Reckless Road

by Christine Feehan

  In the dresser built into the wall going out to the mud porch—that had been the practical place to store extra clothing when they had no indoor shower—he found two pair of jeans in the second drawer. They were a small size. Three tank tops, all dark colors, and three others in light colors. Four T-shirts in dark colors. Socks. Two sweaters. A puffy vest. The top drawer held leggings and a tank only.

  She didn’t have much in the way of clothing. Not summer gear. Not winter gear. What the hell was she doing up here? He was planning on asking her. She hadn’t brought her own tools. She was clearly using their tools right out of the shed.

  He spotted the backpack pushed inside the pantry where they normally stored potatoes. It was darkest there. He pulled it out, unzipped it and began pulling out the contents. She didn’t have much there either. A pair of running shoes. A first-aid kit, but it was pretty sparse. Lightweight flashlight and batteries. Knife in a leather scabbard, this one lethal looking. Pocket knife that she should have had on her if she was running around in the woods.

  On the bed was a sketch pad, charcoal drawing pencils and colored pencils. She was a good artist. Lots of flowering plants. He knew all of them. Knew where they were located. Most were quite a bit off the beaten path. She could easily get lost if she was off chasing flowers and mushrooms, lacy ferns and shrubbery through the forest, especially if she wasn’t native to the area. Most were medicinal plants. She obviously knew something about homeopathic medicine.

  Where the hell was she? The sun was long past setting. He was beginning to feel a little worried about her, which was stupid since he didn’t know her and she’d been trespassing. He inhaled again, the scent of coral honeysuckle filling his lungs. It was a beautiful flower, one rare for the mountains. Extremely rare. He wondered if she was a transplant just like that flower, rare like the fragrance permeating his cabin.

  For some reason he couldn’t quite identify, he was beginning to lay claim to the woman. Maybe because she was in his cabin and that fragrance was filling his senses. He was essentially a loner. He preferred it that way. He and Diego always stayed close to each other, and they stayed close to the Fortunes brothers, but in terms of letting people know who he was, that just didn’t happen.

  He was intelligent enough to know he’d suffered too much loss early in his life. He didn’t believe anyone would stay, so he locked his emotions away and he fiercely protected Diego just as his brother fiercely protected him. Still, for all that, that scent was wreaking havoc with his senses and his protective instincts.

  The flutelike notes of the nightingale added to the sounds surrounding the cabin. Rubin listened to the rich ballad, the male crooning to a female. The sky had turned a variety of dark purples and deep blues, long after the sun had disappeared, leaving the sky to the moon. Diego, in the form of that nightingale, had warned Rubin he was about to have company. Diego had perfected the art of singing like any bird he’d heard at a very young age, so much so that he could draw them to him.

  Rubin moved into position in the middle of the cabin, waiting for his brother to tell him if she was coming to the front door or the back. The song started again just a few moments later, the male clearly persuading his potential ladylove to accept him. The notes doubled up if one listened closely, which meant his transplant was coming in through the back door. Not surprising when she’d been traipsing through the woods.

  She easily could be a potential enemy sent by any number of foreign nations anxious to acquire a GhostWalker. She also could be sent by Whitney. He wanted his soldiers back, particularly the ones with special talents. He often pitted his “supersoldiers” against the GhostWalkers to see which of his experiments would live through the battles.

  Rubin slid into the shadows and went still. He’d learned years earlier to disappear there. The back door opened and a slight silhouette came through. The door closed and she crouched down to unlace her hiking boots. Putting the boots neatly aside, she tossed her socks into a small basket and then hung her jacket on a hook by the door. Pulling her shirt over her head, she tossed that into the same basket along with her bra. Stripping off her jeans and panties, those went into the basket and she stepped into the shower.

  Rubin was inherently a gentleman. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested enough to want to look at the female body given the opportunity, but he wouldn’t take undue advantage, especially in this circumstance. This woman was out in the middle of nowhere, alone, and would be terrified as a rule, confronted by two men—except for one thing. Most GhostWalkers recognized the energy of another GhostWalker. Rubin recognized her energy immediately.

  It was impossible that it was a coincidence that a female GhostWalker just happened to be in his cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, camping out. Whitney had sent her. If Whitney sent her, she was his enemy. She was there to distract or kill him. Either way, there were more coming. It was no secret that he returned to his home to treat those refusing to trust outsiders. Both Diego and Rubin came sometimes twice a year. She was living in the cabin for a reason, and that reason was to get to them.

