Official Escort. Jean Barrett
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the Phoenix and with people like Griff Matisse and his kind?
What really happened that night, and why did you stand by and let it happen? And why did you keep your mouth shut afterward?
Why are you willing to talk now? Did your lover betray you, find someone else? That why?
Angry questions he hadn’t dared to ask. And the worst of it, the absolute worst, was his realization that he could hang on to his torment and his memories, but he could no longer hang on to the woman they stood for. Julie’s image was beginning to blur, beginning to slip away from him. And that worried him. It didn’t seem right, somehow—felt like a betrayal of his grief for her.
Bad enough, but to have Madeline Raeburn in this house, to find himself actually aroused by her siren sexiness made him livid. Hell, he could feel himself thickening every time she came close to him. And, fair or not, he blamed her for that, too.
Barriers. That’s what he had needed. He had to keep throwing up barriers against his desire for her. He had to tell himself over and over that she was here for protection, nothing else. Had to keep reminding himself of the kind of woman she was and that she’d been that bastard Griff Matisse’s girl.
Even with these resolutions, sleep eluded him. It was long after midnight before Mitch finally drifted off. His restless night cost him in the morning. He slept late, and when he finally woke, it was to a clear sky with the sun already well above the hills.
He was aware of the silence in the house as he showered and dressed. He wondered if his guest was still in bed, but when he left his room to check on her, her door was open and her bed neatly made. There was no sign of her inside.
Mitch wasn’t worried. He’d made certain last night that all the windows and outside doors were secure. He had also elicited a promise from her that she wouldn’t try to go anywhere without him. He imagined she was in the kitchen, sitting over a mug of coffee.
“Hey, are you down there?” he shouted from the head of the stairs, feeling a little foolish.
He didn’t feel foolish when there was no answer. Mitch began to experience the first stirrings of alarm. Ducking back into his room, he removed his Colt automatic from the locked drawer of the table beside his bed.
With his loaded pistol in hand, he raced down to the first floor and searched the rooms. They were all empty, and there was no evidence in the kitchen that she’d made any breakfast for herself.
Mitch felt a sick dread deep in his gut. It was followed immediately by guilt. Damn it, he had been careless in his preoccupation with his own roiling emotions, had failed to be alert. Neil had been counting on him, and if anything had happened to her—
The back door off the kitchen was still locked, but when he checked the front door, his worst fear was confirmed. It was unlocked. There was no longer any question. Madeline Raeburn was gone.
Chapter Two
Mitch paused only long enough to struggle into his jacket before tearing out of the house. Leaping off the porch, he swept a frantic gaze over the empty yard, then the outbuildings. No sign of her.
He was on his way to the barn, prepared to search both it and the crumbling granary, when he saw something. The sun reflecting off something hard and shiny, high on the wooded hill behind the farm. The quick flash through the trees told Mitch there was someone up there. Someone on the move, bearing an object bright enough to catch the glare of the sun. A metal object. Like a gun.
On the heels of that thought came a fear that was almost a certainty. They had somehow learned Madeline was here at the farm, had managed to invade the house and snatch her. He had heard no sound of a car in the driveway, but he remembered there was another lane down on the other side of the hill. Was she being taken to a car waiting there?
Mitch didn’t hesitate. His long legs carried him swiftly across the frosted meadow behind the sheds and up the steep slope of the hill. The morning air was clear and crisp, and on any other occasion he might have found it invigorating. But now it was nothing but a hindrance, its sharp coldness burning his lungs as he struggled through the dry, brittle undergrowth.
He kept scanning the ridge above him, but he detected no further reflections or movements. And all the while he cursed himself for his lack of vigilance. He had to get her back. Whatever it took.
He must have covered half the distance to the top, his labored breath steaming now in little clouds, when he heard it. The sound of something approaching through the thicket above him. He dodged behind an oak tree, the enormous girth of its trunk hiding him as he waited, his gun ready.
Whatever, or whoever, it was came on through the dense growth, unaware of him concealed behind the oak. Seconds later, Mitch risked peering cautiously around the trunk. The sight that met his gaze was one of the oddest he’d ever seen.
There, emerging from the woods, marching blithely down the hill in his direction, was an upright evergreen tree. Nothing else. Just an evergreen that must have been a full six or seven feet in height.
Evergreens didn’t walk by themselves. Someone had to be behind it, maybe using it as camouflage or a shield. He was certain of this when once again, this time through the thickness of the tree’s boughs, he glimpsed metal winking in the sunlight. There was a figure supporting that evergreen.
Mitch announced his presence with a growled, “You’ve got a gun covering you, so drop it!”
The evergreen came to a startled halt and was perfectly still. There was a long, uncertain pause.
“Now!” Mitch barked. “And make sure that whatever else you’re carrying back there gets lowered to the ground with it.”
With a suddenness that took him by surprise, the object that had first captured his attention came sailing through the air from behind the evergreen. At the apex of its arc, it flashed again in the sun before descending to land with a thump in the weeds. Not a gun. Not even a weapon, unless you defined its polished steel blade as a weapon. In this case Mitch didn’t, since he realized immediately that the ax had been used to chop down the evergreen.
A second later that same tree, which he identified now as a fir, was flung to one side, revealing the figure behind it. There was no further hesitation from her, no willingness to be challenged again by the assailant lurking behind the oak. In a headlong panic, not daring to look back, she charged down the hill.
What in the—
But Mitch had no time to question her reckless flight. Fearing she’d break her silly neck on the steep, rough slope, he took off after her. “Hey, hang on!” he shouted. “It’s just me, you little—”
Too late. A root caught her by the ankle, throwing her to the ground, where she rolled over like a log before coming to rest in a little hollow. Slipping and sliding down the incline, Mitch reached her side. Pistol tucked now into his belt, he knelt in the dry grass and leaned over her, intending to help her to her feet.
By this time Madeline was so blind with terror that she failed to recognize him. Or, if she did, to comprehend that he hadn’t become the enemy. When his hands started to close around her arms, she read his action as an attack and struck out at him. Mitch didn’t know quite how her instant and ferocious struggle managed to rob him of his balance, but the next thing he knew he was lying full length on top of her.
It was a treacherous position, in more ways than one. Fighting for her release, she squirmed and heaved under his weight. Mitch took several blows, but they didn’t matter. Not when he was aware of her tantalizing body under his, igniting a fire in him. He supposed he was a bastard for his arousal, for experiencing the excitement of her lush warmth.
To his credit, he did try to make her understand. “Madeline, it’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.”
At some point she must have listened to his repeated pleas, must have realized who he was. Her body went still under his, and for a timeless moment their close gazes locked, their breaths mingling on the cold air as she searched his face. He could almost