This isn’t happening…

This can’t be happening!

Fortunately, her instincts took over for her bruised brain because she let loose with a scream to do a Chicago Bull’s cheerleader proud. A sweaty hand clamped over her mouth.

“Shut up, bitch,” an accented voice hissed in her ear just as the world ubiquitously decided that, yep, the need for the weirdo, slow-mo time warp had passed. Time once more resumed its usual course, and it was then she realized her heart and lungs were set on overdrive, each threatening to come bursting through her ribs. “If you behave, I will not have to hurt you.”

Yeah, well she couldn’t promise the same thing. Because she was going to take the first opportunity she could find to inflict some serious damage to the guy who was holding her hostage. And it was a guy. The deep voice and large body told her as much, even if the darkness precluded her ability to see him. Of course, the fact that the stars dancing in front of her eyes had suddenly grown propulsion packs and were zinging across her vision in a dizzying array of luminous flashes wasn’t helping matters.

Don’t you dare pass out. You have to fight back!

And yeah. She could do that. With an old trick her uncle taught her when she turned fourteen and grew a set of D-cups…

Lifting her leg, relying on her sense of touch and location alone, she kneed the sonofabitch straight in the happy-sack. Soft flesh gave way to the hard crunch of her attacker’s pelvic bone.

Bull’s-eye!

She mentally shot a fist in the air as her assailant howled in agony. She used his distraction to twist out of his grip. Unfortunately, he was blocking the doorway, so the only direction she could run was back into the pitch-black office.

She didn’t hesitate. She stumbled inside and allowed the darkness to swallow her whole.

“Delilah!” Mac’s voice boomed up the stairs.

It seemed as if minutes had passed since she’d screamed in terror, but in reality she figured the whole struggle had barely lasted two seconds.

“Delilah! Answer me!” Mac thundered, his tone sharp with fear. But answering wasn’t an option. She couldn’t allow the intruder to discern her exact location within the room. She didn’t know if he had a gun. She didn’t know if he—

Her thoughts screeched to a halt when her hip slammed into one corner of her uncle’s desk.

Oh, thank heavens, the desk! If I crawl beneath it, maybe he won’t be able to find me. Maybe that will give Mac enough time to—No, wait! The letter opener! She’d seen it lying on the corner of the desk when she was searching—turns out quite unsuccessfully—for her uncle’s old address book. It was a weapon! Hallelujah!

But where was it exactly?

Her hand silently scrabbled across the wooden surface. Searching…searching…

She detected movement by the door. A shadow, dimly outlined by the miniscule amount of light, straightened and took on the vague shape of a man just as her hand landed on a smooth length of cold steel. Then the shadow shifted, sliding into the darkness, and Delilah knew this was it. Not daring to move, barely daring to breathe, she listened…and waited…

She could hear Mac and Zoelner’s footsteps pounding down the hallway as her eyes searched the darkness to no avail. Her fingers curled around the hilt of the letter opener so tightly her knuckles ached.

“Delilah!” Mac yelled again, much closer now. Oh, how she wanted to answer him, just shout out his name so he could come and save the day. But it was too risky. She had to rely on herself here. Only herself…

Off to her left, something rattled, and she blindly turned in that direction, holding the letter opener out in front of her. Then, heavy footsteps. Very close by.

It was time.

The moment had come.

Her blood raced through her veins and roared between her ears, making it difficult to hear anything besides the pounding of her heart. Then a large hand landed on her arm and with a banshee yell, she turned and struck.

The blade of the letter opener hit something hard yet yielding and a loud “mmph” was immediately followed by a muttered curse. Delilah pulled her hand back to stab again just as the room blazed into view. Her arm froze in mid-strike, because it was Mac who was standing beside her. Zoelner, over by the doorway, still had his hand poised in front of the light switch.

For a few interminable seconds, they all seemed frozen in a motionless tableau, each of them blinking against the sudden glare. Then a rustling sound drew their attention to the far side of the room where jean-clad legs were quickly disappearing out a window that had been covered by a large, black garbage bag.

“Get him!” Mac bellowed and Zoelner sprang into action, racing across the office and lunging for the set of brown Timberland boots slipping over the windowsill, missing his mark by no more than a hairsbreadth.

“There’s scaffolding!” Zoelner yelled, yanking the garbage bag from the window casing, revealing the missing panes of glass and the rusted rails of the framework attached to the back of the house. “I’m pursuing! You stay with Delilah!”

“Roger that!” Mac shouted as he grabbed her hand and hustled her toward the door, half-dragging, half-carrying her because her legs seemed to have transformed into wet noodles. The letter opener fell from her nerveless fingers to clatter dully against the floorboards.

She turned back in time to see Zoelner hop over the sill—obviously the adrenaline coursing through his system had negated the effects of the booze—just as Mac gave up on her ability to ambulate by herself. With a quick dip, he hooked an arm under her knees and then…weightlessness…as she was lifted into the air and pressed tight against his broad chest.

“Mac, I—”

“Hush.” He cut her off, running toward the stairs, taking them two at a time. Later she would marvel at the sheer strength of him, at the feel of his hard muscles moving against her, but right at that moment, her head was spinning so fast it made it impossible to think.

