“Is that so?” He scanned the length of her. “You always take in the landscape on your stomach with binoculars?”
“I’m a bird watcher. Last I heard there’s no law against that.”
One shock of dark hair fell over his damp forehead as he considered her answer. “What bird?”
“What bird?” What bird…what bird… Damn. She knew nothing about birds.
Impatience deepened his frown. “What bird have you been watching for the past three hours?”
“Oh. A three-toed, yellow-rumped sapsucker. It’s nesting in that Douglas fir twenty yards off your cabin. Very rare.” She prayed there was a bird up there. Any bird, or something that even remotely resembled a nest.
“Is that right?” He lifted his gaze to the thick grove of trees and stared. “Three-toed sapsucker, huh?”
“Yellow-rumped,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Now get off me.”
The weight of his body matched the heavy gaze he dropped back down to her. The lines on his face were hard, angular, like his body, and the intensity of his narrowed gaze made her breath catch.
He shook his head slowly. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, sweetheart. It’s your choice.”
She didn’t know what he meant by this, but she had no intention of doing anything with this jerk. She let her body go slack and turned her head away, as if she were acquiescing to him.
“All right.” She dragged in a shuddering, pathetic breath. “I guess we’ll do it—” her knee came up hard and fast and right on target “—the hard way.”
Ian sucked in his breath as the first blast of pain ripped through the lower half of his body. Stars exploded in front of his eyes as a wave of nausea washed over him. Her voice had sounded so weak and frightened that he’d let his guard down for one, sympathetic moment. A moment he was now paying for dearly.
“Now get off me!,” he heard the woman yell through the sea of agony he was drowning in.
He’d collapsed on top of her, and she shoved furiously at his chest. Even if he’d wanted to, he hadn’t the strength to move. He’d been annoyed before, but now he was downright mad. She was definitely going to pay for this, and so was Jordan. Big-time.
He gulped in a deep lungful of air, swore heatedly on the exhale. Her clawed fingers were plowing toward his face when he caught her wrists just in time. Using one hand, he pinned her hands over her head again. With his other hand he reached behind him and pulled out the rope he’d tucked into the waistband of his jeans before he’d left the cabin.
Her big green eyes widened at the sight of the rope, and for the first time he saw fear there. He’d been careful not to hurt her before, but that was before she set the rules between them, or rather, eliminated the rules. He wasn’t taking any more chances with this one, and if she got roughed up, that was her choice.
She bucked under him like a crazed bronco.
“Did I ever tell you I spent six months working a cattle ranch?” He had her hands wrapped and tied in two seconds, then moved to her kicking feet. Two more seconds and they were bound, as well. “They called me Flash.”
Her eyes spit green fire while she called him a few names of her own. Lightning punctuated one especially rude exclamation she shot at him; thunder drowned out the next. If nothing else, Ian noted, she certainly was creative with her expletives.
With another loud crack of thunder, the sky opened up on them.
The cattails bowed under the driving force of the hot rain; the lake turned gray and frothy. Lifting his head, Ian cursed at the sky; the rain blasted him with the force of liquid bullets.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
He swiped at his face and stared back at the hog-tied woman. He’d planned on leaving her out here to stew for a while, but in this weather, she’d end up shish-kebab if a lightning bolt zapped her. When the heel of her boot caught his knee he grunted sharply, considered dumping her into the lake, then swore again as he bent and flung her over his shoulder. She gave a loud ommph, and he was momentarily blessed with her silence while she gasped for breath.
Her wiggling body was slender but firm under her overalls, her legs long and powerful. Any other time, any other place, he would have appreciated those attributes in a woman. Her knee caught his chin and slammed his teeth together, reminding him this was definitely not any other time or place. He stilled her thrashing with a none-toogentle grip around her knees.
“I believe a little gratitude is in order here, Blondie.” He quickly scooped up her backpack before she could knee him again. “If I left you out here, you’d either be a crispy critter or drowned, probably both.”
