Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2021

by Anna J. Stewart

  The bitter tone in his voice was unlike him. But she surely didn’t begrudge him some bitterness. “Fair enough,” she said as evenly as she could manage past the lump in her throat.

  She stepped inside and was surprised by the vaulted ceiling and log rafters over a spacious great room. This place had tons of potential. Of course, the inside of the ranch house was nearly as battered and worn as the outside. But the bones were there.

  To her left, a fireplace was made of gray rocks that started basketball-sized and gradually got smaller as they rose up from a broad hearth to the ceiling. A fire burned brightly in it, and heat radiated from it and from the stones to warm the entire room.

  At the right end of the large room, an island covered in peeling linoleum separated a big kitchen toward the back of the house from the living space. In front of the kitchen was a dining space. Nice open floor plan. Good flow. That hideous wagon-wheel chandelier over the table had to go, though. To her left, in front of the fireplace, a hallway stretched out, no doubt leading to bedrooms.

  “Give me your keys. I’ll pull your car into one of the barns.”

  She handed over her keys and Wes disappeared outside. She wandered around the living room and kitchen, redecorating it in her mind. A Rocky Mountain theme. Gray slate and blue granite. Oversize furniture in muted colors, maybe a pop of red here and there. Hardwood floors—wide hand-scraped planks would look best.

  The log rafters were magnificent, actually. They just needed sanding and staining to regain their original glory—

  Wes blew in on a howling gust of wind. “Got the place redecorated yet?” he asked sourly.

  He knew her too well. “It’ll clean up nicely.”

  “Not happening on your watch. I’m not kidding. You’re out of here in the morning.”

  She nodded her understanding. Wes never had been the most flexible soul. Her artistic, free-spirited ways had often bumped into this rigid side of him. She suspected she actually needed the stability of someone like him in her life, but she’d spent so long rebelling against the choke hold her father kept on her that she’d never tested the theory.

  “Have you eaten?” He asked the question reluctantly, as if he didn’t want to be polite to her but his manners were too ingrained to stop himself.

  “Yes. I stopped at Pittypat’s.”

  “Guest bedroom is the first door on the right. Bathroom’s the door beyond that.”

  And with that pronouncement, he headed down the hallway, leaving her standing in the middle of the living room. It was barely nine o’clock. Surely he wasn’t going to sleep this early. No, he was just retreating to his own room to avoid having to make nice with her. She sighed and followed him down the hallway.

  “Wes, I really need to talk with you—”

  He whirled so fast she barely saw him move. He had her backed up against the wall, hands on her shoulders pinning her in place, before she could draw a single shocked breath. Her body responded violently, recognizing and remembering him, heck, lusting after him. Her insides went liquid and molten in an instant, and her mind exploded with a single thought. She wanted him. She’d never stopped wanting him.

  The crazy magnetism that had always flared between them when they were in proximity to each other exploded again tonight. Awareness tore through her with his strong fingers digging into her shoulders, with the rapid rise and fall of his muscular chest, with the way her own breathing accelerated to match his.

  She lifted her shocked gaze to his...and froze.

  The rage burning in his eyes was so white-hot he almost looked as if he’d lost his sanity.

  They’d always had sparks between them. Always felt the pull of attraction. Sure, they’d fought it for a while, given in to it for a while, seen that it was a huge mistake and backed off. That didn’t mean the sizzling attraction had ever gone away. Why was he looking at her like this? Was he that angry that she was still attracted to him? Or, worse, was he still attracted to her and reacting this angrily to the idea?

  He snarled, “Get this through your pretty, spoiled little head. I do not want to talk with you. Ever. I don’t give a damn what you have to say to me, and I don’t care if your guilty conscience is driving you crazy with the need to apologize to me. I don’t want to hear it. In the morning, you’ll leave. And don’t ever come back here. You get out of my life and stay out of it. Understood?”

  “Well, I understand, but I really need to—”

  “Don’t push me. I’m perilously close to hurting you right now.” And with that growled warning, he shoved away from her and strode to his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

  She would be indignant at being shut down like that if she didn’t understand the source of his rage. She’d destroyed his career. Actually, she’d nuked it in spectacular fashion. He had every right to be angry with her. But she really did need to speak with him. Beyond the apology she so desperately owed him, she had a problem. And it impacted him, too.

  Still, it hurt to have him look at her like that. Like he genuinely despised her. If only he would listen to her. Give her time to explain that she’d never meant him any harm. Quite the opposite, in fact. She’d never stopped caring about him. A lot.

  What was it going to take to get through to him? She considered going down the hall and knocking on his door. But that slightly mad expression in his eyes was enough to give her pause. In the morning would be soon enough to talk with him. After he’d had some sleep and gotten over the initial shock of her showing up at his front door.

  She wandered back to the living room. The furniture arrangement was all wrong. The couch needed to be parallel to the hearth, and the recliner should face the back wall where the television was mounted—

  She stopped herself. It was his house. She really shouldn’t rearrange the furniture, but he would thank her for it when he realized how much more functional the layout was...and it wasn’t that big a change...

