MICAH (A California Dreamy Novel Book 3) Read online

  “No. Never,” she said. “I think. I mean, it’s dark outside, but no, I didn’t recognize him.”

  He didn’t like her stumbling reply. She watched as his face tightened and a muscle at the side of his mouth began to tick.

  Micah turned and opened the back door. And that was when she noticed the gun, stuck into the back waistband of his jeans, big, dark, a textured grip. Maybe a Glock. She knew more than a little about guns, with family in the military and having done extensive research to adequately outfit her video heroines.

  He stepped outside.

  “Stay here,” he ordered, over his shoulder, and Emme had no problem with that. She watched him close the door and walk to the edge of the deck, hands on his hips as he surveyed the yard. It rolled out with lush, trimmed grass and then the trees which bordered the back of the yard, thick and close together. He walked the perimeter, stopped to listen but must have heard nothing more alarming than wind rustling the leaves, because after each pause he continued his search. Emme was at the back door, the curtain pulled back, as she watched his progress. She knew exactly when something went wrong. Though his back was to her, she noticed the tension in his shoulders. He took the gun in hand. A privacy hedge separated their yards and Micah stood beside it, listening. It wasn’t surprising when he paced to the end of the hedge and turned toward her yard, but she caught her breath anyway and held it until her lungs burned. And still he wasn’t back. She thought about following him, seeing if he was ok, but that seemed foolish. She’d just decided to open the back door an inch or two so she could hear better when he reappeared, a pale shadow against the darker night. Because her back porch light wasn’t working, either. And that was too much of a coincidence, wasn’t it?

  He stepped into the circle of light cast by the security lights mounted at the back of his rental. Concern was heavy on his face.

  He took the steps to his deck two at a time and his long stride brought him quickly to the door, which she opened further.

  “I told you to stay put.”

  “I did.”

  “The door is open.”

  “Just so I could listen for you.” She shifted uncomfortably on her feet. “You know, in case you needed help.”

  “Help?” He moved into the room, his presence pushing her back. “This isn’t the cyber world, Emme. You aren’t one of your heroines and this isn’t a contrived situation designed for easy defeat.”

  “My games aren’t easy,” she protested, though she knew she should probably leave it alone. Micah’s face was all sharp angles and plains and the light reflected harshly off him. What she saw in his expression was disconcerting—a mix of concern and frustration and, perhaps, anger. He was on edge and the tension rolling off his shoulders would have knocked her off her feet if she wasn’t holding the door.

  “You want to know what’s easy?” he said, pacing toward her, full of quiet, contained fury. “Killing a woman. Do you know, Emme, that every fifteen minutes a woman dies as the result of a violent crime? Do you have any of that in your games?”

  “My games are about empowering women.”

  “You’ll never be that strong, that fast. When danger comes looking for you, you’re as good as gone.”

  Emme felt her blood thicken with fear and hurt. Why was he antagonizing her?

  “God, you’re an ass.”

  “When I need to be.”

  “Why do you need to be now, Micah? What did I do?”

  “Why don’t you tell me? Because you have someone on your tail, Emme. He’s persistent and he doesn’t care if he’s discovered.” He stepped closer and cupped a hand at her nape, gently nudging so that she had to look up at him. “What have you done, Emme, to earn that kind of attention?”

  “Nothing.” Her lips trembled and made her voice weak and she hated that.

  He shook his head. “We need to talk.”

  “You carry a gun.”

  “Part of the job. Does it bother you?”

  “No. The idea of danger does.”

  “It should.”

  “Do you carry it all the time?”

  “No. I’m pretty good with my hands,” he said, casually and confident. “But when someone’s banging on your door at eleven o’clock at night, it’s a good thing to be prepared.”

  She nodded. “Sorry about that. I woke you up.”

  His mouth flattened and she could tell he was upset. “I shouldn’t have been sleeping.”

  He turned her and steered her toward the kitchen table.

  “Most people are at this time.”

  “I should have been working. It looks like you’ve been doing exactly that.”

  And that made her feel self-conscious. She passed a hand over her hair, wondering if she’d brushed it that morning.

  “Yeah.”

  “All day?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Your book’s really taking off.”

  And she smiled her success.

  “I’m not going to find a table full of wrappers and leftover frozen food trays?”

  “I have the fridge stocked with baked chicken and roast beef and made enough salad for four meals. It’s easy being good when it’s all prepped and waiting for you.”

  “Yes.” He pulled out a chair but she didn’t want to sit. She was too keyed up for that. “What else did you see?” he asked. “In your back yard?”

  “A man passed out on my deck.”

  “There’s no one there now.”

  “Well, there was.”

  He didn’t reply and she hated the silence. She thought it might be a verdict on her veracity.

  “I’m not making it up.”

  “I know,” he assured her. He caught her gaze and she saw emotion stirring there. Then he closed the space between them and gathered her close. Her cheek came to rest over his well- developed pectoral and her lips were just a breath away from a brown nipple. She bit her tongue before she could take a taste and rubbed her cheek against the fine hairs. “Emme?”

