It sounded like someone was at the back door.
Was it Leanne? She couldn’t think of anyone besides her sister who’d come over so late…?.
In the next instant, she sat bolt upright. Leanne wouldn’t be at her back door in the middle of the night. Someone was trying to get in. She could hear the click, click of the knob as it turned back and forth.
Who was it? And why was that person here?
Wondering if maybe those noises hadn’t been as distinctive as she’d first imagined, if maybe it was just some animal rustling around, she got out of bed and tiptoed into the living room, where she could peer around the corner and through the moonlit kitchen.
She hadn’t been imagining anything. The dark shadow of a man stood on the other side of the glass.
Her heart jumped into her throat. As she watched, too panic-stricken to move, he left the door and went around to press his face to the window over her sink.
Claire screamed before she realized it was Isaac. Then her chest heaved as she tried to recover from the fright he’d given her. Why was he prowling around her yard?
He’d heard her. She saw his head turn in her direction. He probably couldn’t see her, since she was hidden behind the wall and it was darker inside than out, but he jogged to the front, where she met him as he stepped onto the porch.
“What are you doing here?” she cried. “You scared the shit out of me!”
He didn’t seem chastised; he seemed concerned. His eyes ran over her from head to foot. “You’re okay?”
Why wouldn’t she be okay? Before he’d disturbed her, she’d been getting some much-needed rest. “I’m fine, why?”
“Someone called me from a pay phone. I’m pretty sure it was a man, but even that was hard to tell. He had the mouthpiece covered and was talking so low I could barely hear. He said, ‘Claire’s in trouble.’”
“Are you serious?”
His hair stood up on one side as if he’d just rolled out of bed himself. “Do I look like I’m doing this for kicks?”
“No, but…” Her heart rate still hadn’t returned to normal. “That’s so strange. You don’t have any idea who it was?”
“None.”
“When was this?”
He rubbed a hand over the razor stubble on his chin. “Twenty minutes ago. Just long enough for me to drive over here. Everything looked so peaceful when I arrived, I thought it had to be somebody’s idea of a joke to scare me like that. So I was checking things out, trying to see if there was any reason to worry.”
Claire had been so exhausted she hadn’t even taken off her makeup, but she was too uneasy to be sleepy now. “Why would anyone crank-call you about me?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? It could’ve been someone who heard about what happened at your mother’s studio and thought it would be funny to send me on a fool’s errand.”
Or someone who’d heard they were seeing each other and wanted to determine whether he cared enough to come to her rescue. She wouldn’t put that past a couple of the women who talked about him incessantly.
That was the extent of it, she told herself, but then she remembered the call she’d received from the person who’d asked if she’d hired a P.I. She’d forgotten to tell Isaac about that. Life had been such a whirlwind since then she’d scarcely thought of it herself.
“That call must have come from Les,” Isaac agreed when Claire had described the brief conversation. “Besides you and me, no one else knows I told him I was a P.I.”
Had he called Isaac, too?
Either way, the idea of a raspy-voiced caller foretelling her doom sent chills down her spine, especially after that incident on the Fourth of July. “Sorry someone put you to so much trouble,” she said. “That’s a long drive in the middle of the night, especially for nothing.”
“That’s okay. I’m glad it was for nothing.” Shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he leaned against the door frame. “So…did you have fun with your date tonight?”
She hadn’t expected him to confront her about Owen. She’d thought the fact that she was dating other men would be one of those things they wouldn’t talk about, even if they did continue to see each other. He didn’t want to commit to a relationship, but he didn’t want to lose her, either. That pretty much left ignoring the other men in her life as his only option. “It was okay.”
His gaze shifted toward her bedroom. “Is he gone?”
“What difference would it make to you even if he wasn’t?” she countered.
He studied her carefully. “I’m not very good at sharing.”
“We’re just friends, remember?”
“I remember, but that doesn’t seem to help.”
“Fine, he’s gone.”
“Good.” He stepped inside and shut the door behind him. “So what happened after I left?”
“We danced.” She shrugged. “That’s it.”
He scowled as if he didn’t want to ask his next question but couldn’t resist. “Did he kiss you?”
Scowling right back at him, she said, “Don’t ask if you don’t want to know.”
One eyebrow shot up. “A simple ‘no’ would be nice. Then maybe I could stop the damn reel of the two of you together that keeps playing in my head.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Okay, if you want to talk about bad images—have you ever been with my sister?”
Even without the lights on, she could see the curl of his lip. “What?”
The answer he had yet to give frightened her so much she had to take a deep breath. “Leanne. Have you ever slept with her?”
“Hell, no! I’ve never even looked at her. God, what do you think I am?”
“I think that’s clear.”
“No, it’s not. You don’t know me if you believe I’d sleep with your sister. Why would you even ask me that?”
Relief finally eased the fear that’d kept her on edge ever since Leanne had shown up in her salon, pretending to have more intimate knowledge of Isaac than she did. “For the same reason you asked me about Owen.”
He glared at her. “You’re jealous.”
“Of course I’m jealous! I’ve loved you for ten years!” The words tumbled out before she could stop them. She hadn’t even realized she was going to say them.
Her confession hung in the air like the scent of gunpowder. She’d probably just shot to hell any chance she had of being with him. She’d gone so far she couldn’t even salvage her pride. This was how she’d ruined their relationship the last time—by letting him mean too much.