At Any Cost (3 page)

Livy regarded him for a moment.
Bossy neighbor is bossy
. But his voice wasn't at all as threatening as her first impression had led her to believe. Instead, it was decadent and warm, like a bubble bath on a cold night. It eased the tension that caused her muscles to ache and filled her with a sense of calm. Holy shit. If he could bottle his voice, he'd make a fortune. It had been a long damned time since she'd felt comfortable in the presence of a stranger. Anyone, really. That didn't mean she was going to let her guard down, though. “Okay. Thanks.”

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and she was suddenly painfully aware that she was decked out in five layers of clothes and a slouchy hat that she had to keep pushing up on her forehead. If he was there to kill her, he'd have no problem catching her. She looked like that kid from
A Christmas Story
, and if she fell down, Livy was pretty sure she wasn't getting back up.

She knocked the snow from her boots on the partially exposed front tire before getting in the car. With her teeth, she pulled her gloves from her hands as her neighbor waded through the deepest part of the drift and rounded the car. Livy shifted into reverse and braced both hands against the wheel. He stepped into the glare of her headlights and brought his head up to look at her through the windshield.

Livy's breath left her lungs in a rush. There might as well have been a cape waving in the breeze behind him. Those chiseled features weren't simply a play of shadow. And the warmth of his voice was nothing compared to his deep brown eyes. The dark hair that brushed his brow curled just a bit at the ends. He smiled, showcasing a row of straight white teeth, and Livy thought her ovaries might explode right then and there.
Ka-boom!
It would totally be just her luck that her assassin would show up with killer good looks to match his profession.

“Straighten out the wheel. Then give it a little gas and let off. We'll see if we can rock you out.” Oh, he could rock her out all right. His rugged features had to be an illusion. Like a reverse mirage brought on by the predawn dark, cold, and snow. Livy's jaw went slack as she continued to stare. One brow arched curiously over his eye. “Ready?”

Huh? Ready for what? If it wouldn't have made her look insane, she'd have given herself a solid slap across the face. “Oh yeah. Right.” She hit the button on her armrest and lowered her window a crack. “I'm ready. Just say when.”

“Okay.” He braced his arms on the hood of the car. “Now.”

It took a moment for her brain to kick into gear. He was Atlas, and Livy knew that under the layers of clothes, there was a body that could easily shoulder the weight of the world. Why did it have to be the dead of winter when a hot guy rented the cabin next door? Mid-August would have been
soooo
much better. He paused and looked up, quirking a brow.
Shit!
Her boot slipped in her haste to hit the gas and the engine revved. “Sorry! I'm ready now.”

“Okay.” His eyes locked with hers and Livy's insides went molten. She put the car into reverse, hit the gas, and the car rocked backward. “Again.”

He gave the car a solid shove and she eased down her foot on the accelerator. The snow gave way under the car and moved a few feet back before rocking forward.

“One more and I think we've got it!”

He put all of his weight into the action and Livy stomped her foot down on the pedal. The car gained traction and backed out of the drift with little effort. Free of the deepest snow, she put the car in park and opened the door. “Thank you so much. I would have been screwed if you hadn't come out to help. I owe you. Big-time.”

“Big-time, huh?” Good Lord, that smile should've been illegal. “What do you have in mind?”

I owe you? Jesus, Livy, have you lost it completely?
She was trying to keep people away, not draw them closer. But as she took a second glance at her new neighbor, part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind. Just this once.

Chapter Three

Olivia stared at him, jaw slack. She couldn't have been older than twenty-six, which would have made her barely old enough to legally buy a drink when she'd been with Joel. Nick's stomach turned. What a fucking scumbag. He couldn't help but wonder how she'd wound up with him. Had her parents been in the life? Maybe she'd been a runaway and Joel had given her a place to stay. Nick refused to let his thoughts wander any further than that. There were too many unsavory scenarios to consider and the woman standing in front of him now seemed much too soft for the hard motorcycle-club life.

Maybe his intel had been wrong?

“I uh, well. That is . . . I guess I could . . .”

She was sort of adorable in an awkward way. An introvert with a potty mouth. Again, totally not what Nick had expected. “I'd settle for a coffee. I haven't had a chance to buy groceries yet.”

Olivia looked back at her house and then to Nick. Fear flickered over her features. She checked the driveway and the lane beyond as though trying to assess a viable escape route. Obviously on guard.

“I'm Nick, by the way.” Metcalf had said that Nick's attitude wasn't conducive to trust. And if he hoped to get any information out of her, he needed to gain Olivia's. His usual dog-with-a-bone attitude wasn't going to cut it with her. This was going to take some finesse. “Nick Brady.”

“Hi, Nick Brady.” Olivia stretched her arm out, hesitating as she looked at their gloved hands. “I'm Livy.”

Instead of trying to shake her hand in the bulky gloves, Nick reached out and lightly pounded his fist against hers. Her brow puckered as she fought a smile and something caught in his chest. “Just Livy?” he asked. “Like Madonna?”

“Just Livy,” she quietly responded. “I'm going to be late for work, so maybe a rain check on the coffee?”

