“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” Even though his captive was less than a foot away, he yelled his question at the top of his lungs. Partly to be heard over the howling wind, and partly in complete frustration.
He’d been taken down by a woman! And judging from the fact that he’d barely had to spread his legs to straddle her, not much of one either. He assessed what he could see of her with a swift glance. Short dark hair, smallish dirt-smeared features, bony shoulders, no boobs. Hell, she was more boy than woman.
She grimaced, then surprised him by tugging her hands out from where he’d pinned them to her sides with his knees. She immediately grabbed his thighs and began shoving. He didn’t budge.
It belatedly occurred to him that being considerably bigger than she was, he was crushing her. He still didn’t move, but his temper curbed. Slightly.
Until her frantic grasping caught him directly on his fresh wound. The hot slash of pain shot up his leg and went straight to his brain. He tossed the gun to the ground, grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head, bringing his own face within an inch of hers. He gave her his fiercest scowl.
“Jillian Bonner?”
She stopped her ineffective attempts at escape and blinked up at him. He was distracted for a split second by her eyes. If asked, he couldn’t have said why. They were a nondescript gray. The moment passed as she treated him to a scowl of her own. It was a damn good one too.
For a sheila.
“Yes, I am. Now could you get off me?”
The mouse that roared, Reese thought, fighting the sudden odd urge to smile.
“Please?” The request came through gritted teeth.
Reese continued to stare down at her. Stubborn and tenacious were two of her more obvious traits. Yet it was something else that held his complete attention. There, in the depths of her eyes, was a trace of something … Not entirely hard and cold, nor soft and vulnerable. Just the enduring essence of battles fought. Some won. Too many lost. It wasn’t blatant or world-weary. But it was there. He knew so, because it was the same thing he saw when he made the mistake of staring too deeply into a mirror.
Like his, hers were the eyes of a survivor.
Maybe they weren’t so nondescript after all.
Enough, he decided abruptly. He changed his grip so he could hold her slender wrists in one hand, using the other to scoop up his gun. Tucking it in the waistband of his jeans, Reese lifted his body off her and stood, pulling her to her feet as he went. He paused to run a quick visual check for the alligator, the descending gloom of the storm making it difficult.
“Did you hurt Cleo?” she yelled over the wind.
He jerked his gaze around to her. “What?”
“My alligator. Is she hurt?”
“Who the hell—? Your alligator?” She didn’t wait around for him to ask questions. In the next instant, with a hard yank, Jillian sprang free and took off racing across the yard.
“The damn thing almost had my leg for lunch and you’re worried about how it’s doing?” he roared after her. His words were swallowed by the wind. She didn’t slow a step in her dash to the rear area of the compound.
Swearing under his breath, he took off after her, ignoring the daggers in his thigh as he closed the distance between them. She slowed as she neared a pond. Across the small expanse of water, Reese could make out the hulking shape of the alligator as it hovered near a huge pile of what looked to be earth, leaves, and twigs.
Reese stopped about two feet away. And palmed his gun.
“Jillian!”
She spun around, her expression changing from concern to anger when she spied him. Or rather when she spied his gun.
“Put that thing away! You’ll scare her.”
“I’ll—What? Scare her?” Reese knew he was sputtering. He never sputtered. “She’s a nine-foot alligator with a bad attitude,” he yelled back. “This barely makes things even. No way.”
“Did you hurt her?” she demanded again.
“No!” His patience unraveled to its last thread. He could barely believe what he was hearing. She hadn’t once asked if he’d been hurt. Not that he intended to tell her. It was obvious she cared more for the damn mutant reptile than she did about a human being. Namely him.
“Let’s get the hell out of here before she comes back.”
“You sure you didn’t shoot her?” She turned her back to him without waiting for his reply. Using her hands to keep her bangs from whipping into her eyes, she squinted as she looked across the pond.
“We haven’t got time to waste,” Reese shouted.
“Don’t let me stop you.”
The last thread snapped, and Reese closed the short space between them and grabbed her arm. “Let’s go.” Without another word, he turned and started toward the house, not bothering to alter his long-legged gait, which, even wounded, kept her trotting beside him to keep up.
Now that he was no longer under attack—from woman or beast—he turned his thoughts back to his original plan. Getting Jillian Bonner off this island and to safety before the hurricane hit. He didn’t spare a thought as to whether she’d go along with that plan. He’d promised Regina Ravensworth he’d get her daughter away from danger. And he kept his promises. All he had to do was get a few of her things packed and they were out of there.
He’d gone about five yards when she abruptly dug in her heels and yanked hard at the hand gripping her wrists. He stumbled, sending a fresh rush of pain up his leg, but didn’t let his hold on her wrists slacken enough for her to break free. Biting back several oaths, he spun around to face her but she cut him off before he’d uttered his first word.
“Excuse me,” she yelled, “but just who in the hell do you think you are?”
“The only idiot stupid enough to risk his life to save your scrawny butt,” he yelled back, wondering just how he’d lost control of this supposedly simple operation.
“Well, nobody asked you to! Let me go!”
Any other time he’d have admired her grit. Now it merely frustrated the daylights out of him. Didn’t she know that one hundred and fifty miles per hour of rage and fury were about to come down on her?
