by Incy Black
Will walked over to the stress ball, shot him a reproving look over his shoulder, and bent to retrieve the squidgy globe. “Don’t presume to know her. Not anymore. She’s cooked me some pretty fancy meals, and she runs a multimillion-pound business. You may want to give her a bit of credit, Marshall. It can’t have been easy for her to turn things around.”
Then as abruptly as he entered, he turned on his heel and left.
Nick glared at the slammed door. Of course he knew Anna. Maybe better than he knew himself. But since when had she become Homemaker of the Year? And what the bloody hell did she think she was doing, cooking meals for a too-randy-for-his-own-good agent like Will? She’d never cooked for him.
Because I’d never let her. He pushed away from his desk and swiveled to stare out the window as that admission settled uncomfortably.
Well, he had. But once had been enough. Parboiled potatoes and a steak you could have driven a thousand miles on without any sign of wear and tear.
Happy wedding night feast—not!
Telling her she was “good for one thing alone” and then proving it to her for the next fortnight, only dragging himself out of bed to do the cooking himself, hadn’t been his proudest moment, but it had definitely been the most unforgettable. And when the honeymoon was over, she’d been the one to climb from their bed and walk tall, a grin the size of the Grand Canyon across her face. He, on the other hand, had barely managed to crawl in her wake, not from exhaustion, but in awe.
Anna was unforgettable all right. Hell, the memory of her sleek little body pressed tight against his—hungry, wanting, generous—haunted him damn near every night.
Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice” shattered the silence, the ringtone Will’s infantile little joke. He snatched up his cell phone to silence the annoying tune. “Marshall,” he barked, uncaring of who was on the other end.
“I’m with Fortress. You know anything about a second surveillance team? Because we’re not the only one watching your ex.”
…
Her eyes ached. Needles drilled her temples. Anna pushed away from her work console, arched her back the wrong way, and stretched her arms high until her narrow shoulders clicked and begged for mercy.
Lowering her arms, she again leaned forward. Clicking the mouse, she skipped rapidly through the thumbnails of the online universe she’d just spent nine hours outlining. Its creation had absorbed her into a world of make-believe far displaced from the recent spate of real-life threats she still couldn’t fathom.
Lots of ice; cruel, bitter storms; dark hidden caves; and the empty, barren landscapes of the Arctic. Complex puzzles, fiendish traps, and deadly hazards, each intended to draw a false step that would see the player kicked unceremoniously back to the start. It would be the hardest level of Hinterland Heroes to crack yet. Damn near impossible.
There was no denying who had inspired the frigid virtual world laid out before her. The very man she’d hoped to obliterate from her mind. Nick-bloody-Marshall.
With a sigh, she closed down the screen and informed the nightshift moderators she was calling it a night. She sauntered across the courtyard toward the second warehouse she called home, well lit with halogen beams. Hands on hips, she eyed the ladder, followed its full height, and smiled. In less than a week, she’d have a nice new shiny staircase, wrought iron this time. Fire problem solved. She was done with wood.
One hand splaying across her still-flat abdomen, she hesitated before approaching the base of the ladder. Though gifted with the balance and sure-footedness of a climbing goat, she hadn’t liked putting her baby at even marginal risk. Her new staircase couldn’t come a moment too soon.
The ball of her foot had just hit the bottom rung when the bright floodlights illuminating the courtyard died without the stutter of a warning.
What the—?
A heavy weight collided with her slight frame, knocking her clear and carrying her down onto the unforgiving cobblestones that separated the two warehouses like a sea. A shadow loomed above her. Her first rational thought was for the tiny life she carried within her, her second that she couldn’t breathe. Something heavy pinned her throat. Rough hands. Squeezing. She bucked and clawed. Gagged as some errant slither of her mind registered the foulness of stale garlic breath.
Dear God, she was going to die.
