Jaid Black (34 page)

Nikki’s eyes widened. Her gaze flicked from the small velvet box in his hand up to his face. “What’s this?” she whispered.

He frowned. “A new car,” he grumbled. “I had it miniaturized just for you. Merry Christmas.”

“It’s not Christmas,” she murmured.

Thomas sighed. “Okay, I’m sorry. Let me try to do this right.” His eyebrows rose. “And no getting blubbery on me, now.”

She rolled her eyes. “My heart, be still. You should write Hallmark cards in your spare time.”

He grunted.

Nikki suspected she was about to get blubbery whether he wanted her to or not. When he came down on one knee, she was positive. “Oh, Thomas,” she whispered. “I’m about to cry.”

“As long as I don’t, we’re doing okay.”

She chuckled, shaking her head slightly. “I don’t want to, either. I’m supposed to be the tough-as-nails surgeon.”

Thomas took out the ring and then looked deep into her eyes. She got a little teary, but not bad enough to qualify as blubbery.

“I’m going to marry you,” he rumbled out as he shoved the ring on her finger. “Thought you might want to know in case you need to buy a dress or something.”

Nikki blinked.

“I know most men ask, but I figure that’s kind of stupid because the chick could say no.”

Before she could contain it, she started to laugh. “You’re a nutcase!” Nikki said, swatting him on the shoulder.

He smiled. “But a nutcase who loves you,” Thomas murmured.

She smiled back. “I love you, too, Detective Cavanah.” She kissed him on the lips and slid her arms around his neck. “And I will definitely marry you.”

“Really?” Thomas drawled.

Nikki grinned. “Oh, yeah. This chick would never say no to you.”

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by Angela Knight
Coming in June 2004 from
Berkley Sensation!

Jane pulled into the paved parking space in front of
her beige-and-white two-story contemporary. Turning off the SUV’s engine, she stared uneasily into the thick woods surrounding the house. How many places to hide could a killer find among all those trees?

She could almost hear her father’s ghostly sneer,
Don’t be such a little coward, Jane.

Squaring her shoulders, she got out and strode to the front door. Intensely aware of her own vulnerability as she unlocked it, she barely managed to control the nervous rattle of her keys.

Once the door was locked behind her again, Jane blew out a breath and walked across the foyer’s parquet floor into the main part of the house. She’d left all the lights on when she’d gone out on the call; working murders always gave her a roaring case of the creeps. William Colby, of course, had considered that quirk further proof his only child lacked the Colby steel.

She set her jaw.
Old news, Jane.
For years, she’d believed she had outgrown her obsession with her father. She’d done a damn good job in Atlanta, winning the respect of her peers and writing stories she was proud of. She’d even begun to believe in her own talents despite years of his verbal abuse.

But since returning home, it seemed Jane saw her father’s disapproving frown everywhere she looked. Like the Cheshire Cat’s grin, it lingered.

Dammit, Jane, cut that out.
Exhaling out a deep breath, she made herself scan the living room she’d spent so much money to decorate. The rich cream leather couch and armchairs had not been cheap, and neither had the antique coffee table or the flat-screen high definition television. Her journalism awards hung between original works of art she’d bought in Atlanta—here a watercolor of an old Southern mansion drowsing in the sun, there a pastel of a child in a straw hat, the sharp, vivid blue of her eyes skillfully captured in fine chalk. The wall lamps had stained-glass shades, and the pale rose carpet was thick and plush under her feet. All of it was a silent statement of Jane’s capability and success.

Take that, Daddy.

Okay, that really was pathetic.
Dragging both hands through her hair, she sighed in self-disgust.
Face it, girl, you can’t win a war with a dead man. Hell, the only battle that counted was lost when you were ten. Deal with it.

Definitely time for bed. She always got maudlin when she was tired.

“Caller said his neighbor’s beating his wife in the front yard,” her scanner announced from her purse as she crossed the living room on her way to the stairs, feet sinking into the pile. “Said he’s Code Five with a baseball bat. The female half is on the ground. One-oh-two Bridgemont Street. Better step it up, guys.”

Typical Tayanita scanner traffic. Not the kind of incident Jane covered unless there was major trauma involved. Besides, she was so damn tired she wasn’t going out again unless they caught the killer or he murdered somebody else.

The scanner fell silent. Jane could hear the refrigerator hum in the kitchen. Damn, the house was lonely. Maybe she should get a dog, assuming she could find one Octopussy could tolerate. Her seal-point Siamese was definitely not a canine fan.

A man might be a better idea. These days, the closest she got to male companionship were the romance novels that were her secret vice.

Jane had always been too obsessed with her job to devote any real attention to finding a lover. And now that she was back in tiny Tayanita, her options had not exactly improved. Between reporting and running the paper, she never had time to go to any of the local bars—about the only place single men congregated in Tayanita—assuming she could even find anybody there whose name she didn’t regularly see on police reports.

Maybe she should get Reynolds to fix her up with a cop.

Nah, that’d never work. Cops tended to view reporters with all the warmth Octopussy reserved for yappy little French poodles.

A firefighter, maybe. She liked firefighters.

Jane sighed, imagining warm, strong arms to wrap around her, a sympathetic ear to listen to her gripe about the school board or the mayor. Someone to hold her while she cried for a murdered woman she’d never met.

Somebody to ward off killers. . . .

Paws thumped frantically in the hallway floor overhead. Jane looked up, pausing on the stairs as Octopussy flung herself from the top of the steps. She caught the cat automatically, wincing as her pet dug every claw she had into her shoulder.

Staring into Jane’s eyes, Octopussy began complaining furiously in a mix of meows, growls and hisses. Like most Siamese, she was convinced she could talk.

