Читать книгу Intimate Enemy - Marilyn Pappano - Страница 6

In a small town like Copper Lake, Georgia, there were benefits to having an office right on the square, Jamie Munroe thought as she gazed out the window behind her desk. These days, there were bigger benefits being on the corner just off the square. Namely, the mega-construction project going on across the street, turning a shabby, rundown apartment building back into the gracious pre-war gem it had once been.

Okay, so the noise and traffic could be a hassle, but the workers…

“I swear, the best-looking guys in the county are on this crew,” she murmured.

A few feet away, Lys Paxton, paralegal, computer wiz and friend, uh-huhed with her feet propped on the credenza, her gaze locked on a pair of the smoothest, tannest, strongest, sexiest backs—and backsides—Jamie had ever seen. Both men wore jeans, faded, snug and caked with the usual residue of construction work, and both had stripped off their shirts in deference to the morning heat. They were unloading lumber from the bed of a pickup, and they were definitely ogle-worthy.

Lys sighed, her hands clasped loosely around a cold can of diet pop. “Don’t you love it when the lumberyard can’t make deliveries on short notice?”

“Hmm. Remind me to send the owner my thanks.”

It was ten-thirty on Wednesday morning, and Jamie and Lys were officially on a coffee break. Up until a few weeks ago they’d actually locked up the office and walked over to the coffee shop on the square to spend ten bucks and fifteen minutes relaxing. Then the work had started on the mansion, and they’d begun taking their breaks in the office, chairs turned to the window, feet up, savoring.

It was the only male-female relationship of any sort in Jamie’s life these days. Pathetic.

“When was the last time you went on a date?” Lys asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“Me, either.” Another sigh. “I need one. Bad.”

Jamie hadn’t needed a man in a long time, not since law school, and she didn’t intend to let it happen again. Oh, she wasn’t giving them up or anything. She could want and have. She could use and discard. She could have a perfectly normal relationship. She would just never let herself need a man.

Men were dangerous to a woman’s health. Every woman she knew had gotten her heart broken, her faith shaken and her self-esteem smacked. A couple of them had lost all their money to the rat bastards, as well.

Using, enjoying, not trusting, not needing. That was the way to go.

“I call the guy on the right with the rip in his jeans beneath his truly impressive butt,” Lys said.

“You’re welcome to him. I’ll take the one on the left. I like a man who saves his revealing clothes for just me.”

“Okay, it’s time for them to turn around. The mystery faces revealed. Think we know either of them?”

“If I do, I haven’t seen them like that before.” Not that she made a particular habit of looking at men’s butts.

When the last board was in place, both men did turn, Lys’s first. He was as hot from the front as from the back, and unfamiliar to them both. Jamie’s pick was slower. He bent to retrieve a bottle of water from the cooler next to his booted feet before straightening, giving them an oblique view as he tipped his head back and drained half the water at once. Watching his fingers grip the bottle, his throat work to swallow, his muscles ripple from the relief of the cold water, Jamie suddenly felt as if her own temperature had redlined. She was groping for her pop on the desk and found it just as he turned to face the window head-on.

The pop fell over, dripping off the desk to puddle on the mat. Lys choked, coughing until she sputtered, and Jamie turned to pure ice inside, too frozen to move or think.

Russ Calloway, owner of Calloway Construction. Brother to her good friend, Robbie. Respondent in the first divorce case she’d handled after coming to town. Sworn enemy. Former lover.

“Son of a bitch.” Lys grabbed a handful of tissues to blot the desk pad, then mop up the cola on the floor. Catching Jamie’s chair, she spun it around so her back was to the street. “There should be a warning.”

Jamie managed a faint smile. “The signs on all those trucks over there do say Calloway Construction. So does the big fancy sign the bank put up at the corner.” This Calloway Construction Project Is Funded By Fidelity Mutual Of Copper Lake.

“Yeah, but he’s the freakin’ boss. He’s not supposed to be over there.”

He was a hands-on boss, by all accounts. Just because they hadn’t seen him before didn’t mean he wouldn’t show up. The crew had been working for only two weeks, doing basic demolition. She’d known he would be on site eventually. She’d been prepared for it. Eventually.

