by Adrian, Lara
He had allowed himself to care for someone, to feel, only once in the two decades since his escape from the Hunter program. He had let his guard down with Abbie and fate had kicked him in teeth by ripping her away from him. So, no. He had no interest in getting tangled up in anyone’s problems. He had no intention of allowing himself to be that weak ever again.
Which meant the sooner he could put his boots on a path away from Parrish Falls, the better.
Knox navigated the slippery track of road, the Bronco’s engine droning under the slap of the wipers and the tick of icy snowflakes hitting the windshield.
“That’s my friend’s place up there on the right.”
Leni pointed to an old gray-shingled Cape Cod. It had only a handful of neighbors, each with a couple acres of land and dozens of tall pines. Flood lights illuminated the short driveway and the blanket of snow that covered the ground in all directions.
“Park on the side of the house. If Carla sees you or the condition of my truck, I’ll have a hundred questions to answer before she lets me leave. Right now, I just want to get Riley home safe and in bed.”
Knox drove to where she instructed, and she hopped out as soon as the truck came to a stop. Jogging through the dark and the flying snow, she slipped into the house through an apparently unlocked front door.
Knox scowled. Lax security was a given in small towns, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He stared holes into the house, his combat instincts on full alert for the handful of minutes it took before Leni appeared at the door again.
She returned carrying a sleeping blond-haired boy he guessed to be about five or six years old. The kid was draped over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes in his winter coat and pajamas, out cold as she hurried outside with him back to the truck.
Knox stayed behind the wheel as she’d asked, watching her fasten the unconscious boy into the booster contraption behind the passenger seat. Nothing seemed to stir the kid until Leni arranged his head against a plush teddy bear as a makeshift pillow. His eyes fluttered open, still heavy with the sleep of childhood.
“It’s okay, buddy.” Leni soothed him with a gentle kiss to his forehead. “We’ll be home in a minute.”
The sound of her voice instantly settled him. Letting go of a deep sigh, he drifted back into a deep sleep.
Knox felt anything but relaxed as he observed Leni’s tender care with her nephew. She was patient and warm, her kindness toward the child tugging at a place inside Knox he didn’t want to acknowledge.
“All set?” he asked gruffly, his deep voice sounding more annoyed than intended.
Leni nodded, then closed the back door and climbed into her seat up front. They made the drive back to the diner in silence. Her house stood behind it, a tidy old two-story, hip-roofed farmhouse with white wood siding. He parked in front of the detached one-car garage around back, then got out and followed her to the rear door of the house to make sure she and Riley got inside safely.
He should have stopped there.
He should have walked right back out the door as soon as Leni disappeared through the kitchen and went upstairs to put the boy to bed. Instead, he prowled the lower level of her home, checking all points of entry and frowning at the lack of sufficient security.
No deadbolts on either door. Aged hardware on what appeared to be ancient, original windows in each ground-floor room of the cozy, but easily breachable, old farmhouse.
The place had likely been standing for several generations much the same as it was now. Sturdy and lived in, a comfortable home filled with modest furnishings and rug-covered wood-plank floors that had probably felt the traffic of countless footsteps over the decades.
What Knox saw was an unprotected domicile that wouldn’t hold against the local dogcatcher, let alone a convicted felon with an ax to grind. He wandered farther inside, his eye drawn to the numerous collections of photographs that decorated each room in the house.
Leni evidently lived alone with her young nephew, but she had surrounded herself with mementos of a loving, happy family. Snapshots of smiling faces preserved in whimsical frames on the fireplace mantel and in small groupings on end tables and other surfaces. Crafts and artwork created by a child’s hands. Soft, homemade knit blankets draped neatly over the backs of the sofa and the antique rocking chair that sat in the corner of the living room.
Knox bit off a low curse. He felt like an intruder invading her private space, interrupting her life.
He’d seen her and the boy home safely. It was long past time for him to be gone.
He turned, intending to head back into the kitchen and into the night before Leni came back down. But at the same instant, floorboards creaked quietly on the stairs. For a moment, he considered using his Breed genetics to speed him out of there, but it wasn’t in his DNA to run away from danger.
Not even when it took the form of a beautiful, hazel-eyed brunette.
“You’re still here.” She descended off the last step and approached him in the living room. “I thought you might’ve left already.”
“I was just on my way.”
“Okay.” She gave him a faint nod, but the way she held her mouth made him think she had something more to say. “Where will you go?”
“Haven’t decided. Montreal, probably.”
“Do you have friends there? Someone you’ll stay with?”
“No.” He wasn’t sure if she was asking for a reason, or if this was merely her seemingly endless curiosity sparking back to life. “No friends there. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not really the social type.”
“I’ve noticed.” She glanced down, and the retreat of her normally forthright stare put a tick of concern in his veins.
Lenora Calhoun was nervous, uncertain. More than that; she was afraid. Since she was trying to make conversation, he didn’t think her fear extended to him right now, but there was no mistaking the current of anxiety rolling off her.
“Knox, if I wanted to reach you for some reason . . . is there some way I could find you?”