  Rubin considered whether or not to confront her while she was shampooing her hair. She hadn’t turned on lights. Or lit candles. The night hadn’t completely fallen, so it wasn’t completely dark yet, but still, most people, when they were alone, preferred to have lights. A GhostWalker wouldn’t necessarily need lights. Whitney’s experiments often included animal DNA so many of them could easily see in the dark.

  He studied her body while she conditioned her hair. She was fit. Really fit. Feminine, but without a doubt, muscles moved beneath that flawless skin. Her hair was nearly white, it was so blond, and the color was natural because the tiny curls at the junction between her legs were just as white as the wealth of hair on her head.

  He found himself fascinated with the way her body moved, a display of feminine power, of beautiful lines and movement, almost like a dancer, yet clearly that of a fighter. She was deceptively delicate, so when she was wearing clothes, no one would ever see that beneath she would be deadly, a true assassin coiled to strike.

  The water went off, and she stepped out of the stall and wrapped a towel around her body. He let her get into the center of the room, away from all potential weapons. She had toweled off the blond pixie cut framing her face, now a shade or two darker from the dampness of the water than it had been when she’d entered the shower.

  “I think you might want to just stop right there and stay very still. My brother has you covered dead center from the window, and he doesn’t miss, which I’m certain you know.” Rubin kept his voice low. Smooth. “No, don’t turn around. Stay facing that window.”

  Diego would be able to see her without a problem. Whitney had made certain of that.

  “Start with your name. You must have one.”

  “Of course I have a name. It’s Jonquille. Are you Rubin? Or Diego?”

  “Diego is the one with the rifle pointed right between your eyes. I’m Rubin. We aren’t going to be playing any games with you. This isn’t a coincidence that you’re here. I know you’re a GhostWalker. I can feel your energy. You know I am. So let’s just cut to the chase. When is the team going to arrive and how many should we be expecting?”

  “There is no team. I came here looking for you. I studied everything about you I could find. There was no way to get anywhere near you in Louisiana. Your team was always around you. In any case, it was too dangerous for me and everyone else. So I came here and just waited. I knew you’d come, although you’re early.”

  He couldn’t detect a lie in her voice, but some GhostWalkers were adept at lying convincingly. “Why would you study everything about me and then stalk me?”

  “I do sound like a stalker, don’t I?”

  For the first time nerves crept into her voice. Before, she had just sounded excited. Not even upset that she was naked beneath the towel and he’d caught her in a vulnerable position. Just exc
ited.

  “That’s not how I meant it. I saw you speak at a conference on lightning. It was brilliant. You were brilliant. I know you’re a hotshot doctor and all, and mostly you go to medical conferences, but you have an interest in lightning and you seem to have insights most so-called qualified people don’t.”

  She talked so fast, her words tumbled over one another. Again, she started to turn.

  “Don’t.” He reminded her sharply. “Diego will shoot you without hesitation.”

  “Can’t you just tell him to put down his rifle for a minute so we can talk? If you don’t believe me, he can pick it back up again.”

  He wanted to smile at the sheer exasperation in her voice. “No, I’m afraid we can’t do that just yet. Keep talking.”

  He found it interesting that she wasn’t in the least impressed with his being a “hotshot” doctor. He had a profound interest in all things lightning. He had written papers on it. Talked theories. Discussed ways to harness it. Uses for it. He had come up with ways to redirect natural lightning bolts in order to reduce damage to personal property everywhere. It could prevent loss of life. Part of coming home was to test his ability to redirect lightning strikes. Up in the mountains, away from everyone, he would ensure no one was around to get hurt. No one knew about his intentions other than a very select few.

  The uses for a potential military weapon didn’t sit right with him, but the potential use for good in so many other areas was huge. Already, the military was looking at harnessing lightning in different forms for weapons. He couldn’t stop that, but he could continue with his experiments with the consent of Major General Tennessee Milton, the direct commander of GhostWalker Team Four. He knew he would have to cooperate with those looking to weaponize lightning as well, but he’d looked at those experiments and realized it was too late to ever go back from them.

  “What makes you so interested in lightning?”

  “I’m one of Whitney’s first experiments. One of his first orphans. I escaped from his compound and managed to get away on my own and stay hidden under the radar. He had a microchip on me, but it didn’t work. I have too much electrical current building up in me at times, and it short-circuited. I know you’re on his fourth team, the one he considers perfection. You get to be perfect because he started years ago with orphan girls. Infants. He experimented on us. He has laboratories all over and female orphans to experiment on. Once he believed he knew what he was doing, he transferred those experiments onto his first team of soldiers.”

