Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set Read online

  She eyed him soberly. “But what if you didn’t? I’d rather be safe than sorry.” She grinned at him. “I think we’re on the same side, Brad. In fact, I think that, no matter what, the time here has been good for me. I’ve had some peace and quiet and I finally feel like my grief over my father isn’t screaming so loud in my head anymore.”

  “I’m glad, Simone. Let’s just hope your nightmares go away soon, too,” he murmured.

  “Let’s hope so,” she agreed. “In any case, thank you for keeping my safety first in your mind.”

  “No problem,” he replied.

  She closed her eyes and within minutes her breathing slowed and she fell asleep. Brad released a deep, exhausted breath and then closed his eyes. He thought it would be difficult to share the bed with her and not be overwhelmed with desire. However, the lack of any real good sleep for the past week swept over him and within minutes he was asleep.

  He awoke the next morning to find that in the night they had spooned together. His arm was thrown around her waist and she was snuggled up against him.

  He closed his eyes again and reveled in the feel of her closeness. She was so warm with her shapely bottom curved into him. He was surrounded by the scent of her, a scent that always stirred him to his very soul.

  Needing to get away from her for his own good as well as hers, he gently pulled his arm from her and then quietly slid off the bed. He grabbed his jeans and then left the bedroom.

  When he was in the living room, he grabbed a clean pair of jeans and a clean navy polo shirt, then went to the coffee machine. He pushed the button to turn it on, but nothing happened. No little green light appeared.

  What the heck? He unplugged the machine from the wall and then plugged it in again. Still the power light didn’t come on. Great, he thought, did this mean they were going to have to do without coffee? Maybe one of the items Nico carried in his little shop was a new coffee maker.

  He glared at the machine in frustration and then grabbed his phone off the charger. Once again, he frowned. The phone was dead. It should have been fully charged.

  The electricity. He tried the light switch. Nothing. What in the hell was going on? What had happened to the electricity? Had a storm blown through in the middle of the night? He immediately dismissed that idea. If there had been a storm strong enough to knock out the electricity, surely Simone would have awakened and she would have awakened him.

  So, if it hadn’t been a storm, then what the hell had happened ? Hopefully this was just some sort of weird glitch and the power would be back on before long. He thought about all the supplies they had in their refrigerator and freezer. Hopefully it would come back on before all of that was at risk.

  He walked over to the window and peered out, where the sky appeared cloudless and the sun was rising, promising a clear, bright day ahead.

  He returned to the table and sat to wait for Simone to get out of bed. She was not going to be happy with this new situation.

  It was about a half an hour later when Simone came out of the bedroom. She was clad in a pair of jeans and a lavender sleeveless blouse that showcased her slender but lovely figure. As usual, she beelined to the coffeepot and then turned and frowned at him. “Are we out of coffee?”

  “No, we’re out of electricity.”

  She joined him at the table, her frown still cutting into her forehead. “What happened to it?”

  “I don’t know. Apparently, it has been off for a while because my cell phone is dead.”

  “My phone was dead this morning, too. But I thought maybe I didn’t get it plugged into the charger good last night.”

  “I was waiting for you to get up and I figured I’d go outside and see if I can find what the problem is.”

  “Do you know anything about electricity? I don’t want you to tinker with things and wind up somehow frying yourself on a loose wire,” she replied with a frown.

  He released a small laugh. “Trust me, I have a healthy respect for electricity. I’m not going to do anything stupid. I just want to walk around and see if I can tell what might be the problem.”

  “Just don’t try to be a hero,” she said.

  He grinned at her. “I want to be a hero, but I don’t want to be a foolish hero.” He rose from the table. “At least it looks like the sun is going to shine today.”

  “Well, that’s one positive.”

  “How do you feel about hot dogs for breakfast?” he asked.

  “Hot dogs?” She raised one of her perfectly arched brows.

  “When I get back in from outside, I’ll build a fire in the fireplace and we can roast some hot dogs. At least it will be a hot meal to kick off the day.”

  She shrugged easily. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Good, then while I’m outside, I’ll look for a couple of good sticks to use,” he replied.

  She got up and walked with him to the front door. “I’m really hoping the problem is just a fluke and it will right itself before too much more time passes,” he said.

  “Let’s hope so,” she replied.

  He opened the door and gazed back at her. For a crazy moment he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her. He just wanted to lean forward and capture her lush lips with his own.

  But any more intimacy between them would only complicate things further. Instead, he headed outside. The early morning air smelled fresh and clean and the sun warmed his shoulders as he began a walk around the cabin.

  It was probably going to take several days for the floodwaters to go down. But he needed to figure out if it was safe for her to go home or not. Once the water did go down and they could drive out, he definitely didn’t want to make a mistake in his assessment of the situation.

  When he reached the back of the cabin, he instantly saw where the electrical wires went into the back of the house. He walked closer to them. He stared at the wires in shocked disbelief as he realized in an instant that they had been cut.