He felt a tendon begin to pulse in his cheek. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I mean, if I needed your help.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. The pulse in his cheek became a dull throb. “My help.”
At his toneless echo, those clear autumn-hued eyes lifted, meeting his glower. “I’ve been thinking about what you said in the truck. About what you are.”
He said nothing, holding her gaze and all but daring her to say the words.
“You told me you’re an assassin, Knox.”
“Was. I left the program behind me twenty years ago.”
“But you still have those . . . skills?”
“What exactly are you asking, Lenora?”
She pivoted away from him without answering, drifting over to a decorative table in the corner, the one that had a collection of photos documenting her nephew’s birthdays. Leni and a pair of older women were in several of the earlier pictures. Notably absent in the little boy’s annual celebrations was the pretty blonde holding him in a hospital snapshot taken on the day he’d been born.
Knox hadn’t been able to purge Leni’s description of what had been done to her sister. A beating so violent it left her unconscious.
It was all too easy for Knox to imagine the same thing could happen to Leni.
She absently touched the frame of the photo of her sister and the sleeping infant in her arms.
“I’m not worried about myself. Honestly, I’m not. But I’ll do anything to protect Riley.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I can’t let Shannon’s attacker ever get his hands on that child. I won’t, Knox. I don’t care what it takes.”
He stared at her. “Are you asking me to kill Travis Parrish for you?”
She winced. A short sigh gusted out of her as she immediately dropped her gaze. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.” Christ, she couldn’t even force herself to say the words. How did she think
she’d be able to live with the reality of calling for someone’s murder when she didn’t have the stomach to speak as much as the idea out loud?
Knox wasn’t about to agree to her request, no matter how much personal pleasure he might take in ridding the world of a man who apparently had no qualms about brutalizing an innocent woman. And Knox had no doubt that eliminating the threat of Travis Parrish would only invite more trouble on Leni and the boy.
“You think the rest of the Parrishes would just roll over if Travis was gone? You think they’d just stand down, let you and the boy go on living your lives in peace?” He moved closer to her, needing her to look him in the eye and understand—truly understand—what she was asking. “I’d have to kill them all, Leni. I’d probably have to kill anyone loyal to them too. That’s what it would take. Nothing less.”
“Oh, God.” She swallowed, already shaking her head as he spoke. “No, that’s not what I want. I may not have much reason to like any of the Parrishes, but I don’t want to be as bad as they are. Or worse.”
“I know you don’t.” Knox took another step toward her. “And I won’t be the one to put that sin on your conscience, even if you ask me to.”
He meant that. Yet even as he said it, there was a part of him that was ready to protect her. He was no hero by a longshot, but was he the kind of cold bastard who could walk away and leave an innocent woman and child to their own defenses? He wanted to tell himself he was. For his own peace of mind, if nothing else.
But there would be no peace of mind if he abandoned Leni and never looked back.
After feeling her goodness when he touched her hand in the diner, after seeing her with Riley, he didn’t know how he was going to turn a blind eye to the situation. Despite what he told her, the trained killer in him wouldn’t take much convincing to tear through the entire Parrish family and the rest of the town if any of them posed a threat to her.
Fuck.
Her battle wasn’t his to fight. Her troubles didn’t belong to him, no more than she did. The smartest, easiest thing he could do for himself right now was get back on the road, and soon.
Then again, he wasn’t the only one who should be thinking about leaving Parrish Falls.
“If making sure the Parrishes can’t get their hands on the boy is really what you want, then you can’t stay here. Find somewhere else to go, Lenora, somewhere you can start over. And I mean do it before Travis comes home.”
She frowned. He didn’t like seeing that stubborn glint sparking in her eyes. “I’m not leaving. I’ve lived in this town all my life. Five generations of my family have lived in this house. My grandparents built that diner out there.”
“They’re just buildings,” Knox said. “Parrish Falls is just a town, like any other.”
“No.” Her chin tilted upward, her mouth pressing flat. “I won’t leave. I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You can do it right now. Pack a bag, put the boy in your truck, and go.”
“I’m not going to run.”
“Not even if staying means you might get hurt? Or worse?”
“I told you, I’m not concerned about something happening to me. I can handle whatever Travis or his family thinks they can do to me.”
Knox scoffed. “Come on, Leni. You’re smarter than this. You got lucky out there on the road tonight, but you have to know pride won’t protect you or Riley in the long run.”
“It’s not about my pride,” she fired back, desperation edging into her voice. “I can’t leave. I need to stay for my sister. Until Shannon comes home, Riley and I are staying put right here where she can find us.”
Her breathing had increased along with her pulse. Knox was close enough that he could hear the rapid pound of her heartbeat, the rush of blood racing through her veins. Yes, she was afraid. Maybe not for herself, as she’d insisted, but definitely for her little nephew.
And now he realized just how afraid she was for her sibling too.
“You’re waiting around for a sister you haven’t seen or heard from in years?”
“Yes. I am.”
Knox let go of a curse. He had to admire her loyalty, no matter how futile it might be. “You said she left a few months after her son was born.”