As the world started to dim, faint traces of muffled shouts registered. Next thing, she was hauled upright. A savage blow ignited a galaxy of pinprick flashes behind her eyes and sent her rag-dolling through the air. Her spine connected with the brick of her warehouse wall, expelling what little breath remained in her lungs. Panic made her thrash. Oblivion calmed her.
“Anna…Anna…come on, sweetheart, open your eyes.”
It was a strain to lift one eyelid.
Air! She heaved in an almighty gulp, flexed, and began to struggle.
“Easy…easy. You’re going to be fine. You’re safe now.”
Too slowly, she became aware of three men staring at her, one crouched beside her, the other two standing, alert and scanning the darkness. Who the hell were they? She lifted an arm, held out her hand. “Get me on my feet, will you? I feel at a distinct disadvantage.”
“Maybe you should give yourself a minute,” one of them suggested.
“Okay, I’ll get up on my own.”
The man, a blond, wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her gently to her feet, his arm circling her waist as her knees buckled.
“I’m fine,” she snapped, slapping at the arm fixed around her. “I’m just going to take that minute you recommended.” At least sitting down beat lying prone in front of complete strangers.
A jacket fell across her shoulders; she clutched the lapels, nodded her thanks, and winced as firecrackers exploded in her head. “Who the hell are you?
“We’re Fortress men. And given the attack you just suffered, I can see why Marshall hired us as security.”
She doubted there was much color left in her face but suspected what remained drained completely. Jack Ballentyne, once the Senior Officer of some shady division within British Intelligence and a close friend of Nick’s, had quit the Service a few years ago to set up Fortress. He was also one of the hardest, most frightening men Anna had ever encountered. “I’m going to kill Nick. He had no right—”
“No right to do what exactly?” came an all too familiar growl from the shadows. “And will someone get those sodding lights back on?”
Anna looked upward and glared. “You sicced Fortress onto me, Marshall.”
“Nick,” he corrected with a snarl. “And a fat lot of good it did.”
“Hardly their fault the lights went out,” she muttered, lowering her head to her up-bended knees. She could hear the furious accusation in his voice, not directed at the three now-scowling men, but at her.
“I’m not blaming them; I’m blaming you. It’s two in the morning. What the hell are you doing outside?”
“Going home.”
“You work too damned hard.”
Coming from Nick Marshall, that had to be the most ridiculous statement she’d ever heard. She started to laugh and didn’t seem able to stop.
Nick heave a deep sigh, one so familiarly filled with resigned exasperation, she wanted to weep.
“Come on, we’d better get you inside. You’re in shock. Think you can manage the ladder with me behind you?”
“I’ve certainly had enough practice,” she muttered stiffly but let him lift her to her feet. This time her legs did her proud—not a wobble in sight. Which was more than could be said for her insides.
She squirmed free of his hands. His touch, strong and confident, surprisingly gentle, held too many memories of the past. A past, judging by the hot tingles skimming her skin, her own body seemed desperate to reignite.
After stepping around him, she crossed to the ladder, which was fast becoming her bête noire. She couldn’t deny her hands gripped the rungs just that little bit tighter with each passing day. In direct p
roportion to the increased trembling in her knees. She’d put the loss of nerve down to the pregnancy, the raging hormones coursing through her body, telling herself she could live through it for a few more days until the permanent staircase was put in. No way had she wanted to admit it was fear. Fear, that someone hated her enough to want to harm her, and harm her baby, because that sure as hell seemed to be the direction in which they were heading.
Suppressing a shudder, Anna stepped up onto the first rung of the ladder. She’d make this climb, backbone straight and intact, if it killed her. Which, with Nick so damn close and shadowing her every move as if she were as fragile as spun glass, wasn’t totally beyond the realms of probability.
She didn’t like the way he practically wrapped his body around hers as she climbed higher. The feel of his breath teasing the back of her neck. The way he anticipated her every move with insufferable confidence. After five years of no contact, she should be a mystery to him. “You’re awfully close, Nick,” she protested, mentally cursing the ten rungs she still had to clamber.
