My Deadly Valentine - By Valerie Hansen & Lynette Eason Page 0,30

Sort of. Except she was afraid she might not like the divine answer she received. If God had not placed Jace Morgan in her life so that he would become a lasting part of it, perhaps he was simply the method the Good Lord was using to rid her of her prejudice against officers like her father.

That notion stuck in her mind and refused to be banished. Surely, after all she’d been through, she was not going to lose Jace. That wouldn’t be fair.

“Yeah, assuming there’s anything to lose,” she muttered as she pulled into her driveway and pushed the button on the garage door opener.

The partitioned door rolled up, section by section, then stopped at the top of its arc.

Rachel slowly drove into the garage and triggered the control again to drop and secure the door behind her.

Lost in her musings, she sighed and remained in the car until the garage was safely closed. When all this was over, she certainly hoped Jace would continue to visit, to want to keep seeing her, because if not, she was going to be terribly lonely. The solitude she had enjoyed in the past no longer appealed. Now, all she wanted was to be with him, to talk to him, to see his smile and lose herself in the wonders of his deep blue gaze.

Getting out of the car, she left her headlights on to illuminate the small garage. What was wrong with the motion sensor on the overhead light? It was supposed to come on automatically, whenever anyone or anything passed.

Looking up, Rachel squinted. The bulb was gone from the fixture! How could that have happened? And when? She’d left everything locked up tight when she’d gone to work and the only other way in was via the touch pad mounted outside. As far as she knew, she and Jace were the only ones privy to that secret number sequence.

Concerned and a bit confused, she reached for the knob on the door leading to her kitchen and tried to turn it. It wouldn’t budge. Locked? How could it be locked? That door was never locked. She didn’t have the key for it with her because she saw no need to carry it. After all, the garage door was secure.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled a primitive warning. Had something on the opposite side of the car just made a scuffing noise? Rachel froze. She fisted her key ring in one hand while she rummaged in her purse for the can of Mace.

Could she hear breathing? Was it hers? She held her breath and listened to her own pulse thudding in her ears. She was trapped in that tiny garage, unless…

Diving for the car, she jammed her thumb against the remote control button on the visor, fully expecting the heavy garage door to start to lift.

Nothing happened. She slammed the car door behind her and locked it with her left hand while continuing to try to work the remote. It had functioned fine a few seconds ago. Why was it not working now?

The glare from her compact car’s headlights nearly blinded her as she stared out the windshield. Something moved to her right. A shadow shifted. A man-size one. And it was coming closer.

TWELVE

Jace set the box with the hot pizza next to him on the seat of his patrol car, backed out of the Hickory Station parking lot and headed straight for the card shop. He was glad he’d told Rachel to wait for him because he didn’t want her going home alone.

Thinking back over their conversation as he drove, he realized that he had not specified where she was to meet him. Surely she’d understood what he’d meant. She knew better than to go home unescorted, even though they had changed all her locks and reprogrammed her garage door opener.

As he pulled even with the card store, however, he realized that her car was already gone. His pulse began to pound and his heart leaped. “What was she thinking?”

That I was going to meet her at the house, he answered only in his mind. How typical. She’d wanted to go home so she had conveniently assumed that that was what they’d agreed upon.

Whipping the wheel and making a U-turn, he was thankful that there was no cross traffic. It was only a short distance to Rachel’s and she couldn’t have been gone long. He’d probably be able to overtake her in a couple of minutes at the