The Christmas tree had been Arden DeMarco’s undoing.
Or, to be more accurate, the decorations on it had.
Not that accuracy mattered. What mattered was that she had to leave. Quickly.
She shoved her sweatshirt into her backpack, the scent of Tide detergent and lavender fabric softener reminding her of her childhood home. She’d hoped to be there for Christmas, reveling in the beautiful predictability of Christmas Eve service, ham dinner, new pajamas worn on Christmas morning.
She was twenty-five years old and she still loved those things.
Unfortunately, in this instance her nostalgia had been her downfall.
She sighed.
What was done was done. For twelve days she’d been safe in this secluded cottage just outside of Lubec, Maine. Now she wasn’t.
She hadn’t planned to leave, but staying was no longer an option. She’d have to find another place to go to ground. With a quick look around the room, Arden was satisfied she was leaving nothing important behind. No clues as to what she’d been working on, where she planned to go or what her next step would be.
Zipping her pack, she gave the surveillance monitors one more glance.
All clear.
For now. But the odds weren’t in her favor.
Grabbing the wearable pet carrier from the hook behind the door that separated the kitchen from the cozy living room, she fastened it around her chest.
“Sebastian? Time to go,” she called.
As was Sebastian’s way, he didn’t answer.
She crossed the room to check his favorite spot, knelt down and peered under the sparsely decorated Christmas tree. Sure enough, he was there, batting at a red bulb.
“Did you learn nothing from the tinsel incident?” she muttered.
He looked at her, blinking large blue eyes and meowing as she scooped him up and placed him in the carrier. Where most cats would have yowled and struggled, he settled in without a fuss, the tips of his dark brown ears barely visible as she pulled the drawstring on the carrier to secure him inside. Like Arden, he was quirky. It was one of the reasons she’d adopted him.
He purred happily against her chest. Poor guy had no idea that he’d brought danger down on their heads.
She’d been so careful when she’d dropped off the grid. Covered all the bases: cash transactions only, no contact with family, prepaid cell phone for emergencies only. There’d been no way anyone could trace her movements.
Or so she’d thought.
Unfortunately, in her panic, she’d forgotten about Sebastian’s microchip. Truth be told, if Sebastian hadn’t eaten his body weight in tinsel, she’d still be none the wiser. Okay. It hadn’t been that much tinsel. After administering an ultrasound, the vet had assured Arden that the cat would be just fine. She’d been happy and relieved until the vet had called an hour ago to check on Sebastian and used Arden’s real name.
A name Arden hadn’t used in almost two weeks. They’d obviously scanned Sebastian for a microchip and now her assumed alias and the cottage address were linked to Arden’s true identity, through the PetID database.
The jig was up. She needed to leave. If she managed to escape with her life, she’d never ever hang tinsel again.
A powerful gust of wind whipped in from the ocean, drawing her attention to the window. The sun had set an hour ago, and the full moon should have been rising above the ocean. Clouds covered it, light gray against the dark horizon. Below, the beach lay empty. No lights or bonfires. No people with flashlights digging for clams. This wasn’t the time of year for vacationers. That had played to Arden’s advantage. Now she felt vulnerable.
She tried to tell herself it was good that she was leaving, but she’d wanted to stay. A quiet cottage far away from anyone who knew her had been the perfect place to hide.
The wind buffeted the cottage’s shake siding and howled beneath the eaves, the eerie sound spurring her to hurry. She pulled on her coat, partially zipping it up over Sebastian. He purred even more loudly.
Happy cat.
Unhappy human companion.
Arden shoved gloves into her pockets and yanked a knit cap over her ears. This was it. Time to go. She grabbed her pack, flipped off the lights and dropped the house keys on the desk next to a note about the security system she’d regrettably be leaving behind. State-of-the-art. Expensive. She’d probably need it again before this was over, but it was too heavy and cumbersome for someone who needed to move quickly.
The perimeter alarm chirped, the warning sending her pulse racing. She turned back to the monitors. Three were clear. The fourth showed a lone figure making his way slowly up the steep snow-covered path on foot. She smiled at that. She’d chosen this location well—even a Jeep couldn’t navigate the narrow, rock-covered road.
