Ready

by Lucy Monroe

  That sounded so good, the tears burning her eyes spilled over. “Yes. A hotel. Away from here.”

  He didn’t answer, just picked up the pile of cotton panties off the floor and shoved them into the duffel bag. “What else do you need?”

  “I’ll do it.” The overwhelming relief of leaving her apartment galvanized her brain enough to allow her to tackle the problem of packing. She was ready in less than five minutes.

  He looked at the small burgundy leather duffel bag and then at her. “Let’s go.”

  Nemesis slammed his listening device down, rubbing eyes reddened and bleary from lack of sleep.

  He hadn’t been prepared for her to leave the apartment. She wasn’t supposed to leave the apartment.

  He would not tolerate interference in his schedule.

  Fury filled him, tightening his stomach into knots, and the urge to lash out overwhelmed him as he turned and slammed his fist into the wall beside his computer, picturing Lise Barton’s face there as he did it.

  Pain radiated up his arm, filling his stomach with bile.

  He cradled his bruised hand against his heaving chest and forced himself to think. It was difficult. His thoughts kept scattering, chasing memories he could not afford to dwell on.

  She had left the apartment, but she would not dare go to Texas for the holidays, not while she feared him following her.

  She wanted to protect her family.

  His lips twisted cynically. Sure. More likely she wanted to spend the holiday writing her treacherous books. Either way, she would not go far. She had to come back to her apartment and when she did, he would be waiting…watching, just like always.

  No, her leaving with the man was not a showstopper. He had said something about staying the night in a hotel. Nemesis could find them. He was very good at finding information on the computer, although his abilities had not kept him employed after what Lise Barton had done to him and his family.

  He shoved aside a half-eaten sandwich that had gone dry and stale while he listened to the discussion between the man and the home-wrecking bitch. Pulling the information file out from where it had rested under his uneaten meal, he flipped open the manila folder and started going through the list of people she had regular contact with.

  She’d called the man Joshua, but there was no Joshua on the list.

  Frustration gnawed at Nemesis.

  He couldn’t look for the man if he didn’t have a last name. He would have to do more research before he could start searching credit card records to find them.

  When he did, perhaps he would visit his vengeance on the man who dared to take the bitch’s side.

  It took Joshua thirty minutes of evasive maneuvers before he was satisfied they were not being followed.

  During that time he did not speak and neither did Lise, but tension continued to emanate from her side of the car. Once he pulled onto I-5 North, he flipped on the radio, letting the low-volume classical music fill the car.

  “That’s nice.” They were the first words Lise had spoken since they’d left the apartment and she said them in an almost normal tone of voice.

  “Music helps calm nerves.”

  She gave a short, humorless laugh. “I guess I seem pretty stressed-out to you.”

  “A little,” he said dryly.

  She hugged herself as if she was cold, but the car’s heater was keeping the interior warm despite the low temperatures outside. “I feel stressed, to tell you the truth.”

  “How long has he been stalking you?”

  “I got the first e-mail six months ago.” She tugged her gloves off, affirming she wasn’t really cold, just upset. “I don’t know how long Nemesis was watching me before that.”

  “What did it say?”

  “That I shouldn’t buy so much junk food. I’d just made a chocolate run to the grocery store. My current work in progress was giving me fits and I didn’t feel like cooking, so I bought a lot of easy prep meals and snacks, too.” Her soft voice echoed with pained vulnerability.

  “He was watching you pretty closely, then.”

  She shuddered. “Yes.”

  “What did you do when you got the e-mail?”

  “I shift-deleted it like I do all my junk mail. I thought it was weird, but it didn’t occur to me that it was the beginning of something sinister. He didn’t say anything about why he was writing me.” The now flat and unemotional tones of her voice were at odds with the near hysteria she’d been exhibiting earlier. “He never does…not in his e-mails, not in his calls. He just makes sure I know he’s watching me.”

  “When did you realize it was a serious problem?”

  “When he called. I got good and scared then. He talks through a computer digitizer and it was really eerie, you know?”

  “Did you go to the sheriff?”

  “Not then.” She sighed. “I still thought I could handle it. He hadn’t threatened me or anything.”

  “What happened to change your mind?”

  “How do you know I did?” she asked, sounding curious.

  “You wouldn’t have moved away from your family and home if there was another solution open to you. So, I figure you went to the authorities, but they couldn’t do anything for you.”

  “It was more like a case of wouldn’t, but you’re right, something did happen that made me realize I really wasn’t safe.”

  “What?”

  “He broke into my apartment. I came home after visiting Bella at the ranch to find the things on my computer desk altered just enough for me to know someone had been there.”

  “What did the sheriff say when you reported it?”

  “He thought I was being a publicity hound, that I was making it all up to get media attention.”

  “Why in the hell would he believe something so stupid?”

  “He used to work for the Houston police force, and a woman did that very thing. She was a self-defense instructor and the free publicity got her a boatload of clients, I guess.”

  “He refused to take you seriously because he’d been burned once by a false report?” Joshua had a hard time believing it.

