No Rules(6)

She pushed herself up, then balanced on one foot while gingerly putting her right toes down, testing their ability to take her weight. It wasn’t as bad as she’d feared.

He knelt at her feet, probed her ankle again, then rose, crossing his arms. “It’s not broken,” he said, clearly an accusation. “It’s not even bleeding.”

She stared, incredulous. Brushing hair aside in order to give him the penetrating glare he deserved, she finally met his eyes. She froze as her thoughts tumbled into a void and disappeared.

Unlike when they’d met in the lawyer’s office, the circumstances were not polite and civilized. Neither was he. His hair was wild and wet, his expression annoyed, and his firm jaw shadowed with stubble. His dark gaze was piercing and intelligent and something else that made her knees weaker than they already were. He looked tough and dangerous, like someone she wouldn’t care to meet in a dark alley. That he also looked inexplicably sexy had to be due to her rattled brain.

In the distance the sound of screeching tires penetrated her mental fog, followed by the muted roar of an overworked engine. Her attacker was getting away. Donovan stepped back, his impatience reignited. “Go home.”

“Huh?” She watched in confusion as he took a few running steps, motioning at the same time toward the two workmen who were jogging toward them between the headstones. “See that she gets to her car, would you?” he called out.

The men paused, baffled, watching him run off. When the first man reached her, he took her elbow and stared at her muddy coat and legs. “Are you okay, miss?”

She didn’t bother with a scathing retort, watching instead as Donovan disappeared down the slope toward the drive where everyone had parked. Seconds later she heard the throaty roar of his motorcycle as he raced off.

“Miss? Do you need help?”

She jerked her attention back to the concerned face of the man beside her. Struggling to sound lucid, she pulled her arm away and brushed futilely at the mud smearing her coat. “I’m okay, just a little shaken.”

“Are you sure? Can you walk?”

No. She wanted desperately to collapse to her knees. But even more than that, she wanted to get out of here. “Yes, of course.” She took a couple steps to prove it and nearly fell as pain shot through her right ankle. Recovering, she tested it gingerly. Sore, probably a mild sprain, but she could manage. “I’m fine, really. But would you mind walking me to my car?”

“Sure, sure.” The men exchanged worried looks and stayed close as she began walking carefully. She was certain she could make it unaided but wasn’t at all sure the lunatic with the knife was gone for good. As much as she wanted to go home and dry off, she would need to drive to the small police station first. The police needed to know her life had been threatened, even if the attacker had most likely been some deluded psycho who’d gone off his meds. In a town this size, they’d probably know who he was and where to find him.

Then she’d get out of the godforsaken, backwoods hole that was Nipagonee Rapids, Michigan, as soon as possible.





Chapter Two

Donovan pulled his black knit cap over his ears and hunched his shoulders against the sleet. Staking out the frigid woods behind Wally’s house was the last place he wanted to be right now. That he was here was all Jessie’s fault.

There couldn’t be a better illustration of why Wally had stressed the need for someone in their line of work to avoid family ties; in two days’ time his daughter had thrown a major wrench in the works. It was easy to see the wisdom of avoiding the sort of complications Jessie’s presence had caused. If Wally hadn’t had a daughter to go after, the bad guys would have hit a dead end when they killed him.

And she hadn’t shed a tear over his death. Wally deserved better.

She’d gone back to the house. How stupid could you get? It was the first place someone would go to look for her, and she had to know the guy with the knife would be seriously looking. He aimed a resentful glare at the cottage and the rental car in the driveway. Wally’s daughter was not at all what he’d expected.

She should have been smarter and gone back to the motel where having people around might discourage an attack. She should have sought him out right away with the information Wally left with her. And damn it, she should have looked the way he’d expected her to: like Wally Shikovski in drag.

His first sight of her had taken him aback when she’d stepped off the plane at the Traverse City airport. He hadn’t seen a recent photo and Donovan had pictured Wally’s overly large nose, chubby figure, and friendly smile on a young woman’s body. He’d been wrong on every count. Jessie’s nose was as perfect and fine-boned as the rest of her, her brown eyes deeply set and shot with gold, and her shapely pink lips capable of soft smiles that knocked his concentration for a loop.