A Stranger on Her Doorstep

by Julie Miller

  Ava hung up the phone with Gabriel Charles. Larkin had gone into full-on Marine investigator mode. He’d wanted her to call the detective in charge of her case and ask certain questions. How much of Ava’s case was common knowledge? What kind of security protocols did CPD have in place to protect victim anonymity? What specific leads, if any, did Gabriel have on her kidnapper—and were they anywhere close to finding the guy and making an arrest? Was there any way in hell this bastard had made his way to Wyoming to come after Ava again?

  The news hadn’t been great.

  Even though he’d listened to the call via speakerphone, Ava had sensed more than once that Larkin wanted to snatch up her cell to conduct the interrogation himself. Instead, he had to settle for pacing a circle around her kitchen, giving her hand signals she didn’t always catch and scribbling follow-up questions on the notepad where she was jotting down Detective Charles’s answers.

  Ava imagined Captain Mystery Marine had been an intimidating officer and investigator when he had all his faculties and his body was at one hundred percent. He was intimidating enough as is, with his chiseled, battered body, his golden-bronze beard masking half of his face and those deceptively slitted eyes that saw far more than he let on.

  Pace to the window, peek through the curtain. Pace to the back door, scrub his hand over Maxie’s head. Return to look over Ava’s shoulder, decide he was standing too close for her comfort, then back away and resume his circle around the kitchen again.

  Pushing to her feet off the stool where she’d sat, Ava tucked her phone in her pocket. “Detective Charles is as angry as you and I are to find that someone sent me that note.”

  Larkin propped his hands at his waist. “Am I the only one who feels the clock ticking here? You said no one but you and Detective Charles knew what your kidnapper said to you. You’re sure you trust this guy?”

  “Yes.” As much as she could trust anybody. She went to the fridge to pull out two bottles of water. One of them already had too much coffee in his system. “At least he confirmed that Brandon didn’t request the police report about my kidnapping.”

  “Not exactly. He confirmed that Stout didn’t request your information through standard channels.” He twisted the cap off the bottle she handed him and took a quick drink. “That doesn’t mean Sheriff Touchy-Feely didn’t access information about you by other means.” He reached across the island to take her hand, the way any normal person who wanted to offer comfort might. But at the last second, he pulled back to toy with the bottle’s plastic cap. Ava was at once touched by his consideration of her boundaries and disappointed to realize that she’d scared off the one man she didn’t seem to mind being close to. “Either your kidnapper has found you here in Wyoming, or the people after me have accessed those files because they think you’re the best lead to finding me. I don’t like either scenario.” He squeezed the innocent plastic in his fist. “I’m torn between wanting to stay here and protect you, and wanting to run as far away from you as I can and take the threat with me. But if this is about you, then I’d be leaving you alone and vulnerable.”

  Wouldn’t be the first time. Though now she was wondering if alone was as safe as she’d thought.

  “Where would you run?” she asked quietly. “You said I was the only ally you could trust. Plus, you have no vehicle, no driver’s license—and no money. I’ll float you a loan if you think it would help—”

  “No.” Apparently, that offer wasn’t up for discussion. “With everything else I’m demanding of you, I will not take your money.”

  “This agreement is mutually beneficial, remember?” It didn’t hurt to remind herself of what she was getting out of helping Larkin, too. “I’m proving to myself that I’m strong and normal and capable of being more than a shadow of who I used to be.”

  “That was before you got that threat from your past.” He forced the lid back onto the bottle and exhaled his frustration. “We don’t have a lot of options, do we?”

  “We’ll think of something. Larkin and Willow always do.”

  He grunted a sound she was learning was his wry laugh. “I thought you wanted to be Ava, not Willow.”

