“Drop the gun,” she said, without finishing the thought, afraid it would distract her too much.
He didn’t move, which gave her time to notice more about him. His tactical canvas pants with cargo pockets fit close to his hips and legs without being tight. His shirt was made of the same durable material but molded to his muscular upper body and still managed to appear flexible.
She adjusted the aim of her gun. “Drop it. Now. Or I’ll pull this trigger.”
She watched him blink before he slowly lowered the gun to the floor, bending, then straightening.
“Don’t shoot,” he said again, standing with his hands spread wide so she could see they were empty.
That voice…
He took a step toward her, sending her heart skittering. “Don’t move!” A tremble shook her hands.
“Sabine—”
That rasp…she knew that voice.
He knew her name.
While she struggled with what this information meant, he sprang into action. He moved so fast she didn’t see what he’d actually done until she felt a sting on her wrists and her pistol went flying. The same instant she realized she was no longer armed, she felt her feet swept out from under her and found herself on her butt. Dazed, she watched as the man crouched for his weapon smooth as a cat.
“Stay here,” he said, then ran out the door.
“What—” Sabine gave herself a mental shake and jumped to her feet.
Grabbing her pistol, she ran through the door after him. She stopped and looked left and right, seeing nothing through the darkness. A sound brought her head whipping back to her left. She ran with her gun pointed to the ground, holding it with both hands. She ignored her cold feet and bare arms as she reached the corner of the building. Leaning forward, she peered around the corner. There was only a field to the west of her bookstore, which was located on the west edge of town, but a street light to the south illuminated the man dressed in black chasing another figure into the street.
Sabine ran after them. What was happening? Why were two men sneaking around her bookstore in the middle of the night—again?
She watched the man in black catch the second figure, a lean man who was not as tall. Tripped by quick and agile feet, the shorter man fell in the street. Before he could regain his balance, the man in black struck him with his gun. The shorter man went limp.
Was he dead?
The man in black hefted the shorter man up and over his shoulder then turned to look back. Sabine felt goose bumps from more than cold raise the flesh on her arms. But instead of coming toward her, he walked the opposite direction across the street.
He might as well have been carrying a sack of grain for all the trouble it took him to step up the curb and open the front door of the vacant building across the street…directly across from her bookstore and apartment. He left the front door open as he disappeared inside, as though beckoning her to follow.
Wary of the familiarity she felt toward him, she did. Somewhere in the depths of her mind she knew who he was. But the implications of his being here, in Roaring Creek, with an unconscious man in a vacant building, were too much for her to accept all at once.
Shivering from cold and apprehension, she put her hand against the door frame and tried to see through the darkness inside the building. A light snapped on, illuminating a stairway leading to a lower level, a basement.
She didn’t want to go down there, but curiosity moved her feet for her. She paused halfway when she heard the clatter of something metal. Taking several deep breaths, she stepped the rest of the way down the stairs.
The basement was small. A single bulb lit the open space, deep shadows swallowing the far wall. A modern furnace looked out of place surrounded by the old wood and stone frame of the house. The man in black stood with his arms at his side, pistol hanging from his right hand. Sabine felt him looking at her through the twin holes of his mask.
Next to him, the figure from the street was on his knees, and his hands were tied by a chain that slung him from a pipe running across the ceiling, the metal clatter she’d heard. It was the man who’d attacked her in her bookstore. She stared at the man in black. How had he known? A riot of emotions warred in her, resistance against what a deeper part of her already knew.
Sliding his pistol into the waist of his black pants, the man in black moved toward her. His head barely fit under the low ceiling. His power lurked in the play of sinewy muscles beneath his dark covering, in the sheer size of him, long thighs, big shoulders and arms. She would have taken an instinctive step back if she hadn’t been so frozen with disbelief.
The closer he came, the clearer she saw his eyes. When he stopped before her, she could no longer cling to doubt. Those eyes had looked into hers with naked, intimate heat.
When he reached to pull off the mask, she stopped breathing. Black hair fell in disarray around his head, and the full impact of his gray eyes was just as intense as she remembered, but tinged with a familiar energy. Focused and ready for combat. His gaze lowered down the front of her, unhurried, remembering, as she was. Dressed only in her thin white cotton top and matching pajama pants, she felt stripped by that look.
“Cullen,” she whispered.
He lifted one gloved hand and traced the bruise on her neck. The trail of his finger left a tingle on her skin. She stood still while he told her without words what had drawn him here. His gaze shifted and met hers, burning hotter with the promise of vengeance.
She stepped back, out of his reach, not at all trusting herself with the way he made her feel. Her gaze passed over the man secured by the chain and then around the dark basement.
“We have to call the sheriff.” She started to turn.
Cullen took hold of her arm just above her elbow and pulled her back to face him. “No sheriff.”
She curled her hand over his biceps, meaning to push him away. Instead fiery awareness of the iron-hard muscle shot through her.
“That’s the second time that man tried to attack me,” she spat. “We have to report it.”