“It’s not like I don’t ever see him around town,” she said, reassuring herself as much as Lys. “A woman can get lost pretty easily among twenty-thousand people, but there’s always that chance.”

“Yeah, but you don’t drool over him if you catch a glimpse of him at the grocery store, do you?”

“Of course not,” Jamie said. Truth was, she did. She couldn’t remember a single time in her life when she hadn’t felt at least a faint stirring of lust for Russ. Not when he’d broken up with her, not when he’d broken her heart, not when he’d sat in the conference room with her and his soon-to-be ex looking as if he despised them both.

It was his loss, Robbie had told her the one time she’d cried on his shoulder. Russ was being an ass—and Robbie knew, being the undisputed official ass of the Calloway family.

If it was his loss, why did it hurt her?

“Stop it!” Lys admonished. “I can tell by the look in your eyes, you’re still thinking about him.”

“Actually, I was thinking about that contract I have to negotiate with Robbie in ten minutes,” she lied, forcing herself to really think about it. “He’s such a phony—makes everyone think he’s lazy and shallow and doesn’t care about anything but fun, when he’s a damn good lawyer.”

“Which doesn’t negate the fact that he really is lazy and shallow.” Lys separated the Andersen folder from the stack on Jamie’s desk and handed it to her. “He’s a classic Calloway. They’re all worthless with the exception of Sara, and she wasn’t born into the family. She only married into it and had the sense to stick around and enjoy the benefits after her scum husband died.”

Jamie slid the folder into her bag, easily mistaken for an attaché. What could she say? She loved big purses. She was prepared for anything.

Except finding out that the man she was lusting over was Russ.

“Your meeting with Robbie is at the country club at eleven,” Lys said, “and then you’re supposed to see the shrink in Augusta about Laurie Stinson. He’s expecting you at two. And since he charges by the hour, he’ll probably be quite wordy, so you should go on home when you get back. I’ll close up here.”

“Robbie switched lunch to that new little place on the river—Chantal’s. Says he’s had all the country-club food he can stomach for a while.” Jamie slipped off her sweater and folded it over her arm. The restaurant would probably be cold, but the four-block walk over wouldn’t. “And I’ll be back. I’ll want to make notes on this afternoon’s interview. But don’t you wait around. I may have dinner in Augusta first.”

Halfway to the door, she turned back. “Thanks a bunch, Lys. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d probably still be sharing office space with Robbie and getting nothing done.” Lys went into the outer office and settled in at her desk. “Have fun, boss.”

Jamie went out the door and into the foyer. She was not, was not going to look across the street when she stepped out. She would turn left, walk the fifty feet to the corner, then turn left again. That was all.

She opened the door, stepped outside into the muggy May heat and her gaze zinged in on the construction site so fast that her vision went blurry. Lys’s hunk was still there, and so was Russ. He leaned against the lowered tailgate of the truck, legs stretched out, ankles crossed, and they were talking. If she tried, she could hear his voice. The street wasn’t that wide, the midday noises not that loud.

But she didn’t try. She put on a pair of oversized sunglasses that hid half her face, turned left, bypassed her car and reached the corner without really being aware of the journey. Once she’d turned and solid limestone blocked the site from view, she sighed, her shoulders relaxing.

She’d known it wouldn’t be easy living in the town Russ’s family had founded and still pretty much owned two hundred years later. She hadn’t expected easy. She just hadn’t known it could be this hard.

Copper Lake was a lovely town, designed with aesthetics in mind. The entire downtown was on the historic register, where codes were rigid, and even new construction in town was closely monitored. The newest neighborhoods were almost as charming as the oldest, and even the shopping mall fit into the town planners’ view for it.

She passed the square, site of war monuments, political rallies and summer-evening concerts. After crossing River Road, she took a few steps down into Calloway Construction’s recently completed riverside retail complex. It was beautiful, looked as if it had been there a hundred years, and was already at full occupancy only a month after opening. Idly she wondered how much was Russ’s vision and how much had come from his architects and designers. It was hard to think of him and charming in the same thought. Even before he’d hated her, he hadn’t been exactly charming. Blunt, forthright, not charming.

She located Chantal’s in the corner, and the hostess showed her to a covered deck with paddle fans cooling the air. Robbie was seated at a table near the river, gazing out as if he’d rather be out there fishing in his john boat than working.

