Page 40 of Sniper's Pride

Today it seemed to sizzle, searing into him as if she really had put her hands on his body.

He couldn’t seem to keep himself from remembering her husky, intoxicated voice after her tequila night in the Fairweather. The way she’d propositioned him, leaning in close, making him feel like a cursed saint on a pyre of his own morality when he’d refused her.

“It’s cute that you think you could hit me,” he said, though his voice was too low. Too intense. Too revealing. “Or that you think I’d stand here and let you.”

“I have it on excellent authority that my palm strike is fierce.”

She was taunting him. He recognized it, and still, the only thing he could really focus on was the awareness in her blue eyes that reminded him of the blazing summer skies of his Arizona childhood, before he’d decided he didn’t get to have anything that bright. The same awareness that was like a fire in him, storming through him, changing him. Making him regret every promise he had ever made to himself.

Which in turn made him furious. At her.

“What do you think I do for a living?” He sounded more vicious than necessary. “This isn’t a game. The fact that you think it is makes me question why we’re trying to help you in the first place.”

If he expected her to wilt, he was disappointed. But then, he should have known better. This was the same woman who’d listened to torrents of abuse from her jackhole ex-husband and hadn’t so much as blinked.

She regarded him steadily, too. “Let’s be honest. You’re looking for an excuse. Any excuse. You didn’t want to take me on in the first place.”

“Correct.”

“I imagine it must be upsetting for you that I’m still here. No one’s taken me down with a quick dose of lobster, clearing up your problem. That must be hard.”

“There’s no lobster in Alaska. Crab, sure. Or shrimp.”

“I’ll make a note.”

She was hopped up on a false sense of her own power after another hour spent hitting and kicking things, learning about pressure points, and getting herself out of a series of choke holds. Griffin understood all about the things adrenaline could do.

“And I don’t want you dead, Mariah. I want your problem solved. So you can get back to your life.”

And leave me to mine.But he didn’t say that out loud.

“What life do you think I’m in a rush to get back to? I didn’t particularly care for the life I was leading before I met David. Much as I love my family, living anywhere near them means surrendering to them entirely.” She laughed, but it was more a sound of surprise than amusement. “And I don’t think I realized until this very minute that I had the perfect childhood to prepare me for life with David. Where surrender was also required, daily.”

“Now you get to make a new life. No surrender necessary.”

“Maybe you haven’t noticed, Griffin, but that’s what I’m doing. Every day.”

“Not here,” he gritted out.

But when she smiled, almost as if she felt sorry for him, that made it worse.

He ushered her across the street to the inn and wasn’t surprised when Mariah headed straight upstairs, stalking up the steps before him. She stood aside when he opened her door, then waited as he checked her room.

“Thank you,” she said when he was done. Icily.

“My pleasure,” he replied in the same tone.

He headed back downstairs and took up his preferred position in the lobby, where he could see anyone who came or went. He settled in with his back to the wall, his rifle out of sight, prepared for another long shift. He knew Mariah liked to stay up in her room in the evenings. She read books—mostly the kind of thrillers and historical fiction he read himself, though he had no plans to admit that to her. In case she wanted to talk more abouthobbies.She watched movies on ancient videotapes and slightly newer DVDs from the general store. She had a hot plate in her room so she could cook modest dinners, because Caradine very rarely felt like cooking dinner, and the other restaurants—such as they were—were either seasonal, indifferent, or the grill at the Fairweather.

She lived like any other Grizzly Harbor resident. Griffin had to remind himself that she didn’t belong here, she wasn’t a local, and he blurred those lines in his head to his own detriment.

He settled in, tuning out Madeleine’s nightly phone squabble with Jaco and the text updates from various active Alaska Force missions in turn. He concentrated on his breath. In, out. He made himself still. Alert and watchful, but wholly capable of staying exactly as he was for hours. Days, if necessary.

And he was surprised, hours later, after Madeleine had closed down the front desk for the night and left to fight with Jaco in person, to hear footsteps in the hall above.

He shifted into a higher level of alertness instantly, and was on his feet before the footsteps hit the top of the stairs.

Long before they reached the bottom, he also knew that it was Mariah.

---