LITMIR.BIZ

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      Her stomach rumbled. Mmm, fruitcake.

      She glanced at her watch and decided to have a snack before doing any more unpacking. On her way into the kitchen, Erin stuck her finger in the soil around the poinsettia. Bone dry. Carrying the plant to the kitchen sink, she gave it a drink from the spray nozzle. While that water soaked in, she opened a cabinet and took down a glass.

      A floorboard behind her creaked, her only warning before a powerful hand was clapped over her mouth. She loosed a muffled scream, and the glass fell to the floor, shattering.

      “Shut up, and do what I say!” a low voice hissed. The hand over her mouth was removed, and a cool knife blade pressed against her throat. In the tinted glass of the microwave, Erin caught a reflection of the paunchy man behind her.

      Her knees trembled, but she fought not to let them buckle. Not with the thug’s knife squeezing her jugular.

      Focus. Don’t let fear win, she heard Bradley saying as clearly as if he were still around, goading her into doing another daring stunt. She remembered steeling her nerves to launch her hang glider on her first trip with Bradley, calming her jitters in order to think clearly the first time she parachuted solo. She had to muster the same clearheaded thinking now, despite her fear.

      “Where’s LeCroix’s letter?” the man growled.

      Her stomach churned as she recalled Alec’s warning. He’d known she would be in danger, yet he’d given her nothing but a warning to deny seeing his letter. Damn him!

      “Wh-what letter?”

      Her captor shook her, and the blade nicked her neck. His grip around her waist tightened.

      Erin gasped and slid a protective hand to her lower abdomen.

      A second man appeared from behind her and began ransacking her kitchen drawers.

      “Come on, sweetheart. I know you called Kincaid. Now where’s Daniel LeCroix’s letter?”

      “I don’t know anything about a letter. Please let me go!”

      “Lady, either you talk now, or I’ll cut you until you tell us what we want. Where is the letter that was delivered here this afternoon?”

      Erin whimpered as the knife pressed harder against her neck. She was out of her league here, as well as outnumbered. Her captor knew she was lying, had clearly tapped her phone, probably had been watching her house. Alec had suspected as much, ergo the disguise and the drawn blinds.

      Whatever Alec was involved in, she wanted nothing to do with it or the seedy men who were after him. Despite Alec’s warning, she refused to anger these men by lying. She wouldn’t risk her life for something she knew nothing about.

      “I don’t have the letter. Not anymore.”

      Even as Alec adjusted the tiny listening device in his ear, he heard the growling threats against Erin, heard her give him up.

      Damn. They’d been closer behind him than he’d thought.

      “I swear. The letter isn’t here anymore,” Erin said, the fear in her voice coming clearly through the microphone hidden in the poinsettia. Alec thought of the shadows that had clouded Erin’s wide dark eyes as he’d left. The doubts. The vulnerability.

      He cursed the twist of fate that had put Erin in the line of fire.

      “Where is it?” the male voice growled.

      “Alec has it. He just left. In a florist’s van.”

      So much for denials. Alec finished stripping off the bulky Santa suit and fled the delivery van Erin had just identified. Checking the chamber of his SIG-Sauer pistol, Alec crept from behind the van to the cover of a large holly bush.

      Don’t jeopardize the mission. If things go south, it’s every man for himself.

      The principle wasn’t complicated. Easy enough to understand. Just not so easy to follow through on. Not when the man involved is your partner, your best friend.

      Or an innocent woman with wounded, puppy-dog brown eyes.

      Alec bit out an expletive. He couldn’t abandon Erin to the thugs who had her. Not when he was the one they wanted. Him—and Daniel’s letter. Though he knew civilian casualties were sometimes unavoidable in counterterrorism, he wasn’t ready to write Erin Bauer off as a cost of war just yet.

      Having parked the van out of sight a few blocks from Erin’s house, he now ran through his former neighbors’ backyards, listening closely to the exchange playing from his earphone as he circled back to Erin’s house.

      “How long ago did Kincaid leave?”

      “Just a few minutes.”

      With a running leap, Alec hurtled the picket fence at 217 Hurley Street, dodged the garbage cans at 215 and raced through the lines of drying laundry behind 213.

      “Did he read the letter before he left?”

      “No.”

      “Who delivered it? What did it say?”

      Jumping the hedge between 211 and 209, he sprinted to the backyard of Erin’s next-door neighbor. From behind a giant shrub, he surveyed the scene at his old house.

      “I don’t know. I s-swear. I d-don’t know anything.”

      “We’ll see about that.”

      He heard Erin yelp. In pain or fear? Adrenaline kicked in his chest. Needing to get a better fix on the situation, he calculated his best approach.

      “Come on, sweetheart. You’re coming with us.”

       What?

      “What?” Erin’s terrified voice echoed Alec’s reaction. He pressed a hand to his ear, holding the tiny receiver closer.

      “Kincaid couldn’t have gotten far. We’ll take you with us as a bargaining chip, offer you as trade. His girlfriend for the letter.”

      Girlfriend? Alec cursed again under his breath. If they thought Erin meant something to him, her life was in even more danger.

      “But I’m not—”

      “Shut up, lady. Move it.”

      “No, wait! I—”

      Alec heard an oof, a grunt. The scuffle of feet. A crash.

      From his hiding place at the side of the house, he heard the back door open. Muffled voices. He peered around the corner and saw them drag Erin at knifepoint toward a white SUV. The hair at Alec’s nape bristled. If they harmed so much as a hair on Erin’s head …

      Guilt wrenched inside him. This was his fault. She was at risk because of him. Obviously, the thugs planned to use her as bait to draw him out. Therefore, freeing her, protecting her was his duty, his obligation.

      Another man had joined the knife-wielding cretin and climbed behind the steering wheel. Alec didn’t recognize either of the men, but he memorized their faces now. As the guy manhandling Erin shoved her in the back seat, he snarled some kind of warning. Despite her obvious fear, Erin lifted her chin defiantly.

      Alec’s lips twitched at her show of moxie. He’d found no shortage of things to admire about Erin Bauer. He couldn’t blame her for giving up the information about the letter so easily. She had no way to know what was at stake, no reason to do as he’d directed. Even he didn’t know what was at play or why. But now Erin was a part of it … which left him rescuing her. The old-fashioned way. The hard way.

      He gritted his teeth, irritated by the diversion from his plans. He’d finally picked up Daniel’s trail. He needed to be studying the message his partner had sent, going underground, lying low until he lost the tail he’d picked up. But he wouldn’t, couldn’t abandon Erin to these men.

      Like you abandoned Daniel.

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