Sudden Attraction

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And once it was published, he was thinking they couldn’t touch him because if they did, the whole world would know who had done it.

Which brought her back to the restaurant fantasy. He was a gambler, the perfect …

“Stop,” she ordered herself. You are not going into business or anywhere else with Luke Buckley.

Quickly, she slipped on her shoes, then hurried across the lawn to the plantation house. Her keys were still in her pocket, and she paused to unlock the door, reassured to find that it was still secured. She locked it again behind her, then walked around turning off the lights that had been on when the power had gone off. Finally, she went back to the front hall and started up the stairs.

GEORGE CAMDEN WATCH ED from the shadows of the trees as Gabriella Boudreaux crossed the scraggly lawn, then climbed the stairs and walked into the plantation house.

He’d gotten a little sleep in his car, then come back to check the cottage. Gabriella had been in the cottage. Now she was alone and unprotected. Nice of her to give him an opportunity to get her alone.

Had she ended up sleeping with the Buckley guy? Or did they have a falling out? That was more likely because she was in a tearing hurry to get away from his place.

The front door of the plantation house had been locked, but George had already figured out another way to get in. The house, like most of the ones in this low-lying area, had a raised basement. It had been a simple matter to remove the glass from one of the windows and put it back in place so it looked secure.

Waiting for a few minutes to make sure Gabriella wasn’t coming out again, he circled the building, then ducked under the overhang at the edge of the basement area. The window was just as he’d left it. Careful not to make any noise, he lifted it out and set it along the wall. He’d laid a small outdoor end table on its side near the window, like somebody had thrown it there and forgotten it.

After righting the table, he placed it under the window and climbed up, then inside. Again he’d positioned a convenient piece of furniture—an old chest—where he could use it to climb down.

Inside, he stood listening for a few minutes. As far as he could tell, Gabriella hadn’t heard him. He wasn’t sure where she had gone, but he knew this was going to come out differently than with the mother.

LUKE HEARD GABRIELLA GET UP. He heard her tiptoe across the living room, heard the front door open.

She was sneaking out, and in a way he couldn’t blame her, but he wasn’t going to let her disappear so easily.

When he ran to the window of the cottage and looked out, he saw her crossing the lawn to the plantation house. To get her stuff and leave?

He was about to go back for his shoes when movement in the stand of trees to the side of the house made him freeze. A man emerged, checked to see that he was alone and looked toward the house. When he started to look back toward Cypress Cottage, Luke ducked to the side of the window.

Peering out again, he saw the intruder start for the house—not for the front. Instead, he circled around and disappeared from sight under the overhang of the raised basement.

Not good.

Luke had thought someone might be out here last night. It looked as if he had been right.

Was it a mobster? More likely someone interested in Gabriella because he’d gone after her and not come to the cottage. But it was clear that the guy was up to no good.

Otherwise he would have gone up and rung the doorbell.

AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, Gabriella paused. Nobody much had been up here in years, and the smell of dust was heavy in the air.

If she wanted to turn this place into a restaurant, the first thing she’d have to do was give the house a thorough cleaning.

“Forget the restaurant fantasy for now,” she muttered as she looked one way down the hall and then the other. Finally, she couldn’t resist peeking into her old bedroom.

It was the way she’d left it when she’d gone away to chef school. The curtains were drawn, making the light dim, but she could still see posters of kittens and puppies on the walls. How sappy!

But as a teenager, she’d related better to animals than she had to people.

In the hall again, she paused for a moment, unsure which way Mom had gone on her last trip up here. Too bad there wasn’t enough dust on the floor to leave a trail of footprints.

Probably her best bet was Mom’s old room. She stepped inside, looking around at the faded spread, the limp curtains, the antique furniture that was still in excellent shape.

Her gaze went to the dresser. People kept all kinds of intimate stuff in dresser drawers, but then when they died, someone else would poke through their possessions.

Like she was planning to do now.

