Against the Storm - Kat Martin

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evening, Carly. Why don’t you come on in?”

       His sarcasm went unnoticed.

       “How could you be so insensitive?” She was petite and voluptuous, with long, straight red hair that fell past her shoulders. She had the prettiest blue eyes he’d ever seen. He cursed as he watched them fill with tears. “H-how could you ignore me like that?”

       “You aren’t my wife anymore, Carly. I can ignore you whenever I want.”

       She sniffed, tilted her head back to look up at him. “What if something had happened? What if I’d been in a car wreck or something?”

       “Were you in a car wreck?”

       “No, but I could have been. Did you see that newspaper article in the Chronicle this morning? That woman who drove down to the shore and never came back? Her parents are frantic. She was my age, Trace—twenty-nine years old and she just disappeared.”

       “I saw it. The police think maybe she took off with her boyfriend or something.”

       “Or maybe she was murdered.” Carly shuddered with feigned revulsion. “A woman needs a man to look out for her.” She smiled, her tears long forgotten, looped her arms around his neck and went up on her toes to look into his face. “You know I still love you, Trace. Sometimes I just need to know you’re still there for me.”

       He took hold of her wrists and eased her back down on her feet. “Look, Carly. You aren’t in any sort of danger and you need to get on with your life. That’s what people do when they get divorced.”

       “I never wanted a divorce and you know it.”

       “No, but you wanted other men in your bed. That didn’t work for me.”

       Her chin angled up. “You weren’t there, Trace. You were working all the time.”

       “I was trying to build the business, trying to make a life for us. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you properly entertained.”

       “It was all your fault and you know it.”

       Maybe some of it was, but mostly he had just picked the wrong woman, as his friends had tried to warn him. Carly was wild and self-centered. She hadn’t been ready to settle down when he’d married her. She wasn’t ready now.

       Still, he felt sorry for her. She wasn’t happy. He wasn’t sure she ever would be.

       He turned her around and urged her gently toward the door. “We’ve been through all this before.” A thousand times, he added silently. “Things just didn’t work out, that’s all. Go home, Carly. Entertain yourself with someone else.”

       She jerked to a halt at the door. “You’re cruel, Trace. Cruel and heartless.”

       If anything, he was too soft when it came to women. Years ago, he had learned to control his temper. He had come to value his self-control. He’d been raised to treat a woman like a lady. He did his best to do just that.

       “Good night, Carly,” he said gently, then waited as she stormed out the door. Trace watched her drive her little silver BMW sports car down the alley out of sight, and wondered which of her many admirers had bought it for her.

       He lifted his hat, raked back his hair, then settled the hat a little lower across his forehead. He had no idea why his ex-wife continued to plague him. They were never right for each other, never should have married. They might have been in lust at one time, but they were never in love.

       That same kind of attraction to a good-looking redhead had hit him several other times in his life. None of those times had ended well.

       Trace thought of Maggie O’Connell and warned himself not to go down that road again.

      Four

      It was pitch-black in her upstairs bedroom. Only the night sounds of crickets and cicadas intruded into the darkness of the high-ceilinged room. Maggie tossed and turned beneath the lightweight down comforter, unable to sleep with so much on her mind. She needed to get the photos completed for her coffee-table book. And she had a show coming up. She had most of the pictures ready, but could use a few more for the exhibit.

       She sighed into the darkness. She had so much to do. Aside from her work, she needed to unpack, try to make the town house more of a home. There wasn’t much furniture downstairs, and only a bed, two nightstands and a dresser in her bedroom, stuff she’d had for years.

       She still had a few pieces to bring over from the apartment before the end of the month, when her lease was up, and some things she needed to buy, and of course her photos and some prized Ansel Adams pieces that needed to be hung on the walls. She wasn’t much of a decorator but she could do better than the way it looked now.

       She punched her pillow, turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Tomorrow was Saturday. She planned to drive down to Galveston, take some shots around the harbor. She needed to get up early. Which meant she had to get some sleep.

       She closed her eyes, tried to clear her head.

       That was when she heard it. The faint scraping of a chair against the ceramic tile floor in the kitchen. She listened, straining her ears. Was that the patio door sliding open? Was that a footstep she heard on the stairs? Her heart was pounding, thumping against her ribs. Her palms felt slick where she clenched the sheet. She thought of the notes she had received, wondered if the man who had written them was crazy enough to break into her home.

       She listened again, trying to decide if she should call 911. The police would show up, she figured, even if they knew she was the caller. But as the seconds stretched into minutes, she realized the only sound she was hearing was the fear pumping through her veins.

       When the noise didn’t come again, she began to relax. She had imagined the intruder. There was no one in the house. As Trace had insisted, she had carefully locked the doors.

       She glanced at the digital clock beside the bed: 2:15. She lay there in silence, her ears focused to catch any noise out of the ordinary, but she didn’t hear anything more. The little button in the center of the bedroom doorknob was pushed. It wasn’t much of a lock, but it gave her some sense of security. At least she would know if someone was trying to get in.

       She watched the clock, the numbers slipping past. At two thirty-five, she rolled out of bed. No other sounds had reached her. Maybe she had fallen asleep for an instant and dreamed the entire incident. Things like that had happened to her before.

       Still, she had to know.

       Reaching for the blue fleece robe tossed over the foot of the bed, she slipped her arms inside and tied the sash around her waist. After years of living in the Texas heat, she slept in the nude, but she always kept the robe handy in case there was some sort of emergency, like a fire, or just someone arriving unexpectedly at her door.

       She listened again for a moment, heard nothing and quietly turned the knob. Easing the door open, she waited. Just the ticking of the antique clock that she planned to hang on the wall in the living room but hadn’t done yet. Sticking her head out in the hallway, she glanced both ways, but no lights were burning; nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

       After tiptoeing down the hall, she slipped into her photo studio and grabbed a makeshift weapon—a unipod, the one-legged stand she sometimes used to steady her camera. She quietly retraced her steps with it clutched in both hands, and descended the stairs.

       No movement. No sound. Maggie flipped on the light switch, illuminating the glass lamp hanging in the foyer, casting a bright glow partway into the living room.

       Nothing.

       The tension eased from her shoulders. She turned on the light in the kitchen, turned on a lamp in the living room, took a look around. She had imagined the entire episode—thank God.

       It was the note. The notes were making her edgy and restless, sending her into a tailspin. She hoped Trace Rawlins would find the man who had been harassing her.

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