Sheltered

“Do you need something?”

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “You.”

She couldn’t have heard that right. All the adrenaline and crackling of her nerves had her brain misfiring. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing.”

The mattress dipped from his weight and her body slid into his. “I can’t seem to calm my nerves. I feel like I’m six seconds from flying apart.”

His palm slipped over her thigh. “It’s aftermath.”

“Do you always feel like this?”

“Just sometimes.” He slid his hand over hers and their fingers entwined. “Your nerve endings are on fire. The danger and fear, the sadness and pain. It’s all mixing and getting jammed up inside you.”

“How do I get rid of it?”

“Different things work for different people.” His thumb rubbed against the back of her hand. Slow, lazy circles that soothed her even as her insides continued to churn.

Bold had worked for her once before. She tried it again. “Any chance kissing does the trick?”

Sheltered

HelenKay Dimon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

HELENKAY DIMON, an award-winning author, spent twelve years in the most unromantic career ever—divorce lawyer. After dedicating all that effort to helping people terminate relationships, she is thrilled to deal in happy endings and write romance novels for a living. Now her days are filled with gardening, writing, reading and spending time with her family in and around San Diego. Stop by her website, www.helenkaydimon.com, and say hello.

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Thank you to my husband, James, for the trip to Oregon. All that beautiful open space gave me tons of suspense ideas.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

For the third night in a row the wind and rain whipped up the Oregon Coast and smacked into the side of Lindsey Pike’s small cottage. The temps dipped into lower than normal range for late summer, but that was only part of the reason for keeping her windows closed. The other sat about eleven miles away, up a steep hill and behind a locked gate.

But cool temperature or not, a steady banging put her already zapping nerves further on edge. The rattle came first, then the thud. That would teach her to wait on fixing the shutter in the family room until “sometime next week.”

She leaned back into the stack of pillows piled behind her on her bed and reopened her book. After she stared at the same line for what felt like the billionth time, she decided maybe this wasn’t the right night for dry research reading. She slipped her legs over the side of the bed and winced when her bare toes hit the chilled hardwood floor.

She made it two steps down the hallway in search of the perfect mindless magazine before she stilled. Something was off. In the air, in the tight space...something.

Up on the balls of her feet, she spun around, thinking to head back to the bedroom and to the gun she kept locked in a safe in her nightstand. Then it hit her. No banging. The wind still howled and the rafters shook now and then. But no more noise.

Torn between possibilities, she stood there. The poor shutter probably finally blew off. That meant hunting it down tomorrow and reattaching it, properly this time. Even as the rationale hung in her mind her unease increased. The slow churning of dread deep in her stomach spun faster. Yeah, she’d lived through paralyzing anxiety before and knew the sensation never led her wrong.

She turned back toward the family room and saw him. It...whatever. Big and looming and shadowed. Without thinking, she took off in a sprint in the opposite direction. Her feet tapped against the floor as she broke for the bedroom. For the gun and the phone. She’d use the lamp as a weapon if she had to. Anything to survive.

Footsteps thundered behind her, louder and faster. Just as she hit the doorway a hand fell on her shoulder. Fingers clenched against her pajama top and dragged it and her backward. She landed with a thump against a solid mass.

“Listen to me.” The deep voice vibrated as he whispered.

“No.” She scratched and clawed. “Let go!”

She wound up for the most deafening scream of her life, but it choked off in her throat when his hand landed on her mouth. “Lindsey, stop.”

In the haze she didn’t recognize the voice. Didn’t matter if she did. Forget that he knew her name. This person broke in. She had to get him out or take him down. Those were the only two options. She would not be a victim again.

“Lindsey, it’s me.” He pulled her in tighter against him, banding an arm around her middle and trapping her legs with one of his.

“Get out,” she screamed, but the words got muffled against his palm.

She went with biting. Clamped down hard on the fleshy part of his hand and heard him swear as he jerked back. His arm loosened and she scrambled away. She couldn’t get the bedroom door shut, but she could get to that lockbox.

