Intimate Enemy
Marilyn Pappano

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

About The Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Copyright

Marilyn Pappano brings impeccable credentials to her career - a lifelong habit of gazing out windows, not paying attention in class, daydreaming and spinning tales for her own entertainment. The sale of her first book brought great relief to her family, proving that she wasn’t crazy but was, instead, creative. Since then, she’s sold more than forty books to various publishers and even a film production company.

She writes in an office nestled among the oaks that surround her home. In winter she stays inside with her husband and their four dogs, and in summer she spends her free time mowing the yard that never stops growing and daydreams about grass that never gets taller than two inches. You can write to her at PO Box 643, Sapulpa, OK 74067-0643, USA.

For the Smart Women of Romance Writers Ink, the best writers, support and friends ever. You guys rule!

Chapter 1

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.

Chapter 2

Predawn wasn’t an unusual time for Russ to be out and about. He could get a good deal of work done before the crews or the office staff showed up. Getting up that early for Robbie, slumped in the passenger seat beside him, was apparently cruel and unusual punishment. His head tilted against the window, his eyes were closed and his snore was quiet. The guy could stay up until 5:00 a.m. partying, but ask him to get up then for a purpose, and he barely managed.

“Hey.” Russ poked Robbie’s shoulder as he merged onto the Bobby Jones Expressway in Augusta. “We’re almost there.”

One eye opened. “Almost where?”

“The airport. Remember? The Keys? Fishing? Catching the big one?”

“I’ll do that tomorrow. Need sleep.”

“You can sleep on the plane.”

“I could sleep right here if you’d shut up.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who wanted the first flight out this morning. You should be damn grateful that I offered to drive you.”

Robbie straightened in the seat, looking as if he was coming off the end of a three-day drunk. “I should have scheduled a noon flight.”

“You lazy bum. You give the rest of us a bad name.”

“With the old man gone, someone’s gotta do it.” Robbie rubbed his eyes, then combed his fingers through his hair. Once he got around the other passengers and the flight crew, especially if any of them were female and pretty, he would shake off his fatigue and act like the TV bunny, going and going. It was easy for him.

Not so for Russ. Oh, he had the energy. He just didn’t like expending it on people.

Bush Field was coming to life as employees prepared for another start of business. Russ pulled to the curb near one of the entrances and faced his brother. “Have fun.”

“I always do.” Robbie opened the door and slid halfway out, then turned back. “Listen, if you don’t mind…keep an eye on things, would you?”

He sounded serious—a rare enough occurrence in Russ’s experience. “What things?”

“Just…things. If anything seems strange or wrong, tell Tommy about it.”

Tommy Maricci’s father had been a shift foreman in the Calloway logging operation for years, and Tommy, Russ and Robbie had raised a lot of hell before they’d all gone off to college. Now a detective with the Copper Lake police, Tommy was still raising hell with Robbie.

“What kind of things, Rob?” Russ asked again. “Are you in trouble?”

“No. But someone I know might be.”

Someone he knew would include the whole damn town of Copper Lake. Narrowing down which one of them would take more energy and interest than Russ possessed.

Robbie got out, heaved his bags from the pickup bed, then grinned. “Give my best to Amanda Saturday.”

Russ snorted. “I’ll give my best to her. I don’t want to get punched for mentioning your name. Have fun. Bring back some fish.”

“Will do.” Robbie slammed the door, picked up his bags and headed inside the terminal. Before he even reached the entrance, he’d fallen into step beside a pretty flight attendant and said something to make her flash a million-watt smile.

Grinning, Russ pulled into the lane and headed back toward the expressway and home. It was a long drive back to Copper Lake, the sun slowly rising on the horizon behind him, his schedule for the day playing through his mind. An inspection at the Forsythia Drive address, a problem with the tilers at the new clinic on the highway out of town, an appointment with the interior designer, the kitchen designer and the lighting designer at the condo project on the west side of the river, a stop by the accountant’s office. If he was lucky, he might squeeze in an hour or two to work at River’s Edge.

And if his luck ran the way it usually did, he’d run into Satan while he was there. At least he knew what car to look for this time. Idly he wondered if her car was in the garage and why she’d been working late last night. Whether he knew the person whose life she would be ruining next. How that piece of wood had gotten wedged behind her tire.