  He grabbed his gun from his holster and looked around. Who was out here? Who would want to intentionally cut off their electricity?

  He narrowed his gaze and scanned the area. He looked in the trees and in the underbrush, but he saw nobody. He left the cut wires, knowing there was nothing he could do about the situation. He continued around the cabin until he reached the front once again.

  He kept his gaze shooting first left and then right in an effort to see somebody and then he noticed the flat tires on the vehicle they had arrived in. Four flat tires. On further inspection he realized they had all been slit. What the hell?

  His heart began to beat an accelerated, irregular rhythm. They had no way to drive out of here, and with the electricity not working, their cell phones were useless.

  Trouble. It certainly didn’t take a rocket scientist for him to know they were in trouble. Somebody was definitely out there. He could smell the danger in the air. It sizzled through his veins.

  Once again, he looked around, wondering who was out there. It had to be somebody who had managed to follow them from Chicago to this small cabin, but who? Was it Rob himself? Or was it somebody else...somebody Brad didn’t know? How in the hell had this happened?

  A boom sounded, sending birds flying from the treetops. A bullet whizzed by his head. He hit the ground. His heart nearly exploded out of his chest.

  Oh, yeah. They were definitely in trouble.

  * * *

  Simone heard the gunshot and ran to the front door. Brad was on the ground and crawling toward the cabin. “Stay inside,” he yelled. “Simone, get back and stay inside.”

  She backed up, her heart crashing in her chest as a swift terror shot through her. Oh God, what was happening? Why was Brad crawling toward the door on his hands and knees? Had somebody shot at him?

  He got through the door, slammed it shut and then moved to the window to peer outside. “Brad, what’s going
on?” Her question was a mere whisper as abject fear half closed up the back of her throat.

  He pointed his gun toward the window, his entire body visibly tensed. “The electricity wires have been cut, the car has four flat tires and somebody just shot at me.”

  She stared at his broad back in disbelief. Terror clawed at her insides, a screaming terror she’d never felt before in her life. “D-do you think it’s Rob Garner?”

  “It’s got to be him or maybe somebody he hired, but right now I don’t know who in the hell it is. Dammit, if my cell phone worked, I could call and see if anyone in Chicago could get eyes on Garner.”

  “Does it matter whether it’s Rob himself or somebody he hired?” she asked.

  “No, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is whoever is out there has made sure we can’t call anyone for backup, and no matter what the conditions of the roads, we can’t drive out of here on four flat tires.”

  Simone’s heart beat so hard in her chest that for several long moments she felt as if she couldn’t draw a breath. She sank down on the edge of the sofa, trembling as her mind worked to process everything that had happened.

  “I think he’s hiding in that stand of trees a couple hundred feet ahead. It was definitely a rifle that shot at me. I might have thought it was some crazy hunter if not for the cut wires and the flat tires,” he said.

  “So, what do we do now?” Her voice trembled as much as her body did, and her mouth was unaccountably dry. This was all her fault. She had started this cascading waterfall of terror by speaking to Rob and Marilyn Garner that night in True. If only she had walked past them without saying a word.

  He turned to flash her a dark glance. “For now we sit tight. I need to figure out if there’s more than one of them out there.”

  More than one? The words screamed through her brain. “How did they even find out we were here?”

  “I don’t have a clue.” He remained at the window looking outside. “There were only a couple of people who knew my plans in the Chicago PD. And Russ knew, but he would never betray my confidence and he needed to know.”

  “My sisters knew we were going away, but they didn’t know exactly where we were going, so they certainly didn’t tell anyone,” she said.

  “At this point it really doesn’t matter who leaked the information or how it got out. Right now all that matters is there’s a man in those trees with a rifle who took a shot at me.”

  “So, what can I do to help?”

  Once again, he turned and frowned at her. “You could get the gun and go to the bedroom and look outside the window to see if anyone is coming at us from that direction.”

  She got up from the sofa, and with fingers that trembled, she picked up the spare gun from the coffee table and then went into the bedroom and peered out the window.

  Dear God, what had happened to her neat and orderly life? She was an esteemed college professor, for crying out loud, and now she felt like a gunslinger waiting for high noon. She’d laugh if she wasn’t so damned afraid.

  Minutes ticked by and she kept her gaze focused on the trees in the back. She nearly screamed as she saw sudden movement. She pointed the gun in that direction and then released a gasp of relief as a squirrel ran down the trunk of a tree and raced to another tree.

  Was this how her life was going to end? Trapped in an isolated cabin by a gunman? Had she survived the rage of the river only to die now? Surely fate wouldn’t be so cruel. But then she hadn’t thought fate would be cruel enough to take away her father, still it had.

  Tears momentarily blurred her vision. She wasn’t ready to die right now. She needed to say goodbye to her family before she left this earth. She wanted to find her perfect love and know the joy of carrying a baby and then giving birth. She wanted her happily-ever-after.

