by Linda Conrad
Mary couldn’t wait for the future. Couldn’t wait for tomorrow and all the rest of her tomorrows. Big changes in her life loomed directly ahead. Drawing in a breath, she tried to calm down as the excitement shimmered off her shoulders and bounced around the walls of their love nest.
This was going to be the best night of her entire life.
After they entered the master bedroom and set their burdens of food and drinks down on a side table, Mary immediately reached for the hem of her blouse. Ready to dispense with all her clothes so she could really get close to Jake, she was disappointed when he stayed her hands.
“Don’t,” he said softly. His gaze raked her body head to toe and fire landed everywhere he looked. “Let me do that for you.”
Oh, yeah. The best night ever.
He slipped off his shoes, dumped the contents of his pockets on the dresser and reached for the buttons of his own shirt. But as he shrugged out of the sleeves, he drew in a breath and wrinkled his nose.
“Man, do I ever stink. Would you believe that after four or five showers today I still smell like smoke? And like sweat. Damn. Standing over a hot charcoal grill all night hasn’t done a lot for my manly scent, has it?”
“I like your scent just fine.” She reached for him but he backed away.
“Hold that thought. Give me a few minutes to clean up, love. I’ll jump in the shower and…” He ran a flattened palm over his jaw. “Shave. And be back before you miss me.”
“I miss you already.”
Jake grinned and leaned in for a quick kiss. “Me, too. Don’t move.” Swinging around, he started for the bathroom before turning back. “And don’t take anything else off. That’s my job.”
She laughed out loud this time and wrapped her arms around her middle, reveling in the warm love blanketing the room. What a difference a few weeks could make in someone’s life. Not that long ago she’d been sure she would never find anyone to love. That she was destined to live as someone’s daughter, sister and aunt but would never have a family of her own. She’d been absolutely convinced that the only families she would ever know were the ones found inside books.
But now look where she was. Completely in love and in her mind already building houses, marriages and maybe even children into a future so full of promise it was making her head swim.
Feeling light-headed, Mary plopped down on the bed and kicked off her shoes. Her whole body hummed in anticipation.
She listened to the water running in the bathroom and fidgeted for a moment. Wanting to join him in the shower, it was everything she could do to keep all her clothes on and stay seated on the bed. There would be time enough tonight for another shower or maybe two. Time enough to have tons of showers for the rest of their lives, in fact.
Trying to distract herself, Mary used her forefinger to push the change from Jake’s pocket across the shiny flat surface of the nightstand. Quarters and dimes. She lined them up like a little row of tin soldiers.
Her gaze landed on his wallet next and she couldn’t resist picking it up. Soft and supple, the dark red leather felt warm in her hand. And when she breathed in its smell, reminiscent of men’s dens and lodges, the wallet seemed to come alive.
As she stroked along the stitched edges, she began to think about how a wallet contained a person’s whole life story. She knew hers held identification, money to buy whatever she needed or wanted, and pictures of loved ones to remind her of who she was. A wallet could be considered a microcosm of someone’s life.
Mary lifted her head when the shower stopped running in the bathroom. But then another faucet went on and she figured Jake was shaving. Maybe she could take a tiny peek inside his wallet before he finished and came back to bed.
What harm would it do? After their talk tomorrow morning, she would belong with him. The two of them would be a couple. They wouldn’t keep any secrets from each other ever again.
Using just a fingernail, Mary flipped open the wallet. The first thing she saw was his driver’s license. Jake Pierson. Age: 35. Height: six feet. Weight: 185. Eyes: blue. Hair: dark blond.
Staring down at his picture, Mary started to daydream the way she never had as a teen. Mary Pierson. Mrs. Jake Pierson. Mary Walsh Pierson. Wife. Mother. Lover.
Sighing, she flipped through the rest of the cards in his wallet. She found a credit card, social security card and a real estate license for the state of Montana. But no pictures.
