Troublemaker

CHAPTER 4

I DON’T HAVE A STEPBROTHER,” SHE SAID FLATLY, COMPLETELY unappeased by the obvious conclusion that this man was the “present” Axel had sent. She didn’t know what he’d meant by that and didn’t care. She wasn’t having anything to do with Axel or his present-not that this guy looked like any kind of present other than a gag gift, and she wasn’t laughing.

“Axel MacNamara,” he clarified. His voice sounded funny, kind of thin and breathless. He was a big guy-tall, anyway, because his head was well above the top of the SUV, so the thin voice was out of place.

“I know who you were talking about. Doesn’t matter.”

“He said you’d feel that way.” The man looked around, his gaze moving slowly from object to object as if it was an effort to move even his eyes. She got the impression he was buying time more than anything else. Suddenly she realized that he didn’t look ghoulish, he looked unhealthy. A sheen of sweat coated his face though the day was too cool to warrant sweating from just sitting in a car.

“He was right.”

Then something clicked in her brain, and Bo narrowed her eyes, studying him. People who were sick and weak had that thinness to their voices, as if they didn’t have the strength to draw a good breath. The pallor of his skin emphasized the stark angles of his face and the dark stubble of several days’ growth of beard, the dark circles under his sunken eyes.

She got the sudden impression that his outstretched arm on the top of the SUV was all that was keeping him upright. She looked at his hand. Yes; the tips of his fingers were white from pressing hard against the metal. He was sweating from the effort he was making to stand upright.

“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded, her tone still wary but underlaid by a note of concern she couldn’t help feeling.

He raised his other arm, wiped his shirt sleeve across his face. “Got shot.” He gave her a hard look that she felt even across the distance between the two vehicles. “It wasn’t fun, don’t want to do it again. So I’d appreciate it if you’d put away that weapon.”

He couldn’t see the pistol in her hand, but he must have seen her lean over and accurately guessed she was getting a weapon from the glove compartment. Mindful of their isolation, she wasn’t scared but that didn’t mean she had to abandon caution. With a touch of irony she said, “I’m sure you would, but I’ll hold on to it for now. What are you doing here?”

“I told you. I was sent.”

“For what reason?” Not that she didn’t have an idea, simply because she knew how Axel’s perverted brain worked.

“Recuperation, and under the radar.”

Beside her, Tricks had evidently decided she’d been patient long enough. She butted Bo’s arm and woofed again; her ears perked up and her dark eyes locked on the stranger she hadn’t yet been able to greet properly. The man gave her a brief look and then dismissed her as no threat. Well, Tricks wasn’t a threat-except to clean clothing-but Bo didn’t trust people who didn’t like animals, so her misgivings swelled higher again.

“I don’t think so. I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you, and I sure as hell don’t want you as a roommate.”

“Paid roommate,” he qualified. Slowly he pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “Here, call Axel. He’ll explain.”

“I don’t want to talk to the asshole.”

“I don’t expect he wants to talk to you, either, but he does what needs to be done.”

Meaning she didn’t? Bo gave him a hostile, distrustful look. It was wasted because he chose that moment to close his eyes and swallow, as if he were fighting to stay conscious.

He might be a good actor, but even an Oscar winner couldn’t make his face go gray. She had the alarming conviction that he was about to face-plant right there in the gravel driveway.

Shit!

Swearing under her breath, she put the Jeep in park and shoved the door open. Tricks bounced as much as she was able, wanting to get out. “Stay,” Bo said firmly as she got out and slammed the door shut. Her boots crunched on the gravel and a chilly breeze blew in her face, bringing with it the sharp, clean scent of impending rain or snow. Tricks began barking, keeping up the doggy litany of displeasure at being left behind as Bo rounded the Tahoe SUV, the pistol still in her hand and a sharp eye on her unwanted visitor.

She might as well have saved the effort. She doubted he’d be able to hit anything other than the ground. He was literally clinging to the vehicle, his right knee braced against the frame, right arm across the roof, left hand clamped on the door.

“Sit down,” she said sharply. “Sit.” It was the same tone she used on Tricks when Tricks decided-as she did on a regular basis-to test whether Bo was still boss.

The tone worked on men as well as it did on dogs-either that, or he didn’t have any choice. He let out a shaky breath and all but collapsed into the driver’s seat, half-sprawling before he gathered himself and managed to sit upright.

