Deadly Obsession (3 page)

All her life she'd had an aversion to dark, dank spaces. In high school, at a slumber party with a friend, they'd played truth or dare. Her friends had dared her to go down in the basement of her friend's house and stay for five minutes.

Jillian's parents didn't have a basement. Having lived in a town house, Jillian couldn't remember a time when she had been down in a basement. Accepting the dare, she'd gone down the steps into a dirt basement, where her friend's parents stored old mason jars, lawn chairs and a couple of bicycles. The place was dark, damp and chilled Jillian to the bone. After the first minute, she must have blacked out.

She came to with her friend shaking her shoulders, shouting into her face. “Jillian!”

They'd told her she lay there wide-eyed and shaking, in a catatonic state, neither out cold nor coherent.

Jillian didn't remember any of it, except going down into the basement. Her parents came to take her home, her friends more than happy to see her leave, all shaken by the experience.

That had been eleven years ago. Why think of that now? This basement was constructed of concrete block walls, not dirt. A little cleaning would remove the cobwebs and old crates.

The chill and the dampness filled her pores. For a moment, she forgot why she was there.

Then the meow of the kitten penetrated the haze of memory and forced her to lift her feet, to move and find the source of the sound.

Wrapping her arms around her middle, Jillian shivered, going deeper into the basement. Something moved among the old boxes. Jillian fought the urge to jump up on one of the wooden crates, her mind conjuring images of giant rats. If there were giant rats, they could easily kill the kitten.

Jillian had a soft spot in her heart for kittens and puppies. She couldn't leave the animal in the basement. Not even for a night.

As she stepped away from the staircase, the dull yellow light flickered and suddenly blinked out, plunging her into a darkness so very deep, she couldn't see her hand in front of her face.

A soft click sounded above and what little light that had come from the open door above was erased.

Jillian screamed and spun toward the staircase, her pulse beating so fast it made her dizzy. Her chest seized and she couldn't drag in a breath to feed her airless lungs. With no sense of what was right or left, up or down, the ground seemed to rise up to greet her.

* * *

Armed with directions and a promise to be back with Miss Taylor by dinner, Chance set off. Lowering all his windows, he took the coastal highway back toward Cape Churn. In less than fifteen minutes, he was bumping along a gravel road, wondering if he'd taken the wrong turn.

Chance couldn't believe Molly's friend planned to live on a creepy, isolated road that had seen far better days maybe a century before. At the end of the road, the trees seemed to part and an old Victorian house appeared, tucked into a wooded glen. Like the road, the house had seen better days. The paint was peeling and a couple of the windows were broken. The yard hadn't been maintained and the porch sagged. A truck and trailer sat in front of the dilapidated structure, the doors wide-open.

Chance parked his SUV beside the truck and climbed down. His feet had barely touched the ground when he heard the scream. At first he thought it was a figment of his imagination. The setting was perfect for a horror story; perhaps his mind had conjured a muffled scream to add to the ambience.

“Miss Taylor?” Chance called out.

No response.

He climbed the stairs and entered through the open front door, treading softly, holding his breath and listening for any sound.

Nothing moved. The old house didn't even creak, as if it, too, held its breath. Chance passed through the wide center hallway all the way to the back of the house, peering through the open doors into what appeared to be a living room, study and dining room. At the other end of the house, he emerged onto the back porch. Lumber lay in neat piles against the side of the house. But there was no one around.

Chance's gut tightened. Molly's friend wouldn't have abandoned her truck, leaving the truck doors and the trailer wide-open.

He returned to the entrance and climbed the stairs to the second story. Cobwebs hung from the corners and the wooden floors were covered in a thick layer of dust. This home hadn't been lived in for a very long time.

After determining each room was empty, Chance returned to the first floor, passed a stack of clean white drywall leaning against a wall in the living room and entered an old-fashioned kitchen. Some of the upper cabinets had been ripped from the walls, and the countertop had been removed from the lower cabinets, making their remains appear skeletal.

“Miss Taylor?” Chance called out.

A plaintive, bleating cry of a small animal, muffled by walls, reached him, and he turned toward a door at the far end of the kitchen.

Chance twisted the knob. The door didn't budge. Inspecting the door, he noticed a rusty hook near the top, threaded through a metal eye loop. Forcing the hook out of the loop, he flung open the door and flipped the light switch. A yellow bulb blinked to life, illuminating a small portion of the stairs nearest him.

The weak cries of a tiny animal sounded again, only louder.

Chance descended the stairs, the pitiful amount of light diminished by the time he reached the bottom. In the gloom, he almost tripped over a pile of rags. When his toe connected with them, the rags moved and a low moan rose from the floor.