And the wind just blew it over, she’d said sarcastically. Not likely. Now that he took the time to consider it, neither was his theory that it had fallen from the Dumpster. The wood had been set securely behind the tire, nails up, a flat waiting to happen.

Was Jamie the friend of Robbie’s who was in trouble? Understandable. Russ surely wasn’t the first or last person she’d pissed off. But, knowing how he felt about her, would Robbie ask him, even in a roundabout way, to keep an eye on her?

Russ’s grin was flat. Yeah. He would.

The road into Copper Lake took him past the turns for his mother’s house, his grandparents’ place, his own place. Granddad had given each of the grandchildren five acres—one thing Melinda hadn’t been able to touch in the divorce. He had built a house there after she was gone, way back in the woods, damn near impossible to find. Old logging roads crisscrossed the hillsides, most of them leading nowhere. With the nearest house belonging to Rick and Amanda—a weekend place—and few visitors, Russ liked the isolation.

Once he reached town, he stopped at the mom-and-pop doughnut shop for a cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee, then considered which project to check first. The house on Walton Way was closest—ninety years old, a complete remodel from inside out, nothing special or challenging about it.

Except that it was directly across the street from Jamie’s house. He’d known that when he accepted the job and hadn’t given a damn…but he also hadn’t been over there before she left for work or after she’d likely be home for the day. Coincidence? Or subconscious decision?

He would like to say coincidence. He would like to believe it, too.

“Hey, Russ.” Smelling of sweat and tobacco, Tommy Maricci slid into the chair opposite him. He wore shorts, a T-shirt and running shoes, and his skin was damp, his black hair sticking to his head. A pack of cigarettes showed in the breast pocket of the shirt, and his plate held two jelly doughnuts.

“You’re the only person I know who jogs across town to get doughnuts and has a smoke on the way,” Russ commented.

“I’m down to five cigarettes a day. Don’t screw with me.”

“How’s crime?”

“Booming. You take Robbie to the airport?”

“Yeah. If he wasn’t snoring, he was bitching about the time.” Russ thought again of Robbie’s request as he washed down a chunk of roll with coffee. “Is there anything going on with him that I should know about? Is he in trouble?”

Tommy raised his brows. “Robbie? In trouble?”

Only since he was old enough to walk and follow Russ and Rick on their adventures. Their family name was the only thing that had kept the three of them out of the legal system when they were teenagers, and the courtesy had extended to Tommy on more than one occasion. Not that they’d been bad. Just high-spirited, their mom said.

“What about one of his friends? Someone, maybe a female, who might drag him into her problems?”

Tommy shrugged. “You’d have to ask him about that. Or her. You have a particular female in mind?” After a moment, he grinned. “Of course you do. Only one woman still in town gives you that look.”

Russ scowled. “Let her take half of everything you own, and see how warm and fuzzy she makes you feel.”

“She didn’t take it, man. Judge Whitley did.”

“Based on the crap she let Melinda tell him.”

“Come on. Everybody knows you didn’t run around on Melinda, and everybody damn well knows you never mistreated her.”

Not everyone, Russ thought, his muscles tightening until he felt a headache coming on. A lot of people had listened to Melinda’s lies, and they’d assumed the worst of him. Clearly, the judge had believed them. Why else would he have rewarded Melinda so richly for being an unfaithful wife?

“Back to the subject,” he said, knowing he sounded stiff and not caring. “Is Robbie involved in anything even remotely that could cause trouble for him?”

“He’s a lawyer. He’s friendly with everybody. He’s a Calloway. Of course he could get into trouble. But that’s nothing new.”

If trouble doesn’t find you, you go looking for it, their mother used to say. Was that after they’d gotten caught painting all the high-school windows in the school colors of blue and gold? Or maybe when Rick had gotten his nose broken in a fight after football practice and Russ and Robbie, despite being younger and smaller, had jumped in to help him. They’d held their own, too. Or the time they’d gotten caught racing for pink slips. Or…

“Why are you worried about him?” Tommy asked. “Did he say something?”

“Just to let you know if anything strange happened while he’s gone.”