In the Jeep, Tricks gave the bark that signaled she was really running out of patience, that she was deeply unhappy about being kept harnessed now that she was home, where she normally had the run of the place.

Bo ignored the bark. “Let me see your ID,” she commanded and stood at a safe distance while he placed the cell phone on the dash and laboriously fished his wallet out of his back pocket. Taking it in his left hand, he extended his arm back toward her, evidently intending that she take wallet and all. She did, stretching out and snagging it, then moving farther away in case he suddenly recuperated and jumped at her. She didn’t think he would, or could, but that wasn’t a chance she was willing to take.

There was cash in the wallet, enough to make a nice thick bulk, some credit cards, and a driver’s license. Looking back and forth between him and the wallet, she saw that the Virginia license did indeed say Morgan Yancy. The Morgan Yancy in the photograph looked much healthier than the one sitting in her driveway. The face had the hard, sculpted look of a man who kept himself in peak physical shape-not a handsome face, but definitely a masculine one. Brown hair-check. Blue eyes-check; she was close enough to see that. They were a particularly striking shade of blue, fierce and icy, as if an eagle had been born blue-eyed. Six-foot-two, check. Two hundred thirty pounds? No way in hell. He was at least thirty, forty pounds shy of what the license said, which explained why his clothes hung on him like shapeless bags.

On the plus side, the ill-fitting clothes were clean and in good shape, nothing fancy, just jeans and boots and a flannel shirt. On the not-so-plus side, Ted Bundy had been clean-cut and nicely dressed, so that didn’t prove anything.

Tricks barked again.

He retrieved the cell phone from the dashboard and tossed it to her; startled, she juggled the wallet and made a one-handed catch of the phone that she considered nothing short of miraculous, given that she’d never played any kind of sports. She should have let it drop in the dirt. Who threw cell phones around? “Call him,” he said, leaning his head back against the seat and closing his eyes again. He was breathing kind of heavily.

“I don’t know his number.”

“It’s the only number programmed into that phone.”

Well, wasn’t that all special and spy-ish? And useless, because-“I haven’t talked to him in seventeen years. I wouldn’t recognize his voice.” Besides, she didn’t want to hear Axel’s voice again-ever.

“So work it out.” The guy didn’t open his eyes. “Maybe he knows something about you that no one else does.”

He was taking a lot for granted, she thought with resentment, a complete stranger showing up uninvited and evidently expecting her to take care of him. Or maybe he was at the end of his endurance and didn’t have the energy to move on down the road. From the way he looked, she had to reluctantly go with that last conclusion.

Damn it. She didn’t want to get hooked into anything, but at the same time she didn’t see how she could send him away when he was incapable of going.

She took a few more cautious steps away from him, just in case he was faking and tried to charge her while she was distracted by the phone. She didn’t think so, but yeah, she was cautious-and suspicious. Looking back and forth between him and the phone, she examined it; it was a cheap dumb phone, keypad instead of a touch screen. She pressed the call button and put the phone to her ear.

There was some unusual clicking. She waited and was beginning to think the call hadn’t gone through when there was another click and a man’s voice said, “Yes.”

She said, “Who is this?”

“Nice to talk to you, too.” The voice was male, mature, and no way in hell could she tell if it belonged to her former stepbrother.

“Sorry,” she said briskly. “You won’t be talking to me a second longer unless you tell me something that identifies you.”

He snickered. “One word: stripes.”

Dismayed, she shook her head. Even if “stripes” hadn’t verified his identity to her, the adolescent snicker would have. She was caught: this was indubitably Axel MacNamara. No one else, not even her mother, had known that when Bo was thirteen, for some unknown reason she had decided having tiger stripes on her legs would be cool and make her stand out in a crowd. In retrospect, she could only wonder at herself, but maybe being thirteen was answer enough.

She had painted stripes of sunblock on her legs, then lain out in the sun. The resulting effect had made her look as if she had a skin disease. The only remedy then had been to paint the tanned portions of her legs with sunblock-which had taken a long time, which was why Axel, the stepbrother from hell, had caught her at it-and try to tan the pale stripes to their surrounding color. That had ended up being the summer she never wore shorts.

“Okay,” she said grudgingly. “I know who you are. What the hell do you think you’re doing, sending a stranger here and expecting me to-”

“Cut the dramatics,” he said with the cool disdain that had always set her teeth on edge. “Even I wouldn’t have sent anyone dangerous. Let me amend that: he isn’t dangerous to you. He needs a secure place to recuperate until I can handle a delicate situation. I don’t know how long it will take.”

