Though she’s tried out professions ranging from cleaning sea lion cages to cloning glaucoma genes, from patent law to training horses, JESSICA ANDERSEN is happiest when she’s combining all these interests with her first love: writing romances. These days she’s delighted to be writing full-time on a farm in rural Connecticut that she shares with a small menagerie and a hero named Brian. She hopes you’ll visit her at www.JessicaAndersen.com for info on upcoming books, contests and to say hi!

       Chapter One

      The pain speared from his shoulder blade to his spine and down—raw, bloody agony that consumed him and made him want to sink back into unconsciousness. But at the same time, urgency beat through him, not letting him return to oblivion.

       The mission, the mission, must complete the mission.

      But what was the mission? Where was he? What the hell had happened to him?

      Cracking his eyes a fraction, careful not to give away his conscious state if he was being watched, he surveyed his immediate surroundings. Tall pine trees reached up to touch the late summer sky on all sides of him, their bases furred with an underlayer of smaller scrub brush. There was no sign of a cabin or a road, no evidence of anyone else nearby, no tracks in the forest litter but his own, leading to where he’d collapsed.

      He was wearing heavy hiking boots, dark jeans and a black T-shirt, all of which were spattered with blood. Something told him not all of it was his, though when he moved his arms, the agony in his right shoulder ripped a groan from his lips. He felt the warm, wet bloom of fresh blood, smelled it on the moist air.

      Shot in the back, he knew somehow. Bastards. Cowards. Except that he didn’t know who the bastardly cowards were, or why they’d gone after him. More, he didn’t know who the hell he was. Or what he’d done.

      The realization brought a sick chill rattling through him, a spurt of panic. His brain answered with I’ve got to get up, get moving. I can’t let them catch me, or I’m dead.

      The words had no sooner whispered in his mind than he heard the sounds of pursuit: the sharp bark of a dog and the terse shouts of men calling to one another.

      They weren’t close, but they weren’t far enough away for comfort, either.

      He struggled to his feet cursing with pain, staggering with shock and blood loss. He didn’t know who was looking for him, but there was far too much blood for a bar fight, and the pattern was high velocity. Had he killed someone? Been standing nearby when someone was killed? Had he escaped from a bad situation, or had he been the bad situation?

      He didn’t know, damn it. Worse, he didn’t know which answer he was hoping for.

      The mission. The words seemed to whisper from nowhere and everywhere at once. They came from the trees and the wind high above, and the bark of a second dog, sharper this time, and excited, suggesting that the beast had hit on a scent trail.

      One thing was for certain: he needed to get someplace safe. But where? And how?

      Knowing he wasn’t going to find the answer standing there, bleeding, he got moving, putting one foot in front of the other, holding his right arm clutched against his chest with his left. The world went gray-brown around the edges and his feet felt very far away, but the scenery moved past him, slow at first, then faster when he hit a downhill slope.

      He saw a downed tree with an exposed root ball, thought he recognized it, though he didn’t know from when. His feet carried him away from it at an angle, as though his subconscious knew where the hell he was going when his conscious mind didn’t have a clue. Urgency propelled him—not just from the continued sounds of pursuit, which was drawing nearer by the minute, but also from the sense that he was supposed to be doing something crucial, critical.

      His breath rasped in his lungs and the gray-brown closed in around the edges of his vision. He tripped and staggered, tripped again and went down. But he didn’t stay down. He dragged himself up again, levering his body with his good arm and biting his teeth against the pained groans that wanted to rip from his throat.

      Instead, staying silent, he forced himself to move faster, until he was running downhill through trees that all looked the same. He saw nothing except forest and more forest. Then, in the distance, there was something else: a rectangular blur that soon resolved itself into the outline of a late-model truck parked in the middle of nowhere.

      Excitement slapped through him, driving back some of the gray-brown. He didn’t recognize the truck, but he’d run right to it, hadn’t he? It stood to reason that was because he’d known it was there. More, when he’d climbed into the driver’s seat, he automatically fumbled beneath the dashboard and came up with the keys.

      It took him two tries to get the key in the ignition; he was wobbly and weak, and he couldn’t lean back into the seat without his shoulder giving him holy hell. But he had wheels. A hope of escape.

      He couldn’t hear the dogs over the engine’s roar, but he knew the searchers were behind him, knew the net was closing fast. More, he knew he didn’t have much more time left before he lapsed unconscious again. He’d lost blood, and God only knew what was going on inside him. Every inhalation was like breathing flames; every exhalation a study in misery. He needed a place to crash and he needed