She expressed her gratitude with a fresh and imaginative onslaught of opinions of him and what she intended to do to him at the first opportunity. He winced at one especially descriptive suggestion and decided he had better make certain she never had the chance.
Lightning speared a tree fifty feet away, exploding a huge branch. The woman miraculously ceased struggling. The air crackled with electricity and the scent of burned pine.
“Would you quit lollygagging and get us inside?” she yelled over the storm and kicked him, only this time he knew it was to hurry him up. Annoyed, but just as eager as she was to get out of the storm, he ran back around the lake, bouncing her the entire way. It wasn’t an easy ride, but it was a fast one.
They were both soaking wet by the time he kicked the cabin door shut behind him. He dumped the woman unceremoniously on the hardwood floor in front of the unlit rock fireplace and stood over her. With her ponytail plastered to her head and her drenched overalls, the term drowned rat came to mind. She sat in a spreading pool of water, fury darkening her moss-green eyes.
He glared at her. She glared right back.
“Untie me,” she demanded.
“‘Fraid not.” He dragged his hands through his dripping wet hair, then scraped the rain off his face. “Not until I get some answers.”
“Mrs. Patterson is going to hear about this,” she sputtered at him through the water dripping down her face.
“Mrs. Patterson?” He lifted one brow. “As in Beverly Patterson at the real estate office?”
“That’s right. When she rented me the cabin next to yours she said I’d be safe up here, and that you were a fine boy I could trust. She obviously doesn’t know you like to tie women up for sport and kidnap them.”
“For a woman who’s been tied up and kidnapped,” he said dryly, “you’ve got quite a mouth on you. Maybe you like that sort of thing.”
She swung her heavy boot out at him, and he yelped when she made contact with his shin. He jumped away as she drew back for a second blow. Narrowing his eyes to fierce slits, he rubbed at his leg and growled at her. “I had no intention of hurting you. At least, I didn’t, but you certainly know how to change a man’s mind.”
When she lifted her chin and pointed it indignantly at him, Ian couldn’t help but notice the delicate shape of her face; her cheekbones were high, her skin smooth, her lips wide and lush. Too bad that gorgeous mouth of hers didn’t know when to quit.
“You don’t scare me.” She tossed back her head. “I have four brothers, every one of them mean as a rattlesnake and big as a Mack truck. They’ll hunt you down, and when they’re done with you, folks will be calling you Jigsaw instead of Flash.”
In spite of himself, he almost laughed. He had to admire her spunk, especially considering which side of those ropes she was on. He wasn’t sure if she was lying about the brothers, but he was damn certain she was fibbing about why she was up here in the mountains.
He picked up her backpack that he’d dropped on the floor beside her. “Well now, what have we here.” He smiled at her. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”
“That’s my personal property, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of it,” she threatened, but he caught the edge of distress in her voice.
“Blondie, if I knew what was good for me, I’d have left you tied up in the cattails.”
<
br /> As if to punctuate his statement, thunder rattled the cabin’s windows and rain pounded the roof. They’d brought the scent of the storm in with them, and the air inside the small cabin was as thick as it was hot.
Her jaw clamped tight as he snapped open the backpack. “Nice camera.” He pulled out an expensive 35mm Nikon and gave a soft whistle of appreciation. “You could take pictures of moon craters with this baby.”
“I’m a photographer for a nature magazine. I need a powerful lens.”
“Then I’m sure all this film—” he ignored her gasp when he rewound the film, then popped open the camera case “—has pictures of yellow-rumped sapsuckers and furry little critters, right? There’s a one-hour in town. How ‘bout I take them in for you and develop them?”
“How ‘bout you eat dirt and die?” she said sweetly.
Despite the foul mood she’d put him in, he grinned at her, then turned his attention back to her bag. He pulled out a small, brown leather wallet and flipped it open. “Let’s see if you have a name other than Blondie. Ah, here it is. Sinclair.” He held up her driver’s license. “Cara Sinclair.” He glanced up sharply. “Philadelphia?”