  She angrily swiped her tears away. Now wasn’t the time to allow her fear to make her weak. Dammit, she was a strong woman and she had to stay strong now, no matter what happened next.

  She had no idea how long she stood at the window with the gun in her hand before Brad called to her. “See anyone?”

  “Nobody,” she yelled back.

  “Come on back in here,” he said.

  She left the window and the bedroom. Brad was still at the front window. “It’s been almost thirty minutes since the first bullet flew and I haven’t seen anyone move any closer to the cabin. The shooter is still hunkered down in that stand of trees. Unfortunately, he’s too far away for my bullets to reach him, but his rifle can reach us.”

  “Then we’re safe as long as we don’t go outside,” she said, trying to find something positive to hang on to.

  “For now,” he replied.

  She stared at his broad back. “For now? What does that mean?”

  He turned around to look at her. She’d never seen his eyes so dark and so focused. That alone made her bone-chilling fear rear up all over again. “I think we’ll be okay until darkness falls. My gut instinct tells me that’s when he’ll move in to try to take us out.”

  He leaned on the wall next to the window and stared at her. “I’m sorry, Simone. I’m so damned sorry I got you into this mess. I... I thought I was doing the right thing. I really thought you’d be safe here. I don’t know how anyone found out we were here, but it’s obvious somebody did. Somehow, I bungled this whole thing.”

  His facial features twisted with what appeared to be a guilt so deep she felt it in her own heart. “Oh, Brad, you didn’t bungle anything.” Being careful not to walk in front of the window, she approached him.

  She stopped when she stood mere inches from him. He appeared positively tortured and she couldn’t stand to see him this way.

  She reached up and gently placed her hand on his lower jaw, where dark whiskers shot a tactile pleasure through her despite the dire circumstances.

  “None of this is your fault, Brad. If Rob went to all the trouble to find us here, he would have already killed me if I’d stayed at home. No matter what happens now, I don’t want you to blame yourself for anything because I certainly don’t blame you.”

  His gaze held hers for a long moment and then he grabbed her to him and crashed his mouth down to hers. His lips were hot...frantic as they plied hers with a hunger...a need that she answered to.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him and opened her mouth to encourage him to deepen the kiss. Someplace in the back of her mind she realized this might possibly be her very last kiss on this earth. And she was so glad it was with Brad.

  Everything seemed so much more intense than it had the last time they’d kissed. She was acutely aware of the familiar scent of him, the thrill of how their bodies fit together so perfectly. Her love for him trembled on her lips, begging to be spoken aloud, but she didn’t allow herself to speak it. Now was certainly not the place or time to burden him with the depth of her emotions where he was concerned.

  He finally tore his mouth from hers and then he placed his hand against her jaw and rubbed his thumb across her cheek. “It’s not over yet,” he said. He released his hold on her and turned back to the window.

  “Do you have a plan?” she asked tentatively.

  “I’m working on one,” he replied. “I just need a little more time to get it all straight in my head.”

  For the first time since he’d crawled through the front door after the gunshot, a tiny ray of hope filled her heart...until she saw that his eyes were even darker than they’d been and his features were taut with tension.

  No matter what his plan was, there was always room for error and in this case that error could mean the death of both of them.

  CHAPTER 11

  Brad remained at the window for an hour...then two hours. His eyes looked for places of cover and his brain worked to make a plan that would save her...possibly save them both. However, no matter what, he needed to make sure Simone got out
of this alive.

  Simone sat on the sofa behind him. Even though she didn’t speak, as always he was acutely aware of her presence. She was depending on him. Her very life depended on him doing something...anything to take out the shooter.

  He’d already failed her. Instead of snuggling into the bed with her last night he should have been out here on the sofa. Maybe then he would have heard the perp approach the car. Maybe then he could have neutralized the threat last night instead of being utterly helpless against it today.

  There was no way in hell he just intended to wait for night to come. He’d much rather be on the offensive than on the defensive. He knew there was really only one thing to do.

  It was approaching noon now. Within the next hour he’d make his move. His hand tightened on his gun as he contemplated the risk he’d be taking.

  He moved away from the window and turned to gaze at Simone. “I need to know one thing from you, Simone,” he said.

  She gazed intently at him. In the depths of her amazing blue eyes he saw her fear, a fear he knew he couldn’t take away and he hated that. “What do you need?” she asked.

  “I need to know that you’re strong enough to shoot a man, and you need to shoot to kill.”

  Her face paled. She’d told him when they’d first arrived that she could shoot to save her own life, but the conversation had been theoretical. Now everything had changed and this was for real...very real.

  She sat up straighter and threw her shoulders back. Her eyes suddenly blazed with strength. “I can do whatever you need for me to do in this situation. If I need to shoot somebody who is trying to kill you and me, then I will do it.”

  “Even if something happens to me? You’d still be able to defend yourself?”

  She frowned. “Nothing is going to happen to you, Brad. I don’t even want to think about something like that happening. Whatever your plan is, it better include you and me walking out of here alive and together.”