Jaxson's Song Read Online Free Page A

behind
her? She didn’t know. She couldn’t hear anything over the rush of
her own pulse, a steady thrum, thrum, whoosh that filled her ears
and blocked out all other sound. She felt like she was running in
slow motion—she wasn’t going to make it to her neighbor’s porch.
There was no way.
    Scream , she commanded herself,
sprinting up the wide set of steps and pounding on the front door,
hard and frantic, until the sides of her hands ached. She only
hoped her neighbor could hear the noise; each time her fists
connected with the solid wooden door, it felt slowed-down, muffled.
She didn’t dare turn around, expecting at any moment to be snatched
roughly from behind.
    Suddenly, above the blood
rushing through her veins, Kate heard movement on the other side of
the door. A loud thump, then a crash and a curse, could be heard
from within the house. In the next instant, the door opened a crack
and someone peered at her through the narrow opening. The faint
glow of a lamp illuminated the man’s face, and relief flooded
through Kate in a welcome tidal wave. Only then did she risk
throwing a glance over her shoulder. She didn’t see anyone, thank
God.
    “ Can I help you?” The man opened the door a little wider now,
glancing right and then left before his gaze settled onto Kate’s
face.
    “ Yes,” she gasped, gulping lungful after lungful of humid,
salty air. “Please help me, someone—” Kate’s gaze swung away from
her own yard and back to the man in front of her. She froze. He was
wearing makeup. And not just some black liner, either, but a
full-out, Tammy Faye deal. “—broke into my house,” she finished,
eyes wide and fixed to his face.
    “ Yeah?” he glowered at her. “Go call a cop.”
    “ But—” She recoiled when he turned on his high-heeled shoes,
stalked back into his house, and slammed the door in her
face.
     
    * * *
     
    He didn’t need this shit.
Jaxson leaned over to untie the ankle straps on his shoes, then
shoved them off, feeling a small measure of satisfaction when his
kick sent the strappy heels flying across the kitchen. They hit the
cabinet with a sharp thud, and he glowered. The woman’s outline was
faintly visible through the sheer peach curtain that covered the
heavy block glass window pane in the front door. She hadn’t
left.
    Jaxson was unaccustomed to
the surge of guilt that tightened his chest when he replayed the
way he’d just spoken to the woman, but he didn’t particularly
regret his sharp tongue. He was tired, his goddamn feet hurt from
walking around in those goddamn heels all night, and he’d had his
ass pinched by an eighty-five-year-old man tonight. A strange woman
interrupting him, and then gawking at his makeup job, when he’d
been this close to putting an end to this wretched day and calling it a
night, had been the last straw. It was added bullshit that he
didn’t need. Like it wasn’t bad enough he was here as the DA’s
bitch. Jax had enough problems of his own; the woman outside could
damn well take care of her own.
    But she was a woman, his
conscience whispered. It was a thready, tenuous sound that he
hadn’t heard in a very long time. He didn’t want to be hearing it
now. Jaxson sighed. The woman said she’d had a break-in. Who was
she? Where did she live? Was her intruder still out there, was that
someone watching her, maybe even now coming after her? He rested
his forehead on the linen-covered glass, cooling down for a second
before he grasped the doorknob, twisted, and faced the woman, grim
acceptance lacing his tone.
    “ Okay, get in the house,” he told her, feeling magnanimous all
of a sudden.
    “ Um…” She wrung her hands and shifted her insubstantial weight
from one foot to the other, alternating wide, fearful eyes between
the house to the left, and him.
    “ Is that your house?” he asked, forcing some softness into his
tone.
    She nodded. “There’s
someone over there.” She shivered and her terrified gaze settled on
Jaxson.
    “