One guy she could handle.
She had the advantage. She knew he was coming.
The cottage was in a large clearing, no place to conceal movement—perfect for seeing what was coming; not so great for a covert escape.
She’d wait until he was on the front walkway, then sneak out the back.
She shrugged the pack onto her shoulders, her attention on the monitor as the man strode up the walkway.
Keeping an eye on the monitor, she crossed the well-worn wood floor to the back door. Heart pounding, hand on the doorknob, she waited for him to reach the front steps. A cold breeze swept in under the door and she shivered. The 1930s cottage, mostly used as a summer rental, was not well insulated. Though it was comfortable enough with both wood-burning stoves fired up, she had extinguished the fires thirty minutes ago in preparation for her departure. Now, with the embers quickly cooling, the cold Maine chill was settling over the house.
The man reached the front steps, eyed the footprints she’d left in the snow when she’d returned from the vet. The image on the monitor wasn’t clear enough to see his face, but she didn’t plan to stick around long enough to get a better look.
“Get ready for a bumpy ride, Sebastian,” Arden muttered, quietly opening the back door. The new storm door stuck, the old frame a poor fit. She should have removed it when she’d first noticed the problem, but she hadn’t thought she’d be found. Assumptions could get a person killed. Her oldest brother and decorated FBI agent, Grayson, was always saying that. Hopefully, she wasn’t going to prove him right.
She walked outside, letting the door rest against the jamb. No time to wrestle it tightly into place. The yard was a slick sheet of icy snow, but she rushed toward the back corner of the property as quickly as she could. She had to reach the shed, and the motorcycle, if she had any hope of escape. She had minutes. Maybe less.
Bang!
The sound sent adrenaline coursing through her blood.
She glanced back, saw the storm door lifted by the wind.
Bang!
The door slammed again, and a dark figure appeared around the corner of the house. Tall. Obviously masculine. Coming toward her with quick, decisive steps.
She sprinted to the shed.
“Arden DeMarco!” the man yelled, his voice carrying over the sound of the crashing surf and wind.
She reached for the shed door with shaking hands, yanked it open just as he grabbed her shoulder.
Arden was ready for him.
The youngest of five children, and the only girl, she’d learned to hold her own early on—her brothers had made sure of that. And what they hadn’t taught her, ten years of mixed martial arts training had. Without hesitation, she pivoted, grabbing his hand and twisting it at an unnatural angle.
He released his hold, giving her just enough space to throw a punch. He dodged at the last minute, her knuckles just brushing his jaw. She pulled back, aiming for his throat this time. She’d practiced this move dozens of times. She knew it cold, but Sebastian hindered her movement and the man was quicker than she expected, grabbing her wrist and yanking her arm down before she could land the blow.
“Enough!” he growled. “I’m just here to—”
She threw a left hook. Her fist connected.
She knew what he was there for. Or she could guess. He was too well trained to be anything but a government operative or a hired assassin.
If he felt the blow at all, he didn’t let on. Instead, he raised his arm to block her next punch.
“I said, enough,” he muttered, his foot sweeping out, catching her ankle as she dodged. She stumbled backward, managed to somehow regain her balance. He reached for her again, grabbing the sleeve of her jacket and pulling her toward him.
* * *
Arden was small, agile and packed a surprising punch for her size. But Kane Walker had spent more than ten years in the Special Forces as part of the army’s elite Night Stalkers airborne brigade, and she was no match for him.
Not that he planned to keep fighting her.
He’d come to bring her home.
She was going. Whether she liked it or not.
“Arden, your—” he began, but she was obviously in no mood to listen.
She yanked away, took a stance he’d seen dozens of times when he’d sparred with her brother Jace. She attacked with Jace’s signature move. It was almost indefensible.
Almost.
He took a calculated step forward, got his knee behind her leg and swept her toward the ground. If she’d been an enemy, he would have added a punch to the chest or nose to speed her descent; instead, he grabbed her arm as she flew backward, slowing her fall. She hit the ground with a thud anyway.
“How about we call a truce?” he said, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “Jace didn’t have me track you down so we could spar.”
