Now You Die - Roxanne St. Claire Page 0,2

middle of the night.

How the hell had he managed it? She’d fired him. And yet…he’d managed to wrangle an invitation back. A temporary one, anyway.

Another gunshot echoed.

He wasn’t even allowed to fire a gun. Downstairs she stabbed at the alarm pad in the kitchen and stepped outside into the night air, the temperature in the Hudson Valley suspended between the final dog days of August and the first nip of autumn.

The stone path was cool under her feet as she moved soundlessly, passing the guesthouse. This smaller version of her own Tudor mansion was dark for the night, the bodyguards and security specialists who were at headquarters for training or for assignment briefings all asleep now.

Another round popped. Not all of them. The shots were slower now, as if he’d switched to a .45 and the recoil—and that wounded trigger finger—had changed his rhythm. And the echo told her he was out on the straight range, behind the two-story live fire house they used for training.

Breaking every rule and pissing her off: that would definitely be Jack.

She stayed in the shadows, following a half-mile hilly path to the training compound. When she reached the classroom and simulation facility, she stealthily moved around the building.

She saw the target silhouettes, five of them static, others moving on a cable between them. She heard him rack the semiautomatic he had no right carrying, let alone firing, and then the shuffle of his foot as he took his stance.

She inched out and lifted her Glock, her eyes on the central moving target. When she smacked that silhouette right in the heart, he’d get the message to stop. She slipped her finger over the trigger just as the moon came out from behind a cloud, spilling silver light all over the range…and over Jack.

She couldn’t look away. She could barely breathe.

His dark hair tumbled down to broad, bare shoulders, the carved angles of his back shadowed and smooth. He aimed his gun with steady, tensed arms, his legs in a wide stance. He wore only jeans that were slung low on his narrow hips and fitted over his hard, curved backside.

She closed her eyes, leaning her warm face against the cool cement wall, the image vivid in her mind.

But wait a second. Something was wrong with that picture…

Jack was shooting left-handed.

She popped around the corner again to make sure. Of all the arrogant, stubborn, stupid things. Did he think she’d change her mind and let him carry if he fired with his other—

The shot cracked and the moving target stopped dead on its cable, shot to the heart.

All right, everyone gets lucky sometimes. Especially Jack. She waited, her weapon down as she watched.

He fired. Hit the head. Fired again. Hit the heart. Fired again. Hit the kidney. Fired again. Right between the eyes.

He lowered the gun, and his black hair caught the moonlight as he gave a hoot of victory. The sound reached into Lucy’s gut and twisted something she did not want to have twisted.

Not by a man she loathed, blamed for almost killing one of her best men, and had fired because of it. Still, as much as she hated him, as much as she vowed he’d never be a Bullet Catcher again, as much as she regretted the one night she’d let him enter the ultimate place he had no right to be—her body—she couldn’t fight the tendril of respect that curled around her heart.

He’d taught himself to shoot left-handed—and damn straight, too.

Did he really think that would change her mind? Earn his old job back?

Get real, Jack.

The only reason he was allowed here was because he had information that could help her on a case, and the briefing was early tomorrow morning. Very early.

Once more, she drank in the vision of his half-dressed body in the moonlight, then started home, moving as silently as she had on her way there.

Forget sleep. That was a lost cause.

She followed alongside the building, thinking about tomorrow’s meeting and how Jack would undoubtedly—

A hand clamped over her face and she bucked backward, instantly raising her weapon only to have it knocked right out of her hands. She whipped her elbow around, aiming for the throat, but her attacker ducked at exactly the right instant.

She coiled to throw a kick, but he twirled her effortlessly and pressed her flat against the wall, pushing a shocked breath from her lungs.

Firm, confident hands pinned her against the wall. “Leaving so soon, Ms. Sharpe?”

“You bastard.”

“I love you, too.”

He was