“Shannon didn’t leave. She vanished. There’s a difference.”
“Only in the semantics. The net outcome is the same.” He couldn’t curb the cold frankness in his tone. Nor the sharpness of the truth she seemed reluctant to accept. “She’s gone, Leni. After six years, I’d say she’s not likely coming back.”
She flinched as if he’d physically struck her. “Fuck you. You don’t know that. You don’t know a damn thing about me or my family.”
No, he didn’t. But his soldier’s mind dealt in logic, not emotion.
If Leni needed reassuring, unfortunately she wouldn’t get it from him. He wasn’t the type to coddle or soothe. He didn’t know how. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to prop her up with false hope. Not when she was so afraid of Travis Parrish’s return that she was willing to appeal for help from someone like Knox.
“I should go.”
She stared at him, her gaze bleak. Wounded. “I think that’s probably a good idea, Knox.”
It was. He knew that. Yet his boots remained rooted where he stood.
Damn it, why hadn’t he just kept walking right on past her diner earlier tonight? He’d already be across the border into Canada by now, instead of standing alone with Leni in the heat of her warmly lit living room, her beautiful face flushed with anger and a mounting regret.
He needed distance now, before he let his attraction to her spiral any further out of control. Leaving was the best thing for him to do for both of them.
Instead, he moved toward her, not stopping until there were only scant inches separating her body from his.
She didn’t retreat. Maybe if she had, he would have found the scrap of discipline he needed—the smallest measure of honor—to prevent his hand from reaching up to stroke her cheek.
Her skin was as soft as velvet, infinitely warm.
His Breed gift had made him reluctant to touch from the time it first manifested in him as a child. Its silence when he was touching Leni felt like a balm. So much so, it was next to impossible for him to draw his hand away from her now.
He couldn’t shake the memory of finding her staggering out of her crashed vehicle in the ravine. Unresolved fury for the bastard who’d done it simmered like acid in his veins.
Knox had killed for less offenses than Dwight Parrish’s tonight. Leni had dismissed the incident as if it were merely par for the course, but he couldn’t deny the urge to make the asshole pay in blood for the way he’d antagonized her.
Which was just more evidence that it was long past time for him to get out of her life.
Because what he’d told her was true. With men like that, taking on one meant going to war with the entire clan. As satisfying as he might find both prospects, it would only create added problems for Leni and her nephew. Especially when she was so stubbornly determined to remain in Parrish Falls.
And every minute he allowed himself to get lost in the stoic, unshakable grace of Leni’s eyes, the more tempting it was to wake the killer inside him and let the ashes fall where they may.
But she wasn’t his to protect. Not his to savor right now, either.
With a low rumble of warning curling up from his chest, Knox pulled his hand away from her cheek.
“You take care of yourself, Lenora Calhoun.”
A quiet sigh leaked out of her. She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “Goodbye, Knox.”
He stepped back, needing the space more than he cared to let on. For the first time since she walked into the room, he let his gaze drop from her face. His sight snagged on the tattered hem of her plaid shirt. The flannel had several long gashes in it near her abdomen.
He hadn’t noticed it until just now.
“Did that happen in the ravine?” When he glanced up at her face agai
n, her cheeks went ashen. “You told me you weren’t hurt.”
She shook her head abruptly. “I wasn’t.”
He knew that was true. He would have smelled her blood if she’d been cut. Yet her ruined shirt indicated otherwise. It had been ripped by jagged branches, a few stray pine needles still embedded in the flannel.
She started to turn away from him.
“Leni.” He reached for her arm and pivoted her back around to face him. “Let me see.”
“No.” She pulled out of his loose grasp and her arms went in front of her like a shield. “I told you I was fine.”
His vision flashed amber at her lie. “I know what you told me. I want to know what you’re hiding now.”
“Nothing.”
He took her in both hands now, forcing her to face him. Then he lifted the torn hem of the shirt and his burning gaze settled on the creamy planes of her belly. Desire flared in him as he ran his fingers over her stomach, searching for the answer to a question he was reluctant to ask.
Then he found it.
A small red mark, the only flaw on her otherwise pristine skin.
Not an injury. That much had been true.
Nothing close to an imperfection, either.
His fangs erupted from his gums as he stared at the diminutive teardrop-and-crescent-moon symbol.
“Holy hell.” He glowered up at her. “You’re a Breedmate.”
CHAPTER 7
Leni couldn’t move, not even when it seemed like the smartest thing for her to do.
“A fucking Breedmate.” Knox growled the words as he stared at her, his expression shocked, confused. Furious as hell.
His eyes gripped her in their molten glow. She’d never seen amber fire burning up someone’s irises before. She’d never seen a pair of pupils transform from humanlike circles to otherworldly, vertical slits. Behind Knox’s parted lips, the sharp tips of his fangs glinted bright white, as sharp as daggers.
No article or image she’d ever seen could have prepared her for the reality of facing a livid Breed male in the flesh. But it was the anger in the man who scared her more than the outward evidence of what he truly was.
