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In darkness she had been attractive. In light she was stunning. Her flawless peaches-and-cream skin was perfection. Lush curves and long, shapely legs made him remember exactly how it had felt to hold her close against him. Enormous, thickly lashed, luminous blue eyes gazed at him with a disturbing sharpness.
Her thick, lustrous brown braid didn’t look as if a hair of it had been ruffled; he knew he looked as though he had survived a dogfight. He had the beginnings of bruises, his shirtsleeve was torn and he was bleeding from various and multiple scratches.
He realized he was staring at her. She was looking just as intently at him, which surprised him. But then everything about her amazed him, including her swift resistance and his getting tossed onto his backside.
“They don’t know you survived,” she repeated, her gaze going over him intently, a furrow wrinkling her forehead.
“For a long time no one knew otherwise,” he said, still scrutinizing her. Standing only a few feet away from her, he could detect her enticing perfume.
“When will Mike get home?” Colin persisted, trying to pull information out of her and wondering why Mike would tell the baby-sitter about him or his days in service, much less about the gift of his old rifle to Zach.
“Tomorrow,” she answered, and Colin swore under his breath.
“You’re bleeding,” she said. “We were going to do something about your cuts.” She led him down the hall into a large yellow-and-white bathroom with chairs, potted plants and a sunken, black-marble tub with gold fixtures. Motioning him to a chair, she opened a cabinet to retrieve small bandages, ointment and gauze. As she did, his gaze roamed freely over her. She took his breath. The thick braid was dark brown and he could imagine her hair hanging free.
She walked back to him and as their gazes met, he could feel the tension snap between them. Startled, emotions tore at him. He hadn’t felt this electricity with a woman in years. Not since—Abruptly he yanked his memories from the past. He didn’t want to feel anything now. He couldn’t afford to.
“If you’ll turn around, I’ll clean the cut on the back of your neck for you.”
He stood. “I’ll shower and wash all these cuts, then you can help me with the ones on the back of my neck.”
“I didn’t know you were a friend,” she said, studying him as if he had dropped from another planet.
“That’s all right. You just defended yourself and did a damn fine job of it.”
She nodded and left, closing the door behind her. He let out a breath and wiped his sweaty brow because she sent his temperature soaring.
Feeling stings all over his neck, hands and face from scratches she had inflicted, he showered, relishing the hot water pouring over him. If she didn’t teach martial arts, she could. Someone had taught her well and she must practice. Her reactions had been as quick as his, if not quicker. He had surprised her when she’d stepped into the hall, but she had caught him off guard when she’d fought back. He had to give her credit, she had handled the unexpected confrontation better than he had.
Colin dried and dressed again in the same clothes. He opened the door to call to her and paused, realizing he didn’t know what to call her. She’d been waiting in the hall and as soon as he opened the door, she sauntered toward him, entering the large, steamy room.
He moved to sit in the chair to let her put antiseptic on the scratches on the back of his neck. “I don’t know your name.”
“Yes, you do,” she said.
Startled, he stared at her. While her blue eyes twinkled, she smiled at him, which was pure delight. He almost wanted to smile in return. Puzzled, he said, “You said you’re not Savannah Remington. Do I know you?”
“Yes. If you’re really Colin, you do.”
“I wouldn’t have forgotten you,” he said, the words out before he thought.
In the depths of her eyes desire flickered and the silence between them dragged out as their gazes locked and sparks danced between them. She was beautiful, mysterious and unpredictable, and he was certain he had never met her before in his life.
He rubbed his head. There were blanks—times when memory had failed him—but she couldn’t have been any part of that period in his life. If she had, she wouldn’t want to tell him about it now. Not with a smile.
As the silence lengthened, his gaze lowered to her full, red lips and he wondered what it would be like to kiss her. He shocked himself. She caused him to long for things he hadn’t wanted in aeons. He moved closer to her, his gaze traveling over her features while he searched his memory.
She was far too beautiful for him to have forgotten her. Perplexed, he shook his head. “I can’t possibly know you.”
She laughed, a merry sound that wound warm tendrils around his stone-cold heart. “Remember an afternoon when you and Boone were on leave and went to the state fair?”
Dimly he recalled the incident. They’d had to take Boone’s kid sister and a little brother along. He stared at her. “There’s no damn way—”
“Yes, there is,” she replied, amused. “I’m Isabella. And don’t you dare call me Izzie.”
“You can’t be little Izzie,” he said, remembering a skinny kid who was all arms and legs and big eyes with braces on her teeth. “You’re Isabella Devlin,” he said, suddenly feeling as if someone had punched him in the middle.