  His tone was level, serious, and she thought he might chastise her for coming onto him in the moment but he surprised her.

  “I believe there was a man on your back deck. I think he pretended to be passed out or hurt so that you would drop your guard and open the door. But you’re too smart for that, right, honey?”

  Emme felt her eyes grow big and her heart kick up a fuss over the proposed danger.

  “Emme? You’re too smart to fall for something like that, right?”

  “Or too scared,” she said.

  But he shook his head. “Coming to me was the right thing to do.”

  “It was that or call the police.”

  “Smart either way,” he said. “Come on, sit down for a few minutes.”

  He waited for her to sit then straddled the chair closest to her.

  “I want to fight my own battles,” she said.

  “Is that why you’re so determined to build physical strength? Are you fighting a battle, Emme? Is someone after you?”

  But she ignored his questions.

  “Why is my first response fear?” She looked at him and knew confusion and anger clouded her eyes. “That never happens to you, does it?”

  “I’m a man, bigger than most. Stronger. I know how to handle myself and others.”

  “And I’ll never have that.” The realization hit her hard. She could train from now until the end of time and never have what he had. That calm assurance. The unwavering confidence that made him a formidable opponent but also so damn irresistible.

  “So let someone like me take care of something like this.”

  “Because it’s your job.”

  “And I’m well suited for it,” he agreed. “Let me in, Emme.”

  She nodded, accepting his words as truth not simply because they were spoken but because she’d felt his coiled strength and watched his lethal movements. Still, she had nothing more to say. There’d been a man on her deck, playing possum. But Emme didn’t recognize him. Not really
. It was too dark to see any defining characteristics.

  “Gaming is a dangerous business,” he began and when Emme looked away he used his fingertips under her chin to gently turn her toward him. “I looked into that,” he admitted. “A woman as accomplished you, you must have drawn a lot of attention.”

  “Some,” she agreed. “And not all of it good.” But she didn’t see the connection.

  “Tell me more about the emails, Emme.”

  She had spoken about it briefly that first night at dinner. It wasn’t unusual. Feedback came in many forms and every artist had her critics.

  She shrugged. “Not every gamer likes every plot twist or character development. But most of that kind of stuff is worked off in chat rooms.”

  “Explain that.”

  “You know, platforms where gamers meet and regal or complain about the product.” She sat back and immediately noticed the absence of warmth. “But what does that have to do with the man in my back yard?”

  “But you received emails and they caused you some concern.”

  She thought about his pursuit of information and how she felt pinned to her seat and she reminded herself that Micah was an investigator and Big Business was his arena. This came naturally to him and maybe it wouldn’t hurt to get his take on the incident. Although, really, Emme had long since pushed it to the back of her mind.

  “We all receive emails,” she said, but she heard the pinch of annoyance in her voice and not a little defensiveness.

  “I want to hear about yours.”

  “Someone got into my work email, but that was months ago and I reported it immediately to security.”

  “The same emails you mentioned at dinner?”

  She nodded.

  “You told me there was always pressure, to perform, to hit the top of the gaming charts, in offers from the competition, emails from fanatics, plays against your product. Do these emails fall in line with that?”

  “Exactly. So it’s kind of the norm. Nothing alarming, anyway.”

  “When did you get those emails?”

  Emme shifted in the chair and folded her arms over her middle. “It doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, I’ve never had a prowler or peeper or intruder—”

  “It matters.” His voice was even, his gaze unrelenting.

  She pursed her lips and considered her options. Micah was stubborn. The past two weeks were proof of that. He hadn’t touched her, hadn’t responded to innuendo or blatant invitations. At times the sexual heat boiled in his gaze, but he had locked his hands into fists, put a step or two of distance between them, and drew a breath heavy with frustration. But he had never acted on what they both clearly wanted. If she didn’t tell him, he would wait her out. And telling him wasn’t really a problem, except that it might engage that annoying way he had of taking over her problems, like he had with the realtor.

  Except that this wasn’t a problem. Right?

  “There was more than one email, actually, all from the same person, same email address, which, by the way, wasn’t traceable.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Bruno—my boss—told me.”

  “When?” he stressed, impatience giving his voice a bite.

  “April seventh, nineteenth and May thirtieth.”

  “Then there were three?”

  “Four. Two on the thirtieth. But we’re in October, Micah. Surely any real threat no longer exists.”

  “What was the complaint?”

  “Body image,” she admitted reluctantly.

  He raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

  “There was a lot of rambling.” And she was not going to repeat what she did remember. The language and been rough. The threat tangible. And she didn’t want to invite that worry back into her life. “But it seemed pretty plain to me—the guy objected to my unrealistic portrayal of women as powerful and to my placing men in a subservient role.”

  “Do any of your games do that?”

  She felt her cheeks heat. “My female characters are strong, invincible almost. And they don’t have a lot of use for men, other than in the romantic sense.”

  “In a video game?”

  “How long has it been since you played?”

