Doranna Durgin - Survival Instinct

Dave leaned close to Ellen. “You’re sure a simple conversation wouldn’t do the trick?”

One man went to the front door, and another to the mudroom; both knocked. She said, “Aren’t you the trusting one?”

He muffled his short laugh. “Far from it. But I think you’ve got me beat. You’re sure nothing’s happened to you besides that car accident?”

She closed her eyes, took a sudden sharp breath…let it out slowly. “The accident was enough.”

A second thought sobered him. “Your former boyfriend hasn’t made any threats, has he?”

That drew her gaze, hard and sharp, the blue-gray a haunting shade in this dim light. He could have sworn she was going to say, “My former what?” But then she gave a short shake of her head. “Not that I know of.”

“You didn’t-” He stopped, cocked his head slightly. “Or maybe you did. Watch me when I first got here.”

“Upstairs window.” And then she held up her hand. Listen.

“I’m not sure this is the place,” one of the men said, a gravel-toned voice full of doubt. “He said she was the mousy sort. This place…someone’s working it.”

“So maybe she hires out.”

“He said she had a little money. What woman would live like this if she could afford a decent lifestyle?”

Dave didn’t even have to be touching Ellen to feel her irritation. He had the uneasy feeling she’d turn out to be right after all-this visit had everything to do with his own arrival.

The second man immediately confirmed his guess. “Who cares why she’s here? We’re supposed to find her, and we have. Too bad we didn’t beat Hunter to town, but we shouldn’t have any trouble.”

Ellen stiffened. She turned to Dave with a glare that should have cut him in half; it struck unexpectedly deep. He shook his head slightly, just enough to tell her he had no idea who they were.

Though he was getting one.

The first man gave a little snort. “No, she shouldn’t be any trouble. That was the whole point of dating her, he said.”

Ellen looked up at the porch with brows drawn, that wide mouth set in a hint of scowl. Dave leaned down, just enough to reach her ear, just enough to brush her hair. She’d been working that morning, all right; the salty scent of her skin tickled his nose just as her hair tickled his face. He murmured, “Do you know him?”

She drew back from him, gave him a look he couldn’t decipher and finally shook her head. “Can’t remember,” she said, barely voicing the words at all. Just a hint of whiskey alto on the air.

The men argued for a few moments. Ellen abruptly pushed away from the wall, moving silently through the basement. “What’re you-”

“I’ve heard enough.” She picked a few gardening hand tools off the workbench-gloves, a trowel and a clawlike cultivator. “They’ll be back if they don’t talk to me now. At least this way I get to choose the moment.”

“And you want me to just-”

“Watch my back.” She raised an eyebrow. Expressive. “You can handle that, right?”

“Yeah, and I can also go out there and ask-”

She gave a sharp shake of her head. “I want answers, not confrontation.”

He thought of how badly he needed his own answers. “I can-”

Apparently she wasn’t in the habit of letting people finish what she thought would be stupid sentences. “Look, this isn’t your choice. You may have brought these two down on me, but I’ll decide how I deal with it.”

Dave closed his eyes. He’d been in dim basements-some of them ominous, some of them stinking of the very person he’d hoped to find alive. And he’d dealt with irate witnesses. But not once had he envisioned himself lurking in a basement while the irate witness went out to play some sort of game with the questionable gentlemen who’d come to find her.

But she was right. It was her home…her choice. And maybe, just maybe, she’d get answers that they wouldn’t give him. Watch it, Hunter. Don’t put her at risk for those answers. That wasn’t how he worked. He opened his eyes to find her impatient and somehow even less like the Ellen he remembered.

“I’ll let you know if I want a hand,” she told him. Still softly, as had been all their conversation. Still very aware of the men on the porch-who now banged on the mudroom door hard enough to make their true intentions clear. Ellen told the dog to wait and then told Dave, “Just be ready.”

And with that she marched to the nearest door, leaving him with a plethora of unanswered questions, a definite sense of skewed reality, his hands wishing for the weight of the Ruger he’d left in the car. Ready for what?

To judge by the purpose in her stride, he was about to find out.

Karin paused at the basement’s side door, hefting the hand cultivator. She stuffed the worn leather gloves in her front jeans pocket and the trowel into her back pocket, and she glanced back at Dave Hunter. Assessing him.

She needed him to wait, but she also wanted the backup if things went badly. She wasn’t sure if he’d do either.

He stood in the filtered light, the posture of a man who was fit, who knew himself and knew what he could do. But she didn’t need him barging into the discussion, not when she still might chase these fellows off without too much fuss.

Not a very big chance. But still a chance.

He shifted his weight back. He’d wait, then. And in the end, he’d do what everyone did-serve their own best interests. She turned away, hesitating just long enough to swipe her fingers along the dirty windowsill and smear the dirt across her cheek, tugging a few strands of hair loose from her low ponytail.

When she walked out the door, she put on an air of distraction. A woman at work, thinking about frost dates and soil preparation and just how many zucchini would that one plant produce, anyway? She walked uphill toward the porch steps, for the moment still hidden from the men-but only for a moment. They moved heavily down those concrete porch steps; they had none of Dave Hunter’s lightness of foot.

Too much bulky muscle.

She took a deep breath. God, they were big. And though she knew how to take care of herself, she was no wonder woman. She talked and flirted her way out of trouble. And even if she’d done fine when she’d had to get physical, she’d always known Rumsey was there.

If nothing else, Rumsey had known how to protect an investment.

And there. Now they’d spotted her. They stopped at the bottom of the steps and she slipped into her role. She started, raising a hand to the base of her throat as Ellen had often done when confounded. “I didn’t know-” She pressed her lips together as Ellen might have done, too. “Can I help you?”

The two exchanged glances. At eye level, they turned out to be a Frick and Frack pairing-one swarthy, wavy black hair slicked back in…jeez, was that some updated version of a mullet? The gangster mullet. Great. The other fellow had the look of an ex-boxer, nose and ears damaged, his hair in a dull brown crew cut. It made his head look like a pasty football.

Do not underestimate the pasty football.

They made their tacit decision-yes, she was the right one-and the mullet-haired one said, “Barret wants to talk to you.”

“I’m sorry…I don’t think I know-”

The ex-boxer snorted. “He said you wouldn’t want to come.”

“Look,” she said carefully. “I was in an accident. There’s a lot I don’t remember. I don’t know who Barret is.” And dammit, she didn’t.

Although whoever Barret was, Ellen had come to his attention because of Dave Hunter.

“Doesn’t matter,” said the ex-boxer, both to his partner and to Karin. “Barret wants to talk to you. So let’s go. He said you could pack a bag.” He looked her up and down, gaze hesitating at her artful smudge of dirt and then again where the breeze caressed her exposed stomach, and his lip lifted slightly.