  Rubin was well aware of what she was telling him. It was the truth. Whitney had more than one laboratory. He had many backers, although most didn’t know—or didn’t care—about the young girls he experimented on before he psychically enhanced his first team of soldiers. He had also, without their consent, physically enhanced them using animal DNA. The first team of GhostWalkers had many problems. They were good at their jobs, but they still had problems.

  “I’m one of those very flawed experiments,” Jonquille confessed. A little shiver when through her body. “It isn’t safe for anyone to be around me for very long. Not ever. I’ve read everything I can about lightning. No one seems to really know how it works. I started taking chances, sneaking into the conferences on lightning and the various uses. I stayed away from everyone until I could tell I was drawing too much energy and then I’d leave. I’m a trained GhostWalker soldier. That was one thing Whitney did do for us. We were very well trained and we all speak multiple languages. I also went to med school. He wanted us to be productive. It wasn’t difficult to get into the conferences.”

  Rubin couldn’t help but be interested. Either she was the best liar in the world or she was telling the absolute truth. She also had an extremely interesting and well-rounded education for one of Whitney’s orphans.

  “You stay right there. Don’t move. Diego has that rifle on you. I’m getting your clothes. I’m not taking chances you might have a weapon stashed. That would get you killed.”

  “Fine, just hurry, please. Tank top and there’s a pair of leggings I wear in the evenings. Can you grab those for me? Top drawer. After hiking all day, I like to be comfortable.”

  He resisted smiling. She still had that little bit of eagerness in her voice, as if she was so happy she’d finally connected with him, that she didn’t really care that his brother had a gun aimed directly between her eyes. If she had done any research on him—and being a GhostWalker, most likely she was able to find out what others couldn’t—she had to know Diego really didn’t miss.

  He wanted to tell his brother to stand down, but he couldn’t take chances. She smelled good. Really, really good. The subtle fragrance of coral honeysuckle was alive and well, drifting through the cabin, filling his lungs with every breath he drew in. He found it intoxicating—and distracting. That was unprecedented.

  He pulled the one pair of leggings out of the drawer along with a shorter tank top, both very soft. He could see why she preferred to wear them at night. The garments would cling to her body, and he didn’t need any more of a distraction, nor did he need Diego to be looking at the clear outline of breasts and bottom in her clingy nightwear. He added the one long sweater she had. She could wear that as well. The woman could do with some modesty. So far, she hadn’t shown any.

  “I’m going to hand you your clothes. You’re going to have to get dressed right there.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake. This is ridiculous.”

  “You’re the one who invaded our home. You had to know the chance you were taking. You’re lucky we didn’t just shoot you as you came up the trail. Coming at you over your right shoulder.”

  He tossed her the shirt first. Clutching the towel with one hand, she caught the tank with the other and pulled it over her head, keeping the towel in place. She was very coordinated. Very. She caught it without looking. Even when she had to switch hands, it was done so smoothly and fast, pulling the tank down without removing the towel.

  “Pants coming over left shoulder.” He wanted to see if she was trained equally on both sides. She was. She had no problem snagging the leggings out the air without seeing them, and dragging them on. Only then did she fold the towel.

  “I’ve got a sweater for you to wear.”

  “Are you going to call off your brother?”

  “You’re going to put on the sweater and then sit in the rocker. I already checked it for weapons. I checked your leggings and tank as well.”

  “What could I have been hiding in these leggings or my tank?”

  “Don’t be obtuse. A garrote. You probably stashed any number of weapons around the cabin.” He lifted his hand to the window and made a short circle to tell Diego to come inside. “Put the sweater on, Jonquille.”

  Obediently, she caught the sweater and slipped into it. He did his best not to notice the way her breasts moved enticingly beneath the tank. He knew her body was going to be a distraction beneath that thin, clingy shirt. Her hair was beginning to dry, going light even there in the gathering dark of the cabin. She flounced over to the rocker and curled up into it. She looked smaller than ever in it.

  Rubin and Diego were both a quarter of an inch shy of six feet. Their family was not made up of small people. Jonquille may have been diminutive in size, but she didn’t feel that way to him. She might look deceptively delicate with clothes on, but he’d seen the muscles running like steel beneath her skin. She’d been confronted alone, far from any help, completely vulnerable, by two male GhostWalkers—and she knew what that meant—yet she didn’t flinch from the danger. She was lethal and had her own secrets, there was no doubt about that. For the first time in his life, Rubin was seriously interested in knowing more about a woman.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Christine Feehan is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Carpathian series, the GhostWalker series, the Leopard series, the Shadow Riders series, and the Sea Haven novels, including the Dra
ke Sisters series and the Sisters of the Heart series.

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