Chapter One
There are two kinds of people in this world—those who run away from danger, and those who run toward it. Today, I was running away from danger. Okay, maybe not technically running, but definitely walking briskly.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?”
Tracee, my best friend and the other half of our fledgling therapy practice, gave me the side-eye. I’m sure she knew where I was going, but the psychologist in her could never resist a teachable moment.
“Oh, just looking for Nathan.” I tried to sound breezy, but even I couldn’t deny the touch of hysteria in my voice. “Have you seen him?”
Nathan was Tracee’s nephew and our underpaid receptionist/handyman/technical support department. A computer science major at the local university, he’d agreed to work for peanuts in exchange for free room and board in Tracee’s spare bedroom. While they each grumbled that the other had gotten the better deal, I was the one who gained the most from the arrangement. Because not only could Nathan sync my phone to the office printer and fix the Wi-Fi when it crashed, he also possessed an additional skill set that I took advantage of on a regular basis.
“Another spider, Dr. Shepard?” The annoyance in his voice carried all the way from Tracee’s office down the hall.
“Yes!” If we were all sharing our true feelings, then I refused to stay calm any longer. “It’s a brown recluse! In my office! Kill it!”
He sighed. “Can it wait? I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”
His indifference alarmed me. Didn’t he hear me say it was a brown recluse? “No! If you don’t kill it now, we’ll never find it. I won’t feel safe again until we burn the building down!”
Although he grumbled like a cranky grizzly, Nathan’s dark, curly head soon poked out of the doorway. “Why do I always have to keep you from burning down the building?” he asked, pushing his black-framed glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “Why can’t Aunt Tracee squish your spiders?”
“Because…” Tracee’s voice made me jump. “Aunt Tracee will use psychotherapy to make her confront the fears she prefers to avoid.”
“There’s a time for psychotherapy, and a time for action!”
Nathan shot Tracee a pained look before leaving her office to follow me down the hall. “What do you do when you find a spider at home? Call the fire department?”
“Of course not!” Even I knew that was overkill. “I got a cat.”
“A cat?”
“You know. For protection.”
“Because a single woman living alone can never be too careful,” Tracee deadpanned.
I ignored her. “Killer earns her keep. She’s always leaving me gifts of mangled spider parts. There’s nothing worse than waking up to a dead spider on your pillow.”
“Unless it’s a live spider,” Nathan said as we reached my office.
I shuddered and pointed him toward where I last saw the homicidal monster. “Go. Search. Destroy.”
“I hope you appreciate the irony,” Tracee said as Nathan got down on all fours to crawl under my desk. “You spend forty-plus hours a week encouraging your patients to overcome their fears, and the rest of your life running from your own.”
“There’s a difference,” I told her. “I help my patients overcome their irrational fears. Like consecotaleophobia.”
“Conseco-what?” Nathan asked in a muffled voice.
“Fear of chopsticks,” Tracee explained.
“And triskaidekaphobia.”
“Fear of the number thirteen.”
“And arachibutyrophobia.”
“Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.”
Nathan glanced up from his spider search. “That’s a thing?”
Tracee shrugged. “It’s more common than you’d think.”
“Anyway,” I continued, trying to make my point. “There’s nothing irrational about being afraid of real danger.” Nathan shifted to roll his eyes at Tracee. As he did, his hand came within inches of the source of my panic. I screamed. “Right there! Kill it!”
It took every fiber of my being not to jump on my desk as Nathan leaned closer to the floor. “Dr. Shepard? This isn’t a brown recluse. It’s a wad of string.”
“Oh.” The heat rose in my cheeks as he crawled out from under my desk and threw the offending string in the trash can. “Well. Thank you for taking care of it.”
“Yes, Nathan.” Tracee couldn’t resist a small smirk. “We appreciate the way you handled that dangerous piece of string.” I scowled, but she continued, unfazed. “I suppose you’re going to tell me your fear of public speaking is rational as well.”
“Glossophobia affects up to 75% of the population,” I reminded her. “Which is understandable in this modern era, when any mistake you make in front of a live audience can be recorded, uploaded to YouTube, and go viral in a matter of minutes.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What about your fear of romantic rejection?”
“What?” My cheeks burned again as Nathan coughed to cover a laugh. “I do not have a fear of romantic rejection!”
“Come on, Darla. Every time you start to fall for a guy, you find some ridiculous reason to dump him. Remember Brian?”
I crossed my arms. “He hated my cat. He refused to be in the same room with her.”