Tommy considered it while he ate the last of his doughnut, then shrugged again. “If he’s got a problem and he hasn’t talked about it with you or me, how serious can it be?”

Good point. Robbie wasn’t the sort to keep things to himself. If he had a thought on something, and he always did, he shared it. He wasn’t a secretive sort of guy.

Tommy wadded up his napkin, then stuffed it into the empty coffee cup. “If anything strange does happen, you know how to find me. Otherwise, I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” Russ agreed absently. “I’ll see you.”

“How was your frozen dinner last night?”

Jamie looked up to find Lys standing in the doorway, a bag slung over her shoulder and two boxes in hand. One bore the green and red of the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop down the block; the other was from Luigi’s Pizza, no doubt bearing leftovers from Lys’s own dinner the night before.

“Very good. Grilled chicken, bowtie pasta and fire-roasted veggies in a low-fat cream sauce. Yum.”

“Uh-huh.” Coming closer, Lys set both boxes on the desk, then pulled two cans of diet pop from her bag. “Sounds better than it tasted, I bet. Any word on your car?”

“I’m supposed to call the garage later today to get the bad news.” Jamie opened the pizza box and lifted out a slice heavy with toppings. “I love cold pizza for breakfast.”

“I know.” Lys chose a glazed doughnut from the other box, holding it over a napkin, and settled into one of the two client chairs. Her slim sheath and three-inch heels were black and, with her sleek black hair and porcelain-delicate skin, should have looked stark, but it worked for her. It made Jamie, in khaki trousers and pale blue shirt, feel dumpy.

“How long were you here last night?” Lys asked.

“Not long. Half an hour, maybe.”

“Any trouble?”

Immediately Russ popped into Jamie’s mind. In anyone’s book, he was trouble with a capital T, but not, she was pretty sure, what Lys was referring to.

“Anything new from your secret admirer?” Lys clarified.

After another bite of pizza, Jamie told her about the nail-studded wood.

As she’d feared, Lys looked concerned. “You think he wanted your tire to go flat so he could…play the white knight for you? Offer to change it? Give you a ride home? Jeez, Jamie…”

“It could have been an accident.” She’d been telling herself that every time the incident came to mind, but she hadn’t managed to convince herself yet. “It could have just been kids being brats.”

“Or it could have been a setup to get you in this guy’s debt—or into his car, alone somewhere. Did you call the police?”

“No.” It seemed so petty. After all, no damage had been done, and the motive was purely speculation.

“Do you still have the wood?”

“It’s in the car.”

Lys laid down the doughnut and held out her hand. “Give me your keys. I’ll put it in the vault for safekeeping. The police may want it later.”

Jamie gave her the keys, then picked up the pizza again. Cold cheese, peppers, Canadian bacon and extra onions on a thin crust were particularly comforting this morning. She polished off that piece and made a good start on the next by the time Lys returned, wood strip in hand. She disappeared into the file room—an honest-to-God vault from the days when the building had housed a savings-and-loan—then returned to pick up her doughnut. “How did you find it?”

“I didn’t. Russ did.”

That made Lys sit straighter, alerting the way Mischa did to a squirrel intrusion. “Russ Calloway? He was poking around your car when this crap suddenly appeared?”

“Russ wouldn’t have flattened my tire or changed it or offered me a ride home. He doesn’t want my gratitude, and I’m the last person in the world he would play white knight for.” Saying the words stirred an ache in Jamie’s gut. There had been a time when they’d meant so much to each other, when she’d had such hopes for their future. Now he felt nothing but hostility for her. How had they come to this?

Well, for starters, representing his ex in their divorce hadn’t been the best way to stay on good terms with him. But someone had had to take Melinda’s case. The marriage was beyond saving, and Jamie had been new to town, looking for clients to build her practice. And Robbie had assured her it was okay. Russ was a lawyer himself. He would understand that it was just business.

Yeah, right.

“White knight, giving you a ride—those would have been secret admirer motives,” Lys said. “Russ Calloway wouldn’t have secret admirer motives.”

Another twinge of pain. “And what kind of motives would he have?”

“Stalker motives. Vandalism. Harassment. Pure meanness. He doesn’t like you, Jamie. He says horrible things about you. Maybe he wants to punish you. Maybe he wants to hurt you.”

