Ready

by Lucy Monroe

  “You’re starting to sound like a Texan,” he teased his sister, while wondering how much of a fuss Lise would put up about his travel plans to Texas.

  He hoped none at all when she heard his arrangements.

  Bella laughed. “You know what they say about us transplants—we end up more Texan than the natives.”

  He chuckled at his sister’s exaggerated drawl before saying good-bye and hanging up.

  Stretching his legs out in front of him, he crossed them at the ankle and waited for Lise to say something.

  She didn’t disappoint him. “You told Bella we’d be there for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we will be.”

  Eyes narrowed, she drummed her fingers on the bedspread. “Has anyone ever told you that talking to you is like talking to a fence post on the shy side?”

  “No, I can’t say they have.”

  She huffed, shaking her head, and then smiled, making his pants feel a size too small in the crotch. “I guess I should have asked how rather than why.”

  He liked the measure of sass she’d managed to recapture since arriving at the hotel. “Hotwire is flying my plane into Arlington Municipal tonight. We’ll meet him at the airport at o-six-hundred tomorrow. Then, I’ll fly us to the airstrip on your brother’s ranch and Nemesis will be none the wiser.”

  “You have your own plane?”

  “Yes, a small Learjet.” He’d wanted something fast, that could fly above thirty thousand feet, avoiding most weather-based turbulence, and a plane that did not need refueling for a cross-continental trip. “It comes in handy in my line of work.”

  “But you were flying commercial…”

  “I was out of the country.”

  She tucked her rapidly drying hair behind one ear, exposing the feminine column of her neck and a shell pink ear he could remember tasting. Once. Definitely a memory better left on the junk heap.

  “On a job?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind?” He raised his brows and a blush spread across her cheeks. “I guess I shouldn’t have asked that. Sometimes I don’t think.”

  He remembered how frequently she had asked probing questions before. He’d deflected most of them, leery of her pursuit of personal information.

  “Must be because you’re a writer.”

  She shrugged, the blush intensifying. “Maybe. My father always said I asked too many questions and all the wrong ones. I don’t mean to offend people.”

  From what he’d learned of her father from Jake, Joshua thought the man had been a pretty useless parent.

  Which for no accountable reason made him want to answer her question. “It was an extraction, and your question didn’t offend me, but I don’t normally discuss my jobs with anyone.”

  “Not even your friends, Hotwire and Nitro?”

  “Not unless they’re on the job with me.”

  Which was an answer to her earlier question if his buddies were mercs, too.

  She looked like she wanted to ask something else, but was literally biting her tongue to hold the words in.

  “Spit it out. I told you, your questions don’t offend me. If I don’t want to answer, I won’t.”

  She smiled again and this time it warmed his insides. He liked seeing her relax with him.

  “What kind of extraction, a person or a thing?” she asked.

  “A little boy.”

  Her gaze glazed over with that vague look. “You saved him, didn’t you?”

  “I returned him to his family for a very high fee.” She would do better not to romanticize him. “Do you have any problem with flying out tomorrow?”

  “No, and thank you for making it possible. I miss my family. I haven’t seen the baby in two months. I bet she’s grown so much I’ll hardly recognize her.”

  The wistfulness in her voice stirred something inside of him. “They miss you, too. Tell me something.”

  She picked up the brush and put it on the nightstand before climbing under the covers. “What?”

  “Why didn’t you tell Jake?”

  “About being stalked?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’d insist on helping, try to get me to move to the ranch or something, and he’d worry.”

  “If you lived on the ranch, no civilian would be able to follow you around without Jake, Bella, or one of the hands noticing.”

  “Civilian?”

  “Nonmilitary.”

  “You aren’t military.”

  She had a strong tendency to get lost on conversational tangents. “I’m a soldier, just a private one.”

  “It’s not right that Jake should have to pay for my problems.”

  It took him a second to follow the conversation back to the question she was answering. “How would having you there be making your brother pay a price?”

  “I told you, he’d worry.”

  “He’s not a little old woman with a bad heart, Lise. He’s a man.” A strong one, whom Joshua respected. “He can handle a little concern on his sister’s behalf.”

  “He spent my whole growing-up years worrying over me, trying to make life better for me. He deserves his own happiness now.” Her tone said she wouldn’t budge on that belief. “Besides, as much as they’d all watch out for me, they’d be at risk as well.”

  And she’d made it clear that really worried her.

  “From now on I’ll be with you. You’ll be safe and so will the people around you.”

  “Thank you, but what about your job?” She bit her lip, looking worried again. “It could take weeks, months even, to catch the creep messing with my life. Some stalkers remain unidentified for years.”

  “This one won’t.”

  “You’re not short on confidence, are you?” She didn’t sound bothered by the fact.

  “Why should I be? Believe it or not, honey, this kind of thing is child’s play compared to some of my assignments. Our perp is already too escalated not to get caught. He’s not watching you from afar—the night he shoved you into traffic proves it.”

