Behind Closed Doors (The Mccloud Series Book 1)

by Shannon McKenna

  Seth’s eyes were full of love and cautious hope. There was a fine tremor in the big, strong hands that cupped her face so tenderly. “So? he asked. “Will you marry me?”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, her heart bursting with a joy too big to contain. “In a heartbeat,” she whispered.

  Please turn the page for an exciting preview of Standing in the Shadows by Shannon McKenna.

  Available now from Brava!

  Connor was slouched against an ancient, battered beige Cadillac, parked in a tow zone. The stub of a glowing cigarette was pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He sank into a crouch and stubbed it out. His face was hard, and grim with what looked like controlled anger. He straightened up, looming over her. She’d forgotten how tall he was. Six foot three, or something ridiculous like that.

  Her hand was pressed hard against her open mouth. She forced herself to drop it. Head up, shoulders back, don’t lock your knees, she told herself silently. “Why are you lurking in front of my building?”

  His dark brows twitched together. “I’m not lurking,” he said. “I was just having a smoke before I rang your bell.”

  His tawny hair was longer and wilder than it had been at Crystal Mountain. His chiseled, angular face was even leaner. His green eyes were so brilliant against the smudges of weariness beneath them. Wind ruffled his hair around his broad shoulders. It blew across his face, and he brushed it back with his hand. The one with the brutal burn scar.

  He could have been a barbarian Celtic warrior heading into battle, with that hard, implacable look on his face. Stiffen his hair with lime, give him a bronze helm, a torque of twisted gold around his neck, chain mail—except that most Iron Age Celtic warriors had disdained armor to show their contempt for danger, the fussy scholar inside her reminded. They’d run naked into battle, screaming with rage and challenge.

  Oh, please. Back off. Don’t go there.

  She didn’t want that image in her head, but it was too late. She was already picturing Connor’s big, hard, sinewy body. Stark naked.

  Her eyes dropped, flustered. She focused on the cigarette butts that littered the ground beside his battered boots. Three of them.

  She glanced up. “Three cigarettes? Looks like lurking to me.”

  His face tightened. “I was just working up my nerve.”

  “To ring my doorbell?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Oh, please. I’m not that scary.”

  His lips twitched. “Believe me, you are. For me, you are.”

  “Hmm. I’m glad I have that effect on somebody, because the rest of the world doesn’t seem too impressed with me these days,” she said.

  His eyes were so unwavering that the urge to babble was coming over her. “Why do you need to work up the nerve to talk to me?”

  “Your last words to me were less than cordial,” he said wryly. “Something along the lines of ‘Get away from me, you sick bastard.’”

  She bit her lip. “Oh, dear. Did I really say that to you?”

  “It was a bad scene,” he conceded. “You were upset.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “For the record, you didn’t deserve it.”

  His eyes were so intensely bright. How could such a cool color give out such an impression of heat? It scorched her face, made something clench up low and hot and tight in her body. She wrapped her arms around herself. “There were extenuating circumstances.”

  “Yeah, there sure as hell were. Are you OK, Erin?”

  Wind gusted around them, setting his long canvas coat flapping around his knees. She shivered and clutched her thin denim jacket tightly around her. No one had asked that question in such a long time, she’d forgotten how to answer it. “Is that what you waited three whole cigarettes outside my building to ask?” she hedged.

  A quick, hard shake of his head was her answer.

  “So…what, then?”

  “I asked my question first,” he said.

  She looked down, away, around, anywhere else, but his gaze was like a magnet, pulling her eyes back and dragging the truth right out of her. Dad used to say that McCloud was a goddamn psychic. It had made Dad nervous. Rightly so, as it happened.

  “Never mind,” Connor said. “Shouldn’t have asked. I need to talk to you, Erin. Can I come up to your place?”