She nudged his shoulder before setting her sweater and bag in the seat across from him. He wore jeans, honest-to-God pressed and creased, deck shoes and a polo shirt in bright lemon-yellow. Every other lawyer in town wore suits to work, but not him. He didn’t even wear them to court unless he was feeling generous. Clothes didn’t make a bad case good or turn a good one bad, he said. It didn’t hurt that he was a Calloway, and a good lawyer.

“Hey, babe.” He stood and kissed her cheek, then held the chair for her. “You walked over here, didn’t you? If you’d called, I would have picked you up.”

“If I’d wanted a ride, I would have driven. How are you?”

“Anticipating my vacation. Tomorrow morning, six-fifteen, I’m on a plane to Miami.”

She’d heard all about the trip. A leisurely drive halfway through the Keys, then seven days on one of the charter fishing boats owned by a law school classmate. A fishing pole, beer and sun—all a Calloway needed to be happy. “Have fun.”

“It’s not too late for you to join me.”

He’d made the offer before; she declined again. “Fishing isn’t my idea of a vacation.”

“Your loss. Anything new on—?” He shrugged.

She smiled politely at the waitress who set a glass of ice water in front of her, then made a face at Robbie. “I managed to forget it all morning, and now you bring it up.”

His scowl reminded her of his brothers, any and all of them. Gerald Calloway had had four sons, three with his wife and one with a girlfriend. Rick, Russ and Robbie, along with Mitch Lassiter, second in the lineup, all bore a very strong resemblance. Dark hair, dark skin, startlingly blue eyes, voices that sounded similar and matching scowls. Rick was the handsomest, Jamie had long ago decided, Mitch the most mysterious, Robbie the most charming and Russ the sexiest.

“You’ve got a freakin’ stalker, Jamie. You shouldn’t be forgetting it.”

His words chased away what little ease she’d recovered after seeing Russ. Stalker—it sounded so ugly that she avoided using the word to describe the mystery man who’d come into her life a few weeks earlier. Secret admirer sounded so much more harmless. Less deadly.

Less likely, logic forced her to admit. But she’d lived through a nightmare before. She preferred the state of denial at this point.

“The flowers were the last thing.” A dozen apricot roses—her favorite—waiting in a vase on her steps when she’d gotten home Monday evening.

“What the hell kind of guy sends apricot roses?” Robbie asked. “Red, yellow, pink—those are guy roses. You can’t even buy apricot roses in Copper Lake. They’re a special order thing.”

She smiled faintly. “You called the florists, too?”

“Of course. And none of them had gotten an order for apricot roses in months. Did you call the police?”

“And say what? Someone sent me flowers? Left a note on my windshield? Had a box of chocolates delivered to my office? It’s a little creepy, Robbie, but the guy hasn’t crossed the line.”

“Yet.”

“Gee, thanks. That makes me feel better.”

“Jamie—”

She pulled the file from her bag. “I’ve got to be in Augusta in a few hours. We should work while we eat.”

He looked as if he wanted to protest, but after a moment his mouth flattened. “Okay. But next thing that happens, if you don’t call the police, I do. Agreed?”

Jamie knew he wasn’t kidding. His best bud was a detective with the Copper Lake Police Department, Rick worked for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Mitch worked for the state BI in Mississippi.

“Agreed.”

Not that anything else was going to happen. Her admirer was shy but harmless. She wanted to believe that. Needed to, for her own peace of mind.

When his cell phone rang, Russ Calloway seriously considered not answering. He received about fifty calls a day, and at least forty-nine of them were complaints. He wasn’t betting that this one would be the exception.

Still, he fished the phone from his pocket and flipped it open. “This is Calloway.”

“Hey, so is this.” Robbie, kid brother, company lawyer and eternal pain in the butt.

“What’s up?” Russ asked absently, phone braced between his ear and shoulder while he examined the framing around a third-floor door.

“The price of gas. The price of a good time.”

“You’ve been talking to Mitch.” Those were their older brother’s stock answers to the question. “How is he?”

“Anxious for this kid to be born.”

“Jessica still turning on a dime?”

“If she’s not puking, she’s bitching. Mitch is pretty much afraid to be around her. Seems like the morning sickness and the hormones are all his fault.”

