Susan Mallery: Living On The Edge

Without meaning to, she touched her left cheek, fingering the scar there. He grabbed her hand and pulled it away.

“The scar doesn’t matter,” he said.

In that moment she believed him.

Quiet settled between them. She found herself getting lost in his dark eyes, searching them for emotions and secrets. Tanner cared. It took a while to uncover the feelings, but they were there.

She suddenly realized he still held her hand. Somehow his fingers were tangled in hers and it felt…right.

Why was she attracted to Tanner? Was it the situation—a victim wildly grateful to her rescuer? Was it that everything was so raw between them, so there wasn’t time or energy for games? Was it the man himself?

Did it matter?

Living on the Edge

Susan Mallery

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SUSAN MALLERY

is the bestselling and award-winning author of over fifty books for Harlequin and Silhouette Books. She makes her home in the Los Angeles area with her handsome prince of a husband and her two adorable-but-not-bright cats. Feel free to contact her via her Web site at www.susanmallery.com.

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

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Given the choice, Tanner Keane preferred darkness to light, and tonight was no exception. It had taken him forty-eight hours to find the woman and her kidnappers, but he’d waited another thirty-six before going to rescue her—just so he could learn about their schedule and then go in at night.

He liked the shadows, the silence, the fact that most people were asleep. Even those awake were on the low end of their energy cycle—although not his men. He made sure of that.

Tanner checked the time, then glanced back at the two-story house. After nearly two weeks of watching over the woman, the guards had grown sloppy and complacent. They patrolled the estate on a schedule now, instead of at random intervals. After so many days of quiet, they no longer expected trouble. All the better for him.

He reached for his night-vision binoculars and trained them on the second-story bedroom windows. The third one from the left had open drapes, which allowed him a view of the darkened room. A woman paced there—restless, worried, scared.

Tall and willowy, she moved with the grace of someone trained in dance…and the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Blond, beautiful and worth about five hundred million—if he counted her daddy’s share of the family’s net worth.

Oh, yeah, he knew pretty much everything about her and he wasn’t impressed. Even now, he didn’t shift his binoculars to her. She was the target, but incidental to the moment. What he really needed to know was who else was in the room with her. How many watchers had been left on duty?

There were a total of five assigned to her—usually working in shifts of two. Except at night. From midnight until seven, there was only one woman keeping watch.

He scanned the room and saw the guard sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. From the tilt of her head, he would guess she’d fallen asleep.

Sloppy, he thought. If she worked for him, she would be fired. But she didn’t, and her bad habits were his gain.

He turned his attention back to the prisoner. Madison Hilliard crossed to the French doors and opened them. After glancing over her shoulder to make sure her keeper continued to doze, she stepped out into the cool California night and walked to the railing.

Her life had taken a turn for the unpleasant, Tanner thought without sympathy. Two weeks ago she’d been living in her rich-woman world and now she was held captive, threatened and never left alone. That was enough to ruin anyone’s day.

“Red Two, go,” a voice murmured into Tanner’s earpiece.

Tanner tapped the tiny device by way of a response. He was the operative closest to the mansion. Until it was time, he wouldn’t be doing any talking.

Madison lingered by the railing. Tanner tucked his binoculars in his backpack. There was no point in looking at her—he’d spent the past four days studying everything about her. He knew her age, her marital status, distinguishing marks, where she liked to shop and how very little she did with her day. She might be worth enough to keep a man in style, but she wasn’t his type. Not her pedigree, not her life, not her body. Rich women tended to be high maintenance, and Tanner liked his women easy…very easy.

He checked his watch again. Nearly time. He tapped once on his earpiece, then reached for his gun.

The modified pistol in his hand shot strong, incredibly fast sedatives. They incapacitated in less than five seconds. He preferred something a little faster, but this operation required more finesse than usual, and he couldn’t risk the potentially fatal reaction to a quicker-acting chemical. The client had insisted on no dead bodies.

Pity, Tanner thought as he began to creep toward the glass doors on the side of the house. He didn’t have much sympathy or patience for kidnappers. The outrageous ransom—twenty million dollars worth of unmarked bills in multiple foreign denominations—had annoyed him. He hated when criminals watched too much TV and took their ideas from bad spy movies. To his mind they should either act like pros or stay out of the game.

He reached the glass doors and waited. In less than three minutes, two things occurred simultaneously. Brody, their alarm maestro, tapped the “all clear” signal on his earpiece. A quick double click told Tanner that the system was down. Brody was good enough to keep the cameras moving back and forth while all the red lights continued blinking just as they should. The only difference was the alarm wouldn’t go off.

The second thing that happened was a guard strolled by, right on time.

Dumb-ass, Tanner thought as he spun silently, popped the guy full of sedative and held him immobile for five seconds. He dropped the dead weight not too gently onto the patio and rolled him out of sight next to the planter. There wasn’t any sound.

He touched his earpiece twice. Three more individual clicks followed.

“Red Two, go,” a soft voice came again.

Angel, Tanner’s best sniper, sat up high in a tree, out of range of the action. He kept an eye on everything happening. Only an idiot walked into hell without an angel watching for trouble.

Tanner moved to the locked glass doors and removed a small container from his utility belt. One minute later, the custom acid mixture turned the locking mechanism to mush and he was in. He pulled on night-vision goggles, double-clicked his earpiece to tell the team he’d completed the next phase of the operation and headed for the stairs.

At the top of the landing he encountered and immobilized another guard. But he didn’t head to the door midway down the hallway. Not until he’d heard three more individual clicks, followed by a soft “Red Two, go.”

Still clear.

Tanner emptied his mind of everything unessential. The floor plan of the suite had been etched into his brain. When last he’d seen Madison, she’d been on the balcony. Given her few freedoms in the past couple of weeks, he doubted she would have moved. Her guard would still be sleeping on the job. One shot would take care of her. With a little luck, she wouldn’t know what hit her.

He turned the container he still held and shot the second blast of acid from the back end. A slow count to sixty, then he eased the door open.