Chapter One

The perimeter alarms were set to go off when anything heavier than a hundred pounds crossed the almost invisible breakers. At first all Jake saw on the monitor was the fawn-colored Great Dane. The damn thing was a mean-looking bastard and as big as a house.

"Where the hell did you come from?"

The dog's large, square head and pointy ears swiveled, as if it could smell him down here, twenty feet below ground level. Jake stuck his size fourteens up on the counter and took another swig of soda. His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the flat-screen monitor before him.

A second later his feet dropped to the floor at the same time his fist crushed the empty can. "Shit."

The dog had been hiding her.

For a split second…

Jake absently touched the scar on his throat and ignored the from zero-to-eighty acceleration of his blood pressure. He leaned forward to adjust the focus and shifted closer to get a better look.

A slender blonde, drowning in a green down jacket, sat not thirty feet from the front door of his cabin on the tree uprooted by last year's storm. Fair hair, all the colors of the sun and fingered by the breeze, danced in joyous spiral curls around her face and hunched shoulders as she concentrated on something in her lap.

Her skin was fair instead of dusky, her hair silky, not coarse, the angle of her head unfamiliar. She was no ghost from the past. Thank God.

Nevertheless, he didn't want her here.

Jake didn't know who she was or what she was doing in the high, remote Sierras at the nose of winter. Her mere presence was suspect. Not that she appeared to be anything other than a cute blonde on a solitary mountain hike. But then looks could be deceiving.

Neither the girl nor the dog was welcome.

He didn't like dogs. In his line of work they tended to be unpredictable. As for the fluffy blonde…Jake slam-dunked the squashed can into the trash, then leaned forward for a better look. He definitely didn't like that breed, either.

Closer inspection didn't improve her one bit. Unfortunately he hadn't had a woman in nearly a year, and this cup-cake made his mouth water. Too bad. Like a mouse to an elephant, like David to Goliath. She was exactly the type of woman he avoided like the plague—petite, blonde, and delicate.

He was bone exhausted from an assignment in a small, forgotten Middle Eastern country where all hell had broken loose. All he'd wanted to do was take a break. Instead he'd come home to find the shit hitting the fan, his sixteen-year career in the toilet, and the vacation he'd wanted being enforced.

He had no time for the blonde outside.

Most likely a strong "boo" would send girl and hound running for town. After they left he'd get back to figuring out who was screwing with his life.

Marnie Wright wished she'd brought along a warm cap. Cold air nipped at her ears, making them sting. Dismissing the discomfort, she focused on the sketch pad in her lap.

It had been a bonus finding this old cottage tucked into the hillside. She'd hate to waste the light walking the mile back to her grandmother's cottage just because she was cold. She flipped up her collar and hunched her shoulders.

Only the front walls and the peak of the shingled roof showed through the surrounding trees, shrubs, and piles of deadfall. It was in better shape than Grammy's. While rustic, the wood siding and front porch had recently been repaired. The roof appeared solid, the windows intact.

Marnie flexed her fingers, narrowing her eyes at the log cabin before she continued drawing. The little house was perfect for the creepy Halloween story she was working on. All it needed was a little atmosphere. She shaded a curved whisper of smoke above the chimney, elongating dark shadows to make the small house unwelcoming and sinister. The fluid black lines of her charcoal pencil skimmed the page. Beside her, Duchess's head swiveled.

"What're you listening to? A chipmunk?"

Her dog made a low sound in her throat and wagged her tail.

Copyright © 2000 by Cherry Adair.