Nick canted his head to the side. “You must think I'm Superman.”

That same unsure smile flirted with her lips. “What do you mean?”

“If you think I can push your car all the way to the street.” Her smile grew a fraction.
Finesse.
“Sorry to say, but you're not going anywhere until a plow comes.” Nick hadn't had much time to think about a cover story. Duplicity wasn't really his thing. When he approached witnesses or even persons of interest, he was a straight shooter. And a hell of a lot more growly. Her earlier trepidation reappeared on her expression and Nick decided to go with his gut. “As an officer of the law, I can't in good conscience let you out on the roads until the plows come through.”

Her lips thinned almost imperceptibly. “You're a cop?”

Livy kept her skeptical tone but her response wasn't as nervous or scared as Nick expected it to be. A person hiding from law enforcement would have been more on edge. “Yup.”

Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. “Local?”

“No. I've got a month off and my friend's cousin said I could use his cabin.”

“Where do you live?”

“Washington. Bellevue.”

Her shoulders relaxed but she kept him in her line of sight. “You're probably right about the roads. I might as well call the mountain and let them know I'll be late. Come on, I'll make some coffee. It's the least I can do for waking you up and letting you push me out of a drift.”

Excellent.
Who said Nick couldn't be a team player? He'd just used teamwork to get his neighbor out of a snowdrift while simultaneously making contact with the best lead on Meecum they'd had in years. Metcalf would be so proud.

Nick waited while Livy moved her car back into the parking space and killed the engine. He hadn't been entirely truthful with her, but he had a tendency to favor that lovely gray area between fact and fiction. He'd been a cop, a sniper on Seattle's SWAT team, before he'd joined the Marshals Service. The job had been satisfying enough but it hadn't offered the kind of gratification he was after.

Livy stomped her feet as she climbed the steps up onto the front porch. “The place is sort of a mess.” She stuck her key in the lock. “And it might be a little chilly because I let the fire die.”

“As long as the coffee's hot, I'm good,” Nick replied.

Inside the entry was a little alcove with a wooden bench lined with cubes for shoes, and hooks above for coats. Nick followed Livy's lead and kicked off his boots and shucked his coat. “I'm pretty sure that you and I have way different definitions for what constitutes a mess.”

The place was tastefully though not richly decorated. In the low light he made out a cream microfiber couch and two worn leather recliners that faced a modest brick fireplace. The walls of the cabin were rough-hewn wood that she'd decorated with black-and-white and color photos of landscapes and wildlife scenes. There were no personal photos anywhere in the living room. In fact, the entire house was fairly generic, as though it had been staged to look quaint and comfortable.

Livy hung up her coat and gave him a sheepish smile. She reached up to snatch the hat off her head at the same time she flipped on a light. “Okay, it's a mess for
me
.”

Nick's breath stalled in his chest. The house could have looked like something out of
Hoarders
and he wouldn't have given a single shit. He was too preoccupied with Livy to care about anything else. Golden-brown braids hung down past her shoulders, the tasseled ends just barely brushing the tips of her breasts. Her eyes were bright hazel, greener than they were brown, and her lips were dark pink and full. A little on the pouty side. She wasn't wearing any makeup but her face was fresh and dewy. She was like a delicate pale rosebud poking up through the snow. Even prettier in full light than she'd appeared in the dark of dawn outside.

In a flock of black sheep like the Black Death MC, her fleece must have been as white as the snow falling outside. How in the hell had someone like her ended up with Meecum and his crew? Again, nothing seemed to add up.

“Go ahead and sit wherever. I'll get some water going.”

For the first time since he'd left Seattle, Nick needed to remind himself that he was on the job. Sort of. It would be his ass if anyone at the Eastern Washington district found out that instead of taking the mandatory vacation his chief deputy had insisted on, he was hunting down a lead on Joel Meecum. The U.S. Marshals Service didn't look kindly on deputies who didn't follow direct orders. Then again, they were all a little wild. Crazy. Prone to making reckless and life-threatening decisions. Hell, the agency was founded on Wild West cowboy shit. And Nick wasn't any different than any of the rest of those crazy bastards. He'd be forgiven, but only after he slapped the cuffs on that lowlife son of a bitch and crossed his name from their Top 15 Most Wanted list.

Rather than sit down, Nick ventured into the kitchen. Livy was scooping coffee grounds into a weird glass pot. “Do you want cream and sugar?”

“Yeah, thanks.” He leaned against the opposite counter, careful to keep his stance relaxed. “Is Frank late this morning, or were you leaving early?”

Livy's brow puckered. “Huh?”

“Frank?” Nick repeated. The best way to get information out of someone was to simply engage them in conversation. People often let things slip in a casual back and forth that they'd be more guarded about during an interview or interrogation. “You were yelling at him when you were digging your car out.”

Livy's face screwed up into a grimace and she let out a groan. Her voice was light and soft, feathers caressing his skin. “I was yelling at my shovel.” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye as though gauging his reaction as she crossed to the fridge and grabbed a container of half-and-half.

“You call your shovel Frank?” Uncharacteristic laughter bubbled in Nick's chest. He didn't have much of a sense of humor, but he'd never met anyone who named their snow shovel before.