  The thought of his potent male presence filling her dingy little apartment sent shivers all down her spine. She backed up, and bumped into the wrought iron railing. “I’m, uh, on my way to visit Mom, and I’m in kind of a hurry, because the bus is about to come, so I—”

  “I’ll give you a ride to your mom’s house. We can talk in the car.”

  Oh, great. That would be even worse. Stuck all alone in a car with a huge barbarian warrior. She couldn’t bear his burning scrutiny when she felt so weepy and shaky and vulnerable. She shook her head and backed away from him, toward the bus stop. “No. Sorry. Please, Connor. Just…stay away from me.” She turned, and fled.

  “Erin.” His arms closed around her from behind. “Listen to me.”

  His solid heat pressed against her body nudged her shaky nerves toward what felt like panic. “Don’t touch me,” she warned. “I’ll scream.”

  His arms tightened around her ruthlessly. “Please. Don’t,” he said. “Listen to me, Erin. Novak’s broken out of prison.”

  A cloud of black spots danced in front of her eyes. She sagged, and was abruptly grateful for his strong arms, holding her upright. “Novak?” Her voice was a wispy thread of sound.

  “He broke out the other night. With two of his goons. Georg Luksch was one of them.”

  Her fingers dug into his rock-hard forearms. Her head spun, and her stomach with it. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.

  “Sit down, on the steps. Put your head down.” He crouched beside her and rested his arm across her shoulder. His touch was light and careful, but the contact reverberated through her entire body.

  “I hate to scare you,” he said gently. “But you had to know.”

  “Oh yeah?” She looked up at him. “What good does it do me?”

  “So you can take steps to protect yourself.” He sounded as if he were stating something too obvious to put into words.

  She dropped her face down against her knees. She shook with bitter laughter, like a dry coughing fit. Protect herself. Hah. What could she do? Hire an army? Buy a cannon? Move into a fortress? She’d been trying so hard to put this nightmare behind her, but she’d just swung around in a big circle and smacked into it again, face-first.

  She lifted her face, and stared into blank, empty space. “I can’t deal with this,” she said. “I don’t want to know. I’ve had enough.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you want. You have to—”

  “I’ll tell you what I have to do, Connor McCloud.” She wrenched herself away from him and rose up onto unsteady feet. “I have to go to my mother’s house to pay her bills and mortgage, and get her phone turned back on because she won’t get out of bed. Then I have to call Cindy’s school and beg them not to withdraw her scholarship. I take the bus because I lost my job and my car got repossessed. I’ll worry about homicidal maniacs another time. And here comes my bus. So thank you for your concern, and have a nice evening.”

  Connor’s face was stark with misery. “I didn’t want you to get hurt, Erin. I would’ve done anything to stop it.”

  The look on his face made her chest hurt and her throat swell shut. The bus groaned to a halt, a suffocating cloud of diesel fumes rising around them. The door sighed and opened its maw for her.

  She laid her hand against his broad chest, and yanked it right back, shocked by her own boldness. His body was so hard and warm.

  “I know it wasn’t your fault,” she said. “What happened to Dad. He did it to himself. I knew he was in trouble, but he wouldn’t let anyone help him. And none of us knew how bad it was.”

  “Miss!” the driver bellowed. “You on or off?”

  “It wasn’t your fau
lt,” she repeated. She scrambled into the bus, and clutched the pole as it pulled away, watching Connor’s tall form recede into the dusk. Wind whipped his shaggy hair around his stern, sculpted face. The canvas coat flapped. His penetrating eyes held hers, tugging at her, until the bus turned the corner and he was lost to sight.

  And now, a sneak peek at Never Too Much by Lori Foster…

  “But I’ve got to make sure you understand, it’s only a little food I want.”

  Ben blinked at that additional dose of bluntness. “Beg your pardon?”

  “What I said out front? When I first saw you?”

  “What about it?”

  She lowered her thick lashes, hiding her eyes. “I don’t want you to make too much out of it. That was just shock talking.”

  “Shock?” It had sounded like interest to Ben. Very welcome interest. Reciprocal interest, damn it.