“When we’re in the house,” he shouted back, and turned toward the front door.
She dug in her heels again, making him drag her awkwardly for several feet. “You’re not going into my house. This is private property!” When he didn’t slow down, she tugged again and yelled even louder. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I demand that you leave immediately!”
That snapped it. He whirled on her so fast, she smacked against his chest. He bent low and shoved his face right into hers so there would be no doubt she would hear what he was about to say.
“I intend to. Just as soon as you grab whatever you plan on saving.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he talked right over her. “Don’t push me or I’ll throw you over my shoulder and the hell with your precious mementos.”
“Aren’t you taking this evacuation thing a bit far?” Her glare proved she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by his threat. “I told the guys who came by yesterday that I wasn’t leaving. Last time I checked, it was my choice.”
“Yeah, well, you hadn’t checked with me. Now let’s move.” Reese didn’t wait for a response. He swung around and pulled her—dragged her really—toward the porch. It wasn’t until he’d gone halfway up the steps of the Victorian-style home that he realized the front door had been shut off with galvanized steel sheets. As he backtracked to the gravel pathway, he noticed the same measures had been taken with the upper-story windows.
Well, at least she’d had enough sense to take some decent precautions. Not that it was going to help. Hurricane Ivan was likely to turn her house into a pile of kindling—with or without steel window covers. He headed around the side of the house, figuring she must have come out that way.
“I really must insist,” she tried again.
Reese ignored her as he spied the small screened-in sun porch.
He went straight through, not stopping until they were standing in her kitchen. He turned to face her. With the door shut, the howling wind was substantially muted, and the sudden lack of noise made his ears ring. He ignored that too. He’d blanked out far worse in his life.
Still holding her wrists, he said, “You have five minutes. Important papers, family stuff, some clothes. I’ll turn off your utilities. Where is the fuse box?”
She stood there, gaping at him.
He fought the urge to shake her. From her mother’s description, he’d expected some mousy professor type. He realized he hadn’t believed Mrs. Ravensworth, a high society matron with the sort of timeless beauty that had men decades younger drooling.
But Jillian was all that her mother described and worse. The only unexpected element being her fierce reaction to him. Quiet, very reserved, a loner, were the adjectives Regina had used. She’d also said her daughter could be very stubborn about certain things. Namely, her home and the animals in her care.
After all the yelling and glaring, he wasn’t certain he agreed with the first part, but he’d been given ample proof of the latter.
Not that it made any difference. Her mother had been right about the most important thing. Her size. Negligible. And last he checked he was still a steady one ninety-five.
No contest.
“I’m not—”
“Four minutes, thirty seconds.”
“Leaving,” she finished stubbornly. She pulled her wrists free and massaged them, glowering at him with those plain gray eyes.
He felt a strange twinge, like he should apologize or something. He ignored it. It wasn’t his fault she was making it difficult on herself.
He looked down at her. She was a good six or seven inches shorter than he, hardly filling out the jeans and T-shirt she wore. She suddenly seemed too small and fragile to have withstood hardship or suffered adversity. And with the wealth her mother had, it would seem there was no reason she should have. But Reese knew money and suffering weren’t mutually exclusive. You could have an abundance of one and still not find a way to escape the other.
Under his brief scrutiny her shoulders stiffened and her jaw tightened another notch.
After all the shouting, her quiet voice took him off guard. “Listen, I’m sorry you came all this way, that you risked … anything. But as I told the gentlemen who came by yesterday, I’m not leaving. I can’t.” The last was added on a somewhat defensive note, her sudden blink telling him she hadn’t planned on saying it out loud.
“Won’t,” he countered. “Not the same thing.”
“It doesn’t matter. The result is the same. I’d suggest you find whatever vehicle you drove here in and leave quickly. I have to finish securing the house.”
He saw her gaze dart nervously over his shoulder to the door and spacious yard beyond. The area surrounding her small house was more of a compound.
Reese knew she rehabilitated marine and local wildlife in conjunction with several refuges in the area. But other than the alligator, he hadn’t seen any signs of other animals. The assorted pens and cages near the rear building appeared empty.
So what was keeping her here? He’d pegged her a survivor. Survivors didn’t put their lives on the line without a damn good reason. And as far as he could tell, there wasn’t one in sight. He gave a mental shrug. He didn’t care, because it didn’t matter. She was leaving now. And despite how angry it made her, he doubted she’d hold that grudge when she realized he’d saved her life.
And yet something about her compelled him to try to understand. Not bothering to examine the urge, he simply asked her, “Why?”
“Because if I want a scarecrow’s chance in hell of living through this, I’m going to need to do a bit more work.”
“I meant, why aren’t you going? All the securing in the world won’t keep this place from going up like Dorothy’s house on its way to Oz. Only I doubt you’ll be so lucky.”
“Why do you care?” She held up her hand. “Never mind, stupid question. You obviously take your job as part of the evacuation effort very seriously. I respect what you’re trying to do here.” She gestured around her, but Reese knew she meant the entire evacuation zone that encompassed the lower half of Florida’s gulf coastline. “But I think your time would be more wisely spent helping those people who want to be rescued.”
