by Cherry Adair
He was masculine in an intriguing way that had Kendall’s heart doing a little hop, skip and jump. He looked as solid as a rock, with no appearance of body fat, and an impressive physique. Mouth dry, she busied herself with the cookies.
She hadn’t been overwhelmed by anything other than fear in so long, this tug of attraction felt wonderful. Better because she knew there was nothing she could do about it. It just was.
"Set down in the back yard." He tossed the coat onto a bar stool beside him.
Set what down in the back yard?
The scent of him; clean male skin, cold night air, a hint of leather, aroused all her senses with an urgency that surprised her. Perhaps her reaction to him was due to his size. The man looked as though he could wrestle a grizzly bear. Being tall herself, it was intriguing to meet an attractive guy who was big enough to make her feel almost petite.
And they’d been in the middle of a conversation- "You came by helicopter- from next door?" Montana was huge, it made sense.
The corner of his mouth kicked up in a half smile that slid through her veins like a shot of Fireball. Whoa. Down girl. That small smile was potent, she wondered what it would be like full strength. Judging from her accelerated heartbeat it was probably a good thing that he’d be leaving soon. To go home to his wife.
"’Next door’ is more than twenty miles away," he pointed out, biting into a cookie. "but I didn’t—"
The house phone rang. Kendall jumped at the unexpected sound, it had been out for days. She held up a hand to stop him as she picked up the receiver. "Cameron residence." As she listened, every vestige of warmth she’d felt seconds before drained right out of her, as did most of the blood in her head.
"I know. It’s been out since Tuesday. I’m sorry to hear that," she said flatly into the phone as she watched him pick up the mugs she’d bought to brighten up the dark tones of the kitchen for the weekend festivities. "No, absolutely. I quite under—" The line went dead. "stand."
Her heart was beating fast again. But this time it had nothing to do with the proximity of a sexy-looking guy. She turned away as she returned the receiver carefully to the instrument on the wall. At the same time, she lifted the back of her sweater and surreptitiously withdrew the small LadySmith handgun tucked against her skin.
Given the man’s appearance, she hadn’t mistaken him for a house cat. But she hadn’t pegged him as a predatory tiger either. More fool her.
"You’re the best so far, ya know that?" She could almost hear Dwight Treadwell’s mild voice echoing like a never forgotten nightmare in the here and now. Obscene in this Christmas-scented kitchen a thousand miles, and a year and a half later. Goosebumps rose on her skin.
"Defiant little bitch, ain't’ ya? Your eyes say go to hell, but you’re shit scared. I'm gonna enjoy this."
Treadwell chipped at the Formica table top with the tip of what he’d told her was his second favorite knife. There’d been nothing but mild interest in his eyes as he observed her.
There was no more room for terror in her mind. It was filled to capacity. It felt like forever since he’d grabbed her outside the grocery store and shoved her into the trunk of his car. Had no one noticed him kidnapping her? Had no one heard her screams before he’d knocked her out?
She’d woken to find herself naked, cut out of her clothes, and him standing, smiling, over her, a small scalpel in his hand. It had already been covered with her blood.
She’d screamed.
Kendall turned around to face the man in this kitchen. She knew her six-inch long gun only weighed about 20 ounces, but it felt as heavy as lead in her hand.
"Oh, no you don’t," she snapped as he started to rise. The gun didn't waiver. "You stay right where you are. Keep your hands where I can see them."
She motioned him with the barrel. "You’re not Donald Sanders. So, who the hell are you?"
THREE
Kendall thanked God she wasn’t paralyzed by her fear. During her months of therapy, she’d learned that action cured fear, and inaction created terror.
Been there, done that, had the scars to prove it.
She curled her naked body protectively over her bare legs. Her skin was already slippery with her own blood where he’d repeatedly played with her with his favorite knife. Short cuts. Long cuts. Shallow. Deep. They all gave Treadwell pleasure. Each slice made her flinch and cry out. And each flinch caused the bicycle chain, used to tether her to the oven door, to rattle. She could tell that he was growing bored with the game.