  She gave the long couch an experimental tug. It was heavy. But it did move. That did it. She pushed the sofa to where it properly belonged and dragged the chair to its left. Better. The coffee table’s edge was scarred like one too many pair of boots had been propped on it. The thing really needed a rug under it to anchor it, but the great room was entirely rugless. Drat.

  She flopped down on the couch and watched the fire burn. The dance of white-yellow flames hypnotized her, lulling her into a relaxation she hadn’t felt since that fateful night at the underground club in Washington.

  As best she could tell, the guy Wes had dragged off her had spiked the drink he’d bought her. Thank God she’d only sipped at it and hadn’t consumed the whole thing. She’d stayed conscious for Wes on the phone much longer than she’d expected to. As far as she could tell, she’d only been fully unconscious for a little while. And then Wes had arrived and saved her. It had been a close call with disaster. Far, far too close.

  Now when she looked at men—all men—she saw a threat. Intellectually, she knew that most men were respectful and kind to women. But her gut didn’t want to play along with trusting any of them.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, the emails had started coming, threatening the life of the one man she did trust. She couldn’t lose Wes. Even if he hated her for the rest of their lives, she needed to know that one good man existed out there somewhere.

  Every time she waivered and considered contacting Wes to explain herself, another email arrived. It was uncanny how the sender seemed to sense when she was on the verge of cracking and telling Wes everything. She began to suspect that whoever was writing the emails either knew her or was watching her. Which turned out to be a surefire recipe for soul-sucking paranoia, terrible sleep and a destroyed appetite. Sometimes, she seriously thought she was losing her mind.

  Unable to take the stress any longer, she’d finally snuck out of Washington without telling even her father where she was going or tha
t she was leaving town. She’d just thrown a few clothes and toiletries in a bag and started driving. And here she was.

  She had to find a way to get Wes to listen to her. She had to warn him. In the morning. Before he kicked her to the curb—or to the cow pie, as it were—she would force him to hear her out.

  There had to be some way she could make all of this up to him. If only she wasn’t tired all the way to the depths of her soul. If only she could think. Tomorrow. She would find it tomorrow.

  Her head nodded forward on her chest, then jerked upright. She kicked off her sheepskin boots, tucking her feet under the ragged throw blanket across the back of the couch. She pulled the scratchy wool across her shoulders and drifted off, staring into the flames of her life.

  * * *

  Wes woke with a start. What was that noise? Someone was in his house. He went on full battle alert before he remembered that Jessica had shown up at his door unannounced and unwelcome. A bitter taste filled his mouth. Talk about nasty shocks. Opening his door to see her standing there, tall and elegant and more beautiful than ought to be legal, her eyes bright with worry and her cheeks rosy with cold—sheesh. His heart couldn’t take too many shocks like that.

  He heard the sound again. A moan of fear and pain. Swearing, he threw back the covers and yanked on jeans. He grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it on as he headed into the hall. He poked his head in the guest room, but the bed was still made. Frowning, he headed for the living room.

  Jessica was stretched out on the couch, tangled in the old saddle blanket he’d thrown over the back of the thing to hide the threadbare cushions. She twitched and then thrashed as some nightmare stalked her.

  He tossed several pieces of split oak onto the almost dead fire and used the bellows to blow on the embers until they glowed brightly. The seasoned wood caught fast, and bright new flames licked at the logs.

  He sat on the hearth and contemplated the woman on his sofa. The firelight kissed her skin, which was as silky and dewy soft as he remembered. If anything, the past few months had made her even more beautiful than he remembered. He had never tired of looking at her. It was just when she was awake that he had a huge problem with her. She was selfish, scheming and childishly vengeful if history was any indication.

  Jessica quieted and he caught himself staring hungrily at her perfect features, remembering her slender body wrapped around his, all that fiery passion for life spilling over onto him. Nope. Not opening that can of worms again. He’d been burned too badly the first time.

  He nursed his rage, cloaking himself in its protection from the niggle of hurt gnawing at his gut. He didn’t care why she’d done it. He knew why. She was a self-serving bitch who’d chosen to protect her own dubious reputation rather than telling the truth and exonerating him.

  He stood up to go back to bed. But his movement must have woken her, for Jessica’s luminous, sky blue eyes opened, and she looked around wildly, lurching upright. He stared at her, shocked.

  That was stone-cold terror on her face. Since when did she experience that kind of fear? She was ballsy and bold, charging headfirst into life with courage he’d seen matched in only a few of the most confident of warriors. But here she was in the deep silence of a Montana snowstorm acting like the boogeyman was about to snatch her up and eat her alive.

  Frowning, he murmured, “You had a bad dream.”

  She reached up...and dashed away wetness from her cheek. She was crying? There was a snowball fight happening in hell at this very second.

  “Sorry I woke you up,” she mumbled.

  Apologetic Jessica was another first. Since when did she regret anything she did? Maybe that scare with getting drugged had taught her a much-needed lesson in caution and humility.

  Still, this was the woman who’d told bald-faced lies in a court of law and had forced him to pay the price. He muttered, “If you’re done thrashing around, I’ll go back to bed now.”

  “No more thrashing. I promise.”

