Free Dangerous Lover by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page A

want to know exactly what it is I believe, take a look at this book. It’ll answer a lot of your questions. I’ll call. Don’t worry. Love, Selene.
    Vidalia’s hand was shaking as she folded the note and glanced at the book on the table. The Truth About Wicca.
    â€œNonsense.”
    A thump from upstairs made her look up sharply, and then she frowned. If Selene had left, then who was in her room?
    She glanced at the hook near the door, where Selene’s jacket had been hanging. It was gone.
    Her brows drew together as she noticed the marks on the door, and the fact that it wasn’t closed tightly.
    Swallowing hard, she turned, opened a drawer, and took out the metal mallet she used to tenderize beef. Then she moved toward the phone, picked it up and hit the preprogrammed number 1. Maya’s number. She and Caleb were closest, after all.
    Maya picked up and answered with a sleepy “Hello?”
    â€œSomeone is in the house.”
    â€œHuh?” Then, with alarm in her tone, “Mom? Caleb, wake up, it’s mom.”
    â€œSend Caleb down. And call the police. Lock your doors and hold your babies, honey.”
    She hung up before Maya could reply, then she turned, and started for the stairway. She supposed a wiser woman would just slip outside, or hide in a closet until the intruder left. And she was wise, most of the time. Right now, though, righteous indignation was taking wisdom’s place. Some intruder was in her house. Her home. No one messed with Vidalia Brand, and the son of a gun upstairs was going to find that out in no uncertain terms.
    She started up the stairs and got halfway up them before a man appeared at the top, his face covered by a ski mask. She had only a moment to take him in. He wore gloves, but she glimpsed pale skin at one wrist, just below the cuff of his dark shirt sleeve. Dark clothes. Nothing remarkable. Large man, though it was tough to judge. She glanced at the wall behind him and made a mental note that his head was about level with the tiny tear in the wallpaper there.
    And then her time for observing was done, because he came barreling down the stairs, hitting her full force before she could bring her mallet down on his head as he so richly deserved. He hit her hard with both hands, and she flew off the stairs—literally flew. She landed with a huge impact, heard furniture breaking beneath her, thought God, not my coffee table. Then she heard footsteps racing through the house, the door slamming, a car squealing away.
    And what seemed like about a half a second later, Caleb was kneeling beside her. “For God’s sakes, Vidalia—What happened?”
    She lifted her head and speared her son-in-law with her eyes. “Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain in my house, young man.” And then she passed out.
    Â 
    â€œThis is it.”
    Cory—he was beginning to feel comfortable thinking about himself by that name—eyed the log cabin in the headlights’ glow. It was small, square, with dark-green shingles on its roof. The shutters that flanked the windows were green as well, each with a pine-tree-shaped cutout in its center. The driveway was barely one. More like a worn spot on the forest floor. A pair of massive antlers were mounted above the entry door.
    The woman beside him made a disgusted sound, and he glanced her way quickly. “Not up to your standards or something?” he asked. The place was exactly what he would have expected of a hunting cabin.
    She lifted her brows. “My standards? Wow, you have a lot to learn about me, you know that, Cory?”
    â€œYeah? Like what?”
    â€œLike that I’m as content in a pup tent as I would be in a five-star hotel. More content, actually. The cabin is fine. It’s the dead animal parts as a decorating theme I don’t like.” She nodded toward the antlers over the door.
    It took him a minute to shift his gaze there, because when she nodded