Keeping Watch: Heart of the Night\Accidental Bodyguard (38 page)

Jonas shrugged. “Why do I care?”

“So you know how much I’ve borrowed from you.” She pulled a small notebook from the shirt’s pocket and snapped it in the air. “I’ve written everything down. This is my second cup of coffee, too.”

“You wrote all that down?”

“Of course.” She stuffed the notebook back into the shirt. “So I’ll know how much to pay you back. I’m strapped for cash right now, but as soon as everything is resolved, I’ll—”

“I’m not broke. You can eat my food.”

“That’s not the point. I was raised to be responsible.”

“I’ll bet you were.”

He’d been raised to… Hell. Even though she’d dropped that clue about losing her parents, she probably came from a wholesome, sane,
Leave-It-To-Beaver
childhood. He came from the system. He’d been raised to survive. As an adult he’d been trained to ensure that others survived. If she had the least inkling about the men and women he’d put in prison or
eliminated
to keep those who protected his country honest, she’d bolt out of here just as fast as she’d run up his mountain in the first place.

If his shocking appearance and beastly mood didn’t scare her away, the truth certainly would. He’d noticed her enough to make him edgy with a sexual hunger. He’d noticed her enough to be curious about her story. He’d noticed her enough to regret being such a grouchy son of a bitch in the mornings.

And none of that was good.

Fix her car and send her on her way.

He decided he wasn’t going to give a damn about Faith Monroe and her fears. He wasn’t going to get riled up over her sassy sense of fair play. And he definitely wasn’t going to care about how an innocent like her was going to survive in the world once she left his mountain.

“We’ll settle up later,” he offered, saying what she needed to hear in order to get what he wanted. “Now, go on and give me some peace.”

Once she closed the door behind her, he pulled the chair up to the table to eat. He pushed the first forkful into his mouth and stopped short. Damn. This was good. It was just eggs and bacon and toast, but she’d done something with the eggs and—ah hell—he didn’t want to like this. He didn’t want any special treatment or for her to feel beholden to him or have any reason to stay one minute longer than she had to.

Jonas wolfed down the breakfast a shade too fast to really enjoy the savory tastes, then hit the bathroom for a shave and finished dressing. He was going to fix Faith Monroe’s car and get her out of here.

Whatever her trouble was, it couldn’t be worse than his.

“Faith?” It felt odd to say a woman’s name on his tongue. But when he walked out onto the porch, he found it empty. Her coffee mug sat on the railing in front of the porch swing, which was swaying gently back and forth in the morning breeze. Damn. How long had she been gone? His internal radar was on the fritz. That was another reason he needed to get rid of the distraction of having a woman around. “Faith?”

When the hell had she disappeared? Had she gone of her own free will?

The wilderness was a minefield of dangers for a greenhorn like her. It was too late in the morning for the big predators to be out hunting. Though a wolf or black bear wouldn’t follow the usual rules if they were hungry. And the grazers were armed with horns and antlers and hooves. Elk. Mountain sheep. Hell, even a skittish mule deer could be a threat if she startled it.

And if she’d gone off into the forest with an animal of the two-legged kind…

Years of training cast aside disruptive thoughts and put his senses on full alert. He tuned his hearing to the slightest of sounds, scanned the clearing for any sign of a struggle. His black Humvee sports utility vehicle was still parked out front, so she hadn’t stolen his car and run off on her own. Had she gone on a stroll to check out the scenery? Bingo. He squinted his focus to verify his suspicion and descended the steps two at a time. He jogged toward the flattened grass at the edge of the gravel drive and found a trail of feminine-size footprints.

She’d gone to her car. Instead of following the drive down to White Horse Road and around the curve, she’d tried to retrace the shortcut she’d taken last night in the dark. Jonas muttered an annoyed curse and plunged into the brush after her. The steep terrain was muddy and slick. Forget the wildlife. If she lost her balance, she could hit a tree or a rock. She’d be damn lucky if she didn’t break her neck before she reached the bottom.

“Damn fool woman.”

This was how she repaid his help? Getting herself lost? Forcing him to get his boots muddy?

“Stop!” Her hoarse shout cut through the crisp morning air.

