Running for Her Life (2 page)

Reaching into the cupboard above the stove, she grabbed a candle, then matches. It took just seconds to locate the tall glass she’d left drying upside down next to the sink. She righted it, stuck a candle in it and on her second try got the match to spark.

She held the glass above her head and peered into the cupboard. She found four more candles and pulled them all out, hoping they would be enough. In the fourteen months she’d been living in eastern Minnesota, the electricity had gone out at least three times. Six months ago, during a February ice storm, it had been off for almost forty-eight hours.

Hot shower came off the to-do list. No electricity meant no power to the pump on the well, which meant no running water. The best she could do was peel off the clothes she’d been wearing for the past twelve hours. She picked up the glass, and as she walked up the narrow stairway to the second floor, the slim candle swayed from side to side, bouncing light off the pale walls.

In her bedroom, she undressed. Even her bra and panties were wet. She scooped up her clothes and tossed them into the hamper, feeling the pull in her shoulders. It had been three days since Donny had up and quit. She needed to get a new dishwasher hired. The extra work was taking its toll.

In the mirror, she saw the shadow of unpaid invoices and half-completed order forms on the corner of her old desk. She’d planned on catching up earlier in the week and had told herself on the way home that tonight was it. No lights meant no guilt about putting the nagging paperwork aside. She smiled, blew out the candle and flopped down on the bed.

The wind was even stronger now and the lightning and thunder almost simultaneous, telling her that the full brunt of the storm had hit. The rain had turned to hail and it crashed against the windows as if someone was throwing buckets of marbles against the small house.

It was a cacophony of noise—wild and bold and oddly rhythmic. She closed her eyes, content to think of nothing, content to let the strain of the busy day slip away. However, minutes later, more asleep than awake, a pounding on her back door had her jerking up in bed.

Nobody ever came to her back door.

That is, nobody except Henry. She took a breath and felt the tightness in her chest ease up. Her landlord had stopped by the restaurant shortly after the noon rush and promised that he’d be over later to fix the loose tile on her bathroom floor. That was before the sky had unzipped and rained on her parade.

He should not be out on a night like this. She scrambled off the bed and slipped on the pale blue cotton robe that hung on the back of her bedroom door. On the way out, she grabbed the glass and unlit candle off her dresser.

Good Lord. She loved the old fool like the father she’d lost, but this was ridiculous. He’d be soaked. Probably get pneumonia and she’d never hear the end of it. “If you don’t stop beating the heck out of my screen door, you’ll be fixing that, too,” she mumbled. The stairway was pitch-black; she grabbed the railing with her free hand and stepped carefully.

Once downstairs, she stopped just long enough to light the candle and set it on the coffee table. “Hang on,” she yelled. She realized he hadn’t heard her over the storm when the pounding continued. She went to the door and pulled back the curtain on the window. He was hunched over, wearing his ratty rain poncho. She fumbled with the lock and finally whipped open the door. Wind and rain blew in.

“Are you crazy?” she yelled, yanking on Henry’s sleeve. She pulled him into the house. At least the man had enough sense to put his hood up. “Alice is going to skin you alive,” she said.

“Who’s Alice?”

Tara jumped back, knocking into the hall table. And in the next second, when he turned and the light from the candle on the coffee table caught his profile, she knew exactly who was crazy.

She was.

She’d let a stranger into her house. He was big and broad-shouldered, and from what she could see of his face, he wasn’t happy. Then he pushed his hood back and she saw bloody raw skin on his forehead.

She screamed and ran. He managed to catch her before she got through the front door. She had it open just inches when he reached over her shoulder and slammed it shut with the palm of his hand. Whirling around, she thrust an elbow toward his face.

“Calm down,” he said.

She would not give in—not this time. She shoved and kicked but it was like hitting a damn wall.

“Stop it,” he said, using both hands to grab her flailing arms. With one hand, he pinned her arms over her head. With his other free hand, he grasped her chin. “You’re going to hurt yourself,” he warned.