“Darla…” Tracee sighed. “He did not hate your cat—he was allergic! And what about Randy?”
“Randy had a secret family in Boston.”
She rolled her eyes. “Really?”
“Why else would he fly up there so often?”
“He had to travel for his job.”
“How convenient.”
Tracee snorted. “And Alexei? I thought you two were going to make it.”
I sighed. “So did I. Too bad he was mixed up with the Russian mafia.”
That got Nathan’s attention. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” I nodded. “Every time he’d call ‘the family,’ he’d switch to Russian so I couldn’t understand what he was saying.”
Tracee scoffed. “That’s why you broke up with him? He was talking to his mother. Who didn’t speak English.”
“That’s what he said. But I never met her once the whole time we went out.”
“Because she lived in Russia!”
I snorted. “While I appreciate your concern for my love life, I have to get back to work.” I gestured toward the blinking red light on my phone, which indicated I’d missed a call during my search for Nathan, and hit the play button with gusto to emphasize my point. But the ensuing message was so garbled that I had trouble making it out. I glanced over at Tracee and Nathan. “Did either of you catch that?”
Nathan sighed. “Didn’t I tell you to invest in a better telecommunication system?”
Tracee ignored him. “It sounds like some guy named Ted wants you to give a talk on that article you wrote.”
“What article’s that?” Nathan asked.
“Overcoming Your Fears and Living Your Best Life,” I said, unable to keep the pride out of my voice. That article was the highlight of my career.
“And it’s autobiographical?” Nathan raised his eyebrows, clearly amused after disposing of my dangerous piece of string.
I squared my shoulders. “It’s a highly acclaimed, research-based article that’s taken the internet by storm, according to Psychology Today, thank you very much.”
“A social media influencer mentioned it in a YouTube video,” Tracee explained. “Now, Darla’s famous.”
“And someone wants you to give a live talk about it? That’s awesome!”
My gut protested at the words live talk. Being referred to in a viral YouTube video was one thing. Speaking in front of an auditorium full of people was completely different. “Yeah, but I can’t make out the guy’s name.”
I played the message again as we all leaned closer, straining our ears to hear. When it finished, Tracee straightened and frowned. “He sounds shady to me. Did he really call himself Ted X?”
Nathan shook his head. “Not Ted X. TEDx. As in Technology, Entertainment, and Design.” He turned to me. “Dr. Shepard, a TEDx talk is huge! TED conference speakers are distinguished academics, scientists, influencers—you name it. These conferences give them a global platform to share their ideas with the world.”
“Global platform?” I repeated. “To share ideas with the whole world?”
“Don’t worry. TEDx talks are more of a local thing, with smaller audiences,” he assured me. “But it’s still a big honor they reached out to you.”
“Yeah. A big honor.” Was the room spinning for anyone else?
Tracee studied my face. “Are you okay? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine.”
My initial reaction was to erase the message and pretend I’d never heard it. But we were a new therapy practice with only a handful of patients. The YouTube video had caused a small spike in business, but the kind of people who chose a psychologist based on a YouTube video didn’t usually have the kind of insurance that covered exotic phobias. Tracee reminded me that if worse came to worse, we could close our private practice and work for the mental health ward of the correctional facility downtown. Which would be fine, except I preferred to treat patients who were afraid of chopsticks instead of those who tried to stab me in the eye with them. But a TEDx talk—that would give me the kind of credibility that appealed to patients in higher tax brackets.
Nathan seemed oblivious to my unease. “I bet they’ll host it at the university. Maybe I’ll get extra credit to watch you!”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I haven’t decided if I’m going to do this yet.”
He stared at me. “Why wouldn’t you do it? This is an amazing opportunity!”
“Yes, Darla.” Tracee gave me a pained look. “Why wouldn’t you take this amazing opportunity to speak about overcoming your fears and living your best life?”
“Well…” I hesitated. “I don’t know when the talk is. I might be busy that day.”
She waved away my protests. “So call him back. In fact, Nathan and I will sit right here while you do. You know, for accountability.” She rested her chin in her hand and stared at me with creepy, unblinking eyes.
“Sorry,” I said, with as much remorse as I could muster. “I can’t. I have to prepare for my next appointment. I’m helping a new patient with her chloephobia.”
“Really?” Tracee straightened and raised her eyebrows. “How often do you run across print newspapers anymore?”
“She found stacks of old papers in her grandpa’s attic and had a panic attack.”
“Ah. Then call after she leaves.”
I paused, racking my brain for another excuse. “It’ll be pretty late by then...”
