by Dana Marton
Murph filled his lungs. “Fine. We'll set a trap for him together.” If she was going to face down Asael, Murph was going to be right there. He would find a way to get to the bastard before he got to Kate.
She leaned forward and suddenly their lips met. He let them rest against each other. Then he moved, just barely, taking the slightest taste of her because he thought he might die if he didn't. His body instantly hardened, but he didn't push for more, specifically because he wanted to, desperately. He stayed there, touching, wanting, resisting, for as long as he could stand it, before he pulled back.
He wanted her more than he'd ever wanted a woman. But he wasn't going to act on the lust that filled him to the brim. Not yet, not until she was safe. Until then, he had to channel his burning need for her into protecting her, so he focused on that.
“He’ll want to take you when you’re alone. He doesn’t want any more attention than necessary. Assassins are discreet by nature.” A plan slowly formed in his head. “So we make sure you’re never alone. Except when we have the trap ready for him.”
Chapter Eight
The sounds of the diner, nothing but a faint background noise, barely reached the back office. Jimmy pushed his bag of hard candy across the desk toward Kate. “Want some?”
She popped a piece of chocolate candy into her mouth. “Thanks. So the two sides of the equation must always stay equal. Whatever you do to one side, you have to do to the other.”
Murph was coming to pick her up later, keeping with their plan of her never being alone, until they were ready. He had some pretty extreme ideas about setting up the entire house as a trap.
She focused on the here and now before she could freak herself out. Trapping Asael might have been the best way to ensure her long-term survival, but that didn't mean the prospect of coming face-to-face with the man didn't scare the spit out of her.
She drew some circles on the worksheet in front of Jimmy. “See how these two variables relate to each other?”
“It’s easier now that you explained it. Kind of makes sense.”
They went through a few more problems before finishing for the day.
She glanced at the time on her cell phone. “My ride should be here in a few minutes.”
“Your car’s broke again?”
“It’s a clunker.”
Jimmy crammed his papers into a scuffed-up folder. “So the dude that dropped you off this morning is like your new boyfriend?”
“Just a friend.”
“He was definitely checking you out when you were walking away from his truck.”
Was he? She bit back a smile. Her love life hadn't been much to brag about before she'd gone on the run, and non-existent since. She couldn’t afford to let anyone in. Murph was the first and only person who knew the truth about her.
In a world where she couldn’t trust anyone, finally having someone to be on her side felt both scary and nice. It brought a sense of closeness. And living in the same house, sharing the same bathroom, sharing meals, created a sense of intimacy, made her feel like the two of them had known each other for a long time.
Then there were those intense moments between them when he touched her and looked at her with such fierce hunger it made her head spin. Sweet chocolate-covered cherries. The man could be intense.
“What are we studying tomorrow?” she asked Jimmy.
“Western Civ.” He groaned. “Eileen will be doing payroll, so we can’t use the office. Want to come over to my place?”
* * *
Murph parked by the curb in front of the diner and scanned Main Street. He'd be driving Kate everywhere from now on. He checked every car, every person who walked by, but didn’t see anyone acting suspiciously. Heck, he knew most of the people.
The mail truck stood in front of the bank across the road, and when Robin walked from the building with half a dozen empty plastic mail trays, Murph beeped the horn.
She looked at him, waved and ran across when the light turned red and the cars stopped coming. “I was hoping I’d run into you today. I had a dream about you last night.”
He winked at her. “Were we naked?”
She laughed, her signature angel earrings dangling as her head moved. With her trim figure and stylish bob, nobody would have guessed that she was nearing retirement. “Men. You do have a one-track mind.”
“It’s so much simpler that way.”
Instead of laughing again, her face clouded. “You were in the woods. You had handcuffs on and you were shooting at a water tower. It was a dark dream.”
“Okay,” he said carefully. He’d forgotten over the last eight months how strange Robin could be. She’d been born in Lily Dale, a psychic community in Upstate New York, and proud of her heritage. She handed out warnings and visions as enthusiastically as she handed out the daily mail.
“Just be careful, that’s all.” She gave his arm a motherly pat. Then the concern disappeared from her face the next second, and she brightened. “And there was a love dove.” She smiled. “I caught a glimpse of a wedding at Broslin Chapel.”
“Ah.” He coughed, choking on his own spit.
Robin flashed another smile then hurried back to her truck. Before Murph could start feeling overly concerned about the stability of her mind, Kate was coming from the diner, finally.
He liked the way she walked, the sass in her stride, although he didn’t think she was even aware of that. He watched as she hurried toward him, looking at him and nowhere else.
They'd agreed this morning that if he pulled his truck up to the curb, it meant he thought it was safe for her to come outside, he’d already checked. Their deal was, she wouldn’t look around, wouldn’t act scared, wouldn’t tip off Asael that they were on to him.
She opened the door with a smile on her face and slipped into the passenger seat. “Hey. Thanks for picking me up.”
She smelled like pie and coffee, making his mouth water. He’d missed her today. Being with her made his heart feel lighter. Okay, that was a pretty fanciful thought. Maybe Robin was rubbing off on him. Love dove, indeed. Jeezus.