“No police. No reporters. I don’t want anyone knowing I’m here.”
“Then why did you come? I don’t need your help anymore.”
His eyes indicated the bruises on her neck. “Go home, Sabine. You don’t have to worry about anyone hurting you again. I’ll make sure you’re safe from now on.”
“Go home?” She tugged her arm and he let her go. “And what? Forget you’re here? That you have a man tied by a chain in the basement of what I thought was a vacant building that happens to be right across the street from my bookstore?” She couldn’t help looking at Cullen’s body again, so huge and ominous dressed in black. Disturbed by the warming reaction the sight gave her, she turned and climbed the stairs.
On the first level, she stood in the middle of the empty room, uncertain what to do. The house didn’t appear lived-in. Something caught her eye. Near the window sill on an upside-down cardboard box, silhouetted by the streetlight, was a pair of binoculars. She went there, staring at the binoculars a moment before looking out the window. Her bookstore was in clear view.
A sound made Sabine turn. Cullen stood at the top of the basement stairs, gun still tucked into the black pants, watching her. Next to him, stairs led to a second level. She engaged the safety on her pistol and headed there. Climbing the stairs, she heard him follow.
Straight ahead at the top of the stairs, a hall led to three dark rooms. Sabine’s hand trailed along the round ball at the end of the railing as she stepped into a room to her right. An unmade and otherwise unadorned mattress was the only piece of furniture other than a card table, where a black briefcase was open. A cord trailed from the briefcase to a plug in the wall. Inside the briefcase was a small monitor surrounded by other electronics. The monitor blinked a red “Camera 2” along with an unobtrusive beeping sound.
Cullen had been spying on her.
“It’s infrared.”
She turned to see him standing at the top
of the stairs.
“For motion detection,” he added.
She barely heard him. He’d come for her. He’d come, despite the risk of exposure. Why? A warm rush of hope threatened her resolve to keep him out of her heart.
He moved toward her, those eyes glowing with answering heat. “It isn’t over, Sabine.”
It took her a few seconds to realize he wasn’t referring to the two of them. Just when she was beginning to feel strong again, he had to show up and knock her off balance. He was like one of her misguided achievements. She’d have to sacrifice too much of herself to have him, even for a little while.
“Did my father send you?” she asked.
He stopped too close. “No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“He didn’t want me to come.”
His eyes lowered and she felt his gaze like a physical touch, lingering on her chest. Then all that energy captured her with an unspoken message. She couldn’t look away. Her pulse warmed with the shift of his gaze into hers. She flinched when he touched her hand, but his fingers only took hold of the gun. Letting him have it, she rubbed her arms and watched him tuck it in the back of his pants.
“I’ll take you home.”
From downstairs, the sound of something clanging to the floor ended the argument. Cullen ran down the stairs and Sabine followed. She heard glass shattering. At the bottom of the basement steps, she saw Cullen standing with his gun aimed out the basement window. It was broken, and the man who’d been hanging by the chain was gone.
Chapter 8
“While you’re wearing the stain off my wood floor, I’ll be downstairs stocking my shelves.” Holding a fresh container of sun tea in one hand and a small cooler of ice in the other, she waited for Cullen to stop pacing in the middle of the living room to look at her. He’d seen her safely home in the wee hours of morning, just before Minivan Man arrived for his shift. Early. Now Cullen was trapped here, although he’d cracked a smile at her name for the reporter.
He didn’t respond, but his impatience etched stern lines on his face. It was almost comical. “You don’t do well with nothing to keep you occupied, do you.”
His brow put a deeper crease above his nose.
Smiling, she opened the door leading to the stairs and quipped, “I’ll send you a bill for the floor.”
Stepping onto the first stair, she closed the door on his slightly less brooding face. Downstairs, the blinds were open in her bookstore. The sun was shining this morning, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It perked up her mood. She put the jug of iced tea on the checkout counter. She’d keep the Closed sign up and front door locked just in case Minivan Man decided to try to corner her.
Finding a plastic cup on one of the shelves behind the checkout counter, she put ice in it and filled it with tea. The sound of boots thudding a slow tread made her look toward the row of shelves that blocked her view of the office. Cullen appeared in one of the aisles. She’d known he wouldn’t be able to stay upstairs with nothing to do. Pulling out another cup, she poured him a glass of tea. He stopped and lifted it from the counter when she finished.
“Thanks.”
Sipping, he eyed the windows at the front of the store and started to go there.
“I want the blinds open,” she warned him.
He didn’t stop.
“I like the sunlight,” she raised her voice.
He reached for the string hanging from the blinds nearest the door, heedless of the demand in her tone. Pulling, he lowered the blinds over the window.
“Leave the damn blinds open!”
Paying her no heed, he moved to the second set and shut them, plunging the bookstore into gloomy light.
Pursing her lips tightly with the rise of temper, she left her tea on the counter and stomped to the front of the store. She jerked the first blinds open. When she reached for the second one, his fingers slid around her wrist and stopped her. His touch along with his nearness kept her from yanking away.
