Hey, you’re not interested, are you?”
“What?” Morgan’s heart skipped a handful of beats. “Me? No!” She scoffed. “Why would I want
a bully who gets off on making a woman feel inferior?”
“You sure?” Reggie sounded skeptical.
“Do I seem like the type to get into this sort of stuff?” she countered.
Reggie said nothing. Distress coiled through Morgan.
A rattling of the lock at the front door had Morgan’s head zooming in the other direction. She sighed with relief when her half-brother, Brandon, shouldered his way inside.
“Gotta go,” she told Reggie. “I’ll call you after I’ve talked to this guy tomorrow.”
“Hey, little sister,” Brandon greeted as she hung up.
Shoving the conversation with Reggie out of her mind, she rose and stepped up on tip toe to hug him. “Hi. Good day?”
His aristocratic mouth pursed into a frown. “Not exactly. I have to go to Iraq for the next three weeks.”
Surprise, and if Morgan was honest, trepidation punched her in the stomach. “Iraq? I thought you sat behind a desk most of the time.”
“Mostly, but there are exceptions.”
“Oh, wow… Why Iraq?”
“Classified.” He gave a bitter laugh. “You know the drill… I can’t say where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing. I won’t be near a phone or computer for most of the time. Morgan, I don’t want to leave you. It’s dangerous, and I know you’re afraid.”
She swallowed. Brandon had already done so much by taking her in, despite Daddy Dearest’s ire, protecting her from the scum who stalked her. She was afraid, but she couldn’t let Brandon feel guilty for doing his job.
“I’ll be fine.” She’d think of something—she had to. “I’m busy with work. It’ll be fine.”
“If anything happens, I think you should call Dad.”
Morgan gaped at him, holding in a sarcastic scoff. “He may be your dad. He’s my biological
father—the one who’s been denying I exist for the last twenty-five years.”
Brandon sighed. “Morgan, you know how it is with politics, especially in the south. If people knew he’d had a fling with a barely-legal volunteer while he had a wife and three little boys at home.
. .”
“I know it would ruin the senator from the great state of Texas.”
“They’re talking about a bid for the White House in 2012.” Sympathy and regret tangled on his attractive face.
“Exactly why I can’t call him. Not that he’d take my call, anyway.”
“He would if you were in danger. Dad can protect you.”
Morgan had her doubts but said nothing. “Too bad we can’t just tell him I’m your fiancée. It’s working with everyone else.”
“Hmm. If our actual relationship ever came to light, we’d have to admit to incest or lying. Not fun choices.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t think my sick stalker knows I’ve left L.A., so he has no idea where to find me.”
Nodding, Brandon started to sift through the day’s mail. When he came to a big manila envelope, he frowned. “Does anyone know you’re here in Houston?”
Other than Master J, whom she’d met online all of fifteen minutes ago, Reggie, and a few close friends back home? “No.”
Anxiety thundered across Brandon’s face. “Someone here knows you. This was in the mailbox.
No name, no postage. It was hand-delivered.”
He held out the package to her, and Morgan took it with dread boiling in her stomach. She knew that handwriting.
Dear God, how had he found her here? And so quickly?
No!
Hands shaking, breath short, she opened the envelope and extracted the contents. As she did, red rose petals with moist centers and dead edges fluttered downward, skittering across the blond hardwood floor. They looked faintly like fat drops of blood splattered all around her.
Morgan gasped. He knew she was here. How had he found her?
Then her gaze fell to the photos. Pictures of her, one arriving at LAX the day she’d fled to
Houston. The next of her in Brandon’s backyard wearing thin sweatpants and a tank top with nipples teased hard by a cool morning breeze. The last a photo of her in her sage silk-and-lace shift with matching robe, kissing Brandon’s cheek as they stood in the driveway before he left for work. Just this morning.
Fear biting at her belly, Morgan didn’t protest when Brandon grabbed the photos from her numb fingers. He flipped through them with a snarled curse.
“These are from your stalker, aren’t they? He’s been here. Son of a bitch!” He raked a hand