He hadn’t seen Mike or Boone or Jonah for years. Isabella, Boone’s little sister, had been part of that earlier life of his. Other than his parents and brother, this was his first contact with his past since that explosion in that faraway land. Five years—an eternity in which his life had changed totally.
Emotions that he thought were as dead as he was supposed to be and often felt, surfaced, catching him off guard and tightening in his chest.
“Isabella,” he said in amazement, grasping her shoulder. “Those guys are like family. In some ways closer than my family because of what we did together…” His voice faded as his fingers clutched her shoulder. “Isabella,” he repeated in amazement.
Impulsively she reached out, wrapped her arms around him and held him.
Colin embraced her, inhaling her perfume, feeling a tie to his past with his best friends. Emotions tore at him; hurt for losses, relief to be with someone he could trust. Isabella—little Izzie—part of the Devlin family. He realized how tightly he was holding her and released her, stepping back.
She smiled and gestured for him to sit in the chair. “You don’t look the same, either.”
“No, I guess I don’t,” he said, his back to her. “I’ve had a lot of reconstructive surgery to put me back together. Damnation, you’re Izz—Isabella. No wonder you were a handful. Boone taught you how to protect yourself, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did. And sometimes we still practice. I work out.”
“You’re baby-sitting Mike’s baby?”
“His regular nanny was ill, and Mike and Savannah had a trip planned, so I said I’d stay,” Isabella explained as she dabbed antiseptic on his scratches and put gauze and bandages over the deepest cuts. “Sorry, Colin,” she said when she knew his cuts stung from the medication.
“That’s okay.”
“There. I’m done,” she said briskly, putting gauze and antiseptic away. “We can go sit somewhere and you can tell me what’s going on. Would you like something to drink? Or to eat?”
“Oh, yeah. I can’t remember when I last ate,” he said, falling into step beside her. Her head only came to his shoulder. “For someone so small and dainty, you pack quite a wallop.”
“Thank you. I tried.”
He laughed wryly. “Evidently, I need practice.”
“You were very old-fashioned and gallant. You could have hit me at any time and ended the battle.”
He smiled at her and was caught again as an electrical current stirred every nerve in his body, a reaction he didn’t want in the first place and sure as hell didn’t want now that he knew who she was. “It’s hard to equate you with Boone’s kid sister,” he said in a husky voice.
“I grew up,” she said, her voice breathless, making his pulse skip. Their gazes were still locked and they had stopped walking and were simply standing, staring at each other.
“If you’d given me the rest of the year, I never would’ve guessed who you are.”
“I haven’t changed that much,” she answered, looking up at him with crystal-blue eyes that mesmerized and held him.
“Yes, you have.” He sighed. “I know I have, too. At least they fixed me up where I don’t scare little kids.”
“No, you’d never scare children.”
Silence ensued, a taut stretch in which his heart hammered and he felt himself come alive in ways he’d thought were impossible. “We were headed somewhere,” he reminded her.
Taking a deep breath, she turned, but not before he saw her cheeks flush. “The kitchen. It’s at the end of the hall here on the main floor.”
“Do you live with Boone instead of in Kansas?” he asked.
“The family home is gone. Mom died four years ago, and we’re all scattered now. I’ve lived in California, but Boone talked me into moving back here. I’m living in his guest house on his ranch while my house is built in Stallion Pass.”
“I heard the guys all inherited from that fella we rescued—Frates.”
“That’s right. You would have been in the inheritance, but they thought you were dead.”
“I was.”
When she looked at him sharply, he shrugged. “I might as well have been dead. For a long time I was near death. I had surgery after surgery, but they finally patched me up. It’s a long story.”
“Go ahead and tell me,” she said. “I’m interested and I know Boone will be.”
Colin couldn’t resist and caught her braid in his hand. “Isabella. I just can’t believe it’s you. Are you married?”
“No. There’s no man in my life. And you’re changing the subject.”
His gaze drifted over her features. “Must be your choice, then.”
“You were telling me about what happened to you. You said you had operations.”
“Yeah,” he said as they entered the kitchen. He paused, taking in the oak cabinets, earth-colored ceramic flooring, burnt-orange-tiled countertops and copper pans hanging from a pot rack above a tiled island.
“Sit down. I’ll get you something. What would you like to drink? Mike has everything—beer, milk, tea, coffee, soda.”
“I’ll get a beer and if you have sandwich fixings, that’ll do.”
“You can have a sandwich or what I had tonight—prime rib, baked potato—which will take no time in the microwave oven.”
“You twisted my arm,” he said, his mouth watering over the thought of prime rib. “I’ve been on the run and haven’t been visiting four-star restaurants. I haven’t eaten anything since about five this morning.” As he started toward the refrigerator, she walked toward the pantry and they brushed against each other.
