Ready. Lucy Monroe

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READY

      READY

      LUCY MONROE

      KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

      http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

      For my sister Diane. You are such a special part of my life and I love you very much.

      And with special thanks to my friend David Counard, a former Army Ranger, who patiently answered hours worth of questions for me. Thank you!

      Contents

      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 1

      Lise was used to running into walls, but falling into traffic was another matter altogether.

      So, in the split second before her hands connected with cold concrete in an attempt to break her fall, she knew she had not imagined the hard shove between her shoulder blades that sent her sprawling forward. No more than the squeal of tires from braking cars, or a woman’s shrill scream behind her.

      She shoved herself up from the pavement to her knees, but her body kept going as someone yanked her back to the curb. She landed against a wall of bodies.

      “You need to be more careful,” came a burly, deep voice.

      A woman dressed head to toe in Seahawks green and blue said, “You’ve got to watch yourself after a game—the sidewalks are crowded and so are the streets.”

      Lise forced her lungs to suck in the frigid November air and wheezed out, “Somebody pushed me.”

      She almost fell off the curb again, trying to turn around to see the people behind her. “Somebody pushed me,” she repeated, her voice high-pitched. “Did any of you see who did it?”

      “What are you talking about?” This from an older man, his expression disbelieving.

      “I didn’t see anything,” a woman in a red parka said.

      An older black woman patted Lise’s shoulder. “I think you’re mistaken.”

      “She’s probably disoriented,” the woman’s companion said to her.

      The voices went on, a cacophony of sound in Lise’s head, but one thing came through clearly.

      No one had seen him.

      Again.

      The light turned and pedestrians surged onto the street around her.

      Shaking with reaction, she stayed where she was, but watched the mass of people pass by. No malevolent stares were directed toward her, no undue attention focused on the woman who had almost gotten hit by a car. Nothing that might indicate who he was, the man who had shoved her off the curb.

      Or had it been a man? She didn’t even know that much, and the not knowing was the most terrifying thing of all.

      She had no clue where to look for her enemy, or how to recognize him. However, she’d thought she was safe here in cold and rainy Seattle, thousands of miles from the small Texas town of her birth.

      She’d been wrong.

      Lise stared at the anonymous e-mail, her stomach churning.

      It was the third one in as many days. Combined with the nuisance calls and the blood-red rose she’d found lying on the driver’s seat of her locked car, it was enough to make her sick with fear.

      Ms. Barton, I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving vacation in Canyon Rock. The flight from Portland will be crowded. They always are on big travel days like that, but family should always spend the holidays together. I’m sure your brother, sister-in-law, and new niece, Genevieve, miss you. That pretty little baby will grow up before you know it, not knowing her aunt. Are you sure moving so far away was a good idea?

      The e-mail wasn’t completely anonymous. It had been signed. Nemesis. Not the stalker’s real name, Lise was sure. She was a writer. She knew who Nemesis was—the goddess of vengeance. Although the longer she was stalked, the more convinced she became that her stalker was a man.

      Not a goddess, but a devil.

      She shivered in her desk chair, chilled to the very marrow of her bones. She’d already turned the heat up, but she knew it wouldn’t help.

      This cold came from the inside.

      Why had Nemesis mentioned Genevieve? It wasn’t the first time he had brought up her family, but it was the first time he’d mentioned one of them by name.

      Was this e-mail some sort of threat against her baby niece?

      All thoughts of going home for the holidays crashed and burned in the face of her stalker’s certain knowledge of her travel plans. There would be no sneaking out of Seattle and driving three hours south to fly out of PDX. Not if her stalker would just be waiting for her at the other end of her journey, ready to do who-knew-what to her family.

      Joshua stopped in front of the door to Lise’s apartment.

      He had not planned to fly into SeaTac before going to Texas, but he’d had no choice. His baby sister’s emotional well-being depended on him talking some sense into Lise Barton.

      Bella was a wreck because Lise had called to cancel her visit for Thanksgiving. His sister believed she was the reason her new sister-in-law had moved to Seattle and refused to come home for the holidays. Bella had spouted some baloney about being afraid she’d displaced the other woman since she married Lise’s brother, Jake.

      According to his sister, Lise had said she had a cold that she didn’t want to expose the baby to. That had sounded reasonable, but then Bella told him that Lise had said she wouldn’t be able to make Christmas, either, because of an unexpected deadline.

      Bella was sure the excuses were phony. She said that Lise planned her deadlines a year in advance. He didn’t know about that, but the sexy but shy author of kick-butt women’s fiction would not put work ahead of an important family event. That much he knew. He was still reeling inside from the shock of her moving across the country from them. She was too attached to Jake, Bella, and the baby for the move to make any sense.

      When Bella had let slip that Lise had cancelled her arrival after discovering he was going to be at the ranch for the holidays, he’d known what the real problem was. Lise didn’t want to see him again.

      He was here to fix that.

      He knocked, glad to see she at least had a peephole in her door. Her so-called secure building had been so easy to get into, he was embarrassed for the agency that installed the security measures and the guard at the front desk in the lobby.

      A crash came from inside the apartment. Then silence. He knocked again, louder this time.

      Again there was no response.

      He called out her name, but absolutely no sound came from the apartment.

      Had she fallen and hurt herself? She wasn’t always