Wild Men of Alaska Collection - By Helmer, Tiffinie Page 0,106

hair swung around his shoulders with each powerful plunge of the ax into the logs. She didn’t know why he was chopping wood when there were rows and rows of ready firewood alongside the lodge under the cover of a lean-to. It was almost as if he were teasing her, though she knew there was no way he was aware of her presence. This was the closest she’d dared venture toward the lodge, keeping to the tree line high above the large log structure.

Through the binoculars, she could clearly see the black stubble peppering his jaw and tried to suppress the shiver as she remembered how it felt to have that rasp of beard against her bare skin. She adjusted her position slightly where she lay prone in the snow above him.

She’d planned well, done her homework. Waiting until she knew the lodge would be closed for the season and the owners scheduled to be away, vacationing for Christmas. Only Sergei was left as caretaker. She didn’t understand how a man with his skill set was content to play guide, fisherman, and handyman of a rustic lodge in Alaska. Living here, she got. He was, after all, Russian, and Alaska was as close as he could get to Mother Russia in topography after his defection.

Defecting or not, he still had to die.

A final swing and he sunk the ax in the stump he’d been chopping against. Good, she needed that ax out of his hands before she made her move. He stretched his arms over his head, fingers linked as he arched from side-to-side. She tried not to appreciate the breadth of his shoulders as the muscles bunched under the red and black flannel of his shirt. His tanned forearms, revealed by rolled up sleeves, were bigger than her biceps, and sprinkled with dark hair and heavily roped with veins. The cold didn’t seem to faze him at all.

He turned and glanced her direction. Hawk-like eyes, arched with heavy brows, swooped over her where she hunkered down in the snow. She caught her breath and held still. His eyes continued to sweep the landscape, not settling on anything in particular. Seeming at ease, he bent and loaded his arms with firewood from the large pile at his feet.

Time to make her move.

She couldn’t shoot him from here. It was too far away for accuracy. Besides, this was a personal kill. He needed to know who had taken him down, and she needed to look into his eyes and watch the life drain out of them. She stamped down that little part of her that bemoaned the thought of this big, magnificent man no longer walking the earth. That weak part of her had ended up in his bed when she’d been sent to neutralize him the first time. And if she hadn’t, Perry would still be alive.

Stowing away her binoculars, she slowly rose to her feet and crouched toward deeper shadows within the spruce trees. Silently, she crept down the mountainside.

Gloves off and zipped in her coat pockets, she unclipped her 9mm from its holster and clamped it with both hands, ignoring the sweat coating her palms.

Sergei returned to load his arms again, and Kate remained under the heavy snow-covered branches of a spruce. He never looked her direction. No more than a hundred yards from him, she waited as he overloaded his arms, stacking the firewood up to his chin. He gave her his back and headed toward the woodpile. She inched closer, stopping when he paused, and cocked his head as though he heard something. She waited until he resumed his trek and then snuck up behind him.

She raised her gun.

“Hello, Kate,” Sergei said, not bothering to turn around and face her.

She jerked at his words. How had he known she was here? And why the hell didn’t she just pull the trigger?

Sergei took his time piling the chopped firewood in place before facing her. The impact of him looking directly at her had her locking her shaky knees. No, she wasn’t falling for that slumbering, come-hither look of his.

Not again.

“Sergei,” she greeted, her voice as cold as the sea foam lapping the shore and icing over.

“Come to kill me again?” He arched a brow.

Why didn’t he seem concerned? She had a gun trained on him, and he didn’t even seem surprised to see her. It had been two years since he’d turned her life upside down. Two years of planning, of living with regret, and being fueled