Seeing Red (14 page)

Before she could react, he was on her, pinning her shoulders to the ground with his knees.

She fought the blind terror, the instinct to dig in her heels and struggle. She went limp. If he relaxed, she stood a chance of getting free.

“Ellis, Ellis. Never hesitate. If you feel threatened enough to raise that gun, pull the trigger.”

She stared at his face.
Nate?

He got up and offered her a hand.

“What in the goddamn hell are you doing out here?” She rolled onto her knees and got to her feet on her own, keeping some distance between them.

He smiled, his teeth flashing white in the moonlight. “Protecting you.”

When he heard the boat motor stop close by in the marsh, he’d climbed up into the big old tree and discovered a vantage point into Ellis’s condo nearly as good as if he was standing on her balcony. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of climbing up there before. He’d waited an hour or so, enjoying the close proximity to her and watching for anyone on the grounds. But the motor didn’t start back up, and he didn’t see anyone come from the direction of the marsh fence.

He dismissed it as someone doing some night fishing and climbed back down.

Then her living room lights went out. But her bedroom lights didn’t come on.

A short time later, the living room lights came back on. That’s when he saw the man with her.

The cheating bitch.

His heart beat faster as he scrambled back up the tree.

Ellis went into the kitchen. The man stood with his hands on his hips facing the sliding glass door.

Nate Vance. God
damn
it.

Gritting his teeth and digging his fingernails into the tree trunk, he cursed again.

Nate Fucking Vance.

This changed everything.

C
HAPTER
T
EN

T
his was supposed to be simple,
Nate thought as he followed Ellis up the stairs to her condo. He’d come and go, unnoticed and undetected.

His plan had been to watch for a few days, wait to see if Alexander came here. If Alexander stayed away, Nate was going to spend some time shadowing the man, just to make sure he wasn’t taking up his old bad habits.

If Alexander stayed away from Ellis and didn’t stalk any new females, Nate would then have to weigh his options. He couldn’t stay away from his responsibilities forever—not without consequences.

Now there were new consequences that bothered him about staying too long. In those few minutes he’d spent with Ellis at the plantation, he’d realized that same spark, that deep connection that had linked them years ago, was still as vibrant as ever. And yet, it held a new and distinctly different aspect, a sexuality that was wholly new.

Seeing her tonight in that skimpy top and shorts, well, the brotherly feelings he’d counted on to help him keep his distance had gone up in a puff of red-hot steam. Watching her sweet little tush sway in front of his eyes as he climbed the stairs behind her made him imagine all sorts of things.

If he stayed too long, he feared he would give in to the temptation that right at this very moment was making his mouth dry and his hands tremble with need.

He couldn’t allow it. He had nothing to offer a woman like Ellis.

He reluctantly moved his gaze from her backside to the ground below as they climbed the last few steps.

She opened the door, seemingly unaware of the things she was doing to him.

He took a deep breath and followed her into the dark condo.

She flipped on the lights.

The first thing he noticed was the security alarm. He pointed to it with the little .38 he’d taken from her. “You should have set this.”

She cast a green-eyed glare over her shoulder. He was pretty sure she meant it to be reproving, but it was sexy as hell. “I was only out for a moment . . . and I
had
a gun.” Her glower moved to the .38 in his hand.

“Someone could have slipped in while you were down there snooping around.”

She made a dismissive sound through her teeth. “Am I really to believe you were out there in the middle of the night, all dressed in black, to protect me? From what, may I ask?”

“I’m parched. Do you have anything to drink?” He was parched, his mouth as dry as dryer lint, but it was for a reason he could never let her know. Why hadn’t he anticipated the possibility that she could do this to him?

It appeared she was gritting her teeth as she went into the kitchen.

While she was out of the room, he stood in front of the sliding glass door and took a moment to collect himself. He was glad to see a safety bar in the tracks of the door.

He moved away from the door and looked around the rest of the room. He paused at the long narrow table behind the sofa. It was lined with framed snapshots.

A nostalgic smile came to his lips when he looked at one with her and Laura leaning on the fence at the stables. God, they were so young.

Then he noticed the photo of Ellis and a young man Nate assumed was the boyfriend, Rory. Their arms were around each other as they stood on a beach. A gray sky blended with the gray surf behind them. The wind was blowing Ellis’s hair.

Nate realized he was frowning.

He turned away from the photos and sat down.

Ellis snuck furtive glances from the kitchen to where Nate sat on her sofa, looking entirely too big for the room. It wasn’t just his physical size, even though his muscular bulk did remind her of one of those guys on a marine recruitment commercial. He also had a presence, a commanding authority that crowded everything around him. He fit in her room like a regular man bunking with Santa’s elves.

Despite his size, Nate was cobra-fast. Yes, she had hesitated pulling the trigger, but that didn’t fully account for what had happened. In less than the blink of an eye, Nate had gone for—and gotten—her gun. A normal person wouldn’t have even registered its presence in that instant.

Obviously, Nate wasn’t a normal person.

She pondered that as she studied him. All dressed in black, he looked like a commando on a night raid.

There were only so many things a man could be doing that would require skills honed as sharply as his. The odds of it being on the right side of the law were about fifty-fifty.

Ellis wasn’t a gambler. She had to ask herself why she felt so certain that he was in the right 50 percent.

She shook away those thoughts and poured them both a glass of sweet tea. It was time to ask some very pointed questions.