He flashed a friendly smile at Kate. “Have a good day?”
“Not bad for an average Thursday. Got two tour buses. Good tippers. You?”
“I got some work done in the house.”
She lifted an eyebrow as he pulled into traffic.
“The doors are reinforced. Front, back, basement entry. I got new, heavy-duty locks.”
“And if he doesn’t hit at home?”
“He normally does. I checked what information I could find on his work. He doesn’t like an audience. He fancies himself to be invisible. Smoke. But just in case.” He jerked his thumb toward the back seat, the bulletproof vest he'd grabbed from the station. “I want you to wear the Kevlar under your clothes at all times. It’s the latest technology, not too thick. It’s winter anyway, everybody’s bulky.”
She raised a pointed eyebrow at him.
“Not you.” He backpedaled immediately. “Even in the thickest sweater you’re as slim as a monk’s chance for getting laid.”
She laughed out loud. “Nice save.”
“I want to ask you to consider something,” he said as he turned down their street. “I want to bring the Captain in on this.”
Her eyes widened with alarm. “No.”
“He can help. I trust the man with my life.”
“I don’t trust him with mine. I don’t know him. As far as I’m concerned, the only reason I’m still alive is because up until now nobody knew my secret. Don’t make me regret that I told you. Please.”
He stopped at the stop sign and looked at her hands tightly clasped on her lap, the stubborn set of her jaw. He would have felt better with Bing and the guys at the department having his back, but she could be right. He stepped on the gas. If the hit man had been watching the town for a few days now, he might notice any unusual police activity. He might be tipped off that they were onto him. Then he’d be a lot more careful, more diffic
ult to trap. He might wait until Kate moved on, was on her own again.
“Okay,” Murph said. “For now. We’ll see how much we can accomplish today, how comfortable we feel with what we have.”
Her Chevy was parked off to the side of his driveway, so he pulled into his garage. That shouldn’t seem suspicious. The weather was plenty cold outside.
She looked toward the keypad he'd installed before he left to pick her up. “You have been busy.”
He closed the garage door then walked with her to the security system on the wall, told her the code. “Bonbons. So the chocolate hoarders among us can remember it.” He kept finding stashes of chocolate in the oddest places, like the laundry cabinets, for instance.
“I don't know what you're talking about.” But she smiled as she stepped inside the laundry room. She looked around. “You’ve accessorized.”
“A little.” He’d put up a fire extinguisher, left a broom leaning against the wall a few feet farther in. “I tried to make sure you have something that can be used as a weapon close at hand, no matter where you are in the house.”
“Very safe-house chic. But I’m not planning on putting my gun down until this is over.” She pulled the small weapon from her purse, checked to make sure that the safety was on, then shoved it into the back of her waistband, in a move she’d probably seen on TV.
Hot. His gaze ran down her long legs. All that tough-chick stuff looked pretty sexy on her.
Patience. Keep her safe first, seduce her second.
He followed her in. “I don’t suppose the gun shop threw in some training with that weapon.”
“Bought it off the internet. Watched YouTube videos on how to shoot it, then practiced aiming, unloaded. I thought that would be safest.”
“That’s commendable.” He walked into the kitchen, feeling a headache coming on. He rubbed the heel of his hand against his temple. “We’ll train. I'll take you to the shooting range. But any weapon can be taken away. Any weapon can fail. It’s good to have backup. We’ll walk through, so you can memorize where everything is. Then tonight we’ll walk through the house again in the dark a couple of times. I want you to know where every door is, every item that you can use to defend yourself, even if you can’t see them.”
She swallowed as she tossed her purse on the shelf that held the mail. “How soon do you think he’ll come?” She dropped onto the couch, on the opposite end from his rolled-up bedding, to take off her sneakers.
“Soon. He found you. He knows where you live. He’s watched the house, knows the parameters, probably made his plans. He has no reason to linger. He’ll come at night, maybe make it look like a robbery.”
He paused, leaning against the counter as he watched her, worried for her more than a little. “Or make it look like I snapped. Murder-suicide. That’d be the cleanest. He won’t want an investigation. He’s never been caught. His record is everything to him.” The man didn’t name himself The Smoke from Hell for nothing.
She rolled her ankles.
He tried not to stare at her endless legs. He pushed away from the counter as he turned a stray thought around in his head. “What if you know him?”
“What?”
“If he’s been in town for a while, stalking you…. What if he got in touch, like some sick game? To get to know you better.”
“I would recognize him.”
“He disguised himself at the funeral. Maybe he’s in disguise here.” He thought for a minute. “A guy new to town, someone who came here just after you did. Who do you know like that?”
She stared at him for a good long time, with a skeptical look on her face. She probably thought he’d just flipped. But then she said, “Jimmy Masters. He helps out in the kitchen at the diner. He was hired two days after I was. But he’s not Asael.”
“He ever tried to get you alone?”
“I’m helping him study for his GED.” She hesitated. “Actually, tomorrow we’ll be having our lesson at his apartment.”
“No.”
“This is crazy. He's way too young.”
