Page 120 of Homeport

“Mmm.” He studied her chart. “Why did it take you six days between the phone call and the flight? Your description doesn’t lead me to believe she’s a patient woman.”

“I was told—and had planned—to leave the following day, two at the most. I was delayed.”

“How?”

“I was mugged.”

“What?”

“This very large man in a mask came out of nowhere, put a knife to my throat.” Her hand fluttered there as if to see if the thin trickle of blood was indeed only a bad memory.

Ryan took her fingers to draw them away and look for himself, though he knew there was no mark. Still, he could imagine it. And his eyes went flat.

“What happened?”

“I was just coming back from a trip. Got out of the car in front of the house, and there he was. He took my briefcase, my purse. I thought he was going to rape me, and I wondered if I had a chance to fight him off, against that knife. I have a bit of a phobia about knives.”

When her fingers trembled lightly, he tightened his grip. “Did he cut you?”

“A little, just. . . just enough to scare me. Then he knocked me down, slashed my tires, and took off.”

“He knocked you down?”

She blinked at the cold steel in his voice, at the unbearable tenderness of his fingers as they stroked over her cheek. “Yes.”

He was blind with fury at the thought of someone holding a knife to her throat, terrorizing her. “How bad were you hurt?”

“Nothing, just bruises and scrapes.” Because her eyes began to sting, she lowered her gaze. She was afraid that the emotions flooding through her were showing—the wonder and bafflement of her feelings for him. No one but Andrew had ever looked at her with that kind of concern, that kind of care.

“It was nothing,” she said again, then stared helplessly as he tipped up her chin and touched his lips to each of her cheeks.

“Don’t be kind to me.” A tear spilled over before she could blink it away. “I don’t handle it well.”

“Learn.” He kissed her again, lightly, then brushed the tear away with his thumb. “Have you ever had trouble like that before around here?”

“No, never.” She managed one hitching breath, then a steadier one. “That’s why I was so shocked, I guess, so unprepared. It’s a very low-crime area. The fact is this was such an aberration it played on the local news for days.”

“They never caught him?”

“No. I couldn’t give them a very detailed description. He wore a mask, so I could only give them his build.”

“Give it to me.”

She didn’t want to recall the incident, but knew he would push her until she relented. “White male, six four or five, two-fifty, two-sixty, brown eyes. Muddy brown. Long arms, big hands, left-handed, wide shoulders, short neck. No distinguishing scars or marks—that I could see.”

“Seems like you gave them quite a bit, considering.”

“Not enough. He never spoke, not a word. That was another thing that frightened me. He went about everything so quickly, so silently. And he took my passport, driver’s license. All my ID. It took me several days, even pulling strings, to arrange for new ones.”

A pro, Ryan concluded. With an agenda.

“Andrew was furious,” she remembered with a ghost of a smile. “He walked around the house every night for a week with a golf club—a nine iron, I think—hoping the man would come back so he could beat him to a pulp.”

“I appreciate the sentiment.”

“That’s a man’s reaction. I’d have preferred to handle it myself. It was humiliating to know that I hadn’t fought back, I just froze.”

“Someone holds a knife to your throat, freezing is the intelligent choice.”

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