Standing in the Shadows (4 page)

She had gleaned all the info she could on Mueller from the Internet. He was publicity-shy, though he'd been cited in museum journals for his generous donations to the arts. Her grant-writing and development colleagues were forever swooning over the largesse of the Quicksilver Fund. He was in his early forties, and lived on a private island off the coast of southern France. That was all she knew.

She read over her response and hit send. Who knew? Maybe Mueller would prove to be attractive and charming. His e-mails were faintly flirtatious. He was intellectual, erudite. Wealthy, too, not that she cared, but it was an interesting fact to file away. He appreciated the sensual, enigmatic beauty of Celtic artifacts, which were her passion. He was a collector of beautiful objects.

Nothing at all like Connor McCloud.

Ouch. Damn. And here she'd been quietly patting herself on the back for not thinking of Connor for hours. She tried to wrestle her mind away from him, but it was too late. His hair had grown out, as shaggy and wild as a Celtic warrior the last time she'd seen him, at the Crystal Mountain nightmare last fall. He'd leaned on his blood-spattered cane while Georg was loaded onto a stretcher behind him, staring at her. His face had been so hard and fierce, his eyes boring into hers. Blazing with barely controlled fury. The image was indelibly marked on her memory.

That was the day that her life had begun to unravel. And Connor had been the one to haul Dad into custody. Her father, the traitor and murderer. God, when was this going to hurt a little less?

She'd had a knee-trembling crush on Connor McCloud for ten years, ever since Dad had brought the recruits he was training for the new undercover unit home to dinner when she was sixteen. One look at him, and something had gone hot and soft and stupid inside of her. His tilted eyes, the translucent green of a glacial lake. His lean, foxy face, all planes and angles. The sexy grooves in his cheeks when he grinned. His beard stubble, glinting gold. He'd always been quiet and shy when he ate at their house, his mile-a-minute partner Jesse doing most of the talking, but his laid-back, sexy baritone voice sent shivers through her body whenever he spoke. His hair was a shaggy mane, a crazy mix of every possible color of blonde. She wanted to touch its thick, springy texture. To bury her face in it and breathe him in.

And his body had been the focus of her most feverish erotic dreams in the privacy of her bed for years. He was so tall and lean and muscular. Whipcord tough, every muscle defined, but as graceful and agile as a dancer. She'd loved it when he pushed up his sleeves so she could sneak peeks at his thick, ropy forearms. His broad shoulders and long, graceful hands, those powerful legs, that excellent butt that looked so fine in his faded jeans. He was so gorgeous, it made her head spin.

She'd been tongue-tied and fluff-brained in his presence for years, but any romantic dreams she might have had about finally catching his interest when she grew a bosom, or got up the nerve to talk to him, had evaporated forever that day at Crystal Mountain. When she discovered that Dad was collaborating with a vicious criminal. That Georg, the guy who'd been coming on to her at the ski lodge, was an assassin who was hovering over her in order to control Dad.

That it had been Dad's betrayal that had gotten Jesse killed, and almost cost Connor his life.

She covered her face, trying to breathe through the burning ache in her chest. Boy, had that ever put a damper on her secret fantasy life.

Her own stupidity made her sigh. She had bigger problems than unrequited lust. Beginning with her mother's finances. Busy was better, she repeated as she dialed Mom's number. Busy was much better.

We're sorry, but the number you have dialed has been disconnected
… Oh, God. It seemed like just last week that she'd had Mom's phone turned back on. She couldn't leave town without checking on Mom.

She reached for her keys before she could stop herself.

Her car had been repossessed months ago. She still hadn't broken the habit. She ran down the stairs, shoved open the door, and raised her face to the sky. The clouds were clearing. A star glowed low on the horizon.

"Hi, Erin."

That low voice sent a shock of intense awareness through her body. She stumbled back against the door.

Connor McCloud was standing right there, staring at her.

He was slouched against an ancient, battered beige Cadillac, parked in a tow zone. The stub of a glowing cigarette was pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He sank into a crouch and stubbed it out. His face was hard, and grim with what looked like controlled anger. He straightened up, looming over her. She'd forgotten how tall he was. Six foot three, or something ridiculous like that.

Her hand was pressed hard against her open mouth. She forced herself to drop it.
Head up, shoulders back, don't lock your knees
, she told herself silently. "Why are you lurking in front of my building?"

His dark brows twitched together. "I'm not lurking," he said. "I was just having a smoke before I rang your bell."

His tawny hair was longer and wilder than it had been at Crystal Mountain. His chiseled, angular face was even leaner. His green eyes were so brilliant against the smudges of weariness beneath them. Wind ruffled his hair around his broad shoulders. It blew across his face, and he brushed it back with his hand. The one with the brutal burn scar.

He could have been a barbarian Celtic warrior heading into battle, with that hard, implacable look on his face. Stiffen his hair with lime, give him a bronze helm, a torque of twisted gold around his neck, chain mail—except that most Iron Age Celtic warriors had disdained armor to show their contempt for danger, the fussy scholar inside her reminded. They'd run naked into battle, screaming with rage and challenge.