Her voice had taken on a gentle, soothing quality. He imagined wounded animals responded very well to it Lucky for him he was a man and immune to such precarious things as a woman’s soft voice.
“Time’s up.” He took her arm, though a bit more gently this time, grabbing a box of trash bags off her kitchen table as he moved toward the office he could see through the open door behind her. Once inside, he let her go, blocking the door with his body, then pulled a couple of bags free. “Here. Just the most important things. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
He ducked out the door, grabbing a ladder-back chair from beside the table behind him and shoving it under the doorknob. He’d barely gotten it tightly wedged when she began jiggling it.
“Hey! You can’t do this! Let me out of here!” She banged on the heavy wooden door.
“You’re wasting time,” he called back, then grabbed a few more bags and went in search of her room.
A loud thwack behind him indicated she’d kicked the door. The following string of curse words trailed him up the stairs.
Where in the hell had she learned to swear like that?
His grimace faded. What replaced it couldn’t be called a smile. Reese Braedon never smiled.
But he had to admit he wasn’t bored anymore.
Bored. It was disconcerting to realize that until that moment, he hadn’t been able to put his finger on what his problem had been of late. It had been almost a year since he’d thrown in the federal towel and opened up a private security agency with Cole Sinclair, another agent he’d occasionally worked with in his past life.
Bored. Eighteen months ago, he’d craved boredom like a man who’d spent far too many years living on the edge of his wits. Like the man he was. Had been. Private security allowed him the luxury of picking his own jobs. And more importantly, being his own boss. He’d never again find himself in the position of having to answer to someone else, particularly when people’s lives were on the line.
Reese shoved aside the dark memories of his past. He elbowed his way into the first room at the top of the stairs. The steel shutters made the room dark, so he flipped the light switch. It was a bedroom, but it wasn’t hers. Too neat and tidy, with an air of expectancy, like it was just waiting for an aunt or a cousin to drop in for a brief stay.
But not a mother, he thought with a wry twist of his lips. Without giving any details, Regina Ravensworth had made it very clear that she and her daughter were not close. In fact, the one promise she’d wrung from him was that he not tell Jillian why he’d been hired—or that he’d been hired at all.
He’d agreed to the condition, knowing Jillian would probably assume he was part of the evacuation effort. Which he had been earlier that week down in the Keys, where he and Sinclair lived and headquartered their business.
However, at this point, he didn’t see where keeping her mother’s role out of it had made the job a whole helluva lot easier.
He flipped off the guest room light and moved down the hall. One bathroom, another guest room, one linen closet. He paused long enough to grab a few sheets, some towels, and a blanket, then moved to the next door … And stopped cold on the threshold.
This was her room.
It wasn’t just the large double bed covered with the jumble of lemon-yellow sheets that gave it away. He stepped inside, feeling strangely like the intruder he was. He never gave his methods much thought, just doing what had to be done in the most efficient manner possible to obtain his goal. And this was far from the first time he’d found himself in the bedroom of a woman he’d just met. Of course, he’d usually been invited. He shrugged off the odd feeling and looked around.
The room wasn’t feminine. Bare hardwood floors, a bed, one nightstand, and a wooden dresser. The only adornment was a watercolor of a marsh scene hanging over the dresser and a wooden lamp carved in the shape of a leaping dolphin on the nightstand. No pictures or well-thumbed paperbacks lay on the nightstand, no watches or jewelry littered the scarred surface of the dresser.
Picturing her small plain features, slim boyish body clad in a shapeless T-shirt and jeans and her job working with animals, he supposed it shouldn’t surprise him that there weren’t the requisite bottles, tubes, and pots of makeup and cologne cluttering every available surface.
Although there was a faint fresh scent in the air, sort of woodsy. Odd for a woman, he thought, then admitted that it somehow suited her. A disconcerting notion considering he barely knew her. Didn’t want to know her. She was just another job. So what if she intrigued him? She was a puzzle he didn’t have time to solve. The problem, he acknowledged with a frown, was getting rid of the inclination.
It occurred to him with a start that he was wasting precious time, standing there literally sniffing around. He bent down and grabbed two pairs of worn sneakers from the floor by the door and dumped them into the trash bag, then turned back to the dresser opposite her bed.
He tugged at the top drawer but it held tight, probably warped from the constant humidity. He yanked harder. The drawer sprang open past its tracks, upending her underwear in a heap on the floor.
“God—” Reese bit off the curse, set the drawer down and knelt, careful to favor his thigh. He hadn’t given a thought to her lingerie—she was hardly the type to inspire heated fantasies—but the basic white cotton bras and undies spilling from his hands didn’t provide any surprises.
He stuffed a handful of each, along with some white crew socks in the bag. He reached for the second drawer and pulled out several pairs of faded blue jeans. Shorts, T-shirts, and a few old sweatshirts followed as he searched the other drawers.
He scooped up the remaining pile of underwear and dumped it back in the warped drawer. The sound of something hard and metallic stilled his actions for a moment, then he shoved a hand into the jumble and rooted around until his fingers closed over what felt like a picture frame.
The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance Page 35