The pizza felt heavy and unwelcome in Jamie’s stomach. She set the remains of the second slice down and took a cautious drink of pop, grateful when it stayed down. “Not Russ. He’s a decent guy—”

“Who’s mad as hell at you.” Lys leaned forward, her dark eyes troubled. “Who happened to be right there when the wood showed up. Who has access to wood and nails on the job site. You said he found it and was removing it when you came out. What if he was really putting it there? He’d have no choice but to take it out again or be caught.”

Jamie pictured the scene from the night before in her mind—the dusky evening, the man crouched beside her car, his back to her. She hadn’t even recognized him until an instant before he’d turned; she certainly hadn’t seen exactly what he was doing. Had he been removing the wood strip…or wedging it in place?

Common sense waved its little fingers for her attention. For God’s sake, this was Russ they were talking about. His feelings for her aside, he was a good guy, respected in business, adored by his family, admired by his crews. Hell, she’d loved him. He wasn’t the type who would vandalize a woman’s car, not even hers. He wouldn’t harass her, would never hurt her.

“Not Russ,” she said aloud, and she believed it. “Okay, so he’s holding a grudge—”

“A grudge? It’s been three years, and he still calls you Satan.”

The pang was smaller this time, barely a discomfort. “A little displaced anger isn’t uncommon in a nasty divorce. Melinda left town. I’m the only one left to hate.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Every person who gets divorced feels that way toward the opposing counsel. It’s a wonder that any lawyer will even take on a divorce case these days, isn’t it?”

Lys’s sarcasm made Jamie smile a little. “You’ve noticed that I’ve cut way back on divorces, haven’t you?” While she’d practiced criminal law in Macon, it was tough to specialize in Copper Lake. Like the other lawyers in town, she did a little bit of everything, from criminal trials to estate planning to contract negotiation. While she would prefer to never handle another divorce, she still took on a few. It was part of practicing law in a small town.

“Jamie—”

“Lys, it was probably just kids who found the wood at the construction site and thought it’d be funny to flatten someone’s tire. Until Russ showed up, my car was the only one on the block. I got picked by default.”

Lys was reluctant to accept that version of events; it was clear in her grudging expression and tone. “You think so?”

“I do.” And if she kept saying it, before long she would believe it. Not a stalker. Not a threat. Just kids, or really bad luck.

As the digital clock on the wall rolled over to 9:00 a.m., the phone began ringing, first the main line, then the rollover. Rising, Lys put both calls on hold, then gazed at Jamie a moment. “You be careful anyway.”

The warmth of affection rushed through Jamie. Lys had been a good friend from the moment they’d met on Jamie’s second full day in town. She’d applied for the job of paralegal and secretary, and had provided support, laughter and plenty of shoulders to lean on when Jamie needed them. She hoped she’d been as good a friend in return.

The morning was busy, but they still made time for their construction-watching break, though with more care this time. Jamie scanned all the vehicles parked along the streets, looking for the 1972 Chevrolet Cheyenne pickup that was Russ’s baby—one piece of property Melinda had desperately wanted but failed to gain ownership of—and she studied every guy with dark hair, broad shoulders and a long, lean body. Ogling a site full of hard bodies to find one hard body in particular: nice work if you could get it, she thought wryly as she relaxed.

“Remember I said I need a date bad?” Lys murmured as she slid her feet back into her heels, then stood, about to return to work. “J.D. asked me out yesterday.”

“J. D. Stinson? The Calloway cousin? Our client’s soon-to-be ex-husband?”

“I didn’t say yes.” Lys gave her a chiding look. “I understand conflict of interest. But…we used to date. Before you came to town. For a while.”

“What happened? Did you break his heart?”

Lys’s smile was broad and extraordinarily white against the crimson slash of her lipstick. “You’ve got to care about someone besides yourself before you can get your heart broken. We just lost interest. He met someone else, and so did I.”

Lys hadn’t been in a serious relationship in the three years Jamie had known her. She didn’t ask how it had worked out with her someone else. The answer was pretty clear.

“He and Laurie have been separated six weeks, and he’s already dating again?”

“He never stopped dating. A lot of what Laurie says may be bull, but the infidelity stuff—that’s all true.”