“The joys of impending fatherhood,” Russ said dryly. The segment of trim was nearly five feet long and looked in good enough shape to survive the prying experience, once he got the nails loosened. “Hang on,” he muttered, then sorted through the tools on the worktable until he found a hammer, a screwdriver and pry bars of varying sizes.

“Jeez, you can’t even stop for two minutes for a phone call?” Robbie complained.

See? Russ had known this call wasn’t going to be the exception. “Some of us work for a living.”

“Yeah, but you overdo it. I bet you haven’t even taken a break for lunch, have you?”

Russ glanced at his watch. It was nearly two. “Not yet. And I bet you have. A couple of hours. With a pretty woman.”

“It was a working lunch, and it didn’t come close to two hours. But you’re right about the woman. She’s gorgeous.”

Hearing about the women in his brothers’ lives was about as close to a relationship as Russ got these days. Considering that Rick and Mitch were both married, that left only Robbie for any real variety. Good thing he didn’t limit himself to a type. “Who is this living, breathing goddess?”

“Jamie.”

Robbie said more—he always did—but Russ quit listening. His gut clenched, and his jaw tightened until he felt real pain. Jamie Munroe was the one sore point between him and his brother. Robbie thought she was the perfect woman, and Russ wouldn’t piss on her if she was on fire. He’d spent a lot of time wishing she would disappear off the face of the earth.

But she’d made herself at home in his hometown and showed no signs of leaving, so he’d learned to ignore her. It worked pretty well until he caught a glimpse of her on the sidewalk or going into the courthouse or browsing through the fruit at the farmer’s market. When he wasn’t prepared to see her, it was always a surprise. Recognition, an instant of normalcy, remembering old friends, law school, getting married. Then came the scorn.

Pry bar resting two inches under the molding, Russ realized Robbie was waiting for him to say something. His fingers throbbed from holding the tool so tightly, never a good sign when working with two-hundred-year-old wood, so he set it aside. Holding the phone in one hand, he tilted his head the other way to rub the ache in his neck. “What’d you say?”

“I said even you can’t argue the fact that she’s pretty.”

Jamie? Pretty? Brown hair, light gold skin, a few freckles, blue eyes. Yeah, he supposed she was pretty, if a man liked the backstabbing viper type.

“Of course I can argue,” he replied. “Don’t forget, I’ve seen her with her fangs and cape.”

“Aw, come on, bubba. It’s been three years. Quit holding a grudge because the better lawyer won.”

Correction: There was more than one sore point between them. Robbie thought the divorce was something Russ should have put behind him the day it was over. He thought Russ should acknowledge that he’d been an idiot to represent himself, that Jamie was better and get on with life.

Hell, he knew she was a better lawyer than him. He’d gone through school with the knowledge that he wasn’t ever going to practice; once he’d taken and passed the bar, that was the end of it for him. She damn well should be better.

And he knew he’d been an idiot to represent himself, law degree or no. Robbie had wanted to take over, had all but bounced in the air, shouting, “Let me, let me!” And his brother wouldn’t have let anything get in the way of getting the best deal for his client. Melinda might have been his sister-in-law and Jamie his best friend, but he would have trampled them both into the dirt to win.

Russ’s marriage had been the most important thing in his life. Facing a divorce had been bad enough. Finding out about Melinda’s affairs, her scorn for him and her lies had been damn near unbearable. Add to that, Jamie, once his own friend, allowing—encouraging?—Melinda’s deceit…He’d gone from love for one and friendship with the other to despising them both.

He was over the divorce. He’d gotten on with his life. But he wasn’t the forgive-and-forget type. His motto was: live and learn, and never give ’em a chance to screw you twice.

“Did you call for a reason?” he asked testily. “Because I’ve got about four more hours of work before I get out of here, and shooting the breeze with you isn’t getting it done.”

“Man, you need to get laid. You’re getting pissier every day. I did call for a reason. Mom’s been trying to get hold of you, but she keeps getting your voice mail. Rick and Amanda are coming over Saturday, and she wants you there for dinner. Seven o’clock, no grubby work clothes, and if you want to bring a date, she wouldn’t object.”

“Yeah, Saturday at seven. I’ll be there.” Before Robbie could say anything else, Russ hung up.

