Havoc by Shannon McKenna
7
Mace drove her up Kettle Canyon Road, past the roadblocks and up to the overgrown logging road where she had left her car that morning. Then, in spite of her protests, he insisted on accompanying her back to her motel.
Mace got out of his Wrangler in front of the Mountainview, and regarded it with a critical eye. “This place?” he said. “Really?”
“It’s fine,” Cait said. “Thank you for everything. And goodnight.”
“Let me walk you to your room door, at least.”
“No, I do not need to be walked to my door,” she said.
“Goddamn it, how do I make you understand? You’re in danger.” Mace’s voice lost that lazy drawl, taking on the stone-hard quality she remembered from the cave.
“I didn’t want to say this to your face, but no woman just tells a guy she just met what hotel room she’s staying in,” Cait said. “It’s just not done.”
Mace eyed the outdoor staircase, the open atrium, and shook his head. “This place isn’t safe for a woman alone. Certainly not one who caught Redd Kimball’s attention today. Any low-life with bad intentions could walk in unobserved. Get your things and check yourself out of this dump, and I’ll take you to the Overlake. It costs more, but it has nice rooms, and a great breakfast, and I’ll be happy to pay the difference.”
“Not your problem,” Cait said. “Not your business, either. No offense.”
“Cait,” he said softly. “Please. I’m not going to bother you. I swear to God.”
“Is this is the part where you tell me to call Chief Bristol to vouch for you again?”
His eyes sharpened. “Not a bad idea. He’d back me up about the choice of hotels, too. And I know right where he is, conveniently enough. Demi makes prime rib tonight, so the chief and his wife Angela are at the café. At this hour, he’s finishing up his dessert, and calling for a decaf espresso. Let’s go there right now and settle this.”
“I was joking, Mace,” Cait said, through her teeth.
“I wasn’t,” he replied. “Let’s do it.”
“Tomorrow is soon enough for that. Go home, Mace. You’re pushing too hard, and it’s making me tense.”
Mace lifted his hands and backed up. “I’ll be good. So. Breakfast, at Demi’s?”
“Seven AM,” she said. “I’m buying.”
“Wow. Early,” he commented.
“We have lots to talk about,” she told him. “Goodnight.”
At the top of the outdoor staircase, her willpower gave out. She turned to check. He was still there. Still watching her. Smoldering at her.
She shouldn’t get swoony about it. He was one of those guys who were seductive all the time, as naturally as breathing. With the notable exception of that moment in the cave, of course. Where he’d been one hundred percent ice-cold, murderous business.
But now, he was giving her that hot, piercing look that made her intensely conscious of her body. All bundled up in bulky sportswear, puffed out with fleece and pockets, zippers and snaps. And yet, he was looking at her like she was decked out in sexy lingerie, striking a hot pose. Come on over here, big boy. Take me hard.
Wow. That fleeting, inappropriate thought gave her the shivery tingles.
Don’t think it. She knew nothing about this guy, except for his crazy tale that might or might not be true. And if what he said was true—and that was a big if—her info could be relevant to his agenda. So maybe that was what all this smoldering was about.
Maybe he wouldn’t steal her info outright. Maybe he wouldn’t bash her over the head for it. But he’d certainly be willing to fuck it out of her…and make her love every last minute of it. She had to keep her head on straight, and her legs tightly closed.
Funny, to be thinking in these terms. Not her usual internal lecture. Her friends gave her shit about how picky she was about men. Her lovers were few and far between, and her affairs fizzled out quickly. Her lovers’ complaint was always the same. That they felt pushed aside. Second tier.
Yeah. That was because they were.
But she would just bet that nobody would ever push Mace Trask to second-tier. That guy wouldn’t let himself be shoved into the background. He made his presence felt.
She dropped her bag and flopped down on the bed, breathless.
It was a long time since she’d hooked up with a guy, and the last attempt had crashed and burned. Though, in her own defense, that had been right when the situation with Mom had gone sharply downhill. And Reynald had started complaining about how she was distracted. Unavailable. Distant.
Um, yeah. Her mother had been forgetting her way home from the grocery store, where she had forgotten to pay for the items she bought. It was distracting news.
It had been a long time since Cait had the extra mental space to consider anyone else’s tender feelings. She’d sworn off men after the Reynald debacle. It appeared to be a full-time job to keep a guy’s self-image properly inflated, and she’d lost all taste for the job. Certainly she couldn’t manage it while she was dealing with Mom’s problems.