Not one picture. She looked in the folding money section and found a few bills but nothing else. About to give up and put the wallet back down, she noticed the tiny edge of a paper sticking out from one side pocket.
Imagining it was some kind of receipt for his work, she slipped her fingers down into the pocket and rescued the folded paper. It turned out to be a piece of yellowed newspaper.
A newspaper clipping? For a man who refused to carry around even one photo except on his driver’s license, Jake had saved an old clipping? How strange.
Carefully, Mary unfolded the paper and smoothed it out on the top of the nightstand under the light. The headline read: Young Woman and Unborn Child Killed in Tragic Car Accident.
Mary quickly scanned the top of the page. The banner announcement came from the Santa Bertha, California, Herald and was datelined ten years ago last June. The first paragraph of the story recounted a horrific tale of a young pregnant woman struck in a head-on collision with an over-the-road truck not five miles from her own home.
With her hands shaking, Mary picked up the paper and held it closer to the light. A picture had been included at the bottom of the article. A smiling picture of a pretty blonde woman, wearing a wedding dress and standing beside her handsome new husband in his tuxedo.
No captions appeared under the picture, but Mary could not mistake the man’s face. Even ten years younger, the man in a tuxedo had to be Jake.
She ran her finger down the article, searching for names. The first paragraph referred to the woman as Tina Summers. And then as Mrs. Jacob Summers further down in the article.
Oh, my God.
Jake had been married once. He’d lied to her.
And what was with the name? Summers? Had he changed his name? Was he hiding from something? Or someone?
What if he was one of those men who lived secret lives? With wives in two or three different states?
Her pulse rate kicked into high gear, and Mary’s overactive imagination jumped to several different conclusions at the same time.
He could be a bigamist. He could be a fraud, wanting to marry her for her family’s money. He could be wanted by the police. He could be a…murderer.
That last idea forced her to her feet. What was she doing here with a man she’d only met a few short weeks ago? All she knew about him for sure was that he was a liar. He could be anything.
Mary heard the water in the bathroom stop running. With her stomach in her throat, she couldn’t catch her breath and her mind blanked. She had to get out of here. Now.
Grabbing her purse, she tore open the bedroom door and banged down the hall in the dark toward the front stairs. She raced to leave the house before Jake could stop her.
Her heart pounded crazily inside her chest as she hit the top of the stairs. “Mary?”
Oh, my God. Jake was out of the bathroom and had already discovered she was gone.
Mary picked up her speed and sprinted down the staircase, taking two stairs at a time. She had to get free to call for help.
Reaching out with both hands, she made a grab for the front-door handle. But when she tugged, nothing happened.
She remembered the new security measures Jake had mentioned. But what about emergencies?
Frantically, she worked on the door locks. Twisting and tugging.
“Mary? Where the hell…” He was at the top of the stairs!
At last, the handle turned and the door came free. But it opened with an alarm blast so loud the sound nearly knocked her down. The outside spotlights automatically came on and sirens screeched
into the night as she dashed out the door.
“Damn it, Mary! Don’t…”
Jake’s words were lost in the chaos while she ran across the wide front porch. No. No. No. She couldn’t let him catch her.
The same terrible truth kept repeating in her mind. She didn’t even know his real name. Who was he really?
How could she have been this stupid?
Down the front steps she flew, checking over her shoulder to make sure he was not right behind her. What if… What if…
When she hit the ground, she headed down the sidewalk going toward the driveway. If she could make it out to the street, her cell phone should work and she could call for someone to come pick her up.
As she ran past the family room, the smell of charred wood reached her nose. She turned her head to look at the burned-out hulk of the room, but she wasn’t about to slow down to look closer.
Mary let loose a loud scream as she tripped over something and took a header into a shrub.
What the heck could’ve been lying across the sidewalk in the middle of the night? No lights were on in the burned-out section of the house and it was blacker than pitch here beside it. Mary came up on her hands and knees and felt around in the dark, looking for her purse.
