been betrayed.”
“An ex-husband?”
“Fiancé. He was an impulsive decision. We met and moved in with each other within six months.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Five years. I had a really nice townhouse I left to be with him.” She sighed. “You don’t get to know anyone until you live with them, right?”
“My experience was different than that.”
Meaning he’d known his woman well. “Then you were married?”
“No.”
He’d had a lengthy relationship with the woman and something had split them up before marriage had a chance. Had the woman not felt the same as him?
“Did you meet yours in San Francisco?” Jasper asked.
Yours. Sadie would not think of her ex-fiancé in such kind light. He’d treated her like a piece of property. If anything, she’d been his whether she liked it or not. With her mind on that, she didn’t have to sweat too much when she said, “Yes.”
“What made you move somewhere so remote?”
She shouldn’t have opened the conversation to this. “I’ve always loved the mountains.” A partial truth.
“But you belong to social clubs and drive a flashy car.”
Hearing his skepticism in the well-planted question—ever the detective—Sadie tried to counter. “You think it’s odd I like mountains? Can’t I be social and live reclusively? I happen to enjoy my alone time as much as I do my friends. The car is an investment and I don’t drive it very much.”
“San Francisco fits a social, material-loving kind of woman more than all this does.” His eyes went from her face down over her front and back up. “Flannel doesn’t really match your tastes.”
“You know my tastes?” Now he was being cocky.
He grinned and didn’t answer.
Playfully cocky? She resisted how the discovery appealed to her baser instincts.
He’d interpreted her tastes with little or no provided information. The Ferrari gave her away. Maybe she should park it in the garage and start driving the Jeep instead.
“I do love San Francisco.” She didn’t have to hide the truth in that statement.
“What did your ex-fiancé do?” he asked, more digging.
He asked as a detective rather than an interested suitor. She had a quiet debate with herself over whether to answer. She toyed with the temptation her infatuation presented. But temptation might prevent her from making smart choices.
“He manufactured parts for spacecraft.” At least that wasn’t a lie. Talking about Darien depressed her. Mostly because she felt so stupid and insignificant for being so easily duped. A girl was supposed to feel important with her man. Special. Like Jasper’s lady must have felt.
“How did you meet?”
“He tripped me as I came out of a restaurant.” She’d scraped her palm on the concrete and he’d retrieved an alcohol wipe and bandage from inside the store. “He didn’t catch me like I starred in my very own fairy tale, either. I should have seen that as divine intervention, a sign to stay away from him.”
“How did he betray you?”
He sure was quick with his questions, like he had them all planned ahead of time and had only to wait for her next answer.
She decided to echo his words. “The usual.”
Feeling him linger on her profile, she sensed he hadn’t missed her response and maybe suspected her betrayal may not have been all that usual. Maybe his broken heart hadn’t, either.
The faint sound of breaking glass from a distance preceded Sadie’s notice that one of the perimeter lights went out.
“What was that?”
“Someone shot out the light.” As Jasper started to turn, the next light went dark along with more shattering glass.
Taking Sadie’s hand, he rushed with her back into the house, where they ran into one of the security guards.
“Take her to her room!” Jasper said.
“Roger.” The man took Sadie’s other hand and Jasper let her go, seeing her look back at him as though she considered going with him. He was glad when she faced the other way and went with the guard. He’d fight to keep the attackers from getting into the house.
* * *
Jasper ran to the gatehouse where he’d seen an equipment room. On his way, he spotted Dwight running from another direction, intersecting his path and running beside him.
“You heard it, too?” Dwight asked.
“Saw it. Sadie and I were up on the turret patio.” They reached the gatehouse, where the guard inside was on the radio talking to the guards in the mechanical room where all the surveillance cameras fed into.
“Dwight’s here now.” He dropped the radio and saw Jasper and Dwight enter and go into the equipment room.
Dwight tossed Jasper a body armor vest.
“Mechanical counted at least five on the video,” the gatehouse guard said. “The silent alarm tripped with the first shot at the perimeter light.”
Five? Jasper ignored what that implied and secured his vest. “Who’s inside?” He’d left Sadie locked in her room.
“Jacobs and McKenzie.” Dwight finished securing his vest. “They’re with Sadie now. Two more are in the mechanical room.”
“Where did they last see the intruders before they took out the cameras?” Jasper asked the gatehouse guard.
“Shooting out the northwest corner light. All the lights are out on the northwest side.”
“They’ll go after the cameras next.” Jasper handed Dwight a radio and connected his before going to the gun rack. “They’re going to try to get inside.”
Two other guards joined them. Jasper put on a helmet and Dwight handed him a night vision device. He strapped that to his head.
After checking his automatic rifle and pistols already in his waist and thigh harnesses, Jasper went to the video monitors and searched with the gatehouse guard for movement outside the gate. There was none.
“Have they breeched the wall?” Jasper asked.
“Mechanical said no, not yet. But they disabled the sensors so we won’t know where they’ll try.”
From his surveillance on the turret patio, the trees would hide them from sight, so they’d likely make the attempt somewhere along the fence in that location. He pointed to a section of fence where the trees were the thickest. “They’ll try right there.”
“How do you know?” Dwight asked.
“It’s what I would do.” He turned to Dwight and the other two guards. “You two go around the northwest side. Dwight, you come with me.”
Dwight turned to the gatehouse guard. “Stay here and wait for police. You’re the gate defense until then.”
The guard’s head bent with one determined nod.
Jasper ran from the gatehouse and Dwight ran beside him.
“If I wasn’t going to suggest the same, I would have given the orders,” Dwight said.
“This is no time for a contest of egos.” Ignoring the other man’s pinching mouth, Jasper ran toward the northwest fence and cluster of trees with an attractive walking or biking path meandering beneath the canopy. He stayed close to the stone wall and out of sight