three gold chains around her broad neck. Shelia called her look “ghetto funk” and Addy couldn’t imagine her friend and employee without a little bling. But as loud, sarcastic and bossy as Shelia was, Addy knew her to be the kindest of women, as evidenced by the love for the kittens she rescued and helped place in good homes for the past few years.
But Addy wasn’t the type to rescue things. Never felt compelled to pull someone from the fire...most of the time she tended her own fire, struggling to keep the flames of fear from consuming her. She wasn’t selfish, merely protective and cautious. So why had she agreed to help Lucas?
She knew. Something in his tone, his manner, his damned dented pride pulled her toward him rather than away. And there was that weird attraction thing between them.
“Actually I’m having company tonight.” Addy grinned, enjoying stringing her friend along.
Shelia’s thinly drawn eyebrows settled into a straight line as she eyeballed her. “Oh?”
“Yes, a big hunk of a man.”
“You watching 300 again?”
Addy laughed. “No, this one is real.”
“Really?”
Addy swept the stem trimmings into the plastic-lined garbage bin. “No. Well, not really. You know my neighbors?”
“The ones with that cute tabby that has white paws?”
“Yeah, and a proliferation of kids, lawn ornaments and sticky fingers. Ben deployed to Afghanistan but was injured. Courtney went to him in Virginia—I’m assuming Walter Reed—and left the kids in the care of Ben’s brother. Yesterday, the middle kid destroyed my new greenhouse. So—”
“The thing you just had built?” Shelia’s eyebrows made an even tighter line of outrage. Leave it to Shelia to be pissed off for her.
“Yeah, they’re coming over on Saturday to repair it, but tonight I’m sitting down with the hunky uncle to go over the kids’ schedule and see if Flora and I can’t help him out a little.”
“Really? Baby, I like the way you say hunky uncle, and it’s nice you’re helping your neighbor. Just tread careful.” Shelia’s wide, always glossed lips curving into a smile. She wasn’t one to push Addy to date, like some of her other friends, because she knew what it was like to have trust twisted and stomped upon. Shelia had married an abusive man, a man who had beaten her so severely she’d miscarried their child and had been forced to undergo an emergency hysterectomy. After years of enduring the abuse, she left him, only to have him stalk her and torture her for many more years. The abuse and terror had ended when Alfred ran his car into a tree. A bottle of Crown Royal and a wet New Orleans street saved Shelia from the gun the man had in his glove box...the same gun he’d already fired at her once before.
So, no, Addy’s assistant didn’t trust easily.
But she hadn’t given up on Addy finding love. She pushed gently, but she pushed. Just like Aunt Flora. And Addy’s mother. And her sisters. And...well, Addy could go on and on with the people who wanted to see her with a man and a baby on her hip.
But Addy wouldn’t be moved until she was ready. She’d learned long ago to listen to her instincts and step carefully where men were concerned. It took her a long time before she trusted. Which was why she couldn’t figure out why there was a sort of auto-trust when it came to Lucas.
“He’s hunky, but it’s not a date.”
“You’ve got weekend plans.”
“We’re rebuilding a greenhouse...with three kids.”
“Who knows what can come of some innocent hammering, nailing, screwing...uh-huh.” Shelia bobbed her head and performed the wave...which was hard to do holding a floral box.
“Go.”
Shelia’s laughter trailed behind her as she left. Addy locked the door behind her friend. Shelia had vacuumed the indoor-outdoor carpet and then locked the front door, but Addy scooted out of her back workstation and double-checked.
Like she did every day.
Then she located her purse, cell phone and pepper spray.
Like she did every day.
Fighting against fear wasn’t for the fainthearted. Addy’s nerves shredded every time she saw an unlocked window, a door left cracked or a shadow falling over her when she was alone.
Most people never thought about their personal safety, but ever since the day in November fifteen years ago, Addy had thought of little else.
Being stalked and attacked did that to a gal.
Of course, Addy knew she was likely safe in her corner of the world. Wednesday evenings in St. Denis Shopping Center in Uptown New Orleans was busy enough with shoppers, diners and looky-loos enjoying the early spring weather. No dark alleys or lonely stretches inviting violence. None of that comforted her. After all, danger lurked on the sunniest of days, in what seemed to be the safest of places.
Her safety routine complete, Addy’s mind turned to last night. Her thoughts had been haunted by Lucas and the feelings he stirred in her. Hungry, sweet thoughts claimed by the normal Addy, the woman who wanted to find love and peace with someone who completed her, who made her feel at home.
But the other Addy had pulled her mind from that hopeful thought to the letter she’d received from Angola State Penitentiary. From some random inmate named Jim McDade. Some decoy who likely owed Robbie Guidry a favor and most likely had no clue why he’d been asked to send the missive. Probably didn’t even care.
Inside the envelope was a drawing—well done—of a field of brown-eyed Susans. The cheerful yellow flowers with the brown center seemed to dance in the picture, their little faces turned toward the fading sun sinking against a streaked horizon. It had been folded carefully, a crisp tri-fold. Innocuous. Innocent.
But the image had caused Addy’s hand to shake so violently she’d dropped the paper to the floor.
Brown-eyed Susans.
A favorite flower for a brown-eyed girl.
Her father had sung that song to her when he strummed his guitar, winking at her, making her feel like the safest, most-loved girl in the world. Brown-eyed Addy. Daddy’s girl.
And Robbie Guidry, the twenty-five-year-old man who lived across the street from her family, three doors down on the left, had listened, smiling like the rest of their neighbors as he carefully absorbed everything about her life.
So the drawing wasn’t innocent.
It was a reminder.
An instrument of terror plied to take her to that sunny afternoon fifteen years ago—the day Addy learned what fear was, the day the darkness settled into her bones and refused to leave her. Before she went home she would drop off this latest drawing with Lieutenant Andre, who had worked her original case. The man kept a file of the “gifts” sent to her over the years, even though no physical evidence could tie the missives to Robbie Guidry. The nutso stalker wasn’t stupid and never, never allowed what he sent to be traced to him.
Picking
