Her Hero And Protector. Shawna Delacorte

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СКАЧАТЬ his questions, and the obvious fear that emanated from the depths of her eyes confirmed those answers. And it also told him that hell must have frozen over while he wasn’t looking. He had just been suckered into helping yet another beautiful woman in distress. Would he live to regret it this time, too?

      She looked up at him, this time holding the eye contact. He saw the confusion in her troubled hazel eyes. He loosened his grip on her arm and guided her back to the sofa. He softened his voice, hoping it would instill some confidence and allay her concerns and obvious fears.

      “Sit down.” He opened her purse and took out her driver’s license. “So, your name really is Brandi.” He noted her address in Rocky Shores, Washington—a city of about thirty thousand people in the greater Seattle metropolitan area. Rocky Shores…he turned that interesting tidbit of information over in his mind as he handed everything back to her.

      He perched on the arm of the sofa and studied her for a moment. “Tell me what’s going on…please.”

      She hesitated as if she wasn’t sure what to do or what to say. She emitted a sigh of resignation as she slumped back and allowed her tensed muscles to relax a little bit. He didn’t seem as threatening as he had earlier. True to his word, he had not harmed her. A lot of the fear had drained from her reality—but not all of it. “I don’t even know who you are. Why would you want to hear about my problems?”

      “Fair enough question. My name is Reece Covington. You’re obviously in some kind of trouble and by breaking into my cabin you’ve involved me in it even if that wasn’t your intention.” Was he about to repeat the same colossal mistake that had landed him in prison for two years? He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then slowly exhaled. He was not at all sure he was doing the right thing. His words came out slowly, surrounded by a touch of the uncertainty that jittered inside him.

      “Perhaps there’s something I can do to help you.”

      “How could you help me?”

      “I don’t know. First, you’ll have to tell me what the problem is, then we’ll see if there’s some way I can help. It could be that the only thing I can do is provide you with a ride back to Rocky Shores.” He flashed an engaging smile, one he hoped would instill a feeling of confidence. “But that would certainly be better than walking back.”

      All the defiance drained out of her body, to be replaced with despair. She didn’t know what to do or what to say. Her words were barely above a whisper, a very frightened whisper. “No one can help. No one believes me.”

      He moved off the arm of the sofa and sat down next to her. “What is it that no one believes?” He was digging the hole deeper and deeper. He was becoming too involved in something that was none of his business—something that could only cause him more trouble than he wanted to accept. More trouble than he needed, especially now.

      “All right.” She screwed up her determination. “You asked and here it is. For the past month someone has been stalking me.”

      It was the last thing he had expected her to say, but it grabbed his attention. He could tell by the expression on her face that she was serious. “Stalking you? In what way?”

      “Well…sometimes it was just a feeling that someone was watching me when I would be out at various places. Things like following me around the grocery store. I would turn around and look, but didn’t see anyone I recognized or even anyone who seemed to be paying any attention to me. At night I would sometimes hear sounds outside my house as if someone was checking to see if any of the doors or windows were unlocked. My phone would ring. I could hear breathing, but no one would answer me. It wasn’t the type of heavy breathing that you would think of as an obscene call, just someone on the line who didn’t say anything.”

      “Well, that could have just been your imagination. Or maybe kids playing a prank.”

      “That’s what the police said when I tried to report it. They didn’t believe me.” A frown wrinkled across her forehead, an angry frown that matched her tone of voice. “In fact, they were very condescending. They implied that I was nothing more than some hysterical neurotic female with an overactive imagination who should take a tranquilizer and get some rest.”

      A little snort of disgust escaped his throat before he could stop it. “In my experience, that’s typical of the way the Rocky Shores Police Department handles things.”

      “There’s more. There was a voice—a strange, unreal type of voice—that would reach out to me.”

      “What do you mean by strange and unreal? Was it a man’s voice or a woman’s? What was different about this voice?”

      “I’m not sure. It was sort of…well, like it was mechanical or something like that. It was a man’s voice.”

      “Do you mean like a computer-generated voice? Something like that?”

      The light of recognition came into her eyes. “Yes! That’s it. A computer-generated voice, not a real person.”

      “You said it reached out to you. What do you mean? How did it reach out to you?”

      Brandi scrunched up her face as she tried to come up with the right words to explain something that didn’t have any rational explanation. “It was as if it materialized out of thin air when there was no one around, at least no one I could see. Once it was in the fog during the day. Another time it was at night.”

      “What did this voice say?”

      “It called my name and told me to be careful, that it was coming for me. There were a couple of occasions when I could tell that someone had been in my house. Nothing was missing and everything appeared to be in the right place, but I could tell someone had looked through my things.”

      “Your things…what kind of things? Do you mean like some pervert pawing through your underwear?”

      “No. It seemed to be my office and my darkroom.”

      Reece cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “Your office? Your darkroom? You work from home? Are you a professional photographer or is it just a hobby?”

      “It’s what I do for a living. Mostly weddings and portraits, but I’m also working on a coffee-table-type book—scenic photographs depicting the unique and beautiful sights of Washington.”

      A sudden thought struck her, one that triggered a moment of anxiety. She tried to shove down the apprehension as she stared at him with a skeptical eye. She wasn’t sure she should open a can of worms by asking the question or, for that matter, whether she really wanted to know the answer.

      “You sound like a policeman who’s interrogating a suspect. Are you…uh, are you a policeman?” The apprehension churned inside her. She held her breath as she waited for his response. Under normal circumstances a policeman would be a blessing and a relief, but not this time. Not now. Not with what she had seen when—

      “Me? A policeman?” If the thought hadn’t been so preposterous it might have been funny. “No, I’m not a policeman.” A level of caution pushed to the forefront. Something about the way she had asked the question caught his attention. It was almost as if she was afraid he might be a policeman rather than hoping he was one.

      The more she talked, the more he became fascinated with the tale she had to tell. He had dealt with this type of situation СКАЧАТЬ