Authors: Lisa Jackson
“Of course I’m worried. Who wouldn’t be? But there was nothing in any of the advice I gave that would cause someone to snap.”
“You think. There are always nutcases.” He set his empty bottle on the counter.
That much was true, she thought wearily. “But none who have e-mailed me, or called me, or contacted me in any way. I double-checked every communication I received.” He nodded and she realized that he’d probably been privy to that information as well.
“Well, there’s got to be a reason. We’re just missing it.” He was thinking hard; she could tell by the way he rubbed his chin. “You write magazine articles under a pseudonym.”
“Nothing controversial.”
His eyes narrowed. “What about the book you were working on?”
She hesitated. The manuscript she was writing wasn’t finished and she’d taken great pains to keep it secret while she investigated a payola scam on the rodeo circuit. It was while researching the book that she’d met
Sam Donahue, a friend, he’d claimed, of her brothers’. As it turned out he hadn’t been as much a friend as an acquaintance and somehow she’d ended up falling for him, knowing him to be a rogue, realizing that part of his charm was the hint of danger around him, and yet she’d tumbled into bed with him anyway. And ended up pregnant.
Which had been a blessing in disguise, of course. Without her ill-fated affair with Sam, she never would have had Joshua, and that little guy was the light of her life.
“What’s in the book that’s so all-fired important?”
Sighing, she walked to the couch and dropped into the soft cushions. “You know what’s in it for the most part.”
“A book on cowboys.”
“Well, a little more than that.” Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes. “It’s about all aspects of rodeos, the good, the bad, the ugly. Especially the ugly. Along with all the rah-rah for a great American West tradition, there’s also the dark side to it all, the seamy underbelly. As I was getting information, I learned about the drugs, animal abuse, cheating, payola, you name it.”
“And let me guess, most of the information came from good old Sam Donahue.”
“Some of it,” she admitted, opening an eye and catching Kurt scowling, as if the mere mention of Donahue’s name made Striker see red. “I was going to name names in my book and, I suppose, I could have made a few people nervous. But the thing of it was, no one really knew what I was doing.”
“Donahue?”
She shook her head and glanced to the window. “I told him it was a series of articles about small-town celebrations, that rodeos were only a little bit of the slice
of Americana I was going to write about. Sam wasn’t all that interested in what I was doing.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, turning her attention to Kurt. The fire was burning softly, casting golden shadows on the cozy rooms. She snapped on a table lamp, hoping to break the feeling of intimacy the flames created. “Maybe it’s because Sam’s an egomaniac and pretty much consumed with his own life.”
“Sounds charming,” he mocked.
“I thought so. At first. But it did wear thin fast.”
Striker lifted an eyebrow and she added, “I’d already realized that it wasn’t going to work out when I suspected I was pregnant.”
“What did he say about it?”
“Nothing. He never knew.”
“You didn’t tell him.”
“That’s right. Didn’t we go over this before?”
Striker looked as if he wanted to say something but held his tongue. For that she was grateful. She didn’t need any judgment calls.
“Besides,” she added with more than a trace of bitterness, “I figure we’re even now. He forgot to mention that he wasn’t really divorced from his last wife when he started dating me.” She wrinkled her nose and felt that same old embarrassment that had been with her from the moment she’d realized Sam had lied, that he’d been married all the time he’d chased after her, swearing that he was divorced.
Fool that she’d been, she’d fallen for him and believed every word that had tripped over his lying tongue.
Now a blush stole up her neck and she bit down on her back teeth. She’d always been proud of her innate
intelligence, but when it came to men, she’d often been an idiot. She’d chosen poorly, trusted too easily, fallen harder than she should have. From Teddy Sherman, the ranch hand her father had hired when she was seventeen, to a poet and a musician in college, and finally Sam Donahue, the rough-and-tumble cowpoke who’d turned out to be a lying bastard if ever there was one. Well, no more, she told herself even as Kurt Striker, damn him, threatened to break down her defenses.
He walked to the fire, grabbed a poker and jabbed at the burning logs. Sparks drifted upward through the flue and one of the blackened chunks of oak split with a soft thud.
