The Guardian's Mission

Please, God, I don’t want to die like some clueless victim in a horror film.

She stepped backward, bumping into something hard, tall.

Human.

A scream ripped from her throat, but died abruptly as a hand slammed over her mouth.

“You don’t want to do that.” The growl rumbled in her ear; a warning, a threat. “Do you?”

Martha shook her head. Anything to get his hand off her mouth and give her another chance to scream. Not that it would do any good. There was no one around to hear. The cabin was miles from civilization.

“Good. Just keep quiet, do what I say and everything will be okay.” As he spoke he moved backward, pulling her away from the door and farther into the darkness.

Don’t just let yourself be accosted. Fight!

She slammed her elbow into his stomach, but his grip didn’t loosen. “That wasn’t smart, lady.”

Maybe not, but she tried again anyway. This time slamming her foot down on his instep. He grunted, his grip loosening just enough for her to jerk from his hold. She lunged forward, yanking open the door, racing outside and slamming into a short, wiry man.

“Goin’ somewhere, darlin’?” His eyes were pale, clear green, his lips thin and tilted up in a sneer. Freckles dotted his face, but they didn’t make him look any less like a coldhearted killer. If death had a look, it was in his gaze. Martha shuddered, stepping back.

“I—”

“Nowhere without me. Right, Sunshine?” A hand dropped onto her shoulder and hard fingers urged her around to face the man who had followed her from the cabin.

Over six feet tall. Light hair. Hard features. Icy blue eyes filled with a message Martha couldn’t decipher. He seemed to want her to agree, but Martha had no intention of going anywhere with him or his friend.

“No” was on the tip of her tongue, but before she could say it, the guy behind her spoke. “She’s with you?”

“Sure is.”

“Buddy won’t like it.”

“I don’t see why he should care, but if it’s going to be a problem, maybe I’ll take my business elsewhere.” He grabbed Martha’s hand and pulled her down the porch steps, tension seeping through his palm and into hers. That only added to her anxiety and fear. Whatever was going on couldn’t be good, and the sooner she escaped, the better.

“Hey, now wait just a minute.” The smaller man hurried up beside Martha, his eyes darting from her to her captor and back again. “I didn’t say Buddy would care. I said he might not like it. But that’s your problem. My problem is getting you to the meeting place. So let’s go.”

“Ready, Sunshine?” Her captor cupped Martha’s chin, nudging her head up, gently but firmly forcing her to look into his eyes. Silvery-blue eyes that flashed with anger and something else, something softer, but just as fierce. Concern?

Martha blinked. No. That couldn’t be right.

“I said, are you ready?” There was an edge to his voice, a warning, and Marti nodded because at the moment, she didn’t have a choice. Eventually though, she would. And when she did, she’d take it.

Her gaze jumped away from his fierce intensity, landing on the thin man standing a few feet away.

He was still as stone, his empty eyes locked on Martha. Dead eyes. She wasn’t sure how she knew that. Maybe some primal instinct kicking in, warning her. Whatever the case, she was sure the guy would kill her in a heartbeat if she gave him a reason. As if he sensed her thoughts, he smiled, his thin lips twisting up into something that should have been friendly but wasn’t.

She looked away, meeting the other man’s eyes, her heart beating so fast she thought it would leap from her chest. “Where are we going?”

“For a walk. Just relax and enjoy the scenery.” He tightened his grip on her hand until it was just short of painful. He clearly didn’t plan to let her go, but Martha didn’t get the same sense of danger from him that she got from his friend.

She resisted the urge to pull away from his hold and make a run for it. After all, the key to winning a battle didn’t lie in acting quickly. It lay in weighing the enemy’s strengths, finding his weaknesses and exploiting them. Her father had told her that a hundred times, and she’d rolled her eyes just as many. Now what had seemed like useless information had value. She’d have to thank her father when she saw him again.

If she saw him again.

She shied away from the grim thought and focused her attention on the shorter of the two men. He had a cigarette pack sticking out of his pocket and was panting for breath as he hurried them toward a dirt road. Obviously out of shape, probably smoker’s lungs. Martha figured she could beat him in a footrace.

The man holding her hand was another story. Tall, well muscled, long-legged, he was not even breathing deeply let alone panting. From where Martha was standing, he didn’t seem to have any weaknesses. That could be a problem.

She stumbled over a root, rain slashing against her face and stinging her eyes as her captor’s grip loosened a fraction, his hand sliding against hers.

Forget about looking for his weakness. Run!

She didn’t consider the odds of success. As soon as she regained her footing, she yanked hard, her wet skin slipping from his grip, and ran toward the trees.

TWO

“Hey! What’s going on? Why’s she running?” Gordon Johnson’s question was one Tristan Sinclair could have answered easily—the woman was running because she’d walked into a cabin she’d thought was empty and into a man she didn’t know. She was terrified and trying to escape.

He could have answered, but he didn’t.

Instead, he raced after the woman, determined to regain control of a mission that, until five minutes ago, had seemed ordinary.

Meet Johnson at an abandoned cabin near the base of the mountain. Follow him to an undisclosed location. Bring down one of the biggest illegal weapons rings in the country.

Piece of cake. Or as close to one as any mission like this could be.

So how had things gone so wrong so fast?

Tristan scowled as he closed in on the fleeing woman.

She was fast, dodging around trees and doing her best to evade capture. Still, he managed to catch her easily, snagging the back of her pack and praying she wouldn’t start screaming. Johnson had a reputation for acting first and thinking later, and there was no doubt the gunrunner would be carrying a weapon. One bullet, that’s all it would take to spill innocent life out onto the rain-soaked earth. Tristan could only prevent that from happening if the woman cooperated. Judging from the expression in her eyes, that wasn’t going to happen.

She swung a fist in his direction, and he grabbed it, tugging her so close he could feel her body trembling with fear. He wanted to tell her it was okay, that he was one of the good guys and that he’d make sure she got out of this alive, but Johnson was jogging toward them, and Tristan had no choice but to play the part he’d been perfecting for months.

He gave her a little shake, hoping to convey the urgency of the situation. “What’s the deal with trying to run off on me, Sunshine? I thought you were over our little spat.”

“Let me go—” She jerked against his hold, and he tightened his grip, afraid he might leave a bruise, but figuring a bruise was better than a bullet.

“I guess you’re still mad. Which is too bad, because difficult women aren’t my thing. For you, though, I might make an exception.”

“You’re insane. I don’t kn—”

He pressed his lips to hers, cutting off her words in the only way he could think of that wouldn’t make Johnson suspicious. Warmth, softness, the sweet scent of chocolate. He inhaled, drinking in the scent, the sound of rain fading, his heart leaping.

Pain shot up his leg as she slammed her foot down on his instep.

Again.