Ready

by Lucy Monroe

  Joshua looked at Nitro. “No note.”

  She couldn’t say she was sorry. The implied message was upsetting enough—she didn’t need a vitriolic note to add to the effect.

  That night, it wasn’t an erotic dream that woke Lise. It was the sound of a ringing telephone.

  She rolled across the huge bed and scrabbled for the cordless phone on the table beside it. She encountered a hard, hairy wrist instead.

  “Joshua?” she asked groggily.

  “Yes. Here’s the phone.” He put it in her hand. “If it’s Nemesis, try to keep him talking for a trace.”

  “You put a tracer on my phone?” she asked, shock waking her more effectively than the sound of the phone.

  “Don’t worry about that now. Just answer it.”

  She pressed the Call button as Joshua came down to sit beside her on the bed.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Lise.” The digitized voice made her hand clench tightly around the phone. “Your boyfriend appears to have abandoned you.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  Digitized but obviously scornful laughter met her denial.

  Joshua’s warm hand settled over her thigh as if he was making a statement.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Not at all sure which was messing more with her nerves—the call, or Joshua’s nearness—she asked, “Who is this?”

  How many times had she asked that same question? At least once in each of his phone calls. It irritated her that she hadn’t stopped asking it because he sure as certain wasn’t answering it.

  “Nemesis. Are you pretending you don’t know?”

  “Nemesis isn’t your real name.”

  “It is now. That is what I’ve become, what you’ve made me.” Even through the voice distortion, she could hear the passionate anger in his voice, the accusation.

  “How did I make you that? I don’t even know you.”

  “Are you sure about that, Lise Barton?” Again the awful, almost mechanical laughter.

  No, she wasn’t, and that bothered her. A lot. Nevertheless, she said, “I’m positive. None of the people I know would do what you’re doing.”

  “They don’t have the guts.”

  “It doesn’t take guts to stalk a woman, it takes insanity.”

  Joshua squeezed her thigh in warning and she remembered she was trying to keep the lunatic talking, not make him mad enough to hang up.

  “You deserve what you get. You lead other women astray.”

  What in the world was he talking about? She didn’t even belong to a local writer’s organization, much less a women’s group of some kind. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t pretend ignorance. You know!” Fury vibrated in each word.

  “But I don’t.”

  “Don’t lie to me! You know! You destroy families.” His voice lowered to almost a whisper through the digitizer. “Maybe your family needs to be destroyed—then you would understand how heinous your crime really is.”

  Sick fear curled through her insides.

  “My family hasn’t done anything.”

  “That’s true. They’re innocent and the innocent should not pay with the guilty, but they love you. To love you they must share your distorted view of the world. I have to think about this…” His voice trailed off like he was talking to himself.

  “No. Leave my family alone. Please.”

  “I don’t know.” He sounded unsure, almost confused, and terror ripped through her at the thought of him hurting anyone she loved.

  “They’re innocent,” she stressed.

  “But you’re not!” His voice boomed across the phone lines, condemnation vibrating in every syllable.

  “Please tell me what I’ve done.”

  “Your husband divorced you. He found out you weren’t worth loving, didn’t he? He married a woman who gave him children, a woman worthy of marriage. You aren’t, Lise Barton.”

  She knew the man speaking had to be crazy to do what he did, but his words hurt anyway because they tapped into an old fear. One she’d tried so hard to leave behind in her less-than-pleasant childhood, the fear that she wasn’t worthy of love.

  “You’re wrong.”

  “You’re defective. You couldn’t even give him children. God punished you with infertility and now I will punish you, too.”

  His words shocked her into silence.

  “You want to destroy other women’s marriages. All because you couldn’t keep your own.”

  She had to keep her head about her, not give in to the palpable insanity blasting her through the phone. “I don’t want to destroy anyone’s marriage. What are you talking about? I have a right to know what I’m accused of!”

  “You have no rights. You’ve already been tried and convicted.”

  “By you?”

  “Your own actions have convicted you and you will be punished.”

  The words were still echoing in her ear when the click that signaled he’d hung up crossed the line. She pressed the Disconnect button with a trembling hand and then fumbled the phone back to the nightstand.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said I destroyed other people’s marriages. That’s why he’s become my Nemesis.” She tried vainly to make eye contact in the darkness. “I don’t understand, Joshua. I’ve never even told a girlfriend she should leave her husband. Not that I wouldn’t…if I thought she was at risk, or something, but the issue has never come up.”

  Joshua’s cell phone buzzed. He picked it up. “Yeah?”

  She could hear the echo of a voice from the mobile phone’s headpiece.

  “Hell.”

  “Who is it?” she asked, not caring that it was rude to interrupt a phone conversation.

  “Nitro—he says the call was made from a pay phone across town.” His attention went back to the phone. “He said what?” Joshua demanded.

  More talking at the other end indicated that Nitro was recounting the horrific conversation verbatim. They must have put a wiretap on the phone as well as a tracer. She was grateful.

  She didn’t want to forget anything that had been said, especially the threat to her family.

  They had to do something.