He jumped from the third step, and they landed on the lower floor with a thud that had her back teeth clacking together and the pain in her abused head ratcheting up another degree. Then Mac raced to the center of the front room where he carefully lowered her next to the sawhorses. And it was a good thing he chose that precise spot, because, to her utter chagrin, she found herself relying on the sawhorse’s support to remain upright.

Gulping in great mouthfuls of air, she watched helplessly as he yanked a mean-looking black handgun from the small of his back. Quickly and efficiently he pulled back on the slide and the clicking sound, indicating a round had been chambered, seemed particularly vicious in the harsh quiet hanging over the room like a death shroud.

“I have to check the rest of the house. There might be others,” he told her, his blue eyes blazing with a light she’d never seen before.

It was the light of battle.

And it startled her almost as much as it fascinated her. Because right there and then, she realized that in all the years she’d known Mac, this was the first time she’d ever really seen him. The real him. Which shouldn’t have surprised her, she supposed. Because if it walked like a hero and it talked like a hero, then it was probably—

“I need you to stay here,” he told her brusquely as he bent to remove a small pistol from a holster secured around his ankle. Straightening, he handed her the weapon and she was surprised at how light it felt. And how warm. His body heat had seeped into the metal. “This is a Beretta 3032 Tomcat,” he said, quickly explaining the gun’s basics. “You have six in the clip and one in the throat. That’s only seven bullets total. So if you have to fire, you better make sure your shots count.”

She nodded jerkily, and he ducked his chin, peering into her face. “Are you okay? Can you handle this?”

And those were fair questions. You know, considering he’d had to carry her down the stairs.

Geez, way to instill confidence, Delilah…

But even though her heart was racing about a hundred miles per hour, and even though she was still dizzy, she’d be damned if she continued to play the pathetic damsel in distress card with him. She was Delilah Fairchild, the ass-kicking, Harley-riding, shotgun-toting beer-slinger-from-hell! And, yes, she could do this!

“No problem,” she said, press checking the chamber to see that, indeed, he hadn’t been lying about the one in the throat.

“Good.” He nodded, something that looked gratifyingly close to admiration sparking in his eyes. And then he did something even more stupefying than earlier when he grabbed her hand…

He leaned forward and planted a kiss in the center of her forehead. It was quick. Just a fast press of his warm, surprisingly soft lips against her skin, but it was enough to erase her fear and shock and have her toes curling inside her biker boots. Then he leaned back and grinned. And, as if her mind wasn’t already blown to freakin’ kingdom come, he went one step further and winked at her.

Holy hell! Bryan “Mac” McMillan kissed her. Then grinned. And then winked.

Okay, maybe that knock to the head had been harder than she thought, because that couldn’t be right, could it? She blinked, hoping that might help clear away what had to be a mirage…or else a delusion brought on by a concussion. But no amount of eyelid flapping erased the sight of Mac’s big, square teeth flashing whitely against the dark shadow of his beard stubble.

And the cray-cray just kept on coming, because then he reached up and chucked her on the chin. She was gaping at him when he turned to disappear through the doorway leading to the back of the house.

What the hell is happening? She felt like she’d been eating at the buffet of the bizarre all day, but that little display of Mac’s definitely put the cherry on top of the weirdo dessert of it all.

In the span of a few minutes, he’d gone from his usual Mr. Cranky-Pants to Sir Kissy Smiles-A-Lot.

“Lower level’s clear,” he said, reappearing suddenly, causing her to jump and instinctively raise the weapon he loaned her. “Whoa!” He lifted his hands, splaying the last three fingers of his right hand wide while his thumb and forefinger kept hold of his pistol. “Ventilating any mofo that comes at you is the general idea, darlin’. But I was kinda hopin’ you wouldn’t think to do as much to me.”

“S-sorry,” she said, lowering the little handgun and gulping in sawdust-tinged air that scratched at her already dry, itchy throat. “I just…I’m not…” She stopped and shrugged.

And that’s when he did it again. He freakin’ went and winked at her before turning to jog up the stairs.

Okay, so now it was all crystal clear. Somewhere, at some point, she’d fallen into a parallel universe. Shaking her head at this place heretofore referred to as Bizarro-Land, she winced when the movement caused her bruised brain to jostle against the sides of her skull.

Lifting a hand, she rubbed at the lump forming on the back of her head—ow—just as the front door burst open. Spinning, she raised the pistol, supporting the butt with her free hand just as her uncle had taught her, then blew out a harsh breath when she realized it was Zoelner stepping over the threshold.

“He got away,” he informed her, panting as he placed his hands on his hips and bent at the waist. “Fucker disappeared into the labyrinth of alleys around here, and I didn’t dare follow in case he was packing. Didn’t want to find myself stuck in a fatal funnel.”

Huh? “What’s a—”

That’s all she managed to get out before Mac reappeared on the stairway. “Fatal funnels are hallways and alleys,” he answered the question she’d been in the middle of asking. “And they’re the last place a guy wants to be when the bullets start flyin’.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Makes sense.” And that was about the only thing in this entire weird-ass day that did.

“Who was he?” Zoelner asked, and Delilah’s chin jerked back when she realized he was looking directly at her.

“You’re asking me?” Unconsciously, she used the pistol as a pointer and aimed it at her own chest. When she looked down and realized what she was doing, she gulped and carefully set the weapon atop one of the sawhorses. “I…I have n-no idea. I didn’t get a chance to see his f-face, and I certainly didn’t recognize his v-voice.”