  She moved to her desk in the living room and brushed her fingers across her unopened laptop. Typically, escaping into her fantasy world was a reprieve for her. But she hadn’t written anything substantial for weeks now. Her brain had been too full of fear and self-doubt to do more than write endless narrative descriptions and battle scenes, edit until there was no voice or heart left on the pages, then write the scenes again. She’d been afraid to invest her emotions into the story. Pulling her hand away, she plucked her last book off the shelf behind her desk. “Willow’s not such a bad gal. I just haven’t felt much like her lately.”

  “Do we need to have that conversation again? About where Willow’s strength and ability to survive come from? You’re probably more capable now than you were two years ago.” He came to stand beside her, and Ava breathed in the spicy scent that came off the heat of his skin. Had Larkin simply come along at the time when she was ready to notice a man again? Or did this visceral reaction to the look, feel, sound and, apparently, the smell of him mean something more profound? “You may be different. But you’re not weaker. You’re not less than you were before the kidnapping.”

  “That’s what my therapist says.”

  “Smart woman.”

  Ava tipped her head up. “How do you know she’s a...?” Ah, yes. Narrowed eyes. All-seeing. “You figured I wouldn’t be comfortable talking to a man.”

  He grinned. “I guess I’m the exception. And I don’t have to know my own name to remember how to observe the details and piece clues together.”

  Ava conceded that his skills hadn’t diminished, despite the gaps in his memory. “Besides dealing with the hooded man’s threat again, I’m concerned about my pseudonym being leaked to the public. Detective Charles never told anyone, not even within his department, that I’m A. L. Baines. I can see it now. Wealthy, World-Famous Author Gets Kidnapped.”

  “That would cause one hell of a scandal if that headline ever hit the news. Is Detective Charles certain that your kidnapping has nothing to do with you being ‘wealthy and world-famous’?”

  “He ran that angle into the ground more than once.” There hadn’t been any disturbing fan letters leading up to the abduction. And during the nearly seventy-two hours she’d been held, her kidnapper had never mentioned the books or characters. “The man who took me wasn’t insisting I write a story in a certain way or resurrect a dead character. There was never any ransom demand. It wasn’t about the books or the money.” There was only the slide of his puckered skin against her own, the acrid, oily smell clinging to his clothes and that gravelly voice rasping against her ear. “Scream for me, darlin’. Bleed for me. That’s it.” And then a blade would pierce her skin like a hot poker. His nose would tease the edge of her blindfold as he lapped up the tears that ran down her cheeks, and his fetid breath would quicken with the throes of his sick rapture. She screamed for him. She screamed.

  “Ava?” She heard a crash through the stuffing in her ears. Larkin’s bronze beard swam through her vision. There was a shrill whistle and a sharp command. “Maxie!”

  For a moment, Ava thought she was falling. She hit a wall at her back and floated gently downward as her knees buckled.

  “I’ve got you.” A familiar weight leaned against her, and she was momentarily cocooned between two warm, immovable objects. “Do your thing, girl.”

  When Ava’s senses gradually returned, she was sitting on the floor. Her face was pressed against the warmth of Maxie’s fur and someone was holding her arms around the dog’s neck, splaying her fingers through the dog’s soft coat.

  “Good girl, Maxie.” Larkin’s voice was a deep-pitched vibration that cut through the fog of the flashback. “That’s it, Queen Dragon. You take care of our Willow. Do your magic.”
<
br />   “Larkin?” Ava whispered, orienting herself to her surroundings. Home. Maxie. An open book beside her overturned desk chair.

  Silvery-green eyes looking down into hers. “You okay? You with me?”

  Ava nodded. She petted Maxie around the ears and discovered she wasn’t the only one praising the dog. But when her fingers brushed against Larkin’s, he sat back on the rug, facing her with the dog between them.

  “I’m sorry. I made you go to a place I never meant to. You faded away from me.” The lines on his face were harsh with regret. “I’m sorry if touching you made it worse. I set you on the floor—I thought you were fainting.”

