Birmingham was now her home. She had a job she enjoyed and was usually good at—apart from screwing up a report last week and prompting the meeting from hell this afternoon. She still had no idea how it had happened… .
She was independent and happy. And she was going to stay that way. One trip home and her freedom would end. She knew it to the soles of her feet. She’d needed every bit of strength and determination she had to escape the world of excess and privilege. If her mother got her hooks into Anne again she’d never let go. The only reason she’d gotten away the first time was because her mother had counted on Anne’s inability to live without money and things and people at her beck and call.
Marie had been wrong, something that made Anne smile every time she thought of it. It wasn’t often her mother was wrong and she delighted in being one of the only people who’d never fallen into line.
Really, running away ten years ago had been Anne’s final step in a lifelong quest to thwart her mother’s fight for control.
Those first few months when the transition had been difficult, she’d used that thought to get her through. Her mother wouldn’t win. She wouldn’t let her. Not after what the woman had pushed Anne’s brother, Michael, to do.
If Marie had shown one ounce of warmth or maternal concern when Michael had gone to her, Anne knew in her heart her brother never would have hung himself.
Pushing back the unwanted memories, she walked inside her house, flipping switches as she went. There was something about light in the first gloom of dusk that always made her feel warm and safe. The tension that had tightened her shoulders began to ease. But the place was freezing. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around her middle and huddled further into her coat. She didn’t remember turning down the heat before she’d left this morning. Maybe the unit had finally given up. She’d been fighting with it for over a year but had hoped to baby it along until her tax refund came in sometime next month.
Depositing her purse and briefcase on the hall table, she headed through the open-plan living room toward the thermostat and stopped dead in her tracks.
The back door at the end of the long hallway stood wide open. The doorjamb surrounding the lock plate was shredded. The door wasn’t much better, a half-moon of splinters was all that was left of the knob.
Oh hell. Panic rushed into her, squeezing her lungs and making her heart beat against the suddenly too small walls of her chest. She reached down and grabbed the first thing her hand settled on, the back of a well-loved recliner. She gasped for air, but couldn’t seem to get enough of it.
Stop it, she told herself. Hyperventilating won’t get you anywhere. Glancing quickly around her, she took stock. A couple of the bottom doors on her built-in were hanging wide open, books and papers falling out in a messy pile to the floor. Shards of glass glittered against the carpet. Who knew which knickknack they’d once been. But her expensive TV still sat on the stand on the far side of the room. Too heavy to carry out?
Something long, slender and glinting silver lay in the hall at the archway to her kitchen. Big, sharp, dangerous knife or the handle to her frying pan? She wasn’t going to stick around to find out.
Anne backed slowly toward the front door, snatching her purse and cell phone off the hall table as she went. Outside to call the police. And Karyn. And possibly stay with her … and her brand-new husband of four weeks when they’d just returned from their extended honeymoon a week ago. Yeah, probably not. She’d figure something out.
Reaching behind her, Anne felt for the doorknob, letting out a silent sigh of relief when her searching fingers finally touched it. But a single sound stopped her.
Mrreow.
“Shit!” Slapping a hand over her mouth to hold in any other sounds, she stood with her back pressed tight against the door and waited … for what she wasn’t sure. For some masked man to come barreling into the room and throw her to the ground? For ninjas to erupt through the back windows? For her cat to silently pad from the kitchen to wind her skinny, wrinkled body around her ankles.
“Prada.” The name pushed out of her lungs as she leaned down, grabbed her cat and buried her face in the hairless skin.
Okay. If Prada was fine she could deal with the rest of it. After finally exiting the house, Anne raced to the safety of her car, slammed all the locks shut, placed Prada on the seat beside her and called the police.
Pressing the phone to her ear, Anne tried to calm her breathing so she could hear through the harsh in and out. “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
“I’d like to—” Her words were cut off midstream by a scream so loud it echoed off the windows and bounced through the car. The response was involuntary, a knee-jerk reaction to someone tapping loudly on the window next to her head.
“Ma’am? Are you all right? Ma’am? What’s wrong?” The voice on the other end of the line sharpened with concern.
“I’m sorry.” Anne’s eyes narrowed as she looked through the driver’s side window of her Miata to find Blake Mitchell staring back at her. What the hell was he doing here? Now? At the exact moment she needed him?
No, that wasn’t right. She didn’t need him. She didn’t need anyone. She was fine.
Glaring at him, she turned away and continued talking to the dispatcher. “Someone just scared me. I need to report a break-in at my town house.”
“Are you in any danger? Are you inside the home? Is the intruder still there? “
“No, I’m fine. I’m outside in my car. I’m not sure if anyone is still inside. I didn’t stick around to find out.”
The dispatcher took her address and said an officer would be there shortly. After assuring the woman that she didn’t need to stay on the phone with her until their arrival, Anne shut off her phone and sat staring through her windshield for a moment. Her pulse was finally dropping, which was good because she wasn’t sure her heart could handle any more ups and downs in one day.
Taking a deep breath, she turned her head to find Blake right where she’d left him, leaning against the side of her car, one arm propped on the roof, positioned slightly behind the window so he’d been out of her line of sight. She wasn’t entirely certain that had been an accident.
His dark-chocolate eyes stared down at her, watchful, assessing. She wasn’t sure she liked that at all. It gave her the sensation of being weighed and measured, as if he could see everything inside her even if she didn’t want him to.
Definitely not pleasant. She much preferred when his eyes smoldered.
She dug in her purse for keys, then popped them into the ignition and cranked the car for power before rolling down her window. For some reason, she wanted to keep the closed door firmly between them. His eyes narrowed and one eyebrow lifted. She had the distinct impression he found her caution amusing.
Cold January air gushed through the opening. Another reason to keep her butt firmly in the car. She turned the heat up.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you. And I’m guessing by the way you bolted out of that house like your ass was on fire that you’re in a bit of a jam.”
A bit of a jam. Ha! “Why?”
“Why