  “Mmm. You really took me off guard, just showing up like that.” She gestured somewhere around his midsection, up and down and back again. “Not every day a woman sees a man like you, especially in the dark that way. And I guess I’m just tired enough that I spoke without really thinking.”

  Ben stared at her, hoping he displayed a man in ultimate control of himself. “A man like me?”

  She laughed. “Yeah. Gorgeous? Sexy? A stud?”

  He had no idea how to reply. For the first time in his life, he found himself speechless with a woman.

  “Oh, come on. I’m sure you’re aware of how you look, right? I imagine women throw themselves at you all the time.”

  Ben crossed his arms over his chest and nodded slowly. This game was new, but he was catching on real quick. “Yeah, leaves a horrible mess around the diner. All the fallen bodies, you see.”

  She laughed again. “No doubt. Probably trips up the waitresses, huh?”

  He didn’t answer. He just waited to see what else she’d say.

  She smiled up at him, as if to soften her rejection. “The thing is, I’m plain not interested. In fact, I’m one hundred percent disinterested. So if your offer to feed me is a come-on, I’ll just go home and try to find some cheese crackers or something to eat.”

  Remaining speechless, Ben pondered her. He’d never met a woman who spelled things out so candidly. The jury was still out on whether he liked it. Such honesty in bed would be great. But in the middle of the diner?

  Sierra lifted her shoulders and her expression was apologetic. “Just trying to make sure we start our neighborly association off on the right foot, since my comment out front could be misleading.”

  Well, hell. She sounded too damned sincere. Could she really be that unaffected when he was very affected? He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had captured his attention like this. He felt…alive. On the prowl. Anxious and turned on.

  At the moment, she had the verbal upper hand and she knew it. But no way would Ben let any woman, not even a woman who intrigued him this much, keep the upper hand. It wasn’t natural.

  He drew a deep breath and made his move to take control. “Have you seen a mirror lately, Sierra?”

  Her confident smile slipped a notch. “I…uh…”

  “You’re pretty much a sweaty mess.” His gaze roamed over her. He reached out to flip her bangs with his fingertips, and despite himself he felt a smile tug at his mouth. “And dirty.”

  She ducked her hands under the table and glared at him. “It’s hard to get the ground-in dirt out from under my nails without soaking them. But I did wash, of course.”

  Stung by guilt at her embarrassment, Ben girded himself and continued. “Maybe you clean up real nice, hard to tell, but at the moment you don’t look all that beddable, so I think we’re both safe, don’t you?”

  Her face colored, her sweet mouth opened, then incredibly, she laughed. When Ben frowned at her, she wiped her eyes and chuckled some more. “Oh, you’re right of course. How conceited I must have sounded. It’s just that you have ‘wolf ’pulsing off you. I figured any guy who looked as good as you do had to always be on the make.” She smiled up at him. “Nice to know my new neighbor is more discriminating than that.”

  There was that disconcerting honesty again. Her every word seemed to push Ben closer to the edge. She had him pegged.

  Sierra eased out of her bench seat and saluted him with her half-empty Coke. “Is the offer of sustenance still open?”

  Standing in front of her, Ben realized how petite she was, how delicate regardless of her strength. He had the urge to pull her close and see how she fit him, to feel her against his body.

  Ben forced himself to behave. “Yeah, the offer stands.”

  “Great. Then lead the way. I’m faint with hunger.”

  Ben had expected her to be insulted by his comments on her person, not amused. She wasn’t an average female, to be amused. But then he hadn’t wanted an average female.

  Finding himself at another loss, Ben led.

  A few people looked up as they crossed the floor toward the kitchen, but for the most part no one paid them any mind.

  Ben was very aware of her strolling behind him, physically close but emotionally distant, sexually disinterested. He stepped aside until she’d passed him, then let the doors flap shut behind them. Muted noises from the outer area drifted in, but they were now afforded a small bit of privacy.

