“I’ve got appointments all afternoon, and the hike with Edward later. We have to talk about Ruth’s party sometime.”
“Your schedule is busier than mine. Tell me when, and I’ll be there.”
“First thing tomorrow morning. Come to my office at
8:00 a.m. sharp.”
Logan’s home office was private, so there’d be no chance of Ruth catching on. She’d never suspect a thing and that was the whole point of the surprise. Sophia dreaded being alone with Logan, yet what choice did she have—they were partners. “I’ll be there.”
He released his gentle hold on her and she walked away. But the impact of Logan’s touch stayed with her for the remainder of the workday.
Well past seven o’clock, she closed up her office and left the lodge as the sun made one last blazing hurrah on the horizon. She enjoyed the glorious sunset on the walk home. But when she climbed the steps leading up to her front door, just as she put her key into the lock, a rustling sound from behind her interrupted her peace. She felt a presence. Someone was in the bushes. She turned sharply to see who it was. “Is someone there?” she called out.
No one appeared. There was no response. In the fading light she scanned the area, searching the garden, shrubs and thicket of trees and then farther, past the yard. Had she imagined it? With her back turned, she’d been so certain that someone was approaching from behind. An eerie sensation crept up her spine.
For a moment, she stood perfectly still, listening. A lump formed in her throat and before she allowed butterflies to take flight in her stomach, she gave herself a mental talking to.
Don’t let your imagination go wild. No one is out there. It was probably the wind.
Though at the moment, not so much as a breeze blew by.
Sophia shook off the feeling of déjà vu, turned the doorknob and flipped on the light switch as she entered the house, making sure to lock the front door. She moved carefully through the rooms, looking around, and finally decided she was being silly. She was safe on Sunset Ranch. There were security gates, and the property was well guarded.
But just in case, Sophia slept with the lamp on that night.
* * *
The next morning, Sophia stood at the cottage’s entranceway, staring at a plain piece of folded, white computer paper she’d lifted from the welcome mat outside her door. Curious, she glanced out to the yard, looking to find someone who might have left her a note. Coming up empty in her search, she unfolded the paper quickly and read four words typed above the crease.
She blinked, and reread the note.
Her shoulders slumped, and her breath came in shortened bursts. “Oh...no.”
Slight tremors coursed through her body, and she fought the sensations, trying to make sense of what she’d found. The words were not threatening—should not instill panic. And yet she couldn’t tamp down her fear. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her...again.
You are very beautiful.
Last night, she’d been certain someone had been watching her. And today, as she’d slipped into her brown slacks and sleeveless cream blouse after her morning shower, she’d realized how foolish she’d been.
“Don’t be paranoid, Sophia,” she’d said into the bathroom mirror, tying her long hair back into a loose braid. “You heard a frightened animal dash from the yard or a bird flitting through the branches of the tall pines.” She had herself convinced it was nothing. But after seeing those four words, Sophia feared her world could very well tip upside down. She wasn’t convinced or sure of anything anymore. There was only one conclusion she could come to.
Someone
had
been outside her cottage last night.
Someone was watching her.
Sophia squinted against the morning sunshine, looked around the yard once again and then shut the door. Her legs wobbly, she made her way to the sofa and lowered herself onto it.
She closed her eyes.
She had to get a grip.
Yet she couldn’t move or summon up the energy to start her busy day. Her mind flashed to two years ago and that very frightening time in her life.
Shortly after her mother’s cancer treatments had begun, she’d landed a position on the chorus line for the Las Vegas Fantasy Follies. Hospital bills had piled up faster than she could work them off. She’d been scared and worried about a mother who was in major denial about the severity of her illness. Out of necessity, Sophia had become both a worried, doting daughter and the only breadwinner for their little family.
When the first note had arrived to her dressing room, Sophia hadn’t thought much of it. Her mind was on her mother’s chemo treatments...and kicking her legs high enough and in sync with the other dancers in order to keep her job. Two more notes had followed. After she’d received the third note delivered to the dressing room, her closest friend in the follies remarked, “Oh, wow, Sophia. You have yourself a stalker.”
