On the last day of April, the devil came for Victoria Everett. He arrived without warning, wearing blue jeans and a black leather jacket, his dark hair falling across his face when he looked up at her and flashed that wicked, wicked smile.
Victoria dropped the groceries and grabbed for her Beretta but he had his Sig Sauer out and level before she cleared the shoulder rig. Well, the element of surprise. He’d known he was going to be here.
“Good morning, Victoria,” he said, his sapphire eyes glittering with untold secrets, the Sig steady in his hand. Lounging against the front porch rail like he had every right to do so.
She got her breath back but didn’t use it to return his greeting. She eased the Beretta back into place and straightened her linen jacket, ignoring the way her hands shook — adrenalin surge, nothing she wasn’t perfectly familiar with. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t where have you been?
She bent to pick up the canned goods that had scattered across the walk. One of the paper sacks had burst, which was only the start of the ruckus he was going to cause if she couldn’t find a way to shut him down. Not that she ever had. But there was a first time for everything.
She kept her expression cool and untroubled as she stuffed the torn sack into the garbage can at the end of the driveway, then handed him the remaining battered bag. He might as well make himself useful. He took the bag awkwardly, keeping his gun hand free. She glanced down to see if he’d worn the nine strapped to his thigh but all she saw was blue jeans and lean hips. Cocky bastard still carried in the small of his back. She knew for a fact they taught FBI agents better during training at Quantico. But then he had never been an ordinary fed.
When she looked up, she met his mocking blue eyes. She brushed by him, pulling away from the touch of his arm against hers. Not that she was susceptible anymore. Nothing that ten thousand pushups couldn’t take her mind off, anyway.
She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of showing him how deeply his appearance shook her. If he wanted to pretend there was nothing between them, she’d do the same. Self-control, that was all it took. She had plenty of self-control. Look how long he’d been standing here and she hadn’t punched him yet.
He glanced around the living room, his gaze pausing at the freestanding heavy bag (to work off frustration) and then the free weights (to fend off osteoporosis). The room also boasted a beat-up brown leather sofa, Craigslist. The sofa faced a window looking out on the brick house next door.
“Nice,” he said, a gleam in his eye. Great. Sarcasm already and she hadn’t even had her first cup of coffee yet. He brought the sack of groceries into the kitchen and set it on the counter. He began unpacking it, like he knew where she kept the dried beans. Well, maybe he did. Who knew how long he’d kept her under surveillance before risking the contact?
“I can do that,” she snapped, elbowing him out of the way.
His smile deepened but he stepped aside without commenting. He leaned his hip against the counter, one hand braced on the countertop, the other loose and relaxed, ready to go for the Sig if she made any sudden moves. Not that he would ever have admitted he thought she could get an edge on him.
The weight of his attention slowed her as she put the food away. The chore gave her a minute to assimilate his presence here and think about what it meant. She couldn’t imagine one single good possibility. She folded the empty sack, stored it neatly under the sink, then turned to him, a surge of outrage making her stomach churn.
Clear mind, correct action, she reminded herself. “What do you want?”
“I need your help.”
Of course he needed her help. Her sister Rosemary, who was psychic, had just the previous week warned her that a tall, dark-haired man was about to disrupt her life and cause her pain. In an understandable error, she’d thought Rosemary meant the dentist.
She locked eyes with Michael for a long moment. Someone without her long experience might have thought he radiated sincerity and noble intention. The look was supposed to induce her to climb up on her pony and follow the Lone Ranger here into the sunset.
“Let’s ride?” she said finally, folding her arms across her chest.
“It’s a good score,” he said. She knew he didn’t mean score the way her old man had meant score, as in stealing something valuable; and he didn’t mean it the way she meant it, which was landing an unblocked blow to a legal target area; and he didn’t mean it the way Rosemary did, which was coming into some high quality grass; and he certainly didn’t mean it the way her students did, which was getting laid by someone worthwhile. What he meant was that there was a fee for the recovery.
“You could keep that school of yours running,” he said, soft and persuasive. That dark chocolate voice had led better people astray.
“Tempting, very tempting,” she said. Running a martial arts school was easy. Running a profitable martial arts school was hard. “But no, thanks.” She was vaccinated and inoculated; she would never succumb to his dark magic again.
“They took something that doesn’t belong to them,” he said, still casual, easy. Only the very best chocolate, smooth and rich. He knew just what to say.
She turned away from him and began rinsing the dishes stacked in the sink, averting her eyes from the photo that hung on the wall above the backsplash. Her daughter, Jasmine, frozen forever in time as a three year old, gone seven years now. Victoria had kept her promise all this time. Not that it mattered anymore.