He was going to kill her. Soon.
She shook herself mentally. Back to now. This guy didn’t have to do anything to appear intimidating. He just was. Her stomach did flip flops, and her heart pounded as she trained the gun dead center of his chest. Big or not. A bullet would make a large hole in him. Her hand had a fine tremor she didn’t care if he noticed. She didn’t give a damn if he knew he scared her either. He’d know that even a bad shot from this close would kill him.
Watching him, the scar on Kendall’s throat seemed to burn, and she struggled to find a balance between the knowledge that she was the one with the gun, and the memory of what a determined, violent man could do.
"Kendall," he said her name softly as he crouched in front of her, stabbing the point of his knife into the floor between her pale, curled toes so he could free his hands to reach for a large roll of canvas.
Treadwell wasn’t a big man, he didn’t look like a monster. He had a soft fleshy face, and flat-to-his head, light brown hair. He looked like a teacher. Or a priest. But oh God, he knew how to inflict the most exquisitely painful kind of torture. . .
The man in this kitchen was big. And scary looking now that she came to think about it. She realized too late that this was a man who could use his body as a weapon.
Big. Strong. Fast.
Icy sweat prickled her skin, and the residue sweetness of the last cookie she'd eaten made her swallow nausea.
She didn’t have enough air in her lungs to blow out a single birthday candle right now. Don’t show fear. Don’t show fear. Don’t show fear. The mental mantra worked fairly well as she tightened her grip on the gun, refusing to blink.
She’d bought the gun after the attack. She’d wanted a bigger one- a cannon. But found she couldn’t handle the weight, and settled for the .22. And even though she’d gone through months of rigorous training, she’d hoped never to have to do what she was doing now. Pointing the gun at a human target.
Palpable fear made her ready and more than willing to pull the trigger, however. "Well?"
She spread her feet a little for better balance and adjusted her left hand to cup her right. "Who are you and what do you want?" She’d been expecting the neighbor’s husband. He hadn’t corrected her.
"Prepared to shoot to kill?" He cocked a dark brow, his tone inflexible. His deep voice reverberated through her, making the hard knock of her heart hurt her chest.
"Not just yes," Kendall said through her teeth. "But hell yes. I repeat: Who are you, and what are you doing here?" She still didn’t bat an eyelid, and the gun didn’t waver in her hands, but her accelerated, sickeningly erratic heartbeats danced behind her eyeballs.
Was he her worst fear? The realization of her nightmares?
God. She’d thought the terror was behind her. What a fool she’d been to open the door like that. Especially when she’d been here alone. But damn it, Dwight Treadwell was in jail where he belonged. He’d never get out. And in her own defense, law of averages wouldn’t send her another attacker. Especially not all the way out here in the wilds of Montana for God’s sake.
So much for the law of averages.
The question was: Run or shoot?
She debated a fraction of a second too long.
One second, he sat at the counter, the next her wrist stung as he moved across the tiled floor, brought the side of his hand down, and yanked the gun from her nerveless fingers.
He turned the barrel to point at the middle o
f her forehead. The small gun looked ridiculous in his big hand. Ridiculous, but just as lethal as if he’d been holding a machine gun. He was close enough that any one of the five bullets in the chamber would kill her.
Dead was dead.
She felt the blast furnace heat of his body, he was that close. His breath smelled of coffee, his eyes were ice cold, unlike hers, his hand was dead steady. A shudder of fear rippled down her spine and settled in her churning stomach.
She had a fleeting thought. At least this would be quick.
She made a small, guttural sound as Treadwell revealed an array of sharp, shiny objects inside the unrolled canvas. She shook hard enough her teeth chattered. Tears, snot and blood mingled wetly on her face as completely mesmerized by terror, she watched him slip the first of seven instruments from their custom-made slots. He held up the thin, pointy icepick for her to see.
Blubbering like a baby, she shrank back against the dirty paneling of the trailer. "Why are you do-doing this to me?"