Randi watched him and felt that same sense of yearning, a tingle of desire, she’d experienced every time she was around him. She sensed something different in Kurt, a strength of character that had been lacking in the other men she’d found enchanting. They had been dreamers, or, in the case of Donahue, cheats, but she didn’t think either was a part of Striker’s personality. His boots seemed securely planted on the ground rather than drifting into the clouds, and he appeared intensely honest. His eyes were clear, his shoulders straight, his smile, when he offered it, not as sly as it was amused. He appealed to her at a whole new level. Man to woman, face-to-face, not looking down at her, nor elevating her onto a pedestal from which she would inevitably fall.
“So what do you think about your kid?” he asked suddenly as he straightened and dusted his hands.
“I’m nuts about him, of course.”
“Do you really think he’s safe with the Okano woman?”
“I wouldn’t have left him there if I didn’t.”
“I’d feel better if he was with you. With me.”
“No one followed me to Sharon’s. Not many people know we’re friends. She was in my dorm in college and just moved up here last fall. I…I really think he’s safer there. I’ve already driven her nuts calling her. She thinks I’m paranoid and I’m not so sure she’s wrong.”
“Paranoid isn’t all that bad. Not in this case.” Striker reached into his jacket pocket, flipped open his cell and dialed. A few seconds later he was engrossed in a conversation, ordering someone to watch Sharon Okano’s apartment as well as do some digging on Sam Donahue. “…that’s right. I want to know for certain where he was on the dates that Randi was run off the road and someone attempted to kill her in the hospital… Yeah, I know he had an alibi, but double-check and don’t forget to dig into some of the thugs he hangs out with. This could have been a paid job… I don’t know but start with Marv Bates and Charlie… Damn, what’s his name, Charlie—”
“Caldwell,” Randi supplied, inwardly shuddering at the thought of the two cowboys Sam had introduced her to. Marv was whip thin with lips that barely moved when he talked and eyes that were forever narrowed. Charlie was a lug, a big, fleshy man who could surprise you with how fast he could move if properly motivated.
“That’s right, Charlie Caldwell. Check prison records. See if any of Donahue’s buddies have done time…. Okay… You can reach me on the cell, that would be best.” He was walking to the desk. “I’ll be in the condo, but let’s not use the landline. I checked, it doesn’t appear bugged, but I’m not sure.”
Randi’s blood chilled at the thought that someone could have tampered with her phone lines or crept into
her home while she was away. But then Striker hadn’t had any problem getting inside. He might not have been the first. Her skin crawled as she looked over her belongings with new eyes. Suede couch, faux leopard-print chair and ottoman, antique rocker, end tables she’d found in a secondhand store and her great-grandmother’s old treadle sewing machine that stood near the window. The cacti were thriving, the Boston fern shedding and near death, the mirror over her fireplace, the one she’d inherited from her mother, still chipped in one corner. Nothing out of place. Nothing to give her pause.
And yet…something wasn’t right. Something she couldn’t put her finger on. Just like the eerie sensation that she was being watched when she parked her Jeep.
“Later.” Striker snapped the phone shut and watched as Randi walked to her desk, double-checking that nothing had been disturbed. She’d already done a quick once-over when she’d come home earlier, but now, knowing that her phone could have been tapped, her home violated, her life invaded by an unknown assailant, she wanted to make certain that everything was as it should be.
Her phone rang and she nearly jumped through the roof. She snagged the receiver before it could jangle a second time.
“Hello?” she said, half expecting a deep-throated voice on the other end to issue a warning, or heavy breathing to be her only response.
“So you did get home!”
Randi nearly melted at the sound of Slade’s voice. He was her youngest half brother, closest to her in age. Slade had been born with the same McCafferty wild streak that had cursed all of John Randall’s children.
Slade had just held on to his untamed ways longer than his older brothers.
“I thought you’d have the brains to call and tell us you’d arrived safely,” he admonished, and she felt a twinge of guilt.
“I guess I hadn’t gotten around to it,” she said, smiling at the thought of her brothers, who had once resented her, now fretting over her.
“Is everything all right?”