  “Thrash all you’d like. It’s no skin off my nose. You might want to go back into the bedroom, though. That couch puts a mean kink in a person’s back.” He should know. He fell asleep out here in front of the fire more nights than not. He had demons of his own waiting for him in dreamland. And most of them were elegant blondes who tied him up in emotional knots he was helpless to resist.

  Shaking his head, he padded back to his room to do some thrashing around of his own as sleep eluded him and rage and betrayal wrestled in his gut. One night. He just had to survive this night. And then he’d get rid of her forever.

  CHAPTER 4

  Jessica woke with a start for the second time and lurched upright. Shabby room. Giant fireplace with a dead fire. A deep, bone-chilling cold pervaded the room.

  Montana. Wes. And a snowstorm.

  He hated her guts as he rightfully should and was refusing to let her explain anything to him. She had to make him listen. Poking her feet into her boots, she laid some wood on the ashes and used the bellows to blow on them. Nothing. The fire had gone out completely. Depressed by the cold gray ashes, she spotted some kindling and a newspaper folded in the wood holder. She wadded up a few pieces of it, laid the kindling and went hunting for matches. She found some in a drawer in the kitchen and carried them back to the hearth.

  It took a few minutes of babying it along, but eventually the wood lit and the fire became self-sustaining. That task taken care of, she headed for the kitchen to see how stocked it was with food. She found a half-dozen eggs and some bacon. And then she spotted a pint of cream and some cheese. Now she was talking! She hunted around in the cupboards and found a bag of flour and some old-fashioned lard. Now for a pie pan. She found only an old cake pan stuffed in the back of a cupboard. That would work. She rolled up her sleeves and went to work, mixing a pastry crust, shredding cheese, frying bacon and putting together a quiche lorraine. Carefully, she placed it the oven and went looking for something to go with it. A bag of potatoes in the pantry and an onion became a fried hash while the quiche cooked. As the meal came together, she frowned at the ancient drip coffeepot on the kitchen counter. If she could work a French press, surely she could figure this out.

  The cantankerous machine was finally dripping coffee through a paper filter when Wes said from behind her, “What’s all this?”

  “A peace offering. That, and I was hungry.”

  “It would take a hell of a lot more than a nice breakfast to make peace with me, darlin’.”

  At least he thought it was a nice breakfast. She didn’t, however, take him calling her darling as anything other than the sarcasm it was meant to be. She poured him a cup of coffee and used the bit of cream she’d saved to gunk it up the way he liked it. “Try this. I wasn’t sure how to work your coffee maker. How is it?” she asked anxiously.

  He sipped it and grimaced. “Strong.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll remake it.”

  “Stop fussing, Jess. I can add a little more milk and some sugar, and it’ll be fine.”

  Anxiously she served him a slice of the quiche and some hash.

  “Will you stop hovering long enough to get yourself a plate of food and sit down?” he finally grumbled.

  Too tense to eat now that the moment was upon her to talk with Wes, she settled for pouring herself a cup of coffee. She took a sip and grimaced. No amount of cream or sugar was going to save that. It tasted terrible. Well. Wasn’t this conversation off to a spectacular start?

  She dived in, blurting, “Aren’t you going to ask me why I lied?”

  He froze in the act of taking a bite of the quiche. Laid his fork down slowly without taking the bite. Wiped his mouth and folded his napkin with exacting precision. Leaned back in his chair. And finally looked up at her. He pinned her with a stare that would freeze a polar bear. He hadn’t been a Marine officer for nothing.

  It took every ounce of self-discipline she had
not to fidget under that accusing glare.

  He spoke from between clenched teeth. “I know why you lied.”

  She stared. “You do?”

  He shrugged, but the movement was so tense she wasn’t sure what that jerk of his shoulders was at first. “You threw me under the bus to save your reputation and your father’s. I hope you both find them to be cold comfort when you end up alone.”

  He stood up abruptly, startling her, and carried his plate over to the sink.

  “That’s not why!” she exclaimed.

  Another exaggeratedly slow movement, this time to turn around and stare at her from over by the sink. She noticed with dismay that his hands were balled into fists at his sides.

  “Fine. Why?” he bit out. His voice didn’t quite shake with rage but wasn’t far from it. With that beard and wild look in his eyes, he looked lke some sort of crazed mountain man. Where was the spit-and-polish Marine she’d fallen so hard for before? She searched for any sign of him, and the only remnant she spied was the rigid set of his shoulders and ramrod-straight spine.

  She explained urgently, “I was threatened. I got a bunch of anonymous emails saying that if I didn’t destroy you professionally, they would kill you.”

  “They who?”

  She stared down at her fingers, twined together, tugging at each other until they turned red. “I don’t know. But they knew things about me. Like what I was wearing and where I was. They were following me.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?”

  “Because I believed them,” she answered desperately.

  He huffed. “You know better than to give in to anonymous threats. You should have called their bluff.”

  “I did. They killed my dog.”

  “Paco? How do you know someone killed that little rat? Wasn’t he about a hundred years old?”

  Paco had been more than a little neurotic and he’d had lots of quirks. But he surely hadn’t deserved to be murdered. “The veterinarian did a tox screen, and he died from ingesting large quantities of rat poison.”