Her Hero And Protector. Shawna Delacorte

don’t know. First, you’ll have to tell me what the problem is, then we’ll see if there’s some way I can help. It could be that the only thing I can do is provide you with a ride back to Rocky Shores.” He flashed an engaging smile, one he hoped would instill a feeling of confidence. “But that would certainly be better than walking back.”

      All the defiance drained out of her body, to be replaced with despair. She didn’t know what to do or what to say. Her words were barely above a whisper, a very frightened whisper. “No one can help. No one believes me.”

      He moved off the arm of the sofa and sat down next to her. “What is it that no one believes?” He was digging the hole deeper and deeper. He was becoming too involved in something that was none of his business—something that could only cause him more trouble than he wanted to accept. More trouble than he needed, especially now.

      “All right.” She screwed up her determination. “You asked and here it is. For the past month someone has been stalking me.”

      It was the last thing he had expected her to say, but it grabbed his attention. He could tell by the expression on her face that she was serious. “Stalking you? In what way?”

      “Well…sometimes it was just a feeling that someone was watching me when I would be out at various places. Things like following me around the grocery store. I would turn around and look, but didn’t see anyone I recognized or even anyone who seemed to be paying any attention to me. At night I would sometimes hear sounds outside my house as if someone was checking to see if any of the doors or windows were unlocked. My phone would ring. I could hear breathing, but no one would answer me. It wasn’t the type of heavy breathing that you would think of as an obscene call, just someone on the line who didn’t say anything.”

      “Well, that could have just been your imagination. Or maybe kids playing a prank.”

      “That’s what the police said when I tried to report it. They didn’t believe me.” A frown wrinkled across her forehead, an angry frown that matched her tone of voice. “In fact, they were very condescending. They implied that I was nothing more than some hysterical neurotic female with an overactive imagination who should take a tranquilizer and get some rest.”

      A little snort of disgust escaped his throat before he could stop it. “In my experience, that’s typical of the way the Rocky Shores Police Department handles things.”

      “There’s more. There was a voice—a strange, unreal type of voice—that would reach out to me.”

      “What do you mean by strange and unreal? Was it a man’s voice or a woman’s? What was different about this voice?”

      “I’m not sure. It was sort of…well, like it was mechanical or something like that. It was a man’s voice.”

      “Do you mean like a computer-generated voice? Something like that?”

      The light of recognition came into her eyes. “Yes! That’s it. A computer-generated voice, not a real person.”

      “You said it reached out to you. What do you mean? How did it reach out to you?”

      Brandi scrunched up her face as she tried to come up with the right words to explain something that didn’t have any rational explanation. “It was as if it materialized out of thin air when there was no one around, at least no one I could see. Once it was in the fog during the day. Another time it was at night.”

      “What did this voice say?”

      “It called my name and told me to be careful, that it was coming for me. There were a couple of occasions when I could tell that someone had been in my house. Nothing was missing and everything appeared to be in the right place, but I could tell someone had looked through my things.”

      “Your things…what kind of things? Do you mean like some pervert pawing through your underwear?”

      “No. It seemed to be my office and my darkroom.”

      Reece cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “Your office? Your darkroom? You work from home? Are you a professional photographer or is it just a hobby?”

      “It’s what I do for a living. Mostly weddings and portraits, but I’m also working on a coffee-table-type book—scenic photographs depicting the unique and beautiful sights of Washington.”

      A sudden thought struck her, one that triggered a moment of anxiety. She tried to shove down the apprehension as she stared at him with a skeptical eye. She wasn’t sure she should open a can of worms by asking the question or, for that matter, whether she really wanted to know the answer.

      “You sound like a policeman who’s interrogating a suspect. Are you…uh, are you a policeman?” The apprehension churned inside her. She held her breath as she waited for his response. Under normal circumstances a policeman would be a blessing and a relief, but not this time. Not now. Not with what she had seen when—

      “Me? A policeman?” If the thought hadn’t been so preposterous it might have been funny. “No, I’m not a policeman.” A level of caution pushed to the forefront. Something about the way she had asked the question caught his attention. It was almost as if she was afraid he might be a policeman rather than hoping he was one.

      The more she talked, the more he became fascinated with the tale she had to tell. He had dealt with this type of situation before. As a highly paid, very successful private investigator, he had handled several stalking cases during his career.

      Career. He almost laughed out loud at the word, a laugh of bitter resentment. His extremely profitable career had been flushed down the toilet along with two years of his life when he was wrongly convicted and sent to prison. Now, he had enough money socked away from before his arrest to sustain him for a while, plus the profits from selling his house.

      And he had the cabin. He had bought it eight years ago and had taken great pains to conceal its ownership—just as he had the ownership of his SUV—by using a series of dummy corporations and other evasive tactics. At the time he’d purchased it, the cabin’s purpose had been to provide a haven for clients who needed protection and a secure place to hide witnesses for a high-powered defense attorney who had regularly engaged his services. But now his needs were the most basic, and his expenses almost nonexistent.

      And here was Brandi Doyle threatening that anonymity. If he had any sense at all he would drive her back to town, drop her off at her house and forget that she had ever crossed his path.

      “So what does all of this lead up to? What happened today that you ended up in my cabin in the mountains in a rainstorm?” He saw the discomfort in her body language and the wariness in her eyes. Once again she had managed to touch a spot deep inside him that he had tried to protect against the vulnerability she couldn’t hide.

      Brandi stared at the flames in the fireplace. She had already said too much, given more information to this complete stranger than she should have. Had she put herself in additional danger, more than what already pursued her? She wished she had some answers, but all she had were questions.

      Questions and fears.

      Her voice rang hollow. She couldn’t keep her emotional pain tucked away as she spoke. At least he was listening—or maybe just pretending to listen. Either way, it was more credence than the police had given her when she’d tried to report her stalker.

      “Today someone abducted me as I was about to get into my car to go to the grocery store. I managed to escape when he stopped for gas. I ran into the woods and kept running until I saw your cabin.”

      It was the last thing he had expected her to say and one more detail that added to his growing interest in her story. He fought to keep it on a purely intellectual level while attempting to ignore her physical attributes and the vulnerability that continued to reach out to him.

      He maintained his outer composure, making sure he didn’t show her any of his thoughts or feelings. “Do you know who abducted you? Or why?”

      “I