“So I’m just supposed to house a stranger for an unspecified length of time?” She cast a weather eye at the stranger in question. His eyes were still closed. He was still sitting mostly upright, but she wasn’t at all certain he was conscious.

“Yes. Feed him and do his laundry, too, because he sure as hell isn’t up to it.”

She could feel her blood pressure rising and was seized by the urge to bang her head against something. Axel had always affected her that way. “What makes you think I would ever do you a favor?” she asked furiously.

“I don’t. That’s why I’m offering you a hundred thousand smackeroos, tax free, to do this. All you have to do is say the word and the money is yours.”

She stilled. Her heart rate, her breathing-everything seemed to slow. A hundred thousand-a hundred thousand. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was a great big turnaround in her financial situation. Though that amount wouldn’t pay off the house, it would knock a sizable hole in the loan, give her more breathing room, and relieve a great deal of stress. She was making do now, her head was above water, but she’d like better than simply making do.

Then she took a deep breath and forced herself back into the real world, rather than jumping headlong at what seemed like a great deal. She no longer leaped before she looked. “Uh huh. Exactly how would it be tax free? Paid under the counter? You do know the IRS tracks every deposit that’s more than ten grand, right? Whatever crooked thing you’re into, I don’t want any part of it. And is it true he got shot?” Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t reacted to that tidbit of information when Morgan Yancy had said that. Only now was the outlandishness of it hitting her.

“Yeah,” the stranger said wearily from the front seat of the Tahoe. “I got shot.” At least that proved he was still conscious.

“In the chest,” Axel said in her ear. “Damn near killed him. He coded twice. Look, he can’t go back to his place because we don’t know who targeted him or why. He isn’t in any shape to look after himself right now anyway, but I had to get him out of the system in a hurry and to a place where no one will look for him. On the other hand, I’d like to keep him fairly close by. Your place is perfect on both counts.”

Bo shook her head, in denial of everything he was saying. “You do know you’re on a cell phone, right? And that it’s likely being monitored?”

“These cells aren’t. They’re encrypted, the calls were bounced around and they’re burner phones anyway.” He paused, then said, “You’ll actually be paid enough to cover the income tax on the hundred thou. Don’t worry, you won’t be audited because of it. Come on, yes or no.”

She didn’t want to make an immediate decision. The worst financial mistake of her life had come from her leaping before she looked. “I need to think it over.”

“Sorry. It’s now or never. Like I said, these phones won’t be used again, and it’s too dangerous to contact me by normal means.”

The day was long past when she could be railroaded into making decisions before she had answers. “Hmmm. Point one: I don’t like being pushed. Point two: I don’t trust you, which makes me think you’re afraid I’ll see what’s off about this if you give me time to think about it. So, okay, here’s your answer-”

“All right, all right!” He sounded grumpy, which she enjoyed. Given the age difference between them, in their admittedly juvenile arguments during the brief time their parents had been married, she had never gotten the best of him. But she wasn’t thirteen now, and she knew her own mind. “A hundred and fifty thousand.”

“I’m not bargaining for more money, but thank you. I’ll keep that number in mind if I agree,” she said coolly.

“Look.” For the first time in her memory, there was a tone in Axel’s voice as if he were addressing her without mockery, with dead seriousness. “I know this is an unusual situation. Your particular circumstances make it ideal for my purposes, though. No one would tie us together-”

“Thank God,” she said, unable to resist the admittedly juvenile verbal jab.

“Ditto. But you have resources, you’re isolated without having to move him too far away in case I need him, and most of all, you need the money.”

There was that. Since her colossal career misjudgment seven years ago, money-or the lack of it-had been behind every decision she’d made. She’d learned how to make smart choices financially, to be an adult and do what had to be done, which was work two jobs. Occasionally part of her still yearned for the heady feeling of taking risks and coming out on top, but at the same time she was mostly happy where she was. It was a learned happiness, but happiness nevertheless.

She wasn’t embarrassed by her financial situation. It was much better now than it had been, and she’d dug herself out the pit. Still, how did Axel know anything about her life at all, much less her finances?

As if he’d read her mind, he said, “I did some deep digging on you.”

“If you’re so anxious to hide him, wouldn’t that leave a trail?”

