Death Angel

ingrained but a move that was definitely deliberate. If she’d had any intention of running she’d have been pissed, or upset, but she was neither, because short of the house catching on fire she didn’t think she could summon the energy to run.

Twisting around, he leaned back in the chair just enough to grab the dish towel she had hanging on one of the cabinet pulls. Wrapping the pack of frozen peas in it, he put the makeshift cold pack on the table and rested his arm across it. “Did you quit your job?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, because there was no reason not to tell him. She was both alarmed and angry that he was so damned hyper-intuitive, figuring out what moves she would make before she made them. This wasn’t a game of checkers, laid out on a board with a limited number of pieces and a limited number of spaces. She could have done anything. She could have gone straight to the airport, or just started driving, and not come back here at all. But of all the things she could have done, somehow he’d known exactly what she would do, and he’d been here waiting for her.

“Maybe you can get it back.” He flicked his glance at her, a quick touch of the dark opal gaze that in an instant cataloged everything about her. “You don’t have to run. Salinas thinks you’re dead.”

Andie hugged herself again, covering her elbows with her hands and trying to retain what warmth she could. She was still icy cold, though at least her teeth had stopped chattering. “Then why did you hunt me down? Why have you been watching me?”

“I didn’t have to hunt you,” he replied coolly. “I’ve always known where you were.”

“Always?” she echoed. “But how?”

“I followed you when you were released from the hospital.”

He’d been there? All that time, he’d been there? She blinked at him, the light from the overhead fixture suddenly too bright and revealing, and made her own intuitive leap. “You’re the one who paid my hospital bill!” she charged, her tone as hostile as if she were accusing him of cutting in line at the local Wal-Mart at Christmastime.

He gave a little flip of his hand, dismissing the charge as unimportant.

“Why?” she demanded. “I could have paid it. You know I have the money.”

“I didn’t want his money paying for your care.” For all the expression or emphasis he put in the words he might have been ordering a hamburger, but that dark gaze was on her again and she felt the burning intensity of it. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, she knew only that suddenly she felt like squirming in her seat and a slow roll of heat began dispelling the chill that shook her.

“But…why? He hired you to kill me. If it hadn’t been for the wreck, you would have-I know you would have, and you know it, too!” Her voice rose on the last few words and she broke off anything else she might have said, resisting the urge to yell at him.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” His mouth set in a grim line. “I could say I never took the job, and officially I wouldn’t be lying, but I can’t say for sure what would have happened if you hadn’t had the wreck. As much as I’d like to think I wouldn’t have done it, I have to say I don’t know for certain.”

“Why didn’t you take the job?” She knew she was pushing, but she didn’t care. She was angry at him for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which was that he seemed so cool and in control when she was a mess of raw nerve endings, and she felt as if at any time she might break and run screaming down the street. “I was nothing to you. I’m still nothing to you.”

He simply watched her, his expression as unreadable as always, which made her even angrier. “How much did he offer you? Wasn’t it enough? Was that the problem?”

“Two million,” he said calmly. “The money wasn’t the issue.”

Two million! She felt the air wheeze out of her lungs. Rafael had offered the same amount she’d stolen, and he had to know he wouldn’t be able to get the money back because of the tangle of banking and tax laws and regulations, bringing his total liability to four million. She stared at the man sitting across from her and wondered how he could have not immediately accepted the job.

“Exactly what was the issue, then?” she demanded.

He stood, sighing as he pushed his chair back. Planting one hand on the table and sliding the other under her hair to cradle the back of her head, he bent and covered her mouth with his. Her mind went blank and she froze, still hugging her own arms, her head tilted back by his grip on her hair and her mouth taken, opened, and molded by the pressure of his. His tongue probed, and numbly she accepted it, welcomed it with hesitant touches of her own tongue.

He released her and sat back down. Unmoving, Andie stared fixedly at the table. In the silence she could hear the clock ticking, hear the hum of the refrigerator, the muted crash as the automatic ice maker dumped fresh cubes into the ice bin. It was ironic, but she, who had seldom been at a loss as to how to handle a man or what to say to turn any situation to her advantage, was at a total loss. She had no idea what to say, and she doubted this man had ever been handled in his entire life. She sat in helpless silence and refused to look at him.

“I guess you were wrong about the ‘nothing’ part,” he said, his tone suddenly grim.

27

ONCE SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN ECSTATIC AT THAT GRUDGING admission of some sort of feelings for her, but all she could think was, Why now? Why had he shown up now, when she finally had her decisions made and her goals set. Neither the decisions nor the goals in any way included having a man in her life, especially this man, and in fact she didn’t know if anything like that was being offered. He had simply made a statement, in more ways than one. There was no place in his life for a woman, at least not on a permanent basis, and if she ever did find a time and space for a relationship again, if she lived through what she’d decided to do, she wouldn’t settle for anything less than permanency.

She’d gone without a man for months now, and she liked the solitude, the sense of self she was gradually regaining. She wasn’t anyone’s girlfriend, or arm candy, or companion; she belonged only to herself. The time when she would have unhesitatingly gone with Simon-she had to get used to that name-was past. Between them now was death and reawakening, and the knowledge that while she was still the same basic person she had been before, her outlook had changed. The happiness and security she wanted was within herself, not something he or anyone else could give her.

Suddenly she realized that he’d been there when she died, the knowledge jolting her into abruptly snapping her head up to stare at him. She remembered seeing him, his normally impassive expression for once unguarded, and stark with…what? Something she couldn’t grasp. He’d said something, but the memory of what he’d said was lost in the much larger memory of that pure, white light, and wasn’t important anyway. What was important was that he knew what had happened to her. He knew she’d died. He’d taken her things and left her there-so why had he come back? After what he’d seen, why would he have even considered the possibility that she might have survived?

“I died,” she said flatly.

His eyebrows lifted just a little, as if he were mildly surprised by the sudden change of subject. “I know.”

“Then what made you check on me? Most dead people get buried, and that’s that. You should never have known I’m still alive.”

“I had my reasons.”

Reasons he wasn’t going to tell her, that was clear enough. Agitated, she pushed both hands into her hair, scooping it back from her face and tugging, as if the pressure on her scalp would pull her thoughts into order. The slight narrowing of his eyes told her he wanted her to drop the subject, just let it go, but she couldn’t.

“You knew I was dead. No mistake. You don’t make mistakes like that. So aren’t you even a little bit curious about how I’m sitting here right now? I know I’m a lot curious about why you’re here, if it isn’t to kill me, because I’m not buying that I was suddenly important to you. Once was enough, remember?”

“I don’t do relationships,” he replied, his tone completely unruffled. “In that context, once was enough. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t attracted. I stayed hard for four hours, remember?”

Oh, yes, she remembered, every detail and every sensation, so intense and detailed that it was like being back