Her heartbeat hammered in her ears as her fingers fumbled with the drawer pull. She’d barely opened it when the attacker knocked her back on the mattress. She flailed, kicking out, trying to land a punch or a hit, or anything that would slow him down or double him over.

Adrenaline pumped through her. Between the race down the hall and the fear pulling at her, she should be exhausted. Instead, energy pulsed through her. She believed she could lift the house, if needed. But first she had to move this guy.

She shoved a knee deep between his legs, but he reached down and caught the shot just in time. With her head shifting on the bed and her body in constant motion, she could barely see. All of her focus went into thinking and moving.

“Lindsey, it’s Hank.”

His frustration hit her. The words took another second. She maintained her tight grip on his wrist as she looked up. Her gaze went to the broad shoulders and coal-black hair. Those intense dark eyes.

Recognition struck. Right, Hank...something. He was the new handyman, the gofer, whatever his real title, for the New Foundations Retreat. The place she hated most but could not escape.

If he thought letting her make that connection in her mind would make it easier to accept his presence, he was dead wrong. She put anyone affiliated with New Foundations in the “never trust” category. The scruffy rough-and-tumble look would not get him off that list, especially now.

She bucked her hips, trying to knock him off balance. “Get off.”

When that failed, panic rolled through her. His weight anchored her to the bed, which left her few options.

“You need to listen,” he said in a harsh whisper.

“No.” She tried to wiggle her wrist free so she could scratch. If he’d put just a bit of space between their locked bodies, she would knee him hard enough to send him rolling on the floor.

Lightning lit up the room and a crack of thunder came right behind. She remembered childhood tales about the time between them having something to do with the distance you were from the storm. Probably hogwash, but she needed something mindless to block the blinding fear.

He touched her cheek and moved her head until she faced him. He stared down, as if willing her to believe. “Men are coming.”

With that her body froze. “What?”

“Some people at New Foundations want to talk to you and I don’t think they care if you want to listen.”

A new wave of desperation hit her. Maybe he was there to warn her. Maybe he was there to help whoever was coming, if that threat was even true. Didn’t matter, because she refused to stick around and see.

Inhaling and trying to calm her breathing, she didn’t flinch away from his touch or try to get away. For a few seconds she put all her energy into convincing him. “I have to get out of here.”

“I need to keep you safe.” He nodded as the grip on her wrists eased. “That’s why I’m here.”

He broke in and scared the hell out of her. Those facts kept running through her mind and pushing out everything else. “You’re one of them.”

“Lindsey, no.” He shook his head. “I am not here to hurt you.”

The calm tone. The orders delivered in an even cadence. She’d experienced it all before, sometimes from well-meaning folks who promised they would help. But those other times weighed on her, had her skepticism snapping. “Why should I believe you?”

“Wish I had a good answer for that, but I don’t.” He hesitated and then lifted off her, inch by inch, until he balanced on his knees, straddling her. One quick glance down between his legs and he shifted to kneel to the side of her. “I’m only a few steps in front of them.”

She’d never been one to get dizzy or faint. Not her style at all, but the oxygen seeped out of her until the room spun and bile raced up her throat. “Let me slip out the back.”

“Would never work.” He held up his hands as he stepped off the mattress and stood in front of her. “They need to think you’re with me.”

She jackknifed into a sitting position, ready to make a second grab for the nightstand depending on what he said next. “What?”

“Trust me.”

That was never going to happen. Not for him. Not for anyone. Those days were long gone for her. “No way.”

She barely got the words out before a crack sounded at the front of the house. A new surge of fear whipped through her.

He glanced behind him as he kept that hand out, gesturing for her to stay down. “Do not move.”

From the bed? That wasn’t happening either. “I will kill you first.”

“And that would be your right if I tried to hurt you, but I won’t.” The words sounded good, but he started unbuttoning his shirt.

