Nancy Gideon - Warrior Without A Cause

He wore a black T-shirt, heated by the filtered sun and by the skin beneath it. He smelled of the woods, fresh laundry soap and some deeply masculine aftershave. For a time she was oddly content to ride the comforting rise and fall of his breaths. He held her carefully, as if he feared she might break, or as if he was afraid too tight an embrace would serve to frighten her more. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt safe and protected.

Here was a man she wouldn’t have thought had any soft edges, soothing her hair and quieting her hitching sobs.

Her hands opened, spreading wide and not coming close to encompassing the breadth of his shoulder. Soft edges? Hardly. He might well have been hewn of warm granite under the snug pull of cotton.

Her thumbs shifted, tracing the swell of muscle, and in one breath, her sob dissolved into something suspiciously like a sigh….

www.millsandboon.co.uk

attributes her output of over twenty-six novels to a background in journalism and to the discipline of writing with two grade school-aged boys in the house. She begins her day at 5:00 a.m., when the rest of the family is still sleeping. While the writing pace is often hectic, this Southwestern Michigan author enjoys working on diverse projects. She’s vice president of her local Romance Writers of America chapter and a member of a number of other groups. And somehow she always finds the time to stay active in her son’s Cub Scout pack. Fans may know her under the pseudonyms Dana Ransom and Lauren Giddings.

For Laurie Kuna, Dana Nussio, Connie Smith, Loralee Lillibridge and Victoria Schab, critique group extraordinaire.

Your friendship and support mean everything!

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Glass.

Shards glittered like scattered gems upon the hardwood floor as dim light from the hallway shifted across them. Closing her apartment door behind her, a puzzled Tessa D’Angelo reached for the wall switch. When the impotent click yielded no welcome home glow, she put it together. Exasperation made a bleak addition to her already heavy mood.

“Tinker, doggone it. I’m going to line a pair of gloves with you.”

Taking a cautious step into the darkness, she heard crunching beneath the low heels of her sedate black pumps. She bent to assess the damage, half hoping for the best but discovering the worst. The heirloom lamp meant to light the way into her apartment with its warm rainbow glow lay on its side, the Tiffany shade in pieces atop the littering of her mail.

Sighing wearily, she pictured the scenario: Tinker, her battle-scarred rescue cat, jumping up onto the table by the door as he heard her come down the hall, eager to greet her as he did each evening. She could envision the hefty feline losing his declawed footing on the forgotten bills Tessa had stacked there awaiting a trip to the mailbox. Tinker’s scrambling leap had sent the lamp crashing to the floor. What a fitting end to her melancholy day. She closed her eyes against the sudden swell of anguish. A dark apartment with only a stray cat to miss her. Her treasured link to family in pieces just like her well planned future.

Tears that had crowded for release all afternoon burned against the backs of her eyes. For a moment she let her shoulders hunch beneath the weight of her grief as a tremor shook them. It wasn’t about the lamp or the dreams now denied her. She’d just buried her father and she’d never heard him say he loved her.

A deafening silence filled her apartment. The same stillness had followed the thud of that first clod of dirt atop her father’s coffin.

In that void of sound, in the part of her mind not shut down by loss, she acknowledged the stir of seemingly trivial questions. Why hadn’t she heard the lamp fall as she approached her door? Why wasn’t a recalcitrant Tinker here to weave through her legs in a purring demand for attention and supper.

Odd…

From the back rooms of her apartment, she heard a soft scuffling. Probably Tinker scooting under the bed in hopes of escaping her wrath. Tessa dragged in a cleansing breath. Life goes on. So she’d been told by the faceless mourners who’d squeezed her hand in sympathy even as they feasted on the tease of scandal surrounding the day’s solemn circumstances. Hypocrites in friends’ clothing. But they were right. Time to carry on with what still needed to be done. And the first thing was to clean up the mess on her floor. She righted the lamp and reached to check the bulb. It was gone.

Not broken. Gone.

She frowned over the puzzle, then understanding clicked on like that proverbial missing light bulb.

Someone had removed it.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tessa caught a flash of movement, too large to be the approach of her forgiveness-seeking cat. She raised her head, noting the sight of creased trousers before her world exploded in pain.

She hit the floor hard, registering only darkness and a paralyzing swell of panic. The tinny taste of blood filled her mouth as she cried out, hoping to touch some chord of mercy in her unseen assailant.

“Take whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me.”

Fingers fisted cruelly in her hair, twisting to wring a whimper from her.

And then she heard that voice.

“You should have thought of that before you started poking around where you don’t belong. You won’t like what you find. Stop now or your pretty momma will be crying over you, too.”

He cracked her head against the hardwood to punctuate his point. Blackness welled but didn’t take her completely under. Not then.

Not until much later.

“I hear you’re the man to see if you want someone killed.”

That’s how she introduced herself on the phone. It took him by surprise and not much did anymore. He didn’t like surprises.

Ordinarily, Jack would have ended the conversation right then with a dial tone, but there was something in her voice. A soft tug of reluctant vulnerability beneath the tough fabric of her words. It made him pause when he should have relied on self-preserving instinct. A dangerous error in judgment.

But there was something about her voice.

Instead of severing the connection, he leaned back in his age-worn leather chair and shifted his feet to his cleared desktop. Maybe it was an unexpected empty calendar that had him willing to waste a few minutes baiting his uninvited caller. He only visited this shabby little office in the city about once a month to collect bills and to check the answering machine. He kept it for a mailing address and the air of permanence as a business entity. After the first thirty minutes surrounded by traffic and chaotic noise, he was always ready to head back to the proverbial hills. That she’d managed to catch him during that slim window of opportunity was reason enough to give her a few more minutes of his time. His curiosity peaked. He wanted to know how she’d found him and why she’d begun with that eye-popping statement.

“I’m flattered,” he drawled, reaching out of habit to switch on the small recorder that would preserve their dialogue. “And just where did you hear that?”