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“I appreciate that,” she replied. “But I have kept Ray at arm’s length during the days, and I will continue to do so until I have answers.”

“Hopefully those answers will come very soon,” he replied. “In your heart of hearts, do you believe Ray is behind all this?”

A tiny frown danced across her forehead. “I just don’t know. The only thing I’ve ever done to Ray is turn him down when he asked me for a date. You wouldn’t think that would warrant what’s happened to me.”

“Maybe he’s obsessed with you. Maybe he feels like if he can’t have you, nobody will,” Seth observed.

Her frown deepened. “That’s a creepy thought.”

“There are creepy people out there, and if you watch the news, you’ll see that unrequited love can be a motive for murder,” he replied. “Isn’t something like that what drove that creep to set the bakery on fire?”

“Are you trying to make me feel better? Because if you are, it’s not working.”

He laughed. “Sorry about that.”

“I think on that note, I’m going to head to bed.”

“I’m ready to head that way, too.” He grabbed his gun off the end table next to him, and then together they headed down the hall.

When they got to her room, he caught a whiff of a strange scent. “Do you smell something odd?”

She paused a moment and then shook her head. “No. Why, do you?”

He sniffed the air. “I thought I did, but I’m not so sure now.” Maybe the odd scent was a note of her perfume he’d never noticed before.

“Good night, Seth,” she said.

He wanted to kiss her. His desire to take her into his arms and take her mouth with his beat in his heart and flowed through his veins.

“Good night, Suzanna,” he said as she stepped into her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

With a deep sigh, he headed into his own room. He definitely couldn’t kiss Suzanna anymore. He couldn’t wrap his arms around her and hold her sweet curves against him. He couldn’t do anything like that anymore because she was in love with him and he didn’t want to give her any false hope about a lasting relationship with him.

Then there was the fact that he was on edge about Suzanna’s safety. Each day that went by with nothing happening only made him more anxious. Something was coming. There was no doubt in his mind that another attempt on her life was in the near future. He just hoped when the danger came, he would be there to make sure Suzanna survived.

Chapter 12

It took Suzanna a long time to fall asleep, and when she did finally drift off, she fell into nightmares. In her dreams, a black-clad figure in a ski mask and holding a big knife chased her around inside the school.

Up and down the polished hallway floors she ran, terrified as the person got closer to her, and then suddenly, it was Ray chasing her around the teachers’ parking lot outside.

His face was twisted with a rage she’d never seen before, and the knife he held in his hand sliced at her with deadly intent. It was supposed to be me. You were supposed to date and fall in love with me. You slut…you bitch…it was supposed to be me.

He roared with his frightening anger as he got closer and closer to her. Then suddenly she and Seth were in a field, and a light snow was falling as he told her over and over again that he didn’t love her…that he didn’t want her in his life. His words sliced through her and made her heart hurt so badly her knees threatened to buckle.

She suddenly jerked awake, her body filled with a fight-or-flight adrenaline. She swiped the tears from her eyes and realized two things: her room was unusually hot and she smelled smoke.

She shot up in the bed and reached out and turned on her bedside lamp. A dense, dark smoke filled the room. Before she could fully process what was going on, flames appeared on the outer wall and under the window.

The fire crackled with hunger, eating everything in its path. She jumped out of bed, and at that moment the flames shot across the room and to her bedroom door.

She screamed. The wall with the window was now engulfed, making escape that way impossible. The blaze toward her doorway was less intense, and that was where she headed. She managed to get to the bedroom door. The minute she yanked it open, the fire blazed a path of destruction across the hallway.

It was an inferno that raced in a direct line between her room and Seth’s. She could see Seth standing on the other side of the crackling flames. He had managed to pull on a pair of jeans while she was still in her bright pink nightshirt, not that any of that mattered at the moment. He yelled something to her, but she couldn’t hear him above the crackling fire.

Her mind was filled with one single thought. Sammy. Oh, she had to get the little boy out as quickly as possible. She ran into Sammy’s room, where Lady paced a small circle around Sammy and whined as if she knew they were in trouble.

“Sammy.” She rushed to the side of his bed, coughing as the volume of smoke intensified. For a brief moment she wondered if he was dead. His lungs were so little. Had he already succumbed to smoke inhalation? Horrified by the possibility, she shook his shoulders with urgency.