Her phone rang, making her jump. Tea sloshed over the side of one of the glasses, onto the counter.

She snatched the handset up with her heart beating too fast. “Yes?”

Nate came into the kitchen and stood just behind her, so close she could feel his body heat.

“Miz Greene.” Mr. Breese drawled the two words into the span of a normal person’s full sentence.

She’d almost forgotten she’d called the front gate.

She grabbed a paper towel and mopped up the tea mess, trying to put a little more distance between her and Nate.

He stuck to her like summer flies on a horse.

The security man went on. “I didn’t see nobody down here—again.” He used the same tone he might have if she’d asked him to investigate an alien landing in her front yard.

Looking over her shoulder, she waved Nate away, nodding that everything was fine.

He stepped back maybe six inches, still close enough that the small hairs on her skin registered his closeness.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” she said. “I appreciate your checking. Good night.”

“’Night, miss.”

She hung up the phone and turned.

Nate stood there with his hands on his hips. She had to tilt her face up to look him in the eye, which set off an unexpected rush of sparks along her nerve endings.

She shifted and picked the tea glasses up off the counter, then shouldered past him.

He was on her heels all the way to the coffee table. “Who was that?” he asked.

“No one of concern.” She set the glasses on coasters and took a seat in the chair, sitting at a ninety-degree angle to the sofa. She wanted to look him in the eye when he explained what he was doing sneaking around her place in the dead of night.

“It’s almost four in the morning,” he said, still standing over her. “Nobody calls at four in the morning.”

Leaning forward, she picked up her tea. She kept her eyes fixed on the table when she said, “It was my backup. I called security before I went down there.”

He choked out a laugh. “Backup? You mean the old guy in the Gator?”

Her cheeks warmed; she worked very hard not to look at him. “I was being
cautious.
”

“
Cautious
wouldn’t have unlocked that door.” His voice was harshly scolding.

He finally stopped looming over her and sat down on the sofa.

She shoved a glass of sweet tea toward him. “No turning this around and getting me on the defensive. You promised me an explanation.” She put out her open palm. “And my gun back.”

He picked up his tea and took a long drink. With a shake of his head, he said, “No gun. Not yet.”

“Afraid I’ll shoot you?”

“You had your chance.” The way he said it sounded like he thought she might regret not taking advantage of it.

A truly cautious woman wouldn’t be sitting here alone with a man she hadn’t seen for fifteen years, one she’d caught creeping in the dark like a thief and wouldn’t return her weapon. But if Nate had meant her harm, he’d already had plenty of opportunity to do it.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she said. “Why are you here?”

He looked around as if he hadn’t heard her question. “So where’s the dog?”

“What?”

“The beast that belongs to that big honkin’ spiked collar and leash with ’Killer’ branded on it, hanging just outside.” He gestured toward her front door.

“Oh, I don’t have a dog.” Again, not prudent. She was never this reckless. She should have said he slept under her bed, awaiting an attacker. This man was not the boy she’d known years ago; she really had to start thinking before words tumbled out of her mouth.

A slow smile spread across his face. It made her chest feel peculiar, and the room was suddenly too warm. She took a drink of tea.

“Good strategy.” Then his voice lost its praise. “A real dog would be better.”

After a calming breath, she said, “Hey, I’m not putting some poor doggie at risk to protect me. A person who breaks in knowing there’s a dog is willing to kill it. Besides, a dog has to be walked after dark.”

“Maybe you should think about a bird,” he said.

“A bird?” She was so surprised that she forgot and looked into his eyes again. “An attack bird?” Her voice sounded tight, excited. She cleared her throat.

The side of his mouth lifted into a half-smile. Dear Lord, he really did look like a movie commando—handsome, daring, dangerous.

“To go with the leash and collar. A macaw or something. Down in South America, I saw some amazing birds. If you take them around a dog, they can learn to bark. That way—”

“I’ll have the audio to back up the props.”

He pointed at her and nodded, like she was a prize pupil. She glowed in the praise.

“Still,” he said, “Alexander does his homework. He’s a watcher, patient in his planning. You won’t fool him—or someone like him.”

So, she thought, this “protection” was about Alexander.

It was time to stop dancing around the rosebush and dive into the thorns. “So you just happened to be here visiting for the first time in fifteen years a few days after Alexander got parole.”

“I’m here
because
he’s out.” He held her gaze, but his eyes were steely, unreadable.

“And how did you know he got parole?” she asked.

“I checked the Web site.”

She stared at him for a long moment, her heart beating too fast. “Why?”

His gaze cut away. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Then his gray eyes pried so deeply into hers that she felt stripped bare. “Ellis, I remember Alexander’s threat. I take it very seriously. I owe you my life. They would have locked me up instead of him if it hadn’t been for you.”

“No,” she said. “They didn’t have any evidence. You were just a convenient target.”

“They didn’t have much more evidence on Alexander than they did on me. They would have convicted me; I know it.”

She thought about the things she
hadn’t
told the police. Would it have changed the outcome? Back then, she and Nate had never talked about the details of that night. But she knew he’d withheld some things, just as she had.

“You did it, Ellis,” he said, reaching out and taking her hand. “You saved me.”

Looking into his eyes, she suddenly felt like she was falling, tumbling into their gray depths. She curled her fingers around his and held tight. It took a conscious effort not to go over and climb into his lap. It startled her to realize a part of her wanted him to protect her, to be there so she could let down her guard, at least a little.