If he wanted to bring a date…He hadn’t been out on a date in more than six years, since he’d married Melinda, and hadn’t had sex in about three years, since she’d thrown him out. His brothers could understand his not dating—they’d all gotten screwed over at some point—but no sex…Hell, even his mother would wonder about that.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested. It was the intimacy he didn’t want, and he’d forgotten how to separate the two. He’d once known—in high school, in college and law school. He’d always had a girlfriend or two, and while the sex had been fun, it had never really meant anything.

Finding out that sex meant nothing to the wife he’d loved had somehow made it mean too much to him. Was that twisted or what?

Frustrated, he walked to one of the arched windows that faced west in what had been the third-floor ballroom of River’s Edge, a classic Greek Revival plantation home. It had once reigned over eight thousand acres until a long-gone Calloway had decided it was the perfect place to build his legacy. He’d bought the property, torn down everything except the house itself and made it his home while building the town around it. He’d decreed that no building between the house and the river could be higher than two stories to preserve the view from the third floor. Russ could see the Gullah River, a hundred yards wide at this point, as well as a dozen or more of his projects, old and new.

He’d always wanted to go into construction, even though Calloway men were lawyers whether they practiced or not. Rick had been the first to break tradition, getting his degree in criminal justice instead. Russ hadn’t followed his lead, but had gone to the University of Georgia School of Law like a good Calloway son. It would make the family happy, he’d figured, and with his entire life ahead of him, a few years in law school couldn’t hurt, right?

Yeah, right. He’d met Jamie there, which had led to meeting Melinda. The bloodsucker and the bitch.

Speak of the devil, or, at least, one of them…Jamie came out of her office across the street. Her hair was pulled back and clipped up in kind of a mess on the back of her head. She wore a red-and-white print dress that didn’t reach her knees, with a sweater that was more for looks than warmth, and she carried a briefcase and a bottle of water. Huge dark glasses covered her eyes, but he could tell she never looked toward the house before she slid behind the wheel of her characterfree black convertible.

He watched her back out from the space in front of her office, then drive off to the south. If he had any luck, she would keep driving south until she wound up somewhere deep in the Gulf of Mexico. But at the end of the block, she turned, jogged over to River Road, then headed north.

“Staring out the window doesn’t get the work done.”

He turned to find J. D. Stinson standing at the top of what had once been elegant stairs. They’d been chopped up along with the rest of the house sometime in the fifties, turning the place into cheap apartment rentals.

J.D. was a relative, too; his mother was Russ’s father’s youngest sister. He was an assistant vice president at Fidelity and oversaw all of Russ’s construction loans. Nothing like keeping it in the family.

“I always finish ahead of schedule and under budget,” Russ said mildly.

“And you usually have bonuses for doing so written into your contract.”

Russ shrugged. He had a reputation for doing good work at a fair price. If people were willing to pay him extra for doing it quickly, as well, why not? “What are you doing out of the office and on the site on a warm day like today?”

It was a family joke that J.D. had gone into banking not because his father was president and it was expected of him, but because it meant an air-conditioned job wearing nice clothes. Casual for him was khakis and a polo shirt. He owned more suits than all the undertakers in the county combined, and the only thing he thought worth sweating over was his girlfriend of the month.

“I had some business to take care of across the street.”

Russ resisted the urge to shift his gaze to the whitewashedbrick building that housed Jamie’s office.

“What business do you have with Satan?”

J.D. scowled. “You know, if I was half as ticked off with Jamie as you are—”

“I’m not ticked off at Jamie. I don’t like her. Under the circumstances, you shouldn’t be dealing with her, either.” Russ wasn’t talking about his divorce, though family loyalty, with the exception of Robbie, should count for something. No, having won a damn fine settlement against one Calloway, Jamie was after another, representing J.D.’s wife, Laurie, in their split.

“I’m not dealing with her. That’s why I waited until I knew she would be gone to come over this way.”

Russ did look down at the building then. There were two good-sized windows, one in reception and one in the office. And through the first, he could see Lys Paxton sitting at her desk, using the computer. Her black hair concealed the buds that were usually plugged into her ears, but her head was bobbing, her entire body moving to music only she could hear.

He looked back at his cousin. “Lys Paxton? Give me a break.”

