He gave her another kiss, one that made her toes curl, and stepped back while she got into the car.
"Don't forget to text me your address," he said.
"I won't."
Dylan backed out of the driveway and blew him a kiss before she drove off.
Now, she was home and only had forty minutes to get ready for work. She jogged up the steps to her duplex and unlocked the door. She dropped her keys on the table by the door and tossed her bag next to them. Before she took another step, she texted Clay her address and headed toward the bedroom.
She was reading Clay's reply when she walked into her room or she would have seen him immediately.
"You're finally home."
Dylan's head snapped up at the man's voice. She got an impression of a baseball hat and a pale face before she screamed. Backpedaling, she ran down the short hall toward the living room and made a beeline for the front door.
"Wait." A hand landed on her shoulder and Dylan screamed again.
Whirling around, she shoved him as hard as she could and called on her plants. The ivy snaked down from the framework she'd hung on the ceiling and wrapped around his neck and arms.
Dylan didn't wait around, she dashed to the front door, fumbled with the lock, and threw it open, still yelling for help. She could feel the man tearing at her plants and knew it wouldn't be long before he broke free.
"What's going on?" Sylvie, her neighbor, came out of the other side of the duplex. "Are you okay?"
Dylan nearly dove through her door and slammed it behind her, crowding Sylvie back into her living room. With shaking hands, she threw the locks.
"Call the police," she panted. "And do you have any weapons? Knives? Guns? Rocket launchers?"
Sylvie stared at her with wild eyes. "What? Dylan, what's wrong?"
"I just got home and there was a man in my bedroom!" she yelled. "Call the cops before he gets away."
Sylvie finally jumped into action and ran to get her cell phone. Dylan heard rapid steps descending the front porch and peeked out Sylvie's front window. She watched as the man in the blue cap looked in both directions before he hauled ass away from the duplex.
Dylan turned as her neighbor came back into the room, her phone to her ear. "Is he gone?" she asked.
Dylan nodded. "Yeah. He headed..." She had to stop and think. "East on Poplar."
Sylvie nodded and relayed the information to the dispatcher. "Yeah, he's gone." She paused. "I don't know. He didn't break into my house, he broke into my neighbor's place." Her icy blue eyes came to Dylan. "Yeah, she's here and she's not hurt. Do you want to talk to her?"
A few seconds later, Sylvie held the phone out to her and Dylan took it.
"Hello?" She hated that her voice was shaking so much, but she couldn't control it.
"Ma'am, do you need an ambulance?" a calm female voice asked her.
"No, no, I don't. He just grabbed my shoulder, that's it."
"Okay. And you said he's gone. Do you know if there's anyone else in the house?"
"No, I don't know. He did run away but I didn't see anyone else inside. They could have been in the other bedroom, but I don't know."
"All right. An officer should be pulling up any moment. You said he ran east on Poplar Avenue. What did he look like? And what was he wearing?"
Dylan forced herself to take a deep breath and gather her thoughts before she answered, "He was white, around six feet tall. He was wearing dark clothes. I'm sorry, I'm not sure of their exact color. And he had on a dark blue ball cap."
"What about his build? Was he slender or heavier?"
Dylan thought for a moment. "He was lean. Not skinny, but not huge."
