Not to mention, he’d needed a distraction from the dream that’d had him waking up covered in sweat and throbbing with need.
For shit’s sake, it’s been three years! When are you going to forget her? It was four measly days and one little kiss.
Except, it hadn’t been one little kiss, had it?
It was cliché, but he would swear the instant his lips touched hers, a piece of himself he hadn’t known was missing locked into place. Just click.
It’d felt as if he’d…come home.
Which was ridiculous since he didn’t have a home. Had never had one.
The dozens of crappy apartments his DNA suppliers had moved into and then been promptly kicked out of hadn’t counted—he never thought of Bert and Susan Jackson as his parents; that title was reserved for people who actually protected and provided for their offspring. And the ten different foster families he’d been shuffled through after CPS intervened? None of those could carry the mantle of home either. At best they’d been temporary shelters where he’d gotten in out of the rain. At worst they’d been prisons manned by cruel adults whose sole incentive was to cash the government checks that’d come their way with each new kid they took in.
So what the hell was the matter with him? Why did he continue to dream two…three times a week of Grace Beacham and that kiss? Why, after all this time, did he continue to hold out hope she’d call him?
“Be sure to wake me up before you come downstairs in the morning,” Sam said, and Hunter determinedly pushed all thoughts of Grace aside.
“Why?” He frowned.
“’Cause I wanna have time to pop some popcorn before the show.”
“What show?”
“The one where Becky rips you two or three new assholes.”
Hunter and Sam had grown up less than a hundred miles apart. But you’d never know it to hear them talk. Hunter had the quintessential Michigander accent, his vowels flat and his consonants staccato. But Sam? Sam’s accent was pure Chicago Southsider.
Instead of two or three, when Sam said them, the words came out sounding like two or tree.
“Pfft.” Hunter waved him off and then pointed to the chromed-out engine sitting on a nearby workbench.
He’d never been much of a motorcycle guy before coming to work for BKI. Now he couldn’t get enough of the machines. When he wasn’t on assignment or snugged away in his hidey hole, he could be found in the shop wielding a grinder or paint sprayer.
Maybe if things had been different, maybe if he’d been given a chance to decide what to do with his life instead of being forced to accept the only ticket out of town, he might’ve become a mechanic. A man who fixed things instead of destroying them.
“Help me lift this thing over the bike’s rails so I don’t scuff up the paint,” he told Sam.
“Oh, no.” Sam backed away. “My asshole is fine the way it is, thank you very much. And I’d prefer to keep it down to just the one.”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “Becky is a hair over five feet and barely weighs a buck-ten. Don’t tell me Sam the Supergun is afraid of her.”
“What she lacks in physical presence she makes up for with a razor-sharp tongue. Besides, getting on her bad side is the shortest route to getting on Boss’s bad side. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve gone three and a half years without seeing that guy get angry. I’d like to keep it that way.”
Boss, AKA Frank Knight, was Becky’s husband. The retired Navy SEAL had been the original head honcho at BKI, but now his job title was CEO of the civilian side of their operation. He was part mentor, part benevolent landlord, and all dad all the time to his two little girls. But he had a habit of spinning a fixed-blade KA-BAR knife atop his desk when he was deep in thought that made Hunter think Sam was right. There was a scary side to Boss they didn’t want to meet.
“Fine.” He marched over to the workbench. “I’ll do it myself.”
“It’s your funeral,” Sam warned.
Before Hunter could wrap his arms around the heavy engine, his phone buzzed in his back pocket.
“It’s two o’clock in the morning.” Sam checked the time on his watch. “That’s one thing and one thing only. Booty call.”
Hunter wasn’t what anyone would label a monk. Recently, however, he’d been whittling down the list of lovely ladies who occasionally phoned up to ask if he wanted company.
When he’d been in his twenties, having no strings attached and a willing woman in every port had been a dream come true. But he’d just celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday, and meaningless sex with partners who were simply passing through, or who couldn’t be bothered to ask him more than his name, had lost its appeal. The hit-it-and-quit-it of it all had grown routine. Dull. Hollow.
He wanted more. He wanted…
What?
What was he looking for?
If he searched for the answer, he knew he’d find it. And he knew he wouldn’t like it. So he pulled his cell from his back pocket and told himself he’d say yes to whichever woman was inviting him over. Told himself that the antidote to his boredom, and the best way to get over all his uncomfortable musings about what was missing in his life, was to get under a beautiful woman who wasn’t asking him for anything more than a night of pleasure.
Except…he didn’t recognize the number on his screen.
“Area code 202.” He frowned at Sam. “That’s D.C.”
Sam nodded. “Which of your current paramours lives in the capitol?”
“Not a single one.”
“Wrong number then?” Sam asked.
“Probably so.” Hunter went to hit the button on the side of his phone. But at the last second, he hesitated. He didn’t believe in the woo-woo magical alchemy of premonition or precognition, but something told him he should answer.
Something told him it was important.
Thumbing on the device, he held it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Hunter?”
He nearly shit his own heart. He would never forget the sound of her sultry voice, so sweet and smooth and hinting at her raising in the South. Whenever she spoke, he was reminded of tupelo honey.
“Grace?” By contrast, his voice came out strangled-sounding.
“I’m in trouble, Hunter. I need your help.”
3
Starke County, Indiana
The flutter of unseen wings matched the beat of Grace’s heart.
Having grown up in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains, she was used to the sound of animals scurrying through the underbrush. Familiar with the deafening buzz of night insects calling for their mates. Accustomed to the cries of nocturnal creatures that’d been caught in the jaws of carnivorous beasts.
None of it had frightened her before.
Then again, she had never been the prey before.
She was the prey now.
The denizens of the forest grew quiet when the one who hunted her passed by. The warm wind shifted, and she caught a faint whiff of tobacco smoke. And there! She could just make out a dark shadow snaking around the trunks of the trees.
She was out of places to run.
And this was the only place she’d found to hide.