“Thanks,” she said into the silence.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
He nodded.
Come midnight, he once again insisted on going with her. She didn’t even bother resisting. She’d been dreading having to go back to the house alone in the middle of the night.
Cole said little. He was preoccupied. Annie was too. The whole time he was helping her, she lectured herself over and over.Don’t get used to this. Don’t get used to this.
The man in the window watched Annie return to Hope Hill in the middle of the night, once again with Cole. Anger built a fire in his gut.
Were they sleeping together? They had to be.
He’d seen that kiss at the pool, had been walking by and happened to look through the glass.
Rage fisted his hands now as it had then.
He didnotshare.
As Annie had not been smart enough to heed his previous warnings, he was going to have to be clearer.
He thought of her stupid pig. Then the one-eyed donkey. She could be changed into a blind donkey fairly easily.
Yet maiming or killing one of Annie’s animals no longer felt like enough punishment.
Whoring herself to Cole was a personal affront. The punishment too would have to be personal.
Annie would bear his retribution on her flesh. He had so many wonderful tools. His pride and joy. He’d made them all himself.
She wasn’t going to like his tools. His mother certainly didn’t. But how else was one to teach stubborn women?
Chapter Fifteen
Saturday
ANNIE PUT OUTmore hay for the llamas and the donkey the following morning, but her mind wasn’t on what her hands were doing. She’d stopped by the post office on her way over from Hope Hill and run into one of Joey’s uncles, a burly guy who reminded her of Big Jim. They all had that big-boned look in the family. Which made her think ... what if it’d been Big Jim in her house the other night?
Joey wouldn’t have sent his cousin to scare her, but this was just the kind of thing Big Jim would come up with on his own, if Joey had complained to him about Annie. Big Jim might have figured if he scared Annie good, she wouldn’t want to be in the house all by herself and she’d ask Joey to stay with her.
She dropped the last of the hay and reached into her pocket for her phone, but then she left it there. For one, she hadn’t spent enough time with Big Jim to recognize him by shape alone, and she’d caught only a few glimpses of the man in her dark kitchen. She just wasn’t sure.
And if she told Harper about her suspicions, he’d go and talk to Big Jim. And Big Jim wasn’t as nice as Joey. He’d come over to Annie’s and throw a fit.
Ifit’d been Big Jim trying to scare her the other night, then most likely, if she left things alone, he wouldn’t come by again. He didn’t have that kind of attention span.
Had he really had a gun? Shehadseen a glint of black metal. But she couldn’t imagine Big Jim trying to shoot her. What would be the point? What she’d seen was probably a flashlight. She’d been so scared, her brain must have jumped to the darkest conclusion.
Annie filled the bucket with water and filled the troughs, then stilled when the prickly sensation of being watched crept up her spine. She glanced toward the house. Right. She wasn’t alone.
Ed had sent the cleanup crew: two of his nephews. They were dragging a four-by-four out the back. They weren’t part of Ed’s regular crew. His regular crew was putting siding on half a dozen houses in the new development down the road, on Victoria Circle. They couldn’t take time off, not with all the rain from Rupert in the forecast. Hence the nephews. The boys didn’t have a ton of construction experience, but they had all the muscles of eighteen-year-old high school athletes, which was all the cleanup required.
And then David Durenne showed up again. The producer didn’t have to go into work at the TV station until noon, and his son, Tyler, was at a birthday party.
Annie was grateful for the help. Grateful enough to invite Kelly over for coffee, but Kelly was closing on a home for a client and couldn’t leave. So much for playing Cupid.
Annie finished her chores, then left the men to their work and drove back to Hope Hill, listening to the weather report on the way. Hurricane Rupert was sweeping through the Bahamas. It had spent most of its strength in Cuba, so it’d been downgraded to a category 1 hurricane.