Cameron Mountain Refuge
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Beth Cornelison
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18,3K
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Can he protect her from a predator…While keeping his desire for her secret? When a couple of casual dates turn into terror, Jessica Harkney needs help. And firefighter Gage Coleman is determined to protect her. Secretly in love with Jessica since they were kids, Gage has always considered his sister's best friend off-limits. Now she's being hunted by a dangerous stalker, and stubbornly independent, Jessica rejects Gage's offers of help. But when her pursuer's obsession escalates into violence, the two old friends must rely on each other to survive. And feelings long suppressed will be hard to keep in check.
Prologue
The water was rising, along with her panic. She was trapped, and soon she would drown. She banged on the window, desperately trying to get free. To save herself. To save her friends. But she couldn’t get out. The water gurgled higher...to her chin, her mouth, her nose. Suffocating. Lungs burning. They would all die. And it was her fault.
Then a giant bee appeared at her window. With his face. Gloating. Sneering. Buzzing. Buzzing. Buzzing.
Jessica Harkney woke with a gasp, her heart racing. Gulping air. She cut a quick glance around her, disoriented. Confused. He’d been there. But where was he now? The buzzing continued...
Clarity slapped her. Nightmare. Again. How long would the same replay of that awful night haunt her dreams? And did she deserve to be free of the nocturnal torture?
The buzzing sounded again as her phone vibrated on her nightstand. Taking a calming breath, she answered the call—her boss—and glimpsed at the time.
Damn! She was late. She tossed back her bedcovers.
“Sorry!” she said immediately. “Horrid night. And I...overslept.”
After spending most of the night staring wide-eyed at her ceiling, a parade of worries and regrets tumbling through her head, she’d drifted off around 4:00 a.m., turned off her alarm when it chimed at 6:00 a.m.—and remembered nothing else but the nightmare until now. Eight thirty.
“I was worried about you since...you’re usually so punctual,” her boss, Carolyn, replied.
And because your life has been such a traumatic mess lately. The words, while unspoken, hovered in her boss’s tone.
Raking her raven hair out of her eyes, Jessica groaned. “I know. I—I’ll be there in forty minutes.”
“Can you make it thirty?” her boss said, firmly but without an edge. “We have a meeting with John Billings at ten, and we need to prep.”
Grimacing, Jessica flew to the bathroom, took the world’s fastest shower, threw on the clothes she’d laid out last night, whizzed through the kitchen to start her Keurig brewing a cup of coffee, dumped a messy pile of cat kibble in her cat’s food bowl, grabbed a banana and a bagel, stuffed her phone in her purse and unplugged her laptop from the charger.
“See you tonight, Pluto! Be good!” she called to her buff-colored feline as she raced out to the garage, feeling like a juggler. She had her bagel in her mouth, her laptop under one arm, the banana under the other, her purse over her shoulder, her shoes in her left hand, her coffee in the right. Opening the door to her rental car with her pinky, she set the coffee in the drink holder and tossed everything but the bagel on the passenger-side seat. Sliding behind the steering wheel, she took a bite of the bagel, then set the rest on top of the dashboard. After she cranked the car engine, she slipped her high-heeled pumps on her feet and strapped on her seat belt.
Only when she reached up to the visor to push the garage remote did she realize her mistake. She hadn’t replaced the door opener yet since the accident. With a shudder for the unpleasant reminder of her recent trauma and a grunt at the inconvenience, she unbuckled her seat belt again and climbed out. As she rounded the back end of the rental car, waving away the stink of exhaust, a figure stepped from behind the open storage room door.
She screamed and stumbled backward, away from the man who approached her. When she recognized him, her jaw hardened, and heat coursed through her veins. “How did you get in here? What do you want?” she snarled, then flapped a dismissive hand. “Never mind that. Just...get out!”
“Not until we talk. You owe me that much, Jessie. I saved your life.” He took a decisive step, blocking her path back to the open car door. Her purse. Her phone.
She gritted her teeth in frustration. “How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t want anything to do with you. Stay away from me!”
“Look, Jessie, stop being so stubborn. I love you! If you weren’t so defensive, you’d see—”
When he took a step toward her, she slipped off a shoe and threw it at his head.
“I said stay away from me!” She backed up again, knowing she needed her phone. “I’m calling the police.”
His eyes narrowed with menace. “No cops. Just talk to me. I will keep coming back until you see that you love me the way I love you.”
With quick steps, she rushed to the passenger side of the rental car and jerked the door handle. Locked. Damn it! Another wave of panic swooped through her. She glanced around for something with which to defend herself. Her tennis racket was on the wall behind him, but she wanted something bigger, heavier. More lethal.
When she turned and darted toward her garden tools, propped against the far wall, he surged up behind her. She seized a shovel as he wrapped an arm around her waist. With a thrust, he threw her to the ground. The shovel clanged down beside her. As she scrambled to get up, he kicked her in the temple, and she saw stars. Blinking, trying to shake off the blow, Jessica rolled to her belly. As she rose to her hands and knees, she put her hand on the shovel’s handle. She angled a woozy and wary glance up at him. “Get out.”
He glared back, growling through gritted teeth. “You made me do that. If you hadn’t—”
She swung the shovel at him, hitting him far too weakly in her injured state to do more than anger him.
He grabbed the shovel, yanked it from her grip and tossed it out of her reach. Then leaning over her, he grabbed a fistful of her hair and bent her head back. “Now you’re going to be sorry.”
She sucked in a breath, coughing on the collecting exhaust from the idling rental car, then spit in his face.
His face suffused with color, the veins on his forehead bulging. He swiped the spittle off with his free arm, then shoved her down again. His foot connected once, twice with her ribs. Pain juddered through her. With trembling arms, she tried to crawl away from his abuse, but he stomped on her hand. Yelping in pain, she balled herself in fetal position and wrapped her arms around the back of her head, her only thought now of protecting her most tender and vulnerable places.
He kicked her again in the side. The hip. An unprotected part of her head. He stepped back, coughing. Then, getting on his hands and knees, he stuck his face in hers. In a sibilant tone, he whispered, “A restraining order? You thought you could get rid of me? Not a chance. Learn this lesson. Don’t piss me off, Jessie.”
She heard him grunt as he got back on his feet, heard him stomp across the concrete floor, heard the side door to her garage open and close. And then the only sound was the rumbling purr of the rental car’s engine as it filled her garage with poisonous gas.
