by Cherry Adair
"Tempting, but I'm intimately familiar with my LadySmith. I've practiced for hours almost every day for over a year, and I'm a damned good shot. Tempting as all of these are, this isn't the time to try something new and unfamiliar. Unless you have something like a surface to air missile in here with Treadwell's name on it?"
"On the roof."
Kendall blinked. "Seriously?"
"It doesn't have his name on it, but it'll do the job if need be."
"Comforting thought."
He removed a box of ammo from one of the metal racks, then tipped half a dozen .22's into his palm before handing her the box. "Bring this with us," he instructed, then placed the handful of bullets on the shelf holding canned fruit just inside the door. "Right here should you need them."
If her heart beat any harder or faster she'd have lift off. Kendall pushed words out of her dry mouth. "So, despite all the high-tech safety precautions, you believe someone can still gain entry?"
Someone. Treadwell.
"I'm a glass half empty guy. Rather be over prepared than not."
Now she knew that Treadwell was on his way, and despite all of Joe's James Bond precautions, there was a possibility, no matter how damned small- that the serial killer could get into the house.
Got it.
"The pantry door, like all the other doors in the house, is encased in impenetrable tungsten steel," Joe told her, seemingly oblivious to her distress. "Can't be kicked in, or shot through. All lock from both inside and outside the same way. See right here?" He showed her an ingenious locking device cleverly hidden inside the door frame. If one didn't know it was there, it was unlikely anyone would notice it.
"Shut the door, then pull up and out like this." He closed the door, then showed her how to activate the locking device. "Unlocks like this." He unlocked, then reopened the door. "Show me."
Kendall did so. He made her do it twice more.
“Do all these clever safety precautions work if the Christmas generator goes out?”
“The security systems work off a separate generator. They won’t go down even if everything else does.”
“There are three generators in the house?”
"Yeah. In the unlikely event Treadwell gets into the house," he told her as she unlocked the door, then pushed it open. "First course of action, if possible, is run like hell. If you can't get out, lock yourself in any room, and wait for help."
Instinctually her hand went to her throat, and she asked, voice thick with dread, "Where will you be?"
"In the highly unlikely event we become separated."
Which really, really didn't answer the question.
No. No. No.
"So, you not only expect him to break into this Fort Knox, impenetrable house filled with bullet proof freaking doors and arsenals of weapons everywhere, you think he's going to kill you? Dear God. . ."
He shook his head. "Worst case scenario."
Treadwell will break in. Joe will die. I'll die.
Kendall began to hyperventilate. Lightheaded she pressed her fist against her racing heart.
"Hey hey hey." Suddenly he was right there, taking her into the circle of his arms. His hold was light, barely there, but Kendall shoved her palm against Joe's chest, unable to bear a physical touch.
"Honey, I swear to God." His hold lessened, but his arms still caged her body. "No one can get into the house, nor will he get within a mile of you. If you keep doing this, you'll pass out."
She barely made sense of his words, her brain filled with visions of pain, blood, and bone-chilling fear. She felt the up and down motion of his palm on her back as if through an insulated jacket as her breath grew more and more rapid. Black spots danced like a snow flurry in her vision.
Dropping his arms, he reached down to take her limp hand then placed it palm down on his chest where his heart beat steadily. "Shit. You hold onto me then," he took her other hand and placed that on his chest, too. "Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe. I'm right here. No one will hurt you. No one."
Joe kept talking, but Kendall's lizard brain couldn't compute the words.
"Shh shhh shhh," he murmured against her numb mouth, sipping her uneven breaths as he pressed his lips to hers.
#
It was kiss her, or watch her hyperventilate until she passed out.
At first there was zero response as her soft, cool lips trembled with her struggle to draw in enough oxygen and her glazed eyes looked right through him.
Joe slid his palm under the warm silk of her hair to stroke her nape, deepening the pressure of his mouth until he felt a slight hitch in her erratic breathing. Years of experience as a counterterrorist operative made him hyperalert to her smallest sign that holding her brought on more distress.