“What are you doing?” But she knew. Knew and would throw every single thing in the room at him, nailed down or not.

He left his blue long-sleeve shirt open over a T-shirt and reached for his belt. A few quick moves and he had the zipper down and the jeans on the floor. “Making it believable.”

Her hand inched toward the lamp. The heavy base right to his skull might stop him. “Okay.”

But he didn’t come at her in his boxer briefs. He bent down and slipped something out of...a gun. With a touch of a finger to his lips he turned toward the doorway.

“Who’s there?” His deep voice echoed down the hall.

She had no idea what was happening. Shadows moved outside her window. She assumed branches, but she didn’t know. Everything blended together and morphed until the walls pounded in on her.

He kicked off his shoes and stepped into the hallway. The floorboards creaked under his weight.

She thought about diving out the window but had no idea what lurked out there. Forcing her mind to focus, she grabbed for the nightstand drawer. Punched in the lock code and had the gun loaded and in her hand as she crept out behind Hank.

“I am not going to let you touch my girlfriend.” He kept his back against the wall as he slid farther down the hall toward the family room. “Leave now and this ends fine.”

My girlfriend? Her mind stuck there and refused to unstick. The most she could do was stand up and get to the bedroom doorway.

She stopped in time to see the collision. Hank took one more step and a body smashed into him. She aimed her gun, but only darkness greeted her. The two men were locked in battle, rolling like a ball across her floor. She heard grunts and saw arms rise and fall. One back thumped against the hallway wall, then another.

Lightning flashed and she saw blond hair and a dark jacket. She didn’t recognize the intruder. Only Hank. She could make him out as he landed punch after punch against the blond’s jaw.

Thunder boomed and then an eerie quiet fell over the back of the house. The men tumbled as they slipped out of sight. Something fell to the floor with a crash, but the usual buzz of the lights and hum of the refrigerator had stopped. She reached out and flicked the switch by her head, but nothing happened. Either the storm knocked out the power or a group of men outside her home did. She hated both options.

Gripping the gun, she stepped into the hall and tried to make out one figure from the other. She didn’t know Hank and didn’t owe him anything, but he could have dragged her outside and handed her to the blond. He hadn’t, and the confusion from that kept her from shooting him now.

But she could see shapes. Hank had the blond on the floor. Hank’s legs pinned the guy, and an arm hooked around his neck. Looked to her as though her make-believe boyfriend had this one won. Nothing about that realization had her relaxing.

The scuffle continued. The blond’s heels smacked against the floor. The battle seemed to be dying down until another figure stepped into the far end of the hall opposite her. Her insides chilled and her body shook hard enough for her teeth to rattle. She couldn’t make out his face but got the impression he was staring at her. Waiting.

One swing of his arm and he knocked Hank’s head into the wall. She aimed, ready to fire at anyone who came toward her. But the newest man reached down and dragged the blond to his feet. Then they were gone.

She stood there, unable to think. Unable to breathe.

“Lindsey?” Hank stumbled to his feet as he scooped his gun off the floor. “You okay?”

His voice snapped her out of her stupor. She reached inside her bedroom and ripped the emergency flashlight out of the socket, then grabbed the second one she kept just inside the bathroom door.

She fumbled to hold them both in one hand and aimed them in Hank’s direction. He blinked as he rubbed one hand over the back of his head. The other one, the one with the weapon, dropped to his side.

His gaze traveled over her, and then he frowned. “Where did you get a gun?”

Not exactly the response she’d expected, but until he asked she forgot she held it. “It’s mine.”

“Maybe you could lower it.”

She wanted to ask if he was okay. After all, unless he’d put on some great show, he’d just saved her from two intruders storming in and taking her away. But that wasn’t where her mind went. “Who are you?”

At first she didn’t think he heard her. He walked through the small house. Checked the front door. Looked outside.

