None of it had worked.
All those romance novels had certainly led her astray there.
She sighed and leaned forward in the armchair to ease the curtain aside again.
The truck was still there. If he was going to leave his condo, he’d do it now that the sun had gone down. He rarely left the condo during the day anymore.
She worried at her bottom lip again. There was something very wrong with him, and everything inside of her, every cell, every fiber, every atom of her existence yearned to go to him, to help him. But he’d made it very clear he wouldn’t welcome her intervention. With a grimace, she let go of the drape again and settled back.
Before she had a chance to do something stupid, like tiptoe down the stairs and press her ear to his front door, her phone rang.
She knew who the caller was before she even looked at where it buzzed against the top of her suitcase.
She’d only given the new number to Giulia—after telling her she’d lost the old one. She certainly wasn’t going to fess up and admit that she’d dumped the phone after warning Jacob.
Of course, Giulia could have given it to one of their sisters. Either way, the call had to be coming from the compound. No one else had the number, not even Jacob. The phone was still buzzing when she reached the double bed with its frilly comforter and picked it up.
She pressed talk. “Hello?”
“For God’s sake, Amanda.”
Mandy’s belly tightened as Giulia’s strident voice hit her ear.
“What have you done, Mandy? What have you done?”
“What…what do you mean?” Mandy stammered, feeling like she was ten again. Giulia had always been more mother than sister.
“I mean you need to come home. Right now!” Giulia snapped.
Mandy could hear the terror beneath the pissed tone, and her belly hardened into a cold, icy knot.
Giulia was scared. Which meant Mandy needed to be scared too.
“Why?” the question was a hoarse whisper.
“Because someone is looking for you,” Giulia said. “You aren’t safe. Please come home.”
CHAPTER 3
Squish slept for twelve hours and awoke with an Imitrex hangover. He’d discovered early in his recovery, that often the side effects from taking that damn pill were worse than the pain from the headache itself.
There was nothing like losing an entire day to the sluggish, muddled aftermath of the drug. So, he’d taken to trying other remedies first. But when the spikes started drilling through his eyes and into his brain, or when his gut started twisting, threatening to vacate his body, well hell, the time for home remedies had passed.
Like last night.
Now he was paying for circumventing the migraine. His head felt stuffed with cotton balls, his gut sour, and his muscles spent, as if his ass had just hit the evac bird after weeks of slogging through one Peruvian swamp after another.
Not that his current headspace mattered much. He was grounded. No place to go. No one he wanted to see. He’d taken a hard break from his too concerned team brothers. Seemed like they were constantly underfoot, which was all hunky-dory when you were in peak mental condition—but not so great when your brains had been good and scrambled and some of your memories had taken a hike.
Fuck, he was tired of concern, and pity, and goddamn lectures about taking it easy or living one day at a time. He couldn’t even hit the gym until the doc released him, which wouldn’t happen until he got these damn migraines under control.
With nothing else to do, he spent the day in the recliner, channel surfing and scowling at the phone while he waited for Tex to call.
After three weeks of lazing around, waiting for his brain to heal, the frustration was at a high boil. He was also bored, like, out of his damaged mind. So damned bored he was considering taking up knitting or painting for neurological therapy like his doc kept recommending.
By late afternoon, the cotton wool in his head had burned down to a light fog and his stomach quit twitching.
He straightened in his recliner and muted the television when a multitude of pings hit his cell. As he picked the phone up, Tex’s name lit up the screen.
“Hey,” Squish answered, hoping Tex was calling with good news—like, he’d found Mandy. “What did you find?”
“I tracked the burner phone she used to call you to its point and time of purchase,” Tex said. “The store manager sent me a couple of pictures pulled from their security cameras at the time the phone was purch—” His voice was cut off by a blaring horn. He continued after another long, strident honk. “Sorry. I’m on my way to pick up Hope from school and some asshole is in a hurry. Anyway, I sent you a batch of pictures of the woman who bought the phone. Let me know if she’s your Mandy.”
“She’s not my Mandy,” Squish grumbled as he accessed the texts. She wasn’t his. Never had been. Never would be.
“She’s not the gal who lived next door to you?” Tex sounded surprised.
“That’s not what I—” He forgot what he’d been about to say as the first grainy black and white photo downloaded on his phone.
A dagger pierced his throat. He choked as he inhaled.
She was facing away from the camera, but there was no mistaking that petite frame, with its sweet ass and voluptuous hips. Nor was there any mistaking that long, shiny ponytail anchored high atop her head with a scrunchie.
He coughed to clear his throat. “That’s her.”
He recognized that damn ponytail…intimately. He’d awoken so many times, sweaty and achingly hard, still locked in the erotic dream of that ponytail whipping wildly about her head as he’d hammered into her from behind.
In the next clip she was facing the camera, unsmiling, her face tense, sunglasses perched on top of her head. Her tits pressed against her t-shirt, with its sprawling field of flowers. He’d bet his trident that shirt was purple—the scrunchie too. He’d never met anyone so enamored with the color purple and flower petals.
He scanned the solemn face. The picture was black and white, but he knew her eyes were brown. Deep brown. Beautiful brown. Too-damn-trusting brown. The big, soft eyes of a doe just before the bullet struck. Too innocent for the likes of him.
“You sure?” Tex asked.
“Yeah.” He held his breath a second to steady his voice before letting it out slowly. “That’s her. I’m sure.”
The hard press of his dick against his shorts confirmed the identification.
He rolled his eyes in pure disbelief. He’d gotten hard because of a damn picture of her? A fucking photo? Christ, that hadn’t happened since adolescence, when a spread in his mom’s Cosmo magazine could get him horny.
And this crazy reaction wasn’t because of that damn brain injury either. He’d reacted to her with hound dog enthusiasm from day one.
It was insane how a woman who was not his type—like, not in the slightest—still managed to get him so hot and hard.
“She’s cute. Girl next door kinda cute,” Tex said. “But I can see why you weren’t interested. The porn star next door, now that’s more your style.”
Squish opened his mouth to disagree. The fact that his cock was trying to drill through his pants at the mere sight of her was evidence that Tex didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.