  “My guess is he’s hacked into her medical records,” Joshua said and then paused.

  She could hear Nitro’s voice, but not what he was saying over the mobile phone.

  “Hold on a sec,” Joshua said.

  He turned the bedside lamp on and then faced her, his expression serious. “We need to know where he got the information about your infertility. My guess is your medical file, but is it something you told other people?”

  She snorted, anger replacing the feeling of fear and helplessness the awful phone call had instilled in her again. “I’m not infertile. I have an odd monthly cycle, that’s all. The doctor said it might take a while to get pregnant, but Mike and I never even tried. Not only is Nemesis insane, he’s also an idiot.”

  And she wished, just at that moment, that her tormenter could hear her opinion of him.

  “Is this women’s cycle thing common knowledge?”

  “No.” She hadn’t even told Mike because it had never become an issue in their marriage. “It’s not a big deal.”

  Joshua nodded and returned to the phone. His expression turned feral and he said a really ugly word. “Like hell he is going to hurt them.”

  Good—Nitro had shared that part as well.

  “Will you fly down and move them?” Joshua asked, then said, “Tomorrow would be good.” A pause. “Your house. Right. It’s as much of a fortress as mine.” He smiled. “We’ll have to ask Bella what she thinks after she’s seen both of them.”

  Lise listened to him making plans to move her brother’s family to safety with a growing sense of guilt and self-condemnation. Something she had done had put her family at risk. Jake was going to be furious about having to leave the ranch. Thank God it was winter and not roundup, or he’d insist on staying while sending his wif
e and daughter to safety.

  But she’d done this, messed up everyone’s lives.

  A tiny voice of reason tried to tell her it wasn’t her fault, but it was no match for the emotions roiling inside her.

  Joshua shifted to put his free arm across her thighs, boxing her in, surrounding her with his presence. So obviously lending her his strength that she about choked on another wave of emotion.

  She couldn’t handle it. She’d spent the last two years proving to herself she could make it on her own and that concept of herself was being blasted to heck and gone by her anonymous enemy.

  Somehow she’d made all this happen and there was nothing she could do to make it right. She had to rely on Joshua and his skills. A new kind of helplessness filled her, a sense that she could never make up to her family for what the problems in her life were costing them.

  She needed space. Joshua was too close. Everything was too close. Her skin felt too tight for her body, like she was going to explode out of it. Nemesis’s words rang in her head and Joshua’s conversation with Nitro jumbled over them.

  She had to get away.

  She tried to move Joshua’s arm, but he wouldn’t cooperate.

  “Joshua…” She pushed at his wrist, but she might as well have been trying to move a tree.

  His gaze fixed on her as he spoke to Nitro.

  She glared at him. “Let me go.”

  His eyes narrowed and he looked down to where she was trying to drag his arm away from her.

  He shook his head, just once; then, instead of moving away, he scooted her closer to him so her thighs were touching his beneath the blankets.

  He said, “Relax,” before he went back to discussing possible ways for Nemesis to have gotten into her medical files.

  Tangible pressure pushed against her, the stress of her circumstances like a vise, slowly squeezing the life out of her.

  She hated this.

  He put his finger over the mouthpiece. “Just to be clear—no one but you and your doctor know about this female problem?”

  It wasn’t a problem, except in Nemesis’s warped mind, but she wasn’t going to argue the point. If she opened her mouth, stuff would come out that she had to keep inside. Fear. Frustration. Anger—and this carrion guilt that was sucking her soul dry.

  So she nodded her head.

  “You didn’t tell your brother?”

  She actually laughed at the thought, the sound as mechanical as Nemesis’s voice, and found she could speak after all. “No.”

  If Bella talked about her menses with her brother, they had a much different relationship than she had with Jake and somehow she just couldn’t see it.

  Joshua’s eyes narrowed with concern and he studied her face as if reading sign. Jake had taught her to track when she was eight, but somehow she thought Joshua was probably better at it than she was.

  Suddenly, he dipped his head and before she could protest, he kissed her full on the mouth. It lasted only a second, but the contact went all the way to her anxious soul.

  “It’s okay, honey.” He spoke against her lips and then brushed his mouth against her temple before speaking into the phone again. “It has to be the medical records. Find out if they’re online, or if he broke into the clinic to get them.”

  Nitro said something and Joshua agreed.

  Lise tried to get up again. She couldn’t give in to the need to lean on Joshua.

  In one of his powerful, swift moves that were forever taking her by surprise, he pulled her right into his lap. Wrapping his free arm tightly around her, he continued the conversation with Nitro. Joshua’s body language was clearer than a billboard. Stay put.

  She didn’t want to.

  She struggled, but if his gentle cage had been difficult to get out of, this intimate hold was impossible to break.

  Joshua finished his conversation and then flipped the phone shut before tossing it on the nightstand beside her cordless phone. He wrapped his other arm around her and rubbed her back with his big hand for a long time, saying nothing.

  “I don’t know what he means by me leading other women astray,” she finally said when the silence had stretched beyond what she could stand.

