Blame It on Texas by Christie Craig Page A

to say someone had given it a little effort. A stack of library books stood on the floor beside the bed.
    Tyler moved in to see her reading taste.
    He found a nonfiction book titled Jump-Start Your Brain; a romance novel with a shirtless hunk on the cover; a biography of Helen Keller, that he’d read; and another book on social psychology, that he’d read as well. The woman had eclectic taste. He frowned. Zoe Adams wasn’tgoing to fit into his new class of datable women. As crazy as it seemed, he wondered if he’d instinctively known it and if that was why he’d found her so attractive. His same pattern—his romance mistake—shining through.
    He noticed a litter box in the corner. Funny, he hadn’t seen a cat. “Kitty? Kitty,” he said. No creature darted out from under the bed.
    His gaze shifted, and he found her waitress uniform, accompanied by some silky looking underwear, in a basket at the foot of the bed. So she’d come home and changed clothes. And then what?
    His mind created images he didn’t like, such as someone forcing her to go with them. But wouldn’t she have fought them, caused a sign of struggle? For some reason, she didn’t seem the type who’d go down easy. He stood there, trying to figure out what he planned to do next. And that’s when he heard it—footsteps. Someone was in the apartment.
    He had his gun out in a matter of seconds.
    Taking a deep breath, he moved toward the door, his gun held out and ready to shoot.
    Zoe walked into her place and realized she hadn’t even locked the door. She mentally gave herself a good scolding. Considering the reason she’d left in the first place was because of a threatening phone call, you’d think she’d have taken care to lock up.
    Then again, maybe she should take it easy on herself. This was all new for her. It was the first time she’d ever had someone threaten to kill her. Or was it?
    The vague memory whispered into her mind—the one she’d had forever and the one she contributed to her fearof small, dark places. A mental video played in her head, the one of her in a dark closet. Alone. And terrified.
    Her breath caught. It suddenly hit her that whoever was calling her could be the same person who put her in that closet—if it really happened.
    Okay, she was definitely going to lock the door from now on.
    Stopping only a few feet inside her apartment, Zoe looked around for Lucky, her official door greeter. He wasn’t there, running figure eights between her legs, begging to be picked up.
    Chills crawled up her spine, but she shook her head. She was overreacting. It was the middle of the day. Who in their right mind would break into an apartment? Right?
    Right, she answered herself. It was tonight she should be worried about.
    And she would be.
    Holding tight to the plate of leftovers her elderly neighbor had made her bring home, Zoe moved down the hall, thinking any minute the cat would come bolting out of the bedroom. She hadn’t wanted to be alone after the threatening phone call. So when Mrs. Hernandez knocked on her door and invited Zoe to her apartment to celebrate her granddaughter’s birthday, Zoe had slipped twenty dollars from her grocery money account into an envelope and ran out.
    And she’d actually had fun, too, though she’d spent most of her time trying to remember the Spanish she’d learned in high school. Everyone seemed to love hearing her try her best to speak, mangling their language. Zoe had loved being in the midst of company.
    With a heavy plate of the best Mexican food she’d evertasted, well worth the twenty she’d given as a gift, she got almost to the entrance of her bedroom when she heard it. Someone was in there. Before she saw the person, she saw the gun.
    She didn’t have time to think.
    Didn’t have time to run.
    So she did the only thing she could. With everything she had, she tossed the heavy ceramic plate loaded with Spanish rice and chicken enchiladas at the intruder and let out a