  He flipped a wall switch and bright fluorescent lighting flickered on to illuminate the kitchen. Being furtive, he glanced at her and finally saw the color of her eyes.

  Green. But not just green, sort of a soft green with deeper flecks of blue and gold. Nice.

  “Horace, my cook, always leaves something edible in the fridge for me. Let’s see.” Ben opened the gigantic refrigerator and peered inside. “There’s a sub sandwich, pie, soup…”

  “The sandwich sounds great if you’re sure you don’t mind sharing. Thanks.”

  Ben took it out and unwrapped it, using the time to gather himself, to rethink his position. He’d helped out in the kitchen many times and, in fact, had worked every job in the motel and bar. He liked staying busy.

  He put the sandwich on the large cutting board, cut it in half, and put it on a utilitarian plate. After forking a pickle from the enormous jar on the counter and adding some chips from a large airtight bin, he turned back to Sierra—and caught her staring. At his ass.

  Ah-ha.

  She glanced up, looked startled, and frowned at him, as if it were his fault she’d ogled him.

  Ben was a gentleman, so he didn’t remark where her gaze had strayed, but it was a real relief to know she wasn’t as disinterested as she’d claimed. “This way.”

  He made a point of leading her into the employee lounge, affording her the chance to cop another peek, if she was so inclined. When he looked at her, her expression was blank, so he couldn’t tell if she’d been checking him out or not.

  She took the first chair and dropped into it with a groan of weariness. She stretched out her legs, crossed her booted feet, and blew her bangs from her face. For a moment, her eyes closed tiredly and she looked very vulnerable.

  Ben eyed her limp form, the weariness etched into her bones, and shook his head. He was horny, and she looked ready to pass out. “You’re really exhausted, aren’t you?”

  Her head lifted. “Yeah, but it feels great.” She accepted the plate he handed to her and took a large bite of the sandwich.

  “You like getting dirty, do you?”

  Her nose wrinkled. Around the mouthful of food, she said, “Beats working in a stuffy office any day.”

  “Agreed.” Ben wanted to keep her talking just to hear her. She had a throaty voice that reminded him of a purring kitten. “But any business will have some office hours, too. God knows I put enough of them in here.”

  “True, but right now the paperwork is minimal because we’re doing only on-site jobs, which keeps me out in the sun and fresh air during the day. At night, I do the paperwork.”

  Which would make for long hours. No wonder she looked so
tuckered out.

  She ate several chips before continuing. “If I can get ahead in a year or two, I’d like to sell summer flowers and plants, maybe Christmas trees in the winter, mums in the fall…You know, have someone always on the lot during business hours. There’s a lot of call for seasonal stuff. If that ever happens, I’ll probably hire someone just to keep the records.”

  If she was doing it all by herself right now, she had a heavy load to handle. “Being your own boss isn’t always easy.”

  “I know, but I’m working for me, not for anyone else. That’s makes the hard work worthwhile.”

  Because he shared those sentiments, Ben nodded. Above the pulsing lust, he was aware of a strange affinity toward her, and a stronger sense of anticipation. His body was tense with basic awareness, and his blood felt hot, pumping thickly through his veins. He was a man on the prowl, and it felt good.

  He wanted her. But he also wanted to sit down and converse with her more because they had a lot in common.

  Strange.

  It was time to get things back on track. He waited until she’d eaten half of the sandwich, ensuring she wouldn’t starve on him, then gave her his full attention.

  She caught him staring and must have seen the heat behind his gaze because she blinked. She looked down at herself, apparently checking that nothing showed, then she looked behind her. Finally she frowned at him. “What’s the matter?”

  Ben smiled. “I lied.”

  “Is that right?” As if she didn’t really care one way or the other, she continued to eat with a very healthy appetite. “About what?”

  Ben pulled his own chair close to hers, turned it around, and straddled it. He crossed his arms over the back and propped his chin there, watching Sierra with the sun-kissed skin, the luscious mouth, the smiling eyes.