  “You’re right.” She fluffed her pillows. “He took a pretty big gamble that night. He’ll make other mistakes.”

  “And I’ll be there to catch his sorry ass.”

  “As much as I want to see Jake, Bella, and the baby, I wish we were starting the investigation now.”

  He liked the enthusiasm and hope lacing her voice. It was a big improvement over the hysterically frightened woman he’d taken out of her apartment.

  “We are. Hotwire and Nitro are going to sweep the place for bugs while we’re in Texas.”

  She snuggled into her pillow, planting impossible images into his head he’d do best to ignore.

  “I’ll find a way to pay you back for helping me, Joshua.”

  He could think of one right now, but figured he’d get slapped for suggesting it.

  He already had one over-the-top incident to apologize for; he didn’t need another.

  Lise could not breathe.

  Nemesis was there, right behind her. Impenetrable darkness surrounded them, but she could hear him breathing, feel his malevolent presence. Terror paralyzed her limbs and she could not run, froze her throat and she could not scream.

  “Lise, I told you that you would never be free of me.” The digitized voice tormented her with its certainty, with its inhuman inflection.

  “No,” she moaned, forcing the word out.

  “You will never get away.”

  She shook her head, her mouth opening in agonized denial, and this time she managed to shout. “No!”

  “I will always find you.” The words beat at her as relentlessly as Nemesis himself. “No one can protect you from me. No one wants to. Joshua will leave you. They will all leave.”

  She covered her ears with her hands and cried, “No,” over and over again.

  “Lise, wake up, honey.” A different voice. Tender, caring, human.

  She turned tow
ard it and a single shaft of light penetrated the darkness, illuminating a tanned masculine hand. “Come on, honey…”

  She reached out for the hand, but she couldn’t touch it, no matter how hard she tried. She whimpered in frustration as connection remained just out of reach.

  Then suddenly her hand was engulfed in the strong, warm fingers. He started pulling her toward the light, toward safety, toward…

  “Joshua?” She hovered between consciousness and her nightmare.

  “It’s me. Are you awake?”

  Her eyes opened to the shadowy darkness of the room, so different from the dense blackness in her dream. The sensation of Joshua holding her hand woke her completely.

  “Are you okay, Lise?”

  “Yes,” she croaked out past a dry throat. “It was just a dream.”

  “More like a nightmare.”

  “Yes.”

  He got up and tried to pull his hand away, but she could not let go. She wasn’t a clinger, and since the end of her marriage two years ago, she’d done her best to avoid any semblance of relying on a man, even Jake. But she did not want to be left alone with the aftermath of her dream.

  He stopped tugging on his hand and turned it over to squeeze her fingers instead. “You sound hoarse. I’m going to get you a drink.”

  She didn’t want water, she wanted comfort. His presence. However, she let him gently disengage their fingers. He was only gone a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime as she lay in the bed, trembling from the mental remnants of her nightmare.

  “Sit up so you can drink this.”

  She pushed herself up, surprised at how difficult it was. Her arms felt like they’d turned to Jell-O. He reached out with one hand and helped her, then sat down beside her on the bed, keeping the arm around her.

  She put a trembling hand out for the glass of water. “Thank you.”

  He helped her drink it, their fingers brushing together as they both held the glass tipped to her lips. He coaxed her to drink almost the entire glass before he set it on the nightstand between the beds.

  Her head rested against his chest. He was wearing a t-shirt, but the heat of his body radiated through it. “Were you dreaming about him?”

  Joshua had not turned on any lights and the darkness felt intimate, not frightening like the pitch black in her dream.

  But intimacy was another kind of scary, and she forced herself to push out of the comforting strength of his arms. “Yes.”

  “You said before that you had nightmares. Do you have them every night?”

  “No.” Just most nights.

  “Lise, you aren’t alone anymore.” He stood up. “I’m not going to let him hurt you or anyone you care about.”

  She desperately wanted to believe him, but to rely on another person so completely was scarier than being stalked. No matter how good he was at his job, he was still a man and men could betray you. Even good men.

  Joshua’s hand halted midair above Lise’s shoulder. She looked like a fairy all curled up under the covers, her porcelain features relaxed completely in sleep. She hadn’t had another nightmare last night and he’d been glad. If he’d been forced to get out of bed again, he would have crawled into hers.

  He wanted her.

  And the feeling would not go away

  He’d spent months trying to forget the taste of her lips, the feel of her resilient flesh under his fingers.

  He had not succeeded despite the fact that she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested in pursuing a sexual relationship with him. He’d been sure his wild sexual reaction to her had been the result of not enough downtime after a mission, but he’d been with her less than twenty-four hours and he was back to where he’d been the night of his niece’s christening.

  So horny he could barely walk straight.

  Only this time he had a job to do and sex and work did not mix. Not ever.

  Chapter 3

  “So, you ready to explain the real reason you moved to Seattle, Lise?” Jake’s words fell like mini-explosions into the companionable silence around the Thanksgiving table.

  Instead of looking at him, she glared at Joshua. What had he told her brother?

