Against the Storm1 (17 page)

Doris was giving the baby the bottle Ashley had prepared before they left the house, and he was making those joyful little sucking sounds that meant he was happy.

“How’s he doing?” Ashley asked.

“Just great.” With short, slightly wavy, iron-gray hair, Mrs. Epstein was robust though a little stoop-shouldered, and she always seemed to be smiling. “He’s a lovely little boy. Such a pleasure to watch.”

“Looks like he’s had enough,” Maggie said, when the bottle was almost empty and Robbie no longer seemed interested.

The baby grinned and waved his chubby little arms as Mrs. Epstein handed the bottle to Maggie and the baby to Ashley. Robbie gurgled a laugh. Obviously he and Mrs. Epstein were getting along just fine.

“Well, we’d better get going,” Ashley said.

“Keep track of your hours,” Maggie told the older
woman. “We’ll write you a check once a week if that’s okay with you.”

Their neighbor straightened the paisley blouse she wore belted over a pair of navy pants, and gave them one of her warm, grandmotherly smiles. “Why, yes, dear, that’s just fine.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Epstein,” Ashley said, hoping she would find a job soon so that she could pay the woman’s meager wages herself instead of relying on her sister.

The baby’s eyes began to drift closed. Inside the town house, Ashley went into the bedroom and put him down in the crib Maggie had bought for him. Ashley smiled as his little mouth parted in sleep.

The phone rang in the kitchen just then and she turned and started back out the door. So far there hadn’t been any more calls from the stalker, but every time the phone rang, both she and her sister jumped.

Maggie walked to the breakfast bar and picked up the receiver. She listened for a moment, smiled and looked over as Ashley approached down the hall. “It’s for you,” she said.

“Is it Mom? She and Dad are the only ones who know I’m here.”

Her sister just grinned and handed her the phone.

“Hello?”

“Ashley? This is Jason Sommerset. We met the day I came over to your house to talk to Trace.”

As if she could forget Mr. Tall, Blond and Handsome. “I remember. Hello, Jason.”

“Listen, I was thinking… Things are starting to smooth out a little for me. I was wondering if you would like to have dinner sometime.”

Dinner? She hadn’t dated since she had dumped Ziggy—or he had dumped her, depending on how you
looked at it. “I’m a mother,” she blurted dumbly, as if that meant she couldn’t have supper with a man. “I have a baby, Jason.”

“I know. Trace told me. I like kids. I don’t see what that has to do with our having supper.”

She scrambled, searched her brain, trying to think of an excuse. She wasn’t ready to date. Was she? “Babies take a lot of time. It would be hard to get away.”

“But not impossible,” he said.

She drew a steadying breath. “Well, um, how would you feel about coming to dinner over here?” She looked to Maggie for approval and saw her sister nodding vigorously.

“Are you sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble?” Jason asked.

“I love to cook. It wouldn’t be any trouble at all.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “That’d be great. I’d love a home-cooked meal. What night?”

Ashley turned, mouthed, “What night?”

“How about tomorrow?” Maggie mouthed back.

No way,
she thought, needing time to work up her courage. “How about Wednesday?” Maggie kept nodding. “Around seven?”

“That works for me. Anything I can bring?”

Just your gorgeous self,
Ashley thought. “Maybe a bottle of wine.”

“That’s a given,” he said. “I’ll see you Wednesday night.”

The call ended and Ashley set the receiver back in its cradle. “I’ve got a date,” she said, still feeling shell-shocked. “With Jason Sommerset. He knows I have a baby.”

Maggie ran over and hugged her. “Trace says he’s a really nice guy.”

Some of Ashley’s excitement slipped away. “They all seem really nice in the beginning.” Turning, she walked back to the bedroom to check on her little boy.

Maggie worked on her client list, but her concentration was wearing thin when the phone rang downstairs. Ashley had taken the baby and driven her old blue Chevy down to the library. She needed to find a cookbook—Italian, something special to make for Jason. Recipes off the internet just weren’t the same, she said.

Wondering if it might be Trace, Maggie hurried to the breakfast bar, smiling as she picked up the phone. The sound of music floated over the line and her stomach instantly knotted.

