into the front pocket of her jeans, whistled for Harry and headed out the double screened doors onto the back porch.
Matching the full-length porch on the front of the house, this one wasn’t decorated to show off the cabin’s rustic charms. This was a workspace full of rockers that needed recaning, wagons that needed new wheels, a 1910 buggy that needed one of its traces replaced. Wooden boxes, shutters, a washing machine, stools, barrels, trinkets, gadgets. It was a veritable fortress of camouflage, and Jessica used it to her advantage, keeping the faded green buggy between her and the stranger who approached.
“That’s far enough,” she ordered, hugging the rubber butt of the gun against her shoulder and leveling the business end at the center of his chest. It was a broad enough target. And she was a better shot than he could ever imagine. Harry bristled to attention at her side.
The man halted his steps, betraying more curiosity than alarm. “Not exactly the back-door hospitality I’ve heard tell about Missouri.”
His voice was low pitched, smooth as whiskey and tinged with the barest hint of an accent.
And completely unfamiliar to her.
“This isn’t a bed-and-breakfast,” she warned. “It’s private property.”
He tilted the crown of his coal-black hair toward the front gate. “The sign says you sell antiques.”
She held the gun steady, making her message clear. “We’re closed.”
He’d turned from the customer parking lot up the private driveway that bisected the grounds between the cabin and her storage barn. And though she stood three steps above him on the elevated porch, she was almost looking him straight in the eye. And they were the coldest eyes she’d ever seen. Icy gray. Almost colorless behind the squint of his expression. He was a man who didn’t give a damn about anything. It was the best impression he could have made.
That meant he didn’t care about her, either.
“Do you know how to use that thing?” he asked.
He might not be a voice from her past, but he was still trespassing. “Yes.”
“And the dog?” His gaze never shifted off hers.
“I know how to use him, too.”
“Look, lady, I don’t—” He raised his hands in mock surrender and took half a step forward.
It was all the provocation she needed. “Harry, sic.”
The snarling black powerhouse leaped from the porch and charged the man at a dead run. But despite the stranger’s big size, his reflexes were quick. Before Harry lunged for his forearm, the man whipped the huge pack off his back and wielded it like a shield, absorbing the brunt of Harry’s first blow. One hundred and twenty pounds of charging canine knocked the man back a couple of steps.
Harry bared his teeth and menaced in a horrible growl as he lunged again. The man used the pack to buffet the second attack. He twisted and blocked, countering Harry each time the dog tried to latch on to something with flesh.
The man was either trained in self-defense or damn lucky. But he would tire long before Harry ever surrendered. “Lady!”
Jessica almost smiled. Good boy. If Harry could best this man, she’d have a lot less reason to be afraid of him. “You lie down flat on the ground and I’ll call him off.”
Harry had a chunk of the backpack between his teeth now, and the attack had turned into a desperate tug-of-war. The man couldn’t surrender his grasp or he’d be defenseless at the next charge. “Fine. Call him off.”
“Harry, sit!” she commanded.
The dog obeyed, plopping down on his haunches beside the man’s shoulder as he dropped his pack and threw himself prostrate onto the swath of fading grass at the center of her driveway. The man lay perfectly still beneath the dog’s watchful eye.
Harry panted from the exertion, licking his muzzle, then letting his tongue loll out the side of his mouth. The man was catching his breath, too. But the instant he moved, a big black paw settled onto his shoulder and he went still.
“Is this how you greet all your customers?”
“You’re no customer.” Lowering the gun from her cheek and shoulder, she kept it trained in his general direction and left her finger near the trigger. “What do you want?”
SAM WASN’T READY to answer that question truthfully. He hadn’t expected a warm, trusting welcome when he showed up with his vagrant cover story, but he was a little surprised to be greeted by a backwoods, Hatfield and McCoy, you’s-trespassin’-on-my-land routine.
Where was the professional businesswoman with an eye for beauty and a penchant for history his contact in Chicago had told him about? Her face matched the newspaper photo of the elegant brunette at a museum exhibition opening he’d found in the Chicago Tribune archives—the same face the attending E.R. nurse had confirmed as his Jane Doe rape survivor.
He’d spent three weeks piecing together nebulous clues and putting a name to the face of the woman he was searching for. Then he’d run a background profile on her. And now he was here.
This was Jessica Taylor.
His Jane Doe had a name. And a definite attitude.
He suspected that earning her trust wouldn’t be easy. Without the sanction of the Bureau, and with little more than a hunch to go on that she would be the break he needed in order to find Kerry’s killer, Sam couldn’t conduct a normal investigation. He needed to get to know Jessica Taylor better than he knew his own partner. He needed to become her very best friend and get her to start talking. About Chicago. Her attack. How she escaped.
Who did it.
Either she’d been too terrified to give a useful report to Chicago PD, or her attacker had been too crafty—too intimidating—for her to recall much. He might even have done a little brainwashing on her. Sam intended to find a way inside her head and learn the truth. Learn enough so he could match up her attacker to Kerry’s and track him down.
But with that pump-action shotgun pointed his way and this hairy, black beast standing over him, his covert mission would be damn near impossible.
Kerry had always teased that it had skipped a generation, but Sam wondered if he could dredge up any of his father’s Belfast charm. Lifting his cheek from the scraggly grass and dirt, he tried to restart the conversation. “What kind of dog is this?”
“The very protective kind.”
Idly, Sam wondered if she’d always sounded this hard. Judging by the resonant tone and sultry pitch of her voice, Ms. Taylor could sound downright sexy if she softened up her articulation and dropped the sarcastic wit. It was probably an unfortunate byproduct of the attack. He’d be curious to know what other feminine attributes she was trying to hide.
Irrelevant, a stern inner voice warned him. Though curiosity was not the same as attraction, he wanted to argue, Sam wisely ignored the deviation from his quest. He turned his nose to the ground and inhaled the dank, musty smell of the dirt that reminded him of Kerry’s funeral—reminded him of why he was here. “So I gathered. He looks like a
