Deadly Pursuit (8 page)

With slow and deliberate movement, he eased down the length of her body.

And was gone.

Amara waited, trembling, not daring to breathe, this sudden respite from death too good to be true, but then her near-nudity below the waist spurred her to action. Scrambling into a squat, she skittered backward, away from him, until her back thumped the dishwasher.

Standing now, he stared down at her. She stared up at him. Then he reached out a hand for her to grab. When she hesitated, he bent at the waist, caught her under the arms, and hauled her up. The soft slide of her nightgown back into place covered her up, but she tugged at the ruffled bottom around her knees, just in case, and then squared her shoulders, gripped the counter for support and tried to look like she was a woman to be reckoned with even though she was scared out of her freaking mind.

They eyed each other warily, both panting. Something
obscured her vision and she belatedly realized it was her wild hair, which was in her face and down around her shoulders. She shoved it back, aware of him watching her, marking her every movement.

Tired of the darkness, she reached behind, not daring to break eye contact, even for a second, fumbled for the over-the-sink switch, and flipped it.

This was a mistake.

He’d looked scary enough in the dark, when she’d seen only flashes of the wild light in his eyes, but now he was downright terrifying for a variety of reasons. First was the gash on his forehead that would eventually turn into a Harry Potter scar. Second was the bloody nose, for which she claimed full responsibility. Third was the full-body makeover he seemed to have undergone since she last saw him.

The overgrown face scruff was gone and so were the sandy curls she’d imagined fisted in her hands. No sign of the white apron. What was left? A clean-shaven man with hard-edged granite cheekbones, a skull trim and a
don’t fuck with me or you might not live to tell the story
bad-ass expression she didn’t want to test unless she had to.

This was not the laid-back fry cook whose biggest issue was whether the day’s order of eggs had arrived safely from the dairy. This was a focused and fearsome warrior. She’d caught a flicker of him last night when he rescued her from her attacker; now she was staring at a raging inferno.

Though he wore the usual baggy jeans, a sweater and a puffy jacket, nothing special or remarkable, her instincts screamed that this man was a soldier or mercenary. If someone needed rescuing from a South American jungle, this was the guy you’d send for. It
was all in his eyes and the way he carried himself, the absolute stillness and relentless focus with which he watched her, analyzing and strategizing.

And then he blinked once, twice—she had the feeling he was struggling with himself, trying not to do something he desperately wanted to do—and his unreadable gaze traveled lower.

To her body in its filmy cotton nightgown, backlit now by the light she’d flipped on in her foolish haste. One sweeping glance left her feeling naked and vulnerable, as though he’d arranged her on satin sheets for his slow inspection and ultimate enjoyment.

It was all over in less than a second, but her flesh responded on a primal level she was helpless to control. Her breasts grew heavy and ached and her dark nipples peaked until the harsh rise and fall of her chest against the cotton tormented her. The curve of her hips, her thighs and the deep cleft between them all felt a touch of that intense gaze and responded.

Sheer defiance kept her from crossing her arms and covering herself.

Or maybe it was idiocy.

After three or four of the longest beats of her life, he caught his breath and became aware of the blood trickling from his nostrils. “Jesus.” Looking her up and down once more, this time with clear irritation, he swiped the back of his hand under his nose. “I knew you were nothing but trouble.”

Incensed, she sprang into motion before she knew what she was doing. This SOB broke into
her
house, tackled her in her own kitchen, scared her half to death when she was minding her own business, not bothering anybody, and now he had the unmitigated gall to call
her
trouble?

Oh,
hell
no.

Her hand had just closed around the well-balanced and satisfying hilt of her favorite piece of cutlery, a two-hundred-dollar chef’s knife from Williams-Sonoma, yanked it down from the magnetized strip on the wall, and raised it toward his face—if he thought he was going to have a scar on his forehead now, just wait till she got done with him—when he vaulted across the room to stop her. One second he was safely over there and the next he was in her face, snarling.