She opened the dishwasher and placed a plate in the lower rack, ignoring the clatter it made when her hand shook. “I don’t do that work anymore,” she told him. What she did was run Phoenix Martial Arts, named after the mythical creature that was reborn from its own flames. At her school, she taught Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido and how to kick men in the balls, which in her advertising she called “basic self defense.”
“I haven’t worked since the last time you called on me,” she said. “And look how that turned out. I don’t owe you anything. Not anymore.”
Something that might have been anger flared in his eyes. His body shifted, tightened, no longer casual and easy.
“You walked away,” he said, grabbing her shoulder and turning her to face him. “Like it was nothing. Like we were nothing.”
“What the hell did you expect?” She shoved his hand away and did not punch him in the gut. Phenomenal self-control. More self-control than any woman in the universe had ever exercised before. She was a master of self-control.
He curled his hands into fists. She could see the visible effort he took to control himself. Well, look at that. That made two of them, masters of self-control. Go them.
“I didn’t come here for this,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair. Thick, a little too long, begging for a woman’s touch. Life would be simpler if he were bald.
“You’re welcome to leave,” she said. Calm. Clear mind. Another breath, another exercise of will. She could do it.
“I know you don’t do the work anymore,” he said, beginning again. “But I need you on this project.”
His eyes were older now, his face not so boyish. A little more worn around the edges, but wasn’t everyone. He had filled out some but he still stood tall and lean, with broad shoulders and slender hips, and he moved the way he always had, smooth and quiet and effortless. You never saw him coming.
She finished filling the dishwasher and got the box of detergent out from under the counter. She added the powder to the well and snapped the spring lid shut.
“I don’t do that work anymore,” she said again. She would say it until hell froze over.
“I’ve got Rosemary.”
She sucked in a breath. Damn him. Damn him and his blue eyes and his chocolate voice and his ruthless ruthless soul.
“Rosemary?” She kept her tone uninterested. Not that it mattered. Not that it would fool him. Michael knew everything he needed to know.
“Sometimes she’s a little careless about where she gets her supplies,” he said, a sympathetic expression on his face. If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought he was sorry. Like, I didn’t want to take this step but I didn’t have a choice.
Victoria slammed the dishwasher shut and locked it. “They’re not big on prosecuting for possession around here,” she said.
“She scored enough for intent.”
She looked at him. He looked at her.
Sometimes the choices sucked.
“I’ll let you know,” she said, jerking her chin toward the door. What she meant was she’d verify what he claimed. Not that she thought he was lying. But someday she hoped to call his bluff.
When the door closed behind him, she placed both palms on the counter and leaned forward, taking a deep gasping breath. The world spun dizzily as she tried to calm her pounding heart. Her body trembled from the wash of adrenalin, wrung out, like she’d just faced a fighter well-skilled in the fundamentals who was also cunning and unpredictable, a broken rhythm fighter who knew exactly what she was going to do next. On the whole, she would rather be punched in the nose.
• • •
Michael didn’t want to admit to himself that seeing her again shook him. She hadn’t changed in any of the obvious ways. She hadn’t gotten fat or happy, for example.
He settled into the rental Ford and picked up his cell phone, then punched in the number of the only person who didn’t keep warning him to stay out of things that weren’t any of his business.
“I made contact,” he said, watching the house.
“She punch you?”
“She drew on me,” he said, not knowing why he shared that. She’d surprised him and delayed his fumble-fingered response, but she hadn’t been expecting him and that had made the difference. It was possible she hadn’t really intended to shoot him, but she’d certainly seemed furious enough to do it. He knew they weren’t best friends forever anymore, but drawing on him?
“Holds a grudge, does she?”
He wasn’t a drug-crazed mugger, and he hadn’t made the mistake of confronting her inside her house, where she might have mistaken him for an intruder. She’d known exactly who he was and still she’d gone for the Beretta.
Intending to shoot him meant she was still more worked up about what had happened seven years ago than he’d expected. Which meant she hadn’t figured it out, all the way to the end, and that was going to make this project a lot harder than it had to be.
“Not everyone is as forgiving as I am,” Michael said and hung up the phone.
She hadn’t looked particularly older. No sprinkle of gray in her dark hair, for example. Though maybe she was vain enough to color it. She hadn’t looked particularly worn or ground down. She hadn’t looked rested and optimistic, either, but she had always been too intense for those qualities to get a lot of play in her life.
She had looked at him like he was the enemy. That was new. Ironically enough, this time he was lying to her, and he planned to continue doing so, as long as he could get away with it.
He settled more comfortably into the front seat and watched the house. Not that he thought she would run. Not that he thought she had anything to hide that he didn’t already know about.
Just that old habits died hard.
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