“Jace?” She got to her feet, eyeing him through the darkness. He doubted she could see his features in the unlit yard. Even if she could, she might not be able to place his face. They’d met a few times in the past. Mostly when he’d joined Jace on home leave.
“Your brother’s worried about you.”
“And you know this because?” she asked, her shoulders tense, her hands fisted.
“I’m Kane Walker. Your brother’s—”
“Business partner,” she finished.
“Right.”
“So, Kane,” she said, sidling along the shed she was backed against. Unless he missed his guess, there was another door in and she was going for it. “Why’d Jace send you when he could have sent any one of my brothers?”
“You’ve hit the FBI’s most wanted list.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“The Feds are watching your entire family. Since you and I are barely acquaintances, I’m not on their radar.”
“Yet.”
“Yet,” he agreed as she shimmied to the corner of the shed, pivoted and took off.
He snagged her pack, yanking her backward with enough force to throw her off balance. “I thought we were done sparring, Arden.”
“You need to leave.” She spun around.
“Not without you.”
“Let me make this perfectly clear: I’m not going anywhere with you. Make this easy on yourself. Go back to Maryland. And tell my brothers that I’m fine.”
“Jace told me to bring you to Grayson—you can deal with the FBI together.”
“Jace is going to be very disappointed.” She crossed her arms over her chest.
Actually, she crossed them over her bulging stomach. He frowned, eyeing the mound under her coat. It wiggled.
“Carrying a passenger?”
“My cat.”
“Might have been a good idea to leave him home. Microchips can make it difficult to drop completely off the grid.”
“I’m aware of that,” she said.
“Yet you brought him to the vet anyway,” he pointed out.
“I was worried,” she said defensively, her left hand reaching up to cradle the mound under her jacket. “Though it really was an unfortunate turn of events that the Lubec Veterinary Clinic uses microchip scanners.”
“I guess that depends on your point of view.” For Kane, it was just the break he’d been waiting for.
She stepped past him, acting like she was going to go ahead and do what she’d been trying to since he’d arrived—leave.
“I hope you’re not thinking that you’re going anywhere without me.”
“I’m not thinking it. I’m doing it.”
After nearly six days without a lead, he’d arrived in this snowy ocean-side town under no delusion that getting her home would be simple. She knew how to hide, and she knew how to fight. According to Jace, she also had a tendency to be dogmatic in her approach to things and often unwilling to compromise.
“I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. I’m bringing you home, so we’re going to have to stick together from here on out.”
“Sorry, that doesn’t work for me. I prefer solitude to company,” she said, tugging open the door to the shed.
He pushed it shut again. “I prefer cooperation to animosity, but we don’t always get what we want.”
“You’re in my personal space,” she responded, ignoring his comment. “How about you get out of it?”
He stepped closer, tired of the wordplay and anxious to get her away from the property. “Now you’re in mine.”
“Personal space is the variable and subjective distance at which one person feels comfortable talking to another. If you want to speak with me, you need to back away.”
He almost cracked a smile. Almost.
She wasn’t looking for a chat. She was looking for an escape route. He could see it in her eyes. Her body language.
She was Jace’s sister through and through. If the black hair and blue eyes weren’t a dead giveaway, the stubborn set of her jaw certainly was.
“Let’s take the FBI out of the picture for a minute. What are you running from?” he asked, his right hand still holding the shed door closed. His arm just above her shoulder blocked escape from her left.
“Trouble,” she replied, glancing to her right as if calculating the likelihood of dodging out of his reach.
“Better to face it with a support system than alone.”
“I can’t involve anyone else. It’s too dangerous.”
“You can explain that to your brother when you see him.”
“Returning to Maryland isn’t an option.”
Kane shook his head. “From where I stand, it’s the only option.”
“Well, if you’d just back up about a foot and take a few steps to your left, my preferred option will become a little clearer to you.”
He could have laughed if he’d let himself. Jace had said his sister was brilliant. He hadn’t mentioned her sense of humor.
“Sorry. That’s not going to happen. I promised Jace that I’d find you and bring you home.”
“You should never make a promise you can’t keep.” Her back against the door, she slowly edged her way toward the right corner of the shed.