His cousin bristled. “Lys and I used to date. There’s nothing wrong with her.”

“Yeah, right.” She was young, more than a little freaky and didn’t like Calloways. Plus she worked for Jamie and she’d once dated J.D. That was five strikes Russ could come up with in ten seconds.

“Besides, I haven’t even talked to her today. Jamie hadn’t left yet, so I came up here.”

“Yeah, well, she’s gone now.”

“Watching her, were you?” J.D. asked with a smirk.

Russ pushed away from the window, returned to the door where he’d been working when his first interruption had come along and crouched, pry bar in hand. “You know, J.D., going out with your estranged wife’s lawyer’s paralegal might rank as one of the stupidest ideas you’ve ever come up with.”

J.D. went to the window, no doubt watching Lys. “Knock it off, Russ. You’re not my father, my brother, my lawyer, my priest or my boss. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“Someone needs to.”

“Yeah, someone needs to set you straight, too, but I don’t see you taking advice from anyone.”

Russ scowled hard, focusing his irritation inward so he didn’t inadvertently damage the piece of trim he was removing. “My life is fine.”

“Yeah, you’ve got your work, your work and, oh, yeah, your work.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have Jamie Munroe after my ass.”

“Anymore. At least I’m smart enough to hire Robbie.”

The pry bar slipped, leaving a mark in the plaster as well as the back of Russ’s hand. He swore silently. “Dracula has gone out, and the bloodsucker-in-training is alone in their lair. You wanna make life harder for yourself, go ahead. Have at it. Just get the hell out of here and let me work.”

J.D.’s smile was tight and hard, bearing an eerie resemblance to the only enduring memory Russ had of his father, who’d died when he was seven. “Yeah, well, like I said, you’ve got your work.”

Russ listened until his footsteps were drowned out by the other workers in the house, then heaved a deep breath. Damn straight, he had his work.

And it was all he wanted.

The office of the psychologist Jamie had come to Augusta to see was located in a small enclave of similar offices near the Medical College of Georgia. She’d spent two hours listening to him assure her beyond a shadow of a doubt that her client had suffered egregiously at the hands of her husband. Now what she needed was an expert witness for her expert witness, because she was pretty convinced that Laurie and the doctor had cooked up a scheme to wring big bucks out of J. D. Stinson.

“He’s a Calloway, you know,” the doctor had mentioned near the end of the conversation.

What the hell did that mean? Jamie wondered as she unlocked her car with the remote, then opened the door to let the heat escape. Were all Calloway men genetically inclined to dole out abuse to their wives? Did all Calloways share some sense of entitlement that made them above the law? Were all Calloways rich enough to pay off disgruntled exwives whether the wives deserved payment?

She set her bag on the passenger seat, then peeled off her sweater. The doctor’s office had been cold; the warm leather felt wonderful against her skin. Once the chill had seeped away, she stuck the key in the ignition and turned and…nothing. Another try, another nonresponse.

Grabbing her cell phone, she climbed out again and walked to the nearest shade under a lace-canopied tree. She knew nothing about mechanical things; popping the trunk told her as much about the engine as popping the hood did. So she did what she usually did when she was stuck: she called Lys. Within thirty sweltering minutes, a tow truck arrived to transport her car to the garage and soon after that, a car rental agency delivered a replacement. Jamie gratefully signed the paperwork, then slid inside, where the air conditioner was blasting on frigid.

Deciding to forego dinner alone, she headed back to Copper Lake. It was a lovely drive, quick on the interstate, peaceful on the two-lane state road. She’d never heard of the town until she’d met Russ and Robbie in law school and had visited only three weekends with Russ before he got married. Still, when she’d been looking for someplace to run away to after life had gone to hell in Macon and Robbie had suggested Copper Lake, it had seemed right. Immediately she’d felt as if she belonged. She’d borrowed office space from Robbie until she’d had enough clients to justify her own place, and she’d bought a house, made a few friends—and a few enemies, but at least they weren’t the type to try to kill her.

She hoped.

Robbie was worried that her mystery man might be just that type. She hoped he was being overly protective. Everything the guy had done so far had been innocent. A vase of gorgeous flowers. A box of to-die-for chocolate liqueur candies. A scrawled note after a verdict that read Congratulations. The best lawyer won.