Her hand hit something solid. Big. Slightly warm.
Gingerly touching the object, Mary’s wildest imagination raged free. She patted and brushed over the form until her hand hit something sticky. Pulling back, she shrieked again. Louder this time.
Even in the dark she could tell this object was a man’s body. And she’d read enough murder mysteries to know the sticky substance had to be blood.
Panicked and nearing hysteria, Mary jumped to her feet. Purse or no purse, she was out of here.
But she was all turned around in the dark. Taking two big steps, she realized she was heading back toward the house. Twirling, she blindly dashed off in the opposite direction.
“That’s far enough.” Strong arms reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders.
But that wasn’t Jake’s voice. She had never heard this male voice before in her life. Big hands dug painfully into her shoulders and a whiskered jaw scraped her cheek.
“You may have to give it one more scream, girl,” the man whispered in her ear. “Your lover has exactly two seconds to show up or it’ll be too late to say goodbye.”
What? What did he say?
Mary tried to twist out of his grip, but it was useless. Finally she kicked back at his shins and connected.
“Damn it, bitch.”
Out of the total darkness came a swift blow to the side of her head. She screamed again.
“That’s more like it. Call him to you so you can die together, you stupid whore.”
At that moment, more yard lights came on and the entire area was lit up like a used-car lot.
“Jake! No! Stay back! He’s going to…”
Another blow to the temple turned the bright lights off again for Mary—as everything in her world went completely black.
Chapter 13
When he heard the first scream, a burst of adrenaline drove Jake down the front stairs running after Mary. But after hearing her scream for the second time, a shot of good sense and extreme caution kept him from chasing her outside.
One scream from her could’ve meant surprise at finding Jim outside guarding the house. But a second scream worried Jake and made him stop long enough to think. He swung around in mid-stride and headed into the kitchen to retrieve his weapon, thanking God that he’d thought to pull on his jeans before dashing from the bathroom.
By the time he had the gun in hand and sprinted out through the kitchen door and past the gate, the shrieking alarm had shut off by itself. Probably on a timer. More concerned than ever in the silence, Jake rounded the corner of the house. He stopped long enough to flip on a second set of outside floodlights.
Moving on, Jake experienced a sudden flood of fear and panic, too reminiscent of long ago. Ten excruciating long years ago to be exact. The woman he’d loved then was struck down in a startling flash of pain and blood. Killed too young—due to his foolish actions. He’d been young and full of himself, and the person he’d loved died because he was thoughtless and selfish.
Afterward, Jake had been convinced that he would never be capable of loving again. Once was all he got in his lifetime. He’d devoted his life to his work. And in all the years since, no one else had moved him the way his wife had. No one else had managed to open him up. No one else ever bothered to dig under his pain.
Not until now. Not until Mary.
With yet another scream from her, Jake came to his senses, jogging in place on the pine needle–covered sidewalk. The situation must be worse than he’d imagined. She had to be in trouble. Crouching low, he peered through the charred remnants of the family room, hoping to spy movement.
What he saw at the front of the house sent a zing of dread through his veins. Through the stealthy shadows, a bulky figure of a man raised one arm and struck Mary in the temple with what seemed to be a Ruger .44. A frigging big weapon, outfitted with a heavy crimson trace. Mary’s knees gave out under the blow and her attacker grabbed her around the waist, pulling her closer to his body in order to keep her upright.
Jake’s hands fisted. Fear and fury blinded him for the moment. But after gulping in air, he soon channeled the rage, drawing on his training. He forced any unprofessional thoughts of Mary as the woman he loved into a dark recess of his mind.
Tactics. Remember the breathing. Assess all the possibilities.
While Jake’s brain tried to process the scene, their assailant seemed to be assessing possibilities, too. With Mary under one arm, the man backed up to the blackened ruins of the family room—directly in front of Jake’s position. Meanwhile, the guy’s gun arm arched out, sighting a point of red laser light to both the right and the left.
