An Excerpt From... Why Me?

© Copyright Treva Harte, 2002

Chapter One

*Must warn Art about Lida.*

Cassie woke up with a start in the murky half-light of early morning, already groping for the telephone to make her call.

She almost knocked over the telephone before she finally found the thing. Her fingers were ready to punch in numbers when she stopped and gave a quick, embarrassed laugh.

"That must've been some dream." Cassie shook her head once, sharply. "Who are Art and Lida?"

The tiny furred body next to her hissed at Cassie's sudden movement, furious that the human dared to disturb her sleep. Cassie automatically petted the cat, who accepted Cassie's apology with a lazy feline stretch.

That was when Cassie realized her hands were shaking.

Cassie lay back down, but the sense of urgency wouldn't leave her. She couldn't go back to sleep when her dream refused to fade like normal ones did. She was sure that Art would be in trouble, terrible trouble, if she didn't let him know.

Maybe she should just get up.

Cassie looked at the alarm clock and almost snarled. Yeah, she ran her own business and could keep her own schedule. But that had never meant starting work by four-thirty in the morning. She was more the type to putter around the house and edge out to work around ten.

Still, there were a few folks on vacation who wouldn't mind if she cleaned their places ahead of schedule. Then maybe she could head for the beach early and enjoy herself. The pristine isolation of a not-quite-spring beach always made for a perfect weekend.

After long, painful years of forgetting to make time for play, Cassie had finally learned to reward herself for doing good work.

"Even if I don't go to work right away, I'm good and awake now," she mumbled to the cat as she got up. "Might as well get ready."

But things still didn't feel right to her. Damn that dream! Her stomach was in knots. She hadn't felt this bad since—no, she refused to feel that bad over any dream. She'd promised herself she'd never feel that bad again.

She turned on the television, mostly for its soothing background noise. She carefully spooned out her yogurt and blueberries even though she wasn't very hungry. That was what she normally ate for breakfast. Today wasn't going to be any different.

She started the coffee. Healthy food was fine, but she believed caffeine was the most important part of any meal.

Cassie got out her list of things to do for the day. Another thing she'd finally learned was to consult her list rather than her memory before starting work.

She leaned over and stared at the paper, tracing the names with her finger. The first house should be easy. Mr. W. Harmon lived alone and, as far as Cassie could tell, never stayed long at his own home. At least nothing was ever out of place. She cleaned for grandmothers who had more interesting things going on in their houses. That was too bad, since he was really good-looking. He was good-looking with a beautiful, pristine house and—

"Boring," Cassie said out loud.

Unless maybe he really lived with a girlfriend? Cassie felt a little interest stir at the thought. Yeah. A girlfriend who never came over to his place. That might be pleasant. God knows Cassie's ex-boyfriend still came over far too often.

No. Bad thought. She decided she didn't like the idea of that guy being attached. She needed to come up with a new reason.

"At a press conference held yesterday Senator Hornsby garnered still more support for his presidential bid..."

Cassie took a spoonful of the blueberry-yogurt mix and almost forgot to chew as she stared at the TV screen. The fear she'd been fighting swept over her again and she didn't know why. There was nothing in the scene to frighten anyone.

A serious-looking man and a smiling younger woman strode together down the sidewalk. Several other suited men, all talking among themselves, closely followed the first two. It was the sort of news story she usually tuned out and she decided she'd tune it out this morning, too. This was just an ordinary morning, after all.

Pandora wasn't interested in the news, either. However, the black cat eyed Cassie's breakfast with a definite gleam in her eyes. Making her move, Pandora leaped onto the table. Cassie glared. The cat glared back, then deliberately lost interest and jumped down. Cassie went back to the news and breakfast.

"...as Senator Hornsby arrived at his hometown yesterday. Hornsby appeared at his local party's fundraiser with several well-known politicians, including Representative Lida Chatham. Chatham, who recently dropped out of the presidential primaries herself, expressed support for Hornsby's presidential. . "

Cassie swallowed hard.

"Oh no."

The two politicians had no reason to look familiar. Other people might care about who was running for president, but Cassie didn't care about politics, not even national politics. Besides, he just couldn't be—but her inconvenient memory supplied Senator Hornsby's first name. Arthur. Art. Art-and-Lida.

Cassie went back to glaring at Pandora, as if this new information was somehow the cat's fault.

"What am I supposed to do about that?"

Cassie forced herself to relax. Nothing, of course. She must've remembered the names from a news report. That explained her silly dream.

She wished the feeling of worried urgency would go away completely with her rational answer, but it seemed that the nervousness lodged in her stomach was stronger than reason today.

* * *

He woke up aching. For a moment he just lay there, feeling aroused and confused. He moved his wrists, cautiously. They weren't tied after all.

She'd done things to him with her mouth that made him beg. Begging did no good, though. At the first plea, she'd drawn back, almost touching but not quite. When he felt her breath on his damp skin, deliberately blowing a puff of air over his too bloody hard, too damn sensitive cock, Wynn knew he was in trouble. He couldn't move because of his bonds, but he'd been ready to try and rip the restraints off the bed. The woman had been—she'd been—

She'd been a dream. No real woman could get a man that crazed. Not this man, anyhow. Could any woman be that enticing? That hot?

He snorted and sat up, ignoring his arousal. This wasn't the time to rediscover his teenaged wet dreams. He had adult problems. He bent down and picked up the envelope again.

Wynn Harmon would've looked out the window, but he knew whoever was spying on him would wonder why he was awake at four-thirty in the morning. As he sat on his bed, he absently stroked an old envelope. Now he was certain the paper was something more than just trash to him.

Wynn blinked once, his brooding suddenly interrupted. Something had connected in his brain, just like it had earlier. But now that something was gone. Even so, he tried again, reaching out for—for something. For a moment he thought he felt a click. Then nothing. The feeling was a little like a car battery that had been slowly fading and finally died.

Wynn stopped trying. He couldn't force this. Still, he was sure somehow he had been near someone recently and made contact with them. He'd known something was going to happen once he'd picked up the discarded envelope on the floor and felt a sudden alertness. He'd never gotten hard when he made the connection before, though. Wynn didn't know what that meant and didn't have the time to wonder right now. He needed to ignore his cock and think logically.

He'd connected previously through objects he and the other person had both touched—but he'd always known who the person was.

Who the bloody hell could it be? Damn, he needed to know now.

Wynn forced that urgency away, too. No. Things weren't quite that bad yet. No one would kill Art immediately. At least not unless they absolutely had to.

And Wynn was safe as long as his watchers thought they could control him. He'd let them control his actions. For now. That's what he'd done when he was a teenager, to lull his guards.

But they couldn't control this. Wynn stared thoughtfully at the envelope. Both the message and the envelope that held it should've been trash. Meaningless trash. He would've destroyed any mail that someone else might have found important.

Who would have handled his trash and why?

He shut his eyes to concentrate, moving impatiently past the strange sexual tension he felt when he touched the envelope. He'd been at home far too much in the last week and there hadn't been anyone else in the house. There rarely was.

One of the watchers could have slipped in, though his security system hadn't recorded anything suspicious. Of course they could work around even his system. There was the mail carrier. But neither of those explanations felt right. There was...there was his cleaning woman.

He felt just the way he did when the right pieces of a jigsaw finally fit together. For a minute he savored his triumph. That had been difficult but—

His cleaning woman? He was going to have to depend on rescue from his cleaning woman?