Jonas froze, every sense fine-tuned to his surroundings. But was that panic or pain or outright fear he heard in her voice?

“Stop it!”

A cry for help. Protective instincts that were as much a part of him as the blood flowing through his veins sparked to life. He unsheathed the bowie knife that hung at his side and charged down the hill to find her.

Chapter Three

Faith darted up the road, futilely giving chase to the unmarked white tow truck until the taillights of her car—or, more accurately, Liza’s little red car—disappeared around the bend behind a thick carpet of aspen and lodgepole pines. She slowed to a walk, taking several more steps along the crumbling asphalt shoulder.

“Come back.” Her last cry was muted with shock. The creep had stolen her car.

Surrendering to the truck’s power and the road’s incline, she finally stopped. The man in the tan coveralls and hooded sweatshirt had completely ignored her shouts. He’d taken off as soon as she spotted him through the trees. Why? Who was he? Had the police or the FBI—or Copperhead—found her? Had the man who’d murdered her boss and old school friend tracked her across three states to abandon her to the elements on this godforsaken stretch of highway?

Changing directions, she hurried back down the road toward town, trying to stay one step ahead of her panic. Whom did she call now? Sheriff Prince? Darien Frye? There had to be a way to track down the name Dr. Rutherford had given her. But how could she report the theft without drawing more attention to herself? And if the man was legit, why wasn’t he towing the car down to Elk Point? Did he plan to ransack the car as well, searching for the disk and the key to NT-6—whatever that might be?

Faith breathed deeply, in and out, her nostrils flaring. The same fight or flight tension that had propelled her out of Eclipse Labs and forced her to sneak out of her own home surged through her veins once more. A couple hours of sleep and one amazing sunrise were to be the only reprieve allowed her.

She was still on the run.

Faith patted the soft bulge of the well-wrapped disk in her pocket. She was still being pursued.

She slowed her pace to a deliberate walk and scanned her surroundings. The road cut a narrow swath between the trees and rocky landscape, leaving a stalking killer plenty of places to hide. Maybe he was here. Right now. Watching her. Waiting for her to walk into his trap. Waiting with his knife to gut her the way he had William Rutherford and Danny Novotny…and Liza Shelton.

Copperhead.
A venomous snake all too common around the Ozark lakes and mountains where she’d spent her childhood. A deadly expert in camouflage, lying unseen along a dirt path or hidden among the roots of a tree, waiting to strike its unsuspecting prey.

It was an apt nickname, fitting the deadly stealth of the man who pursued her. Who terrified her. Who had taken over her life in the span of one very long day.

Then she heard him. The same invisible menace who’d trashed his way through William Rutherford’s lab thundered down the mountain behind her. The truck driver? Was he Copperhead? Had he parked the truck out of sight and come back to seal her fate?

Faith looked over her shoulder and saw a glint of silver shining in the dappled light among the trees. She instinctively retreated from the encroaching danger—a distorted shadow that descended the tree-studded incline at surprising speed, darting this way and that around obstacles in its path, moving relentlessly closer.

The silver flashed in the light again, its reflection lasting long enough for a weapon to take shape and dimension. A knife.

Copperhead.

“No—”

Faith stumbled backward, righted herself, then took off at a dead run down the center of the road. Her legs pumped quickly and methodically, eating up the ground in front of her. She was running blindly, anxious only to put distance between her and the man with the knife.

Images of William’s blank, dying eyes—Danny’s teasing smile—Liza’s yearbook photo so full of life—her own bloody hands—bombarded her vision even as the sound of death trampled the earth behind her. The pounding footsteps became more of a sensation than a sound as a grinding roar stopped up her ears. She was gasping for breath now, the thin, high air turning her healthy lungs and fit body into a weaker, aching version of herself.

“Faith!” A dark growl pierced the oxygen-starved haze of the chase. A foghorn shattered her eardrums, snapping her into a moment of heart-stopping clarity. Darkness loomed behind her. The knife she’d seen—a big, wicked hunting knife—sailed through the air past her shoulder and speared the bark of an aging pine.

She screamed in the instant she felt the heat and heard the roar at her back. The horn blared again. Awareness of the real danger at her heels came too late.