He finally turned back to her. “You should think of me as Hank Fletcher. A handyman who blew into town looking for work. We met, started dating and now I’m at your house most nights.”

Wrong answer, and that was before she got to the boyfriend thing. She ignored that part completely. “But that’s not who you are.”

“No.”

At least he didn’t lie or try to shrug her off. But she still wanted an answer. “Tell me or the gun stays up.”

He leaned against the armrest of her couch. “Holt Kingston, undercover with the Corcoran Team, and right now the best hope you have of not being dragged up to the compound and questioned.”

She had no idea what any of that meant but grabbed on to the “undercover” part and hoped that stood for police or law enforcement. Really, anyone with a gun and some authority who could help.

Going further, the idea of trusting him even the slightest bit brought her common sense to a screeching halt. But as much as it grated, there was something about him. It had been that way from the beginning. She’d seen him in town and driving the New Foundations truck and she couldn’t stop watching. She chalked the reaction up to being cautious, but what she was thinking of doing right now, letting him in if only an inch, struck her as reckless.

Even now, standing there in his underwear, with this massive chest and...well, everything looked pretty big. Still, the fear that had gripped her body and held it to that spot in the hall eased away. Tension buzzed through the room, but the panic had subsided.

Ignoring the warning bells dinging in her head, she verbally reached out. “So, you know New Foundations is a cult.”

“Oh, Lindsey.” He shook his head. “It’s worse than that. So much more dangerous and threatening.”

At least he understood that much about the place that starred in her nightmares. That was more than her father ever understood. “Okay, then.”

His shoulders dropped a little, as if the tension stiffening them had ratcheted down. “So, we’re good?”

No way was she going that far. Not yet. Probably not ever. “Let’s just say I’m willing to hear you out.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

She let the hand with the gun drop to her side but didn’t let go. “Talk fast.”

Chapter Two

Holt felt the tension ease from his shoulders the second she dropped the gun. The close call would teach him to break protocol. He’d overheard two New Foundations bruisers talking about grabbing Lindsey and snapped into action. Gone to her house and the rest was a combination of pure luck and timing.

Not that he usually dropped cover. He rescued for a living. That was what the Corcoran Team did. Worked undercover in off-the-books operations, preventing kidnappings before they happened and when called in too late, being the first to rush in and get victims out. Hired by governments and corporations, they performed work others couldn’t.

His three-man team moved constantly but reported back to the main office in Annapolis. Connor Bowen owned the company and ran the show, including the four agents who worked out of Maryland. Holt only had to check in with one person—Connor—and the boss would not like how this assignment had spun out.

Holt could hardly admit getting his head turned by a pretty woman. And Lindsey Pike definitely qualified as that. She possessed a girl-next-door prettiness. The shiny brown hair with streaks of blond. The big green eyes. The confident way she moved around the town of Justice, Oregon, the most ill-named town ever.

She’d intrigued him from day one, and hearing she was in trouble tonight got him moving.

Now he figured he had about ten seconds to convince her that he was one of the good guys or see her whip out that gun again. Actually, from the frown, maybe more like five.

“Tell me exactly why you’re here.” Her expression didn’t change. Those lips stayed in a flat line as a sort of grim determination moved over her.

No shock. No panic. That told him she knew exactly how dangerous the folks at New Foundations were. Maybe she’d expected them to hunt her down. Maybe she’d been poking at them. Either way, she appeared to possess the type of intel he needed.

In cases like this, with the adrenaline still pumping, the simple truth tended to work, so he went with it. “There were orders to bring you in.”

“From?”

He had a feeling the call came from high up, but he couldn’t pinpoint it yet. “I don’t know.”

If possible, her frown deepened. “Of course you do. Who told you to come after me?”

That explained it. She still viewed him as attacker, not rescuer. “No one. I overheard men talking at the compound and got here first to warn you.”

“Compound.” She scoffed. “The place almost sounds nice when you say it that way.”

