Ready. Lucy Monroe

scream.

      “Lise, I told you that you would never be free of me.” The digitized voice tormented her with its certainty, with its inhuman inflection.

      “No,” she moaned, forcing the word out.

      “You will never get away.”

      She shook her head, her mouth opening in agonized denial, and this time she managed to shout. “No!”

      “I will always find you.” The words beat at her as relentlessly as Nemesis himself. “No one can protect you from me. No one wants to. Joshua will leave you. They will all leave.”

      She covered her ears with her hands and cried, “No,” over and over again.

      “Lise, wake up, honey.” A different voice. Tender, caring, human.

      She turned toward it and a single shaft of light penetrated the darkness, illuminating a tanned masculine hand. “Come on, honey…”

      She reached out for the hand, but she couldn’t touch it, no matter how hard she tried. She whimpered in frustration as connection remained just out of reach.

      Then suddenly her hand was engulfed in the strong, warm fingers. He started pulling her toward the light, toward safety, toward…

      “Joshua?” She hovered between consciousness and her nightmare.

      “It’s me. Are you awake?”

      Her eyes opened to the shadowy darkness of the room, so different from the dense blackness in her dream. The sensation of Joshua holding her hand woke her completely.

      “Are you okay, Lise?”

      “Yes,” she croaked out past a dry throat. “It was just a dream.”

      “More like a nightmare.”

      “Yes.”

      He got up and tried to pull his hand away, but she could not let go. She wasn’t a clinger, and since the end of her marriage two years ago, she’d done her best to avoid any semblance of relying on a man, even Jake. But she did not want to be left alone with the aftermath of her dream.

      He stopped tugging on his hand and turned it over to squeeze her fingers instead. “You sound hoarse. I’m going to get you a drink.”

      She didn’t want water, she wanted comfort. His presence. However, she let him gently disengage their fingers. He was only gone a few seconds, but it felt like a lifetime as she lay in the bed, trembling from the mental remnants of her nightmare.

      “Sit up so you can drink this.”

      She pushed herself up, surprised at how difficult it was. Her arms felt like they’d turned to Jell-O. He reached out with one hand and helped her, then sat down beside her on the bed, keeping the arm around her.

      She put a trembling hand out for the glass of water. “Thank you.”

      He helped her drink it, their fingers brushing together as they both held the glass tipped to her lips. He coaxed her to drink almost the entire glass before he set it on the nightstand between the beds.

      Her head rested against his chest. He was wearing a t-shirt, but the heat of his body radiated through it. “Were you dreaming about him?”

      Joshua had not turned on any lights and the darkness felt intimate, not frightening like the pitch black in her dream.

      But intimacy was another kind of scary, and she forced herself to push out of the comforting strength of his arms. “Yes.”

      “You said before that you had nightmares. Do you have them every night?”

      “No.” Just most nights.

      “Lise, you aren’t alone anymore.” He stood up. “I’m not going to let him hurt you or anyone you care about.”

      She desperately wanted to believe him, but to rely on another person so completely was scarier than being stalked. No matter how good he was at his job, he was still a man and men could betray you. Even good men.

      Joshua’s hand halted midair above Lise’s shoulder. She looked like a fairy all curled up under the covers, her porcelain features relaxed completely in sleep. She hadn’t had another nightmare last night and he’d been glad. If he’d been forced to get out of bed again, he would have crawled into hers.

      He wanted her.

      And the feeling would not go away

      He’d spent months trying to forget the taste of her lips, the feel of her resilient flesh under his fingers.

      He had not succeeded despite the fact that she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested in pursuing a sexual relationship with him. He’d been sure his wild sexual reaction to her had been the result of not enough downtime after a mission, but he’d been with her less than twenty-four hours and he was back to where he’d been the night of his niece’s christening.

      So horny he could barely walk straight.

      Only this time he had a job to do and sex and work did not mix. Not ever.

      Chapter 3

      “So, you ready to explain the real reason you moved to Seattle, Lise?” Jake’s words fell like mini-explosions into the companionable silence around the Thanksgiving table.

      Instead of looking at him, she glared at Joshua. What had he told her brother?

      Okay, he hadn’t agreed not to tell Jake, but she’d thought she’d made her feelings clear on that. She didn’t want her brother worried about her, or trying to get involved with catching her stalker.

      Joshua’s impassive expression gave nothing away. “I didn’t say anything, but I think you should.”

      “I told you I didn’t want to.” Not that her desires were going to count for squat now.

      Jake had the scent and he’d be on it like a dog on a bone.

      “He deserves to know.”

      “Didn’t want to tell me what?” Jake asked.

      She tried not to clench her teeth. “Nothing important.”

      “I’m not buying it.”

      Big surprise. Not. “Nobody asked you to buy anything,” she pointed out, even as she had to acknowledge part of her was ready for the secrecy to be over.

      “Don’t be a smart aleck.”

      Bella pushed silverware away from Genevieve’s little questing fingers and settled the baby further back on her lap. “Was it me marrying Jake? You didn’t have to move from the ranch. I didn’t mean to displace you.”

      The look of uncertainty and hurt on her sister-in-law’s face tore at Lise’s conscience.

      “My moving had nothing to do with you.” She took a deep breath and let it out, accepting that the time had definitely come for the truth. Joshua had promised to protect her family and she was going to have to trust him to do that. “I moved to Seattle because I’m being stalked and I hoped the move would get me away from my stalker.”

      “The hell you say.” Jake’s eyes burned with unmistakable concern and anger.

      “Like a fatal attraction, or something?” Bella asked, her tone incredulous.

      Before Lise could answer, Genevieve put her hands out to her daddy and Jake took the now yawning baby.

      “I don’t think Nemesis is attracted to me,” Lise said to Bella. “He wants retribution for something I’ve done.”

      “What?” Jake demanded, his voice quiet so he wouldn’t startle his baby daughter, who had snuggled into his lap and looked about half-asleep already.

      “I don’t know.”

      “How do you know he wants