“We’ll leave one open,” he compromised.
She watched his lips form the raspy words, disarming the rest of her temper. Those gray eyes held hers with heat that he tried to subdue with a slow blink, telling her he also felt the chemistry mixing between them. Slipping her wrist free, she went to a box of unpacked books and struggled to regain composure.
Cullen followed, setting his cup of tea on a table between two Victorian chairs in front of a gas fireplace. She tried to convince herself this was no big deal. So her rescuer was here in her bookstore. Did she have to fall all over him? No. Did she want to? No.
Yeah, right. She sneaked a look at his tall, cut body.
“I was surprised when I heard you were opening a bookstore,” he said without looking at her. He was opening another box of books.
“Why?”
“You decided to give up your career?”
She stilled in the act of pulling some biographies from a box. “I didn’t give up.”
“I meant,” he amended, “not many people could come back from what you went through and start their own business.”
She straightened from the box and began slipping biographies on a shelf. “You’re in Roaring Creek, Cullen. Don’t act like I’ve invested in a franchise.”
He moved closer to her and put some books on the shelf. “It doesn’t have to be a franchise.”
She let go of the last biography and slid her gaze to him. “Doesn’t it?”
“I only wondered why a bookstore.”
“I gave up an exciting hydrogeology career to open a boring old bookstore in a little mountain town. Do you think that’s taking a step backward?”
“No. I think you took that job in Afghanistan to prove something to your father.”
She flinched at his accurate assessment.
He half grinned. “It doesn’t take much to see it, Sabine. When he was young, he was never around, used your mother, had a thing for thrills. It made you feel unwanted.”
Swallowing, she faced the biographies. “That isn’t important to me anymore.”
“Your father’s changed since then.”
Grunting her cynicism, Sabine bent to the box of books, a jerky, awkward movement. Why did what he say bother her so much? It wasn’t important to her what her father thought or felt. And she was living for herself now, not anyone else. This bookstore proved it.
Cullen opened another box. Her first glance turned into another. It was the one that contained some of her Pulitzer prize winners. Her favorites. And his hands were on them. Trying to ignore what that did to her, she put more biographies on the shelf.
“They go on the shelf by author name,” she said.
“I’ve been in bookstores before,” he answered.
She couldn’t resist a sassy remark. “For what? GI Joe books?”
He laughed once and not very loud.
“Playboy?” She placed another biography on the shelf, sending him a slanted look as he carried a few books to the shelf beside her.
“The last time I bought one of those I was sixteen years old and nervous about a date with the first girl I ever slept with.” His voice was deadpan, but she knew he was only playing along with her.
“Did it help?” she teased, even though she was actually curious.
He put a few books on the top shelf, calm as could be. “You ought to know.”
She slid another book into place. “You weren’t that good.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
She looked at him and saw his lopsided grin in profile. “I didn’t make any noise.”
“The fact you don’t remember says it all.”
What had she done? Moaned? She didn’t think she’d cried out…then she did remember…she had.
“Don’t make fun of that. It isn’t funny.” She slid the last biography onto the shelf and didn’t move her hand from the spine. Just stared at it while her heart filled with feelings she did not want.
“I know,” he murmured. “I’m s
orry.”
He stacked the shelf with a few more books. After a moment, she joined him.
“You’ve got some good books in here,” he said, holding up a book by John Kennedy Toole between them.
“How would you know?”
“I read this one.” He glanced up at the shelf. “I’ve read a lot of these.”
“You read A Confederacy of Dunces?” She put her hands on the edge of a shelf level with her face and she stared at him.
“Twice.” He smiled, continuing to stack the shelf.
She didn’t know what to say around her surprise. And that smile was disarming.
“I like the author’s view of people and society.”
“He hated them.”
“He understood their idiosyncrasies. Too well. It’s a shame he committed suicide,” he said.
Her curiosity got the better of her. “What other books have you read?”
Lowering his hands, he shrugged and turned in two little steps to face her. “A little of everything. The classics. Action or adventure. Thrillers. I like nonfiction, too.”
“For a knuckle dragger you sure are well read.”
A chuckle rumbled from him. “I started reading a lot when I was in college.”
“When did you have time to read?”
“I made time. I like to read.”
It seemed so unlike him. “What happened that you ended up working as a mercenary?”
“I’m not a mercenary.”
“How do you know my father, then? Why did he hire you?”
His expression closed and she knew they’d reached an area he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, talk about. Disappointed, angry for being disappointed, because that meant she actually cared, she went to a box and got a few more books, jamming them into place on a shelf.
“Your father and I are just friends,” he said.
“All his friends have secret lives. It makes perfect sense.”
“Would you rather the whole town knew I was here and destroy everything I’ve worked for?”
Finished with the books, she folded her arms and cocked her head. “If it would help me get rid of you, sure. But somehow I don’t think that’s what would happen.”
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