Chance dropped to his haunches, his vision adjusting to the darkness. A figure dressed in jeans and a faded plaid flannel shirt rolled over and light blue eyes stared up at him.

“Who are you?”

“Chance McCall. Molly and Nova sent me over. You must be Jillian Taylor.” He scooped his hands beneath her, lifted her into his arms and rose with his burden.

She blinked and stared around the basement, her pale blond hair tousled, strands falling across her forehead. “What happened?”

“I'd like to know that myself. But first, let's get you out of here.” Chance started up the stairs.

“I can walk,” she protested.

“Yeah, but if it's all right by you, I'd like to get you into the light without worrying about someone pushing you down the stairs again.”

She shook her head, her silken hair brushing against his arm. “I wasn't pushed.”

“No?”

Her frown deepened. “Why would you think that?”

At the top of the stairs, Chance set her on the dingy linoleum floor, keeping an arm around her waist to steady her. “If you weren't pushed, why was the hook engaged at the top of the door?” He tipped his head toward the hook.

Leaning against him, she glanced up at the door, her eyes widening. “Why would the hook be engaged? I was the only one in the house. All the workers left.”

“That was my question.”

“Maybe it fell into place when the door closed.”

“Let's see...the door was closed, the hook engaged, and when I opened the door, the light was off. Are you telling me you turned off the light, as well? And if you weren't pushed down the stairs, you must have fallen.”

“I didn't fall down the stairs.” She pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Then why were you lying on the ground?”

She stared up at him. “I don't know.”

“Well, one thing's for sure.”

“What's that?”

“You can't stay here alone.”

Jillian stiffened. “This is my house.”

“Yeah, but something's not right here.”

She glanced around as if still getting her bearings. “Some say it's haunted.”

“And you?”

She shrugged. “I think it needs work, but it's my home.”

“Lady, you're crazy. The best thing that could happen to this dump is to run a bulldozer over it.”

Jillian's chin lifted. “That is not going to happen. I have workers scheduled to restore the house to its former glory. You wait. It's going to be beautiful.”

Chance snorted. “It's your funeral.”

“The only way I'm going to die in this house is from old age.” She pushed away from him and headed back to the front of the house. “You can go back to the B and B. I don't need your help.”

“Can a ghost help you unload that couch off the trailer?”

“No. But I'd dump the damned thing on the ground before I let you touch it.”

Chapter 3

A
nger forced back the last vestiges of the fuzzy gray mist that had clouded Jillian's head when Chance had found her lying on the basement floor. “Don't you have a bachelor party to plan?”

“I'm told you have everything to do with the wedding completely planned.”

“I do.”

“Good, because I came to help. Now stop being stubborn.”

“I might be stubborn, but you are a jerk.” She stepped through the open front door and marched down the steps. On the last one, the rotted board gave way. She pitched forward and would have landed on her face had Chance not been right behind her and caught her, pulling her back against his front. He wrapped his arms around her middle and held on.

Her pulse pounding, Jillian inhaled a long, steadying breath. Then she pried the arms from around her. “Thank you,” she said grudgingly. “But I still don't need your help.”

“Maybe you don't, but I'm not leaving without you. So while I'm here, you might as well let me help you carry that couch.”

She'd had two high school boys help her load the couch from her apartment into the trailer. The best she could do by herself would be to scoot it to the edge of the trailer and dump in on the ground. Alone, she'd never get it up the porch stairs and into the house. Even with a hand truck, she wouldn't be able to get it through the door. God, she hated letting Chance help. After he'd called her stubborn and said those awful things about her house, she really disliked the man.

“Okay. But just the couch,” she muttered.

Together, they lifted the couch out of the trailer and carried it up the porch steps.

Jillian lost her grip twice on the heavy piece of furniture and had to stop. By the time they had it in the house, her back hurt. When they finally got it to the back of the house, Jillian was questioning the couch's very existence. Why hadn't she sold it in a yard sale rather than move it?

With the couch shoved up against a wall in the room at the back of the house Jillian had designated to store all her boxes and furniture, she straightened, pressing a hand to the small of her aching back.

Chance stared across the sofa at her. “Why were you in the basement?”

Jillian closed her eyes, trying to remember why she'd gone down there in the first place. When it came to her, she opened her eyes wide. “I heard a kitten.” She spun on her heels and hurried to the kitchen.

“No way.” Chance caught up with her before she reached the basement door. “You're not going down there.”

“But I heard a kitten. It might have been separated from its mother. I couldn't leave it down there.”

“Then let me look for it.” Chance stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “You don't need to fall down the stairs a second time.”

“I didn't fall,” she insisted.

“Okay, so you didn't fall. You were just taking a nap on the floor when I found you.”

