chill that had nothing to do with the cold outside swept through her, seeping into her bones.
Every hair on her body stood to attention.
Her heart crashed against her ribs, the motion strong enough to unbalance her and slosh hot coffee over her hand and fingers.
She winced and muttered an oath, but the slight scald did her good. It snapped her to attention.
Shoving the mug on the counter, spilling more coffee in the process, she wiped her smarting hand on her dressing gown and strode to the tall cupboard in the corner. She pulled out a wicker basket, burrowed a hand under the pile of tea towels and reached for the small, cold handgun.
The doorbell rang out a second time.
The laptop now booted and ready to use, she clicked on the icon that connected to the live feed from the four surveillance cameras covering the perimeter of her house. The screen split into quarters. Only the top right-hand frame showed anything out of the ordinary.
She didn’t recognise the small figure wrapped in the thick parka, woolly hat and matching scarf. The woman’s knees were springing slightly and she clutched a large bag to her belly, no doubt trying to keep warm in the icy conditions.
Torn between a hard-wired wariness towards strangers and feeling sorry for the freezing woman, Grace walked cautiously down the narrow hallway and drew back the heavy curtain covering the front door. The muffled shape was opaque through the frosted glass panel. Holding the gun securely behind her back with her right hand, she fumbled open the three sliding locks, unlocked the deadbolt and loosened the safety chain. Only then did she turn the lock and pull the door one and a half inches, the exact amount of slack given by the chain.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ the woman said, her teeth chattering. She raised her phone. ‘My car has broken down. Can I borrow your phone to call my husband, please? I can’t get a signal on my mobile.’
Not surprising, Grace thought. Most of the mobile networks struggled for a signal in this small Cornish village. Luckily, her landline worked fine.
She perused the stranger for longer than was polite. The woman was a good four inches shorter than Grace and, beneath the thick clothing, only a slight thing. What she could see of her face was red from the cold.
Rationally she knew this stranger could not pose a threat. Even so...
Even so, her mind raced as she thought of a whole posse of reasons as to why it was impossible to let her in to make her call and then offer the hospitality of warmth from the ever-constant cast-iron cooker in the kitchen.
Much as she knew she should slam the door in the stranger’s face and direct her to the farmhouse at the top of the drive, she could not bring herself to be so uncharitable. It would be at least another ten-minute walk for the poor thing.
‘Hold on a sec,’ she said, shutting the door. She stuffed the gun into the deep pocket of her dressing gown, a place she knew topped the list of most stupid places to hide a firearm. She had no choice but to place it there.
Stupid, paranoid mind. You’ve been hiding for too long. Can’t even open a door without expecting an ambush.
She unlocked the chain and opened the door.
‘Thank you so much,’ the woman said, stepping straight in and stamping her feet on the welcome mat to shake off the early-morning frost clinging to them. ‘I was starting to think I’d never find civilisation. The roads around here are dreadful.’
Grace forced a polite smile and shut the door behind her. The cold had already rushed into the heavily insulated house. A cold, uneasy feeling swept through her, a feeling she disregarded.
‘The phone’s right here,’ she said, indicating the landline on the small table by the front door. ‘Help yourself.’
The woman lifted the receiver and made her call, pressing a finger to her ear and speaking in a low murmur.
The conversation went on for a good few minutes. When she finished, the woman put the receiver back on the cradle and smiled at Grace. The smile didn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘Thanks for that. I’ll get out of your hair now.’
‘You’re welcome to wait here for your husband,’ Grace said, hating the thought of anyone being outside in such awful conditions.
‘No. I need to go. He won’t be long.’
‘Are you sure? It’s horrid out there.’
The woman backed up to the front door and reached for the handle. ‘I’m sure. Thank you.’ She opened the door and headed off down the driveway without so much as a goodbye.
Perplexed, Grace stared at the rapidly retreating figure for a few seconds before shutting the door and relocking it.
She shivered.
The hairs on her arms were standing to attention again.
It took a few beats before she recognised the coldness in her bones as a warning and not a pure physical reaction.
Something was off...
Standing stock-still, she strained her ears. The only noise she could detect was the thundering of her own blood careering through her at the rate of knots.
Stupid, paranoid mind.
All the same, something about the stranger’s demeanour played on her mind. As she padded back to the kitchen, all she could think about was the way the woman had rushed off...
The shock of the doorbell ringing a short while earlier was nothing compared to the floor-rooting terror of finding the tall, darkly handsome man in her kitchen, a man flanked by two gorilla-resembling goons.
‘Wait in the car for me,’ he said to them, not taking his eyes off Grace.
The goons left immediately, departing through the back door, the same door that had been locked just ten minutes earlier...
‘Good morning, bella.’
Bella. The way that one particular word tripped off his tongue like a caress paralysed her. The drumming in her heart was instantaneous, a memory flickering back to life at the first sound of his voice. A beautiful, velvety rich voice with a heavy Sicilian accent that made his English sing.
The drumming became a loud pump. The paralysis was replaced with a fizzing energy that cleared her head of the fog that had filled it. Without taking her eyes off him, she slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out the gun.
‘I’m going to give you five seconds to get out of my house.’
Only by the tiniest flicker of a thick black eyebrow did Luca react to having a gun aimed at his chest. His firm lips twitched as he lazily placed his hands in the air. ‘Or what? You’ll shoot me?’
‘Don’t move,’ she snapped, her eyes widening as, hands held aloft, he took a step towards her. ‘Get back!’
It could almost be described as humorous that Luca, unarmed, was utterly unfazed while she, holding a lethal weapon in her hands, was cold with fear.
She
