The Alvarez & Pescoli Series. Lisa Jackson
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he use it for an attic? A storage area? A den? Guest room? What? It was in shadow and, as far as she knew, he’d never climbed the ladder. But you’re not certain, are you? You slept for days, or were nearly comatose, right? You were stuck in the smaller room, not knowing anything.
She checked the bookcase one more time and picked up what looked like an empty vase, a rough ceramic replica of a worn cowboy boot. She looked inside. It was empty aside from two photographs. So, here were some snapshots. Good.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” she told herself when she felt renewed hesitation at prying into his personal possessions. Dusty and wedged tightly into the hollowed boot, the pictures had obviously been left untouched for months.
The first was a photo of a baby swaddled in a blue blanket. A boy. His son?
The second was of a woman in jeans, her long blond hair tied into a ponytail that had fallen over one shoulder, a toddler balanced on one outstretched hip. It was summer, leaves green, steep mountains rising in the distance behind her and the boy, a shadow cast by the photographer indicating it was late afternoon.
Hadn’t he said he wasn’t married? That he didn’t have children? Could this be a nephew? She stared at the woman and decided this was not his sister.
No way.
In her heart she knew she was staring at Zane MacGregor’s son and girlfriend or wife. She bit her lip and felt betrayed.
So he lied.
So what?
Did you really think he would pour his heart out to you?
Staring at the woman in the photograph, she felt a little sizzle of jealousy stream through her. Ridiculous! But true. There was something in the woman’s confident smile, the easy way she balanced her son, the almost cocky turn of her head. As if she and the photographer had a special connection, one that set them apart from the world.
For the love of God, Jillian, you’re making a big deal out of a couple of photographs! What do you care?
What indeed?
She reminded herself that she barely knew the man. So why did she feel a tiny sense of betrayal? Of disappointment? It wasn’t as if she cared a fig about MacGregor.
Jillian glanced at the boy one last time. His coloring was like that of the woman, but there was a resemblance to the man who had pulled her from the wreckage of her car.
Or so she thought.
She stuffed the pictures back into their hiding place and made her way into the kitchen and bathroom, searching. But she didn’t notice anything unusual. When she faced the kitchen window to the rear of the cabin, she saw only encroaching darkness and swirling snow.
Was there movement beneath the snow-laden bow of a pine tree near what appeared to be a woodshed? A dark figure pressed against the trunk of the tree?
No way. Her mind was just playing games with her.
Right?
She swallowed hard and tried to melt into the shadows. She hadn’t carried a light with her into the kitchen and she wasn’t backlit, but she still felt as if she were being watched, as if unseen eyes were following her every move.
You’re paranoid, her mind insisted as the wind picked up again, whistling through the rafters and howling outside. She stared through the icy glass, but the movement, if she’d seen it, was gone. Probably a tree branch shuddering in the wind. Nothing more.
But she was left with a cold fear in the middle of her gut, and when she heard a thud at the front of the cabin and the dog let out a quick bark, she nearly screamed.
“Jillian?” MacGregor’s voice boomed through the cabin and she didn’t know whether to feel relief or fear.
Get a grip, she told herself. “In here.” Using the crutch, she slipped through the doorway and found him unlacing his boots. “So, how was it out there?”
“Not good.”
Her heart sank.
“So your storm radar wasn’t up to snuff.”
He snorted, stepped out of his boots and started peeling off his clothes. “I still think the storm is going to break, but there are trees down on the road, buried deep, too heavy for me to move. I’ll have to try and tear through the trunks and branches with my chain saw. But that will take a while.” He glanced over at her and appeared to note her disappointment. “I was hoping we could get out, too, but I’ll have to take the snowmobile to the places where the road is blocked. Then I can cut the trees up and remove them piece by piece.” His gaze found hers and held. “It’ll take time and good weather.”
“So we might be up here for months?”
“Hopefully not that long. Days, certainly. A week, well, maybe. But hopefully not any longer than that.”
“I’ll go stir-crazy,” she said.
“You and me both.”
Harley was dancing at his feet, so he hung up his jacket and leaned down to scratch the dog behind his ears. “Miss me?” he asked, and though he was petting the dog he glanced up at her.
“Me?”
He lifted a shoulder.
“It’s isolated up here.”
“Didn’t answer my question.”
Leaning a shoulder against the door jamb, she said, “Probably about as much as you missed me.”
One side of his mouth twitched a bit and his eyes gleamed. “That much, huh?”
“Yeah. That much.” She inched into the room and tried not to notice the angle of his beard-shadowed jaw or how dark his pupils had become or that his hair was long enough to curl at his collar and over his ears. She pretended that the cabin didn’t seem intimate with its glowing fire and kerosene lanterns. She couldn’t even go there. Wouldn’t.
To think that her situation was the slightest bit romantic was just plain insane. She’d heard of women who took a chance on a man they barely knew, even going home and sleeping with that intriguing stranger. Jillian had never fallen into that trap, never been intrigued enough to tumble into a stranger’s arms or so fascinated by potential danger to throw caution to the wind. She knew she was brave and had more courage than some women, but she wasn’t foolhardy.
Or hadn’t been until this moment in time.
The only explanation was that being caught up here alone with a man for so many days had addled her brain, clouded her thinking. That had to be it.
She could not be attracted to Zane MacGregor.
Not on a dare.
“So,” she said and hated that her voice sounded husky. Clearing her throat, she moved to stand behind the couch as MacGregor put his gloves and ski cap on the mantel to warm. “How about an educated guess. When do you think we can get out of here?”
“If I could predict that, I’d sell myself to the weather service and make a fortune.”
“Terrific,” she muttered, and hiked her way to her chair, where she sat down. “Well, then, if you can’t predict the future, maybe you can tell me about your past.”
“Maybe,” he said, but she caught the hesitation in his gaze, the tiny tensing of the corners of his eyes.
“When you were outside, were you ever in the back of the house or…I don’t know…” She felt more than a little embarrassed. “I had this ‘feeling,’ I guess you’d call it, that someone was outside, watching the house.”
His expression turned hard and she felt more than a little drip of fear in her blood.
“Did the dog react?”
“No…I thought it might be you. Standing outside and staring at the house?”