Bridal Reconnaissance Read Online Free PDF

scared.”
    And Evan was scared of her running.
     
    A MANDA AWOKE TO pounding. The raging headache that had plagued her since the stranger’s visit? And following his visit she’d had to deal with Christopher’s tantrum. He didn’t want to leave his house, his friends, his school… He’d eventually cried himself to sleep on his bedroom floor, where he’d thrown everything out of the boxes she’d packed.

    So after forcing herself to finish altering the wedding dress, she’d dropped to the couch for a minute. Just a minute to rest her eyes and will away the pain, so she could resume her frantic packing.
    But she opened her eyes to darkness. And her heart clenched with the usual encompassing fear of the dark.
    And the pounding continued, interspersed with the sick sound of her half-broken doorbell. Another visitor?
    “Who is it?” Her raspy whisper wouldn’t carry through the thick wood door, not like the pounding. She cleared her throat and stumbled closer. “Who is it?”
    “Evan Quade.”
    Her pulse skittered over the voice. The name meant nothing to her. “Who?”
    “Evan Quade. I was here earlier. We need to talk, Amanda.”
    She slid her fingers along the chain, making sure it was secure, then edged the door open a crack. Pitching her voice low to not awaken her son, she whispered, “I told you I don’t know you. I’ll call the police…”
    “Call the D.A., Peter Sullivan. He’ll tell you to talk to me.”
    Darkness enveloped him, but she made no move to turn on the porch light. Somehow darkness suited him. In the sliver of moonlight sneaking through the clouds, his dark hair gleamed and his dark eyes glittered.
    “I don’t…”
    A platinum phone flashed between his fingers, andhe pressed buttons. Then he passed the phone through the crack of the door.
    When their fingers brushed, she started, nearly dropping the cold metal. Despite the chill air, the warmth of his touch scalded her. “I—”
    “Amanda?” The voice emanated from the phone, so she lifted it to her ear. “Amanda, talk to him.”
    “Mr. Sullivan—Peter?” she asked, double-checking, always double-checking.
    “Yes, Amanda. I think you should talk to him.”
    “Can you guarantee my safety?”
    “Physically, yes. Emotionally…”
    Emotionally, how fragile was she? Except for her missing memory, she considered herself relatively sane. But Evan Quade looked like the kind of man who could make a woman crazy. She snapped the phone shut and passed it back to him.
    “Will you let me in or are we going to talk through the door?”
    His deep voice produced a greater shiver along her skin than the cold breeze slipping around him and through the cracked door.
    “I don’t have time—”
    “I’d thought you might already be gone. You were frantic to leave earlier.”
    She nodded. “I still am, but…”
    The dark. She wouldn’t be able to travel in the dark, not with frayed nerves, an aching head and the safety of her son her number one priority. She had a couple of days yet. A couple of days before the authorities released an animal.
    “Why?”

    “You talked to Mr. Sullivan…” She didn’t want to speak of the attack, she rarely ever did. But now…
    “He told me about the attack and that your assailant is getting out early.”
    She shivered again, this time from fear.
    “Let me inside. You’re getting cold talking through an open door.”
    Automatically she reached for the chain, as if she were used to obeying this man’s commands. Who was he? “I don’t think that I should.”
    “I won’t hurt you.”
    “ He might have said that, too. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
    A ragged breath slipped through the man’s lips. “Amanda…”
    “No, I don’t think you understand. I don’t remember anything. ” Frustration bounded back with the pounding against her skull. “You act like you know me. But I don’t know that’s true. I don’t know you. I don’t even know me. ”
    “Sullivan told me about the