Not what he’d seen. Sure, on the surface, everything ticked along fine. The camp operated as a retreat. Cabins lined up in a serene wooded area. Communal gardens and shared meals in a dining hall. Staff had the option of living in less private bunkhouses a few hundred feet from the main area, behind the yoga studio.

It all seemed peaceful, the perfect place for people who were tired of being plugged in and those sick of government regulations or city life. But on the inside something festered. Groups of men would leave for hours at a time. The gun range had a steady stream of customers. So did the makeshift village built on the back of the property. The one where people practiced drills storming houses and learning how to fight off attacks.

But none of that worried Holt like the sheer amount of firepower he’d seen brought onto the property. He recognized the crates and couldn’t come up with a single reason a retreat that featured yoga would also have grenade launchers.

Corcoran had been sent in after information leaked. But finding former members proved difficult. People went there and stayed, which had government officials thinking cult. That was what Holt had expected on this assignment, but now he knew better. New Foundations had the makings of a homegrown militia.

He stepped carefully with Lindsey now, hoping he’d finally found a thread he could pull to bring the place down. “Apparently you ticked off someone at the retreat.”

“You have no idea.”

But he wanted to know. With her, he guessed the direct question might not get the job done, so he verbally walked around it, hoping to land on the information he needed. “Were you a member?”

She tightened her grip on the gun. “For now, I think I’ll ask the questions.”

The woman played this well. He admired her refusal to get sucked in. “Why do you think I’ll agree to that?”

“You are in my house. You dragged me out of bed, stripped down and—”

“Fine.” Round One to Lindsey. “Go ahead.”

Using the hand with the gun, she motioned for him to sit down on the couch. “What’s the Corcoran Team?”

He settled for leaning against the armrest because he had a feeling he needed to be up and ready to fight with this woman. “Can’t tell you that.”

She stood right in front of him, close but not close enough for him to grab the gun or get a jump on her. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she’d been trained. And if he was right that she’d spent some time at the retreat and lived to talk about it, her survival instincts might rival his own.

“Are you with the government?”

“With?” He knew what she was asking but didn’t know if she knew.

“An FBI agent or something.”

The out waited right there and he took it. “Or something.”

She sighed at him. Threw out one of those long-suffering exhales that women did so well when men ticked them off. “I feel like we’re going backward here.”

“We’ll get to all that, but first we’re going to contact the police.” He should have made the call as soon as the attackers left.

“No.” That was all she said. A curt denial.

People generally didn’t question his orders. Probably had something to do with his size and no-room-for-debate scowl. His sister said he’d inherited the look and demeanor from their dad. Holt knew that wasn’t exactly a compliment.

“Excuse me?” He kept his voice deadly soft in an attempt to telegraph his mood to her.

Her eyebrow lifted. “Oh, I’m thinking you heard me.”

This woman didn’t scare easily. He had to admit he found that, along with everything else about her, smoking hot. The not-backing-down thing totally worked for him.

Not that he had time for anything but work, which led him right back to his point. “We need to file a report.”

“We know who attacked. You just confirmed it. You came here to stop it...I guess.”

Her refusal to get that point had his temper spiking, but he didn’t let it show. He never let it show. He didn’t need the West Point education and years in the army after to teach him how to remain calm. For him, playing this game amounted to common sense and he could pull off outward disinterest even while his insides churned. “The people at New Foundations can’t know I’m onto them.”

“Why?” Her tone now rang with interest, as if she were trying to fit the pieces together in her head.

“I’m working undercover, which means you can’t say anything.” He’d already blown that one, but since she hadn’t shot in him in the head he believed he’d made the right call.

“Who would I tell?”

That wasn’t exactly his point. “I have no idea.”

She hesitated while her gaze toured his face. “Let’s talk about the undercover thing for a bit.”

Yeah, enough sharing. “After we call the police.”

She shook her head. Looked even more determined to shut down his plan. “The police around here protect the people who run New Foundations. They have some sort of relationship that keeps the camp in business.”