He deepened the kiss by the tiniest degrees, listening to the rate of her breathing, gauging the temperature of her slowly warming skin, feeling the rapid beat of her heart, like a tiny, terrified bird, fluttering against his chest.
Joe swept his tongue into her mouth. She stiffened, then gradually relaxed against him, her tongue sliding against his. With each glide of tongues, she relaxed against him more and more. Joe waited until her arms went around his waist before he tightened his arms, leaning back against the wall, cradling her in the V of his legs.
This time her breath was coming faster from desire, and he knew she'd managed to conquer her panic attack. With a slow brush of his closed mouth across hers, he lifted his head. A little pink was coming back to her white cheeks.
Slowly she lifted her long lashes to look up at him.
Holding her gaze- noting that her pupils were now reactive, he stroked strands of copper hair off her still clammy cheek with his finger. "Better?"
She nodded, but didn't move out of his hold. "Sorry. I haven't had one of those in a while."
Joe wanted to taste more of the cinnamon on her lips, but he kept his hold light and impersonal and didn't dive back in for a more passionate kiss. "Understandable under the circumstances."
The second he felt her body shift, he dropped his hands and let her step away.
"I never tried a kiss to deal with my panic attacks." Her pure smile did something weird to Joe's heart. "It was very effective. Thanks."
He didn't ask how frequently she had them, or what the fuck she did when she had them when she was alone. "Any time." He straightened from his slouch against the wall.
"Let's finish up here, then I'll take you through the rest of the house. The Camerons removed most of my shit after the kids got here, more now the little buggers are ambulatory. But Adam was in the military, and way out here he knows to be well armed. He wouldn't've stripped out everything. Let's go find out what we have to work with and talk strategy. You good?"
The color had returned to her fair skin, and her hazel eyes looked bright and focused. "Yeah. Freaking out isn't my usual way of dealing with stress. What next?"
"The monitors show every side of the house from various angles." He switched each screen on, Click. Click. Click. There were eight screens about the size of large iPads. The pictures were normally crystal clear, but now all he saw was the white-out.
He transferred the feed to his smarter-than-most phone so he could monitor the perimeter from wherever he was in the house. Although the silent alarms would let him know when the motion sensors where tripped.
"Satellite phone here hooks directly into the control center at T-FLAC." Joe plucked it off the holder on the wall. It was immediately answered by his Control, Doug Silva. "Silva."
Joe put the sat phone on speaker. "Update on our target?"
"In the wind.”
“Fuck, Silva. We should have the bastard in hand by now.”
“No shit. Last sighting, he was holed up in a motel five miles east of Boise, Idaho," Silva sounded as cool and as impersonal as he always did, but a sliver of frustration colored his voice. "No vehicles reported stolen, doesn’t mean he hasn’t found transportation of some kind, but at this time, with more of the storm bearing d
own, there are no vehicles on the roads. Temp is minus thirty degrees, windchill—lethal, plus twelve inches of fresh snow. Place has come to a literal standstill. No one in or out. Prediction; roads expected to be cleared within twenty-four hours. Your guy isn't going anywhere until then.
Joe didn't ask what shit a bored serial killer could do when caged like a rat and his bait was six hundred, inaccessible, miles away.
Joe finished the call. "They’ll catch him.”
“It might be impossible for anyone else to leave Boise, but don't doubt for a moment, that he'll find a way,” she told him. “He stalked me for three weeks before he took me, in broad daylight, outside the grocery store, on a busy Saturday morning, with a parking lot full of cars and people."
She hugged herself, unconsciously self-soothing by rubbing her upper arms. "He's incredibly, terrifyingly, focused and detail driven. He was a Physician Assistant in the same medical offices as my doctor. He saw me coming out of the building and followed me home that day, biding his time. By then he'd already killed a dozen other women."
