A Woman Worth Loving. Jackie Braun

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СКАЧАТЬ for the shot that he wanted. The one that would expose Audra’s duplicitous nature most clearly.

      The stepson raised his hand.

      Click-click-click.

      He appeared to caress Audra’s neck above the diamond choker she wore, and Seth’s stomach lurched.

      Don’t let him touch you. The thought came from nowhere. As he watched, the man yanked off the choker and tossed it across the room. A gift from the old man, Seth decided.

      “Yeah, pal, I wouldn’t want a reminder of my dead father at a time like this, either,” he murmured, pushing aside the weird press of emotions that had him wanting Audra to turn the stepson out of her home before things could progress.

      But then Seth wouldn’t get what he was after, he reminded himself. And so, holding the camera steady, he depressed his index finger.

      Click-click-click.

      The stepson advanced farther still, and Audra retreated…back…back.

      Seth swore under his breath and, craning to one side, inwardly pleaded, “Don’t move out of range. Don’t move out of range.”

      He was both relieved and disturbed when he realized Audra was backed up against a wall.

      “Nowhere left to run,” he whispered. He sometimes felt that way himself.

      Through the camera’s magnified eye, Seth watched her face. She appeared pale and something suspiciously akin to fear shadowed her expression. Transferring his gaze to her ungainly suitor, Seth told himself that what Audra more likely felt was revulsion. Like his old man, the son’s most attractive quality was his bank account.

      Click-click-click.

      Intuitively Seth knew that the next shot would be the one to tell the whole story. Worth a thousand words, as the saying went.

      He was right—dead right—but he didn’t take it.

      Maybe later he would think about that. But when he realized the widow Winfield was being choked to death by her stepson, he merely reacted, going on gut instinct and some primitive need that ordered him to protect her.

      He flung aside his Nikon, unmindful of what it would cost to replace either the camera or its pricey telephoto lens, and took off like a bullet from his hiding spot in the bushes just outside the fancy entrance to the Winfields’ Brentwood estate. Thank God the wrought-iron gates hadn’t closed after the arrival of Audra’s visitor. The length of manicured lawn seemed to stretch endlessly as he literally raced against time to reach her, to save the very woman he had vowed to destroy.

      He hit the unlocked door at a full-out run, splintering the wood around the jamb in his haste, not to mention bruising his shoulder. He didn’t feel it. He didn’t even flinch. Inside the foyer he turned to the left, his hand raised and already curled in a fist when he entered the living room.

      “What the…”

      Those were the only words Henry the Fourth managed to utter before Seth’s right hand connected with the other man’s jaw. The guy dropped to the floor, where his head bounced twice on the gleaming hardwood with sickening thuds. Then he was sprawled out, unmoving, right next to the woman he had been trying to strangle to death.

      The sight of Audra had Seth’s blood running cold. She looked so still, so lifeless. And while he had no qualms about invading her privacy and trying to expose every last unflattering detail of her personal life to public scrutiny and scorn, that wasn’t the same as wanting her dead.

      He couldn’t exact revenge on a dead woman.

      Oddly enough, though, revenge wasn’t what he was thinking about as he crouched beside her prone form and placed the tips of his index and middle fingers against the underside of her jaw. Just below them, red and purple bruises were already forming a macabre necklace.

      When he felt her weak pulse, he swore in relief and shifted forward until he was on his knees. He didn’t miss the irony that it was the pose fit for prayer. He recalled exactly how long it been since he’d called on a higher power. The results had been less than satisfactory.

      “Looks like you’ll make it,” Seth murmured.

      He’d seen her up close through his camera lens on hundreds of occasions, but this was the first time he’d ever touched her. He smoothed the long, white-blond hair back from her face, trying not to notice that it was silky and incredibly soft. Then he reached for the cell phone clipped to the waistband of his jeans and tapped in 9-1-1. After what seemed like an ungodly amount of time, the disembodied voice of the dispatcher came on the line.

      “Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

      “A woman has been choked, nearly to death. She needs an ambulance.”

      “Is she conscious?”

      Audra’s eyelids had flickered a couple of times, opening enough at one point that Seth could see her dilated pupils, but he doubted that counted.

      “No, but she’s breathing on her own. Her attacker may need medical attention, too,” he added as an afterthought, sparing a glance in the prone man’s direction. Henry the Fourth was still out cold. “He, uh, hit his head when I pulled him off her.”

      “Can you stay with her until help arrives?”

      Seth didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t want to get involved, especially with this woman, which seemed absurd. In a way, his and Audra’s lives had been intertwined since the fateful afternoon two years earlier when a middle-class family had been wiped out in an automobile accident near Big Sur. The family had been Seth’s. His younger sister and stepfather had died at the scene. His mother had remained alive in only the most basic sense of the word for a couple of months before finally succumbing to her closed-head injuries. Now it was the woman Seth blamed for the accident who was fighting for her life.

      Still, when the dispatcher posed the question a second time, he replied, “Yeah, I’ll stay with her.”

      He answered a couple more questions and gave their location, and he agreed to remain on the line after the dispatcher told him police and emergency medical personnel were on their way. Then he set the phone aside and sat cross-legged on the floor—waiting, watching her. It was something he did well when it came to this woman.

      Audra moved and made a little gasping sound. Her eyelids opened wide, the residue of fear clouding the startling blue of her irises. He’d always wondered if her eye color was the result of contact lenses, but up close he didn’t think so. Now, her glazed gaze swerved to Seth and she struggled to move back and away when he leaned closer.

      “No!” she tried to yell, but it came out a stingy whisper.

      In her panic, she raised one hand as if to strike him. He easily subdued the feeble attempt, pulling her half onto his lap in the process.

      “I’m not going to hurt you.” The words mocked him, so he tried again. “You’re safe for now.”

      Whether his message registered or she was too exhausted to continue struggling, he wasn’t sure, but she slumped into the crook of his arm, apparently unconscious again.

      Seth examined СКАЧАТЬ