She hurried around the building, trying not to slip in her heeled sandals. Her feet were soaked already. Not the wisest choice of footwear tonight, given the weather, but she’d been going for sexy and had to dress the part. Besides, she was short and needed all the help she could get.
She was about half the distance to her car when the hairs went up on the back of her neck and she got that feeling again. She looked around, thinking it might be Nils, but the parking lot was deserted.
Cursing John Donovan for the umpteenth time, she dug around in her bag for her keys and pepper spray. Ignoring the water sloshing through her toes, she hustled the remaining distance to her car.
Although pepper spray was illegal for private citizens in most of Scandinavia, she’d been able to track some down, thanks to Google after her John-Donovan-inspired paranoia made her think someone was following her the other night. Apparently some sporting goods stores sold it under the table.
Lucky for her, she had it in her hand when someone grabbed her from behind.
Nine
Brittany didn’t have time to scream. She felt a hand on her upper arm and raised the pepper spray at the same time as someone—a man—spun her around.
She got off only one short shot before the spray was knocked out of her hand with a muffled word in a language that she didn’t need to understand to know it was a curse. Her umbrella was blocking her view of his face, but he was big—about a foot taller than she—and wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt that made him look bulkier than the hardness of the arms grabbing her suggested.
She tried to use the umbrella as a weapon, but it was in her left hand, and her awkward attempt was easily deflected. Like the pepper spray, he knocked it out of her hand with a blow that made her cry out.
She caught a flash of a shadowed profile as he muffled her cry with his hand and drew her in hard against him. He wrapped his arm around her neck so tightly it was cutting off her breath.
Terror was instantaneous and unlike anything she’d ever experienced. It was a primitive reaction thatpermeated every bone, every fiber, every nerve ending of her being.
She struggled, clawing with her fingertips at the thick, steely arm crushing her throat. But it was immovable. He was strong—terrifyingly strong.
She was so scared it took her a few minutes to realize he was trying to pull the purse that she had instinctively clutched to her side. She released it at the same moment as she stomped down hard on his foot with the point of her heel.
The impractical sandals of a few moments ago were now her salvation. He made a sharp sound of pain and loosened the arm around her neck enough to let in some air. She sucked in a few greedy gasps as she tried to twist away.
But he recovered from the heel stomp too quickly and reached for her—or her purse, which was hanging loose on her arm—again.
Oh God, all she’d succeeded in doing was angering him. She could practically feel the menace wrapping around her and feared that this time the arm around her throat wouldn’t stop squeezing.
But instead of tightening around her neck, his arm flexed and she was shoved forward hard against her car. Unable to stop the momentum, she stumbled to her knees and cried out—more from the shock of the force than from pain.
Being on the ground terrified her. Nothing good was going to happen with her like this. The thought of rape permeated the haze, causing her to rally. To fight. She had to get up.
But rape wasn’t why he’d pushed her down. She heard the sound of a struggle and realized that someone else was there. She glanced over her left shoulder as she got to her feet, hunched over.
A man in a hooded Gore-Tex jacket appeared to havejust struck the man in the sweatshirt who’d attacked her. Her thought that Nils might have heard and come to her rescue was discarded at the sight of the blue Helly Hansen–style jacket. Nils had been wearing a similar lightweight rain jacket, but his had been a dusky military green.
Her attacker stumbled but shook off the blow and pulled something out of the sweatshirt pocket. She glanced at his face again, trying to make out the features, but the hood of his sweatshirt was pulled down too far. All she could see was a silhouetted profile. Then she was distracted by the glint of metal coming from his pocket.
“Down.” She heard the shouted warning and reacted to the voice of her rescuer even as she recognized what the metal was.
She dove forward, hitting the ground flat as a muffled shot was fired. The bullet whizzed right above her head, and she screamed.
She didn’t know how long her face was pressed to the wet gravel. She didn’t dare move in case he tried to shoot her again. Time seemed to have stopped. She heard scuffling—fighting—the unmistakable crack of a bone, a sharp grunt, and then the clatter of something metal hitting the ground.
A few long heartbeats later someone was at her side and she was being lifted off the ground and turned around into a reclining position.
Fortunately, it was John, whose voice she’d recognized, and not the man who’d attacked her.
He was handling her so gently. Almost tenderly. She might have been a fragile piece of china from the way he was holding her.
“Oh God, are you hit?”
He had her by the shoulders, and she was able to look up at him to shake her head. There was some kind ofemotion in his gaze that made her throat squeeze, cutting off her ability to talk.
“Thank God,” he said hoarsely, bringing her in tight against his chest.
