Cassie Miles - Indestructible

Indestructible

Cassie Miles

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Cover

Title Page Indestructible Cassie Miles www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author About the Author Though born in Chicago and raised in L.A., CASSIE MILES has lived in Colorado long enough to be considered a semi-native. The first home she owned was a log cabin in the mountains overlooking Elk Creek with a thirty-mile commute to her work at the Denver Post . After raising two daughters and cooking tons of macaroni and cheese for her family, Cassie is trying to be more adventurous in her culinary efforts. Ceviche, anyone? She’s discovered that almost anything tastes better with wine. A lot of wine. When she’s not plotting Intrigue books, Cassie likes to hang out at the Denver Botanical Gardens near her high-rise home.

Dedication To the brilliant, imaginative Melissa Jeglinski. And, as always, to Rick …

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Copyright

Though born in Chicago and raised in L.A., CASSIE MILEShas lived in Colorado long enough to be considered a semi-native. The first home she owned was a log cabin in the mountains overlooking Elk Creek with a thirty-mile commute to her work at the Denver Post .

After raising two daughters and cooking tons of macaroni and cheese for her family, Cassie is trying to be more adventurous in her culinary efforts. Ceviche, anyone? She’s discovered that almost anything tastes better with wine. A lot of wine. When she’s not plotting Intrigue books, Cassie likes to hang out at the Denver Botanical Gardens near her high-rise home.

To the brilliant, imaginative Melissa Jeglinski.

And, as always, to Rick …

For as long as he could remember, Drew Kincaid knew he was different. Some people called him crazy. Some said he was the luckiest man on the planet. And there were those who wanted to lock him up and throw away the key.

Since the day he turned eighteen, he’d been on the run from a faceless, nameless enemy. Today, ten years later, his luck might have run out.

Before dawn, he slipped through the back door of the rustic, seaside hotel outside Naples, Italy. Making his way toward the south end of town, he hid in the shadows on narrow streets. Light shone through some of the windows; the fishermen awakened early.

Behind a stucco house with a painted orange door, he found the bicycle he’d stashed yesterday. He would have preferred an Italian, carbon-frame racing bike like the ones used for the Giro d’Italia, but this three-speed was serviceable. It would do.

His tires hummed on the cobblestone road. As he rode toward the edge of town, he heard the pitched barking of a dog, the cries of gulls, the slamming of a car door. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw no one on the road behind him.

Within a half hour, he was in open countryside, climbing a steep, curving road that led to the cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean. He pedaled hard, sweating under his thermal windbreaker. His backpack held only the essentials: a change of clothes, bottled water and his laptop. He kept his flash drive, passport and cell phone in his pockets.

His stories for this assignment had already been filed electronically with World Sport Magazine, the New York–based publication that financed this three-week trip to Europe to cover the extreme skiing competition in the Alps and the bicycle marathons in Spain and Italy—an incredible range of sports, considering that it was only March.

Drew wasn’t employed by World Sport. Though he remained doggedly freelance, he sure as hell wasn’t opposed to taking an assignment like this one. An expenses-paid trip to Europe? An insider’s pass to interview elite athletes? A chance to try his hand at extreme skiing? Oh, yeah, he loved his work.

A week ago in Verbier—a ski resort in the Swiss Alps—he noticed that he was being followed. In spite of his evasive maneuvers, they’d been coming closer. Drew needed to get back to Sioux Falls. When he came face-to-face with these guys, he wanted home field advantage.

The problem was getting out of Europe in one piece. He arranged to meet up with a Cessna pilot in Sorrento. From there, they’d fly to Rome, where Drew would make his connections back to the States.

At a high point on the Amalfi cliffs, he pulled onto the shoulder. This seemed like a good place for cell phone reception, and he wanted to check with his pilot. Standing beside a cypress tree at the edge of a forty-foot precipice, he looked down at the sea. White froth roiled and rushed against the jagged rocks below him. In the opposite direction, the sun was rising over Mount Vesuvius.

There was a text message from Melinda Winston.

As soon as he saw her name, he grinned. Though Drew never had a place he considered home, being with Melinda gave him a warm, cozy, comfortable feeling. He liked almost everything about her—from the way her auburn curls fell softly past her shoulders to the slender curve of her waist to her delicate ankles and pink toes. She was always quick to laugh at his jokes, and he never had the sense that she was playing games or trying to manipulate him. There was nothing phony about her. A librarian, she was a solid, Midwestern woman with solid, Midwestern values. Except when they made love. He’d been lucky to find her, living in the apartment directly under his.

Her text said, “Home on Wed? Dinner at my place?”

His first impulse was to call her back so he could hear her voice, but the time difference meant it would be the middle of the night where she was. He texted: “I’m there. Six p.m.”

He almost added the word love, but it wouldn’t be right. As soon as he returned to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, he needed to move. Now that his enemies knew his identity, they’d be coming after him. His dinner with Melinda might be the last time he saw her. Regret tugged at his heart. If his life hadn’t been so damned crazy, there might have been a chance for something more between them.

He called the pilot and verified that he’d be there within half an hour.

Back on the bike, he rode steadily on the cliff-side road. Thoughts of Melinda occupied his mind. He’d bought her a present while he was in Switzerland—a souvenir to remember him by when he left her.

He heard the engine of a car behind him, turned his head to look. A black sedan. Coming right at him. He veered off the road. The car followed.

Nowhere to go. They were too close. This bike wasn’t made for off-road maneuvers.

The car aimed directly at him. Abandoning the bike, he ran through the shrubs and grasses that separated him from the brink of the steep, white cliff.