She didn’t want to beg. But fear robbed her voice of strength. “Let go of me,” she whispered.

When he didn’t, she brought her knee up. He managed to twist out of the way. Then he wrapped an arm around her middle, picked her up so that her feet were kicking wildly in the air, carried her five feet over to the couch and dumped her on it.

She expected him to fall on top of her, but instead he backed up a couple steps, practically tripping over the coffee table in his haste to get away. Scooting to the corner of the couch, she pulled her old robe tight. She felt naked and vulnerable, and she thought she might throw up.

Why hadn’t she been more careful? She’d been so cautious for fourteen months and now, in one instant, it was all for nothing.

Never taking his eyes off her, he moved sideways, far enough that he could flip the switch on the wall. When nothing happened, he looked at the candle and she saw bleak acceptance in his eyes. He pulled a flashlight out of his pocket, turned it on and swept the space that served as a combined kitchen and family room. His gaze rested on the sink and she knew he saw the lone clean plate and coffee cup.

It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to make it easy for him. The minute he came closer, she was going to grab the lamp and hit him with it. She was going to use her fingernails, her teeth, anything she could.

But when he moved, it wasn’t forward. He sank down on the love seat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I looked in the garage window and saw a van. I thought somebody might be home.”

“Get out of my house,” she said, her voice low.

“I was in an accident.” He pointed to his forehead. “My truck is in a ditch, a deep one, about a mile from here. I’m not sure how badly it’s damaged. My cell didn’t work. All I want is to use your telephone to call a garage so that I can get the son of a—” he hesitated “—gun out of there.”

Could he be telling the truth? She held her arm to her side, the rough, scarred skin pressing against her ribs, separated only by the thin robe. Rain always made the bone ache. Getting pushed up against the front door hadn’t helped.

She’d run on instinct. She’d fought when cornered.

That brought her some comfort. As hard as she’d fought, however, she knew the stranger was big enough and strong enough that he could have easily hurt her. But instead, he’d backed off and was giving her a chance to calm down. Was it some kind of trick?

Or was it possible that he hadn’t come looking for her, that Michael hadn’t sent him? That he’d simply crashed his vehicle, knocked his head in the process, and her house had been the first he’d stumbled upon? “Where was the accident?”

“A mile or so south. I’m on my way to Wyattville,” he continued. “Please tell me that I’m headed in the right direction.”

She wasn’t telling him anything. Not until she knew why he was here. “What’s your name?” she demanded.

“Jake Vernelli.” He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a wallet. From his poncho pocket, he pulled out what appeared to be a hastily folded sheet of paper. After flipping open the wallet, he tried to smooth out the crumpled paper.

She leaned forward. The picture on the license was of him, sans bloody forehead. With a practiced eye for taking in details quickly, she scanned it. Dark hair, olive skin, classic Italian appearance. Six-two, 190 pounds. He’d be thirty-three in two weeks, making him almost exactly a year older than her. The name on it was Jake Vernelli.

She shifted her gaze to the paper. It was a fax sent from the law offices of Chase Montgomery. Chase had been elected mayor the previous year and when she scanned the fax, she remembered the gossip she’d heard at the restaurant just that morning. The mayor had called a childhood friend and arranged for him to fill in for Chief Wilks, who’d had a heart attack and then bypass surgery.

“Do you know Chief Wilks?” he asked.

She nodded. She liked the chief; everybody did. But she’d never really felt comfortable around him. Michael had gotten to the police once before, he could do it again.

“I’m taking his place for six weeks,” he said.

Tara’s stomach tightened. “So you’re a cop?”

“That’s right.” He swallowed deliberately. “Given the circumstances, I would think you might consider that a positive.”

Hardly. She was living way outside the law.

Chapter Two

“You broke into my house,” she accused.

“I did not break in.” He said it so fast his words were clipped. “You opened the door and
pulled
me in.”

His head injury couldn’t be too serious. “I suppose I did.”