His huge hand clamped down around her wrist and squeezed. “Drop it.”

“Screw you.”

She knew she’d regret those two words and she did. Immediately. That hand tightened until streaks of pain shot up her arm and cleared her head. Yelping, she let go and the knife clattered to the floor. He kicked it away with one booted foot.

Fine. There was a complete set up there on the wall, starting with a lovely meat cleaver. Glaring at him, she calculated the best way to twist her body and reach the cleaver with her free hand. But before she could execute what she thought was shaping up to be a brilliant plan, he read her mind.

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned, pulling her by the arm until she was in the center of the kitchen, well away from any weapons.

Furious, she jerked free and they faced off. Coming to the slow realization that he could have killed and/or raped her three or four times by now if that was what he’d had in mind, she focused on her anger rather than her fear.

“What the hell do you want?” she snapped.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Talk? Really? You ever hear of a telephone, Jack? Or what about this: doorbell. Say it with me:
doorbell.
How did you get in here anyway? How did you even know where I live?”

“It was real tricky. I looked you up in the phone book. And I came in through the kitchen door.”

This was outrageous. That door had a damn fine dead bolt lock that she’d installed with her own two hands and trusty cordless drill. “You picked my lock?”

He didn’t answer.

“Why not try knocking on the front door? At a decent hour?”

“This is an emergency.” He hesitated. “And I didn’t want to be seen.”

“By who? The boogeyman?”

The sarcasm bounced right off his flat demeanor. “The people who are after me.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Who’s after you, Jack?”

“I can’t get into that. But they’re going to come after you, too, and I need to get you out of here. Now.”

Well, she’d known there had to be something seriously wrong with a person who looked like Jack and could cook, but she’d chosen to nurse the ridiculous girlish hope that she’d actually met an interesting man. A jerk, clearly, but still interesting. Not that she wanted to marry him or anything, but it was nice to know that such a man existed.

Now she had to face the ugly reality that he was bat-shit crazy and probably off his meds. Hell, it was worse than that. No doubt there was a padded wagon roaming up and down the streets of Mount Adams right now, driven by uniformed men with giant nets, looking for him.

It figured.

Tragic, but he was in her house and she needed to get him out without him killing her, which he could still decide to do.

“Jack,” she said, trying to keep the condescension out of her voice, “if someone’s after you, you need to call the police.”

“The police can’t help me. And they can’t protect you.”

There was no reasoning with the unreasonable, but she tried anyway. “Okay, Jack. I’m going to take it on faith that someone’s after you. What does that have to do with
me?”

“If they can’t find me, they’re going to use you to get to me.” He paused long enough to analyze her uncomprehending look and answer her unspoken questions with rising impatience. “Because of the video, which makes it look like we’re lovers. Look—we don’t have time for this. I want you to get dressed, throw a few things in an overnight bag and—”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“—let me take you to a hotel or someplace safe—”

“You’re insane.” Damn. She hadn’t meant to say that. There went her whole
don’t piss him off
plan. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“—and then I can touch base with my contacts and we can figure out how to keep you safe.” Crossing to the sink, he turned on the water and splashed his face, getting rid of most of the blood.

“Hey—”

Ignoring her protest, he grabbed the bar towel from the ring, dried off and tossed it onto the dish rack.

“Don’t just stand there. Get going.”

“No.”

He treated her to a string of curses on a growl of
increasing frustration and Amara decided she’d had enough. If he’d wanted to kill her, he’d have done it by now. The fact that he hadn’t gave her the courage she needed to march to the kitchen door, which was, sure enough, now unlocked—
thanks for breaking into my house, jerk
—and hold it open in the hopes of facilitating his speedy departure.

“Thanks so much for the warning about the … you know … bad guys.” God. How stupid did she sound? Bad guys. Right. “I’m going to lock the door again after you leave, keep my eyes open, and if any of them show up—”

“Don’t patronize me.” He did another one of those vaulting across the room maneuvers—how did such a big man move so quickly and silently?—snatched her away from the door and closed it. “I’m not talking about people who will key your car if they get mad at you. These people will torture you to find out what you know about me and then they will kill you. You feel me? Kill. You.”

