Kylie Brant - Terms Of Attraction

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover Page

Title Page Terms of Attraction Kylie Brant www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author About the Author KYLIE BRANT is a bestselling, award-winning author of twenty-five novels. When she’s not dreaming up stories of romance and suspense, she works as a teacher for learning-disabled children. Kylie invites readers to check out her website at www.kyliebrant.com for news, backlist and information about upcoming releases. She can be contacted by e-mail at kyliebrant@hotmail.com. For Keaden, my newest grandson, who already owns a piece of my heart. Acknowledgements As always, a huge thank-you to Kyle Hiller, Captain, Special Response Team, for your generous assistance. I’m awed by both your knowledge and your dedication to duty!

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

Epilogue

Copyright

KYLIE BRANTis a bestselling, award-winning author of twenty-five novels. When she’s not dreaming up stories of romance and suspense, she works as a teacher for learning-disabled children.

Kylie invites readers to check out her website at www.kyliebrant.com for news, backlist and information about upcoming releases. She can be contacted by e-mail at kyliebrant@hotmail.com.

For Keaden, my newest grandson,

who already owns a piece of my heart.

Acknowledgements

As always, a huge thank-you to Kyle Hiller, Captain, Special Response Team, for your generous assistance. I’m awed by both your knowledge and your dedication to duty!

Ava Carter lay motionless atop the gravel and tar flat roof squinting through the Nightforce scope of the Remington 700 rifle. She’d been in position for nearly four hours; under a “weapons tight” command for two. If all went according to plan, the subject would be on his way—in one piece—in less than fifteen minutes.

The rheumy late February sun labored to pierce the light cloud cover, and there was small blessing in that. Temperatures still hovered in the high sixties. And even without direct sunlight she could feel a thin trickle of perspiration snaking down her back beneath the LBV vest.

The breeze kissing her cheek seemed to have gotten a little stronger. “Check the wind meter again.”

Her spotter, Steve Banes, held up the pocket calibrator. “Six point two four miles per hour.”

Ava adjusted the dope of her rifle slightly. Steve picked up his high-powered binoculars again and spoke into the Motorola radio. “Side three, opening three. No movement.”

She reached for her own set of binoculars. Through them she could clearly see the black RV that served as the SWAT command center parked a hundred yards from the civic center. She could make out the figure of a man through one of the windows, hunched over a computer.

Her gaze passed over the RV to scan the area. She and Steve were positioned on top of a building across the road about eight hundred yards from the civic center. The building they were observing was circular, with an oddly pitched roof that was supposed to enhance the acoustics inside. Beneath the overhang were narrow windows encircling the building.

The inner perimeter seemed secure. The interested public was still inside listening to Antonio de la Reyes. But it was his detractors that were cause for concern.

From this angle she could only see a corner of the group of protesters and media vans secured behind the outer perimeter in front of the civic center. There were still a few signs waving, but a majority of the picketers had wisely decided to save their strength for when de la Reyes made his exit.

Hopefully once they figured out he wasn’t coming out the front, de la Reyes would be on his way to the airport. Out of Metro City. Out of California and back to his small South American country of San Baltes.

Good riddance.

It wasn’t his politics Ava objected to, though his eloquent arguments for opening the borders of America didn’t resonate for her. It was the target he presented. In the last week alone, as he’d traveled the country, he’d received almost a dozen death threats. Pretty unpopular for a visiting dignitary. She’d heard there was a small rebel contingent in his own country that was just as anxious to see him dead.

She was only anxious to see him gone.

“What’s he even doing here?” grumbled Banes. He was a large man, heavily muscled. His shaved head was the color of her morning double mocha latte and glistened with sweat.

“He has relatives here, I think I heard. His mother lived in Metro City until the seventies.”

Banes’s droopy dark mustache twitched in what might have been a smirk. “Like you’d remember anything about the seventies.”

“Just enough to know seventy-seven was a very good year.” Ava continued to scan the area. They’d had this conversation often enough in the past that she could participate without thinking. Banes had a good fifteen years on her, and he liked to rib her about his experience. He’d been on SWAT ten years longer than she had. He was a damn good marksman, ranking second in the Metro City PD, fourth in the state.

Ava ranked first in both.

“Have you ever been inside?”

She nodded. “Took my son to a concert there once. It’s pretty nice. All the seats have a good view of the stage.” It must have been about three years ago, when Alex was twelve, before he became afflicted with that weird teenage parental anathema. At fifteen he could barely be convinced to be seen with her at the mall.

The radio crackled. “De la Reyes has left the stage. Subject will be exiting from side three, opening one in the next two minutes.”

Ava kept the binoculars raised. De la Reyes’s white limo approached slowly and rolled to a stop by the curb. It would have been checked thoroughly before being allowed through the inner perimeter. Security inside the building would be directing the public out the front. Officers would keep the people from circling around to the back entrance. Everything was working according to plan.

She was about to lower the binoculars when something caught her eye. A glint in one of the civic center’s upper windows. In the next instant it had disappeared. “Do you see anything up there?”

Banes trained his binoculars in the area she was pointing to. “Nope.”

“Must have been the sun,” she muttered. But there was very little sunlight today. Which made it more likely she’d seen a reflection of some sort. But of what?

“Wait.” She and Banes spoke simultaneously. She went on. “You see it, too, right? What is that?”

Both of them stared for long moments through their binoculars. A chill broke out over Ava’s skin as comprehension slammed into her. “It’s a scope.”

Banes grabbed the radio. “We’ve got a reflection in side three, window seven. Looks like it could be from a rifle scope.”

“Cold Shot in position?” came the answer.

“Affirmative.”

“Weapons tight. We’ll send someone inside to check it out.”

Ava set down the binoculars and peered through the Night-force scope of her Remington. She made the minute adjustments necessary to focus on the window in question. “I see the barrel,” she reported quietly. A familiar deadly calm settled over her. “Can you get another angle and make it out?”