Cal just hoped this woman didn’t fall into the ex-girlfriend-of-Dan category. Calming scorned women was not one of Cal’s skills. Especially another guy’s scorned women. He had enough trouble keeping his own sex life straight without taking on someone else’s.
“Look, can I step down or not? I’m losing feeling in my legs and my neck is getting stiff.” Not to mention the spasm in his back and the fact his defenseless position made him wary.
She—whoever she was—treated him to a sigh. “Fine. Go ahead and stand up.”
“You’re too kind,” Cal said in his most sarcastic tone.
“I can still change my mind, you know.”
“Well, I do now.”
Thanks to years of military training, his body functioned at high level. He could outrun and outshoot men much younger. But the combination of the long plane ride from Florida, the break-in and trying to decipher both Dan’s cryptic message, and the odd reaction to his name by everyone on the island took a toll. Cal feared the worst and so far he had not been wrong in his low expectations.
“My initial threat still stands,” she said in what Cal took to be her shoot-first-say-hello-later hint.
“Understood.”
He unfolded his cramped legs and stretched, working out the kinks in his muscles one at a time. Feet hitting hard floor had never felt so good.
When his nerve endings started firing again, he glanced over at his gun-toting greeter. Now that she backed up, a halo of yellow from the weak night light in the kitchen cast her in shadows in the dark room.
Cal blinked, straining to see the owner of that raspy voice but could not make out her face. Did see the glint from the barrel of the gun, however. That was enough to keep him from moving closer.
“Put your hands on your head.” She did not so much ask as she ordered.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Just do it.”
Seemed she was serious. “What if I like my hands right where they are?”
“I have the gun, so I decide.”
He wondered what she’d say when she realized he possessed a weapon or two. Hell, she wasn’t the only one in the room who knew how to wave a gun around and make threats.
“Why don’t we turn on the light so we can see each other?” He shifted until he felt the secure press of his gun against his lower back.
The silhouetted woman reached to her left. Cal heard a scratch as she grazed the wall for the switch. After a click, a soft white glow poured through the small room and over the furniture.
Not just any furniture. Broken furniture. Torn over-stuffed chairs with ripped fabric. Crushed glass and documents littered the floor. Someone had tossed the place.
He mentally inventoried the damage before settling his gaze on her. When he did, his blood froze. Hiding a face like hers in shadows should be a sin. Long blondish-brown hair and amber eyes.
And the way her snug white T-shirt pulled across her chest highlighted her high, round breasts. Hell, if she were more blond she’d be a living, breathing Barbie doll. Also made him think the doll’s measurements were not quite as unrealistic as his sister insisted.
He tried not to gawk as he visually toured her lean legs from the bottom of her cut-off blue jeans shorts down to her painted pink toenails.
Tried and failed.
“Is there a problem?” she asked as she buried the shaky voice under the growl of a drunken sailor.
“About a dozen of them,” he mumbled.
Her eyes narrowed until only slits of gold were visible. “Who are you?”
Under those impressive looks she carried a gun. Since he did not know if she intended to use it, he fell back on his plan of appeasement. “Tell me what happened in here.”
“I guess you weren’t the only person who tried to break in here tonight.” Her gaze moved from his chest to his shoulders. “Wearing black from head to toe. Subtle, by the way.”
He glanced down to his dark sneakers. Maybe the monotone outfit amounted to overkill. He chalked it up to another choice that made sense at one point but now seemed a bit over-the-top.
“Despite how it looks, I’m not here to burglarize the house,” he said even though he knew it sounded lame.
“You just really like black?”
The time had come to shift attention away from his wardrobe choices. He moved around discarded pens and miscellaneous papers with the tip of his shoe.
Her frown slipped, showing the much more vulnerable face of the woman behind that, at times, unsure voice. “Tell me who you are.”
“We’re not going to play the game this way.”
“Oh?” She waved her weapon from side to side as if to emphasize her point. All that did was convince him of her novice status.
That shot to the forehead looked more and more inevitable.
“We’re going to share information. Give and take.” He rested his hands on his hips, close to his weapon.
“You’ve got the gun. I got time. We can stand here all night for all I care.” He figured a smile would work right about now, so he shot her one. “But you might want to remember something else.”
“What’s that?”
“You think I’m a criminal.”
“That’s where the evidence points, yeah.”
“If I’m such a bad guy, chances are you’ll blink long before I do, sweetheart.”
Chapter Two
Forget about later. Cassie Montgomery fought off the urge to blink right then. If she swallowed any harder her tongue would end up in her stomach.
She had yelled and ordered this guy around while panic flooded her insides. She was not the type to take on complete strangers with little more than a bad attitude. Unlike her mysterious guest, she did have something to lose—like what was left of her life.
The wide-shouldered stranger with the dark brown hair and piercing hazel eyes kept breaking her concentration. In the safety of the darkness she had not been able to see Mr. Tall, Dark, and Deadly.
Well, she saw all of him now. Criminals were not supposed to look like him. Hell, no one should look like him. Slim black jeans and a sleek black shirt that hugged his body, molding to his muscles like a second skin. Not exactly an outfit meant for late-night hiking.
Sun-kissed hands peeked out from underneath the covert clothing, suggesting that whoever he was, he liked to be outside. With her luck, he was probably an escaped convict who worked on the road crew during the day. The fact the man knew her brother’s name kept her from engaging in a bit of uncontrolled screaming and gunplay.
That and the fact the guy looked vaguely familiar. Cassie could not place him, which was odd since this guy wasn’t exactly the forgettable type. Still, something about that face tickled at her memory.
She’d spent weeks trying not to remember anything. Now that she needed to call something up, her mind stuttered to a halt.
Grief sucked.
Anger she could handle, so she went that route. “I’m waiting for a formal introduction. And if I have to ask again, I might just go ahead and try talking with the gun.”
A