“If one knew where to look, yes, but I went through intermediaries, in-person and verbal instruction only. There are a lot of layers between us. I made sure you’re protected and anonymous.”

It wasn’t like Axel to be conciliatory or even agreeable, which told her how important this was to him. Being safe would definitely be important to Morgan Yancy, at least while he was in his current condition. She wasn’t a bleeding-heart-type person, but neither was she callous, and she already knew she couldn’t send him away for the simple reason that he wasn’t in any shape to drive. He’d be spending the night here, regardless. Whether or not he was any stronger tomorrow remained to be seen.

A hundred and fifty thousand dollars…

Then she sighed. No matter how much money he was offering, she had other people to consider. “It won’t work,” she said flatly. “If he has a killer stalking him, I won’t endanger the people around here. I just won’t.”

“You won’t be,” Axel assured her. “There’s no connection to make, no way of tracing him to you. Just give him a place to hide out. I guess I could send him to a safe house, but security has been breached so none of those would be safe-and that’s why I’m contacting you out of network. The problem is internal.”

The dilemma was immediate, and maddening. She needed the money, but she didn’t trust Axel. She didn’t want a strange man-and a wounded one, at that-staying with her, but he wasn’t capable of leaving. So he was staying for at least a short while, whether she wanted him to or not, unless she called Jesse or an ambulance and had him hauled… where? There was a local doctor, but as far as she could tell, Morgan Yancy didn’t need medical care, he needed time to heal and regain his strength. If she had him taken to a hospital, he’d be in the computer system, which meant that if she believed Axel even a little bit, she’d be endangering the man’s life.

Okay. She didn’t trust Axel, though to be truthful she didn’t know if that was because he truly wasn’t trustworthy or if it was simply because she disliked him so much. He evidently had some kind of government job but, considering the government, that wasn’t really much of a recommendation.

She said, “Hold on,” and held the phone down against her thigh to cover up the speaker so Axel couldn’t hear. Approaching the SUV, she said, “Yancy?”

He opened his eyes halfway, a gleam of blue in the grayness of his face, and muttered, “Yeah?”

“Axel said there’s no way to trace you to me.”

He took a deep breath, or tried to. She caught the sudden hitch, as if his chest muscles protested. His throat worked as he swallowed, then he said, “That’s why I drove. No record, and the Tahoe is clean, can’t be linked back.”

“Drove from where?”

He gave a small shake of his head, meaning he wasn’t going to tell her. Given his condition, he had probably come a fair distance, either that or-Damn it! “Exactly when did you get out of the hospital?”

“This morning,” he said, and let his eyes close again.

Double damn it.

She might regret it, almost probably she would regret it, but a hundred and fifty thousand was a lot of money and even though she didn’t trust Axel, she could see for herself that the man in front of her wasn’t a threat-not now, at least. Even more, he was relying on Axel not to betray him, and presumably he knew her former stepbrother better than she did, which really wouldn’t take much at all because his father and her mother had been married a grand total of eight months. Morgan Yancy was betting his life he could trust Axel.

She lifted the phone to her ear again. “All right,” she said, keeping it brief. “But if the money isn’t in my account in two days, I’m putting him on the road.”

“It will be,” Axel said. “It’ll be there tomorrow.”

Now that the decision had been made, for good or ill, Bo turned her mind toward practical matters. “Let me get my bank account routing number.”

“Please.” The word was full of disdain. “I already have it.” The phone clicked and the connection was gone; he’d hung up.

She thumbed the button to cut the connection on her end, then stood looking at the phone. “Now what?”

Yancy shifted in the seat and lifted his head slowly, as if the effort was almost more than he could manage. He held out his hand, and Bo placed the phone in it. He deftly took the phone apart and removed the battery, as if it were something he’d done a thousand times.

Having decided enough was enough, Tricks gave another bark, this one special. She had a whole repertoire of different sounds she used to bend humans to her will, and the plaintive, high-pitched puppy bark was her ace in the hole. It was her “Mom, help me!” call, and even though Bo knew she was being manipulated, she was usually so amused that she did whatever Tricks wanted. Right now, Tricks wanted out of the Jeep, which was simple enough.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, leaving him where he was and walking back over to the Jeep. She began shivering and pulled her denim jacket closer around her. The temperature had dropped easily ten degrees just since she’d pulled into the driveway. She opened the passenger door and put the pistol in her jacket pocket while she freed Tricks from the harness. She was no longer afraid Yancy was going to jump her, but, hey, it didn’t cost anything to be careful.

