had to.
The women knocked again. They even rattled the doorknob. He could hear their surprise when they discovered it locked. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.
Eventually they clattered off the porch, still talking. He strained his ears and for a moment felt dismay that they were chattering about “the back porch”. Except, no, they weren’t trying another approach to this house—there was no back porch, just a door off the kitchen. Their words made no sense until he remembered seeing a sign for a Back Porch Diner in town. That was where the crowds would gather to plan their next attack on the new neighbor, he supposed. Women offering plastic containers of food and aluminum-covered cakes.
He laughed, and the sound echoed in the nearly empty room. After a lifetime of dealing with the fallout from his father leaving the “family business” and then the whole nonsense with Elliot, no wonder Nick had gone over the paranoid edge. There wasn’t some kind of conspiracy, just a bunch of bored, curious locals stopping by the house.
Probably.
Nick went back to searching the house—Elliot’s “safe place” maybe meant an actual safe. Nick had bought a shovel. Time to start digging in the dirt basement.
Nick started in the far corner, where the dirt was darker, and dug down at least two feet per hole. He was on his fifth unpleasant hole when the floorboard over his head creaked.
He froze, held his breath, listened. Footsteps crossed the floor, moving from the front of the house toward the back. The tread sounded too light for the person to be one of the thugs he’d half expected to show up on his doorstep. On the other hand, no one was calling out a welcome to announce their presence. And, damn it, his gun was upstairs in the bedroom where he’d left it.
He hefted the shovel in his hands, turning the spade head up so he could use it as a weapon; then he crept to the stairs and slowly began to ascend, catching his breath every time one creaked.
Crap, he should probably just stay put in the basement. If this home intruder had a gun, he was screwed. There was an exit from the basement to the outside—one of those old-fashioned, slanting doors. He should probably have used it and hidden out in the woods until the house was clear. But he was nearly at the top of the stairs now. Through the partially open door, he caught a glimpse of someone moving. He drew a breath and leaped out into the hallway, brandishing the shovel.
A shriek pierced his ears, and a woman whirled to face him. Her eyes were so wide the whites showed almost all the way around. Blue eyes. Cornflower blue and fringed with thick lashes. Brown curly hair, cut shoulder length. Short, compact build and neat, even features. Not beautiful but cute, especially with that little uptilt at the tip of her nose. Clearly not someone who’d been sent to kill him.
Not unless the Espositos were radically changing their hiring practice for contract killers. Plus, she was carrying yet another covered container—one she appeared about ready to throw at him as she gasped in alarm.
Immediately he realized the shovel must look like a weapon to her. He lowered the spade head to the floor.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Where I come from, people don’t usually come into your house without knocking.” He frowned. “How’d you get in anyway? The front door’s locked.”
Chapter Two
“Um.” In the face of the New Yorker’s frightening glare, Ames found she’d completely lost her power of speech. She couldn’t remember her own name, let alone what had possessed her to break into a stranger’s house. She tried to regain that righteous indignation she’d felt as she’d fished the key from her pocket. Her house. Not his. He was the interloper here.
“I…” she began again, then got distracted by his sheer magnetic presence. The rumors of his hotness had not been exaggerated. He was tall, lanky, dark-haired and brown-eyed. No, not brown. Almost black and with a gaze so intense she felt as if all her clothes had magically disappeared and she was standing there naked. Her face burned, and she fought the urge to fold her arms over her breasts. Not that he was staring at her chest or anything. He was looking into her eyes—deep into her eyes, mesmerizing her like headlights did a stupid deer. She’d walked right onto the