“So he’s not too broken up by the divorce.”

“Like I said, you have to care about someone besides yourself.” With a wide-eyed shrug, Lys left the office for her own desk.

Jamie couldn’t imagine it as she turned back to her desk and slid the computer keyboard closer. Marriage was a big deal. A person should go into it with hopes, dreams and commitment. Of course no one was guaranteed happily ever after, but if that wasn’t your goal, if you weren’t willing to work and compromise, why bother marrying at all?

If she ever got married, it would be with the intention of striving for the till-death-do-us-part. If divorce became inevitable, she would be heartbroken, but she would know she’d done everything possible to avoid it.

Like Russ. Even Melinda had admitted in an unguarded moment that none of it was his fault. He’d tried to work with her, had compromised and given in, had even been willing to go to marriage counseling. But all she’d wanted was out, with as many of their assets as she could get.

And Jamie had helped her get them. If she could somehow return to the past and undo her involvement in a particular case, that one would be at the top of the list.

Then she rubbed the spot low on her ribcage that still ached at times, though the wound was long since healed, and amended the thought: Russ’s divorce would be second on the list.

She worked through the rest of the morning, hardly noticing the passage of time until her stomach growled. It was after one o’clock, and the satisfaction from morning pizza was long gone. Rising from her chair, she slung the strap of her purse over one shoulder and went into the outer office. “I’m hungry. Want to get a sandwich at the deli?”

Lys looked up from the fax machine she was feeding. “Sure. Why don’t you go on over and order, and I’ll be there as soon as I finish sending the Thompkins stuff to his new lawyer in Miami. I’ll have a vegetarian wrap.”

“With ranch dressing, baked veggie chips and bottled water.”

Lys gave her a thumbs-up before turning back to the machine.

It was another warm day with only the thinnest of clouds in the sky. Humidity hung heavy, trapping the fragrance of the flowers that bordered the square close to the ground. Jamie loved the mix of smells: flowers, greenery, dampness, tasty aromas from Krispy Kreme, the coffee shop and the restaurants along the block. She fancied she could even catch a whiff of fresh-sawn lumber from the River’s Edge project—which, she congratulated herself, she hadn’t so much as glanced at since stepping outside.

Ellie’s Deli occupied prime corner-of-the-square real estate, an old building that had begun life as a general store. Broad steps led to a porch, and a few items there harked back to its past: metal advertising signs mounted on the walls, a checkerboard balanced atop an old wooden barrel and rockers, silvered with age.

Jamie placed their order, took a number and went looking for a table in her favorite section, a long narrow enclosure that had once been a back porch. Screens had been replaced by windows that looked out on Ellie Chase’s kitchen garden.

Her favorite table was empty. Setting down her bag, she slid into the chair and tension she’d hardly noticed eased away. It was a lovely place, with exposed brick walls and a well-worn brick floor, with all the glass and light and ceiling fans lazily stirring the air. The noise from the main dining room was muted, and the proximity to the kitchen allowed the fragrance of hot bread to seep into the space, along with hints of desserts baking.

She was so lost in noticing that she didn’t realize she wasn’t alone until a pair of boots came into view through the glass tabletop. Work boots, spattered with paint and mud. Faded jeans, also spattered. A snug-fitting T-shirt with a coat of chalky dust overlaying its crimson hue.

And a world-class scowl.

The muscles in her neck knotted and her jaw clamped together hard. This wasn’t fair. No more surprise sightings. No more sightings at all if he was going to look at her as if she were something nasty in need of squishing.

Russ rested one hand on the back of her chair and bent closer. “I thought I saw blood oozing from the brick.” Uninvited, he sat down in the chair to her left.

She forced a smile. “Watch it, or I might turn the sky dark, too.”

Coincidentally, the sun disappeared behind a cloud, shadow falling over the garden. She resisted the urge to laugh at the timing. He clearly felt no such urge.

“Have you dragged my brother into something he can’t handle?”

Jamie kept her gaze even, unflinching. Russ didn’t even make the list of people Robbie might have discussed her admirer-stalker with. He and Jamie occupied distinctly separate areas of Robbie’s life. If he’d tattled to anyone, it would have been Tommy Maricci or his cop brothers.