“You’re pregnant. You’re kind of klutzy, and you might fall.”
No, she wouldn’t. Not for him. Not again.
Chapter Four
Already given the all clear by the medic Nick had insisted check her over, Anna waited as Will—who she’d demanded be summoned to keep her mind off her desire to punch Nick—fixed her a hot drink. Meanwhile, Nick held her in his relentless, unswerving gaze, his arms tightly folded across his chest. She wasn’t certain whether it was the attack that had provoked his silent fury or the fact that Will was sufficiently well acquainted with her kitchen not to have to ask the location of her herbal teas and mugs.
The stool upon which she perched suddenly felt very high and uncomfortable, the ceiling track lights seeming to zero in on her alone. “Maybe we’d be more comfortable in the…”
One frigid look from her ex had her shifting back onto the rigid melamine seat. “Or maybe not,” she corrected with a defeated sigh.
Before he had a chance to respond, two men bullied their way into her kitchen. She recognized them as detectives from the local precinct. Bullet-quick, like gunslingers, both detectives and both Intelligence agents flashed their ID cards to assert territorial rights. Trouble was, in a civilian complaint, the detectives trumped Nick and Will.
“Eat shit, spy-boys,” one of the usurpers muttered.
Nick had the man backed up against the wall in a flash, his fist full of tie and shirt, his expression feral. Only Will’s intervention prevented all out bloodshed as he more or less manhandled Nick out of her kitchen.
“You guys have got twenty minutes before I unleash him, by which time you’d better have finished with your questions,” he warned over his shoulder, his hands flat against Nick’s chest to keep him back.
…
The witless gate-crashers got to enjoy less than ten of the minutes allocated.
A furious torrent from Anna in response to one of the detective’s questions had Nick pushing Will aside and thundering back to her.
“Out, all of you,” she seethed, whirling on him. “Especially you, Nick Marshall. You’re not welcome here. Not now. Not ever.”
He knew from old that when she was that upset, there was little point in meeting her fire with a blaze of his own. So he did what he’d always done to calm her. He dug deep past the fury ripping his gut and replaced it with iced control to cool her down. “What happened?”
She thrust between the two detectives standing shoulder to shoulder for mutual support. “Ask them.” The scrunched photo the men had presumably handed to her, held tight in her fist, fluttered to the floor like a broken-winged dove. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m feeling a little nauseous.”
She didn’t as much stride from her kitchen as blaze in a stiff-legged stalk, the tile beneath her heels almost cracking beneath her feet.
One detective dragged a trembling hand across his face. The other let his shoulders slump and muttered, “She took that well.”
“What did you say to her?” Nick kept his tone even as he bent to retrieve the abused image, having first pulled on a surgical glove with an ominous snap. Anna had a number of deeply private, emotional mines she buried beneath bravado, and these idiots had tripped one of them. He’d felt the sting of humiliation beneath her angry words and cursed the fact that he hadn’t been there to protect her.
Suddenly aware he was further creasing the photo, he forced his fingers to relax.
“All we did was ask if she had any family she could stay with for a while.”
He closed his eyes and began a slow count in his head. She was acutely sensitive to the absence of any family, the fact that no one had wanted her. “And?”
“And she went bat-shit.” The man clicked his fingers. “Just like that. I know she’s scared, but even so. Who’d have thought a gorgeous thing like that could possess such a mouth? I can think of a number of better uses for it.”
Nick cracked his special smile, the one he’d been told was the wrong side of lethal. “Careful, Detective. That’s my wife you’re talking about.” He noticed both men pulled the edges of their suit jackets together as if suddenly chilled.
“Ex-wife,” one corrected unwisely.
Nick thrust his right hand into his trouser pocket to stop himself from reaching for his gun. “Know much about directing traffic, ex-Detective? Because, right now, that’s the only kind of duty you can look forward to pulling. And yes, I do have the authority to bust your ass. Leave now. I’ll take it from here.”
