Free Into the Fire by Anne Stuart Page A

as simple as killing Dillon. Or getting someone to do it. Or maybe he had to be finished with Jamie, as well. A murder-suicide pact would be perfect, but highly unlikely. Unless Jamie could be persuaded to shoot Dillon.
    It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Anything could happen, and there was a lot of history between them. They were just as haunted by the past as they were by his shadowy presence.
    It still waited to be seen which of the two would prove the stronger. And the more destructive.

6
    J amie considered herself riddled with flaws, but cowardice wasn’t one of them. Yes, she wanted to get the hell out of there rather than confront the past and the possibly unpalatable truth about Nate, but fate, or her mother, had decreed otherwise. She was stuck here for at least a couple of days, and she wasn’t going to spend that time avoiding Dillon. Besides, the bigger a pain in the butt she was, the more motivated he’d be to help her leave.
    She shoved her hair back from her face and straightened to her full height. She was too short, almost a foot shorter than Dillon, and she always thought that he would have been easier to deal with if he didn’t tower over her. He thought he could bury his head inside a car engine and ignore her, but she was about to disabuse him of that notion. She was going to be a total pest until she got out of there.
    She opened the door to the cavernous garage and was immediately assaulted by noise, a vast rumbling that had been almost completely muffled. She closed the door behind her and began to sort through the cacophony. The rush of white noise was actually some kind of space heater, spewing hot air into the vast expanse of the room. The music was loud, too, Nirvana, Jamie suspected, though she’d never been that fond of the group. But Dillon had always favored the raw-pain sound of Kurt Cobain.
    Beneath it all was the rumble and roar of a car engine, punctuated with the steady sound of a hammer on metal. And then a stream of curses as Dillon emerged from beneath the hood of the Duesenberg.
    She’d half hoped to watch him for a bit without him realizing she was there, but he honed right in on her, his eyes narrowing. It was too loud to do anything other than shout, and Dillon wasn’t about to bother raising his voice. He simply disappeared back beneath the hood of the old car, leaving Jamie with two choices. She could go back into the kitchen and wait. Or she could go over there and make him talk to her.
    The kitchen option sounded immensely appealing, but Jamie was made of sterner stuff than that. She wasn’t about to turn off the heat—her sojourn in the alleyway still hadn’t worn off completely—but she could put a stop to the cacophony blaring from the huge stereo system.
    She walked over to it and punched the power button, and the noise level decreased substantially.
    â€œWhat the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Dillon demanded, emerging from the Duesenberg engine once more.
    â€œTurning off the noise. I want to talk with you.”
    He dropped the hammer on the cement floor and headed toward the stereo. And her. “I’m working,” he growled. “And when I work, I listen to music.”
    â€œIf you call that music,” she scoffed.
    â€œYou can’t fix cars to Mozart, princess, no matter what your mother might think. Not that the Duchess would think about anything as mundane as fixing cars, but you know what I mean. I promised to get this Dusey ready sometime before Thanksgiving, and obviously I’m running behind schedule. So if you’d take your cute little butt out of here and let me listen to my music then I won’t have to shoot you.”
    â€œDo you even have a gun?”
    â€œI’m a convicted felon. Not allowed to own firearms.”
    â€œYou didn’t answer my question.”
    â€œAnd I’m not going to.” He had moved up close to her, because she was fool