Page 1 of Frosted and Sliced

PROLOGUE

His chin topped the bar for the forty ninth time, causing a disquieting quiver in his arms. His brows knit in an annoyed frown, and that annoyed him further. How dare any of his muscles perform an unsanctioned move when muscle economy was his focus right now. With a breath, he smoothed his expression and finished the final pull-up.

The phone trilled again, for the third time since the beginning of his workout. This time he allowed himself to answer as he toweled the sweat from his face and neck.

“Burke.”

There was a pause on the line, which was never a good sign. Usually it meant he’d answered too forcefully and scared the person on the other end. Not so this time.

“Burke, it’s Ribs. Sorry, I’m working from home today and my son just bit the dog.”

It was a testament of their long acquaintance that the statement didn’t give Burke pause.

“I heard you’re between jobs,” Ribs continued.

Burke replied with a grunt because what more could he say? He was an out-of-work loser, however temporarily.

“I need someone to do some training for my team. You interested?”

“People,” Burke reminded him. “I don’t do people.”

“Got it, but this is not a trust seminar where we all try to get in touch with our feelings. You have intel on some tech they need to learn. In fact I can’t think of anyone who knows this stuff better. It’s just me, a hacker, and a former cop. Trust me when I tell you none of us will give you a warm hug after.”

Burke paused, another factor weighing on him. “I gotta come to DC?”

“Nope. No space here for the kind of work we need to do. My hacker lives in Maine. She found a place for us.”

Burke’s interest kicked up a notch. Maine. It gave off the sort of neglected recluse vibes he longed for. “’Kay.”

“Great. I’ll send you the info as soon as I put everything together. Any dates that work better for you?”

Burke’s gaze slid to the desolate workout room he’d constructed in his garage, the weights and chin up bar, possibly the only thing that would miss him if he went away. “I’m open.”

“Great,” Ribs enthused. He was that sort of guy, who infused all his words with warmth and friendliness. Yuck. If he hadn’t long ago proven himself as a soldier, Burke would already have ended the call. Some guys were good soldiers, some were peopley; rarely was anyone both. As for Burke, he was a good soldier.

Maine.The thought rippled through him again, mostly because early on he’d assigned it as one of his escape hatches. If life, and by life he meant people, ever became too much, he could go to Maine to get away from it all and start over. And now he’d have the opportunity to test it out, see if that was possible.

His glance fell again on the weights, a hodgepodge of rust, gray, and black. He hadn’t meant to make his home resemblea prison, but somehow it happened.Maine,he thought again, picturing ocean swells and salt air.

This time when he returned to his workout, it was with something more than his usual discipline, it was with a little bit of vigor and, dare he say, optimism? Maybe Maine might be the start of something new, the chance to finally get away from everything. And everyone.

CHAPTER 1

Georgie did not intend to die that day. Perhaps she was distracted by the text from her boyfriend. Maybe it was the fact that she finally and at last had a boyfriend. Or, most likely, it was the fact that a hulking burglar broke into her inn and made himself at home. All she knew was that one moment she was alone, preparing for guests, and the next she teetered at the top of the stairs, shocked senseless by the hulking figure in black. Was it any wonder she took a lunging step backwards, away from the colossal menace? And was it her fault that she happened to be on the top step when she did so? No, it was not.

The staircase was typical of the nineteenth century, winding and wooden and certain doom. She could practically feel all the ways her bones would fracture as she teetered on the top step. Just as she started to pitch backwards toward her death, the burglar turned into her unlikely hero. With lightning reflexes, he grabbed her with both arms, hauled her against him, and tumbled backwards, using his momentum to pull her to safety.

Of course now he was the one who fell and, being a gentleman burglar, he took the brunt of the impact so that she landed in the soft cradle of his arms in the wooden alcove atthe top of the stairs. She realized he was speaking, and it took a while to gather her wits enough to make sense of his words.

“I can’t hear you,” she said, but it didn’t stop him from saying things, angry words she could in no way discern. Georgie could hear sounds, but they came at her like a blurry puzzle. Her brain needed to be able to read lips to make sense of them. Basically she needed context. When she was shocked and rattled, for example by a burglar-turned-rescuer, she was incapable of putting the pieces together to figure out what he was saying. And her lack made him even angrier. She could see it in the tense set of his features, even if she couldn’t hear his words. He was blaming her, if her interpretation was correct. He—the man who had broken in uninvited—was blaming her, the woman who owned the inn, the woman who had been innocently walking up stairs.

She shoved and wriggled, trying to worm away from him, but to no avail. He apparently didn’t intend to move until he was done lecturing her.

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t hear you,” she tried again, louder, she thought? It certainly seemed like she was yelling, if the strain in her vocal cords was any indication. But it also seemed like he was yelling, so maybe it didn’t register.

When it became clear that he wasn’t going to stop lecturing her any time soon, she turned her head to the side and waited him out, feeling strangely warm and cocooned for someone who was surrounded by a hostile stranger. Her mind ran through the list of things she still needed to do, until at last her captor tapped her cheek, catching her attention.

“Do you read lips?” he said.

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