Page 12 of Hotter than Wildfire

There. See what he made of that.

Harry Bolt watched her face intently, then nodded his head. “I’m glad,” he said quietly, sombrely. “Sam told me she’s a good kid.”

Right answer. Okay.

‘Dove’ was Kerry Robinson, and she was a good kid who’d had the bad luck to be married to a violent drunk who nearly killed her. Kerry Robinson wasn’t her real name, and she’d known Ellen as Irene Ball. It didn’t matter that their names weren’t genuine because the danger to them was.

A year ago, Ellen had entered a world where women changed their names because there were monsters out looking for them. Somehow, Ellen had also entered some kind of sisterhood, where not much had to be said to understand.

Some time back, Kerry had quietly told her that a man had been asking for her. It turned out he was only looking for a date, but Kelly had seen how scared Ellen was. And knew. So she’d given Ellen the special card with the special number on it that led to RBK.

“Are you in the same kind of trouble?” Harry Bolt asked quietly.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“You’re going to need to disappear?”

Among other things. “Yes.”

He leaned forward slightly, resting his torso on muscled forearms. Ellen watched his hands carefully. They were large, scarred, powerful. He noted her glance and kept his hands very still.

She raised her eyes to his.

“I’m not the enemy,” he said quietly.

Maybe. Maybe not.

She couldn’t allow her vigilance to drop, not for one second. This man looked just as dangerous as any of Gerald’s minions. More dangerous, even. He was perfectly able to repress those macho mess-with-me-and-you’re-dead-meat vibes all of Gerald’s men had, including Gerald himself.

This man was just as big and strong as the biggest, baddest of Gerald’s men. And he’d been a Special Forces soldier. Ellen had read the thumbnail bios of all three partners in RBK at an internet café, waiting for her appointment. She was going to place her life in the company’s hands and she wanted to know what she was dealing with. So this Harry Bolt had been a Special Forces soldier and was way on top of the toughness scale but his vibe was…calm. Serene.

Her intense anxiety went down half a notch.

They looked at each other, dead silence in the room.

Ellen was running possible openings through her mind when he said, voice still calm, “But you do have an enemy.”

She nodded her head jerkily.

Oh God, this was so hard.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” he suggested.

She drew in a deep breath. Beginning. Okay.

“I, um. I’m an accountant. A CPA.” She thought about it, about the smoking ruins of her existence. “Or was. In another life.”

THREE

She’s scared shitless, Harry thought. Words wouldn’t reassure her, so he did the only thing he could do—stay still and let her open up to him. Exactly as you’d do with a frightened, wounded animal.

Was she wounded? Harry made sure not to move his eyes below her neck, but he had exceptionally good sight and peripheral vision. No broken bones visible, no casts, no bandages. No black eyes, but rather red-rimmed ones.

It was a good thing Harry couldn’t see any visible damage because he didn’t know if he could have kept so still if she’d been covered in bruises.

It never failed to drive him crazy, how some men could hurt women and children. He had no idea how they could do it, but they did. He’d seen it all—snapped arms, dislocated jaws, black, swollen eyes, pulped spleens...

It was always horrific, but on this woman…bile rose in his throat at the thought of violence to her. She was slender, delicate, with the fair, creamy skin of a red head that should never carry any kind of bruise, let alone one caused by violence.