Jillian hiked her brows. “The kitten?”

“Promise you'll stay put?”

She glared at him.

He didn't budge.

At that moment, the animal's cries sounded from the darkness.

“Okay,” Jillian said. “I promise to stay here. Now, will you go?”

He grinned for the first time since they'd met. The expression lightened his face and made her heart flutter. When he wasn't scowling, Chance was an incredibly attractive man.

She shook herself, pushing back that errant thought.

When he turned toward the stairs, her breath caught and she blurted, “Wait.”

“Why?”

Jillian didn't answer. She spun and raced out the front door, dived into the passenger side of Dave's truck and retrieved the flashlight she'd seen on the rear floorboard. Back into the house she skidded to a stop in front of Chance, breathing hard.

“Here.” She grabbed his hand and slapped the flashlight into his open palm.

“Thank you.” He closed his fingers around the light and squeezed her hand. Then he disappeared into the basement's shadows, the beam of the flashlight marking his course.

Jillian stood at the top of the stairs, her throat tight, her breathing ragged.

She found herself praying he would hurry. “You sure you don't want me to help?”

“You promised to stay up there.”

“Yeah, but two could find the kitten faster.”

“And if a ghost locks the door again, who would rescue the both of us?”

Jillian bit down on her retort. “There are no such things as ghosts.”

“Then explain the hook,” Chance's disembodied voice said from the darkness.

She couldn't, so she remained quiet in the kitchen, throwing a glance over her shoulder every so often as chills rippled down her spine. She didn't believe in ghosts, but she couldn't help feeling she was being watched.

A miniature, snarling whine echoed off the walls below.

“Come here, you little poltergeist,” Chance muttered.

More spats from the kitten were followed by a hearty curse.

“Damn it!”

A minute later, a light shone at the bottom of the stairs. Chance started up with a bundle of rags in one hand, the flashlight in the other. “I found one of your ghosts.”

Jillian reached for the wriggling wad of cloth.

“Careful,” Chance said. “He's got some sharp claws.”

A small gray head poked out of the fabric and big blue eyes shone up at her.

Jillian gathered the cloth-wrapped kitten in her hands and carried him into the evening light streaming in through the dirty back window. Once she unwrapped the feline, she could see the animal was scrawny, underweight and malnourished. “Ah, poor baby. Where's your mama?”

“Poor baby?” Chance snorted. “He nearly scratched my eyes out. Just like a cat. Try to help one, and what do you get? Mauled.”

Jillian rolled her eyes in his direction. “Really?” His laughing eyes made her heartbeat stutter. Then she saw the line of red across his cheek. “Oh, dear, he did get you good.” The kitten curled into Jillian's hands. “Come out to the truck. I have a fresh bottle of water, and I know where to find my box of towels.”

“Point me in the right direction. I'm not sure I trust either one of you at this point.” He led the way through the house and held the door for her as she carried the kitten through.

“I gave you the option of leaving,” she reminded him.

He shook his head. “Not an option. Too dangerous for a lone woman.”

Her shoulders stiffened. “I'm going to live here eventually.” She deposited the kitten, rags and all, on the front seat of Dave's truck and retrieved the bottle of water in the console. “By myself.” When she straightened, she was startled by how close Chance stood. She froze, her breath hitching in her lungs.

Chance took the bottle but didn't move away, effectively trapping her between the truck door and his body. “Preferably after you've had good dead-bolt locks and a security system installed.”

“Ha.” Jillian swallowed hard and lifted her chin. “My money might last through new dead-bolt locks, but if the choice comes between running water and a security system, I'd prefer to bathe indoors, thank you very much.”

Chance's gaze captured hers for a long moment, and then the corners of his lips quirked upward. “Despite being a pain in the butt, you're kind of cute when you're passionate about your water.” He chucked her beneath her chin like a kid sister and stepped back.

Jillian dragged in a steadying breath and closed the truck door to keep the kitten inside. She rounded to the other side and closed the driver's side, glad for a few seconds to gather her scattered wits. By the time she met Chance at the back of the open trailer, she was well in control. Jillian refused to let the arrogant man get under her skin again. Whether it was his high-handedness or when he softened and called her cute, she couldn't afford to let him shift her focus from all that had to be done.

Yet his mere presence with his broad shoulders and ruggedly handsome face made it hard for her to concentrate. What had she been doing?

Chance held up the water bottle. “If you'll point to the box, I'll find a towel.”

She turned away from his laughing gaze as heat filled her cheeks. Damn the man. Jillian studied the neatly stacked boxes containing all of her worldly goods, some of them items her mother had treasured. “There.” She pointed to a box. “The one marked Bathroom Towels.” When she backed away, she bumped into Chance and almost tripped over his feet.

