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 she managed to meet his gaze squarely, hoping he wouldn’t hear the pounding of her heart. “Make it quick. I’m tired. I’d like to go to bed.”
“So would I,” he murmured.
Cameron blinked under his steady regard. He couldn’t mean that the way it sounded in that husky tone, but his eyes held hers and it wasn’t his official, government-agent gaze she saw. Those blue eyes had warmed with what Cameron recognized as desire. Her pulse pounded harder. Now there was another twist.
A dozen images of him flashed through her memory.
Maybe, until her last years in the program, she had simply repressed that hot, dark look. And before that…
“I’ve known you since I was thirteen,” she said. “I never heard you crack a dirty joke, even with your buddies. So I assume…”
“This isn’t a joke. I need to tell you something.”
His gaze had cooled and he was back to business again. The way she knew him best. And liked him least. Cameron tossed her coat over a chair in the living room—her only real furniture. She wouldn’t invite him any farther into her sanctuary. Her first home of her own. This U.S. Marshal had no right to violate her privacy here. He had no right to stun her with his masculine good looks, either. But his statement had drawn her attention.
Straightening, she turned back to him. “Well?”
“It’s about your father.”
“God. I should have known.” Cameron cast a quick glance toward the fireplace mantel—and the copper urn that held her father’s ashes. Then she sank onto the arm of the chair, her legs suddenly weak. “You’ve never minced words before. Why start now?”
“Look, I’m sorry, Cameron. I don’t know how to tell you this except to just say it.” He stepped closer to her and she tilted her head to look up at him. “You know Destina was released from federal prison last week?”
“Yes. I did read the papers.” To be honest, she’d stayed glued to CNN for days, hoping for any scrap of information, any statement from Destina that would allay the last of her fears. She’d seen a glimpse of his son at the prison gates, but only the briefest flash of the camera’s eye on Destina himself, and then later, outside his rural Connecticut compound. “There wasn’t much reported. What they didn’t tell me was why.”
“Supposedly he earned an early parole for health reasons. Compassionate release.” Scoffing at the very label, Ransom took a seat across from her on the folding chair she kept for rare guests in her sparsely furnished living room. “Nobody believes that,” he said, “but it’s the official word.”
“That means he’s ill?”
“Usually means it’s terminal.”
“My father is already dead. Destina killed him.” He’d always said he would.
Ransom lifted his eyebrows. “There’s no physical evidence, but I agree with you. Destina may have been in prison at the time, but he has a long reach. His organization employed any number of assassins when James testified against him.”
She couldn’t keep the reminder to herself. Her voice shook. “And Destina vowed revenge because my father spoke the truth.”
“That truth—if it was the whole truth—put Destina behind bars.”
She sighed. “Now he’s out. And presumably sick.”
“Either that or his lawyers are more clever than they were years ago. The assassins, too. All I know is, your father died in Denver and you’re in New York.” He hesitated, as if he had decided to keep something more to himself. “That’s why I’m here.”
Her mouth thinned with disapproval. “The U.S. Marshals to the rescue?”
“I know you don’t like that—or me—but it’s necessary. Just as you know James was in WITSEC when he died.” It was the official name for the more familiar Witness Protection program. “That made him our responsibility.”
“Looks like you did a lousy job.”
He flinched and Cameron cautioned herself to hold her temper. Ransom knew how she felt, but he was no longer her keeper. Twenty-two years in WP had been that many years too long. Now he had no jurisdiction over her.
Cameron tried to forget looking over her shoulder on the way home.
His