Innocent. Even if there was something inherently creepy about it. Even if it did rouse old memories, old discomforts.

It was after six-thirty when she drove into Copper Lake. She went downtown and turned at the east corner of the square to pull into a space right in front of her office. She would want to make notes on the interview with Dr. Sleaze, she’d told Lys. It wouldn’t take long, then she could head home for dinner alone in front of the TV.

One thing she couldn’t blame her admirer for: she didn’t like being alone in the building. She’d been alone in the office in Macon when her former client’s father had paid a visit. She’d forced herself to deal with the fear that night had created—not conquer it, but cope with it. She made herself come in here once every week or two, even when the work, like tonight, could be done just as easily at home. She forced herself to be brave, or at least pretend.

Everything was quiet. She locked the entrance behind her, then locked the reception door. Lys always left a few lamps burning, and they were on now, lighting her way into her office. The blinds were drawn, per Lys’s routine. No need to advertise that Jamie was there.

As if the car parked out front wasn’t advertisement enough.

Jamie got comfortable at the computer, aware of the window behind her, opened a document file and began typing. She didn’t like the idea of calling Laurie Stinson’s psychologist to testify. She found the guy a little too smug, too condemning of J.D. and his family when he’d never met any of them. Just like everyone else, there were good Calloways and bad ones. Not wanting to be married to Laurie anymore didn’t automatically make J.D. one of the bad ones.

Outside a car door thudded, stilling Jamie’s fingers on the keyboard. She wasn’t the only one downtown tonight, she reminded herself. The restaurant on the other side of the square was open until eight, the coffee shop until nine. Sophy Marchand, who owned the quilt store next door, lived upstairs; the street was the only place for her and her visitors to park.

Still, Jamie typed faster, leaving the typos to fix later. As soon as she finished, she saved the file, shut off the computer and, with a rush of relief, headed for the door.

The outer hallway was exactly the way she’d left it—lights on, stairs empty, door locked. She paused in the foyer to locate the keys for the rental, and movement outside caught her attention. A man crouched beside her car, next to the driver’s door, and he was fiddling with something.

Her first impulse was to run into the bathroom in her office, locking every door behind her, and call for help. Her second was to take a deep breath. The street was well-lit, and there were people in the square. And this was Copper Lake, her office, her sidewalk. She was safe there.

She stepped outside as the man leaned closer to the car. The door swung shut with a soft whoosh, and she quietly turned the key in the lock before taking a step toward him. “Can I help you with something?”

He stiffened, and the air between them practically shimmered. The tightness in her gut warned her it was Russ before he glanced over his shoulder, but it didn’t lessen the impact of coming face-to-face with him for the first time in months. It didn’t make the derision in his blue eyes any easier to take.

Slowly he stood, and she watched. His jeans, cleaner than what he’d worn earlier, fitted just as snugly, and his T-shirt looked a luscious size too small. With his impressive muscles flexing, his dark hair cut really short and his jaw stubbled with beard, he looked too damn sexy for her own good.

“Sorry,” he said in a tone that clearly said he wasn’t. “I didn’t hear the portals opening.”

The portals of hell. She’d heard some of the names he called her—bloodsucker, Satan, queen of the dark. She would have been amused by them, maybe even proud of them, if they’d come from someone else.

“What are you doing to my car?”

His gaze dropped to the object in his hands. He turned it over a time or two, then held it out. “This was wedged behind the tire. I pulled it out.”

When she didn’t reach for it, he laid it on the hood of the car. It was a thin piece of wood, maybe six inches long, with nails hammered through, their points extending several inches on the other side.

“Is that one of those strips used to hold carpet in place?”

“Not with 20d nails. It must have fallen out of the Dumpster when they emptied it this afternoon.”

“Yeah, and the wind just blew it behind my tire.” And backing out over it would have surely flattened the tire.

Apparently the same thought occurred to him. His scowl deepened and turned about ten degrees colder. “If I wanted your tire flat, there are quicker ways to do it that don’t leave evidence behind. Like this.” He slipped a knife from his pocket and unfolded the blade with ease, then twirled it between his fingers.

Blood rushed, echoing in her ears, and for a moment, just a moment, her chest grew too tight to allow any but the smallest of breaths. She took a step back, then forced herself to hold her ground, to breathe, to swallow the knot of fear in her throat, as she struggled to concentrate on his words.