  “A lot of manpower got wasted and it left the detectives involved looking stupid, not to mention really jaded about the whole stalker issue. The sheriff ended up leaving his job and moving to Canyon Rock. He wanted concrete evidence I was being stalked before he would open an investigation and I couldn’t give it to him.”

  “Idiot.”

  “I thought so at the time, but I’ve got to admit I didn’t push too hard. I didn’t want Jake to find out, and things get around in a small town. So, I went home and had my locks changed, but Nemesis managed to break in again.”

  “Did you report it?”

  “Yes, but this time the sheriff was really belligerent. He told me he didn’t have the manpower to stake out my apartment and I still didn’t have concrete evidence. After all, nothing had been taken.”

  “Bastard.”

  She shrugged.

  “So, you moved across country to get away from the stalker.”

  “I’d researched the problem and read about several cases where stalkers had hurt the family or loved ones of their victims. It disturbed me.” Her hands twisted together and her face averted to look out the side passenger window. “I started having nightmares. Then, during one of his phone calls, Nemesis mentioned seeing me with my sister-in-law and baby niece. That’s when I decided to move.”

  He understood her choice, but it hadn’t been the smartest one. Moving away from the small town where she was well known had actually made her more vulnerable to her stalker.

  Chapter 2

  Lise smothered a yawn as Joshua led her into their hotel room. Exhaustion was catching up with her and pretty soon she’d need toothpicks to prop her eyes open.

  “I’m sorry,” she said after a jaw-stretching yawn took her by surprise. “I’m just so tired all of a sudden.”

  Joshua dropped his bag on the bed nearest the door and shrugged out o
f his coat. “When was the last time you slept a whole night?”

  She crossed the room and plopped down on the end of the other bed, her legs so tired they didn’t want to hold her up anymore. “The night before the last Seahawks game.”

  His dark eyes glinted with curiosity. “What happened?”

  She told him about the incident on the street after the game, reliving the fear and frustration of that night while she took off her own coat and tossed it onto a nearby chair.

  “You could have been killed.”

  “I don’t think he meant to really harm me at all.” She’d thought about it a lot. “Traffic moves pretty slowly after a game. I think he just wants me to know what kind of power he has over my life.”

  The word Joshua said was one she didn’t even use in her writing. “Did you go to the police?”

  “Yes.” For all the good it had done her.

  Joshua went to the window and slid an expandable bar into place so that it could not be opened; he then shut both the privacy curtain and the drapes. Each movement made her feel a little bit safer, a little more protected.

  “What did they say?”

  “The sergeant who took my statement didn’t believe that I was pushed, but he filed a report anyway. I insisted.”

  “Why didn’t he believe you?”

  He’d thought she was an ignorant country bumpkin who could not tell the difference between being shoved in the back and jostled by the crowd. It still made her angry. “There were no witnesses to corroborate my story. No one else saw Nemesis push me, even though there was a huge crowd around me.”

  Joshua opened the door and put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the outside before turning back to face her. “Probably because of the crowd.”

  She nodded, trying to swallow another yawn and not succeeding. She’d been scared for so long, the relative safety of being with Joshua had released her body from the constant adrenaline rush of fear. The inertia of total exhaustion was taking over.

  He dug something out of his bag and put it on the door under the privacy lock. “Has Nemesis been in your Seattle apartment?”

  “Not that I know of, but he left a red rose on the seat of my car. It was locked in the parking garage at the time.”

  “Did you report the incident?”

  “Yes, but it was the same story as before. I didn’t have proof and wasn’t taken seriously.” The same sergeant had taken the report, and the fact that the doors had been locked had convinced him she was some kind of kook. “I think the police sergeant and the sheriff back in Canyon Rock are related.”

  Her attempt at humor fell flat. Joshua’s handsome face didn’t even crack in a smile. “So, you cancelled your trip to Texas and decided to deal with this on your own again?”

  He sounded less than impressed by the possibility, but she nodded. “I didn’t have a lot of choice. I’m not putting my family at risk, no matter what.”

  “You’d rather face your stalker with a fireplace poker.” The derision in his voice irritated her.

  “Not really, but it’s what I had on hand.”

  He measured her with his eyes. “You’re pretty damn independent.”

  She supposed she was. The one person she knew would not let her down was herself.

  “You need my help.”

  The blunt statement took the breath out of her, but she wasn’t about to deny the truth of it. She’d passed that point about when he’d disarmed her and gotten her in a headlock before she could even scream. If he had been Nemesis, she could be dead, or hurting badly right now.

  Joshua watched the play of emotions across Lise’s face. Denial wasn’t one of them.

  “You’re right,” she said. “The authorities won’t take me seriously and I’m afraid Nemesis will have to do something pretty awful before they do, but what can you do?”

  “I can keep you safe, for a start.”

  There was no mistake about the expression burning golden in her tired hazel eyes. It was relief. “Thank you.”

  “I plan to nail the bastard, too.”

  “Do you think you can?”

  He wasn’t offended by her expression of doubt. “Maybe not alone, but I’ve got a couple of buddies who will help. Hotwire’s a computer expert and Nitro’s great with explosives, but he’s got other talents just as useful.”