After a moment’s hesitation, she began searching the drawers. They held only a few articles of clothing and costume jewelry that her mother obviously hadn’t been wearing lately.

Some dresses hung in the closet. All the clothes could go to one of the charities in town when Gabriella had the time to sort through them.

More interesting to her was the top shelf of the closet, which held several of the sturdy, rectangular boxes that department stores used to give away before they went to the cheap, fold up kind.

What was up there? Maybe what Gabriella was looking for.

She dragged the boxes down and took off the top of one, seeing a stack of papers. The next one held family photographs.

Not so secret. But maybe the secrets were mixed in with the normal stuff.

She was taking out a picture of Mom and Dad as newlyweds when the strong smell of cigarette smoke on clothing made her turn.

A man stepped into the doorway, his gaze fixed on her. He was tall, with dark hair, gray eyes and a predatory expression that sent a chill up her spine. Except for the look on his face, he was rather ordinary. A guy who could blend into a crowd.

Had she seen him before? Maybe, but there would have been no reason to remember him.

Her heart lurched inside her chest. “Who … who are you?” she asked stupidly.

Instead of answering the question, he said, “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”

“What do you want?”

“Shut up and do what I tell you.”

Arguing was pointless. She thought about screaming for Luke’s help. But he was too far away to hear. Could she get around the guy? Probably not. What about locking herself in the bathroom? Could she make it there before he grabbed her?

Her heart was pounding as she contemplated her options.

The man narrowed his eyes, pulling a gun from the waistband of his slacks. As he pointed it at her, he pulled a pair of handcuffs from another pocket.

“You’re going to put them on.”

She stared from the cuffs to the gun and back again, struggling to control her terror and thinking she should never have left Cypress Cottage on her own. Luke had been worried that someone was on the property. Apparently he’d been right, and she’d been too wound up in her own concerns to credit the warning. Well, that and the need to put some distance between them.

The man walked across the room, still holding the weapon pointed at her, then tossed the handcuffs onto the bed near her. “If you don’t want to get shot, put them on.”

All sorts of horrible thoughts raced through her mind. She remembered what she’d learned in self-defense classes. If someone took you out of your environment and had control over you, you were probably going to end up dead.

Mom had already ended up that way, and suddenly she thought—had this guy pushed her mother down the steps? And would he shoot now?

If the man used the gun, would Luke hear? Or was he still sleeping?

One thing she knew for sure—she wasn’t putting on the handcuffs. Not willingly. He’d have to knock her down first, maybe knock her out.

When the cuffs landed near the boxes, she pretended to follow his directions, seeing him relax a little. But instead of clicking them onto her wrists, she threw them at him as hard as she could, already ducking as she scrambled to get out of the line of fire. A shot whizzed over her head, and she knew that he hadn’t been bluffing.

Now what? The bed was between them, and she heard him cursing as his footsteps came toward her.

There was nowhere to go. The window was behind her, but it was locked. And if she made a dash for it, he’d shoot her in the back. But maybe she could get into the bathroom and climb out the window onto the portico roof before he battered down the door.

“Bitch,” the intruder snarled as he came around the bed.

This time she picked up the dusty throw rug and threw it at him.

He started coughing and slapping at the covering, apparently having trouble dislodging it with the gun in his hand—and also having trouble breathing through the dust.

Good.

But how long would the rug stop him?

Her only way out was across the bed, and she leaped onto it, listening intently for sounds behind her.

She knew he had finally gotten the rug off because his cursing was less muffled. She was almost to the edge of the mattress when he clamped his fingers around her ankle, preventing her from fleeing.

“You’re going to be sorry about this,” he growled as he pulled her across the bed.

She started kicking at him with her free leg, desperately trying to inflict damage while she struggled to get away.

When he whacked her shin with the side of the gun, she gritted her teeth and kept kicking.

The sound of pounding feet in the hall made them both look up.

Her back was to the door, but what the man saw made him turn her ankle loose and dodge back, aiming the gun at whoever was in the doorway.