suddenness, and the seat belt bit into her shoulder as Mallory felt her head jerk sideways.
Then it was all over. With the engine dead, the car tilted to the right, sinking slowly into the soft shoulder of the road. Finally it settled, and Mallory was thankful to be alive. The windshield wipers kept trying to clear the glass of the sheeting rain. The headlights were at a skewed angle, shooting up into the night, and the strength of the storm made the car shudder.
She slowly released her grip on the steering wheel, fumbled with the safety belt, then sank back into the seat. Looking to her right, she could make out the dark smear of grass and leaves pressed against the window. She might have survived, but the car wasn’t going anywhere. She glanced at the dash clock. She had twenty minutes to get to Saxon Mills’s house. There was no way she could make it.
“Merry Christmas to me,” she muttered, feeling as if this gift of a job had been snatched right out of her grasp.
She closed her eyes, trying to figure out what to do. She didn’t have any idea how far she’d have to walk through the storm to get to Mills Way. But if she sat here and waited for help, there was no guarantee anyone would come along tonight.
She looked out at the night and faced her options. She could feel the wind pushing at the car, and the rain seemed to be even heavier now. She turned off the headlights, then switched the key to the accessory position and flipped on the radio.
The strains of country music filled the confines of the small car, and for a while Mallory waited. But when the weather forecast came on, she reached to turn up the volume.
“And now for the Bay Area forecast. After a long drought that has forced water rationing for the past two years, the city is being deluged by a storm coming from the north, bringing torrential rain, winds gusting to forty miles an hour and temperatures in the midforties. Flooding has been reported in the low areas of the city, and mud slides have closed several roads leading into the valleys to the east and into Mill Valley to the north. With only scattered gaps in the weather front, the forecast is for a cold and very wet holiday season.”
Mallory reached for the radio button and turned it off. A miserable twenty-four hours was getting worse by the minute. Sara’s accident, the restaurant giving her no guarantee she could get her old job when she got back in two weeks, and now the job with Saxon Mills, which was dissolving right before her eyes.
She glanced at the dash clock. She had fifteen minutes to get to the meeting. Fifteen minutes. She sat forward and snapped on the headlights again. She could barely make out the fact that she was half on and half off the road. That road lead to Mills Way, and Mills Way led to Saxon Mills’s house. In the next second, she made up her mind.
She wasn’t going to let the Mills job go that easily. She had a raincoat, an umbrella and shoes that wouldn’t be any worse if they got wet. No, the umbrella was gone. She could remember it lying on the road near Sara, torn and flattened. She pushed that thought out of her mind.
She had a hood on her raincoat, and it didn’t matter what she looked like for the interview. Saxon Mills would just have to understand. As long as she made it. She turned the key, leaving it in the ignition, then tugged her hood up over her hair. Hesitating for only a moment as wind again shook the car, she faced the fact that walking was her only chance of salvaging anything with Saxon Mills.
She took her wallet out of her purse, shoved the purse under the front seat and tucked the wallet in her coat pocket. Then she pushed the door open against the wind and scrambled out. Her feet struck the edge of the pavement, and she levered herself up, ignoring the rain stinging her face until she was on her feet. Then the force of the wind snatched the door out of her grasp and slammed it with a resounding crack.
As Mallory turned, her feet slipped on the slick ground and she grabbed at the car to steady herself. She turned her back against the wind to look up the road ahead of her, then started off. But she hadn’t taken more than two steps on the asphalt when she heard the roar of an engine behind her.
Filled with relief that someone had come, she spun around, and the hood of her coat was wrenched off her hair by the wind. As the headlights blinded her, and the squeal of brakes filled the air along with the scent of burning rubber, the relief was changed to fear in a single heartbeat. The car was coming right at her.
CHAPTER TWO
Everything happened so quickly. There were blinding lights, the squeal of brakes and horror surging within her. As if the world had been reduced to slow motion, Mallory saw the headlights dip down from the force of the brakes grabbing the pavement, then, miraculously, the car stopped, inches from the back of her car, not from her.
She heard the engine throbbing, and the smell of burned rubber was in the air. Relief swelled up inside her as she realized the driver hadn’t been heading for her. The things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours had left her nerves raw.
Mallory gulped air into her tight lungs and rubbed her trembling hands on her raincoat, almost giddy from relief. As she fumbled with her hood, trying to tug it back over her now-soaked hair, she heard a car door slam and saw movement. A hulking shadow emerged from the idling car, then came toward her.
The driver cut in front of the headlights, and Mallory could make out a tall man in a dark coat, carrying an umbrella. He strode directly for her. Nerves that were painfully jittery tingled as she was struck by how vulnerable she was on a dark, deserted road, at night, alone, with no protection at all.
By the time the idea of getting back in her car and locking the door had formed, the man was right in front of her. She pushed her hands into her pockets and curled them into tight fists to stop their trembling, while she carefully watched the stranger silhouetted in the headlights.
“What in the hell’s going on?” The voice that came out of the stormy night was rough, deep and angry. “I didn’t see you until I was almost on you!”
“I missed the curve, and the car…it went out of control. That’s where it ended up.”
“Did you hit something?” he asked, his body partially blocking the lights. The darkness seemed to surround the man, and the driving rain blurred everything.
“I lost control, and the car fishtailed. It sank in the mud on the shoulder.” She found herself talking quickly, as nervousness grew in her. “It’s stuck, and I thought I might just as well walk for help than sit here in the storm. I didn’t think anyone would be coming this way.”
“Where did you think you were walking to on this road?”
“I was looking for Mills Way.”
He took a step closer to her, and she had to fight the urge to match that step backward to keep what buffer she could between them. “Mills Way?”
Cold rain found its way under her collar and trickled down her back, sending a chill through her. “Yes, I’m supposed to be meeting someone who lives on that road.”
“Saxon Mills.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement.
“How did—?”
“There’s only one house on that road.” The man shifted, and the headlights shone directly on her once again. Although she couldn’t see his eyes or even his expression, she knew he was staring at her…hard. She had a flashing memory of the man at the theater the night before and how thankful she’d been that she hadn’t met him
