Troublemaker by Linda Howard Page A

way. It had to be a case of mistaken identity, but how many Isabeau Marans could there be? There was only one in Hamrickville, West Virginia, that was for certain.
    She opened the card. Glued to the interior was a small photograph of someone she definitely recognized, because a shit turd was always recognizable as what he was even though it had been years since she’d seen him and with luck it would be many more, as in the-rest-of-her-life more.
    Underneath the photo was written, “Hope you enjoy the present I sent. Take good care of it.” There was no signature, but she didn’t need one.
    â€œYou didn’t send me a present, you asshole!” she snarled at the photo. Even if he had, she’d have burned it.
    As soon as she had that thought, a small yellowish flame flashed across the card. She yelped and dropped it; the whole thing turned black and dissipated into thin ash before she could even stomp on it. She stomped anyway, just for good measure. Just thinking about her asshole former stepbrother could make her temper flash almost like whateverchemical he’d used to treat the card. If that thing had dropped into her lap she could have been incinerated too—not that he’d have cared. He’d always thought crap like this was funny.
    She didn’t know why she’d been so abandoned by good fortune that he’d get in contact with her now, after all these years—if a flash-burning card could be called “contact”—but he’d succeeded in putting her in a foul mood. She was so angry she stomped the ashes another couple of times.
    Breathing hard, she looked down at the ashes. If she could have gotten her hands on him, she’d have tried to strangle him. He’d always had that effect on her. She’d had the same effect on him. It had been mutual hate at first sight when her mother had married his father, but thank God the union hadn’t lasted very long. If it had, she had no doubt that either she or Axel would now be in prison for murder. Well, that was the past, even if the jerk had for some ungodly reason thought sending her a booby-trapped birthday card was funny. How in hell had he known where she was, anyway? It wasn’t as if they’d kept in touch.
    She grabbed the remainder of the mail and slammed into the Jeep. Tricks immediately sensed the change in her and gave her a quick, sympathetic lick on the hand as Bo refastened her seat belt. “Everything’s fine,” she said, rubbing behind Tricks’s left ear. And it was. The jerk’s lunatic card had made her mad, but it was just a card and she’d already indulged in a mini–temper tantrum. That was enough; he didn’t deserve the effort of more.
    After checking for traffic—none—she pulled across the road to her driveway, which cut through a stretch of woods, curving up and away from the road; the house was a half mile away, perched on the flat top of a small rise and hidden from view from the road. She had no close neighbors; the nearest house was a mile back down the road toward town. The isolation of her home wasn’t ideal, but she hadn’t had any other option so she dealt with it. At least she had plenty of room for Tricks to romp and play, and that wasn’t a small thing.
    It was a pleasant drive; she’d become accustomed to it and even enjoyed a sense of homecoming now. For a few years she’d resented havingto live here, resented the havoc the housing crash had caused in her life and her plans, but after a while she’d become more philosophical about it. She had her own share of blame in the state of affairs, after all. If she’d taken others’ advice, she wouldn’t have been landed in the predicament of sinking all her funds in a house and then having the buyer walk away, leaving her broke with a house she didn’t want and couldn’t sell.
    That house she hadn’t wanted was now home. She was comfortable