“I didn’t even know this was your car, and I don’t give a damn whether you get a flat.”

Her gaze locked on his face. He wasn’t someone to fear. He might hate her, but he wouldn’t hurt her. And she had no doubt he was being truthful. He had no interest whatsoever in her, beyond the fact that her existence annoyed him.

But the wood hadn’t just magically appeared underneath her car, wedged, as he’d said, against the tire. It hadn’t been there when she parked, or the tire would have already lost its air.

Maybe the mystery guy had left it. Better yet, maybe someone walking along the street had kicked it. Maybe a passing vehicle had caught the edge of it and sent it spinning, or some juvenile delinquent had put it there deliberately.

“You always look under neighboring cars before you get in your own?” she asked, edging forward enough to pick up the wood without getting close to him.

His mouth flattened, and one side quirked downward. “I opened the passenger door to get a flashlight and some papers fell out.”

She could believe that. In law school, she’d never gone anywhere with him that he hadn’t had to clear papers, books and other detritus to make room for her.

“I should thank you, I suppose, for not leaving it there to ruin the tire.”

His mouth thinned even more. “Like I said, I didn’t know it was your car.” Closing the knife with a snap, he returned it to his pocket, took a heavy-duty flashlight from the bed of the truck and started across the street.

She watched until he disappeared into the shadows of a live oak before she unlocked the car door. She tossed her bag on the passenger seat and the wood strip in the floorboard, and was about to slide inside when a familiar car turned the corner.

Lys slowed to a stop behind her and rolled the passenger window down, looking from Jamie to the pickup truck beside her before frowning. “You see Prince Charmless?” she asked sourly.

“Yeah, I did. What are you doing out?”

“Picking up a pizza.”

“You know, Luigi’s delivers.”

“Yeah, but this way I get to anticipate that first bite all the way home. Want to come over and share?”

Jamie shook her head. “It’s been a long day. I just want to get home.”

“You’ll regret it when you’re looking in your freezer at nothing but boxed dinners. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Be careful.”

“Always,” Lys replied with a grin before driving away.

Jamie got into the car, started the engine on the first try and headed home. Her house was little more than a mile from downtown, in a neighborhood where the yards were big, the houses were old and the trees were older. The house was white siding above dusty red-brick, with the shutters painted black. The steps leading to the front door were brick, as well, and arched out from the foundation in half-round tiers, each anchored by pots of brightly blooming flowers.

She pulled into the driveway, stopping even with the sidewalk. She unlocked the gleaming black door, an elegant contrast to the brass kick plate, then braced herself before opening the door. Mischa, best friend, companion and confidant, rocketed into her with enough force to knock her against the jamb, then abruptly the dog dropped to her haunches, eyes wide, just the tip of her broad pink tongue showing. It was as close to a smile as a dog could get.

“Hey, sweetie, I’ve missed you, too. Do you know I turned down Luigi’s Pizza just so I could come home and be with you?”

Mischa’s ears perked at the magic word. She loved Jamie, pizza, an old red shoe and snuggling when she slept—not necessarily in that order.

“Don’t you drool on my rug,” Jamie admonished as she set her bag down at the foot of the stairs, then kicked off her shoes. “I said I turned down the p-i-z-z-a. We’ll have to make do with what’s in the kitchen.”

Still looking hopeful, Mischa followed her down the hall and into the kitchen. A lone light burned above the sink, showing clean counters, gleaming pots hanging from a rack and a cooktop that looked as if it had come straight from the factory. Jamie wasn’t much of a cook; the only appliance she used with any regularity was the microwave.

And Lys was right: she did regret turning down the pizza when she faced the stacks of frozen dinners in the freezer. Disappointed by her chicken-and-pasta choice, Mischa padded over to her food dish and munched on dry nuggets.

“Another exciting night,” Jamie murmured as she punched the microwave buttons. “You and me alone.”

Mischa looked at her, then went back to crunching.

Dull and alone were okay, Jamie reminded herself. She’d had excitement for a time, and it had almost killed her. She could handle dull and alone. She could even handle seeing Russ twice in one day.

Though, if that became the rule rather than the exception, it just might kill her, too.