“You heard me. If you’d listened, this would never have happened.”
Willa was glad for the subtle insult; it served to get her mind back on business all the faster. “Nice try but no Oscar, Mr. Denton. I know this is your doing.”
“Are you nuts?”
“No. But you are if you think you’re going to get away with it.”
“Lady,” he ground out, his glare all but impaling her, “in case you haven’t noticed, this is a wheelchair.”
“Which proves nothing.”
For an instant he looked genuinely dumbfounded, but the rage quickly returned, stronger and more explosive than before. “Excuse me all to hell, but this thing doesn’t come with a certificate qualifying me to be in it. You’ll just have to take my word that when you crash-land a single-engine plane, flipping it twice, there’s a good reason to believe the doctors when they tell you you’re in this thing for the rest of your stinking life!”
No one had ever yelled at her before, at least not quite like this. Between her shock and the sickly feeling that came as he described his living nightmare, she reached for the last shreds of her patience. “With all due respect, Mr. Denton—”
“Let’s get something straight, Mrs. Whitney, you have no more respect for me than I have for you.”
Unfortunately, that was proving true, but the remark still stung. “Fine. Then let’s get down to the bottom line, shall we? I’m here and plan to stay, and I’d better not find anything like this in my mailbox again.” She snatched back the paper.
Sun-dried rawhide couldn’t have stretched any tighter than the muscles on his square-jawed face. “Did you see any mud trail from my house to yours? Any on the porch ramp?”
“No,” she admitted reluctantly. What’s more, it had stopped raining early in the evening.
“And there isn’t any mud on my tires now, is there? So what makes you all-fired certain I did that?”
He had to ask that? After yesterday? “There’s no one else,” she replied, struggling to keep from letting him spook her again.
“Really.” Once again his gaze swept over her, lingering on her breasts. “I think you’re forgetting one crucial point.”
She couldn’t understand how someone in his condition could turn a simple comment into such an insult. Barely able to stay put, Willa replied, “What?”
“Some nut case is out there stalking local women.”
Willa wouldn’t buy it. “I think you’d like me to believe this is connected with that. But I find it more than slightly suspicious that after living in Vilary for nearly six years, operating a successful shop in a busy mall and having my photograph in the local paper any number of times, it’s only when I move in next to you that this happens.”
“Maybe the stalker does know about you and your sexy lingerie business,” Zachary Denton countered with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Maybe he’s just been saving you for something special.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Willa felt certain someone or something was sucking the air out of the room. Had Zachary Denton triggered another of his ingenuous contraptions, or was he a true fan of hypnotism and testing his skills on her? Whatever the case, she had to open her mouth to get any air into her lungs.
“How do you know about what’s in my store?”
“Maybe I’m psychic.”
“You think mocking me is going to resolve anything?”
“Who says I’m mocking you? At any rate, when you storm into a man’s house, you take what you get.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he gestured for her to save her breath. “All right, you said it yourself, you’ve been in the paper…and as I told you before, when something happens around here that may affect me, I ask questions.”
“A reasonable explanation.”
“You mean this is the start of a beautiful friendship?”
“At least a civil coexistence if you’ll finally admit this.” Willa held up the note again. “Because I still think you did it.”
“Go away, Mrs. Whitney. Go home and lock your doors, because I may be a lot of things, including half-mad. But most of all, I’m no gentleman, and I’m damned tired of pretending for you.”
Hoping he couldn’t see her knees trembling, she nodded. “I’m going. But consider this my final warning. Anything more and I’m going straight to the police.”
His face turned a deep red, his eyes feverish. “If I were you, I’d put up some curtains on my windows first. You wouldn’t want our boys in blue jumping to the conclusion that lonely, young widows who prance around practically naked deserve what they get.”
Until this instant, she’d never wanted to commit physical violence before, and considering the size and build of the man, if she tried it, no doubt she would end up with a broken hand…or neck. But it might be worth it.
For pity’s sake, he’s turning you into a barbarian!
“To think my husband used to rave about your work,” she whispered, her throat raw from tears she’d choke on before spilling. “You’re worse than pitiful. You’re disgusting.”
“And you’re a tease!” A new, almost satanic gleam lit his eyes. The mouth that should have been tender, even passionate, twisted cruelly. “But you’d better be careful. Apparently you haven’t noticed a pattern with the stalker.”
The more he mentioned the dreaded situation, the more she was willing to believe he really knew something. Her tank top began to stick to her back, and she made herself ask, “What pattern?”
“All the women who’ve been followed have been blondes. They all had blue eyes.”
She almost reached up to touch her own hair. “The newspapers haven’t reported anything like that, nor has that been stated on TV.” She knew. This was the one bit of bad news she had been following. All three women had been returning to their homes late at night, and luckily had escaped serious injury. One faint when the stalker put his gloved hands around her neck. Another managed to knock him off-balance and run. And a neighbor out for an evening stroll saved the third from rape, or worse. But little else had been disclosed. “How do you know this?”
“I told you, I’m psychic.”
She didn’t know whether to believe him or not. “If you know anything, you have to tell the authorities.”
“No.”
She couldn’t believe his resolute rejection. He was worse than a barbarian. “You must! How can you even consider not telling them?”
“That’s my business. In any case, if the authorities haven’t already picked up on the pattern, they deserve to be fired.”
“Don’t those women deserve something? What are you waiting for? He might rape or kill the next one!” She had to be caught up in some incredible nightmare. Befuddled, Willa rubbed at her forehead and searched for some way to reach him. “If you could help someone, save someone, wouldn’t you want to do that?”
“I’ve tried, but the lady chooses not to hear me.”
He was referring to her—she understood that much—but was it a warning or threat? “I can’t not pass this on. You can play your mind games, but the police—Oh!”
She’d begun to turn around, intent on getting out of there,