Flirting with Disaster. Victoria Dahl

girlfriend. It was a man, taller than she was, snow dusting his short, dark hair and drifting in on the breeze as she frowned.

      “Sorry to disturb you, Ms....?”

      Really? He was going to start this off by asking for her name? “Yes?” she responded, tempted to close the door on his face and march right back to her studio. Whatever he was selling, she didn’t want it.

      His gaze sharpened a bit, but his chin dipped in acknowledgment, and he reached into the pocket of the nondescript navy blue parka he wore. “I’m Deputy US Marshal Tom Duncan.”

      Her hand tightened on the doorknob, and something went wrong with her ears. His lips kept moving, but she couldn’t hear the words. Then he paused, watching her as if waiting for a response.

      Isabelle cleared her throat, hoping the noise would force her ears back into working condition. “I’m sorry,” she said with more calm than she could believe. “I wasn’t paying attention. Who are you?”

      His brow tightened with irritation. “I’m Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan.”

      “I got that part,” she bit out, her veins too flooded with fight-or-flight to keep her voice even now.

      “I’m in the neighborhood as part of a protection detail, and—”

      “This isn’t a neighborhood,” she interrupted, angry that he couldn’t come up with a better excuse. Did he think she was an idiot?

      “All right,” he said carefully, his jaw clenching around the words. She’d made him mad. Good. She hoped he was cold, too. Because he was ruining more than her day. He was ruining something much larger than that.

      He tried again. “I’m in the immediate area with a protection team, and I wanted to make contact with each of the residents. First—”

      “What immediate area?” She glanced pointedly toward the one other house on her road, knowing damn well that Jill didn’t need the sort of protection a US marshal provided. This was ridiculous. Why was he even pretending?

      “Ma’am,” he snapped, the word crisp with impatience. “We’re on Judge Anthony Chandler’s property. I understand that he may not live on your road, but his residence is only a half mile through those trees. I’m informing you and all of your neighbors in case you see anyone from the marshal service near your property or on the road. If you see anyone you don’t recognize, please give me a call.”

      He held out a card, and Isabelle glanced at it. She didn’t take it. “You want me to call you.”

      “Yes. If it’s one of my people, I’ll confirm that. However, if it’s not one of my people, then it could be the fugitive who’s threatened Judge Chandler’s life.” He held up a creased photo of an unremarkable-looking white man in his forties.

      Isabelle finally took the card and examined it as she spoke. “Someone threatened Judge Chandler, so I should expect a team of marshals hanging around my property. That’s what you’re telling me?”

      “Yes.” His gaze drifted past her shoulder, looking into her house. “Are you the only one living here at this time?”

      “That’s not your concern.”

      His eyes snapped back to her. “It’s very important for your safety and for ours that we be aware of any unusual activity. Trespassers, items missing from your home or property, even trash you might find on a trail. Have you seen anything unusual?”

      Isabelle gave him a flat look. “Just you.”

      His jaw tightened again. It was a nice jaw. A nice face altogether, lean and angled and just starting to show his age around his eyes. Too bad he was a liar.

      “The man who threatened the judge is a survivalist, the brother of Ephraim Stevenson, whose trial begins on Monday. I’m advising you to be aware. And please notify any other residents of your home to do the same.”

      She held his gaze for a long moment, trying to give nothing away while still conveying that she knew this story was bullshit. That he wasn’t fooling her. That she wasn’t scared.

      But she was.

      “Sure, Marshal,” she finally said, forcing a patently pleasant smile. “I’m happy to cooperate with any reasonable law-enforcement requests. But I’d appreciate it if you stayed off my property. If I need your help, I’ll let you know.”

      She stepped back and closed the door. Hard. The defiance dropped from her shoulders. She covered her eyes with one shaking hand. For a moment, there was silence outside. Then she heard the crunch of his boots on her snowy porch steps. Isabelle leaned her back against the door and slowly slid down until she hit the floor.

      They’d found her.

      The ax had always been hanging over her, waiting to drop. In this day and age, you could never truly disappear. Not for good. But she’d tried.

      For a girl like her, it hadn’t been easy. She’d been sheltered. Twenty-two years old, but still a child in important ways. Always taken care of, always protected.

      Still, she’d managed to hide for fourteen years. She’d moved several times, assumed a new identity, built a successful career. But they’d found her.

      So why hadn’t Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan arrested her immediately?

      Surprised to find her eyes were blurry with tears, Isabelle wiped the wetness from her face and pushed up to her feet. She slipped over to the front window and carefully peeked outside.

      The only sign of him was the set of footprints that led up to her porch and the set leading back down to her drive. There wasn’t quite enough fresh snow that she could track his prints down her driveway, but he hadn’t sneaked off into the deep snow at the side of her house. He was gone. Which didn’t make sense.

      She wasn’t a dangerous criminal. She hadn’t even been a criminal at all until she’d purchased fake IDs and changed her identity. If he’d come here to arrest her for that, he would’ve just arrested her. He didn’t need to retreat to assemble a backup team or call SWAT. A set of handcuffs would’ve done the trick. Even one of those plastic zip ties would’ve incapacitated her.

      So they weren’t here to make a simple arrest. There was only one explanation. Her father must be back in the country, and they assumed he’d be in contact with Isabelle. They were going to watch and wait.

      “Asshole,” she muttered as she closed the curtains and locked her door. She hadn’t bothered with that kind of thing in years. She’d finally felt safe from the world up here in the mountains outside Jackson, Wyoming. What the hell was she going to do now?

      She stood in her entry for a moment with no clue what her next move was. She couldn’t run again. She didn’t want to. This was her life. Her real life. The world she’d chosen for herself.

      She wouldn’t run.

      Fuzzy with shock, she headed back to her studio, feeling like a toy that was slowly winding down.

      Did that guy really think she’d fall for such a flimsy story? She’d been around cops all her life. A protection detail was a protection detail; they didn’t canvass neighborhoods asking who you were hiding in your house.

      Her head buzzed with the noise of a thousand memories as she stopped before her easel and took up the brush. She held it poised above the line she’d painted earlier, but the color wasn’t alive anymore. It wasn’t good. She looked at the photos again, trying to absorb the life captured there, but when she looked back to the canvas, her mind gave her nothing. Nothing except Chicago and her parents and her old home and friends and Patrick.

      She set the brush down and switched off the lamp. She wouldn’t be able to work this evening. And she wouldn’t be able to relax. That was the reason she’d started this new life in the first place. For peace and quiet and forgetting. And now he’d blown it up with a casually dropped bomb. Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan, asshole extraordinaire.