  Okay, he hadn’t agreed not to tell Jake, but she’d thought she’d made her feelings clear on that. She didn’t want her brother worried about her, or trying to get involved with catching her stalker.

  Joshua’s impassive expression gave nothing away. “I didn’t say anything, but I think you should.”

  “I told you I didn’t want to.” Not that her desires were going to count for squat now.

  Jake had the scent and he’d be on it like a dog on a bone.

  “He deserves to know.”

  “Didn’t want to tell me what?” Jake asked.

  She tried not to clench her teeth. “Nothing important.”

  “I’m not buying it.”

  Big surprise. Not. “Nobody asked you to buy anything,” she pointed out, even as she had to acknowledge part of her was ready for the secrecy to be over.

  “Don’t be a smart aleck.”

  Bella pushed silverware away from Genevieve’s little questing fingers and settled the baby further back on her lap. “Was it me marrying Jake? You didn’t have to move from the ranch. I didn’t mean to displace you.”

  The look of uncertainty and hurt on her sister-in-law’s face tore at Lise’s conscience.

  “My moving had nothing to do with you.” She took a deep breath and let it out, accepting that the time had definitely come for the truth. Joshua had promised to protect her family and she was going to have to trust him to do that. “I moved to Seattle because I’m being stalked and I hoped the move would get me away from my stalker.”

  “The hell you say.” Jake’s eyes burned with unmistakable concern and anger.

  “Like a fatal attraction, or something?” Bella asked, her tone incredulous.

  Before Lise could answer, Genevieve put her hands out to her daddy and Jake took the now yawning baby.

  “I don’t think Nemesis is attracted to me,” Lise said to Bella. “He wants retribution for something I’ve done.”

  “What?” Jake demanded, his voice quiet so he wouldn’t startle his baby daughter, who had snuggled into his lap and looked about half-asleep already.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you know he wants retribution?” This from Joshua.

  She’d forgotten to mention that part of the call to him. Which was not surprising, considering how muddled and exhausted she’d been the night before. “When he taunted me about being alone for the holidays, he said something about an eye for an eye. That implies vengeance to me.”

  She looked at the other adults at the table, wishing they could answer the questions clamoring inside her head. “I don’t see how I could have done something heinous enough to invoke such a reaction without knowing it.”

  “Chances are, you didn’t.” Joshua leaned back in his chair and rolled the sleeves of his dress shirt up to expose muscular brown forearms. “This is not about rational reality—this is about perceptions in a mind disturbed enough to fixate on a woman and stalk her.”

  That made a lot more sense than her having done something horrible and not realizing it. She smiled her appreciation.

  He smiled back, and she lost her focus for just a second.

  “What kind of behavior are we talking about here?” Jake asked, reclaiming her attention.

  So she told them about Nemesis, watching as her brother’s outrage grew with every incident she outlined. At one point, he asked something in a voice that startled Genevieve, waking her up. Bella took the baby from him and soothed her back to sleep.

  “He’s been stalking you for months?” Jake asked with a forced but deadly quiet.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “She wanted to protect you.”

  Her gaze flew to Joshua, who had been silent during her explanations. He wasn’t looking at her; he was looking
at her brother.

  “I didn’t need protecting.” Jake frowned at Lise, his emotion closer to the surface than she’d seen it since he told her Bella was pregnant with Genevieve. “You did.”

  “It was my problem, not yours.”

  “I’m your brother, for heaven’s sake. Of course I have a stake in your problems.”

  She shook her head.

  “Instead of telling me about your stalker, you lied to me and to my wife.” Jake sounded baffled and hurt. “I could be the one who told Nemesis where you live now. I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret.”

  The self-condemnation in his tone hurt her.

  “Nothing happened and if it had, it surely would not have been your fault.”

  “That wouldn’t have been a helluva lot of comfort if something had happened to you because of it.”

  “I didn’t want to risk any of you being hurt.”

  “Well, that backfired, didn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bella has been in torment for months because she thought she’d done something to drive you away from your family home.”

  “I’m sorry about that.” She looked at Bella, whose expression was filled with concern, not censure. “I wanted to keep y’all safe, not hurt your feelings.”

  “Torment is really overstating the case.” Bella frowned at her husband. “I was worried about your sister, not wallowing in obsessive guilt.”

  Jake grimaced and turned away from the reproach in his wife’s eyes.

  “How was I supposed to look out for my family if I didn’t know the threat was out there?” he asked Lise, his grievances taking another tack. “What if Nemesis had decided to get to you through Genevieve or Bella? Something could have happened to them because of my ignorance.”

  She knew the angry words were spurred by Jake’s own sense of protectiveness, both toward her and his wife and child. But they still sliced straight into her heart. Because he had a point, one she had not even considered.

  “She did what she thought was best, Jake. She believed moving away would remove the threat from you, Bella, and the baby.” Joshua’s expression dared Jake to disagree.

  She’d never known her brother to back down from a challenge and could predict his next words with one-hundred-percent accuracy.