“So far, although I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Uh-oh.”
“And Matt and Thorne.”
“It figures.”
“Who the hell do you think you are hiring a bodyguard for me behind my back?” she demanded and saw, in the mirror’s reflection, Kurt Striker standing behind her. Their eyes met and there was something in his gaze that seemed to bore straight into hers, to touch her soul.
Slade was trying to explain. “You need someone to help you—”
“You mean I need a
man
to watch over me,” she cut in, irritated all over again. Frustrated, she turned her attention to the window, where just beyond the glass she could make out the angry waters of Lake Washington roiling in the darkness. “Well, for your information, brother dear, I can take care of myself.”
“Yeah, right.”
Slade’s sarcasm cut deep.
Involuntarily, she squared her shoulders. “I’m serious.”
“So are we.”
Randi heard conversation in the background, not only the deep rumble of male voices, but others as well, the higher pitches of her sisters-in-law, no doubt, and ris
ing above the rest of the conversation, the sharp staccato burst of Spanish that could only have come from Juanita, the housekeeper.
“You tell her to be careful.
Dios!
What was she thinking running off like that!”
More Spanish erupted and Slade said, “Did you hear that? Juanita thinks—”
“I heard what she said.” Randi felt a pang of homesickness, which was just plain ludicrous. This was her home. Where she belonged. She had a life here in Seattle. At the newspaper. Here in this condo. And yet, as she stared out the window to the whitecaps whirling furiously on the black water, she wondered if she had made a mistake in returning to this bustling city that she’d fallen in love with years before. She liked the crowds. The noise. The arts. The history. The beauty of Puget Sound and the briny smell of the sea when she walked or jogged near the waterfront.
But her brothers weren’t here.
Nor were Nicole, Kelly or Jamie, her new sisters-in-law. They’d become friends and she missed them as well as Nicole’s daughters and the ranch and…
Suddenly stiffening her spine, she pushed back all her maudlin thoughts. She was doing the right thing. Reclaiming her life. Trying to figure out who was hell-bent on harming her and her family. “Tell everyone I’m fine. Okay? A big girl. And I don’t appreciate you and Thorne and Matt hiring Striker.”
“Well, that’s just too damn bad now, isn’t it?” he said, reigniting her anger.
Her headache was throbbing again, she was so tired she wanted to sink into her bed and never wake up and, more than anything, she wished she could reach through
the phone lines and shake some sense into her brothers. “You know, Slade, you really can be a miserable son of a bitch.”
“I try,” he drawled in that damnable country-boy accent that was usually accompanied by a devilish twinkle in his eyes.
She imagined his lazy smile. “Nice, Slade. Do you want to talk to your new employee?” Without waiting for an answer, she slammed the phone into Kurt Striker’s hand and stormed to her bedroom. This was insane, but she was tired of arguing about it, was bound and determined to get on with her life. She had a baby to take care of and a job to do.
But what if they’re all right? What if someone really is after you? After Joshua? Didn’t you think someone had already broken into this place?
Her gaze swept the bedroom. Nothing seemed disturbed…or did it? Had she left the curtains to the back deck parted? Had her closet door been slightly ajar…? She lifted her eyes, caught a glimpse of her reflection and saw a shadow of fear pass behind her own eyes. God, she hated this.
She heard footsteps approaching and then, in the glass, saw Kurt walking down the short hallway and stop at the bedroom door.
Her throat was suddenly dry as cotton and inadvertently she licked her lips. His gaze flickered to the movement and the corners of his mouth tightened, and just the hint of desperation, of lust, darkened his eyes.
For a split second their gazes locked. Held. Randi’s pulse jumped, as if it were suddenly a living, breathing thing. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Inside, she
felt a twinge, the hint of a dangerous craving she’d experienced last night.
She knew that it would only take a glance, a movement, a whisper and he would come inside, close the door, take her into his arms and kiss her as if she’d never been kissed before. It would be hard, raw, desperate and they would oh so easily tumble onto the bed and make love for hours.
His lips compressed.
He took a step inside.
She could barely breathe.
He reached forward, grabbed hold of the doorknob.
Her knees went weak.