“Yeah, and he's a dirty, rotten jerk, too.” She set the cream on the counter along with the sugar. “I gave him some of the best years of my life and when I needed him the most, he snapped. I mean, where's the loyalty?”

Soft and shy with a sense of humor and a mouth that would make a sailor blush. Nick liked to think that he could read people fairly well. He'd been trained to. But Olivia Gallagher was a mystery. Was it a part she played? Maybe a new persona to match her new identity? Nick couldn't let his guard down around her. He knew the type of people she'd kept company with. Joel Meecum was a piece-of-shit murderer and that was only one of his more unsavory traits. For all he knew, Livy was simply playing a part. Though admittedly, she played it well.

“Does the coffeepot have a name? Let me guess . . . Carl the Coffeemaker?”

“No,” Livy answered with a snort. “That would be weird.”

Nick cocked a challenging brow but she met him with a wry smile that tugged at his chest. Damn it. Reminding himself of who she really was and why he was here might be harder than he'd thought.

* * *

A cop!
Of course, he could've been lying. Or even crooked. She'd heard Joel brag more than once that he had cops on his payroll. For all she knew, Nick Brady was waiting for the chance to put a bullet in her head and take the evidence of her death back to Joel.
God, Livy, morbid much?
The kettle whistled and she poured the boiling water over the grounds in the French press. From the corner of her eye, she studied Nick. It couldn't hurt to further vet him. Hell, he might even be a decent guy.

Her earlier assessment had been correct. Under his heavy coat was a body packed with bulky muscle. He towered over her by at least a foot and his jaw seemed to be perpetually squared as though always on the cusp of anger. Dark stubble roughened his face, adding to his hard edge. His lips weren't too full or too thin. Perfect in Livy's opinion. He could easily have been a gun for hire, or even one of the members of the Black Death. Imagining him atop a Harley, decked out in leather, wasn't much of a stretch.

But his eyes . . .
Wow
. The brown depths told another story. One that Livy was curious to hear. On the outside, Nick was a rock. But beneath his tough exterior, she sensed something deeper. Further vetting was
definitely
in order. He could have lied about being a cop, but maybe he really was who he said he was. Having a cop next door could be a good thing. Being from Washington, he couldn't possibly know who Joel Meecum was and Livy might feel a little safer having him next door. It would be nice to come home from work and not have to deal with the tension that perpetually pulled her shoulders taut.

Livy put the lid on the carafe and depressed the plunger. She technically didn't need to be there until the lifts opened at nine, but she'd figured that the lift operators might've needed help clearing last night's snow from the loading areas. She didn't mind getting up early or doing extra work. Anything was better than sitting home alone, worrying.

She poured two cups and slid one over toward Nick. “I need to call the mountain. Be right back.”

“The mountain?” Nick's voice called after her and Livy dug her phone out of her coat pocket. “One of Frank's distant cousins?”

“Uh, Brundage Mountain,” Livy said with a laugh. “I'm a ski instructor.”

“So basically, you get paid to hang out at a ski resort all day? Sounds like a sweet gig.”

As though she was some sort of lodge bunny? Livy dialed the lift supervisor's cell but only got his voice mail. “Hey, Tim. I'm snowed in so I won't make it up until around nine. Sorry I can't help you guys out this morning. I'll see you in a couple of hours.”

Livy clutched her cell tight in her hand and looked around her living room, at the pictures hanging on the walls. Photos she went out and shot in order to keep her mind off the gnawing loneliness that ate away at her. Nick was officially the first person to step inside her house in four years. The first to see the pictures. To have a cup of coffee. The first to have a conversation with her that didn't revolve around her job. A knot of emotion lodged in her chest, but Livy forced herself to swallow it down. Lonely was better than dead. It had become her mantra, the single thing that kept her going day after day. Offering Nick a cup of coffee to thank him for pushing her out of a snowdrift didn't change anything.

“You okay out there?”

The rumble of Nick's deep voice broke her from her reverie. She never should have invited him in. Wasn't he only here for a month, though? What could it hurt to share a cup of coffee or two? This was about her safety, too. She had to know that he was trustworthy. That he wasn't one of Joel's goons come to get her. If he checked out, he'd be gone soon enough, and Livy would go back to her relatively isolated existence.

“Oh. Yeah.” Nick appeared at the archway that led from the kitchen, a steaming mug in each hand. “I left a message. I'm sure everyone is digging out right now. It really came down last night.”

Livy took a cup from his outstretched hand. “I wasn't sure what you wanted in it, so I took a wild guess.”

She savored the creamy goodness as it rolled over her tongue. Not too sweet, and just dark enough to taste the kick of the rich roast. A cop
and
he could make a great cup of coffee? Nick Brady really did need a cape. “Are you cold? I can turn up the heat. It just doesn't make sense to rekindle the fire when I'm going to be leaving in a couple of hours.”

“Nah, I'm all right.” Nick walked past her and made himself at home on one of the recliners that faced the fireplace. She wondered if he made it a habit to hang out in strangers' houses. He seemed comfortable enough in hers. “Are you a good ski instructor?”