She said nothing, just shot poison arrows at him while water dripped off her pert little nose. Jordan didn’t have any agents in Philadelphia that Ian knew of. And there would be no reason for his boss to pull an agent out of their own jurisdiction for a simple, surveillance. He stared at the woman, wondered for one brief, horrible second if he might have made a mistake.
No. She was lying, all right. He might be wrong about her being an agent, but he wasn’t wrong about the fact that she was lying through her perfectly straight, beautifully white teeth.
So why the hell had she been watching him, then?
Her driver’s license appeared authentic; he could spot a fake from ten meters. It certainly described her accurately. Five foot eight, blond. Green eyes, 125 pounds, though it was hard to tell under the heavy overalls she had on. She was twenty-six and lived in an apartment on Brooks Avenue in Philadelphia. Nothing ominous, nothing suspicious.
Ian ignored her continued protests while he flipped through the rest of her gear. Binoculars, bottled water, a package of dried apricots, three rolls of film. Nothing to link her to Jordan or any government agency, but nothing that confirmed her story about working for a nature magazine, either.
“If you’re through,” she said with enough ice in her voice to slice ten degrees off the heat in the room, “you can untie these ropes now.”
If the southern section of his anatomy weren’t still aching from contact with her knee, and his shin wasn’t throbbing from that kiss from her boot, Ian would have appreciated the woman’s nerve. Even tied up, soaking wet, she made demands with the air of an aristocrat.
Tossing the backpack onto the worn leather couch facing the fireplace, he hunkered down beside the woman, draping one arm casually over his knee while he studied his prey. Chin lifted, she stared right back, her eyes shooting green lightning bolts that matched the ferocity of the storm outside.
He leaned in close, brought his face within an inch of hers and caught the scent of raspberry drifting from her wet hair. “I’ll make you a deal, Miss Sinclair. You tell me the truth, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll let you go.”
“I’ll make you a deal, Shawnessy,” she purred back. “You let me go, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll let you live.”
He chuckled, actually enjoying himself for the first time since this pain-in-the-butt had shown up. His laughter was cut short by the sudden pounding on his front door. The woman’s eyes opened wide, then her mouth as she sucked in air to call out. He did the easiest and fastest thing he could do to shut her up.
He kissed her.
Two
Nothing could have possibly defused Cara more than the slam of Ian’s mouth against hers. She’d drawn in a breath the same second his lips smothered hers, and her lungs held the air in stunned suspension. Her heart smashed against her ribs, once, twice, and still he didn’t stop, only deepened the pressure with his strong, hard lips while he scooped her up in his arms.
She should bite him—pride and instinct both told her to—but she didn’t. She couldn’t. All she could do was…nothing. She had the most frustrating and infuriating urge to draw him closer still, but with her hands tied that was hardly possible.
There was no passion in his kiss, no sense of need or desire, but there was heat. A consuming, toe-curling, bonemelting fire that spread through her blood even as her mind screamed that she was an idiot. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before, and she had no defenses prepared for it, no protection.
He carried her somewhere, but she didn’t even care where. His chest was solid and warm against her, his arms strong and muscular. They were both soaking wet, and it felt as if steam were rising from their skin and clothes. Clothes that suddenly felt tight and uncomfortable. His mouth stayed steady on hers, never letting up, and she felt as if she were drowning in the taste of him, something dark and heady and overwhelmingly masculine.
He made a sound deep in his throat, and she couldn’t tell if it was annoyance or pleasure. He swung her sideways through a doorway, and for the briefest moment, so fleeting she wasn’t certain if she imagined it, she felt his tongue sweep over her lips.
