The Hidden Years

The hair on the back of Cassidy’s neck stirred. Had someone been in the house? The next thought felt like a punch to her stomach. Suppose she wasn’t alone.

Cassidy didn’t hesitate. She whirled on her heel to head back toward the kitchen.

The curtain in the den moved. Was someone behind it? Or had a breeze caught it, flickering ominous shadows across the wood floor?

Cassidy changed direction. Heard a footstep that wasn’t hers. A thud.

Heart pumping, she raced down the hall toward the front door. Lost time twisting the dead bolt. Flung open the door.

A hand clamped down on her shoulder.

Chapter Two

Cassidy screamed.

Before she could turn around, she glimpsed a gloved hand as the intruder slid an arm around her neck, yanked her back to his chest, placed a knife to her throat, slammed the front door. The blade bit skin, and the sting convinced Cassidy the man meant business. She held perfectly still, so frightened she could barely make her knees stiffen enough to hold her upright.

“There’s two hundred dollars—”

“Silence.”

The intruder put a black cap on Cassidy’s head and pulled it down over her eyes, blinding her.

Oh, God. If he didn’t want her money, what did he want? Cassidy knew the statistics. One in three women would be raped during their lifetime, but she’d never expected it to happen to her. In her own house. Without a chance to fight back.

Her brain kicked into overdrive. She shouldn’t fight. The fact that he’d bothered to blindfold her was so she couldn’t identify him. He probably intended to let her go.

Eventually.

She considered screaming again. But her neighbors wouldn’t hear her through the thick plaster walls or over the lawn mower still roaring next door.

She was on her own.

Cassidy trembled, her mouth dry as sandpaper, her stomach full of bile. She told herself not to fight, but the moment the knife left her throat, her instinct for self-preservation took over. She was no martyr. She had to try to save herself.

She swung her hips and shoulder to one side. Simultaneously she stomped on his foot and got lucky, digging her heel into his toes.

The man cursed. But blocked the front door.

She had only seconds and lunged to the right as she lifted the cap from her eyes. Picking up a vase as she ran, she threw it over her shoulder and heard the pane of glass beside the front door shatter.

Sliding across the front hallway, she knocked a chair into his path, raced through the dining room and back through the kitchen. If she could just make it to the porch door.

A gun’s chamber clicked. “Take another step and I’ll shoot.”

Cassidy dived toward the doorknob. She heard the hiss of a bullet, which lodged in the door in front of her. Cassidy skidded to a halt.

“Turn around and you’re a dead woman.”

Cassidy froze. She still hadn’t seen the man’s face, just a gloved hand. She didn’t dare turn around as the footsteps approached. The cap came down over her head again, blinding her. The man gripped her arm, shoved her into a chair, tied her hands behind her back.

This couldn’t be happening. She would wake up from the nightmare at any moment. Blind, helpless, Cassidy fought back, fear howling through her. “What do you want?”

“Who do you work for?”

The question arrowed another shot of terror through her. That familiar question wasn’t what she’d expected, but she was too frightened to recall just where she’d heard it before. “I don’t work for anyone.”

The sudden slap of a palm against her face made her ears ring and her eyes tear. The man spoke as casually as if inviting her to breakfast. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. It doesn’t matter much to me.”

Cassidy twisted her wrists in their bonds, but she couldn’t even hope to get free. There was no slack in the ties. Her wrists were already going numb. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Please don’t hurt me.”

“Who do you work for?” the man asked again.

The man’s tone was cold as death. She knew better than to give the same answer as she had before; that would only earn her another brutal slap.

“My father died last year. I inherited his law practice.”

Another brutal slap on the other cheek slammed her head sideways. Cassidy tasted blood in her mouth.

“I don’t care about your daddy. Who do you work for?”

“You mean my clients?”

Cassidy practiced family law. She didn’t defend murderers or drug smugglers. She couldn’t imagine which one of her clients this man was interested in. Could barely think with her head ringing, her cheeks on fire. But the sickening fear in her stomach was the worst.

Her tormentor’s voice was too cold, too professional to give her any hope of getting out of this alive. At first she’d thought the blindfold was to prevent her from identifying him but now she suspected he just wanted her terrified so she’d talk. His tactics were working. She felt icy cold and burning hot at the same time.

She had the horrible feeling that as soon as she told him what he wanted to know, he’d put a bullet in her brain.

He could spend the entire day beating her.

She lived alone.

Didn’t expect company.

And she had no idea what he wanted.

Again he asked the dreaded question. “Who do you work for?”

And again she had no answer.

AFTER PERUSING THE PAPERS Cassidy had dumped at his feet, Jake packed them up and heaved them into the trunk of his car, his anger slowly cooling. She’d offered to help him, and like it or not, he really needed that help, not just her legal expertise, but her common sense. Even if she had every right to be furious with him, he hoped after he apologized, she’d forgive him.

He made the thirty-minute drive from Half Moon Bay to Crescent Cove in less than twenty minutes. While he knew Cassidy would probably rather see the abominable snowman than him showing up at her house uninvited, Jake owed her an apology. She’d done him a favor, and in return, he’d blamed her for her father’s actions and implied that she was a liar. Inexcusable behavior under any circumstances. And he had no excuse. Except that she’d pushed all his buttons, reminding him of his failures, reminding him of one of the worst nights of his life.

That extraordinary summer he’d never even kissed Cassidy, but that hadn’t stopped him from dreaming about sex and love the way most eighteen-year-old boys do. But unlike most boys who’d grown up with the love of family around them, Jake had never had anyone tell him that they’d loved him—not since he’d been five and his father had died. No one had ever told him he’d done a good job. No one had ruffled his hair with affection or hugged him. If anyone touched him at all, it had been a fist to the chin, an elbow to the gut.

So he’d craved affection. Maybe he’d read more into her emotions than had been there. He’d been so hungry for love that when she’d called him that long-ago afternoon to tell him she had special news and a special evening planned, he’d hoped and dreamed that they might make love.