“What’s got you in such a tizzy?” Jane asked, trying to give the animal a soothing ear scratch that was foiled when the cat jerked her head away. “Are you hungry, or do you want to go outside?”

Octopussy’s feline gripes rose in volume and bitterness.

Jane’s mouth quirked as she stepped up into the bedroom. “Or is little Timmy trapped in the well?” The Siamese swarmed up her shoulder and leaped off to head back down the stairs in desperate bounds. As Jane blinked in bemusement, the cat shot under the couch, leaving not so much as the tip of a chocolate tail visible. “Guess Timmy’s on his own.”

Muttering about inexplicable feline mood swings, Jane walked down the hall into her bedroom, reaching for the buttons of her shirt. All she wanted was to crawl back into the sheets with her book. She’d just gotten to the good part when she’d heard the murder call over her scanner.

“Jane Colby?”

Jumping with a muffled shriek, she stopped dead in the doorway, her heart stuffing her throat.

There was a man sitting in the armchair across from her bed.

In that first instant of startled terror, Jane saw only size and black clothing and some sort of vivid paint running along one side of his face. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded, clutching her chest with one hand as her heart banged against her fingers.

“I’m Baran Arvid,” the man said, uncoiling from the chair. “You’re in danger, Miss Colby. I’ve been sent to protect you.”

Protect, hell,
Jane thought, staring wide-eyed as he straightened to a height of at least six-foot-five.
If I’m in danger, it’s from him.

He wore a black cable-knit turtleneck that stretched across impressively broad shoulders. Black pants hugged his long, muscled legs, and soft, dark boots covered his feet. A long black duster that smelled like leather fell in folds around his massive body, putting her uncomfortably in mind of Dracula’s cape.

“Protect me from what?” She licked dry lips and remembered Tom’s gruff warning earlier this evening:
Jane,
everybody
in this town has a reason to be worried
.

Oh, God, was this the killer? No way could she fight him off, not judging by the width of those shoulders. Hell, she wasn’t sure Arnold Schwarzenegger could fight him off; the man looked like a human tank. Jane backed up another step. “And how did you get in my house?”

“I broke in.” He studied her, his expression dispassionate, no doubt reading the terror that was probably written all over her face. “Don’t look so frightened. I’m not the threat you need to worry about.”

“Yeah, well, personally I consider burglars a little worrisome.”

He lifted a dark brow. “Even if their only intention is to protect you from a killer?”

Jane blinked. “Well, that’s certainly preferable to
being
the killer.”

The burglar smiled slightly. “I thought so.”

“Just for curiosity’s sake, which killer are we talking about?” she asked cautiously.

“Is there more than one?”

“You never know.”

The smile expanded, flashing white and charming across his tanned face. Damn, a burglar with a sense of humor. “Actually, I’m referring to the man responsible for the murder you covered tonight.”

“How do you know about that?” Jane thought of at least one way he could have gotten that information—he could have committed the killing himself. She took another step back.

“I have my sources.” The burglar shrugged. “In any case, we believe the same man will eventually try for you.” His eyes were wide and dark, long-lashed, startlingly beautiful. And hard. Very hard. “I intend to stop him.”

Apropos of nothing, a thought pierced Jane’s unease:
Damn, he’s gorgeous
. Not in a
GQ
-pretty kind of way, but in a primal, utterly masculine sense enhanced by his square-jawed face, aggressive cleft chin, even the beard stubble darkening his angular cheeks. Adding a startling touch to all that rough masculine beauty, a strange design in iridescent red and blue swirled down one side of his face from forehead to cheekbone. Not paint, she realized. A tattoo, though she had never seen one so bright and vivid.

His hair added to the impression of elegant barbarism, falling straight and black around his shoulders. Something glittered against the midnight silk; small jeweled beads, braided into a single dark lock that swung beside one high cheekbone.

Staring up at him, it hit her suddenly that he was standing a lot closer than he had been. While she’d been gazing at him in besotted fascination, he’d been subtly stalking her.

Oh, God.

 

 

As Baran watched, the fear deepened in Jane’s eyes
again. He almost growled in frustration. For a moment there, he’d seen a trace of feminine response in her gaze, but now the panic was back. She had reason to be afraid with Druas after her, but her best protection from that threat was Baran himself. Which was why he couldn’t let her run from him.

“I appreciate your sense of civic responsibility,” she told him in an elaborately polite tone as she edged away, “but I think I’d rather depend on the local cops.”

“That wouldn’t be wise.”

She pointed toward the stairs. Despite her firm tone, her hand shook slightly. “Let me put it another way: Get out.”

He shook his head and tried a wry smile. “I wish I could. I did have other plans for the next few days.” Like the General’s assassination, but he didn’t think she’d find that particular detail reassuring. “Unfortunately, my superiors have ordered me to protect you, so it seems both of us are going to have to make the best of it.”

“What superiors?” Her small pink tongue slipped out to moisten her full lips.

Baran was instantly reminded of that dangerously erotic red nightgown and its clinging scent of sex. A bolt of lust took him by surprise. He suddenly wanted to taste that mouth. And work his way down. He had to fight to keep his gaze from dropping to those pert, tempting breasts.

“What superiors?” she repeated, her tone sharpening, voice rising as her fear visibly increased.

“I can’t discuss that.” And he couldn’t. The Enforcer had warned him repeatedly to keep Jane in the dark. Unfortunately, that presented him with a problem, since evasion wouldn’t exactly win her trust.

Then again, neither would tying her up, but if she didn’t start cooperating, he might have to try that next. And whatever her taste in reading matter, he doubted she’d like that at all.