Sudden Attraction. Rebecca York
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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.
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