A neighbor? What the hell did that mean?
“She?”
“The driver.”
“How could you even know the driver was a she?” Graham scoffed. “You said the car was burned to a crisp.”
“It was. But I found this right alongside those snowshoe tracks.”
Dave reached to the side of the snowmobile, unsnapped a storage compartment and pulled out a black purse, then tossed it through the air. Graham caught it easily. He didn’t have to open it to know it was hers.
“Best guess, it’ll take them two days to expand their search out this way,” Dave added. “Tops. But that won’t matter, right? Because you’ll be on your way back home.”
“Right,” Graham agreed, hoping the word didn’t sound as forced as it felt.
As Dave’s vehicle disappeared into the snow, Graham’s hand squeezed into a tight, angry fist, crushing the purse for a moment before he regained control.
Very slowly, he peeled his fingers from the purse. Even more slowly, he unsnapped it and opened the zipper. He reached straight for the wallet and slid out the driver’s license. And there it was in black and white.
Keira London Niles. Resident of Derby Reach. The city where Graham had found Holly’s broken body. What were the odds?
Slim to none.
Graham took three determined steps toward the cabin, then paused.
The front door creaked open, just a crack.
What the hell?
Graham took another cautious step. No way had he forgotten to close the door properly. He spun around just in time to see the girl—dressed in a pair of his boots and too-long sweatshirt—lift a metallic object behind her shoulder as if she was wielding a baseball bat. Her legs were more than a little shaky, but her face was set in a determined glare as she swung the fire iron straight at his chest.
Chapter Nine
The big man was too slick. As Keira swung with all her might, he leaned back like an action-movie hero, easily dodging the blow.
You might have overestimated your own abilities, too, she thought as she lost her footing and stumbled forward.
Keira shoved down the nagging voice. She preferred to blame it on him. Especially since he had his arms outstretched as if he was going to catch her of all things.
Ignoring him, she drew back the weapon again. And Calloway took a half a step back.
Good.
“Give me the coat,” Keira commanded.
He frowned wordlessly, and Keira rolled her eyes.
“You can drop the silent, brooding stare,” she said, just the slightest hint of a tremor in her voice. “I heard you talking to that other man. Who is he?”
Calloway gave her a long considering look before replying gruffly. “Drop the weapon and I’ll drop the stare. Tell me what you heard.”
For a moment, Keira went still as her brain caught up to her ears.
Calloway’s voice had that same gravelly tinge she’d noted when it had carried on the wind into the cabin, only this close, it was amplified all the more. It was a good voice.
“I heard just enough to know you’re a liar,” she snapped. “Give me the coat and tell me who that man was.”
He stared at her again, then shrugged and slipped the Gore-Tex from his shoulders.
“I don’t know why you care,” he told her. “And it’s funny that you think I’m the deceptive one.”
“What does that mean?” The defensive question slipped out before Keira could stop it, making her blush.
He held the jacket out. “It means I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“That makes two of us. Throw it.”
Calloway tossed the jacket, and Keira caught it in the air, careful to keep one hand on the fire iron as she did it.
“I played all-star baseball in high school,” she warned as she started to dig through the pockets in search of her phone. “And I once hit a home run with a broken arm. So don’t assume that my injuries will make me any less willing to swing with everything I’ve got.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Keira narrowed her eyes. She strongly suspected he was trying not to smile.
If he laughs, I’ll hit him anyway, she decided.
But he stayed silent.
Keira stuck her hand into another pocket. One she was sure she’d already explored. Where the hell was her phone?
“Are you looking for something in particular?” Calloway asked, his voice just a little too innocent.
She glared at him. “Listen. You might have saved my life—”
“Might have?” Graham interrupted. “You were unconscious. In a blizzard. I’m not sure might is the right word.”
Keira’s cheeks heated up. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“So how did you mean it? The way I mean it when I say I might be standing outside, freezing, while a woman who I carried for ten miles, who I took into my house, who I gave my own bed to, aims a weapon at my head?”
The pink in Keira’s face deepened to a cherry red, and he noticed her hand wavered. “I—”
Graham shook his head and cut her off again. “Or did you mean it like how I mean it when I say I might just be considering tossing you over my shoulder—again—carrying you back to the crash site and leaving you there?”
“You wouldn’t!”
“I might.”
His voice was dark, and Keira’s eyes widened in surprise. She took a step back, her gaze no longer fixed on his face, but on his hand.
“That’s my purse.” She heard the tinge of fear in her statement.
“Keira London Niles of Derby Reach. There has to be a story in that name. Active member of Triple A. Twenty-four years old, just last month,” he reeled off. “Happy birthday, by the way. Did you know your license was expired?”
“Give it back!”
He held it out, but there was no way for her to take it without losing her already tenuous hold on the fire iron in her hands.
“You don’t want it anymore?” he asked.
“I’m not stupid,” she grumbled.
“Far from it,” Calloway agreed.
