Free Red Alert by Jessica Andersen Page A

of her arms. He felt a rush of heat, and shifted on his own feet, feeling the brace of the cane beside him.
    “Would you mind waiting in the other room?” she asked. “I know I said you could watch in here, but I could really use the space right now.”
    He snorted. “What space? We’re inside a converted warehouse with a hundred other people. It’s not like you’re out on Mt. Washington, just you against the elements.” Though suddenly he could picture her clinging to a precarious knife-edge ridge of rock in a sharp opposition to the image she projected.
    She presented herself as professional. Detached. Untouchable.
    All of it was a lie, disguising the woman underneath.
    She was none of those things as she glared at him. “It’s not my first choice, but it’s a good option for blowing off some steam when I don’t have time toget out of the city. And, yeah, there are a bunch of people around, but none of them bother me nearly as much as you do. Since you can’t spot me—” she looked pointedly at the cane “—I’d rather you left me alone for a bit.”
    Ouch. Erik buried the wince, knowing she was getting him back for single-handedly putting a stranglehold on her licensing plans.
    He could almost see it in her eyes. You hit me where it hurts and I hit back. How does it feel?
    Not good, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead he nodded shortly. “I have your word that you won’t leave without me?”
    “I promise.” But she looked away as she said it, sending his instincts spiking into the danger zone. “I’ll climb for an hour, maybe less.”
    She strode away, comfortable in her thin, flexible shoes with their grippy bottoms. She crossed to the fiberglass UFO, where she met up with a buff, tanned guy probably a few years younger than she. He wore an employee’s polo shirt that was cut off at the throat and arms much like her T-shirt and ragged jeans shorts that bared his bronzed, muscled legs.
    Erik disliked him on sight, and disliked him even more when he leaned close and said something to Meg, something that sent her burbling laugh rising up and over the background noise of music and exertion. Then she glanced over at Erik and her laugh cut off, as if someone had thrown a switch.
    She pantomimed a shooing motion.
    He muttered a curse and turned away. She wantedspace? He’d give her space, damn it, but he wasn’t trusting her for one moment, promise or not. He limped through the faux rock archway toward the rope climbers, but then turned back and propped his shoulder against the doorway. He could watch from there without being seen, giving her space while also providing protection.
    Protection for her from the danger that seemed to be stalking them. Protection for him from being betrayed by an attractive woman. Again.
    He muttered a curse as he watched her chalk her hands from the pouch at her waist and attack the free-climbing wall while the stranger spotted her from ground level. It wasn’t until a spear of pain lanced through his temples that he realized he was gritting his teeth hard enough to make his molars creak.
    The sound was overridden by a stranger’s voice at his elbow. “You climbing or just watching?”
    Erik turned, annoyed that he’d been caught staring. “Just waiting for a friend.”
    The stranger was in his midforties and wore the silver hair and tanned, wrinkled skin of an outdoors-man with pride. Unlike most of the other climbers, his shirt was uncut and tucked into loose drawstring pants. Something sparked in the depths of his brown eyes when he held out a hand. “I’m Luke Cannon.”
    Erik shook because it would have been rude not to, but he could think of only two reasons why the stranger had come over. “If this is a pickup, I’m not interested, and if you’re looking for money, I’m not giving.”
    Cannon snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t swing that way, and I don’t need your money. Otto asked me to come over. Meg’s friends are his