She veered to the right, but a timber-size vise clamped around her waist and lifted her off her feet. Dragged up hard against a wall of muscle, Faith went airborne, flying toward the ditch. The truck with the red car in tow blared past, close enough to feel the rush of wind left in its wake.

Faith and her rescuer hit the ground with a jarring thud. And then they were skidding, tumbling, rolling. Locked tight in the clasp of strong, sturdy arms, she realized that he was taking the brunt of each hit, each scrape of exposed rock, each splash of standing rainwater. When they finally came to a stop in the muddy debris at the base of the ditch, they were a tangled clinch of arms and legs.

For a moment, all she could do was lie there and catch her breath, letting her swirling vision come to a standstill, taking note of each bruise and ache along her legs and hips and back. Taking note of the fact she was still alive, still in one piece.

Still in danger.

Faith squirmed beneath the crushing weight of the man lying on top of her. “My car,” she wheezed. She shoved against his shoulders. “He’s stealing my car.”

The man’s weight shifted onto the cradle of her hips as he pulled his arms from beneath her and propped himself up on his elbows at either side of her. Faith’s lungs filled with precious air and Jonas Beck’s craggy, scarred face came into focus above her. He, too, was breathing hard. His broad, hard chest expanded in a deep, quick rhythm that matched her own, brushing against the sensitized peaks of her breasts with each and every breath.

Oh, God. That…tingled. She tried to suck in her stomach, to lessen the contact she couldn’t escape. But when she needed to breathe deeply again, her breasts thrust up against him, and the tingling became a distracting, drizzly warmth that poured throughout her body, gathering in force beneath the pressure of his hips on hers. What was wrong with her?

“Son of a bitch.”

That doused her body’s untimely response. “Mr. Beck—”

Faith turned her face from the damning tirade that flowed from his lips. His first words were the kindest he uttered about the barreling truck that had almost flattened them like pancakes. “It’s practically impossible to stop on this grade, but he didn’t even slow down.” Five callused fingers grabbed her jaw and angled her face back to his. He wasn’t hurting her, but she couldn’t free herself from his steely grip. “Didn’t you see him?”

Above her, those ice-blue eyes glittered with an emotion that mystified her. He was communicating something more than a taunting reprimand, but she couldn’t answer what she didn’t understand. Faith’s anxiety shifted from thoughts of lost freedom to something much more immediate. “I came down to check the car. He was headed up the mountain. He must have turned around. I think he tried to…on purpose.”

Her voice trailed away. She already felt helpless and small, pinned beneath Jonas’s body and trapped within his grasp. He didn’t show any signs of getting up, of trusting her on her own two feet. How could she explain her fears about what pursued her without sounding crazy or paranoid, to boot?

“He did that deliberately?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

The grip on her jaw tightened enough to demand her attention. “That’s a hell of an accusation. Did he or didn’t he?”

Not the most persuasive way to earn her cooperation. A flash of self-righteousness, fueled by embarrassment, sparked her temper. Even though it was a futile effort, she wrapped both hands around his wrist and tugged against his grip. “Get off me.”

Foolhardy
never even crossed her mind as she gave vent to her frustrations and struggled against him. Her body lurched beneath his and his eyes squeezed shut. The scar that bisected the upper half of his face furrowed as he winced. “Shit.”

His hand clenched around her chin, then quickly released her, as if suddenly remembering his considerable ability to inflict pain. He dug his fingertips into the mud beside her head, clutching the very ground itself to control… To control what? What did he have to be so upset about? She was the one with a murderer on her heels.

“Why don’t you watch your mouth?” she challenged. “Expand your vocabulary to something nice. You sound like an R-rated movie.”

“Watch
my—?
” His eyes popped open, bathing her in a sea of crystalline fire. “You’re the one with some explaining to do. Why the hell did you run from me?”

“What were you doing with that knife?” she countered.

“You asked for my help.”

“I asked to stay the night.”

“You screamed.”

“You scared me.”

“You almost got yourself killed!”

Jonas got the last word with that one. Their rapid-fire expression of pains and tempers fell silent at the import of just how close she’d come to death. Again.