Nothing.

“Hello?” I repeated.

More nothing.

I was about to take the phone from my ear when I heard a man ask, “This Tessa O’Hara?”

A shiver shot down my spine. I didn’t know why, it just did.

And it wasn’t pleasant.

“Uh…” I started.

“Tessa O’Hara who’s seein’ Brock Lucas?”

Ice filled my veins.

“Who’s this?” I asked.

“It is,” the voice whispered then I had a dead line.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

I put the phone in the receiver and moved to my cell, making quick work of calling Brock.

A ring then, “Babe.”

“I just got a creepy call.”

A small hesitation then, “What kind of creepy?”

“Creepy creepy. Creepy wrong creepy. It came in on my landline.”

“You listed?” he asked.

Heck no, I wasn’t listed. First, I was a single female. Second, my ex-husband was a whack job who raped me and eventually turned out to be a drug lord.

I didn’t give Brock this answer.

Instead, I answered, “No.”

“Fuck,” he muttered then, “What’d they say?”

I sucked in breath then told him, “He asked if I was Tessa O’Hara then he asked if I was seeing you. I didn’t answer either but I asked him who he was and he said, ‘it is,’ meaning he knew he got me and I was seeing you and then he hung up on me.”

“Doors locked?” Brock asked instantly and I felt another shiver.

“I don’t…” I paused. “I don’t know,” I told him, moving directly toward the backdoor.

“Check. Lock,” he ordered.

Backdoor secure, I headed toward the front saying a shaky, “Okay.” Then I asked, “Is this the kind of thing Olivia would do, you know, to play with me?”

“Never played this dirty but wouldn’t put it passed her,” he answered.

Freaking great.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he said softly.

“Okay,” I replied, locking the front door then I told him, “I’m all locked.”

“Good, baby, see you soon.”

“Okay.”

Then he ended the call, I moved back to the kitchen, my eyes going to the microwave to note the time. Then I tried to control the fear that was mixing with the anger should this be Olivia as I dealt with the final preparations for dinner.

Eight minutes had elapsed when it happened. I knew this because I had just checked the microwave for the fiftieth time.

And what happened was I heard gunshots, six of them, one after another sounding like they were right in front of my house.

I stared at the window a nanosecond before I crouched down behind the island as more gunfire sounded and it penetrated my frozen with terror mind that it sounded like return fire.

As the gunfight continued, I came to my senses, scuttled in a crouch to the landline phone, reached up, grabbed it, hit the on button then dialed 911.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“Gunshots outside my house,” I whispered.

“Where are you, ma’am?”

I started to give my address as I heard noise at my front door and I stopped, staring through my house at it, paralyzed with fear.

“Ma’am,” the operator called, “please confirm you’re safe and your address.”

“Someone’s –”

The door opened and Brock walked in, his overcoat on one side dusted with snow. He turned, slammed the door, locked it and prowled to me holding his gun in his hand.

I didn’t, as I usually did, admire him in his work clothes. Today, a nice, thick black turtleneck (one, incidentally, I bought him for Christmas and I say one because I bought him three), jeans that weren’t nearly as faded as his normal jeans, a great black belt that the sweater was tucked behind (and that was the only part of the sweater tucked, I didn’t know if he did it on purpose or what but for some reason I thought it looked awesome) and a handsome, tailored, black wool overcoat (which, also incidentally, Laura and Jill got together to buy him for Christmas and on him it was the bomb).

Although his work attire was only a nuance away from his non-work attire, when he got home, after greeting me, he never but never hesitated in taking it off, putting on faded jeans, no belt and, now that we were in the dead of winter, either a faded, long-sleeved tee or a thermal.

Now he prowled through the house toward me and I didn’t notice how hot he looked in his work clothes. I only noticed the dusting of snow on his overcoat and the gun in his hand.

How did he get that dusting of snow?

“Ma’am?” I heard the 911 operator call. “Are you with me?”

“That emergency?” Brock growled when he got to me, staring down at me still crouched by my kitchen counter.

I didn’t respond. He bent and pulled the phone out of my hand and put it to his ear.

“This is Detective Brock Lucas. I was just fired on and exchanged fire with an unidentified male…”

He kept talking but my mind blanked of everything but his words repeating in my head.

I was just fired on and exchanged fire…

I was just fired on and exchanged fire…

I was just fired on and exchanged fire…

I straightened as he continued to growl into the phone, his eyes on me but my thoughts were still elsewhere.

He had that snow on him because he threw himself to the ground to dodge bullets aimed at him in front of my house.

My man had thrown his beautiful body to the snow to dodge f**king bullets aimed at him in front of my f**king house.

And he had his gun in his hand because he’d had to return fire.

And I knew exactly who ordered that unidentified male to aim bullets at my man.

No.

Oh no.

I did not f**king think so.

Just like I lost it when Levi was at Brock’s house, I didn’t think.

I just moved.

And what I moved to do was snatch my keys off the counter and then I ran out of the house.

“Tess!” Brock shouted but I was gone.

Down the walk and in my car.

“Goddamn it! Tess!” I heard Brock shout from somewhere outside the car.

Car on, I didn’t even look and put the pedal to the floor.

I didn’t know how I got there and it was a miracle I made it without killing myself or anyone else. But I hit University then turned right then turned left on Yale then I drove like a demon through Donald Heller’s established, tidy neighborhood with its big houses on big lots, a path I had taken frequently for twelve years while dating and married to my shitheel of an ex but had not taken once in the last six and a half.