“I…saw…you…I knew you would be my one true love. I…saw…you…a vision so pure and sweet, my only true love….”

Her heart was thrumming. Her palms grew damp as she checked the time of the call on the kitchen clock and jotted it down on the pad beside the phone.
Hang up,
she told herself as the song continued to play.
You have the information they need to track the call.
But her fingers refused to obey.

Then he began to speak. “My dear…dear Mag-gie…” The same electronically distorted voice, the same eerie chill racing down her spine. “I’ve missed see-ing you, Mag-gie. I’ve missed watch-ing you…. Soon, my precious dar-ling. Soon it will be time for us to be together.”

Fear coursed through her. “You bastard! Leave me alone!” She slammed down the receiver, getting a vicious thrill at the thought of the noise ringing in his ear. She was breathing hard, her whole body shaking. She hadn’t seen Trace since the morning after the gallery
show when he had brought her home. He had called several times, but after their night of lovemaking, both of them seemed to need a breather, time to sort things out.

Earlier, he had phoned to tell her he was checking on the men at the opening who fit the description of the stalker. So far nothing of interest had turned up.

She dialed his cell number with a shaky hand, and Trace answered on the second ring.

“Maggie,” he said, recognizing her caller ID.

“He phoned again, Trace. It was…it was just like before.”

“Where’s Ashley?”

“At the library.”

“Check your doors. I’ll be right there.”

He didn’t have to come over. He could have gotten the time of the call, dialed the phone company from his cell and started them working on whatever it took to implement the trap.

But she was glad he was coming. She wanted to see him. Needed to see him.

A few minutes later he banged on the door. Maggie opened it, saw the handsomest cowboy she’d ever encountered and walked straight into his arms.

Trace held her tightly. “You’re shaking.” He ran a hand through her hair, smoothing it back from her face. “That bastard. I swear when I get my hands on him…”

He didn’t say more. Didn’t need to. She could think of a dozen things
she’d
like to do if she ever got her hands on him.

Trace caught her shoulders, eased her back to look at her. “You okay?”

She nodded, released a shaky breath. “I’m okay.” She smiled. “Better now that you’re here.” She went over
to the breakfast bar, hit the button on the recorder they had set up to catch the calls. Trace followed. Pulling his hat off, he set it on the counter.

The recording began. The song played as it had before. The distorted voice came on: “I’ve missed seeing you, Mag-gie. I’ve missed watch-ing you….”

“Jesus,” Trace said when the call came to an end. “He’s missed seeing you.” The creep’s video cameras were gone. The GPS gone from her car. “I’ll just bet he has.”

Trace reached for the phone, dialed the phone company, a special number set up as part of the trap. He gave them the information they needed, then hung up.

“They’ll call us right back. If they get a location, I’ll phone the cops, have them meet me there.”

He and Maggie waited anxiously. Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang and Trace picked it up. He listened, started shaking his head. He hung up and turned to face her.

“It was worth a try,” he said, his features grim. “Call came from a cell phone. Disposable, with no way to track the owner or the address it came from. Just as I figured.”

Maggie closed her eyes as despair settled over her. She fought an overwhelming urge to cry.

Trace eased her back into his arms. “We’re gonna get this guy. Everything’s gonna be all right.”

She nodded, though she wasn’t completely convinced.

“Since the trap didn’t work, you’ll need to change your phone number.”

Maggie started shaking her head. “No way. I work out of my house, Trace. This is my business number. It’s
on my website, on my business cards. I’m not changing it. I’m not letting that creep control my life.”

Trace blew out a slow breath. “If you feel that strongly, at least hang up when you realize it’s him. Your calls are all being recorded. There’s no reason to let him upset you.”

Maggie nodded. Trace was right. There was no reason to let this guy have that kind of power over her. “All right, I’ll hang up. I should have done it tonight.”

“Good girl. I know how hard this is for you.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve come up with anything useful.”

Trace shook his head. “Nothing’s turned up on the outside cameras. I don’t think he was one of the men at your show. So far he’s covered his bases, but sooner or later he’s going to make a mistake.”

“I hope so.”

