Julie Anne Lindsey - Marked By The Marshal

Now there were two men in Shadow Point he wanted to get his hands on. “What kind of jerk does something like that to a woman? To his child?”

“Not one worth having around,” West said. “She’s better off without him.”

Folks had probably said the same thing after she’d kicked Ryder out. They wouldn’t have been wrong then, either.

He grabbed his key, badge and sidearm, then headed into the sunset. There’d be plenty of time to fixate on all the ways he’d ruined his life during the three-hour drive back to Shadow Point. Right now, he needed to get moving.

* * *

IT WAS AFTER ten when Kara put on her second pot of coffee. It had been twelve hours since her hasty exit from Memorial Park with Casey, and Kara’s nerves were still in bundles. Casey, on the other hand, was sound asleep in the nursery. Kara was glad for her, but personally, she couldn’t shake the sensation she was being watched.

She’d locked all the doors and shut the windows the moment they’d gotten home. She’d even pulled the curtains in an effort to stop the heebie-jeebies crawling over her skin. Nothing had worked. On any other night, she’d have poured a glass of sweet tea and sat on the porch swing to unwind from her troubles. Tonight, she was a prisoner in her home. A very hot home.

The central air was set to seventy-seven, the lowest she could afford to keep it on her public teacher’s salary, and she was dressed accordingly. A worn-out pair of cotton shorts and a pre-pregnancy tank top. The perfect pajamas for nights like these. Though hers were being tested at every seam by the added pounds of stubborn baby weight, she wouldn’t complain. Those pounds were hard earned and well worth the prize.

Kara poured a cup of fresh coffee and sank onto a kitchen chair. This wasn’t supposed to be her life. If things had turned out the way she’d planned, she wouldn’t be shaking the willies right now over some man in the park. She’d be sharing a late-night snack with Ryder Garrett, and laughing as he told her all the ways he could keep that man from ever looking her way again. And he’d mean it. Kara smiled against the rim of her cup. She’d never been afraid of anything when Ryder was in her life.

Let it go , she chastised herself. You shouldn’t want him. Ryder had chosen a life of compulsion, danger and near madness over her. Based on that alone, she shouldn’t love him anymore, but all these years later she still couldn’t go twenty-four hours without thinking of him. Ridiculous. Especially since he’d left town and never looked back.

The sound of a car door drew Kara’s attention back to the moment, and she was irrationally glad to have something else to think about. Even the possibility of an unwanted guest. Kara padded across the living room carpet for a peek between the curtains. There was no movement on the street or in her driveway. Whoever had arrived or gone in the car had already done so, and the neighborhood had settled back into the hazy calm of a sweltering summer night. She checked the door and window locks again for good measure, moving methodically around the first floor, then up to the second.

It was nothing. Just a neighbor coming or going. No reason to overthink this.

The tug of sleep pulled at her muscles and eyelids as she tested the final window. She rubbed the fine hairs on her forearms, smoothing them where they stood at attention, sent on alert by the goose bumps covering her skin. She’d reported her weird exchange at the park to the local sheriff, a man who had nearly become her brother-in-law once. What more could she do? Thankfully, he hadn’t judged her for her paranoia. Instead, he’d promised to look into it and to add a night patrol to her street. She really couldn’t ask for more, especially considering nothing had actually happened. Kara had dealt with pushy men all her life, ones who leered at her and said crude things. She imagined all women had, but it was the first time she’d been confronted so blatantly with her baby present. Maybe that was what had upset her so much. The idea her baby was there. That he’d wanted to touch her. Is her daddy at work? Was that his creepy way of asking if Kara was involved with anyone since her ring finger was bare?

Kara moved to Casey’s room for another look at her sweet princess. She needed a nice vision to replace the man’s face burned into her mind. He’d had a slightly crazed expression like the one Ryder had worn at his worst, during the sleepless weeks of obsession over a fugitive named Timothy Sand. Ryder was barely human in those days, distant and monosyllabic. Like an addict or a man coming slowly unhinged. If only. Had either of those things been the problem, she could’ve gotten him help, sheltered him through the storm, but Ryder’s problems were of his choosing, and no one could’ve put him on another path, not even her.

Kara stopped the still-turning mobile that dangled high above Casey’s slack face. Baby drool edged from her droopy bottom lip, perhaps a sign of a first tooth on its way. One sweet dimpled arm lay across the stuffed dolly that had once belonged to Kara. Kara had gotten Rainy Rosie and her little yellow raincoat in an Easter basket during fourth grade and kept her in a memory box for years before Casey was born. Now, Rosie was gnawed on endlessly by her precious daughter. Kara suppressed a chuckle and slid back into the hallway, tugging the door nearly closed behind her.

The trip back downstairs seemed endless, like a dream hallway that grew longer with every step. Maybe tonight was a good night to sleep in the nursery. She’d fallen asleep in the glider many times before. She could bring a glass of water and a book. Let sleep take her at will.

Kara flipped the light switches and tugged the lamp chains one by one as she shut the house down for the night. Coffeepot off. She poured a glass of water and tucked a worn paperback under one bent arm, then grabbed the baby monitor from the counter. She liked her plan more and more by the second. Locked inside the nursery, she and Casey would be together, and they would be safe. Tomorrow was a new day, and tonight’s fears would likely seem as silly as they really were.

She checked the door lock once more and peeked through the front window for the last time. Breath caught in her throat as a tiny movement registered across the street. The glass of water jostled in her trembling hand. Kara shut her eyes and whispered, “It’s nothing, there’s nothing there, it’s okay, you’re okay.” She reopened her lids and gave the darkened street another cautious look.

Slowly, the shadow of a man peeled away from a broad oak tree and started a path in her direction.

Kara’s pulse pounded in her ears. She pressed a hand to her constricting chest and willed herself to think. The man at the park had been big. He’d had at least fifty pounds on her, and she was out of shape. If he managed to get through the door, no one would see. At least at the park there were a hundred witnesses. Here, alone in her darkened house... Every self-defense move she’d ever learned was gone. Vanished. She could only think of how to escape, keep Casey safe and get away if the man tried to force his way inside.

Heavy footfalls clomped up her porch steps, vibrating through her soul. Where was that extra patrolman West had promised her? West! Kara pulled the phone from her pocket and dialed the personal number he’d left with her earlier.

She prayed softly against the phone receiver as the knocking began.

Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. She pressed her back against the warm wooden door for strength and willed West to answer his darn phone.

The knocks behind her came lightly at first, cautiously, and grew steadily more insistent. Her interior lights were already off. Maybe whoever was on her porch would assume no one was home and go away. The nagging possibility she was being paranoid began to creep in. She hadn’t gotten a clean look at the man crossing her street. It could be anyone. Maybe she was overreacting. Then again, whoever was out there at this hour was probably up to no good. Man from the park, or someone else. Didn’t matter. It was far too late for visiting. Besides, who could it even be? No man had climbed her steps in a year. Figurative or otherwise.