The gunman must’ve been hoping for a head-on confrontation. But since Jake had not raced right into his trap after Mary’s scream, the assailant was finding his own caution.
An outright confrontation would get both Jake and Mary killed without a fight. And Jake didn’t have a clean shot. Not without taking far too great a chance on hitting Mary. An alternative had to be found—and quickly. The assailant might be a pro, but he had misjudged both Jake’s determination and his skill.
Jake carefully began picking his way through the part of charred family room that wasn’t covered by boards and headed straight for the target. The only chance of surprise in this situation was to sneak between the downed timbers and charcoaled floorboards without making any sound and attack the man from behind. Jake had spent all afternoon in these ruins and figured he could maneuver here with his eyes closed.
Sliding sideways through the blackened timbers, Jake floated along like a ghost shadow. He kept his peripheral vision trained on the target, hoping to do nothing that might alert the assailant to the threat sneaking up behind his back.
As he closed in, Jake heard Mary moaning. Then she moved. Infinitesimally at first, but soon she was squirming in her attacker’s grip.
Grateful for small but significant favors, Jake breathed more evenly. Obviously, her injuries were not immediately life-threatening. She was alive. And—she was becoming a major distraction to their assailant at the best moment possible.
Come on. Easy now. Don’t anyone make any sudden moves. Let me get a little closer.
Two more steps.
“Show yourself, Pierson! Your woman needs you. Come out and we’ll talk.” The man jammed his weapon to Mary’s temple.
The screech of sirens ringing in the distance suddenly captured the assailant’s attention. For only an instant. The security alarm had apparently done its work, summoning help to the fray.
With her assailant’s momentary distraction, Mary took the opportunity and planted her feet, spinning free of his grip. The assailant whipped his gun around, putting her directly in his sights.
Jake didn’t hesitate. He laun
ched his body through the last three feet of burned-out building, taking the other man to the ground right at the exact moment the weapon fired.
Mary. Jake wanted to check on her welfare, but could not lose his focus. Not yet.
He pinned the assailant’s gun hand. The man arched his body, trying to buck Jake off. But Jake hung on, slamming the hand with the weapon into the sidewalk. Once. And again. Over and over until the .44 flew free.
Then Jake’s hands went to the man’s throat. He squeezed, putting pressure against the gunman’s windpipe. Deep down Jake wanted to kill the bastard for hurting Mary. It was all he could do not to squeeze too hard.
The assailant panicked, twisting and kicking until Jake’s grip loosened. Out of nowhere, the son of a bitch freed a hand and caught him in the chin with an uppercut. But Jake wasn’t about to let the asshole squirm totally free. He pummeled him—in the nose and in the gut.
“Stop! Or…or I’ll shoot.” Mary stood about ten feet away with her attacker’s bulky weapon in both her hands. “Get up.”
The assailant stopped fighting immediately. Jake jumped to his feet, dragging the man up with him.
“You won’t shoot me,” the assailant told Mary with a sneer. “You don’t have it in you, librarian.”
Jake feared the SOB was probably right, but he wouldn’t show any weakness or lack of faith in the woman he loved. Sirens, still screaming through the chilled night air, were coming closer. All he and Mary needed were a few more minutes and their stand-off would be over.
“Who are you and why have you been stalking us? Why try to kill us?” Jake demanded.
Needing a momentary distraction, Jake tried to tempt their assailant into talking instead of acting in panic. Jake also wanted a reason. A name behind the attacks.
Their assailant shrugged, then grinned. “All in a day’s work, pal.”
In a surprise move, the man ripped his arms free of Jake’s grip and spun, heading straight for Mary. She raised the heavy weapon in both hands and took aim. Her whole body shook so badly that Jake worried she might shoot him instead.
As the assailant overtook her, she managed to discharge the gun. But her shot went wild.