The last two years had ground her down. So hard, so sad. So this bright, effervescent feeling was…well, new. Interesting. And dangerous.
She stripped off her mud-stained clothing. The Mountainview might not be luxurious or even particularly secure, but damn, did it have good water pressure. Hot water pounding her skin made her think about Mace Trask.
She bet that man’s self-image wouldn’t deflate so easily. He was as solid as a big rock. Which was just how he’d felt in the cave. Enormous. Insanely strong. Implacable.
Details a wise woman would do well to remember.
After dinner with him, she wasn’t afraid of him anymore, though she probably should be. He’d turned on the charm, and she’d lapped it right up like a kitten with cream.
Good food, good beer. Candles and flowers. Puh-leeze. She was too easy.
She found a water glass, not high enough for the iris stems, but if she leaned them against the wall, they didn’t tumble over. They were so beautiful. Flower show-worthy irises, frilly and deep, with glinting touches of velvety gold. Mysterious, fragrant depths.
Cait pulled on her sleep clothes. Threadbare athletic pants, a loose burgundy fleece sleep shirt that hung down to mid-thigh. She stripped off the sweaty, industrial-strength sports bra. Boobs on the loose, flying wild and free. Ah, the sweet relief.
She tossed the covers back, drank a glass of water, and stretched out on the bed. Tired, but nowhere near sleepy, so she opened her phone, and looked up Mace Trask’s company, Trask Executive Solutions. It looked legit. Impressive, even. Nice picture of him on the masthead. She did the same for the Hellbound nightclubs, and then to Erebus, Inc. Those Trasks were hard-core over-achievers, every one.
After that, she dug around for info about what had happened up at GodsAcre thirteen years ago. There were a lot of articles about it. Even a couple of books had been written. Sensational true-crime stuff. The books had the taste of superficial bullshit.
She finally put the phone down, but kept staring at the ceiling, her stress hormones jacked up sky high. Buzzing with what felt like…well. Hope, maybe?
For so long, she’d been all alone in her desperate need to know what had happened to Dad. It had been a lonesome journey, knowing that finding the truth was in no one else’s interest but her own.
Suddenly, Mace Trask was holding out the lure of a partnership. He and his brothers needed answers, too. To slightly different questions, maybe, but even so. He struck her as a guy with a lot of energy and resources to tap. And she needed them.
But she couldn’t let herself get too hopeful. Nothing came for free. Also, there was that deadly danger he kept harping about. If she wanted to work with Mace Trask, she’d have to buy into the whole ‘Kimball, the villainous monster’ thing. She wasn’t quite sure she was ready to do that. It seemed so extreme. Outlandish, even.
Then there was the issue that he was so sexy, he made her stammer and sweat.
No matter what happened, there was going to be pain. The truth about Dad was going to break her heart. That was a given. But she’d gotten this far. She had to push on.
Hours crawled by. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Mace Trask’s intense bright gray eyes. The scarring on his enormous hands. Not a thing that could be faked.
She’d call Chief Bristol tomorrow, before she met Mace. She was taking this slowly. Doing her due diligence. The Trasks’ agenda could run over her own like an armored tank.
Then she saw it. A shadow, passing by the narrow strip of space between the blackout drapes that shielded the window from the walkway outside. Another shadow stopped right there, blocking the light. As if someone were trying to peer inside her room.
The shadow moved on. Another one passed. Three shadows.
She stared at the second window on the other side of the door, waiting for the three shadows to flash past, as they would if they were just hotel guests walking past her room.
They didn’t. They were lingering. Right outside her door.
Terror surged through her. The horror stories Mace had told. Monsters thirsting for her blood. She kept her eyes on that strip of light between the curtains of the second window, wondering if there was any way she could have missed them going by.
Nope. Panic launched her from the bed. She darted around, searching for something, anything to use as a weapon. A trolley, a pillow? Her purse, for fuck’s sake?
The lamp. It was hard, heavy. Thank God, this wasn’t one of those chain hotels where the lamps were all bolted to the wall. She wrenched the cord loose, and held it by the neck, swinging the weighted base back and forth as she crept nearer to the door, and to the side. She heard faint whispering, and then—
Crash,the door flew open and dark figures darted in. A shriek ripped out of her throat as she swung the lamp—
Crack.It hit one on the back of the head, knocking him forward with a grunt.
He jolted to his knees, but she couldn’t wind up fast enough to take a swing at the next guy before he landed on top of her. The world spun, and oof. On her back, breath knocked out…but this guy was very different from Mace Trask.
This guy had no problem hitting her, none at all.