and immersed herself in her work.
A stack of invitations lay at the bottom of her in-basket. They were mostly from old family friends, wishing her well or inviting her to join them for the holidays. She appreciated the effort and would thank them, but she would decline each one.
The only thing lonelier than spending a family holiday by herself was spending it as an outsider in someone else’s home.
Besides, by staying here she endangered no one else. Jimmy had taught her the wisdom of that. After failing so miserably at Emmett Raines’s trial, she took comfort in knowing she could do that one small thing to protect others.
She’d failed to identify him once. But no one else would pay the price for her mistake again.
Casey pulled the next envelope from her correspondence file and slit it open. She’d saved this one for last because of the impersonal printing on the envelope. She recognized the look of a bulk mailing after years of assisting her mother with charity functions, and suspected it was an invitation to some sort of seasonal fund-raiser. She’d decline attending it, as well, but she could do so with a simple check instead of writing out a “kind of you to think of me but sorry” letter.
She pulled out the gold-embossed notecard, which read The First Cattlemen’s Bank Of Kansas City, and opened it to see how much money they wanted. A folded-up piece of plain white paper fell out. “A personal note?”
It wasn’t her bank, so she wondered who would take the time to write. Curious, Casey set the card aside and unfolded the paper.
She read the single line printed there.
“The house that Jack built will come tumbling down.”
CASEY THREW THE NOTE onto the desk, snatching her fingers away as though a rattlesnake had come to life in her hands. She shoved the blotter, sending an avalanche of books, papers and the telephone across the floor on the opposite side.
Gasping for a breath that refused to come, Casey scrambled out of her chair and hobbled around the desk, ripping at the Velcroed anchor patches on her brace. She pushed the cumbersome support unit off her leg and collapsed to her knees. Righting the phone, she picked up the receiver and speed-dialed Jimmy’s number.
“Commissioner Reed’s office.”
“Iris?” Thank God it was someone she knew.
“Cassandra? Is that you? How are you?”
Casey sat back against the desk and tucked her left leg into her chest, curling her arms around it and pressing the phone to her ear. She ignored the polite greeting from Jimmy’s assistant. “Is Jimmy still there? I need to speak with him right away.”
“He’s at a dinner meeting right now. I shouldn’t interrupt him unless there’s an emergency.”
“It is. I just got a message from…” Casey stopped and swallowed, forcing the panic out of her voice. “It says, ‘The house that Jack built…”’
“Casey? I’m back.” Mitch’s call from the kitchen pierced the fog of incoherent fear that prevented Casey from thinking clearly.
“‘The house that Jack built…”’ Her words trailed off altogether as she listened to them out loud herself. She sounded so juvenile, so silly for a twenty-eight-year-old woman.
“That’s a nursery rhyme, isn’t it?” prompted Iris when the silence continued.
She heard the back door close and Mitch’s footsteps in the hallway.
Or so she thought.
A deeper wave of alarm swept through her, clouding her mind with memories. Mixing up the present with the past.
“Yes,” she answered automatically, dismissing Iris and bringing her focus back to the house. Back to the library.
Back to the footsteps closing in on her.
Casey hung up and scanned the room for something with which to defend herself. But there was nothing close at hand, and she wasn’t in a position to move quickly. So she simply leaned back and braced herself.
She’d be smarter this time.
She’d have to be smarter.
“You okay?”
The dark-haired gladiator appeared in the doorway. He halted there, taking in the scattered mess and her sitting in the middle of it. An invisible suit of armor slipped over his shoulders and he stepped inside, cutting the breathing space between them and blocking her only avenue of escape. “I told you not to answer the…”
Her strangled gasp echoed in the room. She flattened her back against the desk. The man who looked like Mitch froze midstride, towering above her.
“Casey?” Her name crackled in the air.
She looked hard into his eyes, seeking something familiar, fighting through the fog of panic that threatened to shut down her ability to think.
The tension in the room vibrated through Casey. Her breath deepened in short, punctuated gasps. A golden light flared in his eyes, a predator sensing danger.
But was she the prey? Or the protected mate?
She inched her way up the desk, carefully balancing herself so she wouldn’t crumple to the floor. She couldn’t tear her gaze from his. To look away would mean giving him an advantage she wouldn’t surrender. Better that he be distracted first. “Would you hand me my cane? It’s in the stand by the door there.”
He hesitated an instant, then turned away, his movements slow and controlled, as if he expected her to bolt. He held out her cane, keeping as much distance between them as possible. When she wrapped her fingers around the handle, he held on, connecting an electric current between them.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” His voice, low and commanding, skittered along her nerve endings.
Casey looked harder. She saw warmth in his eyes and something that comforted her more than any other emotion could have. Suspicion.
Emboldened by the inexplicable reassurance, she reached up and cupped the left side of his face. He jerked at the unexpected touch, then held himself still beneath her hand. She felt the rasp of beard stubble in her palm, the forceful jut of his jaw. She dragged her fingertips over his skin, then held them to her own face, identifying the spicy scent of him and noting the absence of any makeup.
“Mitch?” Her fear seeped out in one long breath. “It’s you. It’s really you.”
Without questioning her need to do it, Casey reached out with her left arm and slipped it around Mitch’s waist beneath his open coat. She didn’t care whether he responded out of duty or real concern; she only recognized a sense of profound relief when his sheltering arms folded around her and pulled her close.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
She shook her head at the gentle question. She grabbed a fistful of his jacket in her hand and burrowed even closer. Even the omnipresent bulk of the gun and holster beneath his arm reassured her. His hand spanned her back between her shoulder blades, rubbing light, consoling circles there.
“You have to talk to me, princess.”
“Not yet,” she murmured. “Just hold me so I know that it’s you.”
“I am holding you.”
Casey shook her head.
“More,” she begged on the barest breath of a whisper.
His arms tightened imperceptibly, and she felt his chin settle against the crown of her hair. His chest filled with a sigh beneath her cheek, and she allowed herself to relax along with him. She had never doubted Mitch’s strength and determination. Now, surrounded by his warmth and gentleness, she reveled in the full experience of being held and protected by this man.
For the first time in days, in years perhaps,