“Offhand, I can’t think of anything Robbie can’t handle.” Then she slyly asked, “We are talking about Robbie, aren’t we? You’re not accusing me of impropriety with Rick or Mitch, are you?”

His response was a snort, but it said enough. His older brothers wouldn’t be interested. She wasn’t pretty enough, sexy enough, to tempt them away from their wives, but no woman was. Fidelity might not have meant much to all Calloways—J. D. Stinson came to mind—but it was important to these four brothers.

And Melinda had taken such pleasure in publicly airing all the dirty details of her extramarital affairs. A broken heart, wounded pride and a bruised ego—Russ had hit the trifecta.

“What’s going on?” His voice was deep, tautly controlled, a lot like Robbie’s, except she could count the number of times she’d heard anger in Robbie’s voice on one hand. It was all she’d heard from Russ for three years.

“Maybe you should ask him.”

“I did. All he would say was that someone he knows is in trouble.”

“And you automatically assume it’s me?”

“Who else is as deserving?”

Her first inclination was to ignore the tiny ache in her chest. As her number was called over the intercom, she decided to go with her second. Rising, she put one hand on the back of his chair, leaned close enough to smell sunshine, sweat and dust and softly said, “Bite me, Russ.”

She made it halfway to the hall that led to the main dining room before he caught up with her. “If something’s going on, leave Robbie the hell out of it.”

She didn’t slow her pace. “Robbie’s a big boy. He can make decisions for himself.”

“I’m not kidding.”

She gave the girl behind the counter a tight smile as she claimed the trays that held her and Lys’s lunches, then faced him again. “Give it up, Russ. I’ve been threatened by people way scarier than you. If you have enough energy to worry about someone’s life, make it your own. You’re way more screwed up than Robbie will ever be.”

“You don’t know what the hell—”

The bell over the door dinged, announcing a new arrival. Russ looked that way, and so did Jamie. Lys’s gaze locked on them, and she charged forward like an overprotective bulldog in puppy’s clothing.

Jamie shoved Lys’s tray into her hands, then bared her teeth at Russ in a parody of a smile. “It’s been fun talking to you. What do you say we wait another three years to do it again?”

Color stained his dark skin crimson, and his gaze turned stormy. She didn’t wait to hear what he might say, but took Lys’s arm and steered her toward the back. It wasn’t until they’d turned the corner into the glassed-in porch that Lys spoke.

“Good show. Now would you please let go of my arm so the blood can start flowing again?”

Contritely Jamie did so. “I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“I know. It’s just Russ.”

He’d been the reason for a lot of emotions in her life—happiness, giddiness, need, desire, lust, satisfaction, affection, love, anger, betrayal, headache, heartache and every other kind of ache. He’d been the best part of her life for a time, and the worst.

One of these days, he wasn’t going to be any part. She promised herself that.

Just as soon as she figured out how to perform magic.

Chapter 3

In less than a day and a half, three people had offered criticism of Russ’s life. He hadn’t asked for advice, hadn’t given a clue that he was open to suggestions, so why the hell couldn’t they keep their opinions to themselves?

And after three years of pretty decent avoidance, why the hell did he have to keep running into Jamie?

“Because God doesn’t like you,” he muttered as he walked into the kitchen.

It was after eight o’clock. The sun had set, darkness had settled in, and he was still on the job. The day had turned into the day from hell—too many appointments, too much work, too little time—and his run-in with Jamie at lunch had only made it worse. He’d walked out of the deli with a pounding headache, and the aspirin tablets he’d taken were eating a hole in his stomach. He should have gotten something to eat before the last dose, but anything he ate right now would just aggravate the burning in his gut.

But this Walton Way job was his last stop, and then he was heading home. A night’s sleep would make everything better—and no matter what else was going on in his life, he always slept like a baby. He was lucky that way.

The work on this remodel was slow going. The house was old, and they kept running into unforeseen problems, like wiring that wasn’t up to code and pipes that had to be replaced. Another few weeks, and he could scratch this one off his list.

Another few weeks, and he wouldn’t have to come back into Jamie’s neighborhood until someone else hired him.

