Snowball's Chance by Cherry Adair Read Free Book Online Page B

pistol on the chair arm beside him, keeping his hand on the custom tooled grip as he contemplated the flames dancing in the old-fashioned stone fireplace.
    He wasn’t a guy who spent a hell of a lot of time contemplating his own navel, but his visceral reaction to Kendall Metcalf was as intriguing as it was puzzling. He tried to pinpoint exactly what he felt when he was with her. The high lust factor was a given. But it was the strange, unfamiliar feeling in his chest that had him mystified.
    A … flutter? An extra heartbeat? Something that was wholly alien. He hadn’t felt this way about Denise. Which was probably why, five months after saying their vows, their marriage had ended with a fizzle in divorce. That had been almost ten years ago. Clearly Denise felt that alien something for Adam Cameron.
    They had three kids, another on the way, and appeared to be as in love now as they had been when Adam had rushed the ex-Mrs. Zorn to the altar three months after her divorce was final.
    Joe was happy for them. He really was. He liked them both. He hadn’t even been heartbroken at the end of his marriage. He thought he should have been, but he wasn’t. Every now and then he wondered, on a purely academic level, exactly what that elusive something factor was that the couple had and he’d never found. Denise called it spark, magic , and lots of other girl words that until a few hours ago, he’d pretty much dismissed as the rantings of a romantic.
    Spark was a pretty damned good description for the sensations currently annoying him. Why Kendall Metcalf? Why now? When his total focus should be on protecting her from Treadwell. He should be thinking about guns, ammo, close combat, points of entry, etc. Instead his mind conjured all sorts of enticing images of his protectee.
    Sparks, he decided, were distracting as hell.
    Without making a conscious decision, Joe had created this nomadic lifestyle. Well, not created it so much as fallen into it without much objection.
    Every now and then he thought about assessing his choices but then backed off immediately. In his experience, nothing good ever came of that. He shook his head at musings brought on by flickering firelight and thoughts of a wet, naked Kendall in the other room. “Get a grip,” he told himself firmly.
    From his vantage point he could keep an eye on all the doors in the room. He didn’t like sitting here waiting like this. He was a man of action. But Mother Nature wasn’t cooperating. If he had backup he’d go outside and check the perimeter. But he wouldn’t take Kendall out there, and he sure as hell wasn’t leaving her in the house alone.
    It would suit him perfectly if that son of a bitch Dwight Treadwell did one right thing in his miserable sick life: walk in right now.
    One shot between the bastard’s eyes and it would be over.
    Roz had faxed Joe the court transcripts while he’d been waiting for the ground crew to ready the chopper. He’d scanned them while standing in the small airport terminal. And he’d been sickened by what Kendall had endured at the hands of that psychopath. He’d also felt the ticking of the time bomb, knowing that while he was en route to her, Treadwell was, too.
    At the time Treadwell had kidnapped and tortured Kendall, it was known that he’d brutalized and then killed five other women. At his arraignment that number had jumped horrifically to twenty-three.
    Kendall was Treadwell’s only living victim, the one person left to identify the serial killer in court. Which, according to the transcripts Joe had read, she’d done. Clearly and succinctly. Her attention to detail and minutia in her party-planning business had served her well.
    She’d recalled in stark, no-nonsense language details that only one of his victims could possibly know. She’d given a specific and succinct physical description of the man. And she’d gone into clinical, precise