He watched until the van’s taillights disappeared and then he turned to Melanie, waited for her to speak. Folding her arms tightly in front of her, her gaze dropped to the worn wooden planks under her boots.
“Your sister is a wonderful person,” she said quietly.
“She’s a little bossy, but my brothers and I like her well enough.”
Her gaze lifted to his. “Thank you for calling her.”
Who are you, dammit? What kind of trouble are you in? All this politeness was killing him.
He nodded, but said nothing. The cold night air closed around them. Close by, in a grove of maples, a mockingbird began to sing.
Furrowing her brow, she took a step closer to him, her gaze leveled at his face. “Your cheek,” she said, her eyes narrowed with concern. “I’m so sorry.”
He touched the ragged scratch under his left eye. It stung a little, but wasn’t all that deep. “You didn’t do that. I caught the edge of a screen upstairs when I was climbing into the window.”
She shook her head, frowned. “You wouldn’t have had to climb in a window if I hadn’t locked the doors. I—I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you.”
I don’t want an apology. Just tell me why you’re hiding in an empty house. What it is, or who, that you’re afraid of.
He shrugged. “No trouble. It’s just a scratch. Trust me, I’ve had worse.”
“I…I didn’t know if—” she paused, and her voice dropped to a whisper “—if I could trust you.”
She still didn’t trust him, he thought with more than a touch of annoyance. He felt the tension radiate from her, and could all but see the wall she’d erected around herself.
Why, dammit, why?
Oh, hell. What did it matter to him? They’d crossed paths, but she’d be gone in the morning, she and her son. Whatever her problem was, it was no concern of his. She didn’t want his help, so why should he give it more than a passing thought? After tonight, he’d never see her again.
But did she have money? Gas in her car?
Hell.
Forget about it, Sinclair. Not your problem.
With her dark clothes and hair, she nearly blended in with the night. He watched her shiver, saw her breaths come out in little puffs of white and realized she was cold.
“I’ll fire up the furnace now.” He kept his voice even, controlled. “The house should warm up quickly. Is there anything else you need?”
As he’d known she would, she shook her head, but then surprised him by extending her hand. “Thank you for everything.”
He hesitated, then took her hand.
And wished he hadn’t.
Her hand was smooth against his, her fingers long and slender. Soft. In spite of the cold, her skin was warm, and the heat radiated up his arm, spread through his chest, then his body. She looked up at him, a mixture of confusion and amazement, then pulled her hand away and once again folded her arms tightly to her.
“I’ve got to go check on Kevin,” she said, her voice a bit breathless. “Thank you again.”
She turned and hurried back into the house. His eyes narrowed, then his fingers tightened around the flashlight in his hand until he heard the crack of plastic. He stood there for a long moment, waited until the overwhelming urge to follow her subsided.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
He didn’t even know her last name.
Cold fingers of pale dawn reached through the towering oak tree beside Mildred Witherspoon’s weather-beaten detached garage. Frost covered the ankle-deep, weed-infested back lawn, sparkling like a crystal blanket in the early-morning light. Behind the garage, row after neat row of ceiling-high corn stretched acre after acre to a neighboring farm, where the steep black roof of a red barn peeked out from the tips of the silky stalks. Somewhere in the distance, Melanie heard the mournful moo of a cow.
Bucolic was the word that came to her mind as she stood at the back door and scanned the land. Like something she’d seen on a postcard or coffee table book of Midwest farms. She was a city girl, born and raised in Los Angeles, and what little traveling she had done, had never been to rural America. Phillip had always insisted on the exotic, the most elegant: Monte Carlo, New York, London, Washington D.C. Five-star hotels and expensive restaurants. Cows and cornstalks had not fit into her husband’s fast-paced, sophisticated life-style.
And after that first, exciting year of their marriage, Melanie thought wistfully, she hadn’t fit very well, either.
She stepped out onto the back porch, sucked in a lungful of cold, crisp air, felt the rush of blood through her veins as her heart pounded awake. Shivering under the blue sweater she wore, she hurried down the porch steps and across a path of broken concrete that led to the garage, heard the crunch of early fall leaves under her boots. How she wished that she could linger, soak up every sight and sound of this peaceful place before she moved on.
But there was no time. She wanted to make Boston before dark, was certain that she would finally feel safe there with Raina. Raina was the only person Melanie could trust, the only real friend she’d ever had. They’d been best friends in high school, and after Melanie’s father had died, and her mother remarried, Melanie had been at Raina’s house more than she’d been at her own.
But so much had changed since then. They’d both gone in different directions after high school. Raina had gone to Greece and modeled for a short time before marrying, then she’d divorced and started working as a clothing designer for a company in Italy. Melanie had married Phillip and had a baby. Raina had never even seen Kevin.
Melanie smiled as she thought of her son. She’d left him bundled up and sleeping on the sofa in the living room. He hadn’t even stirred when she’d carried him down from one of the upstairs bedrooms where they’d slept last night. Well, where he’d slept, anyway. Even though she’d locked all the doors and windows, checked them twice, she’d still tossed and turned most of the night, listening to every creak and groan of the drafty old house.
Listening for doors opening…footsteps.
The icy chill slithering up her spine had nothing to do with the cold, she knew.
Rubbing her arms, she pulled her car keys out of her front jeans’ pocket and opened the small entry door on the side of the garage. The overhead door was closed, and it was dark and cold inside. She scanned the shadows, holding her breath, then quickly releasing it when she was satisfied no one was hiding there.
When will I have to stop looking over my shoulder? she wondered.
Maybe never, she thought with a weary sigh. Or at least not until Louise was dead, and even though the woman was seventy-four, she was in the best of health. Physically, at least. Melanie knew that her mother-in-law would never stop looking for her and Kevin. She had the tenacity of a bulldog and, when threatened, the same vicious bite.
She was also crazy, a slow deterioration of her mind since the loss