He shouldn’t have spoken to her at the deli. He should have just walked past as if she were a total stranger. She was right: Robbie was grown. He didn’t always make the smartest decisions—his continued friendship with Jamie proved that—but he was old enough to face the consequences.

The next time Russ saw her, he would ignore her. He didn’t want anything to do with her; she didn’t want anything to do with him. Simple solution. They would act like strangers, and before long they would really be strangers.

He finished his walk-through of the house, then let himself out the front door, yawning as he locked the deadbolt. The homeowners were staying with the husband’s parents during the remodel, and the wife called every other day wanting to know when she could move home again. Russ, his secretary, his subs and everyone on his crew who’d had to deal with the woman would be as happy when that day came as she would be.

He was walking to his truck in the driveway when a familiar voice across the street caught his attention. “Mischa? Mi-i-i-scha.”

The call was distant, coming from the back of Jamie’s house. A sissy name for a pet. Probably a sissy cat.

Jamie’s outside lights came on, then the front door opened. He refused to let his gaze linger; the instant she stepped outside, he focused narrowly on unlocking his pickup, on opening the door and tossing the clipboard he carried into the passenger seat. He was about to slide behind the wheel when her voice sounded again, this time only slightly calmer than a scream.

“Mischa! Oh my God!”

He couldn’t stop himself from looking, even if it was just a damn cat. The lights on either side of her door shone down on a large form, and Jamie, damn near prostrate over it. Had she fallen? Was she hurt?

None of his business. If she had a problem, let her call someone for help. She had friends besides Robbie—freaky Lys Paxton, for starters—and the police were duty bound to come if she called. His head hurt. His stomach hurt. He’d dealt with enough for one day. He was going home.

But when he moved, it wasn’t to step up into the truck. Swearing with every step, he stalked down the driveway, across the deserted street and into her yard. As he drew closer, he could see that the form was a dog, huge, black and tan, lying motionless on the top step. Shivers rippled through Jamie, and her words were frantic.

“It’s okay, Mischa, you’re okay, baby. Wake up. Come on now, open your eyes. You can’t be…Mischa, you can’t…”

Tears. Jamie Munroe was crying. He wouldn’t have thought her capable of it.

He took the steps two at a time and crouched beside the dog. It could have been asleep, except no one could sleep through the shaking Jamie was giving it. “What happened?”

She looked up, startled, and swiped at her tears with one hand. “I don’t know. I let her out a few minutes ago, like I do every night, and she didn’t come back.”

The dog was breathing, slow and easy. Running his hands over its body, at least on the side he had access to, didn’t reveal any signs of obvious injury, but when he lifted its head, something crackled beneath his fingers. Heavyweight paper, index card-size, tied to the dog’s collar with a ribbon.

He worked it out from beneath the dog, read the message neatly printed on it, then lifted his gaze to Jamie. “What the hell…?”

I can get to you as easily as I got to Mischa.

She stared at the words as if they made no sense, then a great shudder jerked her gaze back to the dog. “Oh my God, Mischa…”

Russ ripped off the note and slid it into his hip pocket. “Get your car keys. We’ve got to get him to the vet.”

She scrambled to her feet and disappeared into the house, returning seconds later with her keys and purse. While she unlocked the car and opened the rear door, he heaved ninety pounds of limp animal into his arms, gritting his teeth with the effort. Getting the dog into the backseat of the rental wasn’t any easier. It took both of them, supporting, tugging and pushing, and he was out of breath by the time they were done.

He held out his hand, and she slapped the keys into his palm, then wiggled into the back with the dog. He adjusted the seat for his legs, backed out of the long drive and headed out of the neighborhood. Sliding his cell phone from the clip on his belt, he offered it to her. “Call Yancy and tell him we’re on our way. His number’s in the phone book.”

What the hell was he doing getting involved with this? He didn’t like animals. Didn’t like Jamie. Didn’t care what had happened to the dog or who had left that note on its collar or whether Jamie was in danger. With Robbie out of the state for the time being, he didn’t give a damn about anything.

But there was no way she could move the dog on her own, and his mother, Rick, Mitch—all of them would have kicked his ass if he’d gone on home and left her there to deal with it. A Calloway—at least, their particular branch of the family—didn’t walk away from someone in need, regardless of his opinion of her.