He grabbed her left arm just below the elbow, and stopped her in her tracks. “We’re wasting time,” he said. “I found you—it’s safe to assume someone else will, too. If you don’t want to tell me why you’re running, maybe you can tell me who you’re running from.”
“I’m running from so many people, it would almost be easier to tell you who isn’t after me.” She tucked a few strands of hair under her hat, her gaze shifting from him to a point beyond his shoulder.
“Go ahead.”
“And leave? I was thinking about it, but it’s hard to do with you holding onto my arm.”
“Go ahead and list the people who aren’t after you.”
She sighed, tried to yank her wrist away. “Look, I know you’re trying to do what Jace wants, but I can handle this alone. I won’t drag him, Grayson or even you into this.”
“We’re already in it,” he pointed out, and she frowned.
“You don’t have to be. You can walk away and let me go back to what I was doing.”
He was tempted to do just that.
He didn’t have time for games. After twelve years of active duty, he’d left the army in August and spent the last three months getting his and Jace’s fledgling business off the ground.
Shadow Wolves Security, named after their Army unit, was finally up and running. It had taken a lot of work. With Jace’s tour not up for another four months, the bulk of it had fallen on Kane. He’d spent countless unpaid hours making certain things were ready. He’d even managed to land their first contracts, set to start in less than a month.
With that under his belt, he’d planned to leave the business in the hands of his other business partner and Chief Operations Officer, Silas Blackwater, and take a long, relaxing weekend. Jace’s phone call had changed his plans. When he’d asked Kane to help Grayson locate their sister, Kane couldn’t refuse.
Yeah. He might be tempted to walk away and let Arden deal with her problem alone, but he wouldn’t do it. He owed Jace a lot. More than he could ever repay.
“Let’s go.” He still had his hand around her wrist, and he started walking, dragging her along beside him, not caring that she was yanking against his hold.
“You don’t understand the ramifications of me going back,” she muttered, digging in her heels and putting all her weight into trying to stop their forward momentum. There wasn’t a whole lot of weight to her, so it barely slowed Kane down.
“Explain it to me then.”
“The people who are after me are dangerous and they’ve got deep pockets. They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. They don’t care who they hurt in the process.”
“Grayson can work with the FBI to clear your name and protect you.”
“I trust Grayson, but I can’t ask him to put his career on the line and take my side against the FBI. Besides, there’s no way to be sure they don’t have someone in the FBI on their payroll.”
“Who, exactly, are these people, and what do they want from you?”
“That information is need-to-know.” She tucked another loose strand of hair beneath her hat. A nervous tic? he wondered.
“I need to know.”
“You are an intermediary. You only need to know that I’m not returning home. Not yet. Tell my brothers—”
A loud chirp interrupted her words. Two more followed in rapid succession.
He didn’t ask what it was.
He knew.
She’d set up a perimeter alarm and it was going off.
“What quadrant?” he asked as she pulled a cell phone from her coat pocket.
“West. Looks like the same way you arrived. You’d better go—”
The phone chirped again.
“Sounds like they have an army coming for you.” He sprinted back to the shed, pulling her along with him. She’d been trying to get inside since he’d arrived.
Now, she seemed determined not to enter.
She tried to twist away, but his fingers easily locked around her slender wrist. He dragged her into the shed, easing the door closed and sealing them inside. It smelled like sawdust and gas fumes.
“You have a vehicle in here?” he asked, keeping his grip on her wrist tight. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he wasn’t going to let her leave. Not on her own.
“That would be a likely scenario, since I’ve been trying to get in here since you arrived,” she grumbled, jerking away and moving toward the center of the shed.
“How about you show it to me so we can get moving?” he demanded, his gaze shifting to a lone window that looked out over the beach. It was too dark to see much, but a light bounced along the shore. He doubted it was a beachcomber looking for treasures.
“It’s under the tarp,” she responded, motioning to the center of the room.
“Then let’s go.” He crowded in beside her, blocking her path to the door. She had her reasons for continuing to run. He had his reasons for bringing her home. They could hash all that out, come up with a plan that would work for both of them. Later.
After they escaped whomever it was she was running from.