Her senses were still spinning when he dumped her unceremoniously into a bathtub. She heard a man’s voice call Ian’s name, and the sound snapped her out of her trance. She blinked twice and swung an elbow at his face, catching him in his bottom lip. His head snapped back and he swore, then grabbed a sock from a sports bag sitting beside the tub and shoved it into her mouth. A hand towel came next, and he secured it over her mouth with a knot at the base of her head.
Furious, she shook her head and screamed into the gag, praying the sock was clean while she plotted his demise. It was going to be slow and painful. Her only satisfaction at the moment was the blood oozing from his lip where she’d whacked him with her elbow. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, scowled when he saw the blood, then rose and pointed a warning finger at her.
“I’m going to get rid of whoever that is. So help me, if you make one sound, I promise you that you’ll be sorry.”
She was already sorry, but she recognized that tone in his voice. She’d heard it often enough in her brothers’, when they’d been pushed to the edge of their tolerance. And since—for the moment—he obviously had the upper hand, she could be patient.
She still had a trick or two up her sleeve for Mr. Killian Shawnessy.
“You deaf or something?” Nick Santos, wearing a torn, sleeveless white T-shirt and faded jeans, strolled past Ian when he threw open the door. “I’ve been knocking out here for five minutes. How come your door’s locked, anyway?”
“To keep bums like you out.” Ian held his breath while he kept one eye on the bathroom door, half expecting a female fireball to explode through at any moment.
Nick shook his wet, dark hair and headed for the refrigerator. “Damn, it’s hot. Got a cold one?”
Terrific, Ian thought on a curse. He could have easily gotten rid of anybody but Nick or Lucas. His day had swiftly moved from bad to worse, and the prospects of it improving were looking less than slim. Of course, he could always explain that he couldn’t entertain company at the moment because he had a woman tied up in his bathtub. That ought to go over well.
Ian’s hand tightened on the still-open front door. The rain had nearly stopped, but the heat hadn’t let up. Humidity choked the air like a tight fist. “Look, Santos, this is kind of a bad time.”
Nick gave a snort of laughter while he rummaged through the refrigerator, clanking bottles against cans. “You’re in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do, your best buddy drives twenty minutes in a downpour to come see you, and you tell him it’s a bad time. You’re a riot.”
“I’m serious.” Ian raked a hand through his still-wet hair. The woman had been quiet for all of sixty seconds. A record. Strangely enough,
the silence worried him. “I’m a little busy right now.”
His quest successful, Nick pulled a cold bottle out of the refrigerator, then kicked the door shut while he twisted off the cap. “What, is it time for a poetry reading from the woodland nymphs?”
Amused with himself, Nick took a long swig from his bottle, then gave a loud sigh of appreciation. “Damn, that tastes good. Don’t mind me, buddy. I’ll just sit fight here and drink my beer and you can go right ahead and do whatever it is you need to do. Oh, yeah, and I’m supposed to remind you about the tux fitting on Thursday morning and dinner Friday night at Lucas’s house after the wedding rehearsal.”
Muttering an oath under his breath, Ian shoved the door closed as Nick plopped down on the sofa. “Speaking of your wedding, don’t you have to help Maggie pick out flowers or tablecloths or something?”
“I am helping. I’m staying out of the way.” Nick tossed back another swallow of beer while he put his feet up on the weathered pine coffee table. “I’ve got three hours to kill before I pick my son up from his grandma’s house.”
Ian couldn’t help but notice the pride in Nick’s eyes at the mention of his son. A son he hadn’t even known existed until a few weeks ago. Ian still couldn’t believe it. Nick had a five-year-old son and was getting married in a few days to little redheaded Maggie Smith, who wasn’t so little anymore. She was all grown-up and gorgeous.
And Lucas. Married to a blond beauty like Julianna Hadley, with twins. A boy and a girl. Damn if life didn’t work in strange, mysterious ways.
Thank God at least he had kept his sanity, Ian thought with relief.
“Hey—” Nick gestured with the bottle in his hand “—did you know you’re all wet?”
Killian's Passion Page 2
