Indestructible. Cassie Miles
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showed the fire escape outside his window. Nothing was moving. Not even a squirrel in the trees.
His instincts told him to put miles between himself and the men who had pursued him all the way from Europe. But he couldn’t leave her unprotected. He swirled the wine in his glass and took a sip. Why had they gone after her?
He shoved off the sofa and went to the closet by the front door. Behind the suitcase he always kept ready for a quick escape was a rifle that he’d placed by the door for easy access. On the top shelf, he found a case filled with electronic equipment, including a bug sweeper.
He’d been gone for three weeks with the sensor alarms turned off. It was possible his pursuers had breached his security. In a matter of minutes, he located a listening device attached to the frame of the window that opened onto the fire escape.
They were listening. They’d overheard his conversation with Melinda when she came to his apartment, and they knew she was important to him. Their plan must have been to grab her and use her for leverage to make him do what they wanted.
He wouldn’t let that happen. Not to her. Or to their baby.
THE NEXT MORNING, Melinda awoke with the uneasy sense of a nightmare that had already faded into the back of her mind. She opened her eyes. Where was she? Not at home, that much was obvious. Though the layout of the bedroom matched hers, none of her things were here. No knickknacks on the dresser. No family photos hung on the wall.
This bedroom was Spartan and plain. Drew’s apartment. He stretched out beside her on the king-size bed, lying on his back. The comforter covered him from the waist down. His chest was bare.
Her gaze lingered. The sight of him was certainly enough to change a nightmare into a dream. His body was long and lean. Not overly muscle-bound, he was built for speed. A sprinkling of hair on his chest arrowed down his torso. His right arm curled above his head. In repose, he looked younger than his twenty-eight years. More innocent. Less troubled.
She reached toward him, trying to remember why she was mad at him. Oh, yeah, he wanted to dump me as soon as I mentioned the baby. But he had kind of apologized. And he’d stuck with her last night.
As soon as her hand touched his cheek, he exploded awake. Launching himself off the bed into a crouch, he snatched a gun off the bedside table and aimed at the bedroom door. His green eyes glittered. He was one hundred percent alert.
“Light sleeper?” she asked.
Without a word, he strode from the bedroom into the hallway. His snug black undershorts outlined his tight butt. She would have appreciated the view a whole lot more if he hadn’t been stalking.
In spite of his insistence that they flee the city and hide out in a cabin, she didn’t really believe they were in desperate peril. Last night’s robbery was nothing more than a random event. And she felt much better this morning.
Her headache was gone, thank goodness. As she propped herself up on the pillows, she didn’t feel achy or sore at all. Nothing to worry about. She was going to be all right.
Drew returned to the bedroom and sat on the bed beside her. “How are you feeling?”
“Surprisingly good.”
He reached for her arm. “Let’s take a look at that bruise.”
When he peeled off the bandage, the dark black-and-blue area inside her arm had faded back to an almost normal skin color. How could that be? Automatically, she reached for her glasses, then remembered that she hadn’t been wearing them, didn’t need them. Vaguely, she remembered hearing that a woman’s vision improved when she was pregnant. She’d always thought that was an old wives’ tale. But maybe not.
Drew leaned down and kissed the spot on her arm that had been injured. “Looks good.”
“I can’t believe I’m better already. Guess I wasn’t hurt that badly.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m a fast healer myself.”
Waking up together, even if they hadn’t made love last night, felt sweet, and she was tempted to carry their easy intimacy to the next level with a kiss. Would it be so bad to make love to him one more time? The answer, unfortunately, was yes.
If she let her guard down, she’d only be hurt. There was no way they could be together. He had his globe-trotting profession. She had her cozy lifestyle. And never the twain would meet. She cleared her throat. “I don’t suppose you have coffee.”
“I didn’t, but I took the liberty of raiding your apartment last night and taking your coffee. It’s brewing. I also grabbed some bread and butter for toast.” He paused. “And I packed a suitcase with things I thought you’d need.”
“Why?”
“We can’t stay here, Melinda. Last night, I found a bug outside the window.”
She was pretty sure that he wasn’t talking about an insect. “A listening device? Like in the spy novels?”
“My enemies overheard us talking last night. They know you’re important to me, and they want to use you to get to me.”
“Let’s do a reality check.” She pulled her arm from his grasp and hiked up the comforter to cover her sports bra. “We’re in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In a plain, old apartment building. I’m a librarian, for pity’s sake. Nothing exotic ever happens to a person like me.”
“Brace yourself.” He rose from the bed. “Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen. I owe you an explanation.”
In his bathroom, she found the toiletries she generally used in the morning. He’d packed her bags? He wanted to whisk her away to his secret cabin?
She splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth. When she first hooked up with Drew, she knew he was too good to be true. Handsome, smart and funny. Now she knew the downside. He was nuts, delusional. Or was he? Was his job as a globe-trotting journalist a cover for a more dangerous occupation?
She put on her zippered sweatshirt and went to the front room, where he sat on the sofa drinking coffee from a Sioux Falls souvenir mug. “If you’re a spy,” she said, “who do you work for?”
“I’m freelance.” He leaned back on the sofa, and his bathrobe gaped open, showing a sexy glimpse of chest hair. “You know that.”
“You’re not CIA? Not part of some mysterious undercover network?”
“I’m not a spy.” He rose and went toward the bathroom. “Help yourself to coffee. I’ll be back in a minute.”
When he left the room, she glanced around. Her baby blue suitcase on the end of the sofa was the only bright touch in an otherwise unadorned, masculine room. The window shades were still drawn. A rifle leaned against the wall by the front door. There was some kind of electronic equipment on the table, along with night goggles. On the television, she saw three inset pictures that seemed to be from cameras monitoring the hallway and the outside of the building. Where was she? The bat cave?
On the kitchen counter by the coffeemaker was his Beretta. She poured coffee and made two pieces of toast.
What if Drew’s paranoia had some basis in fact? Last night had been scary. That was for sure. She’d never been attacked before. If she could have remembered what happened, she undoubtedly would have been more freaked out. During her struggle, her apartment was trashed. It must have been violent. But was it purposeful? Had Drew’s “enemy” targeted her? Why? It just didn’t make sense.
When the toast popped up, she slathered on the butter. Thus far, Melinda hadn’t had a moment of morning sickness. Her mom said that she’d never been sick while pregnant, and she’d delivered four babies, all girls with Melinda being the eldest. Her baby would be the first grandchild.
As she finished off her toast and washed it down with coffee, she found herself hoping that Drew’s paranoia wasn’t an inherited trait that might be passed on.
He