Treadwell’s mouth twitched, the closest he came to a smile. "Because, pretty girl. I can."
If it was a choice between being shot or toyed with for hours at knife point, she’d choose to be shot.
As yet she wasn’t having to make that choice. There was a third option. Run like hell. She locked her eyes with his and waited the three terrifying years it took for the first second to pass. Fear crouched in her chest, making it impossible to breathe. Soon he wouldn’t have to fire the gun, she’d simply die from lack of oxygen.
"You should’ve shot me at the front door, Miss Metcalf. You didn’t ask for ID, or anything else."
What kind of killer lectures you on safety procedures?
Through the fog of panic, she opted for another strategy. Keep him talking. She figured if he was talking, he wasn’t shooting her. If he wasn’t shooting her, she had a chance of escaping.
"Give me my gun back. I can rectify that mistake in a flash."
She flinched when he drew her long hair away from her neck with the cold steel barrel of her own gun. If his eyes had been chill seconds ago, when he saw the still livid scar on her throat they went Arctic. "Son of a bitch."
The scar was red and ugly. But she was alive. While he looked his fill, Kendall brought her knee up in a lightning swift move perfected in her self-defense classes.
She was quick, but he was a split second quicker. Her knee struck him in the balls, but he shifted just in time to prevent full impact. His shout of pain and his instinctive half crouch gave her just enough time to make a run for it. His hand shot out to grab her arm in passing, but she was too scared, too determined to let that happen. Again.
Having spent the last ten days decorating, and prepping for her client's Christmas house party, she knew the enormous house pretty well, He didn't.
As he gasped for air, she bolted past him. He blocked the direct route to the stairs. Kendall ran past the counter where their bright red mugs and the coffee pot still sat. Through the dining nook. Through the great room with its thirty-five-foot high limestone fireplace, soaring cedar trusses and thirty-foot tall, half-decorated Christmas tree.
Her bare feet slapped the polished wide-plank hardwood floors as she ran.Notagainnotagainnotagain.
With the blood rushing in her ears and her heart about jumping out of her chest like some horror movie alien creature, she heard nothing from behind her. He'd come for her, she knew, and ran faster, her brain and body flooded with acidic, pulse-pounding adrenaline.
She skirted the trio of heavy leather sofas, skidded around two tall ficus trees in their giant terracotta pots, almost careened into the ladder she’d left beside the Christmas tree, and hurdled like an Olympian over the last few, half-filled boxes of Christmas ornaments waiting to go up. While she may not be as well trained as an athlete, she was a hell of a lot more motivated.
The massive cedar staircase rose in front of her. There were eight bedrooms up there. All with solid core doors, and locks. Her breath was rapid and erratic as she started running flat out up the stairs, taking them two at a time, her heartbeat in time with the pounding of her bare feet on the hardwood.
PleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod-
She was half way up when his forearm suddenly hooked her around the waist. The world spun dizzily as he lifted her off her feet. At the feel of his vice-like grip around her middle, Kendall went ape-shit. Twisting and bucking, she screamed bloody murder at the top of her lungs as she tried to kick backwards.
There was, of course, no one to hear her except her attacker.
"I’m not going to hurt you," he raised his voice over her shrieks of fear and rage as he carried her, kicking and struggling, down to the great room, and the cluster of sofas before the massive fireplace.
She’d heard that before. The words settled inside her like bricks. Stay still and suffer. She struggled and bucked as her mind raced with endless things he could do to cause her pain. Each possibility ratcheted up her anxiety causing her to fight harder as he moved toward the sofa with her flailing body hooked easily beneath one arm.
FOUR
Joe dropped her onto the closest sofa. She came at him with teeth and nails as he plopped down beside her in the middle of the leather sofa. "Easy. Easy- Damn it, woman, no biting!" he put both hands up so she could see them.
Her fear of him broke his stone-cold heart. "I swear I’m not going to hurt you. I'm here to protect you, not harm you."
