celeste glanced at Lucas while Isabelle kept her mocking smirk on. Kara made a mental note to applaud her acting skills when she got a chance. Honestly, an Oscar performance and nothing less.

François dropped his spoon back into his empty ice-cream bowl. "What kind of bet?" he questioned.

Isabelle did a little bounce in her seat, seemingly very excited to tell the story. Everyone paid eager attention, Kara too, now that she knew her neck wasn't on the chopping block.

"So I offered Karen wine again, after you guys left to..." she wiggled her brows, making François blush beet red and Raphaël chuckle into his glass. "Anyway, I offered her wine, because, come on. The moon is high and full, the night is crisp, let's get drunk. So, of course, she declined."

Isabelle paused there and threw Lucas a sweet smile. The kind only a little sister would give to the brother she loves tormenting. Lucas looked back at her, intrigued. Where was she going with this?

"That's when Lucas over here told Karen that I, Isabelle Fourie Sauvage, am very persuasive. He bet that I could get Karen to drink plenty of wine by the end of the night. Kara bet that she lives purely on her own instinct and will be convinced by nobody."

"Hah!" said Celeste, intensely amused at the story.

Isabelle laughed. "Wait, the juicy part's coming. So after her glass was just sitting there, depressingly full of wine, Karen suddenly picked it up and threw half of it back."

Celeste gasped dramatically and turned to Karen with mock rage.

"Traitor. How could you abandon the non-alcohol ship?" Kara looked baffled and shrugged helplessly.

Isabelle went on to tell them that Lucas claimed to win the bet, telling Kara that he'd be expecting Twenty thousand Francs soon. She told him that he'd said Isabelle would convince her and yet she hadn't. Kara drank the wine of her own free will, just as she'd bet she lived. And therefore claimed that the victory was hers.

Kara stared at Isabelle in wonder. Where the hell did she get that entire story from?

Isabelle grinned when Celeste laughed. "I have been a referee out here," she said with a quiet chuckle. "Luc didn't give his word to pay out, but Karen took it and now Lucas is whining about the lost bet. For your information, Luc, Karen didn't steal it, I'm the ref and she won that bet, fair and square."

Lucas snorted. "Bullshit," he murmured, glancing over at Raphaël. His friend was quietly circling the rim of his glass with a finger as he studied Kara. So she was the girl who stole from Lucas? Wow. Luc had said she was a little street thief, hadn't he? She didn't look like it.

A little on the slim side and you could tell it was from lack of nourishment from her prominent collar bones, it wasn't genetic. She was beautiful, that was without a doubt and the large eyed look she had seventy percent of the time told him she was used to being in situations where she knew she might have to run, to escape at any moment. He felt bad for her.

Then there went Lucas with his drunken mouth blabbering what he shouldn't have. Thank God for his wife's imagination, it came with her being an author. She never failed to have creative things to say when she needed to.

Isabelle pointed at Kara's now empty glass. Her wine having been long ago drank by Lucas. Kara sat as sober as a priest. But not as guiltless. Now she had Isabelle lying too. Guilt sat like a cold, heavy fist in her gut.

Raphaël saw the look of guilt on her face. He'd seen it many times before and could read it as clear as day. He could bet that Kara had nowhere else to go. If Celeste and François found out that she was a thief who had actually robbed a man of his money- not the first time, he was sure- they wouldn't hesitate to send her away. Celeste would not accept having her around her children when they returned from school camp.

And Kara was scared.

As Raphaël thought to himself, coming to the correct conclusions unaided, Kara rose tiredly from the table. Her limbs felt stiff and sore and she was a little sad. She just wanted her bed.

Everyone looked at her as they happily conversated. Well, everyone besides Lucas, he only leaned back in his seat, keeping his heavy lidded gaze on the table before him.

"Going off to bed?" François asked. Kara nodded and yawned.

"Yeah. Uh... I-I'm really tired."

Celeste held her hand and smiled. "That's what sitting with these ones does to you," she stated, nodding at her friends and family. Kara smiled and sleepily nodded.

"I'll be off then. Goodnight," she said, feeling even more sad when François smiled warmly at her.

Kara slipped through the doors and down the stairs, trying to keep her eyes open.

"Don't end up in the horse muck, sleepyhead," Isabelle called, making Celeste chuckle. Kara threw up a thumbs up but kept walking.

She sighed, making her way to her cottage in the dark. God, she was probably the worst person ever. Not only had she lied to Celeste and François, but she got Isabelle- their close friend- lying for her as well! And what would happen if the truth came out? They would be so angry with Isabelle and it's not even her fault!

With a frustrated but exhausted sigh, Kara walked into her cottage and was momentarily delighted to get enveloped by a cloud of Lucas's scent. He'd been so huge when he was in her house, nearly filling the place up from window to window.

The sports channel was still on and the TV blared out two men's voices as a match between Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United played. She fumbled sleepily for the remote on the couch- where Lucas had left it- and pressed the big red button, switching the TV off.

Her shuffling feet then carried her to her bedroom where she crawled beneath the covers, wanting little more than just a deep sleep.

Her lids fluttered closed, hiding the pained green behind them. A weary sigh escaped as the transition began from wakefulness to sleep. Dreary thoughts filtered through her mind.

A prudent hand slipped out from under the covers to clumsily grope the side of the mattress. When it felt the bulge of the knife hidden there, she withdrew it, feeling safer.

She would stay here for now, she was safe, but tomorrow, she needed to start painting. She had to make money and get the hell out. Before they found her. And before she betrayed anyone's trust. With just another little crack in her heart, Kara fell asleep.

********

It was a little past two-thirty am. The ranch was quiet, only the whisper of the wind as it told it's secrets to the full moon could be heard. A peace unbroken, when the earth seemed to be still.

Three cars were parked haphazardly across the green lawn, their sides gleaming in the moonlight.

A shadow appeared.

It's irregular shape fell across the side of François's home. The night watched as the shadow proceeded undetected, slowly past the main house. It paused... studying the main house cottage from a distance.

She was in there.

********

*Thump thump thump!*

Kara jostled awake, but quickly held herself still in the bed. Her heart was uneasy, beating too hard, too fast. What was the matter? Something had-

*Thump thump thump!*

Fear.

Cold as ice, wrapped its claws around Kara's heart. What the hell was that sound? It hadn't been inside the cottage. There was someone outside.

Kara began to tremble from head to toe, gripped by fear. Had they found her?

She swallowed her fear, hating the taste as she slid her hand down in between the bed mattresses and retrieving the long shiny knife. She wasn't going to let anybody hurt her again. Never.

She was lying on her side, facing the closed bathroom door... then she heard it.

A rustle of leaves. The snap of a twig.

Kara could feel her body shake with the cold terror that had curled up inside her. There was somebody outside her cottage. Outside her window. The window behind her.

With a stiff body, she slowly turned her head, knife clutched tightly in her fist. Her ears were filled with dead silence now and it was deafening. It seemed like a century when she'd finally managed to turn her head to the window.

Then she saw it.

There through the layers of thick curtain veils...she saw it.

The shadow.

Kara froze. Her green eyes wide in terror as she stared over her shoulder at the window.

The outline of a man. He stood still, facing the side, not even looking at her window.

This wasn't François or Raphaël or Lucas. She didn't know who the lean outline belonged to.

There was a stranger outside her window.