By the time he'd taken Kendall outside the grocery store, Treadwell had already killed twenty-three redheaded women. The authorities had proof, they just hadn't found the bodies. Yet. Still, he’d been convicted on the bodies that had been discovered.
"He knew where I lived.” Her anguished voice broke Joe’s heart. “He k-knew where I worked. The names of my, my friends and coworkers. All the doctors in that building were networked. He had access to all my personal information.”
She shuddered. Because of his medical training, he knew exactly where to slice to inflict the most pain just short of death." Her throat worked and she rested her hand over the scar.
Joe had been briefed. Treadwell's psychoses had been exacerbated by his drug addict, redhead mother who'd violently abused him until he killed her when he was fifteen. It had taken him nine fucking days to carve her up. He’d enjoyed every moment.
"He knows where I am, Joe. He will come."
Yeah, he would. T-FLAC had Treadwell under tight surveillance. The second the man made a move, Joe would be alerted. "And when he does, we'll be ready for him."
#
Once Joe showed her everything the safe room had to offer, Kendall held onto the satellite phone as they returned to the kitchen. One more thing tucked into the elastic waistband of her leggings and she'd be walking around with a bare bottom.
She was so filled with nervous energy, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She licked the taste of him off her lips as she crossed to the counter and started cleaning up the mess she’d made earlier when she’d started stress baking.
"What are you doing?"
Trying not to freak out. Reliving that incredible kiss. Finding something to do with my hands instead of holding on to you. Pick one.
Placing the cooled cookies in an airtight container, she glanced at Joe over her shoulder. "Cleaning up my mess before I go up and change. I have nowhere to tuck my gun and the phone."
His gaze drifted to her mouth, and something elemental sparked between them. He hadn’t moved from the doorway, but Kendall felt crowded, breathlessly so. He lifted his eyes back to hers. He wasn’t getting out of the way, and she started to move past him. "I have a billion things to do."
"No, you don't."
Stopping mid-stride, her shoulders slumped. "Right. Still, the Cameron's paid Fait Accompli. The least I can do is clean up and take everything down before I leave. It would be terrible for them to come home after Christmas to find all the decorations are still up after the holidays are over."
"There's plenty of time to do that."
She forgot what she’d been about to say, her breath stopping altogether at the blaze of predatory heat she saw in his eyes. The smell of him; damp wool, clean skin, male, was intoxicating and made her giddy with longing.
She ached to slide her hands under his sweater so she could touch hot, bare skin. She wanted to stand on her toes and press her mouth to his. God. She wanted him to kiss her again until she forgot why he was here.
Amusement danced in the smoldering flame of his blue eyes, but he didn’t smile back. "We’ve known each other all of- what? An hour? And I already know a lot about you."
Only an hour? The blizzard had caused her to lose track of time, but it was almost eleven. Joe had only arrived barely an hour and a half ago.
"Oh, yeah?" She dragged in a ragged breath. "Like what?" It was almost impossible to have a coherent thought when all her senses were on overload. The smell of him, the strength of his hand on her arm, the radiant heat of his big body so close to hers- all conspired to make Kendall’s brain fog up.
"You babble when you’re nervous."
Since right now she was pretty much speechless with lust, she blinked. "Excuse me? I don’t babble. . .Okay, yes, guess I do. Sometimes."
"You make busywork when you’re scared."
That too. She narrowed her eyes and glared at Mr.-Know-It-All. "So? I also own my own, very successful business, make the best homemade chili, and knit sweaters people would pay big bucks for. What’s your point?"
His gaze moved over her face in a disconcertingly thorough sweep as though he were memorizing each feature, every freckle. Kendall’s breath caught in her throat as their bodies seemed to gravitate closer without them actually moving their feet.
"I bet your bras match your panties."
Now that came out of left field. It also jumpstarted her heart as though she’d been resuscitated. Holy cow. "That’s an incredibly personal observation for a stranger to make," she told him primly. "And by the way. You’d be wrong. I don’t wear panties." A thong, but not panties.