“Who else?”
“Nobody.” But then she said, “Fred Kazincky. The mechanic who works on my car. He’s older than Asael. And shorter, okay? I don’t think that can be faked.” She paused. “The dark-blue sedan that I thought might be following me, that happened on my way to Fred and he was right there in the shop, had been there, working on my car. It's not Fred.”
“Okay.” But he made note of the name and was going to run him through the system at the station, anyway.
She got up and went around him to the fancy hot chocolate machine she’d brought home from the diner. She hadn’t tested it yet, but he’d caught her, on more than one occasion, casting longing glances that way.
“I’m making a cup. If we’re having this conversation, I need a little something,” she said the way Murph's father used to talk about hard liquor. She pulled out the chocolate mix, but then she stilled, looked at Murph. “Antonio.”
“Who?”
“The chocolate salesman who gave me this. He got Southeastern PA as his sales territory around the same time that I moved here. I was already at the diner when he first came in. Then he became a regular.”
Murph strode up to the machine and gently pushed her aside. “Hold on.”
He looked at the shiny contraption from every angle, disliking the idea of some strange guy giving gifts to Kate. “Have you two been involved?”
“None of your business.”
“Want to stay alive?”
She glared at him. “He’s not a killer. He’s Italian.”
“Right. Because an accent couldn’t be faked. Don’t touch this.” He hurried down to the basement and came back up with his toolbox.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for a hidden camera or a mike.” Or a poison capsule. The thought that Kate could have already used the machine made cold sweat break out on his back.
She kept up the glaring. “If you break my hot chocolate machine, I’m never forgiving you.”
A risk he was willing to take.
But taking the hot chocolate machine apart piece by piece netted him no extra components, no surveillance equipment, no poison. His shoulders relaxed.
“Good as new.” He slid it toward her on the counter when he finished putting all the parts back together. “See? No screws left over.”
She pushed the contraption into the far corner, moving the toaster in front of it for protection.
He held up a hand. “I’ll leave it alone. I swear.” Paused. “Anyone else?”
“No. I haven’t been here long enough to make that many friends.”
“A lot of people come into the diner.”
“Mostly locals. I don’t think Asael is from Broslin.”
He wasn’t willing to write off the possibility as easily as that but, in his heart of hearts, he didn’t think so either. From what he’d learned of Asael from the various law enforcement databases, he was a man of the world with multiple secret residences all over the globe. Law enforcement had a list of suspected cities, but hadn't yet been able to track down any of his lairs.
Murph knew most of Broslin, had grown up here, had gone to school with a lot of the people who were around his age, like Asael was suspected to be. He couldn’t think of anyone in town who could have led that kind of double life without being missed while he was off doing evil in the world.
Kate stomped toward the bedroom, abandoning the hot chocolate machine, as if he’d spoiled it for her. “I’m going to change out of my work clothes.”
“Change into something you can move in. We’re going to train.”
* * *
Kate grunted as they lay in a tangle of limbs on the living room floor. She was so aware of Murph’s chiseled body touching hers, she was ready to jump out of her skin. Half her body ached from the training session, the other half tingled with the kind of desire she'd just about forgotten.
She tried to pull back, to put so
me distance between them. “Sorry. I’m not normally this uncoordinated.”
He rolled away then pushed fluidly to his feet and stood there, looking down at her, not even breathing hard, the bastard.
She scrambled up as gracefully as a newborn foal on ice, doing her best to catch her breath. “I should start dinner.”
“Let’s try one more time.” He moved toward her. “Pretend I’m the assassin. Murph is dead out in the kitchen. You’re out of bullets and cornered.” He reached for her. “First choice?”
“Kill the bastard.” She grabbed for the bar stool and whacked him in the head as hard as she could, but he twisted at the last second, and the blow glanced off his skull.
Right at the beginning, he'd ordered her, fairly forcefully, to hold nothing back. And then he’d pushed and pushed, baiting and goading her. At this stage, if she maimed him, she figured he deserved it.
“Second choice?” He stepped forward with a growl.
“Incapacitate him then call 911.” She lunged forward instead of pulling back, and kicked at his most sensitive parts, but wobbled at the last second and missed by a fraction of an inch.
“Third choice?” He grabbed for her.
“Run like hell and live to see another day.” She put her head down, then yanked it up hard, smashing it into his chin so that his head snapped back and his grip on her slipped.
She ran for the stairs that led upstairs.
He was on top of her in a second, bringing her down and pinning her. “Wrong move. What did I say about the stairs?”
“If I have a choice, go down.” The basement had an outside exit, but upstairs she could get trapped.
“Right.” He rolled off her then sat up, his eyes narrowing as he watched her struggle to catch her breath. His biceps bulged under his black T-shirt that was barely wrinkled, while her shirt and pants looked like he’d mopped the house with her. Which, technically, he had.
She scraped herself off the stairs and sat next to him on the bottom step. He was insanely strong. She hadn’t expected that, considering his injury. And he was fast. He didn’t have to think about what move he was going to make next. He fought on instinct, while her instincts pushed her to run away screaming.