The man shut up, but his partner didn’t. “Not so fast, Major. Tonight. Where were you between the hours of eight o’clock and ten?”
“None of your damn business. Why?”
“Because a couple of weeks ago, Mrs. Marshall provided our department with a list of people who might want to harm her. Your name was on it. And you were conveniently near at hand when she was attacked tonight. Can’t have been easy learning your ex-wife was pregnant. That she’d gone to the extreme of anonymous sperm donation. Just how angry did it make you feel, Major?”
His tone laced with blue frost, Nick described in graphic terms exactly what the man could do with his current line of questioning.
Whether out of indignation or fear, the detectives chose that moment to leave. “That won’t have helped, Nick,” Anna chastised as she stepped aside to allow the two men to pass.
“Yeah, but from what I heard, you colored the air indigo first. You okay?” he asked, running an open palm across his face. Damn. He’d come too close to losing control. One move against Anna, a single cloud threatening her sunshine, and he lost his mind—a madness he’d battled and thought conquered. Bad miscalculation. Jesus, he had to get a grip, or all hell would break loose. Last time his rigid self-control had slipped the leash this much because of Anna, he’d turned into an animal.
“No, not really. What the hell’s going on, Nick?” she asked, pointing to the photo pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
He noticed her bangs were damp. Splashing her face with cold water probably accounted for her much calmer demeanor. Not that he was deceived. Those eyes of hers were windows to her raging emotions. Shame. Pain. Confusion. It was the fear he couldn’t stand.
A solitary bead of water traveled along her temple, then followed the outer contour of her cheek, ducked beneath her chin, then continued the delicate line of her throat. She didn’t seem to notice. He couldn’t drag his eyes away.
“I haven’t had a chance to look yet. I wanted to get rid of Dick and Dicker first,” he answered suddenly numb. At least his weak humor raised a hint of a smile, though her eyes remained flat, a deep purple-blue rather than their customary disconcerting lilac.
The urge to cross to her, hold her tight in his arms, and promise to keep her safe forever shattered his mind and sucked the air from his lungs. Cursing, he grabbed for the last vestiges of reason and hung on tight. She wouldn’t thank him for daring to touch. Nor would she believe h
im, certainly not the forever part. He didn’t believe it himself. Time he faced facts. For both their sakes. This was a civil case. It wasn’t his job to keep her safe.
His mind made up, Nick turned his attention to the rumpled photo Anna had dropped earlier. And the floor tilted beneath his feet. Sonofabitch!
Without his intervention, Anna and her child could die. He’d seen the aftermath of beatings before. None had equaled the savage brutality inflicted on the victim whose picture he held in his hand. The face was a twisted mask of agony, and the body had been pulped beyond recognition.
He shot her a hooded look. She was naturally pale in a translucent pearl kind of way, but she usually shimmered with vitality, a glow from within. Not right now though. Her pallor was flat, chalky white, accentuated by the sable of her heavy, raggedy bob. “Do you know this woman? Was she a friend?”
Anna’s head danced as if she couldn’t make up her mind whether to confirm or answer in the negative. “No, not a friend exactly, but she was kind to me. She was the nurse who held my hand throughout the IVF procedure when she realized how nervous I was. Oh, God, Nick, according to those detectives, she was working late, working alone. They found her body in the alley behind the clinic. She…she tried to crawl to safety but had been too badly beaten. She had my file clutched in her hand, just the cover; my notes were gone. I don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t understand the connection to me.”
He’d had to lean close to catch her bleak whispering. He immediately stepped back. Anna didn’t need to feel the fury sizzling his skin. She’d think it was directed at her and would slam her defenses against him. Then they’d argue, and she’d do the complete opposite of what he demanded.
Damn it, he needed her compliant. She was in danger. And much as he didn’t trust himself around her, who the hell else would fight to keep her safe? “Maybe you should get out of town for a while. I can make the necessary arrangements.”