Free The Tempering (The Mackenzie Duncan Series) by Adrianne James

the house, and imagining going inside was torture. Instead, she took the steps back down and sat on the bottom one.
    She tried to focus on the sounds of the night. The wind blowing through the trees. The skittering of whatever bug hid beneath the house to try and hide from the winter’s chill. The few animals that roamed at night. But all she could hear was the fast heartbeat and breathing of the man behind her.
    Why did she have to be so aware of him? So aware that she knew when he stood and moved closer to her. Aware that with every step down he took, her skin erupted in goose bumps, and aware of the heat he put off when he sat down beside her.
    “Can I help you?” she asked, hoping to put him off with her chilled demeanor.
    “Nope, I just like being close to nature. Something about being trapped inside a wooden box, no matter how big, doesn’t feel right sometimes. Know what I mean?”
    She did know what he meant. It was as if he read her mind. But she would never admit it to him. Just one more night and she would leave and find a new place to stay for a few weeks. Maybe pick up a little side job, if possible, to replenish some of her funds before the next full moon. “Nope.”
    Mackenzie stood up and climbed the stairs slowly. Why did he have to be so nosey? Why couldn’t he have left her alone out there? Now she had to go up to her room just to escape the pull he had on her.
    Her room was so closed up. It made her feel as though she were suffocating the minute that she opened her door. She ran to her window and threw it open before going back and closing the door behind her. Pulling a chair under her windowsill, she sat and pressed her forehead against the screen. When that wasn’t good enough and her irritation took over, she punched through it, sending the mesh and metal to the ground. Mackenzie leaned out the window, resting her elbows on the frame and her head in her hands. That was how she fell asleep.
     
    ~*~
    Mackenzie’s eyes fluttered open the next morning, revealing at least ten feet of empty space before the ground. Jumping back, with one hand to her hammering heart, and the other gripping the windowsill for dear life, she vaguely remembered breaking the screen the night before. She was horrified at her actions. Her impulses were beginning to turn her into a delinquent! Who was she kidding? Running through the woods killing innocent animals was a precursor to being a psychopath. She should hope for delinquent.
    Dashing out of her room and down the stairs, she slipped outside and snuck around the building to find the screen. Maybe she could throw it back up and into her room without anyone noticing? Only, the screen wasn’t there.
    Mackenzie cursed under her breath. She didn’t have the cash to replace or repair the damn thing. Maybe if she went in and apologized and offered to work it off they would let her? Walking back around the house, talking to herself, practicing what she would say, she was startled by a little chuckle coming from the other side of the stairs that led to the porch.
    She knew instantly that it was Geoff. She could feel the change in the air around her and she could (unfortunately) smell him. She had gotten a good whiff the night before when he sat next to her. The scent of cut grass, and the aroma of pure man, both penetrated her so deeply, it engrained itself into her memory.
    “What is so damn funny?” He stood walking around the steps to stand in front of Mackenzie with a cocky grin on his face. It may or may not have been dazzling, not that she cared.
    “You. First, you throw your screen to the ground, then you sleep half way hanging out your window, and now you talk to yourself, thinking you got busted. You really think I wouldn’t have heard you? The porch is seriously just ten feet around the corner.”
    He had a point and she knew it. But if she hadn’t been caught by the owner, where was the screen. That’s when she realized that he must have moved it.
    “Where