"Ah, Jesus." He choked back a laugh. "No fair." Still smiling, his big hands framed her face, then he touched a gentle hand to her hair. "I've never seen hair this unusual color. An intriguing mixt of all the colors of Fall. Now my favorite season." His voice was husky, thick with desire.
A desire Kendall, too, felt.
He stroked his hand down the glossy curtain, then curled his fingers beneath the strands to cup the back of her head, drawing her toward him.
"You have the most beautiful hair." He brought a handful to his face, rubbing the bright strands against his skin. "Silky. Smells like pears. Delicious." He sifted the filaments through his fingers, watching intently as they drifted to cling to her shoulders and front of her sweater.
He traced her lower lip with his thumb, then bent his head and kissed her as if he were a starving man at a feast. The pleasure of his open mouth on hers was so intense Kendall went deaf and blind with it. His lips were firm, his taste heady, and the unexpected intimacy of his tongue curling against hers was shockingly sweet.
Oh, Lord, that feels so good. Wonderful. Amazing.
Fisting his hands in her hair, Joe pushed her back against the doorframe, kissing her with the same urgency she felt. He pressed his knee to the juncture between her thighs. She whimpered with relief, clutching at his arms for balance as he drew her against the muscled plane of his chest.
She needn’t have bothered. Joe wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly against him until their heartbeats echoed one another.
She went up on her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around his neck, eagerly pressing her mouth to his. Eyes closed, her senses flooded with the taste of him as he explored her mouth. There was nothing tentative about the kiss. Apparently he’d been left as unsatisfied from the pantry kiss as she.
She made a soft, inarticulate sound of need, of hunger, her soft breasts pinned against the hard plane of his chest.
For three minutes Kendall forgot she was the prey of a determined serial killer.
FIVE
I wish to hell I could get you out of here now," Joe told her as they went upstairs. She accompanied him from room to room while he checked locks on all the windows and doors. She didn’t need the added knowledge that Treadwell was on a killing spree en route because of her.
Treadwell's preference was redh
eads, like his mother. But this time around he'd widened his choice to anyone who got in his way due to his time constraints and the ferocity of the weather impeding his travel.
Joe considered the fact that he’d made it here against the odds. He had to trust that his people would track Treadwell down. Again. But given the weather conditions, satellite surveillance was iffy, and they had no one boots on the ground following him.
He didn’t feel anyone out there. Not yet. Considering the ferocity of the storm, coupled with numerous roadblocks it was perhaps too soon. But Joe could easily imagine the sleaze hiding out in the dark, biding his time, waiting for just the right moment.
The house was as secure as Fort Knox. He'd built it with attack in mind, knowing Denise would be here alone when he was on an op. Should a tango discover where he lived, his wife could hold them off until help arrived.
As a cattleman, ex-marine and ex-T-FLAC operative, his friend Adam knew the value of high security. He'd left most of Joe's toys where Joe had left them. Just removing anything the kids might come across.
He and Kendall listened to the weather forecast on the emergency radio, this part of the state had come to a complete standstill for the next twelve to twenty-four hours.
When the call from fellow operative Rick had come earlier that day, Joe had just returned from an op in Thailand. He’d taken only enough time to grab appropriate cold weather gear, and haul ass to the airfield where he’d commandeered a chopper, to attempt beating the storm.
On arrival at T-FLAC airport, he'd been cautioned about flying in this weather, flown anyway, just making it in the zero visibility. The massive snowstorm had swept in more quickly than predicted. The full fury had hit just as he landed, and from the sound of it howling outside the windows, was rapidly worsening, and pelting the glass with sleet, was rapidly worsening.
"I’m willing to take the risk of leaving now," Kendall told him as she rubbed her arms as if she were cold. The house was a comfortable seventy degrees with all the fireplaces on. "Of course, I wouldn’t want you to do anything dangerous."