Amara jerked her arm free and opened her mouth to argue.

And the lights went out.

Not just the lights. The hum from the refrigerator stopped. The low murmur of voices from the Travel Channel in the living room fell silent. For no reason at all, the world went dark, quiet and scary.

An angry accusation formed on her lips and she looked to Jack, ready to demand an explanation.

But then she caught a shadowy glimpse of his wide-eyed expression and read it with no need for interpretation.
Oh, shit,
said that grim face, and Amara’s fear hiked several notches higher.

They stared at each other, frozen and waiting, and
heard it at the same time: the soft but unmistakable sound of a footstep.

On the hardwood floors in her hallway.

In her house.

Then came the pinpoint flash of a light on her wall, and Amara knew.

This was no random power outage, and if she glanced out her window she would not discover that her neighbors’ houses were also dark. This was the very same bad guy Jack had just warned her about, and he’d cut her power for the express purpose of coming in here to kill them both. He had a flashlight and probably a gun and she and Jack would be dead within minutes.

Panic propelled her to take a step toward the door, but Jack touched her arm and then raised a finger to his lips.

Shhh.

The
oh, shit
was gone from his face and he didn’t look scared or even worried. He looked calm and cool, as though he’d been through this drill a million times before and was counting the seconds until his next coffee break. That obvious and unshakable confidence gave her strength enough for a deep breath.

She nodded.

Using hand signals she’d seen in some military TV show or other, he motioned for her to get down and crawl under the kitchen table. She obeyed without hesitation, hanging on to one sturdy oak leg and angling her body so she could keep him in sight.

A half smile of approval flickered across Jack’s face as he reached behind his back and produced … Oh, my God.

Was that a
gun?

The floor creaked. Right outside the kitchen. That pinpoint of light danced across the kitchen door … the range … the baker’s rack.

Oh, God.
Fear clamped down on her, prickling her scalp, burning her throat and constricting her lungs.
Please, God. Please, God, pleasegod, ohgod, ohgod, please—

Praying for survival, she watched Jack blend into the wall to the right of the archway from the hall, and then the floor creaked again, too small a sound to warn of this new evil in her peaceful sanctuary, and a figure came into view, a phantom, an intruder.

Shaking, Amara clamped her free hand to her mouth and tried to control her raspy breathing.

Stealthy and deadly, lit only by the moonlight filtering in from the shades, nothing but black upon black upon black, with no discernible eyes or even face, the intruder crept forward with the flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other.

It was a big gun—longer than Jack’s.

No, wait.

That gun had a silencer on it. That was an assassin’s gun.

Which meant that … that was an assassin.

Not a garden-variety robber or would-be rapist, the kind of criminal who could possibly be talked out of committing a violent act.

An assassin.

Please, God, don’t let us die.

The assassin lingered in the doorway and looked back and forth, surveying the room, and that light circled the walls, ceiling and floor in a relentless sweep.

And then Amara saw it inches from her crouched knee: the hard stainless steel glint of the chef’s knife
she’d tried to use on Jack. Oh, thank God. Not that a knife would be much good against a silenced gun, but it was sure better than nothing.

Reaching out, she clutched the knife’s hilt and picked it up.

The blade’s ring, like a tiny sword being drawn, echoed in the kitchen’s utter silence.

Amara cringed; the assassin cocked his head; Jack struck.

With moves Amara had only ever seen in a James Bond movie, Jack sprung forward and elbowed the assassin in the face. Crying out, the assassin dropped to the floor and his gun clattered away.

Amara scrambled for it.

The assassin drew his knees into his belly and kicked out, catching Jack squarely in the thighs. Jack yelped with pain, hit the floor on his butt and kept rolling until he got back to his feet as though the whole move had been choreographed by a stuntman.