It was then that Sophia had learned that propositions usually came to showgirls in face-to-face encounters with gentlemen backstage after the show. They weren’t typed out on unadorned,
untraceable
white computer paper.
The notes kept coming sporadically; there was no rhyme or reason to them. Sophia had gotten spooked on several occasions when she was sure there was one particular pair of eyes in her audience with deeper, more observant, more sinister motives than watching pretty girls dance, jiggle and tease on a glitzy stage. There were other times when she felt as if she were being followed home, although she’d never seen a soul. Her life had been one great big ball of fear. Fear for her mother, fear for her job, fear for her safety. She’d called the police once, and they’d taken a report noting her complaint, but they said no crime had been committed and Sophia figured she was pretty much on her own.
Until Gordon Gregory had come to her rescue, her grey-haired knight in shining armor.
Gordon felt he owed the Montrose women a great debt for saving his granddaughter’s life. Months prior, Louisa had taken in a wayward girl who had run away from her parents’ home in Northern California. She’d shown up in the alley behind the motel Louisa managed, high on drugs and beaten pretty severely from a mugging. The girl had been a runaway for certain and might have died on the backstreets of Las Vegas if Louisa and Sophia hadn’t taken her in and nursed her back to health. The frightened girl threatened to run again if they called the police. They hadn’t. Instead they’d talked to her for three days straight and gained her trust, making her see that she had hit rock bottom. But she still had a chance to save herself, and once she agreed to go home and make a fresh start, they’d learned that the misguided teenager was Amanda Gregory, granddaughter to Gordon Gregory, a wealthy oil magnate who had a home in Las Vegas.
Gordon was so grateful to Louisa and Sophia for saving Amanda that he’d offered to give them anything they wanted. The sky was the limit.
“We shouldn’t be rewarded for doing the right thing,” her ailing mother had told him.
After that, Gordon had become a friend. And when things got bad and the two Montrose women had really needed help, Gordon had intervened with his offer to take Sophia away from the Follies and any danger she might have been in, marry her and give Louisa the best possible health care. The older gentleman had principles and old-fashioned notions about marriage, despite his four failed unions and the big age difference. He’d insisted there would be no strings attached initially if Sophia was in agreement. He’d offered her time to adjust to the marriage and a safe haven from all her worries. At the time, with skyrocketing medical bills, a would-be stalker and an ill mother on her hands, Sophia had had no choice. Basically, Gordon had been the answer to her prayers. Sophia had even managed to convince her mother that she’d be happy with Gordon, but in truth, she’d wanted to give her mother peace of mind that her daughter would be well cared for if anything happened to her.
The marriage was to be a quiet affair. But the details of her marriage had been leaked to the tabloids, which naturally resulted in splashy front-page headlines. Sophia was not painted in a good light—the twentysomething gold-digging showgirl married to the aging oil magnate. At the time, Sophia had been out of options and her mother’s health had been foremost in her mind.
Sophia wasn’t always proud of her decisions. There were times when deep remorse set in. Her choices may not have always been wise, but she’d done what she’d had to do, out of necessity.
She would not go back to living in fear.
Slowly, methodically Sophia squeezed the note in her palm, her fingers digging in until the paper curled into an abstract form. She watched the words crumple away as she tightened her fist and then gave a final squeeze. The wrinkled lump in her hand couldn’t hurt her anymore. It couldn’t cause her any anguish now.
She would have to forget about this and hope it was a fluke. A mere coincidence. After all, it had been the other sentence absent from this note that had changed a compliment into a threat. Today’s note didn’t say “You will be mine one day.”
Sophia clung to that notion.
Still shaken, she rose from the sofa and moved to the kitchen, where she pressed her toe to the foot pedal of the stainless-steel garbage can. The note belonged in the past. She wouldn’t allow it to terrify her. She wouldn’t give it credence. Not here, not now. She was trying to rebuild her life on Sunset Ranch. With one forceful toss, the note was history. The lid of the garbage can slammed shut, and Sophia put the ordeal out of her mind. She grabbed her purse, slung it over her shoulder and walked out of the cottage on legs that moved solely by steely, stubborn conviction.