Tricks grabbed her tennis ball and bounded out of the Jeep, her whole body wiggling with joy. Before Bo could grab her collar, she was gone, racing over to the Tahoe and around to the driver’s side. Tricks loved to meet people, but Morgan Yancy might not be an animal lover or in any mood to be licked and nudged to throw the ball, which to Tricks was the greatest honor she could grant someone.

“No!” Bo said, running after her pet though she knew it was already too late. She just hoped Tricks didn’t climb into the guy’s lap.

She rounded the rear bumper of the Tahoe and skidded to a halt. Tricks was right there in the open door, of course, standing on her hind legs with her front paws braced on the door jamb and her face right up at the man’s. He’d opened his eyes and turned his head so that they were almost nose to nose. Before he could react, though, Tricks lowered her muzzle and sniffed at his neck, then moved slowly down his chest, pausing in one spot as if she’d found something interesting. Bo stilled, wondering if that was where he’d been shot.

Tricks moved her nose around and over that one spot, never quite touching. He sat very still while she gave him what was probably the most thorough smelling he’d ever experienced. Then she very gently licked his shirt, on that same spot, and lowered her front paws to the ground before laying her head on his thigh.

Bo sighed. She’d seen it before; Tricks always seemed to know if anyone was sad, sick, or wounded, and would offer the comfort of her company. “Come on, princess,” she said gently, putting her hand on Tricks’s head. “Back up, okay?” She nudged Tricks back, put herself between dog and man. “Is that where you got shot?” she asked Yancy, her tone more brisk than when she’d been talking to Tricks.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “She zeroed right in.”

“I’ll try to keep her away from you; she can make a pest of herself until she gets used to you.” Bo looked at him-he truly looked awful-and at the door. Under normal circumstances the distance wasn’t long at all, maybe twenty yards, but these weren’t normal circumstances because he looked as if he’d need help to go twenty feet. He couldn’t make that distance. She could, however, get him closer.

“If you can get into the passenger seat, I’ll pull the Tahoe up to the patio so you won’t have to walk so far.” She’d agreed to this; now she had to be practical about the logistics of getting him inside and taking care of him because one thing was for sure: he couldn’t do it on his own.

“I can walk from here,” he said grimly, lifting his gaunt face and staring at the house as though it were an enemy to be conquered. Her stomach clenched at the fierce determination she saw there. He’d try, she thought; even knowing he couldn’t, he’d try anyway, and keep trying until he was unconscious on the cold ground. She couldn’t get her mind around that kind of steely willpower.

She didn’t let even a hint of sympathy leak into her voice. “No, you can’t. You can barely stand up. If you can drive it yourself, fine, just pull up and around so the driver’s side is as close to the patio at you can get. If you can’t, then move over so I can do it. Your only other option is sitting in the car all night because if you face-plant, I won’t be able to get you up.”

Not the most diplomatic way of presenting the options, she thought, but what the hell; even though she’d agreed to take care of him, and even though she was getting paid well for it, she was still disgruntled at having her home essentially taken over by someone she hadn’t invited-hence the no sympathy. Besides, she didn’t think he’d respond to sympathy-not that she knew him or could begin to gauge his personality or what he’d been through, but if she’d been shot and was in the shape he was in, she thought by now she might be fed up with being helped.

“I can drive,” he muttered.

“Fine,” she said, and closed the door. She put Tricks safely in the house, closing the door to keep her in; Tricks, of course, darted to the window and stood with her front paws on the windowsill, tilting her head from side to side as she alertly watched these unusual proceedings. Bo waited on the patio as Yancy started the engine and slowly steered the Tahoe in a wide circle in the yard, stopping when the driver’s door was even with her front door.

Before Bo could reach him, he hauled himself out of the vehicle and struggled to stand upright. He’d pushed himself so far that now every move was costing him. “Do you have luggage?” she asked as she deftly slid herself between him and the Tahoe and wedged her left shoulder under his right arm.

“Duffle bag,” he replied, his thin voice so utterly exhausted the words were almost soundless. “In the back.”

She wrinkled her nose. He felt too hot, and he smelled… sickly. That was the only way she could describe it, a blend of sweat and medication, maybe an antibiotic swab for his wound, even a whiff of adhesive tape.

