The Perfect Bride - By Kerry Connor Page 0,47

jaw clenching, Zack nodded tightly and started toward where his father had indicated, though not before shooting Jillian a wink.

“Have you seen Meredith?” she asked him.

He called back over his shoulder. “Nope.”

Frowning, she glanced back toward the open doorway. She wondered where Meredith was. In any case, Jillian would probably be better off looking for her elsewhere. She was only in the way here.

She looked around for Ray and Zack to ask them to tell Meredith she’d gone back downstairs, but didn’t see either man. They seemed to have disappeared. The cavernous space before her was empty and still.

The goose bumps prickling again, she frowned and made her way back to the doorway.

She slipped into the hallway, relaxing slightly when she was back in the well-lit corridor. She glanced down it in both directions. It was empty. Meredith was nowhere in sight.

Jillian slowly made her way back to the main stairs, fully expecting Meredith to appear at any moment. As she did, she thought back to her conversation with Grace. The woman had said all the right things, but was she truly grateful to the Suttons for keeping her on? It would only be natural that she’d feel some resentment that she had to rely on their kindness at all. Despite what the woman had said, Jillian still wasn’t convinced Grace was all that happy having anyone here, let alone new owners she had to report to.

She was still considering the question when she reached the stairs. Preoccupied, she placed one hand on the railing.

It had barely made contact when she felt a sudden rush of motion behind her.

She didn’t get a chance to process it, to turn toward the sound.

A split second later something crashed into her back and sent her flying forward.

A startled scream—short, shrill—tore from her mouth before her throat suddenly seized up in panic, in terror, cutting off the sound. She was launched in midair, and for an endless moment she could see the stairs stretching out below her, the bottom impossibly far away.

And then she was hurtling, plunging, tumbling downward. There wasn’t even time to throw her hands out to try to soften her landing. Before she could raise her arms, the stairs were rushing up to meet her. She crashed hard on her right side, pain bursting in her shoulder and arm. Another scream pressed against her throat. It was cut off by the force of another blow as she continued to roll, her legs flying over her head and banging against the stairs. Explosions of pain erupted in her back, her hip, her arms and legs as she plunged down the stairs, different parts of her body striking the hard stone and sharp edges over and over again.

Finally, blessedly, she tumbled over one last time, crashing onto her back on the landing, every inch of her body screaming in pain.

She lay there unmoving, trying to pull in a breath, to deal with the pain, to process what had just happened.

Pushed, she recognized faintly. Someone had pushed her down the stairs.

That was what the feeling of force against her back had been. There’d been no cry of warning, no sound of shock after the impact, nothing to indicate this had been an accident.

No. It had been deliberate. Someone had purposely shoved her down the stairs.

Staring blindly above her, she saw something enter her range of vision. Something at the top of the stairs.

Blinking rapidly, she tried to focus on the object, to see what it was.

It was a person, she registered, her heart pounding harder. The person who’d pushed her?

The figure gradually took form, the face becoming clearer, revealing—

Meredith, Jillian realized. The breath caught in her throat, surprise and confusion and wariness churning inside her.

Meredith stood at the top of the stairs. She made no sound, made no move to come down. She simply stood there, staring down at her.

Jillian peered closer, willing her eyes to focus, desperately trying to read the woman’s face.

But no matter how hard Jillian tried, she couldn’t read Meredith’s expression, couldn’t tell if she was peering down at her with shock that she’d fallen—or disappointment that it hadn’t been so much worse....

Chapter Eleven

“Oh, my God.”

Her attention fixed on the woman at the top of the stairs, Jillian heard the voice as though from a great distance. She vaguely recognized it as a man’s, ragged with shock and concern.

And then Adam was there, leaning over her, cutting Meredith off from view.

“Jillian, are you all right?”

Still dazed, she had to force