Colin reached out to steady her and this time the tension that streaked between them sizzled. Inhaling, he turned away, clamping his jaw tightly closed as he yanked open the refrigerator door, took out a cold beer and uncapped it.
“You won’t join me?” he asked, pulling out a chair at the long, oak table. Watching Isabella bustle around the kitchen, he looked at her long, bare legs again, still surprised at the changes in her. Izzie.
“No, as I said, I ate earlier,” she said. “But I’ll have a glass of iced tea with you.”
She opened a cabinet and stood on tiptoe to try to reach a glass pitcher on a high shelf. When she did, her T-shirt pulled tightly across her full breasts and Colin inhaled, his temperature rising another notch. He stood and crossed the room, reaching up to get the pitcher and hand it to her, his fingers brushing hers when he did so.
Again something flickered in the depths of her eyes. He knew she felt that sparkling electricity, too.
He clenched his teeth and turned away. He didn’t want to feel sparks if she were a total stranger much less someone he had known for years. Years and another lifetime ago.
He sat and ran his fingers along the cold beer bottle, then raised it to hold against his hot temple. He tried to keep his gaze anywhere except on her.
Giving him a speculative look, she said, “I don’t suppose you’re checked into the Stallion Pass Grand.”
He shook his head. “I’ll get out of here. Stop worrying.”
“Where will you go?”
He thought about what he would do next. “I wanted to see your brother and Jonah while I’m here, but I want to see Mike first. I don’t have to, I just wanted to. We go back a long way.”
“You can stay here,” she said.
“After what I put you through, I figured you’d want me gone.”
“I know Mike and Jonah. You four guys were really close. They’d want you to stay,” she said, getting ice and pouring tea for herself. Having washed a potato and put it in the microwave oven for him, she put a thick piece of prime meat in the oven. “I don’t mind you being here.”
“Thanks. I’ll take you up on that offer. It’ll be paradise after where I’ve been.”
In minutes she had the prime rib, a steaming potato with butter and grated cheese ready for him, along with generous slices of French bread. She sat across from him.
“You said you were concerned about being followed. How likely is it that you were?”
“Not likely,” he answered. Then dug into his dinner with relish.
“I’ve got someone after me who wants me dead,” Colin explained, picking his words carefully. “If he had been following me that closely, I wouldn’t be here talking to you. He wouldn’t have waited until I got here. I’ve been damn careful—which you may not believe since you almost pulverized me.”
She smiled and shook her head. “I said before, I know that you could have stopped me. You just didn’t want to hit a woman. It sounds like you’re involved in some serious stuff, right up to your chin. Are you bringing trouble to my brother and Mike and Jonah?” she asked bluntly.
“That’s the last thing I want to do, which is why I went to so much trouble to keep my tracks covered and to slip into this house and contact Mike at night when no one else would see me. I don’t want to increase the danger to any of them.”
“’Increase the danger,’ she repeated with arched eyebrows. “So why did you come then? Why do you want to see them?” she asked with curiosity.
He knew she was worried about her brother. “I need to warn Mike, Jonah and Boone. I know I’m in danger. I think the three of them might be in danger, too.”
Chapter 2
“Why would they be in danger?” Isabella demanded, chilled enough to rub her arms. Colin’s smoke-colored eyes were as cold as marble. None of her brother’s and his Special Forces friends were prone to exaggeration and she might not have seen Colin in years, but she doubted the man would be here without a good reason.
“All of them have been out of the military, away from that life, for a long time now,” she commented while Colin ate his dinner. “They have their lives and have been in the spotlight with this inheritance. Their lives are open and if anyone wanted to find them, it would be an easy thing.”
“It’s something that goes back to the explosion when everyone thought I’d been killed.” Putting down his fork, he gazed beyond her, a distant look coming to his eyes as if he had forgotten her existence or even where he was. “I died then in many ways,” he said so quietly that she had to lean closer to hear him; she was certain he had forgotten her presence.
“For a long time, I didn’t want to live.” With each word his voice grew more harsh, increasing the coldness surrounding her. “I still don’t care if I live or not, but I’m concerned about my friends. I don’t want anything to happen to them.”
As he talked, she studied his rugged yet appealing features. She had seen all the scars on his chest and back, but he was lean and muscular and looked incredibly fit. She was responding to him physically in a way she shouldn’t be. For all she knew, the man was married. Yet he certainly was sexy, dressed in black from head to toe. Dangerous and tough. There was no denying what those smoke-colored eyes could do to her pulse….
“That last mission I was on was covert. The four of us were to rescue an agent who had been taken hostage by a criminal terrorist.”
She remained silent. Boone never talked about his missions, especially that one, and she had only a sketchy knowledge of what had happened five years ago.
