Aimee Thurlo - Alpha Warrior

As Nick answered a call and walked away for privacy, she gazed at him. He was wearing a brown leather jacket, so she couldn’t see much about his upper body, except for his wide shoulders. The dark slacks he wore fit him closely and revealed the best buns in the county.

Drew sighed and tried to remember everything she’d heard about Nick Blacksheep. Word had it that getting him interested in anything more than a one-night stand was like trying to capture the wind. The only person he was close to was his brother, Travis.

Nick slipped the phone back into his jacket pocket and joined her once more. “Why were those men after you?”

“I have no idea. By the time I noticed the van, it was too late to do anything but react. They sideswiped my car, forcing me into the ditch. I got out of the car and ran, but I didn’t get far. They were dragging me back to their van when you came up. The rest you saw.” Drew swallowed hard. She’d come through it alive and unhurt, and that was the important thing. “It’s over,” she said, for her own benefit.

“I know you don’t want to think about what happened anymore, but I need to you stay focused and remember as many of the details as you can,” he said.

He was right. She took an unsteady breath. “For a minute or two I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to me. Then…” Her voice suddenly broke and she forced herself to swallow, determined not to cry. She wouldn’t fall apart, not now.

Nick came closer to her, almost touching, yet not. “You’re all right now, Drew. No one’s going to hurt you.”

He stood just inches away, and for one brief moment she became aware of everything about him. His scent was earthy and male, and called to her wordlessly, sparking her imagination and teasing her senses.

“You handled yourself well and showed a lot of courage tonight,” he said, his voice soothing, even as danger gleamed in his eyes.

“Fear gives you the ability to do things you never dreamed possible,” she said.

He nodded, understanding. “Yes, it does.” He glanced over at the ditch bank. “Now let’s go back to your car and check out the damage.”

THEY WERE BACK AT THE original scene a few minutes later and Nick parked about fifty feet away from the rear of her sedan. The right front tire, resting at the bottom of the shallow drainage ditch, was stuck in soft ground. The dome light was still on, and her passenger-side door was ajar.

They climbed out to look, standing in the dim glow of the streetlight. When it appeared that she intended on moving closer, he grabbed her arm. “Better stay on the pavement. We have to preserve evidence, like those shoe prints in the soft sand. This wasn’t an ordinary carjacking.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Your car…isn’t new,” he said after a beat. “There’s no market for it, intact or stripped for parts.”

She gave him a weak smile. “Translation—it was a rolling wreck even before I got forced into the ditch.”

As a chill wind whipped past her, she shuddered. “My coat’s on the ground near the passenger side. I slipped out of it when they first tried to grab me. Can I go get it if I watch where I step?”

“Better not. That’s evidence. If they handled it there’s no telling what they left behind for the lab techs,” he said, then took off his leather jacket and placed it over her shoulders.

“Now you’ll be cold,” she said, feeling the warmth of his jacket envelope her.

“I’m wearing a wool sweater. I’m fine.”

Sirens rose in the distance, and soon two police units pulled up, emergency lights flashing. A patrolman emerged from the nearest cruiser, and a second later a plainclothes officer with a badge clipped to his belt came out of the unmarked vehicle.

Recognizing Detective Harry Koval, Nick tried not to scowl. Koval and he had a history—and it wasn’t a good one. They’d worked as partners for about six months, right after Nick made detective, but Koval’s strictly by-the-book, compulsive methods had nearly driven Nick out of his mind. Police work wasn’t an exact science, yet Koval did everything lockstep without even a trace of insight or initiative.

“I’m Detective Koval,” Harry told Drew, then gave Nick a cold stare. “You were here when it went down, Detective, so fill me in.”

Nick stepped aside with Koval and gave him the highlights. “The only other thing I can tell you is obvious. Considering the wreck she was driving, it definitely wasn’t a carjacking.”

“Probably not,” Koval conceded, looking at the car. “She’s young and attractive, and that makes her a different kind of target. Predators are always out there. So what do you think—attempted abduction?”

“Could be. But the fact that there were two perps doesn’t fit the most common profile. Rapists usually act alone.”

As Nick watched her, he saw Drew cross her arms and press them tightly around herself, seeking warmth, or maybe comfort. Her vulnerability tugged at him and he felt a sudden surge of protectiveness he hadn’t expected.

“You still with me, Blacksheep?”

Nick focused, nodding. “Let’s go talk to the victim.”

Koval spoke first, and, after announcing that he would be investigating the incident, got right down to it. “Describe the men who came after you.”

“They were a little shorter than you are,” Drew said. “The taller was maybe five-ten, the other a few inches shorter than that. They had on dark jeans and dark blue or black sweatshirts with hoods they’d pulled over their heads. I couldn’t see their faces. It was too dark,” she said. “That’s part of what made things even scarier,” she added, in a whisper-thin voice.

“But the extra adrenalin gave you the edge you needed,” Nick said.

Koval glared at him, then continued. “Would you say the men were on the thin side, or maybe the opposite, a little chunky?”

She considered it before answering. “They weren’t over-weight, or overly skinny either. Just average, I guess.”

“Any idea why they targeted you?” Koval pressed.

She shook her head. “It must have been random. I never noticed anyone following me, and I don’t have any enemies,” she said, despite the skepticism on Koval’s face.

FOR THE NEXT TEN MINUTES, Drew gave them her version of the kidnapping attempt, and it coincided almost perfectly with what Nick had reported.

“Has anyone shown any special interest in you lately—maybe at work, or at the grocery store or in your neighborhood?” Koval asked. “Anywhere?”

Nick saw her struggle with all the raw emotions that were crashing around inside her head, and wished he could do more to help. Then he saw the flicker that swept over her features, and he knew Koval had been right to press her.

“Something odd did happen to me a few days ago. I was at the Westside Mall and a man kept following me. He didn’t try to talk to me or anything, but it got a little creepy. After a while I went to find a security guard, but when I went to point out the guy, he was gone. I figured that it had probably been some poor guy shopping with his wife and he’d just happened to be wandering in my direction. I’m not the only woman who shops for special shoes.”

Thinking she meant orthopedic wear, or something of that nature, Nick automatically glanced down. As he saw what she was wearing, he bit back a smile. They wouldn’t go under a handicap header—but, dang, it took guts to wear those. Her sneakers had bright pink polka dots and glow-in-the-dark shoelaces.

“What did the mall guy look like?” Harry asked, his focus strictly on business.

“He was around five foot seven, or maybe eight, brown hair cut short. But that’s all I remember. I never looked directly at the guy because I didn’t want to encourage him.”