Double Take. Leigh Riker

calm her.

      “Relax.”

      That harsh male voice, deep and low, sent her crashing back into the nightmare. That scent he carried, so uniquely his…she’d hoped never to smell it again. A hint of outdoors, of musk, of heat. Even a frigid December in New York couldn’t protect her.

      Maybe, Cameron thought, there was no escape.

      HE SHOULD LET HER GO. Now.

      Yet he couldn’t seem to move and J.C. silently cursed himself again.

      He knew better than to come up behind a solitary woman in a dimly lit hall—especially an edgy woman like this—just as he’d known not to follow her home, or to accost her downstairs in the building lobby.

      Frankly, there didn’t seem to be an optimum place to confront her.

      Just as there would be no easy way to tell her what he’d come to say.

      In the past week everything had changed.

      J.C. kept his mouth shut. His professional training hadn’t covered these bases, no way, but he’d done enough damage, especially with James McKenzie. From the race of the pulse at Cameron’s slender wrist, he guessed she wouldn’t relax until next week. If then.

      Fresh guilt swamped him. Nothing new, but for the past year he’d devoted his every waking moment to official routine, official protocol, to one careful bureaucratic step at a time. It hadn’t helped. He didn’t sleep much and when he did, he dreamed of death and destruction and his own deadly error in that Denver alley.

      Cameron… Ven…

      Then there were the shakes, the sweats.

      No wonder he’d finally been relieved of his duties.

      Unfortunately, a medical leave of absence wouldn’t close this case.

      Now, not unlike J.C., he could see that Cameron McKenzie was no more than a breath away from hyperventilating—his fault all over again—and he couldn’t seem to let go of her hand, or to block out the feel of her so near, or even to remember who he was and how to do his job. Unofficially this time.

      Never mind business. Cameron made his head swim. Her strong yet delicate-feeling bones beneath his harder grip sent a swift rush of desire through his own body, and he had to remind himself why he had tracked her down. When he inhaled the fresh smells of shampoo and clean female skin, mixed with the faintest hint of some tempting spice—perhaps from her dinner—he felt his heart beat faster. J.C. fought the urge to lean even closer, to touch her.

      She always had that effect on him.

      That, and more.

      For an instant, J.C. felt grateful. He could almost stop obsessing about the night in the alley, about James. And his latest suspicion. He could almost believe panic wouldn’t overtake him again. He could almost hope that he affected her the same way she always got to him.

      Talk about wishful thinking.

      No wonder she hated him, J.C. thought. Certainly she wouldn’t have opened her door to him tonight. So here they were, standing in the hall of her expensive apartment building—which didn’t strike him right—and Cameron, all five feet four inches of her, with her medium-length flow of dark hair and stiffened shoulders and taut, willowy frame, appeared about to faint.

      When he gave her the latest bad news, she probably would.

      Because J.C. had been thinking. He’d gone over—obsessed over—every detail in the Destina files. And he’d altered his view. Destina hadn’t gotten his revenge—not all of it anyway—and maybe James hadn’t said his daughter’s name at the end of his life merely as a goodbye. In the past days since Destina’s release from prison, someone had been making inquiries, not about James but about the big chunk of money that remained missing twenty-five years after Destina’s trial.

      J.C. was convinced Destina had a new target.

      “Let’s go inside,” he muttered, his cheek a fraction of an inch away from the softness of her silky hair. Her skin would feel equally slick, he imagined. For an instant J.C. allowed himself to envision Cameron in his bed, her hair spread out across his pillow, his fingers tangled in its rich, warm depths. Her wide hazel eyes would look up into his and her smile would light his weary spirit just before his mouth covered hers. As the kiss deepened, his hand would drift between them to seek her perfect breast, then the nip of her narrow waist, the modest swell of her hips, and he would hear Cameron moan.

      The imaginary sound made J.C. straighten. If he didn’t step back, in the next few seconds she would realize exactly what effect she had on him.

      On the other hand, her obvious impression of him came as no surprise. She pushed back, dislodging his hand from hers on the key then whirling around. He gazed down into her hazel eyes and saw the dislike he expected. Her voice dripped with it, along with the remnants of stark fear.

      “J. C. Ransom. What the hell are you doing here?”

      EVERY TIME CAMERON saw a U.S. Marshal, it meant trouble.

      Despite that, she couldn’t help noticing that J. C. Ransom was one intriguing hunk of obviously red-blooded male.

      Her senses clanged like a five-alarm fire bell as she took him in.

      Tall, lean, broad-shouldered and sleekly muscled, he sure fit the Marshals’ service profile. His sun-streaked hair, on the other hand, didn’t. He could never blend into the background. Thick and silky, his hair always drew her gaze first, gleaming like a California surfer boy’s. But the lethal-looking gun he carried under his jacket ruined the effect. As did the hard metal badge clipped to his belt that glinted in the hall light. Just when she thought she had control of the situation, she made the mistake of gazing into his eyes.

      Oh, God.

      She shouldn’t have looked. Dark, enigmatic, almost navy blue, they wore that intense look of purpose that Cameron identified with him. The look that had always meant he’d be whisking her off to another relocation, another move away from new friends and treasured new belongings. Another escape under darkness to somewhere else, to somewhere safe. Where did he get such eyes? Were they military—or no, U.S. Department of Justice—issue?

      That blue gaze could burn a hole through titanium, but the most Ransom had ever gotten from her in return was a heartfelt glare of rebuke for destroying her security, her life, again. Carefully chosen from her repertoire of careful looks. Nobody saw anything in Cameron McKenzie that she didn’t want them to see.

      She’d learned that when she was three years old.

      Yet at twenty-eight, a woman not a child, she saw the world through newly changed lenses. Those blue eyes looked different now, not only his usual sexy as sin but…haunted. Yes, that was it. And that was new.

      “What happened to you?” was the next thing she managed to say.

      Ransom’s gaze had settled on her lips, watching her speak, watching her react to his stare with a quick dart of her tongue over her lower lip that turned his dark eyes to midnight blue.

      She hadn’t seen that look before.

      Not willing to explain her observation, or to ponder his, she busied herself opening the lock with shaking fingers, hoping to slip inside and shut the door in his face.

      Ransom was everything she hated, everything that reminded her of being afraid.

      Her ploy didn’t work. He straight-armed the steel door panel and followed her inside, so close behind her that she could feel his body heat. Had his footsteps been the ones on the street behind her?

      In the foyer Cameron whirled to face him.

      “I suppose you have some reason for scaring me half to death.”

      “Maybe you’d better sit down.”

      “I’m fine standing up.” She wasn’t on a level with him—Ransom stood just over six feet—but