Holt got that. There would need to be some sort of quid pro quo for the retreat to operate in such an information vacuum. At least he hoped so. “I’m counting on that.”

Her stance eased and some of the tension tightening her shoulders disappeared. “You lost me.”

A quick once-over glance told him some of her fear had subsided. The glance also tugged on his concentration. Her pajamas, the lack of a bra...he noticed it all.

He forced his mind back to the conversation and off her body and that face...man, she was killing him. “We have one hope of keeping you safe.”

“What’s that?”

“Me.”

She treated him to a second sigh, this one longer than the first. She also put her gun down on the table at the end of the couch. “I knew you were going to say that.”

No need to spook her, so he didn’t make a move or even look at the gun, even though it sat just inches from his thigh. “If they think we’re dating, I become more helpful.”

“How?” The skepticism in her voice slammed into him.

He gritted his teeth as he tried to ignore the attitude. “You stay protected.”

“Why wouldn’t they just grab me?”

A fine question, which led him to one of his own. “Why do they want to?”

“Don’t know.” She folded her arms across her midsection. “Ask them.”

“Are you always this difficult?” She was almost as prickly as he was when it came to holding back information. He admired the skill even as it blocked him from getting the intel he needed.

“Yes.”

The honesty was pretty hot, too. Still, Holt knew his plan provided the right answer. “We call the police. We file a report. The report gets back to the New Foundations folks and my cover holds. With all that in place, it becomes that much harder for them to grab you.”

She shrugged. “Or I could leave town.”

A good plan. The smart one. For some reason not one he liked very much. “That’s the better option, but I was betting you’d say no if I suggested it.”

“Why?”

“In addition to the fact that you seem to question everything I say?”

The corner of her mouth lifted in what looked like an almost-smile. “I’m tempted to deny that, but I fear it would prove your point.”

Since he felt as though he actually won that round, he answered the original question. “The people I’m protecting usually refuse to leave their homes, family, friends...you get the picture.”

He’d heard the refrain so many times that he was starting to believe Connor’s argument that people valued family and home above all else. Not one to stick around in one place for very long, Holt didn’t really get it.

He had people in his life he’d die for and a job he loved, but the whole craving a home thing never registered with him. Maybe it stemmed from having a father more dedicated to the army than his kids.

Maybe it was what happened when the person you trusted most left you to die on an abandoned stretch of dirt road in Afghanistan. Holt suspected that didn’t help, but it didn’t really matter how he got to the emotional freeze-out, because that was his reality and he didn’t see it changing.

“You do this a lot?” she asked.

“Rescue? Yeah, it’s all I do.” All he knew.

The final bit of tension zapping around the room ceased. “So you can actually shoot that thing?”

He followed her gaze to his gun. The one she could see. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re not a handyman.”

It was his turn to shrug. “I’m handy.”

“Oh, really?”

“I’ve got skills.” He needed to pull back. Knew it but didn’t.

Her expression changed then. “Are you flirting with me?”

So tempting. “That would be bad form, since two guys just tried to kick my butt.” He needed to stay on his feet and aware, though he could understand why she asked. His gaze kept wandering. So did his thoughts.

Not good at all.

“I don’t understand any of what’s going on tonight. I’ve seen you around town. I stay away from the camp and never say anything about what goes on there.” She broke away and walked toward the kitchen, then paced back.

She walked with her movements jerky for the first time. Frustration pulsed off her.

Yeah, he needed this intel. He felt for her, but she talked about knowing what happened in the camp. Didn’t say she “heard” tales. No, she had personal knowledge. He’d bet on it. “You’re saying you don’t know what you did to upset the New Foundations people?”

“Of course I do.”

Round and round they went. She gave new meaning to the term pulling teeth. “And?”

“My entire life is dedicated to ruining that place.”

Bingo. “Well, then...”

She pointed in the general direction of the front door. “They don’t know that.”