unable to get Colin off her mind, she brushed her teeth and scrubbed her skin as if that could expunge the image of his face imprinted on her brain. She didn’t need to renew her schoolgirl crush on Colin Roarke. He’d be moving on soon enough.
She wandered back into the bedroom, massaging night cream into her face. She slipped out of her bra and tugged a long T-shirt over her head that had Math Teachers Do It With Pi emblazoned across the front—a silly gift from Amanda. Kicking off her flip-flops, she reached for the lamp.
She froze.
She’d heard a scratching sound on the window like a twig scraping the glass. Only she didn’t have any trees outside her bedroom window.
She held her breath. She squinted at the filmy white curtains. It could just be grains of sand whipped up from the sand dunes.
With her heart pounding, she sidled along the wall toward the window. Crouching down, she inched the curtain to the side. A wave of fear rushed through every cell of her body as she watched a hand scrabble at her window.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MICHELLE SCREAMED AND tumbled to the floor. Her fingers had curled around the curtains, and they ripped as she brought them down with her.
Still clutching a piece of white linen in her fist, she scrambled toward the bedroom door on her hands and knees. She glanced over her shoulder at the gaping rip in the curtains framing a smooth expanse of glass. No face. No hand.
Had she imagined it, that hand clawing at the windowpane?
Someone yelled and pounded on her front door. Michelle let out another yelp. She leaped to her feet and dashed for her cell phone, charging on the kitchen counter.
“Michelle!” Another bang on the door. “Michelle! It’s Colin.”
The phone slipped through her grasp as relief surged through her body. She peeked through the peephole and sagged against the door. With shaky fingers she turned the dead bolt and swung open the door.
Colin charged over the threshold and Michelle didn’t know if he’d swept her into his arms or if she’d fallen there, but here she was tucked against his solid chest.
“I heard you scream, what happened? Are you okay?”
He’d heard her scream from down the block?
She took a ragged breath that scorched her lungs. Maybe her scream had carried all the way to his house. “I—I saw something at the window.”
“What window? Not the front?”
“My bedroom window.”
His arms tightened around her. “A face?”
“A hand.” A tremble rolled through her, and his embrace got tighter.
“You saw a hand at your bedroom window? Trying to open the window? Trying to break it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe pressed against the pane, scratching at the glass.”
He kicked the door shut behind him and advanced into the room with her still clinging to his neck. “Show me.”
She untwined her arms and stepped back. She’d never been the clingy type before, but his strong arms had offered an oasis she couldn’t resist.
Time to buck up and be a math teacher.
She pointed to her abbreviated hallway. “My bedroom’s back here.”
He followed her into the room, and she tugged on the hem of her T-shirt, for the first time realizing she was dressed for bed…or underdressed. Then she remembered the wording on the front of her T-shirt, and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Whoa! What happened to the curtains?”
“I did that.” She gestured toward the piece of curtain she’d abandoned near the bedroom door. “I had it in my hand when I stumbled backward.”
Colin prowled toward the window and yanked back the bedraggled curtains.
Michelle jumped.
He raised a brow. “Okay, what did you see?”
“I was just about to turn off the lamp on my nightstand, and I heard a scratching sound at the window.”
“Trees or bushes out there?”
“No. Sand dunes.”
“So you went to the window to check it out?”
“Well, I sort of peered out, and that’s when I saw the hand.”
“And the person attached to this hand wasn’t trying to open the window or break it?”
“Not that I could see. It was weird. It was like a disembodied hand. I didn’t see anything else.”
“The guy could’ve been crouched below the window, reaching up.”
Michelle sucked in her lower lip. “Or maybe there was no hand or no body attached to the hand. Maybe I imagined it.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I don’t know. After I screamed and headed for the door, I looked and there was nothing there.”
“He heard you and took off. Believe me, that was some scream.”
“How did you hear me? How did you get here?”
A red flush crept across his face. “I…uh…was outside your house. Your scream carried outside the house, or at least I thought I heard something. And when I looked at your house, I could see the lights still on.”
He’d been outside her house? “Why… What…?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I went out to chuck rocks at the water. Since I hadn’t seen a patrol car since I’d been outside, I decided to cruise past your house myself.”
“I’m glad you did. The hand freaked me out.”
“So now you did see a hand.”
Shaking her head, she shoved her hair behind one ear. “I don’t know, Colin.”
“Do you want to call the police?”
“I was on my way to do just that when you started pounding on my door. Do you think it’s worth it now? If there was someone outside my window, he’s long gone.”
He shrugged. “They can dust for prints.”
Her gaze swept Colin’s reassuringly large frame. He offered the only protection she needed.
“Do you think a murderer is going to leave his fingerprints on windowpanes?”
“Nope,
