Free Jeopardy by Fayrene Preston

begun to leave her with an eerie feeling, and she didn’t know why. Last night’s caller had said blond-haired man. Had her brain in some way short-circuited the phrase and come up with golden-haired boy? She didn’t even know why the dream was still on her mind. She had certainly never been bothered before by the contents of her dreams. It was silly when she stopped to think about it. Still . . .
    She shook off the sensation that something was wrong and had a large slice of the Chocolate Angelica for breakfast. Afterward, she froze the rest of the gateau, phoned her father to say goodbye, threw her luggage into the car, and headed north out of Boston.
    She had been driving less than an hour when she noticed the sleek, shiny black Corvette in her rearview mirror that was following her, had been following her, she realized now, almost from the first. Amarillo, of course.
    Her first impulse was to jam the accelerator to the floorboard and get away from him, but it was an impulse quickly squelched. The last thing she needed was another speeding ticket on her already tainted record. Besides, common sense told her she would never be able to out-drive or out-speed Amarillo’s car. So she set her speedometer at a safe four and a half miles over the speed limit and drove on.
    The signs and scenery whizzed by, and it soon became obvious to her that although she had managed to keep Amarillo out of her car, she couldn’t keep him out of her thoughts.
    In his words, they ignited whenever they were together. He kept asking her questions about their situation, wanting to know what she thought. But if he had an explanation or an opinion as to why or even as to what they should do about it, he was keeping it to himself.
    She might as well admit it to herself: she had relished each moment of their incredible lovemaking. Only in the aftermath had she found herself with unsettled emotions and unsatisfied questions. And the whole thing was making her crazy.
    As a young girl she had loved roller coasters. But as a twenty-seven-year-old woman Involved in some sort of crazy relationship with an infuriatingly enigmatic man, she had discovered she hated the roller coaster of emotions she was on.
    She had to get off. She had to stay away from the man who had put her on it.
    She glanced in the rearview mirror and grimaced. The black car still held its position a reasonable distance behind her, but there was something very predatory about it, with its hun-gry-for-speed lines and look. It wasn’t crowding her, but like a true predator, it kept pursuing.
    When she turned her car onto the long drive that wound up to SwanSea, she was relieved. Between her mental anguishing and the constant view of the black car in the mirror she was ready for the trip to be over.
    As always, her first sight of the great house touched a cord in her. It wasn’t the immensity of SwanSea that impressed her, nor the staggering wealth it represented. Rather, it was the “soul” of the house: the strength and indomitability she sensed woven through the stone, mortar, and wood of it. And most of all the sensation that this was a place she belonged. She never tired of her visits and always regretted their end.
    Through the windshield she saw the tall, silver-haired manager, Winston Lawrence, standing by the drive, waiting for her. She smiled and waved.
    “How do you do it, Mr. Lawrence?" she asked as soon as she had stopped the car and slid out. “You’re always here waiting for me when I arrive, yet usually I notify you only of the date of my arrival. How do you know the exact moment when I will be coming up the drive?”
    He smiled warmly. “You wouldn’t want me to give away all my secrets, would you? Otherwise I could be replaced.”
    She laughed, enjoying the sound of his crisp British accent. “No one could ever replace you. Not in a million years. In fact, the whole family would fight to the death any hotel or resort that tried to get you away from us.”
    His