“They always do. In the meantime, you need to play it safe, keep doing what you have been. If you leave the house, you need to take somebody with you.”

Maggie’s shoulders tightened. “I have to work, Trace. I have lots of things to do.”

“This guy could be a serious threat, Maggie. And he’s not going to be patient much longer.”

She walked to the kitchen sink and stared out the window. Just the empty street, a lone streetlamp and a cluster of trees on the opposite side of the road… She wondered if the man might be somewhere out in the darkness right now. Watching. Waiting.

She turned back to Trace. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s getting impatient. If he is, maybe we can force the issue, set some other kind of trap. He’s after me. Let him come and get me.”

Trace ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve considered
it. I don’t like it. I don’t like the idea of using you as bait. I was hoping we could find a better way.”

“Well, so far nothing’s worked, and I’m tired of feeling like a prisoner in my own home.”

He left the counter and walked up beside her at the window. For a moment, his gaze traveled from the lighted front porch into the darkness across the road.

“What about your client list? How’s that coming along?”

“I’m working on it, but so far nothing stands out. No one’s bought an extravagant number of photos, at least not that I’ve found so far.” Maggie looked up at him. “I want this over, Trace. We’ve got to do something to catch this guy.”

Trace’s glance went back out the window. For several long moments he said nothing, then murmured, “We took the GPS off your car, so he can’t track you from a distance. That means if he wants to see you, he has to follow you. Maybe we
can
draw him out.”

Excitement replaced Maggie’s despair. She liked the idea—more than liked it. She wanted this to end.

“I’ll plan a trip. Go down to the shore like I always do. Last time, he bugged my car to find me. He can’t do that now, but if I let it be known I’m going—tell Faye down at the gallery, mention it at the photo processing shop I use—maybe he’ll find out and come after me.”

“It might work. He’s been keeping pretty good tabs on you somehow.”

“For all we know he could be out there right now. Maybe he’ll be watching that morning when I drive away.”

Trace’s jaw went hard. “If he follows you, we’ll be ready.”

They laid out a plan, a photography expedition to
Kemah. They both knew the area, and
Ranger’s Lady
was docked there, which would give them a base of operations.

“I’ll have a couple of my guys in place before you get there. They’ll know what to look for. He shows up, we’ll have him.”

They decided to make the trip next Friday. There would be less people milling around than on the weekend, fewer folks to worry about if things went south.

“Waiting is good,” Trace said. “Give him a little time to cool his heels, get anxious, maybe a little careless.”

Maggie’s excitement built. “You really think it might work?”

“I think there’s a chance.”

She relaxed for the first time that evening. Trace reached for her, captured her face between his palms. His hands felt warm against her skin, then his lips brushed lightly over hers, settled, melded, and soft heat expanded inside her.

“God, I’ve missed you.” He kissed her softly again. “Now that I’ve had a taste of you, I want you more than ever.”

Her pulse kicked up. He was a strong man and virile. She could feel the control he used to hold himself back, and it made her want him more. Maggie gave herself up to a series of soft, seductive kisses that melted her insides and turned her whole body hot and liquid. Deep, wet, openmouthed kisses. Long, heart-stopping kisses that seemed to have no end. Dear Lord, the man could kiss.

Sliding her arms around his neck, she pressed herself more fully against him, felt the thick ridge of his sex, hard beneath the fly of his jeans. He cupped her bottom, lifted her against him, let her feel his need.

“Damn, I want you.” Another deep kiss and he turned his attention to her breasts, palmed them, teased her nipples through her light cotton T-shirt. He caught the hem and drew it off over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra and those whiskey-brown eyes darkened.

“So pretty,” he said, running a finger around the tip of one breast, bending to take the fullness into his mouth. Maggie’s legs went weak. She made a little mewling sound as he lifted her into his arms and turned toward the stairs. There was purpose in those dark eyes, and remembering the last time he had made love to her, her body began to throb in half a dozen places.

He took the first stair, then another. At the rattle of a key in the lock, he jerked to a halt.

“Ashley!” Maggie said. “Oh, my God.”

Trace set her on her feet, and she raced back down the stairs, grabbed her T-shirt and pulled it on just as the door swung open.