He set the purse down on the railing, reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar black object. Keira felt the color drain from her cheeks, and the jacket slipped to the ground.
Well. That explains why I couldn’t find it, she thought.
“Who were you going to call?” Calloway wondered out loud.
It was a good question. One Keira wasn’t even sure of how to answer. Calling Drew seemed out of the question. Her parents were away on their annual European cruise. And her best friend would probably just laugh her butt off.
“The police,” she whispered, not certain why she sounded so unsure.
Calloway tipped his head to one side, as if curious, and tapped the phone on his chin. “Not someone from Derby Reach?”
Why had he said it like that, with the tiny bit of emphasis on the name of her hometown? She recalled the scrapbook full of newspaper clippings about the murder in her hometown, and a little chill crept up her spine.
* * *
GRAHAM EXAMINED THE little crease between her brows, then the probing look in her emerald gaze. His gaze traveled down her face to her pursed lips. He almost believed the puzzled look to be genuine. And as a result, he also almost missed the subtle adjustment in her stance as she pulled an elbow back and prepared to strike.
I’m a sucker, he realized. One pair of big green eyes, one bossy mouth, and I’m a mess.
She swung and Graham ducked backward. He charged at her, and she lost her balance, stumbling toward the stairs. Automatically, Graham switched from an attack mode to defense mode. He reached out to stabilize her, and realized a moment too late her clumsiness had been
an act, her near fall a feint.
Rookie mistake, he growled at himself.
She was already off at a run.
“What the hell!” Graham yelled after her.
She had to know she didn’t stand a chance of getting away from him. Even if she hadn’t been weakened by her injuries, Graham was at an advantage. His legs were longer, he was far more accustomed to the terrain than she was and he wasn’t wearing boots five sizes too big.
Apparently, she wasn’t going to let that stop her from trying.
Graham caught up with her just inside the tree line on the edge of the clearing. His arms closed around her shoulders and the fire iron dropped to the ground. With a mutual grunt, the two of them fell straight into the snow.
She wriggled away, kicking viciously. Keira’s foot met his chest, and when she drew it back for another round, Graham flung himself backward.
“Dammit!” he cursed as he landed hard on his rear end.
“Damn you!” Keira countered angrily.
She crawled along the snow, found a tree trunk and pulled herself up. But Graham was there in a flash.
“You can’t win,” he cajoled.
With desperation clear in her eyes, she charged at him. The surprise of the attack—more than the force of her body weight hitting him—knocked him to the ground once more. Graham let out another annoyed growl and sprung to his feet. By the time he was upright, Keira had the tire iron in her hands again, this time raised over her head.
“Stay back!” she yelled, and waved it around a little wildly.
Graham eyed the weapon dismissively, then focused on Keira instead. “Put it down.”
“Fat chance.”
“Put it down, or I’m going to make you put it down.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Fine. Let’s do things the hard way.”
He stalked toward her, and with a cry, she tossed the fire iron at him, then turned and attempted to flee once more. She didn’t make it more than four steps. Graham counted them. Then he slipped his arms around her slim waist and he lifted her easily from the ground.
Keira screamed, probably as loud and as long as she could, but her voice just echoed through the forest, bouncing back at her uselessly. She flung an elbow in the direction of Graham’s stomach, but the attack didn’t elicit more than a grunt. In a slick move, he flipped her around and pinned her to a large evergreen, then fixed his eyes on hers.
Keira continued to struggle, but Graham wasn’t even pretending to let her get away. She finally seemed to give in, and she stopped fighting. She slid to the ground, but he continued to hold her arms as he glared down at her. Her breath was coming in short gasps and her limbs were shaking.
On the ground, she looked small and fragile once more.
For a second, Graham felt guilty. He’d made himself responsible for her well-being. Taken her in to care for her. Yeah, she’d lashed out at him for some reason he couldn’t understand. But she was probably scared as hell and still shaken up. And maybe her hometown was just a coincidence after all.
Graham loosened his hold, just slightly. Then she attempted to twist away, and guilt evaporated. He squeezed her wrists together over her head, pressed a foot—as gently as he could while still being firm—into her feet and immobilized her.
“I’m done playing games,” he told her in a low voice.
She lifted her chin defiantly. “What are you going to do? Kill me?”
Her question hit him hard, square in the chest. She did know him. Or thought she did.
No coincidences.
“I’m not a murderer,” Graham replied coldly, and dropped her wrists. “And what I’m going to do is take you back inside. Where we’re going to eat breakfast like two normal adults. And where you’re going to tell me exactly what the hell you were doing up this mountain in the first place. Understood?”
She nodded meekly, and Graham had to shove down the reflexive regret at dampening the fire in her eyes.
You need answers, he reminded himself.
He pulled back, and as he did, Keira tipped up her head. The new angle gave him a perfect view of her eyes, and Graham saw with relieved satisfaction that the fire—quite clearly—wasn’t extinguished. Just banked.
