Free The Stranger by Anna del Mar Page B

out of bounds and I was not on the market. Besides, I couldn’t bear the thought of spending one more second than was absolutely necessary exposed to his radioactive glare.

Chapter Five
    By the time I heard the door open upstairs, Jer had left, the snow machine was loaded on the truck, and I’d talked to my assistant and rescheduled all of my videoconferences for later in the day. I was stuck in a piss-poor mood. In the last forty-eight hours, I’d gone from the low of Danny’s death, to the highpoint of my extraordinary night with Summer, to the pits of the worst morning-after that two people could have.
    It served me right for giving in to an impulse, for detouring from logic and reality. Wishful thinking was for idiots. Who the hell would want to be with me anyways? It wasn’t only the scars. It was the shit going on in my head. Last night I had stepped into an alternative reality. Now I was back and ready to deploy my brain instead of my dick.
    I cinched the truck bed’s straps and took a deep breath, trying to calm the acid roiling in my stomach. I thought about the security camera footage I’d reviewed this morning. It showed a grainy, black-and-white rendition of the stunning woman lying on my dining table and the balance of our encounter. I looked for clues, but other than that ethereal, translucent look in her eyes, I couldn’t find anything that should have suggested to me that she’d been sleepwalking.
    The footage was proof of consent, but it also showed that I wasn’t completely clueless. Summer had wanted me as much as I had wanted her. My imagination hadn’t manufactured last night and, whether she remembered it or not, something had happened between us. Something in addition to the sex.
    She wasn’t part of Alex’s plan. She couldn’t be. Her attitude wasn’t consistent with deception. The additional call I’d placed this morning backed up my gut feeling with facts. I hadn’t met too many women in my life who’d pass up the opportunity to exploit a situation like this one. Not Summer. So far, she didn’t seem to be about the money, or about power or control.
    Then there was the murder attempt. In my fucking backyard, no less. The state troopers and Spider were on the trail, but there was nothing in her background that suggested this kind of trouble. Maybe she was right and it was a mistake or a random act of violence. Who the hell would want to kill Summer?
    Well, it wasn’t going to happen, not while I was around. As to the rest, my mind was a one-way street. Summer might not remember what happened last night, but I did. How a single night with a stranger had turned me into the horniest son of a bitch in Alaska, I couldn’t begin to explain. But I had to face the music. My body buzzed when she was near. Hell, I was getting hard just thinking about her.
    I cranked up the winch one last time, visualizing a plunge in a glacial lake, willing my blood to flow elsewhere. I wondered if this is how moose bulls felt during the rut. I wanted more of what I’d had last night, more of her. If she remembered, she’d want more too. I made up my mind. If I had to go to extremes to flush out the truth—and jostle her memories—then I would.
    “Helloooo?” Summer’s voice came from the top of the stairs.
    Showtime.
    “Ahoy, down there.” She inched down the steps. “Please don’t shoot. I come in peace. If I had a white flag I’d wave it, but I didn’t pack one and I bet hell would have to freeze over before you ever owned one of those. Permission to come below?”
    My lips twitched. I waved her down. “Permission granted.”
    She stepped down the last of the stairs, taking in my garage as if she’d never seen one like it, which was probably true, considering that I’d designed the house around the garage and I was damn proud of it. She checked out the bikes, ATVs and motorcycles parked on the heated concrete floors.
    “Do you play every sport known to man?” She studied the gear