  “Interesting names—are they mercenaries too?”

  “We were in the Rangers together.” Evading direct an swers had become a way of life for him ten years ago. “When did Bella tell you what I do?”

  Had Lise run from his profession as much as she’d run from the primitively passionate man he’d become with her?

  “She didn’t.”

  “Then how did you know?”

  That vague look settled over her, the one he identified as her writer look. “It’s the way you move, the way you are hyper-aware of everything and everyone around you. It’s just like the other mercenaries I’ve met. Special Forces soldiers are that way, too, but there are subtle differences.”

  “You’ve met other mercenaries?”

  “Sure.”

  “Right.”

  She frowned at his disbelief. “I interview a lot of people for my books. I like hands-on research. It’s how Jake and Bella met, or didn’t they tell you?”

  His sister had said something about it, but attending a few fashion shows was not in the same league as getting into personal contact with the men who peopled the shadowy world he lived in. “What did you do, contact Soldier of Fortune magazine for a reference?”

  “Not the first time. I’d learned about a mercenary from a retired Navy SEAL I knew. The man he hooked me up with wasn’t hero material at all. He was cold, and so calculating. You could just tell he’d kill his own grandmother for the right amount of money.”

  “Who was it?”

  She said a name.

  His heart about stopped in his chest at the prospect of her spending five minutes alone with such a predator, much less the length of an interview. “Are you crazy? You don’t chat over coffee with men like him.”

  “Yes, well, I figured that out. The next man I interviewed was the one who worked for one of those companies advertised in Soldier of Fortune magazine. He was a total phony.”

  He was getting a pretty intimate picture of the type of research she did to write her books and he didn’t like it. He’d read most of them since meeting her the year before. If she talked to the types of characters she wrote about, the list of stalker suspects would be as long as his mother’s grocery list the week before Christmas.

  “So you went looking for another merc to talk to?”

  “Yes. He was retired and I liked him.”

  When she named the man, Joshua had to bite down on the urge to curse. It was the same man who had drawn him into the gray world of being a soldier for hire. He had ideals, even if the average civilian wouldn’t understand them. Combat had retired four years ago, turning his business over to Joshua. That’s when he’d taken Hotwire and Nitro on, the two men in the world he trusted.

  “You live damn dangerously for an introverted writer who shies away from mingling in crowds.”

  Soft pink tinged her cheeks. “I’m not that shy.”

  “Apparently.”

  “I know you didn’t ask for pay, but I will. Pay you, I mean.”

  He stood up, rejection pounding through his veins. “I don’t want your money.”

  “You’re a mercenary. This is what you do.” She licked her lips nervously and his gut tightened for reasons that had nothing to do with their discussion.

  “I’ve done a lot of things I wouldn’t want to put in a memoir, but no way am I taking money from you to help you.”

  “That’s a ridiculous attitude, and I would feel better keeping this on a professional basis.”

  “Tough.”

  Her eyes widened, highlighting their reddened condition. “There’s no reason for you to refuse to let me pay you.”

  She spoiled the severity of
her tone with another yawn.

  The woman was seriously ready for bed.

  Too bad it wouldn’t be one she’d willingly share with him.

  “There are a couple of reasons,” he ground out, forcing his mind away from a path it had no business traveling down, especially since she’d just become a job.

  “Name them.”

  “One, you can’t afford me. Two, you’re family.”

  “I’m not your family.”

  “Close enough.” What he didn’t say was that if she’d had no connection to him at all, he’d want to help her.

  Lise Barton got to him in a way no other woman had since he was a naïve new recruit to the Army Rangers.

  Joshua heard the water stop on the other side of the privacy wall while he listened to Bella’s latest cute baby story about Genevieve with half an ear.

  Lise came into the main room, her hair wet from her shower and looking more alert than she had earlier, not to mention too damn appealing.

  That was going to be a problem.

  She sat down on her bed and started brushing her hair out. Damp, it looked more brown than blond, hiding the gold highlights that rippled through it when it was dry.

  “Isn’t that just the sweetest thing?” Bella’s voice reached him even as he watched Lise’s movements with entirely too much interest.

  Her pajamas were a pair of men’s boxers and a well-worn t-shirt that molded her delicious curves when she reached up to run the brush through her hair. She wasn’t big-breasted, but she wasn’t small, either. She was perfect, her firm breasts jiggling just enough to make him crazy with every swipe of the brush on her hair.

  He wanted to curse as his body reacted with pain-filled intensity to the sight. It had been too damn long…

  He forced himself to answer his sister with a mild, “Yeah.”

  “So you’ll be here in time for dinner and you’ve talked Lise into coming with you?” His sister sounded like she was having a hard time believing that.

  “Yes, Bella. We will both be there.”

  Lise’s eyes snapped up at that, their gold-and-green depths asking him a question.

  “I told Lise babies are more resilient than she thinks,” Bella said in his ear, “Genevieve is not going to end up with pneumonia because she’s exposed to a little old cold.”