  “Shh…we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

  “But—”

  “We can’t do anything about it tonight.”

  “What if—”

  “Let it be.” His tone was firm.

  “I don’t like you telling me to shut up.”

  Incredibly, a chuckle rumbled in his chest against her ear. “Heaven forbid, but do you really want to dissect it tonight, Lise?”

  “Yes. I’m too wound up to sleep.”

  “Okay, what do you think he meant?”

  She thought about it, but her train of thought derailed as Joshua’s caresses strayed lower on each downward sweep until he was smoothing his hand over the upper curve of her bottom.

  The more intimate stroking made her acutely aware of her physical surroundings.

  Joshua wasn’t wearing a shirt and her cheek was nestled against the silky curls on his chest. He smelled good, warm and musky, and she couldn’t help nuzzling him just the tiniest bit to inhale more of his scent. His heartbeat was steady, but increasing, and the corded muscles of his thighs weren’t the only hard things under her bottom.

  Her muscles contracted in an involuntary Kegel and she grew warm and wet where the apex of her thighs fit over his growing erection.

  Good night! How could she be so upset one minute and so turned on the next? Was she depraved? Her family was in danger and here she sat, wanting to devour the man under her. She could see herself doing it, kissing and nipping at his body in a way she’d never even fantasized doing with another man.

  Remnants of the emotional storm buffeting her fought with the sensual images and she grasped at them to stop herself from doing something stupid. Like attacking him in a passionate frenzy.

  “I did it,” she whispered against his chest, not wanting to meet his eyes. “I put my family at risk. What am I going to do, Joshua?”

  Chapter 8

  Joshua tipped her chin up and forced her eyes to meet his stormy brown gaze. “You’re going to trust me to protect them and you’re going to stop believing that bullshit about it being your fault.”

  The anger in his voice startled her as much as his glare; his jaw looked hewn from granite.

  “But it is. If it weren’t for me, they wouldn’t be forced into vacating their home. Jake’s going to hate that. He’s really attached to the ranch.”

  “He’s more attached to my sister and niece.”

  “I know, but he’s still going to be upset.”

  “This image you have of your brother as some emotional wimp really doesn’t jive with the man he is, Lise.”

  She grimaced. “This is not about his ability to deal with the tough stuff that comes his way. It’s about me being the conduit it comes by.”

  Joshua squeezed her, the comforting gesture at odds with the fury still glittering in his eyes. “You’re not the one forcing him to go. That would be the lowlife scum stalking you.”

  “But that’s the whole point.” Didn’t he get it? “He’s stalking me!” Her lip quivered and she bit it.

  Joshua pressed his forefinger against her bottom lip, gently disengaging it from her teeth. “He’s crazy. You’re not. Your supposed sin is all in his head. Look at the twisted way he views the breakup of your marriage. Your husband falls in love with another woman and ditches you and this Nemesis creep tries to make it out to be your fault. Whatever he’s got against you is going to be just as distorted and removed from reality.”

  Her rational mind said she should believe him, but her heart was struggling with a debilitating fear that her family was going to be hurt. “What if something happens to Jake, or Bella, or the baby?” The last came out as an uncontrollable wail of distress.

  She had to protect her niece.

  “I won’t let it.” He cupped her face in both hands when
she jerked her head in a negative. “I won’t.” His fingers were warm against her shock-chilled skin, their bodies so close she could feel his heartbeat against her shoulder.

  “You are not responsible for the actions of a madman.” He spaced each word out as if it were its own sentence, driving the point with the intensity of his expression.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head and his lips pressed the words back into her throat. The intimate connection electrified her and excitement roared through her, destroying everything in its path.

  Every inhibition was gone.

  Every argument against making love to Joshua ceased to exist in her mind.

  Nothing was left but a need to bond on the most intimate level possible with this man.

  Joshua was done talking.

  He stoked the fires he could feel ignite in Lise with all the expertise thirty-six years had given him.

  He hated the way Lise was trying to take responsibility for being the victim of a piece of vermin like Nemesis. He was going to erase those thoughts from her mind if it took all night to do it.

  His cock twitched under her thigh.

  Okay, so his motives weren’t totally altruistic, but she needed what he could give her, as much or more than she needed his protection. He might not be anyone’s idea of a knight in shining armor, but he could do things for her that her Dudley Do-Right ex-husband hadn’t been able to.

  He was going to make her scream.

  His name.

  When she came.

  He cupped her cheek, the skin soft like silk, and pulled his mouth from hers. “You’re so beautiful.”

  Her eyes fluttered shut as a look of total sensual abandon came over her features. “Joshua…”

  He had to taste her lips. Really taste them, not just kiss them. He closed the slight distance he’d created between their mouths. She parted her lips on a soft sigh and he licked them, tracing the pretty pink contours before slipping his tongue inside her mouth and savoring the sweetness waiting for him there.

  He explored the silky, warm depths, teasing her with advance and retreat forays until her tongue followed his back into his mouth. He sucked on it and she moaned, an earthy sound that went straight to his dick. Her fingers dug into the muscles on his chest, her body tense with sexual energy.