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She didn’t want to tell him. There was something about this man, something about the intensity of his gaze, the edginess of his attitude. Would he see things that others had simply looked past? Would he find a loose thread and pull at it until her life unraveled?

“Tara Thompson,” she said, as if she’d been saying it her whole life. She got up, walked ten feet to her kitchen counter, pulled out a drawer and felt around for the small box of plastic bags. Then she opened the freezer door and filled the bag with ice. She gently tossed it in his direction. “You’ve got a pretty good-sized bump.”

“Thanks,” he said. He held the ice bag up to his forehead. “Who’s Alice?” he repeated his very first question.

“Alice Fenton. She and her husband, Henry, are my landlords. They live one crossroad over.” She wiped the palm of her hand on her old robe. “Do you think you need to see a doctor?”

“So that I can hear that I’m going to have a hell of a headache for a couple of days?” He smiled and it was such a startling change to his serious demeanor that she was thrown off balance.

She stepped back and rammed her spine against the kitchen counter. He studied her. And while there wasn’t enough light at this distance to clearly see his eyes, the tilt of his head, the subtle thrust of his chin, told her that he was assessing, considering. Wondering.

It was the look of a man who might be interested, maybe even intrigued, by a woman. It made her feel warm and vulnerable in a whole different way and she yanked on the belt of her robe, pulling it tighter. The worn material rubbed against her nipples and she was grateful for the darkness, grateful that he couldn’t see that his look affected her.

She jerked open the kitchen drawer and pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. She grabbed a tissue box and carried both back to the coffee table. She placed them next to the burning candle. “You should probably clean that scrape. There’s no water but this will be better anyway.”

She moved back to her spot in the kitchen. He grabbed a few tissues and tipped the brown bottle to its side. After taking a couple swipes across his forehead, he got up and tossed the bloody tissue into the waste can at the end of her kitchen counter. Her stomach jumped in response. She hated blood. Could never quite forget the sight of it running down her arm, dripping onto the floor.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Sure,” she managed.
Think about something else.
It was generally good advice. However, when he rubbed his hand over his jaw and, like a crazy woman, she felt the answering response low in her belly—as if he’d rubbed the palm of his hand intimately against her—she realized it was a mistake. He was a stranger. A cop. She had no business thinking about warmth against warmth, about callused skin against absolute softness. About what it might be like to be held again.

“About my truck?” he asked.

She swallowed hard. “Of course. Toby Wilson owns the local garage. He sells gas and does some basic body work. Some nights he works late so you might get lucky.” She reached to dial the telephone just as it rang.

“Hello,” she said tentatively. She rarely got calls.

“Tara, this is Frank Johnson. There’s been some trouble in town.”

She gripped the receiver more tightly. “What kind of trouble?”

“Looks as if somebody damaged your front door, broke out the glass, anyway. It doesn’t look as if they got in but I’m not sure.”

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. She’d been in Wyattville all this time and nothing had happened. Why now?

“Tara?” Frank prompted.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Tara hung up and whirled around, almost bumping into the new chief.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“I own a restaurant in town. There’s been some damage.”

“From the storm?”

“No. At least that’s what Frank Johnson said. He owns the drugstore next door.” She tried to speak slowly, calmly, but it was impossible. Fourteen months ago, in a rage, Michael had shredded dresses and slashed artwork. Had he found a new way to torment her by vandalizing her business?

She didn’t want to have to run again.

“Tara?”

She stared at him.

“You looked as if you were a million miles away.”

Thirteen hundred miles. But was it far enough? “I have to go.” She glanced around the dark kitchen. Where had she dropped her purse? It didn’t matter. She grabbed her keys off the counter and took a step toward the door.

“You might want to get dressed first,” he suggested.

Of course. What she needed to do was stop freaking out. If Michael had found her, she’d need her wits about her. And she needed to get rid of Jake Vernelli. “I can drop you off in town,” she said.

He shrugged. “I think I’ve gathered enough to know that my first day on the job just started early.”

“But what about your truck?”

“Trust me on this. It’s not going anywhere.”