use her, and when he was done, not even a beast like Farrel would want what was left.
Turning away from the house, he broke into a run, heading downwind to higher ground where he would watch the house and wait.
Con reached over Jane’s shoulder and hit the bathroom light switch, plunging them into darkness.
Whoever the hell was out there, he wasn’t going to give them any kind of advantage. Far from it, he was going to break them in half.
Holding tight to Jane’s arm, he escorted her back out into the hallway, the most protected place in the house.
“Stay here,” he said, and got all of half a step before she grabbed him.
“No,” she said, pulling him back into the corner. “You’re staying here with me.”
No, he wasn’t.
“This won’t take long.” And it wouldn’t. He’d caught a scent, the same rancid sweat and oddly metallic smell from the darkened alleys behind Mama Guadaloupe’s, and whoever that sonuvabitch was, he’d made his last mistake. “I’m only going outside for a minute.” If it even took that much time to bust this guy.
“The hell you are,” she whispered harshly. “So help me God, you’re not going anywhere.”
“Jane—” he began, only to get cut off by a clattering sound coming from the porch.
She swore and shifted her hold to his waist, grabbing onto his jeans.
Dammit. He needed to get out there.
“I need—”
“You’re not leaving me here alone.” Her hand curled around his waistband.
“I’m going to be right outside the front door.” She wouldn’t be alone. He reached down and took hold of her hand, intending to pry her loose, but she just held on tighter.
“No,” she insisted, whispering fast. “It never works that way. The guy always leaves, and then something terrible happens to the woman. You’re not leaving me in this house, where … where anything could get in here and … and … you’re not leaving.” She moved in closer, making it all that much harder to get away.
But honest to God, he could have put up more of a fight.
She was scared, really scared, which was all the more reason for him to get out there and take care of business. He heard the guy move off the steps, and then there was silence for a moment, before he picked up the sound of someone walking around the outside edge of the garden.
The bastard was trying to flank them.
He could slip out the bedroom window and come up behind the guy, or be waiting for him when he came in the back door, but either option entailed somehow extricating himself from her grip.
“Where’s your purse?” he asked. “I’ll get your gun for you.”
“It’s in the kitchen. I’ll go with you.”
“No.” He didn’t want her exposed through the windows.
“Yes, I’ll—”
“Shhhh …” he said, touching his finger to her lips. Something had changed outside.
He turned his head toward the back door and listened, waiting, but there was nothing, not a sound, and the rancid, chemical smell of sweat and metal was quickly fading.
If he didn’t move fast, he was going to lose the bastard. He turned to tell her as much and then realized with a dawning sense of inevitability that it didn’t matter. If he chased the guy down the street, then he really would be abandoning her—and he’d already done enough damage in that quarter for one night.
“Hell,” he muttered, dragging his hand back through his hair.
“What?” she asked, still with that death grip on his jeans. It was crazy, the way she was holding on to him. “What?”
Damn, he thought. This was never going to work.
“He’s gone,” he said. “Whoever was out on the porch is gone.”
“That’s good?”
He shook his head. “Not really. I wanted to talk to him.” To put it nicely. Not so nicely, things probably would have gone down a completely different way.
“So you think it was the ghost guy?” Her face paled a little more at the thought.
“No,” he lied. “Could have just been a neighbor, wondering why the cops were here.”
She nodded, like she was working that idea around and maybe not quite buying his story.
“I … don’t think he’s much of a talker, the ghost guy,” she said.
“Probably not,” he agreed, refraining from a weary sigh. She was so damn beautiful. “How’s your head? Still hurting?”
“A little.”
“And your knee?” He’d never seen it coming, that he would end up in a house tucked into the middle of nowhere, hell and gone in the Denver suburbs with a woman who broke his heart just