  “I was a teenager,” he admitted.

  “Well, we’ve progressed beyond Ms. Pacman.”

  “Do your female characters mistreat men?”

  “Absolutely not. There’s no mistreatment of any kind in my games.”

  “And no room for a misinterpretation of the game?”

  “The world is filled with crazies,” she said. “And interpretations are as personal as opinions.”

  “And as passionately held.”

  She nodded. “The man in my back yard isn’t upset about my games,” she said. “That kind of thing burns only so long and then fizzles out.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  He stood. “Let’s go check out your place,” he said. “But I can tell you this now, the trouble isn’t going away. It’s getting closer.” Indeed, it was right on her doorstep. “And it doesn’t look like to me that it’s going to stop there.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The walk across their yards was swift. He didn’t want her exposed to danger longer than necessary, if it was still viable. As far as he could tell, the footsteps led around her house and into his yard, eventually fading into the wooded foothills that cradled the little town. But that wasn’t the problem. Micah was disconcerted. The guy who had laid himself out like bait on Emme’s back deck had also spotted every one of the sensors and cameras Micah had planted in Emme’s yard. Each one had been smashed, the remains reduced to shards of hard plastic and tangled wiring.

  Again, he was convinced someone had known to look for them. Small and discreetly placed, they never would have been found otherwise.

  Nuisance or something darker? Whichever, the guy was getting closer, moving from a photo taken from a safe twenty yards away to Micah’s living room and now to Emme’s back door.

  Damn. It made his blood thicken with anger. The guy was a spineless bastard toying with the tail of a mouse, biding his time to pounce. The pattern indicated that his next move would bring him into contact with Emme and no way was Micah going to let that happen. And that gave him one of two choices. Call in Crista or camp out in Emme’s rental and try to ignore her proximity, her scent, the supple curves of her body, the swaying motion of her hips, the all-out come-get-me call of her eyes.

  Yeah. Right. He really didn’t have a choice.

  But he didn’t want to give up his watch.

  His control where Emme was concerned was in serious jeopardy. Cold showers and self-service did little to sooth the ache she caused him.

  He went back and forth in his mind, but he was not a man who hid from the truth.

  He was moving in with Emme, and he knew he wouldn’t last a single celibate night.

  He felt Emme tug against his hand, but he refused to release her or slow down.

  “Keep up, Emme,” he told her, not breaking stride.

  “I’m trying,” she panted. “But I’m barefoot and there are—”

  He stopped and looked at Emme’s feet. Small, delicate, the toes painted a brilliant shade of scarlet. OK, so that made him twitchy. The arch of a woman’s foot, red nail polish. Just two more things that weakened his resolve. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her the remaining distance to her front door.

  Her arm wrapped around his neck and the side of her breast pressed into his chest and he quickly slammed the door on the feelings her softness evoked.

  “You didn’t get a good look at the guy on your deck? Hair color? Height? The color of his clothing?”

  She shook her head and her hair brushed against his throat, shooting another volt of awareness through his body.

  “He was lying face down, his arm stretched toward me—” And he could hear the growing concern in her voice. Finally. “Like he was reaching from beyond the grave.”

&n
bsp; “He wasn’t dead,” he pointed out. He’d have to remember Emme had a very creative mind. A mind that spun stories. Of course, it would lead her to danger.

  “No. But he was pretending.”

  “He was trying to lure you outside,” he agreed. “But remember? You’re too smart for that.”

  “Too scared,” she corrected.

  “Either works.”

  “I didn’t connect it. Not at first,” she admitted. “I wanted to think and then act, but when I saw him running across our yards, I ran. And I beat on your door.”

  Her front door stood open and Micah paused on the threshold and listened for movement inside the house.

  “You did think it through. You saw the man on your deck, you knew you couldn’t handle it alone, and you came to get me. All of that took clear thought.” He placed her on her feet beside him, a hand on her hip to keep her from advancing into the house. “How about it Emme? Anything stand out about his clothing? His coloring?”

  But Emme shook her head. “Not as tall as you and, I don’t know, bulky but not muscular?” She tried to look through the shadows at the memory. “Yes, definitely shorter and softer than you.

  “Short hair, spiked at the top?” he asked.

  “No. Dark hair but long enough it curled over the collar of his jacket.” Her eyes flared with surprise. “You did that on purpose.”

  “It was a directional question. It forced you to really look into the memory.”

  “You’re good at this.”

  “Thanks. What color was his jacket?”

  A frown pulled on the delicate features of her face. She was petite, for sure. But the steadiness of her gaze made her seem bigger. She was practicing being bold but he thought she already had that down.

  “Dark. Blue or black. And tennis shoes. White soles.”

  “You have a mind for details.” He stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. And he kept his gaze on Emme’s face. Her bright eyes that were made for a soft landing, the perfect bow of her lips that were a constant draw. “The writer in you.”

  She nodded. “Who is he?” she asked and he could tell the reality of the situation was beginning to take root. “He’s after me. But why?”