“I’ll come back for it.” Given the way he looked, she figured the faster she got him inside, the better. She tried to support him as much as she could, but it wasn’t easy. While she was a little above average in height, he was at least a head taller, and even though he’d obviously lost weight, he still outweighed her by quite a bit. He was noticeably weaker, leaning heavily on her, barely able to shuffle his feet along the concrete patio. There was only a small step up from the patio into the house, thank goodness, because she didn’t think that even with her help he could have managed more than that.

Tricks ran over and bounced around them, generally getting in the way and making a nuisance of herself, as Bo maneuvered him toward the sofa. “Move,” Bo admonished. “Where’s your ball?” Distracted, Tricks dashed off to find her tennis ball. It wasn’t in the first place she looked and she began hunting for it, which gave Bo a few extra seconds to get him settled on the sofa.

“Go ahead and lie down,” she instructed, positioning a throw pillow for his head. A look of resentment flashed across his face, followed just as fast by resignation. Slowly he eased down, stretching his long form out. He was taller than her sofa was long, his feet hanging over the other end, but there was nothing she could do about that. A long sigh eased from his chest and he closed his eyes. Bo paused a few seconds, then, because he looked uncomfortable with his legs in that position, she pushed another pillow under his knees for support. He didn’t stir.

She straightened and rolled her shoulders, loosening the muscles. The effort of getting him inside had made her sweat, too.

Tricks had found her tennis ball and brought it to Bo, nosing it into her hand. “Good girl,” Bo praised, rubbing behind the silky ears. Tricks sniffed at the man on the sofa, then gave a joyous whirl because someone new was in the house. She bounced up and down, woofed softly to Bo, then began racing back and forth from her toy box to the man, bringing toy after toy until there was a heap of stuffed animals, chew sticks, and balls in front of the sofa.

His breathing had deepened. Maybe he’d gone to sleep. At any rate, he was oblivious to the growing heap of offerings, but bringing her toys was keeping Tricks occupied. “Go to it, girl,” Bo said to Tricks and left her still fetching toys while she herself went out to fetch the heavy duffle.

She grunted from effort as she dragged the duffle out of the Tahoe; it was so heavy she couldn’t prevent it from thudding to the ground, so she knew he hadn’t lifted it into the SUV himself. Probably he hadn’t even packed it himself.

Huffing and puffing, she lifted one end of the duffle and dragged it to the house and inside the door, where she let it drop with a thud. She looked at the flight of stairs going to the loft bedrooms, pondering the further logistics of her houseguest. She doubted he could make it up the stairs to the guest bedroom, so that meant he’d be sleeping on the sofa. There wasn’t any point in trying to wrestle the heavy bag upstairs when he’d need it down here. At least there was a full bathroom on the ground floor, or they’d have a serious problem. For now, the best she could do was shove the duffle close to the sofa so he could reach it if he needed anything.

His eyes were still closed despite Tricks’s bouncing back and forth. Bo hesitated a minute, thinking of all that needed doing, such as feeding them both and probably taking care of somehow getting him to the bathroom. Testing the waters, she asked, “Are you conscious?”

No answer.

Damn. She didn’t know if that was good or not. If he was just asleep, that was good. On the other hand, if he was unconscious, that could be very bad. She shouldn’t disturb him if he was sleeping. If he was unconscious, not doing something could kill him.

This was a bona fide dilemma.

Better to make a mistake and ask forgiveness than do nothing at all, as the saying went. She leaned over him and gently shook his right shoulder. “Hey-”

That was the only word she got out because his eyes flared open and his right arm shot out, his hand clamping around her throat, fingers digging deep and cutting off her air. For a split second all she could see was the blazing blue of his eyes, filling her own vision as it rapidly began dimming. Panic shot through her, hot and acid; the abrupt certainty that she was going to die blurred into an instinctive fury and without thought or even being able to see what she was aiming for, she struck, putting all her strength behind her right fist as she drove it toward his face. The impact jarred her arm all the way to her elbow.

He grunted, “Fuck!” and released her throat.

She staggered back, gasping for air, her hand going to her throat to massage the aching tissue. As soon as she could suck in some air she gasped, “Shit!”

They stared at each other from a safe distance of several feet.

Whoever had said it was better to make a mistake and ask forgiveness, blah blah blah, had been full of shit.

He’d been in the house fewer than five minutes, and he’d already tried to kill her. This couldn’t be good.