She would not allow that note to destroy her day.
Ten minutes later she couldn’t say the same thing about Logan Slade.
* * *
“You’re late, Sophia. What part of eight sharp don’t you understand?”
Sophia winced at Logan’s demeaning tone. He was lecturing her as if she were a student in his classroom, sounding uncannily like Mr. Anderson in ninth-grade history.
Tardiness will only get you detention for the day. You make me wait, and I make you wait.
“You’re right,” she said, taking a seat to face him from across his office desk. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” Sophia set her shoulder bag down on the seat next to her and opened up her valise, drawing out a clipboard.
Logan’s angry tone ebbed. “You look pale. Didn’t you sleep last night?”
Sophia straightened in her seat. The darn note had rattled her more than she’d have thought. On the short drive to Logan’s house, she’d been reliving the past—thinking of her mother, her life and her bad choices. Her nerves were almost shot and she had to put on a good front for Logan not to see her distress. For all her bravado, Sophia felt things stronger than she let on and it manifested in a trembling body and a distracted mind. “I slept wonderfully, thank you.”
“
Sorry
and
thank you,
all in the thirty seconds since you’ve been here, Sophia?”
Her chin went up. “Would you rather that I tell you how rude you were to me when I walked in?”
Logan grinned as if he’d coaxed the response he’d wanted from her. “I expect promptness.”
“In a perfect world, maybe you should.”
“What’s not so perfect about your world?”
Sophia gazed down at the floor. She wouldn’t answer Logan’s question, but she was tempted to. She would love to tell him the truth about her imperfect life, and make him see that she was not the sordid, calculating woman he thought her to be. Not that he’d believe her. His mind was made up. “We don’t have enough time in the day.”
“Good point,” he said, studying her for a moment before glancing at his watch. “Let’s get down to business. I have another meeting in an hour.”
Glad the focus was off her, Sophia discussed her ideas about the surprise party, how she thought they could pull it off without Ruth knowing and her plans for the menu and decorations. Uncharacteristically, Logan agreed with her about everything. She was pleased that he chose not to argue the details. When it came to throwing a party, Logan didn’t have a clue. He was smart enough to defer to her. Yet she had a hard time focusing one hundred percent of her attention on the task at hand when her thoughts today were on the past.
She missed her mother. She still couldn’t believe she was gone. Oftentimes, she’d wanted to pick up the phone to call her.
Hey, Mama, I finally got your chili recipe right.
Hey, Mama, the daisies are in full bloom outside your bedroom window.
Hey, Mama, I just wanted to say good morning.
The loss was so keen that it always took Sophia a few seconds to realize that she would never be able to call her mother again.
“Sophia?” Logan’s voice broke through her thoughts.
She snapped her head up. “Oh, uh... Yes?”
His brows gathered as he aimed a pointed question at her. “Something’s up with you today. What’s going on?”
Sophia stared into Logan’s deep, dark eyes. For half a second, she wanted to confide in him about the mysterious note and how it had stirred bad memories for her. “I, uh—”
His gaze drifted down to her hand holding the pen. She’d forgotten to bring her laptop, something Logan had probably noticed but hadn’t mentioned. She took notes the old-fashioned way today, and her hand trembled as she jotted things down.
“Nothing. I missed breakfast. I guess I’m a little shaky.” That was the truth. She hadn’t eaten this morning and it was a good enough reason to give him.
Although he gave her a nod of understanding, the entire time they spoke, she felt Logan’s gaze penetrating her, watching and waiting for a hint to indicate why she was acting so out of character. He was, by nature, suspicious of her. And no amount of explanation would convince him to be otherwise.
Once the plans were set for the party, they moved the discussion to her progress with the lodge. Sophia forced herself to concentrate on details for the next fifteen minutes, and they concluded their business within the hour.