Oh, please. Back off. Don't go there.

She didn't want that image in her head, but it was too late. She was already picturing Connor's big, hard, sinewy body. Stark naked.

Her eyes dropped, flustered. She focused on the cigarette butts that littered the ground beside his battered boots. Three of them.

She glanced up. "Three cigarettes? Looks like lurking to me."

His face tightened. "I was just working up my nerve."

"To ring my doorbell?" She couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Oh, please. I'm not that scary."

His lips twitched. "Believe me, you are. For me, you are."

"Hmm. I'm glad I have that effect on somebody, because the rest of the world doesn't seem too impressed with me these days," she said.

His eyes were so unwavering that the urge to babble was coming over her. "Why do you need to work up the nerve to talk to me?"

"Your last words to me were less than cordial," he said wryly. "Something along the lines of 'Get away from me, you sick bastard.'"

She bit her lip. "Oh, dear. Did I really say that to you?"

"It was a bad scene," he conceded. "You were upset."

"I'm sorry," she said. "For the record, you didn't deserve it."

His eyes were so intensely bright. How could such a cool color give out such an impression of heat? It scorched her face, made something clench up low and hot and tight in her body. She wrapped her arms around herself. "There were extenuating circumstances."

"Yeah, there sure as hell were. Are you OK, Erin?"

Wind gusted around them, setting his long canvas coat flapping around his knees. She shivered and clutched her thin denim jacket tightly around her. No one had asked that question in such a long time, she'd forgotten how to answer it. "Is that what you waited three whole cigarettes outside my building to ask?" she hedged.

A quick, hard shake of his head was her answer.

"So… what, then?"

"I asked my question first," he said.

She looked down, away, around, anywhere else, but his gaze was like a magnet, pulling her eyes back and dragging the truth right out of her. Dad used to say that McCloud was a goddamn psychic. It had made Dad nervous. Rightly so, as it happened.

"Never mind," Connor said. "Shouldn't have asked. I need to talk to you, Erin. Can I come up to your place?"

The thought of his potent male presence filling her dingy little apartment sent shivers all down her spine. She backed up, and bumped into the wrought iron railing. "I'm, uh, on my way to visit Mom, and I'm in kind of a hurry, because the bus is about to come, so I—"

"I'll give you a ride to your mom's house. We can talk in the car."

Oh, great. That would be even worse. Stuck all alone in a car with a huge barbarian warrior. She couldn't bear his burning scrutiny when she felt so weepy and shaky and vulnerable. She shook her head and backed away from him, toward the bus stop. "No. Sorry. Please, Connor. Just… stay away from me." She turned, and fled.

"Erin." His arms closed around her from behind. "Listen to me."

His solid heat pressed against her body nudged her shaky nerves toward what felt like panic. "Don't touch me," she warned. "I'll scream."

His arms tightened around her ruthlessly. "Please. Don't," he said. "Listen to me, Erin. Novak's broken out of prison."

A cloud of black spots danced in front of her eyes. She sagged, and was abruptly grateful for his strong arms, holding her upright. "Novak?" Her voice was a wispy thread of sound.

"He broke out the other night. With two of his goons. Georg Luksch was one of them."

Her fingers dug into his rock-hard forearms. Her head spun, and her stomach with it. "I think I'm going to be sick," she said.

"Sit down, on the steps. Put your head down." He crouched beside her and rested his arm across her shoulder. His touch was light and careful, but the contact reverberated through her entire body.

"I hate to scare you," he said gently. "But you had to know."

"Oh yeah?" She looked up at him. "What good does it do me?"

"So you can take steps to protect yourself." He sounded as if he were stating something too obvious to put into words.

She dropped her face down against her knees. She shook with bitter laughter, like a dry coughing fit. Protect herself. Hah. What could she do? Hire an army? Buy a cannon? Move into a fortress? She'd been trying so hard to put this nightmare behind her, but she'd just swung around in a big circle and smacked into it again, face-first.

She lifted her face, and stared into blank, empty space. "I can't deal with this," she said. "I don't want to know. I've had enough."

"It doesn't matter what you want. You have to—"

"I'll tell you what I have to do, Connor McCloud." She wrenched herself away from him and rose up onto unsteady feet. "I have to go to my mother's house to pay her bills and mortgage, and get her phone turned back on because she won't get out of bed. Then I have to call Cindy's school and beg them not to withdraw her scholarship. I take the bus because I lost my job and my car got repossessed. I'll worry about homicidal maniacs another time. And here comes my bus. So thank you for your concern, and have a nice evening."

Connor's face was stark with misery. "I didn't want you to get hurt, Erin. I would've done anything to stop it."

The look on his face made her chest hurt and her throat swell shut. The bus groaned to a halt, a suffocating cloud of diesel fumes rising around them. The door sighed and opened its maw for her.