Yancy Yates’s vet clinic was on the east side of town, a large cinder block building dating back to the 1920s. He was married to Russ’s aunt Diane and lived in the rambling farmhouse next door.

Yancy had already unlocked the door and turned on the lights. Looking surprised to see Russ, he helped him unload the dog and place it on a stretcher, then together they carried it into the back room of the clinic. Yancy checked the dog’s breathing, listened to its heart and examined it thoroughly, keeping up a quiet murmur to Mischa, still out, and to himself.

“I’ll draw some blood and send it to the lab,” he said at last, “but my best guess is that she’s been drugged.”

Jamie’s color was ashen under the florescent lights, and her voice was little more than a whisper. “With what?”

“I’ll have to see the tox screen to know for sure. It could be something as simple as a sleeping pill or a sedative.” Yancy looked from her to Russ and back again. “Why would anyone want to drug Mischa? I thought Russ here was your only enemy in town, and he would never harm an animal.”

Russ’s face warmed. Jeez, did everyone in Copper Lake know how much he resented Jamie? It wasn’t as if he advertised the fact. Until lately, he hardly ever saw her, and other than a few outbursts three years ago, he never talked about her with anyone outside of a small group of friends and relatives.

Who apparently talked to everyone else.

Jamie didn’t seem to notice the comment about him. “I don’t know,” she murmured, clearly not intending to mention the note. When she bent to stroke the dog’s fur, Mischa breathed heavily, then rested her big head against Jamie’s neck, as if seeking familiar comfort.

“Have you called the police?” Yancy asked.

“I didn’t think about it.”

“You should. Anyone who would drug someone’s pet is obviously up to no good.” Yancy rubbed one weathered hand over the dog’s spine. “All we can do now is watch her. Odds are she’ll get a good night’s sleep, nothing else. I’ll keep her here, and we’ll have the results of the tox screen by noon tomorrow. Russ, you want to help me put her in that kennel over there?”

After they settled Mischa in the kennel, Jamie knelt beside it, stroking the dog, whispering to her. She didn’t look so much like Satan at that moment.

Finally, she got to her feet. “Thanks, Dr. Yates. You’ll call me?”

“I’ve got your numbers. I’ll keep you updated.”

They left Yancy there, making notes on a chart, and walked outside into the muggy night. Still looking pale, Jamie waited in silence for him to unlock the car doors, but instead he faced her over the roof of the car.

“What the hell is going on?”

In the past thirty minutes, Jamie had gone from pleasantly tired to exhausted. Her jaw hurt, her nerves were on edge, and the last thing she wanted to do was talk. She just wanted to curl up someplace safe. But where was safe? Not her house. Not after what had happened to Mischa right outside her door.

What kind of lowlife would threaten her dog? Mischa wouldn’t hurt a fly, though she might chase it around the room a few times. She wasn’t a guard dog, would never attack. If someone broke into the house, she would hide under the bed, eyes closed and whimpering. She loved everyone.

But apparently not everyone loved her.

The bulk of the lights went off inside the clinic, throwing them into shadow. She gestured impatiently toward the car door and Russ unlocked it. She slid into the seat and fastened the seat belt, but she didn’t kid herself that she’d escaped his questions. She couldn’t be that lucky.

The first thing she smelled inside the car was the earthy fragrance Mischa always wore when she’d been outside. The instant Russ slid into the driver’s seat, it was replaced by his scents—sweat, hard work, a faint hint of cologne, him. Familiar smells. Comforting.

Even though Russ Calloway was the last person on earth she could take comfort from.

Through the plate-glass window, she caught a glimpse of Dr. Yates, still in the back room, no doubt checking on the other animals spending the night in his care. He was a good vet. Mischa would be safe with him.

Russ started the engine, powerful enough, but it had nothing on his own growl. “Well?”

“Someone wanted me to know that Mischa’s vulnerable.”

“No, someone wanted you to know that you’re vulnerable. Someone who knows where you live, who knows your dog’s name. Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I don’t! If I did, I’d have his ass hauled off to jail for messing with Mischa.” Threatening her was one thing. Threatening her dog…That was cold.

“What else has happened?”

She stared out the side window, hardly noticing the buildings they passed. “He’s sent me flowers. Candy. A note.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.