Convicted (Entangled Ignite) Read Free Page B

when she could only swallow. “The people in this town are safe enough from me. I passed all my psych exams before my discharge. That should give you your answer.”
    She couldn’t say for sure if it did. In fact, the only thing clear from this conversation was that both of them were hiding something.
    “Why are you still here?”
    Breaking his intense gaze, she rolled to her feet. She wasn’t sure what had happened. One second she’d been following an unwise impulse she knew she could control, the next she was in over her head. “I’m curious about you.”
    “Why?”
    She didn’t know him anywhere near well enough to answer that. “I have no fucking idea.”
    He took a few seconds to reply. “Is your curiosity satisfied?”
    She turned to give him some kind of sassy answer, wanting to walk away with the upper hand in this conversation. He looked her in the eye, the same impassiveness on his face as had been there earlier, but the shadows in his gaze—even with the sun lighting them—struck her like a weight she couldn’t ignore.
    No, her curiosity about this stranger wasn’t remotely satisfied. “Why are you here?”
    Beneath his steely reserve, she sensed a deep, endless rage seething. Like a powder keg waiting to go off. A place like Marketta was the last place a man like this should be.
    “To help my friend.” He raised his chin toward the playground. “Maybe if Rick has someone watching his back, we can keep some of them safe.”
    “You won’t last long if you’ve really got a condition.” Not a threat. More a worry, one she couldn’t explain to herself or him. Which was okay, because he wasn’t asking questions. “You need to get some help.”
    “Got all the help I need. Or want .” He rolled to his feet as well, the movement smooth as silk. Whatever his issues were, they weren’t physical. He might as well be a fine-tuned machine. His pants weren’t even wet from sitting on the damp grass. He dusted his hat on his thigh before plopping it on his head, nodded to her, then turned to walk away.
    That bothered her. No, it itched . Like a rash.
    “My name is Katrina Killian, by the way. Katy for short.” She hated that nickname, but it’s what people around here called her.
    He paused, glancing over his shoulder at her. Then he nodded again…and kept walking. As if she didn’t matter.
    Like hell.
    “So, sex on the second date, then?” she yelled after him, making sure everyone and their grandmother could hear her.
    That big body stopped, spine rigidly straight. Nothing moved except his hands, which curled into big, white-knuckled fists.
    She grinned.

There. Now he could leave.

Chapter Two
    “So what you’re really telling me then,” Cade Evigan said to his new “partner” a few hours after his confusing incident with Katrina Killian—even thinking of her as Katy was out of the question—by the park, “is that I can’t trust anyone in this place.”
    “Basically.”
    “Not even the other deputies?” He swallowed the soreness still in his throat. Two years of barely speaking to anyone had left his voice rusty and uncooperative.
    “Especially not them.”
    What about a beautiful woman with black hair, laughing blue eyes, and a disconcerting little mole beneath her left eye?
    He didn’t ask the question—it was ridiculous as hell—but he was tempted to find out more about her. She hadn’t seemed the least bit afraid of him, which was a welcome change after the last few years. She was a little too friendly, though, which had his instincts sparking and sending his nerves into a near riot. There were places in the world where the kindest strangers had the most interest in seeing him dead. She wasn’t kind—sexually aggressive and downright invasive, yes, but not kind—so he had no idea what to do with her but think about her second date invitation.
    He wanted to rub his hand across his face. Wouldn’t that be the smartest move to make, he thought sourly. Have sex with a