No Stranger to Danger (4 page)

Taj
exhaled heavily through his nose. "Have it your way," he said, and gave Logan another shock from the battery.

Logan cried out and limply fell back. His head rolled to the side, and he breathed deeply through his nose as he watched
Taj
move across the room and come back, thumping a needle.

"Your refusals will get you nowhere once your woman is brought, American spy."
Taj
laughed and bent over Logan. "It always comes down to a woman to weaken a man."

Logan laughed along with him, tossing his head weakly against the table, thinking of his spirited ex-wife.

They had not met Mara yet.

She strengthened him.

Taj
stopped laughing and stabbed him with the needle, causing Logan to gasp.

This time, the
Propofol
was a godsend.

Chapter Four

1730 hours, Saturday

Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Mara
Cahil
stood at the edge of her lawn beside a perfect, tall, white tulle-wrapped Alberta spruce. The evergreen was only one at the end of a line of spruces that blocked her pool from the gravel drive. On the other side of the pool was a steep drop-off on the side of Mount Collins, which her lovely mountain home rested on, perched above the resort town of Gatlinburg.

Below the drop-off, Little Pigeon River raced far below, and from her patio on a day after a heavy rainfall, she could hear the rushing water running down the mountain to meet the river.

She plastered on her smile as Grandma Betty was being ushered into the car by Uncle Brian. Aunt Rose sidled up to her and paused, watching the scene with vapid disinterest, too.

"It's okay, Mara," Grandma called back to her from the Buick.

They were the last departing guests, thank God.

"Don’t fret, another man will come along for you soon." Grandma waved at her and panted as she struggled to settle comfortably into the backseat. The old ninety-something woman pulled her walking cane to the other side of her knees, reaching to take out her teeth and then dropped them into the handbag she carried.

Mara grimaced alongside Rose, her brows rising as she watched her grandmother, and then she winced as Betty slapped Uncle Brian with her handbag for some offense.

"
Ow
!" Brian howled. "Now settle down."

"Here, sweetie," Aunt Rose said in a quiet, conspiring tone.

Mara returned her focus to her aunt and looked at her with some confusion—until she glanced down—and gasped. Mara sputtered at the small, pink vibrator her aunt had pulled from her bag and was pushing her way as if they were exchanging narcotics.

Her aunt's rosy, plump cheeks brightened a degree, and she pushed the sex toy toward Mara.

Oh … good … God!

Did her aunt even know what that was?

Mara plucked the thing from Aunt Rose and quickly hid it behind her back, glancing furtively to see if her uncle or, God save her, her grandmother had noticed. Rose smiled with big brown eyes, looking exceedingly pleased with herself.

"I took it out of your cousin's gifts." She rolled her eyes. "Whoever gave her that thing didn’t see the hunk she's marrying, did they?" She laughed and snorted, which only spurred Rose into a deeper fit of wheezing laugher as she elbowed Mara.

Mara groaned and fidgeted with her hair, her cheeks hot now, too.

"Don't worry. It's all natural, honey. Your uncle doesn’t know I keep one, you know—" She put her hand to the side of her mouth and leaned in.

Mara shrank back from the obvious admission that was coming.

"Since he don’t work no more—" Rose said in a loud whisper, and wiggled her finger in a little circle, "—down there." She dropped her hand and the hushed tone. "Since you still haven’t found a man … I thought you could appreciate one of these, too. A lot better than Tiffany.
Gawd
." She rolled her eyes to the sky as she fanned herself. Rose stopped and scrunched up her nose, then grabbed Mara in a crushing hug.

"Thanks, Aunt Rose," Mara said.

She wanted to cry.

Or die … she wasn’t sure which at the present moment.

"Like Grandma said, don’t fret. Just ‘cause all your cousins are married and you're … well…" She bobbed her head from side to side and gave a little hum.

Yes,
Mara thought,
because I am divorced and don’t have any real prospects for a husband.

Maybe if she gave a shit about that as much as every single person in her too-big family, then she might put more effort into finding another man.

But the simple fact was she wasn’t ready.

Turned out, five years just wasn’t enough to get over the most devastating pain a person could feel aside from losing a child.

She had lost the man she'd loved—and she didn’t have a clue why.

Mara re-plastered her smile as her aunt's wide hips brushed her as she headed to the car. Mara watched as Uncle Brian opened the door for her aunt and helped her squeeze inside the front seat. The car sank down as Rose leaned around Brian to wave. Uncle Brian slammed the door, leaving the tail end of her aunt's pink dress hanging from the door, and hurried to the driver's side where he also gave Mara a short wave.

Mara started to stop him, to tell him Rose's dress would be ruined … but she would be crazy to delay their departure one second more.

Mara waved rapidly, as though if she waved faster, they would leave quicker. She had never been more thankful that the wedding shower for her cousin Tiffany was over as her uncle and aunt’s car started, Rose's dress beginning to drag away against the gravel.

Somehow, since she was the only
unfortunate
—otherwise known amongst her family as desperate—divorced single woman, her family had elected her to host the shower. Why that had to be, she didn’t know.

