2. Come Be My Love

  Come Be My Love

  ✥

  Annette Broadrick

  SILHOUETTE BOOKS

  Copyright © 1988 by Annette Broadrick

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S. A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Printed in U.S.A.

  ANNETTE BROADRICK

  lives on the shores of Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, where she spends her time doing what she loves most—reading and writing romance fiction. Since 1984, when her first book was published, Annette has been delighting her readers with her imaginative and innovative style. In addition to being nominated by Romantic Times magazine as one of the Best New Authors of that year, she has also won the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for Best in its Series for Heat of the Night, Mystery Lover and Irresistible, the Romantic Times WISH Award for her hero in Strange Enchantment and the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award for Series Romance.

  This book is dedicated to fellow writers Noreen Brownlie and Susan Naomi Horton whose long-distance encouragement and assistance in plotting and planning not only helped me to hang on to my sanity but also contributed to the increased revenues of the telephone companies for two nations!

  Thank you both for your beautiful friendships. I have been doubly blessed.

  Chapter 1

  The high beams of Gregory Duncan's headlights glimmered on the blanketing snow that weighted the branches of the evergreens surrounding Tim's A-frame chalet. The snow sparkled with a glitter that caused Greg to smile as he made the last sharp turn into the empty driveway.

  He sat there for a moment, absorbing the night silence and the beauty of the heavy snow. He was looking forward to the next few days, to the solitude that he'd finally decided he needed. The long drive from eastern Missouri to the Rocky Mountains of southern Colorado had been worth the effort. Taking in the quiet serenity and beauty around hrni, he knew that he'd made the right decision—to escape from his busy world and enjoy the solitude of nature.

  Greg climbed from the car and stretched, then reached for his bag. His skis could wait until morning. He had plenty of time now to do whatever he wanted. At the moment, sleep was his number one priority.

  He felt in his pocket for the key his friend had given him years ago, right after Tim had purchased his hideaway. Thank God for a friend like Tim, Greg thought as he mounted the steps to the door. They went back a long way.

  Greg had been unable to reach Tim at his Denver office when he had suddenly decided, after an unusually long jury trial, to get away for a while. Not that contacting Tim was mandatory before using the place. Tim had always insisted that Greg treat the place as his own and that he make free use of it.

  Greg had half hoped that Tim might have had the same idea and be there ahead of him, but there were no other vehicles parked around the cabin.

  Given Tim's business, he could be anywhere at the moment. He went to whatever part of the world he was needed in, whenever he was called. Greg was one of the few people who knew exactly what Tim did for a living and how valuable was his contribution to the safety and continued security of the country.

  Tim was a very private person. Greg knew the same could be said about his own personality, which probably explained why he and Tim had been friends for so many years.

  He also understood why Tim needed a place where he could retreat on occasion and why its location was a closely guarded secret from almost everyone who knew him. Greg appreciated the trust Tim had shown in him by sharing the retreat with him.

  Greg let himself in by the kitchen door and flipped on a light. Everything looked ready for occupancy. Greg knew that Tim paid a couple who lived a few miles down the road to keep an eye on the place. Tim also kept it well stocked with food. Peeking into the refrigerator, Greg smiled at the plentiful supply of canned and bottled drinks.

  At the moment, all Greg wanted was several hours of uninterrupted sleep. The very idea of being somewhere without a phone or an alarm clock seemed to be the height of luxury to him.

  He turned out the light and made his way to the stairs by the reflection of light from the snow outside shining through the glass wall that made up the front of the A-frame home.

  The place was small but fulfilled Tim's needs—as well as Greg's. The loft area was open, with a railing overlooking the main part of the house below. An oversize bed waited in the deep shadows of the room, and Greg sank onto the edge of the mattress, wearily pulling off his shoes, then unbuttoning his shirt. Within seconds he'd stripped down to his shorts, and with a sigh of anticipation he crawled under the covers.

  Alone at last was his last conscious thought.

  ❧

  Brandi Martin slept heavily. Her exhaustion was as much emotional as physical. Yet even in her sleep she could not find any peace of mind—her subconscious filled her dreams with people who were after her. She had to get away. She had to hide, to hide before they succeeded in killing her.

  A hand brushed her shoulder.

  She screamed, waking herself up, and discovered that the hand touching her hadn't been part of her dream. The bedside lamp came on and a male voice said, "What the-''

  Still half submerged in her dreams, Brandi found that she was in bed with a man she'd never seen before in her life.

  She screamed again.

  "Good God, lady! I heard you the first time. Your reaction is duly noted. Now, for hell's sake, who are you and what are you doing here?"

  Brandi felt frozen with shock and fright. She watched as the tall, well-built blond man threw back the covers on his side of the bed and stood up, revealing a well-muscled physique with very little covering it. With economical movements, he pulled on a pair of jeans that were beside the bed. He turned around and stared at her, his hands resting on his hips.

  All Brandi could think about was the horrible realization that somehow, someway, she had been traced to Tim's place.