Too scared to listen, her pretty hazel eyes were terror-wild as she stared up at him. There wasn’t a vestige of color in her face. Amber freckles stood out across her ashen cheeks like cinnamon sprinkled on fresh snow.
No good deed goes unpunished. Joe felt like a dickhead for scaring her. Feeling like a dickhead pissed him off. The fact that she could be stone fucking dead right now, pissed him off even more.
"You have five bullets in this peashooter of yours," he said grimly, furious at himself.
So much for his mad skills as a counterterrorist operative. He couldn't even calm down a frightened woman.
"You should’ve shot me, for Christ's sake. Don’t give an attacker a chance to take the gun from you. Didn’t they teach you that at- Oh, no you don’t." He yanked her, as gently as possible, by her arm as she tried to make a break for it. She sank against the soft, bomber-jacket brown leather, chest heaving beneath the cheerful red sweater.
The flames in two oil lamps on the sofa table behind him flickered with his movement. More lamps around the room and gas fire bathed parts of the room in a golden glow, but left deep pockets of shadows in the corners.
"You don’t think I’m going to sit here passively while you do God only knows what to me, do you?" she demanded through white lips, breath hitching. Her entire body vibrated with tension as she watched him like a mongoose watched a snake.
Joe withdrew his hand from her arm and shifted to the other end of the sofa, leaving six feet between them. She rubbed where he’d been holding her. The red scar across her throat was good enough reason for him not to have fucking touched her in the first god damned place. He’d been away from civilized people for way too long.
He scrubbed a hand across his face. "Don’t run. Please," he said quietly, dragging his gaze away from the raised, pink scar above the neckline of her sweater, made by Treadwell’s scalpel. The scar was an obscenity across the smooth skin of her slender throat.
"I’m not going to sit here and chat with you before-" Her throat moved with effort then she managed thickly. "Before- anything."
He felt like a bull in a china shop. When the hell had this turned pear-shaped?
When he'd fucking walked in without ID-ing himself right away, that's when. "My fault. I should've told you who I was as soon as you opened the door."
"Gee. Ya think?" she interrupted, a little color returning to her cheeks. Sparks made her hazel eyes appear fiery green. "What’s the plan here, pal? I’m not going softly into that good night without fighting you tooth and nail. And I sure as hell refuse to have
a polite conversation beforehand."
"Take a breath, you're hyperventilating."
Shit. What a fucking mess. He gave her what he hoped was a benign look.
She shot him a look of pure loathing. Fair enough.
"You have a damned nerve waltzing in here, grabbing me like that, then trying to tell me what to do." She had to pause to take a breath. "Got to hell."
That fact that he was putting her back in hell sickened him. He pulled her little peashooter out of his belt in back. "Here."
With a heated glare, she snatched it, and flipped the safety off. Pointed the business end of it at his groin. Stripping the belt she'd used as a makeshift holster, exposed a pale sliver of her stomach. Kendall thrust the belt at him. It was warm from her body.
"Put this around your wrists."
Joe looped the belt, put his wrists through the opening, then used his teeth to snug it tightly. He didn't share with her that he'd gotten out of the pain-in-the-ass, crude but fucking effective restrains in a Columbian cartel's meth house six months ago. Getting out of this restraint was child's play.
Her shoulders relaxed some. "Talk."
"Name’s Joe Zorn. ID's in my back pocket." He lifted his ass to give her access. Leaning over, she used two fingers to slide his wallet from his pocket. Moving back to her end of the sofa, she removed his ID.
She frowned at his driver's license. "This expired three months ago."
"That’s not the point. It’s just ID. And for the record, I'm Denise's ex-husband. Adam and I were in the Marines and T-FLAC boot camp together. I'm a family friend."
She snorted. "I don't know them, so the fact that you do is immaterial. And frankly weird. My firm was hired by Mrs. Cameron to make this Christmas party the biggest and the best, and that's just what I'm here to do. I still don't get what you're doing here. Are you stalking your ex-wife?