Double Take. Leigh Riker

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      Seeing nothing, she felt in a pocket for her key then clutched it tight, ready to strike out at some attacker’s eyes. Frowning, she swept into the lighted lobby of her high-rise apartment building. There, too, the lobby was already decked out with wreaths and a huge tree. Normally, the sight would cheer her.

      “’Evening, Fred,” she greeted the elderly doorman. And checked the sidewalk outside, reflected in the mirrored glass of the elevator bank, while she waited for the car.

      “A cold one,” he said, clearly relishing the overheated lobby.

      She shivered. “I’m glad to be home.”

      “This is New York, not Arizona. You need a warmer coat.”

      “Or thicker blood.” Leaving his laugh behind, she stepped into the elevator.

      Blood. There must have been so much blood when her father…

      Cameron blinked and stared up at the floor indicator. Two, three, four…at number eight the doors glided open. Cameron knew she was being silly, but she held them back anyway—and peered out into the long hall. Looking left then right, she confirmed that it, like the street downstairs, remained empty.

      With her key gripped tight in a fist, she hurried to her own door. Her sensible shoes sank into the dense plush of the hallway carpet. She couldn’t afford this address, but she needed it. Image was everything.

      After all, she had been forced to reinvent herself. More than once.

      Turning her back on the hall, she slipped the key into her lock.

      Startled by a slight sound from behind, she froze. Alarm flashed through her body like a scream. Dread pooled in her veins and her pulse beat thundered again. I was right, I was right, dammit. Before she could spin around, she felt someone at her back. She sensed the hard male body inches from her spine, watched the large, callused hand cover hers on the key. Her nose picked up his scent, but the lone word didn’t calm her.

      “Relax.”

      That harsh male voice, deep and low, sent her crashing back into the nightmare. That scent he carried, so uniquely his…she’d hoped never to smell it again. A hint of outdoors, of musk, of heat. Even a frigid December in New York couldn’t protect her.

      Maybe, Cameron thought, there was no escape.

      HE SHOULD LET HER GO. Now.

      Yet he couldn’t seem to move and J.C. silently cursed himself again.

      He knew better than to come up behind a solitary woman in a dimly lit hall—especially an edgy woman like this—just as he’d known not to follow her home, or to accost her downstairs in the building lobby.

      Frankly, there didn’t seem to be an optimum place to confront her.

      Just as there would be no easy way to tell her what he’d come to say.

      In the past week everything had changed.

      J.C. kept his mouth shut. His professional training hadn’t covered these bases, no way, but he’d done enough damage, especially with James McKenzie. From the race of the pulse at Cameron’s slender wrist, he guessed she wouldn’t relax until next week. If then.

      Fresh guilt swamped him. Nothing new, but for the past year he’d devoted his every waking moment to official routine, official protocol, to one careful bureaucratic step at a time. It hadn’t helped. He didn’t sleep much and when he did, he dreamed of death and destruction and his own deadly error in that Denver alley.

      Cameron… Ven…

      Then there were the shakes, the sweats.

      No wonder he’d finally been relieved of his duties.

      Unfortunately, a medical leave of absence wouldn’t close this case.

      Now, not unlike J.C., he could see that Cameron McKenzie was no more than a breath away from hyperventilating—his fault all over again—and he couldn’t seem to let go of her hand, or to block out the feel of her so near, or even to remember who he was and how to do his job. Unofficially this time.

      Never mind business. Cameron made his head swim. Her strong yet delicate-feeling bones beneath his harder grip sent a swift rush of desire through his own body, and he had to remind himself why he had tracked her down. When he inhaled the fresh smells of shampoo and clean female skin, mixed with the faintest hint of some tempting spice—perhaps from her dinner—he felt his heart beat faster. J.C. fought the urge to lean even closer, to touch her.

      She always had that effect on him.

      That, and more.

      For an instant, J.C. felt grateful. He could almost stop obsessing about the night in the alley, about James. And his latest suspicion. He could almost believe panic wouldn’t overtake him again. He could almost hope that he affected her the same way she always got to him.

      Talk about wishful thinking.

      No wonder she hated him, J.C. thought. Certainly she wouldn’t have opened her door to him tonight. So here they were, standing in the hall of her expensive apartment building—which didn’t strike him right—and Cameron, all five feet four inches of her, with her medium-length flow of dark hair and stiffened shoulders and taut, willowy frame, appeared about to faint.

      When he gave her the latest bad news, she probably would.

      Because J.C. had been thinking. He’d gone over—obsessed over—every detail in the Destina files. And he’d altered his view. Destina hadn’t gotten his revenge—not all of it anyway—and maybe James hadn’t said his daughter’s name at the end of his life merely as a goodbye. In the past days since Destina’s release from prison, someone had been making inquiries, not about James but about the big chunk of money that remained missing twenty-five years after Destina’s trial.

      J.C. was convinced Destina had a new target.

      “Let’s go inside,” he muttered, his cheek a fraction of an inch away from the softness of her silky hair. Her skin would feel equally slick, he imagined. For an instant J.C. allowed himself to envision Cameron in his bed, her hair spread out across his pillow, his fingers tangled in its rich, warm depths. Her wide hazel eyes would look up into his and her smile would light his weary spirit just before his mouth covered hers. As the kiss deepened, his hand would drift between them to seek her perfect breast, then the nip of her narrow waist, the modest swell of her hips, and he would hear Cameron moan.

      The imaginary sound made J.C. straighten. If he didn’t step back, in the next few seconds she would realize exactly what effect she had on him.

      On the other hand, her obvious impression of him came as no surprise. She pushed back, dislodging his hand from hers on the key then whirling around. He gazed down into her hazel eyes and saw the dislike he expected. Her voice dripped with it, along with the remnants of stark fear.

      “J. C. Ransom. What the hell are you doing here?”

      EVERY TIME CAMERON saw a U.S. Marshal, it meant trouble.

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