  In a move that seemed as natural as it should have been foreign to her, she reached for Larkin’s hand before he retreated beyond her reach. His skin was calloused instead of soft, but as warm as the dog. He folded his fingers lightly around hers. Ava squeezed harder, wanting him to tighten his grasp. When he laced his fingers together with hers, anchoring her grip to his, she exhaled a sigh of relief, and inhaled the strength and comfort that seemed to flow through her with each hand.

  “You whistled for Maxie?”

  He answered with a sharp nod. But the thumb stroking the back of her hand was infinitely gentle. “I didn’t know what else to do, except to make sure you didn’t hit your head, and let the dog do what she does best.”

  Ava rubbed her cheek against Maxie’s neck. “For a split second, when you were behind me—I think that’s the warmest I’ve been in two years.”

  “I wanted to hold you,” he confessed, the stroke of his thumb stilling against the pucker of scar tissue on her hand. “But I didn’t want to make it worse.”

  “I’m okay,” she reassured him, knowing that, for now at any rate, it was the truth. “I guess it’s going to be a rough day. Usually, I don’t have my attacks this close together. I’m to the point where I’ll go days, weeks, without one.”

  “And then Larkin Bonecrusher stumbles into your life and sets your recovery back.”

  Ava continued to hug Maxie, although her gaze was focused on the self-recrimination in Larkin’s expression. “You have nothing to do with what happened to me two years ago. I think you’re moving my recovery forward, forcing me to deal with some things.” She dropped her gaze to the link of their hands. “This is the second time I’ve reached for you today. And I’m not afraid.” She forced her lips into the semblance of a smile when she realized the truth. “I’m also not counting.”

  “I am.” There was that wry laugh that was husky and deep-pitched and so uniquely male. “Forty-four seconds. I figure those extra forty-one seconds are a gift. Or else you’re still in the throes of the attack and don’t know what’s going on yet.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I know what’s going on.” When she didn’t immediately protest, he pulled her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss over her knuckles. His beard tickled her skin, and she felt his warmth skitter along her arm and waken things inside her that had been frozen for two years. The pleasurable sensation more than the kiss itself surprised her. But the moment she straightened her fingers to study the sensitive spot, Larkin released her. She hastened to reassure him that it wasn’t his touch that had startled her, but the fact she had enjoyed it. “Maybe there is some crossover between fiction and reality that makes me feel like I know you, that I’m safe with you—that...we’re meant to be a team.”

  “I find myself thinking that, too,” he admitted. “I feel like I know you better than I should for someone I met just twenty-four hours ago. You are every bit the warrior I am, though in a different way. Maybe reading your books gives me insight into your soul, into the way you think.”

  Exactly. Only, he’d never written a book that she’d read. How could she be feeling such a strong connection to him? How could she feel like she knew everything about him that mattered? Shared values. Similar histories that offered them a unique understanding of each other. This crazy physical awareness of him.

  But twenty-four hours?

  Before the kidnapping she wouldn’t have questioned her feelings for him. But perhaps she shouldn’t be so ready to trust her instincts about this stranger. Helping him was one thing. Working beside him was also an acceptable decision. But falling for him?

  With her mind firmly back in the present, Ava focused on the threat they’d been discussing before her panic attack.

  “A little help?” When she curled her legs beneath her to stand, he tugged on her hand to pull her to her feet. She kissed Maxie’s head before opening the treat jar on her desk and handing the dog a biscuit. “Good girl.” The Great Pyrenees trotted over to the rug in front of the fireplace with her prize and Ava picked up the book that had fallen to the floor. “Here’s what I wanted to show you.” She opened the book to her publicity photo inside the back cover. “What do you think? Even if my alter ego has been leaked to the world, would any of my fans recognize me?”

  Larkin studied the photograph of the woman she’d been before the scars and plastic surgery. “You’re softer in this picture. Rounder cheeks, less tension beside your mouth. The suit clings to your curves. Your hair is all foo-fooey.”

  “Foo-fooey?” The stylist had curled and sprayed her hair within an inch of its life before that photo shoot.

