into a frenzy of orange hues that spread from the front door to the front display window.
Fire.
Suddenly, a man—a silhouette really—slipped from the side alley by the store.
Rage worked its way up the back of Beck’s throat, forcing him to take short, frigid breaths through his mouth. He palmed his pistol, thought about shooting the man, only to disregard the idea because of the people still on the street.
The shadows shifted back and forth until the fire outlined the intruder’s features—caught the slide of the man’s hand, the bulge of the book shoved under his overcoat.
“Come on,” Beck urged, his words clipped. Shifting toward the doorway steps, he willed Regina Menlow to appear in her doorway. “Get the hell out of there, damn it.”
Inside the store, the flames shimmered, growing in height behind the door’s window. In his mind, Beck visualized the blaze greedily consuming the dry kindling of books and wooden shelves.
Seconds sped by. The intruder slipped around a nearby corner, kicking over Santa’s bucket in his haste. The coins scattered, making little sound on the snow-covered sidewalk.
Beck willed himself to follow the man, then cursed himself when his legs wouldn’t obey.
Swearing again, he hit the wall with the side of his fist. After taking one last glance at the corner, he pulled his cap from his head, ripped a hole in the top and created a tube.
He raced across the street, yanking the tube over his face while he ran, until the material covered his mouth and nose.
The heat blasted him before he hit the sidewalk. He didn’t waste time on Menlow’s door, the glass having already turned black with smoke. Instead, he heaved the coin bucket through the display window. Alarms punched the night, but he barely registered the noise. He jumped over the broken glass, shoved books and shelves to the side and slid to the floor.
Quickly, he pictured the blueprint of the store in his mind. If she was as smart as her file claimed, she’d be in the loft upstairs or the office in the back.
Beck glanced up. Flames licked the ceiling, then spread in a bloom of crimson and orange—the loft above already engulfed. If she was upstairs, she was already dead.
He started toward the office.
Smoke and heat choked the air. Fire fed off the books, turning the shelves into blazing walls of hell. Cinders stung his eyes, pierced the cloth until the heavy weight of ash coated his throat and lungs.
He coughed in convulsive fits, battling the heat for oxygen.
He heard it then. An echo of his cough. Haggard, rough. Muffled.
Beck discovered her under a desk in the back office, her body clenched in a tight ball. Grudgingly, he gave her credit for having enough sense to crawl out of harm’s way.
When he reached her, he realized she hadn’t found safety easily. Her hands and feet were bound in duct tape, her mouth covered with the same. He carefully removed the tape from her mouth, making it easier for her to breathe. When she coughed, he fought the relief that rolled through him. Quickly, he shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over her head. He lifted her into his arms, cradling her face to his shoulder.
The office held no other exit or windows, forcing Beck back through the flames. Dread raked his gut as he fought through the inferno. Hot sparks burned his neck, smoked his clothes.
Five steps from the front, a crack of thunder exploded over his head. He charged the broken display seconds before the ceiling crashed at his heels. Beck dove out onto the sidewalk and rolled, hitting the snow packed cement with his back, cushioning the woman against his chest.
For a moment he could do no more than drag in oxygen to his lungs, ignoring the raw burn in his throat. Tears filled his eyes, setting off a thousand needle pricks beneath the lids.
With an impatient hand he wiped the blurriness away and shoved the woman down beside him. He placed two fingers to the side of her neck. A flutter of her pulse beat against the pressure, reassuring him she lived.
The urge to protect speared through him, cutting him clean to the bone.
The feeling was familiar. Controllable. A person didn’t do what he did for a living without dealing with the instinct now and again.
Beck grabbed his switch blade from his pant pocket, and within moments sliced through the tape that bound her. Gently, he peeled it back, not wanting to mar the skin beneath the adhesive.
She was a little thing, he noted. The top of her head not even coming to his shoulder. Her hair was dark and shoulder length now, the color masked by the low light of the evening. According to the file, her eyes were hazel. But the file didn’t mention the pale skin—now smudged with ash and blood—the sprinkle of freckles across her nose, or the slender line of her neck.
Blood thickened in his veins, slowed the flow to his brain. It was the only excuse, he thought, for the sharp tug of attraction that pulled at the deepest part of his gut.
The wind blew a strand of hair across her cheek. With a gentle hand he brushed it away.
At his touch, her eyes fluttered opened. The irises were more mossy than hazel beneath heavy lids. Huge, somber eyes that drew on him.
“Chris?”
His father’s name hit him—a slap that stung worse than wind and ice.
He shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, he looked like his father and this, of course, was his father’s mistress.
“No.” Anger ripped through him, forcing him to tighten his jaw. Grief edged his temper.
“Chris?” A frown creased her brows, but she said nothing more as her eyes closed once again.
Like father, like son. How many times had he heard that in his lifetime?
Jordan Beck swore in disgust even as he picked her up, cradled her in his arms.
Instantly, a hand grabbed his arm.
“Shouldn’t you wait for the ambulance? We’ve called them.” A couple stood next to him, both bundled against the cold, like two misplaced Eskimos, in pea-green parkas.
Jordan dismissed the cell phone the man Eskimo waved in his face with a mitted hand.
“She’s my fiancée,” he replied instead, adopting an American accent. A British one would be remembered later. He tugged his shoulder free and stepped quickly into the street before the man could react. “I’ll take her to the hospital myself.”
For a split second, he almost gave in to the temptation to leave her and follow the street where the attacker escaped.
And if the guy had a partner waiting in the crowd for another opportunity to murder her?
He’d given his word to protect her. And she wouldn’t be protected well by the police.
Sirens sounded in the distance. The eerie sound blended with the crackle of the fire, the howling of the wind.
