Free Delly's Last Night (Go Get 'Em Women) by Tracy Cooper-Posey Page A

and let herself roll across the wide expanse of gleaming floorboards. As she slowed, she sprang to her feet and leapt for the sliding door she had opened earlier for just this sort of an emergency.
      She didn’t look to see who had walked in the room. Her face was covered, but the instinct was ingrained after so many years. She kept her face averted.
    She didn’t slow down, either. Whoever it was that had just walked into the room—and the chances were good it was Neal Cadogan—they would have to run around the huge bed in the centre of it if they wanted to catch her. No one was as fast as she was when she was hopped up on panicky adrenaline. No one.
    But as her fingers grasped the cool metal frame of the sliding door, she was sent flying forward through the air by a rugby tackle. Two big arms wrapped around her waist and hung on as they both slithered across the wooden flooring of the deck. She protected her head and face with her arms. There were metal chairs and a metal and glass table out there somewhere. She had been going to use the table to vault over the sides of the deck on her way down to the ground. If she was smart, she could still do it.
    She twisted around in the grip, and brought her left elbow down sharp and hard, intending to slam it into the man’s temple. She knew it was a man. He was too quick on his feet for a heavy woman, and he was strong . But the blow to the temple didn’t connect. He rolled quickly onto his back, bringing her with him, and her elbow smashed into the wooden flooring by his ear instead.
    She cried out, as her entire left arm went instantly numb, and tears spurted in her eyes.
    “You are a woman,” he said.
    He rolled again, so that he was over her. For a moment his weight pinned her hard to the floor, then it shifted and was gone. The arms around her waist picked her up. For a moment she was a limp rag doll, hanging over his arms.
    Quickly, she found her feet, used her good right hand to grip the big wrists at her middle for leverage and threw her head backwards. With luck, she’d break his nose and he’d be too worried about the pain to keep hold of her....
    But he must have felt it coming. Something tipped him off. He shifted and the back of her head connected with nothing but fresh air. She staggered backwards, for he was no longer behind her.
    Momentarily, she was free but before she could react, an iron-hard hand grabbed her forearm and she was jerked forward. Toward the bedroom.
    She struggled despite recognizing that no strength she could muster would break the grip on her arm. Struggling was better than meekly allowing him to lead her back into the room. Not struggling would indicate submission. Submission meant defeat. And she had no intention of being defeated. Not in this house. Not on this night of all nights. She had an appointment with Cassandra at eight a.m. and come hell or high-water, she would be there.
    He had her numb left arm in his grip. When they reached the side of the big, satin covered bed, he lifted it. She had no strength in the arm at all and the movement made her elbow flare with a shooting, silvery stab of pain that swamped her thoughts. She heard the metallic click through the throbbing in her head and looked up at her wrist. She was handcuffed to the tall bedpost, her arm up at the same level as her head.
    The man stepped back, studying her, his hands on his hips and a small smile touching his mouth.
    Neal Cadogan.
    She clenched her teeth together, to make herself stay silent, and tugged experimentally at the handcuffs. There was a little give in them and she studied them carefully. Was there enough give? Could she turn her wrist, slipping them around, twisting the chain between the cuffs to the point where the links would be forced open?
    “Good point,” he said softly. “We don’t want you turning them until the links give way, do we?” He strode to the bedside cabinet and delved in the drawer. Delly bit back her reaction—a mix of