  Larkin closed the book in one hand and threaded the fingers of his other hand into the simple ponytail hanging over her shoulder. Although she held her breath, she didn’t flinch as he sifted her hair through his fingers. “The Ava Wallace I know is a tomboy. Just as accomplished, just as creative, just as smart as this cosmopolitan A. L. Baines lady. Ava Wallace is in fighting shape. She’s more streamlined. More practical. She has a sense of humor. She’s more approachable to an average Joe like me.”

  Assuming he meant what he said, the praise made her self-conscious. Especially since she didn’t think there was anything average about him. She took the book and placed it back on the shelf, reminding him of the truth. “She also has marks all over her body that will never completely go away, and it’s hard to prove she’s not as weak and fragile as people treat her when she loses it like I have today.”

  “Having PTSD doesn’t mean you’re weak. Have you ever known anyone fighting cancer or learning how to use prosthetics after losing their legs to an IED? They’re warriors who refuse to give up the fight. Ava Wallace is no different. She’s just seen more of life than people should ever have to.” With the tip of his forefinger, he brushed aside the tendrils she usually let fall over her damaged cheek. When he tucked the long strands behind her ear, he cupped the side of her jaw and neck, resting the pad of his thumb against her cheek, suffusing her skin with a gentle heat for all of three seconds before pulling away. “Those scars don’t diminish her beauty one bit. They prove she’s a survivor, and I admire her for it. I can relate to that.”

  She wondered about the scars she’d seen on his body. Ava hadn’t for one second thought they’d diminished how masculine or appealing he was. If anything, they’d made her curious to know more about him. They’d made her ache with compassion for the pain he must have suffered, both physical and emotional, to earn those scars. She supposed what a person found attractive in others changed as their unique experiences changed them. Not that the scars themselves were a turn-on, but they were a part of him. She found him attractive. Could she believe he might feel the same way about her? “You give unusual compliments.”

  Captured between her thoughts and those silvery-green eyes, the air between them charged with a pulsing energy. The moment felt intimate, magnetic, like some unseen force was pulling her closer to him.

  But Larkin was the one to blink and break the spell. He laughed as he took a step back. “Hey, if you want me to fill up your pretty little head with cutesy words, I can do that for you, too, baby.”

  Ava swatted the air. “Stop it. Brandon and I were best buds growing up. He isn’t that bad.”

  “You knew who
I was talking about, though, didn’t you.”

  She squished her face into an apologetic frown. “I did.” Two years ago, she would have swatted the man who was teasing her right on the arm. But somewhere inside she knew that this bantering back and forth was already a huge step forward from where she’d been before this real Bonecrusher had entered her life, and she was grateful. “He believes he’s being good to me, taking care of me. And I won’t fault him for that. But when he pushes his way into my life to the point of suffocation, I... I feel like I grew up and moved on, while he’s stayed as old-school as my grandfather was. He refuses to understand that I need to be in control of my life as much as I can.”

  “Because you know what it’s like to have that control taken from you.”

  Ava nodded. This man seemed to know her better than the man who’d known her almost her entire life. “Other than the obvious signs of an assault, I haven’t told him about what happened to me. He doesn’t ask about it, either. I think he still sees me as an innocent teenage girl he once kissed.”

  “It shouldn’t matter that he doesn’t know what happened to you in Chicago. I can’t respect a man who won’t take no for an answer. If you don’t want to be crowded and you’re not comfortable with the way he talks to you, you have the right to not put up with that.”

  “Are you feeling rested enough for a little hike?” While spending time with Larkin seemed like a therapeutic catharsis for her, she needed a break to process the emotional changes she was going through. “Exercise and fresh air help clear my head.”

  “Whatever you need.” He followed her into the kitchen where she gathered supplies to take with them. “Hopefully, they’ll clear mine, too.” When the joke earned him a sympathetic look instead of a laugh, he rinsed off their lunch dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher, helping her prepare to leave. “I wouldn’t mind retracing the path I took to get here. If I can track my path back to where I got started, maybe I’ll see something that will jog my memory.”