Julianne MacLean Read Free Page A

waist. He pressed the cold, steel barrel to her temple. She dropped the chair, as fear shot through her. She’d never faced a gun before.
    “Now the ransom!” His unsteady voice revealed his desperation.
    For the first time, Adele looked fixedly at the other man—the dark, wild one—and understood that he was her rescuer.
    He held his hands up in front of him, in a gesture that commanded both her and her captor to stay calm. His eyes held a strong warning that told them they had no choice but to comply.
    She guessed he was in his late twenties. His dark, intense eyes and windblown black hair gave him the look of the devil, or something worse. Masculine to the core, rough around the edges, and fiercely commanding in an inherently primitive way, he was as rugged as the rocky hills surrounding this house. He looked as if he’d been traveling for three days straight and hadn’t taken the time to shave or bathe or even sleep, because he’d been hell-bent on reaching this house. Reaching Adele.
    Who was he? What were his intentions?
    Her body quivered with fear and uncertainty.
    “Harm her and you’re dead.” He took a slow step forward.
    By the quality of his speech and his accent, Adele gathered he was well-bred. It surprised her. He didn’t have the look of a polite English gentleman—at least not the type she had imagined from her small life in New York. This man was pure, unleashed aggression.
    “Or you can take the money now, and run ,” he continued. “I recommend the latter choice.”
    Adele felt the other man’s grip tighten around her waist. She sucked in a breath.
    “You won’t let me leave,” he said shakily.
    Her rescuer stepped out of the way of the door. “I will let you leave when you let the woman go. If you don’t, I guarantee my patience will not hang about.”
    Adele felt her captor take in a deep, steadying breath.
    He was terrified.
    It was no wonder.
    He pressed the pistol harder against her head. “I don’t believe you.”
    Icy, paralyzing fear twisted around Adele’s heart. This man wasn’t going to simply walkaway and leave them behind. Why should he take the risk that they might follow, when he held the gun and could simply kill them both and escape?
    By the dark, calculating look in her rescuer’s eyes, Adele sensed he was thinking the same thing.
    Before he could devise and ponder a plan of action, Adele’s self-preserving instincts took over. She couldn’t just let this man shoot her. She had to do something. She dropped to the floor and sank her teeth into her captor’s thigh. He screamed out in pain.
    Her rescuer dashed forward yelling, and carried the other man with him to the wall, where they smacked into it, hard. They wrestled for a few seconds, both grunting as they tried to gain control of the pistol, while Adele scrambled backward across the floor.
    She thought about running, but instead, a fighting instinct she hadn’t known she possessed overtook her fears. She darted at the pair of them and leaped onto the shorter man’s back.
    Taking the pistol with him, he swung around and crushed Adele against the wall. The air sailed out of her lungs as she fell off his burly form, landing on her knees. He backed away and aimed the pistol straight at her heart.
    Her pulse quickened as she stared into the barrel. She held her hands up to block the bullet—knowing it was a futile gesture—and shut her eyes. Rain pummeled the roof over her head, and wind shook the rafters.
    “Damn you!” Her rescuer tackled the man just as he fired. The noise was deafening, the pain shocking. Adele sank from her knees to the floor, grabbing hold of her thigh and curling forward.
    The two men rolled around until her rescuer swung the handle of the gun and roughly struck his foe on the head. The other man’s body went still, while an ominous rumble of thunder boomed in the distance.
    Clutching her throbbing leg, Adele stared numbly at the two of them.
    Her rescuer looked up. “You’re