“Darla. It’s time to face your fears.” Tracee frowned. “Besides, our practice could use the exposure.” I caught a hint of desperation in her voice, and the remorse kicked in for real. If the success of our practice hinged on me giving this TEDx talk, then we were all in trouble.
I sighed. “I know. But I really don’t want to speak in front of an audience.”
“Hmm…” She was silent for a moment, mentally sifting through her bag of cognitive tricks. “You should try exposure therapy. You know… start small. Speak in front of a handful of people, mostly friends, and see how that goes.”
“Yeah, right.” I laughed. “Who would I talk to? You and Nathan?”
“Now that you mention it,” Nathan said, pulling a wrinkled paper out of his pocket, “my English professor’s offering extra credit for going to her poetry slam tonight. Five points for attending, ten for reading. It’s open to anyone—not just students.”
I blinked. “I don’t need extra credit.”
“This is perfect!” Tracee snatched the paper from his hand, her eyes gleaming as she read the announcement. “It’s at the coffee shop on campus, so the audience will be small. And it’s tonight, which means you’ll only brood over it for one afternoon. Besides, poems are so short! You’ll be done in thirty seconds, tops.”
“But I’d have to write a poem.”
“It doesn’t have to be an original poem. Recite the Itsy, Bitsy Spider. I don’t care. The whole point is to practice speaking in front of a group.”
It was a logical argument. But this wasn’t how I’d planned to spend my Thursday night.
She sighed and offered a nonchalant shrug. “I guess if poetry’s not your thing, you could always sing karaoke instead.”
Dammit. She knew just how to force my hand. “Fine,” I grumbled. “But you owe me a drink first.”
#
“This isn’t what I had in mind,” I grumbled, warming my hands around the cardboard sleeve of my overpriced Earl Grey.
Tracee and I claimed a table along the back wall of the campus coffee shop, waiting for Nathan to return with his order. Across the room, a middle-aged woman fiddled with a microphone.
“It’s supposed to be soothing.”
I rolled my eyes. Nothing about this evening was soothing. But the coffee shop was less intimidating than a large auditorium. A few rows of chairs were set up in front of the microphone, and only a half-dozen college-aged kids were seated so far. The rest of the customers in the cafe typed away on laptops or chatted amongst themselves, oblivious to the upcoming reading.
“Do you have your poem ready?”
I gave a shaky nod, pulled a piece of paper out of my purse, and slid it across the table.
She raised her eyebrows. “You’re going to recite the Itsy, Bitsy Spider? And you needed to write it down?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t want to forget the words.”
She sighed and returned the paper. “Whatever works.” Taking a sip of her grande caramel nonfat latte with extra caramel drizzle, she glanced behind me. “I don’t mean to distract you, since you obviously need all your brain power to remember your poem, but that guy over there keeps checking you out.”
“What? No. I’m sure you’re imagining it.” Heat rose in my cheeks. “Which guy?”
She casually lifted her latte in front of her mouth and lowered her voice. “The one behind you. Beard. Glasses. Marvel t-shirt. But be cool.”
I turned to see who she was talking about, ready to dismiss a geeky college kid the same age as her nephew. But this wasn’t a kid. This was a man. A man with the jawline of a superhero and the most gorgeous ice-blue eyes I’d ever seen. He blinked twice behind his round, wire-rimmed glasses before looking down at the book spread open on the table in front of him. It might’ve been my imagination, but his cheeks seemed to color a bit behind his neatly trimmed beard and mustache.
I should’ve taken the hint and turned away, but I was mesmerized by the way his soft, brown hair fell in his eyes, as if he’d waited a little too long between haircuts. He was older than the typical college student, probably closer to my own age, but the casual blazer he wore gave him an air of maturity not normally associated with the Spider Man t-shirt layered underneath. Engrossed in his book, he seemed almost deceptively mild-mannered, as if he might jump up, rip off his jacket, and go save the world at any minute.
I’m not sure how long I stared at the mystery man before I heard Tracee snort. “Way to be cool, Darla. I can’t take you any—”
She stopped mid-sentence. When I turned to her again, her face was as white as the non-fat milk in her latte.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Her voice came out as a high-pitched squeak. Something was definitely wrong. What had happened in the two minutes—okay, maybe five—I’d spent ogling the stranger? Had Google face recognition identified him as one of the ten most-wanted axe murderers in the tri-state area?
“Okay. Now you’re freaking me out.”
Her eyes remained glued to a spot over my right shoulder. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine. But whatever you do, don’t move.”