Tiffany's shower couldn’t have come at a worse time either.

As the old silver Buick backed up, Mara continued to wave with the same smile frozen in place, but as soon as the dust rose over the back of the car, she dropped her hand and sighed. The sound came out as more of a disgruntled
uugh
.

Mara brought the box around to give it a strange look.

What in all the hell could Aunt Rose have been thinking?

And why did being around family have to be so exhausting?

Mara dropped her arm to her side and turned beside the Alberta spruce.

If she didn’t have to answer constant questions like,
when are you getting hitched again?
Or take more gentle grandmotherly suggestions like,
you should really look for a man, Mara
—then she might not want to pull her hair out like a crazy woman every second she was around them.

Mara took a step toward the pool where elegantly clothed tables with big coral-colored bows sat around the glistening water dotted with floating, lighted lily pads. The setting sun matched those bows and her evening gown perfectly.

She looked on the pool forlornly with thoughts of putting her home on the market tomorrow. Unfortunately, she had no choice in the matter now. Before the guests arrived, she had called a realtor to arrange a meeting for Monday morning.

Since she was out of a job, and had no good prospects for another at the moment, she couldn’t afford to stay here any longer.

It sucked.

It really, really sucked.

Mara started toward the double doors under the covered porch and let out a huff as she crossed onto the patio where the stones were spaced intricately apart and neatly clipped green grass textured through the seams. She growled just as she kicked a rented, white chair and bit back a cry. She limped the rest of the way into the house, past her large terracotta
chiminea
and a duo of white wicker chairs. She dropped the pilfered vibrator into the kitchen trash on her way by and went straight to her bedroom.

The entire evening she had been careful to mind herself around her family, but all she wanted to do was curl up on the couch and scarf as much comfort food as she could possibly hold. The last thing she needed was for her preachy aunts and blistering grandmother to catch wind of her sudden employment status—or to hear their comments on overeating.

As if they were leading examples.

Standing in front of her dresser, Mara pulled her hair down from the tight bun and dropped the pins in a scatter over the mahogany top. She threaded her fingers through the long, black strands, but her usually straight hair bounced back into loose curls and she pulled it all up into a messy ponytail.

She went to the bed where the garment bag was lying open and stepped out of her coral, open-toe heels. They had a slight platform, which made them taller than anything she normally wore. Mara made a wide O with her mouth as her toes sank into the carpet and her inner arch began to ache and cramp.

"
Mmm
," she sighed as the tight pain ripped through the center of her foot.

Mara looked down at the dress clinging to her form and thought about how hard zipping it had been. She had borrowed the dress from a friend and former co-worker, Suzanne, who worked at the law firm she used to work at, before her boss fired her for stealing staples—or so the man had said.

Mara made a face at the thought of the scum-sucking district attorney.

He had fired her for another reason altogether, and then used his sway to block her from getting another job in her field anywhere in the city.

Too bad she couldn’t prove that it was because she had refused a quickie in the office a week before, after working overtime on paperwork for a case.

Thoughts of that night and his hand slipping around to her backside deflated her.

"Beer first," she said to the garment bag and tossed the end of her ponytail as she started for the kitchen.

She padded through the living room and onto the cold, Tuscan slate tile. The sun had sunk deeper and left the room dark now. Mara opened the fridge, and light spilled out onto the tile floor. She pulled a Dos
Equis
from the second shelf and reached for an opener on the granite counter, then popped the top off. She caught the spinning metal cap in the air and tilted the bottle up.

She sealed her lips to the cold glass and downed half the beer before setting it on the counter and wiping the back of her wrist over her mouth. Mara reached back in the side-by-side fridge for salsa and turned, letting the door slap shut on its own.

She took one step toward the chips—but the dark figure of a man sitting at her kitchen table rooted her to her spot.

"Good stuff?" he asked, looking at the Dos
Equis
in her hand and then flicked his dark eyes up to hers.

Mara dropped both the beer and the salsa and then screamed.

She backed frantically into the fridge, slammed into it so hard it hit the wall behind. She scrambled to run from the kitchen, the shotgun in her closet flashing through her mind as she slipped across the tile, the bottoms of her pantyhose slick.

Mara screamed again as the man's fingers clasped onto her hips, and they both fell hard to the cold slate-stone floor. Her body crushed under his and hurt from the impact. He climbed up her side to clamp a hand over her mouth, pulling her head against his chest as he did so. Mara clawed the floor until her nails broke, and she bit his hand with all the force she could. She cried against his palm and kicked against his legs lying over hers, but he only laughed in her ear.

"
Sssh
," he blew against her hair. "This won't hurt at all."

Won't hurt?

Her mind scrambled as she felt him begin to hike her dress up to her hip.

"
Nooo
,
" she screamed against his hand. "Please!"

Mara began to hyperventilate against his rough fingers, whimpering, too, at the thought of what was to come.

She squeezed her eyes shut as he wound his hand into her hair, and she flinched as something stung her thigh through her pantyhose.

Within an instant, she stopped struggling and her eyes rolled back.