Chapter Ten
As Calloway’s seemingly enormous body eased away from Keira’s own petite one, she realized how ridiculous it was to think she could have overpowered him in the first place. The self-defense training she received at work was no match for his brute strength. No makeshift weapon would outdo him.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Even if his voice hadn’t demanded obedience, he didn’t release her, and that gave her little choice but to go where he propelled her. They moved toward the cabin, Graham’s hands pressed firmly into Keira’s shoulders, her feet dragging a little in the oversize boots.
Stupid, stupid, she cursed herself as they moved along. I would’ve been better off taking my chances by running into the woods instead of thinking he owed me some kind of explanation.
Because he really didn’t owe her one. And if Keira thought about it, she was probably the one who owed him something. Had she even thanked him for saving her? She couldn’t remember. She opened her mouth to do it now, then paused as she second-guessed the impulse. Should she still thank him now that she suspected he had something to do with the four-year-old homicide in her hometown?
I’m not a murderer, he’d said.
Did that make it true? Keira desperately wanted to believe him. And not just because she was trapped on the mountainside with him, and her only way out—so far—was a man with a snowmobile and a gun. Something about Calloway felt intoxicatingly right. Especially when he was standing as close to her as he was now, his hand on her body, guiding her where he wanted to go.
When they moved up the stairs, and he reached around her to push open door, his clean, woodsy scent assaulted her senses, rendering her brain temporarily nonfunctional. Her booted toe caught on the transition board at the bottom on the door frame, and before she could stop herself, she was falling forward. She braced herself to hit the ground. But the impact didn’t come.
She still fell, but not the way she’d been thinking she would. One of Calloway’s arms slipped under her legs, and the other closed around her shoulders. As she went down, he took the full force of the ground to his own elbows and knees. He had one hand on the back of her neck, the other on her thigh, and his gray eyes held her where she was.
They were both breathing heavily, and Keira refused to acknowledge the treacherous parts of her body that demanded to know why it felt so good to be looking into one another’s eyes, chests rising and falling in near unison.
A drop of water fell from his face to hers, and he eased his hand out from behind her hair to wipe it away gently. His fingers burned pleasantly against her skin, and it didn’t help at all when he looked her straight in the eyes and gave her the clearest understanding of the term white-hot that she’d ever had. It was the perfect way to describe the way ice gray met fierce need in Calloway’s eyes. They were burning so bright, she almost had to look away. But couldn’t.
Lying above her, looking at her like that, Calloway wasn’t just handsome. He was gorgeous. The perfectly rustic look had basically turned him into the supermodel version of his Mountain Man self.
And, oh, he smelled good, too. Even better than he had when he was carrying her up the mountainside. Raw and woodsy and tinged with smoke.
He was unpredictable and dangerous, and it was totally unreasonable to be this attracted to him. The smart part of her brain knew it. But the smart part didn’t seem to be attached to the rest of her. In fact, there were a few distinct bits that seemed remarkably detached from her brain altogether.
Keira’s whole body was alight.
Kiss
me, she begged silently.
And as her heavy gaze continued to hold Calloway’s, she knew he was going to.
Thank God.
Then, so slowly she was sure he was very carefully gauging her reaction, he slid his hand from her cheek to her chin and tipped it toward him. He inched forward. Keira fought an urge to speed it up, to drive her lips into his, to close the miniscule gap between them and take what she was dying to have. What she suddenly realized she’d been dying to have since the second he put his arms around her in the snowstorm.
Don’t rush this, whispered a small voice in her head.
And Kiera suspected that the voice was right. This kiss—this first kiss with such an intense, unusual and mysterious man—was something to be savored.
His mouth touched hers, his eyes still wide-open.
It was the softest kiss. The gentlest one. But it ignited more passion in Keira than she’d felt in her entire quarter-of-a-century-long life. She gasped because she couldn’t help it. She closed her eyes because she had to. And when Calloway’s palm skidded to the back of her neck again, her arms came up, all on their own, to encircle his waist. She pulled him close, and he let her. The aches in her body eased away as she let the rest of the kiss take her, as his lips became hungry, and everything but Calloway faded to the background.
But it was painfully short.
He pulled away, ending the embrace with an abruptness that contrasted sharply with its slow beginnings.
It left Keira full of longing.
“Calloway,” she whispered.
He leaned in once more, grazing her mouth, and then—without warning—he abandoned his pursuit of her lips to swoop in and lift her up instead. He carried her straight to the bed, and for a dizzying moment Keira thought he was going to skip the preamble and go straight for the main attraction.
Quicker than she could decide whether or not she should protest, he reached beneath the frame, grabbed a rope, wrapped it around her wrists tightly and secured her to the bed.
* * *
DAMMIT.
Complications were low on Graham’s list of priorities. Liking Keira Niles was very complicated.
Trusting a Stranger Page 6