He gripped her arm and steadied her. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

“Maybe you should see a doctor. You could have suffered a concussion in your fall down the stairs.”

“I didn't fall down the stairs.” She pressed to his chest, trying to establish her balance. “I must have passed out.”

“All the more reason to see the doctor.”

“I don't have time to visit a doctor, and I feel just fine.” If fine was finding it hard to breathe with the man standing so near. She tipped her head toward the truck. “Could you get the box down?”

He held her a moment longer and she didn't breathe until he finally let go. “Hang on to this.” He handed her the water bottle and climbed into the trailer, found the box and carried it to the porch.

Jillian stood back, wondering what the hell was wrong with her.

Chance pulled a fancy knife from his pocket, unfolded a blade and slit through the tape securing the box. Inside was a stack of freshly laundered towels.

Pulling herself together, Jillian hurried forward, selected a cloth and opened the bottled water.

Chance held out his hand. “I can take care of it myself.”

“No, let me. I made you go back in after the kitten.”

“Yeah, but I would have gone in whether you asked me to or not.”

She wet the cloth and capped the bottle, setting it to the side. Now she had to touch the man who'd stirred up so many emotions since finding her in the basement. The smart thing to do would be to hand him the cloth and let him take care of his own injury. But now that she'd insisted, she had to follow through. If she treated him like a client injured on a tour of one of her home listings, she shouldn't have a problem. Squaring her shoulders, she set her jaw and commanded, “Sit.”

* * *

Chance responded to the command in her voice, though he almost laughed out loud at the play of emotions crossing Jillian's face. “Yes, ma'am.” He dropped down onto a porch step.

Jillian settled on one riser higher and touched the damp cloth to his cheek. “This might hurt a little,” she said, leaning close.

“I've had worse injuries in the war.” More than he could count. As an army ranger, scrapes, broken bones, concussions, shrapnel and gunshot wounds were expected.

As she moved nearer, the scent of herbal shampoo filled his nostrils and made him want to pull Jillian into his lap to explore further.

“That's right. You're Nova's friend from the military.”

He dipped his head.

“Do you work with the same organization Nova works with now?” Jillian cupped the back of his head and gently dabbed at the kitten's mark.

With her hand tickling the nape of his neck and her breast pressing into his arm, Chance could barely breathe. “I do.”

“What exactly is it you do?” She rinsed the cloth with more water and squeezed out the excess moisture.

“Whatever is needed,” Chance responded, his voice tight, desire pressing hard against the fly of his jeans. Thankfully, he didn't have to go into detail about his job. Much of what he did with Stealth Operations Specialists was classified and only those with a need to know were given the details of any operation.

Her lips twisted. “Let me guess, if you tell me what you do—”

“I'd have to kill you.” He captured her wrist in his hand. “I think you've done enough. We should finish the work and get back to the B and B.”

Jillian stared into his eyes.

A few short inches separated them, but all Chance could think about was her pretty pink mouth and what she might taste like if he dared kiss her.

Jillian ran her tongue around those pink lips, sending Chance's control flying.

“Do you realize how crazy you're making me?”

She shook her head, her eyes rounding. Her gaze shifted to his mouth.

Like a moth drawn to the flame, Chance couldn't resist the temptation. He slipped his hand beneath her hair at the back of her head and dragged her forward until their lips almost touched. “Tell me to stop and I will,” he breathed, praying she wouldn't when the temptation to kiss her threatened to overwhelm him.

Jillian closed the distance between them, her lips brushing his. They were so soft, full and luscious. Chance increased the pressure on the back of her neck and claimed her mouth, tonguing the seam of her lips until she opened to him.

He swept in, caressing her tongue in a long, slow glide. She tasted of mint and chocolate—sweet, decadent and undeniably irresistible.

Jillian dropped the cloth on the step beside him and ran her hand up the front of his chest, linking it with the other behind his neck. She pressed her breasts against him, stirring an ever-deepening hunger inside.

Chance pulled her across his lap without breaking the kiss, drowning in the touch, taste and feel of her body pressed to his.

A loud crash sounded inside the house, bursting through the cocoon of lust surrounding them.

Chance ducked, his pulse leaped, and he would have flattened himself to the ground, but with Jillian across his lap, that wasn't an option.

Jillian squealed and pushed to her feet.

Chance rose as well, his attention on the house.

“Stay here,” he said.

“Staying,” she agreed.

His heart hammering from his close encounter with Jillian, Chance ran into the house. With a quick sweep of the rooms on the first floor, Chance located the source of the sound. A four-by-eight-foot sheet of drywall lay on the floor of the living room, having fallen from the stack leaning against the wall.