More Than Meets the Eye. Carla Cassidy

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      While Phoebe spoke with the officers, making out a report, Kevin’s mind raced with possibilities. Was it merely a coincidence that he had found her today and her place had been searched this evening? Or, was it something more sinister? In finding Phoebe, had he also found her for somebody else?

      It was after eleven when the police left and Phoebe shooed Kevin out the door. He’d offered several times to stay and help her straighten up the mess, but she’d declined. She needed time alone…time to assimilate the craziness of the day.

      First there had been Kevin, with his amazing story of a man in California trying to find her, then the break-in. She felt as if she was in overdrive and what she needed more than anything was a good night’s sleep.

      But, there was no way she could give into sleep until her apartment was put back into some sort of order. Chaos made her nuts.

      As she worked, she thought of everything that Kevin had told her. The thought that someplace out there she had a brother and sisters, pulled forth old emotions of want and need that she had spent years trying to repress.

      As a child she’d been hungry for family, but by the time she’d reached twelve and with no family coming forth to claim her, she’d shoved away her hunger and focused instead on getting where she wanted to be, alone.

      The idea of returning to California evoked in her an enormous dread. Her years spent there had not been happy ones.

      But could she forget about a man named Loucan who might have knowledge about her mother and father, about any siblings she might have?

      It was after one in the morning when she finally fell into bed, exhausted but comforted by the fact that her apartment was relatively back to normal.

      Still, sleep remained elusive, her thoughts haunted by the knowledge that somebody had been in her private space, somebody had violated her home.

      What had they wanted? If it had been a simple burglary why hadn’t her television disappeared? Her stereo equipment or her computer? As far as she could tell, absolutely nothing had been stolen.

      She fell asleep with questions nagging at her and awakened at six the next morning, gasping for air and covered with a light veil of perspiration.

      The dream. It had been a while since she’d had the recurrent nightmare that had plagued her all her life. But, the moment consciousness claimed her, she knew she’d just suffered it again.

      She didn’t move from the bed for long moments, instead waited for the last vestiges of the dream to leave and her heartbeat to return to normal.

      Eventually when she pulled herself from the tangle of sheets, she refused to dwell on the nightmare images and headed directly for the shower, hoping a cascade of hot water would effectively banish any lingering bad feeling the dream might have left behind.

      Standing beneath the hot spray of water, her thoughts immediately turned to Kevin Cartwright. She wasn’t sure what she thought about him. Granted, she found him very attractive, but she was certain they couldn’t be less alike.

      She was devoted to her work and he seemed rather irreverent about his. In fact, he’d seemed pretty irreverent about everything. Despite that, as crazy as it sounded, she trusted him.

      And for just a moment when the police had left and the two of them had been standing in her living room, she’d desperately wished he would wrap his arms around her and pull her tight against his broad chest.

      The wish had been nothing more than a crazy impulse brought on by the trauma of the home invasion. Definitely not likely to happen again, she thought moments later as she dressed in a pale-blue uniform.

      She’d been taking care of herself since she’d been very young. As a foster child, she’d learned early on that she had nobody to depend on but herself. She learned to rock herself when she needed comforting, whisper to herself when she was lonely, and wrap her arms around herself when she desperately needed a hug. And the handsome Kevin Cartwright wasn’t about to change old habits.

      The sun was just peeking over the horizon as she left her apartment. She stepped out on the sidewalk and drew in a deep, cleansing breath.

      She loved early mornings, when the air smelled crisp and clean and the streets were just starting to fill with people hurrying to work.

      She took only a few steps, then halted as she spied Kevin getting out of a small red car parked at the curb. He looked rumpled and stiff and the slight five-o’clock shadow she’d noticed at dinner the night before had grown to full scruffy whiskered proportions.

      What was he doing here? With the memory of her wanting him to hold her still fresh in her mind, his appearance irritated her. She eyed him coolly as he approached.

      “Morning,” he said, his voice slightly husky. He winced. “Is it always this bright in the mornings?”

      “I gather you aren’t normally an early riser,” she replied dryly.

      “Sure, I am. Early afternoon.” He grinned and with his hair tousled and his growth of beard, and a sleepy cast to his eyes, Phoebe instantly knew what he would look like in bed. And the mental image that appeared in her head of him naked and between crisp white sheets was heart-stoppingly appealing and it only served to increase her irritation.

      “You look like you slept in your car,” she exclaimed.

      He grinned, that half-crooked, devilish smile that set her on edge. “I did. It beats the price of a hotel room.”

      She scowled. “I told you, Kevin, that I needed some time to think and that means I need time away from you.”

      “No problem,” he said and raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. “If my presence bothers you, I won’t walk with you, I’ll just saunter along behind you,” he said, then grinned. “Besides, you’ve got a nice back view.”

      She had no idea why he felt the need to be here at all. Rather than ask him, she whirled around and headed for the hospital, painfully conscious of him walking several paces behind her.

      From the moment he’d appeared in her office the day before, she felt as if her life had spun crazily out of control, and she didn’t like it. She knew she had to make a decision about going to California, but she found rational thought next to impossible when Kevin was around.

      She was a devoted doctor, in control of her surroundings. She was strong and independent, but when with Kevin, he somehow reminded her that she was a woman besides being a doctor.

      She rounded a corner next to an abandoned building, her thoughts filled with Kevin. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of movement as somebody shot out of the shadows and grabbed her.

      The attack was so swift, so unexpected, she didn’t have time to scream, she didn’t have time to do anything. She fell to the sidewalk. Pain. It shot through her as he followed her down to the ground, his weight crashing on top of her, forcing her breath from her lungs.

      His breath was hot and fetid and his hands ripped and tore at the skin of her neck. She fought him, trying to scratch his face and knee him in the stomach.

      His face was a contorted mask of rage as he grappled with her. Somewhere in the back of her terror-laden СКАЧАТЬ