Chapter 2

      Jaci’s head throbbed in time with the beat of her heart and her mouth tasted as if someone had stuffed it with an oily rag. She dragged her hand across her lips, still a bit sluggish in the brain, and tried to get her bearings.

      Birds.

      She could hear the shrill chatter of birds somewhere. She struggled to open her eyes and when she managed to peer blearily about at her surroundings, she realized with a frightening start that she had absolutely no idea where the hell she was.

      Bright morning sunlight streamed in through a dusty window and the air in the room smelled musty, as if the place had been closed up for a while and only recently reopened.

      Her neck ached as if someone had pinched her and as she rubbed at the sore flesh, she recalled bits and pieces of the previous night with horrifying detail.

      Sonia. Dead.

      Her hand flew to her mouth and she sucked back a wild sob. How had the evening taken such a devastating turn? One minute they’d been enjoying a nice buzz from too many drinks sent their way and the next her best friend since junior high was dead. It was all too much to take in without dissolving into a moaning, sobbing mess. She wasn’t the kind of woman to break into hysterics under most circumstances but she was fairly certain she was about to have a grand-level freak-out any moment as the last thread holding her nerves together frayed in spectacular fashion.

      Jaci blindly fumbled around her, searching for her cell phone. She had to call the police and report it. What time was it? Likely they’d already found Sonia’s body, left behind in that alley like trash. God forgive her, she’d left her best friend alone. Where the hell was her damn phone?

      “If you’re looking for your cell, I tossed it,” came Nathan’s voice from the doorway, his tone matter-of-fact and brooking no argument. He held two steaming coffee mugs in his hands but even as his gesture may have appeared kind given the circumstance, Jaci didn’t know how to accept his offer considering their history.

      She stared, unable to process everything at once, as Nathan walked into the room, bare to the waist, wearing faded jeans, offering a short explanation. “Your phone has a GPS and is traceable. Sorry, but I had no choice but to ditch it. Besides, you shouldn’t be contacting anyone until I know it’s safe to do so. In the meantime you are going off the grid.”

      “What the hell is going on?” she whispered, scooting away from him, rejecting his offer of coffee, though she sorely needed it. She clutched a pillow to her chest, as if that would protect her from him, and glared through a sheen of tears. “Someone shot my best friend and he was going to shoot me. You show up and k-kill that man and then kidnap me for some reason when two months ago, you couldn’t stand to be near me another second. I don’t understand what is happening,” she couldn’t help but cry with a pathetic mewl that would’ve embarrassed her if she hadn’t been suffering from shock. “I’m in a nightmare and I can’t wake up. God, help me,” she said, sniffing back tears. “She’s dead. Sonia is dead.” Even as she murmured the words and knew it to be true, the reality felt forced.

      “I’m sorry about your friend,” Nathan said with genuine remorse that confused her. “I hadn’t realized that the two of you had slipped out the back into the alley or else I would’ve been there sooner.”

      She regarded him slowly, recalling a snippet of Sonia’s bawdy comments from that night. Why hadn’t she realized it earlier? The classic jawline, the hard body built with layer upon layer of muscle... “You were the one watching us?”

      He offered a curt nod but didn’t deign to explain, which only made her want to throw something at his damnably handsome face.

      “Why?” The inscrutable expression etched on the hard planes of his face gave nothing away and she looked elsewhere in disgust. “Right. More secrets. That’s you, isn’t it? Always hiding something. Well, as you so clearly stated when we last met, I mean nothing to you, so please take me home. The police can protect me from whoever is trying to kill me.”

      “Jaci, you’re not leaving,” he said, shooting her down without apology. “And don’t even try. We’re deep in the Los Padres Mountains. You’d never make it out alive.”

      “How did...” Jaci stopped in confusion, forcing her brain to work when it remained sluggish from the night before. The last she remembered she was in Los Angeles. Now she was in the mountains? She stared at Nathan, demanding answers, but when her hand strayed to the sore spot on her neck she knew the answer and her stare narrowed in indignation. “You drugged me.” Neither a question nor a guess, he didn’t bother denying it. She nearly shook with impotent rage. “You bastard,” she swore softly under her breath. “How dare you. Who do you think you are?”

      “Who am I? I’m the man who saved your life. Try to remember that fact when you’re calling me a bastard. You can thank me later. For now we need to lay low. The people who want to kill you won’t stop until they’ve achieved their objective.”

      “Why?” she cried, hating all this confusion and subterfuge that had nothing to do with her. “Why is this happening? I’m a graphic designer, for crying out loud. I design advertising and T-shirts and coffee mugs. What did I ever do to deserve this?”

      Her impassioned cry elicited a flicker of emotion, regret, possibly, she couldn’t be sure, but he shut it down quickly. “This isn’t about you, Jaci,” he admitted tersely before walking from the room. “It’s about me.”

      * * *

      Nathan cursed under his breath as he removed himself from Jaci’s accusing stare and teary eyes. He was a bastard all right, but at least she was alive and he meant to keep her that way, even if she hated him.

      He