  "Who are you?" Her voice quavered, and she glanced quickly around the room, searching for a weapon, any weapon.

  "I asked you first."

  She glanced back at him nervously. If he'd come there to kill her, would he have taken off his clothes first? "What are you doing here?" she asked, trying to fight the horror of wondering who he might be.

  "What the hell does it look like, lady?" Greg ran his hand through his hair. "If you were expecting Tim, I'm sorry to disappoint you." He glanced around the room. " Where is he, anyway?"

  Hearing a name that she knew caused Brandi to draw her first deep breath since she'd been jolted awake. Her heart was pounding relentlessly in her chest, and she forced herself to try to calm down. Even though she didn't know who this man was, he obviously knew Tim, which meant that he couldn't be one of the faceless men who had been pursuing her for the past three nightmarish days and nights.

  She spoke her relief out loud. "You must be a friend of Tim's," she murmured, trying to calm down.

  Greg sighed and sank onto the edge of the bed. Whoever this woman was, he didn't give her much in the way of brainpower. Either that or she wasn't too swift when she first awoke.

  Then again, having some strange female screech in his ear wasn't his idea of a great good-morning call, either. He glanced at his watch in disgust. He'd driven fourteen hours, hadn't gotten to sleep until two, and now it was barely five in the morning.

  Greg studied the woman in the bed closely, wondering who she was and how she'd managed to get inside Tim's cabin. He knew he'd never seen her before. He would have remembered her. She was small, with short black curls that reminded him of a b
aby's fine hair falling over her forehead and feathering around her ears and the nape of her neck. Her eyes, a prominent feature in her elfin face, were so deeply blue they looked almost black in the lamplight, with lashes so thick that they appeared to be smudges that made her large eyes seem even larger. At the moment she was very pale, but Greg guessed that her skin was naturally fair.

  She inched back against the headboard as though she were afraid of him when he sat down on the bed. Greg found her attitude ludicrous, but at the moment he could think of no way to reassure her that he didn't make a practice of attacking women—and particularly not at five o'clock in the morning.

  He realized that they had been sitting there staring at each other in silence for several minutes, which wasn't getting them anywhere.

  "All right," he said with a shrug. ''I'll go first. My name is Greg Duncan. I'm a friend of Tim's from Missouri. Tim and I have been friends for more years than I can remember. He lets me use this place whenever it's available." He paused and, with a slight lift of his brow, added, "Obviously it wasn't as available as I thought. Now then, who are you?"

  Brandi had had an opportunity to calm down a little. Her heart had finally slowed enough that she was fairly certain it wasn't going to leave her chest or go into cardiac arrest.

  "I'm Brandi Martin."

  As though they were meeting at a formal party, Greg nodded his head slightly and held out his hand. "How do you do, Brandi Martin?"

  She stared at his hand blankly, feeling more than a little confused at the sudden polite turn to the conversation. When he continued to hold it out to her, she reluctantly placed her hand in his.

  Greg smiled as she immediately withdrew her hand from his. "Rest assured that I have no intention of harming you in any way," he said in a quiet tone. "I apologize for startling you earlier, but quite frankly I had no idea you were in this bed with me."

  "I had no idea you were here, either," she replied faintly.

  "Yes, you did manage to convince me of that," he said solemnly. "I take it you're a friend of Tim's."

  She nodded.

  ''Would you like to tell me what you're doing here?"

  ''Trying to sleep," she pointed out dryly.

  He laughed. "Good point. Are you here to meet Tim? Are you expecting him soon?"

  Greg noted that she appeared to be ill at ease with his questions, but he refused to withdraw them. He just waited patiently, knowing that most people were unnerved by silence, particularly when it came after a question directed toward them.

  She dropped her gaze to the colorful quilt that covered the bed. "I was looking for Tim. I thought he might be here."

  "Well, as you can see, he isn't."

  Her eyes flashed as she met his inquiring gaze. "I know that now. But it was too late when I got here to go back, and I really didn't know where to go. I knew that Tim wouldn't mind— He once showed me where he kept an extra key, and I needed to—" She dropped her eyes and stared at her hands for a moment before continuing, "I needed a place to stay."

  "So Tim doesn't know you're here; is that right?"

  She shook her head, her gaze still on her hands folded in her lap.

  "Where do you live, Brandi?"

  "In northern Colorado."

  That was vague enough, Greg decided. He decided to try a different tack. "Why did you need to find a place to stay?"

  She met his intent gaze and knew that she couldn't tell him about the bizarre happenings of the past few days. Even if he believed her, telling him wouldn't change the danger she was running from.

  When she let the silence grow, he sighed. "How old are you, Brandi?"

  Startled by the personal question, she asked, ''What difference does my age make?"

  "It could make a great deal of difference," he said gently, "if you've run away from home and your family is worried about you."

  The choked laugh she gave showed no sign of amusement. "I don't know who you are, Mr. Duncan, but you certainly aren't a very good judge of women's ages. How old do you think I am?"

  She raised her chin and stared at him almost belligerently, and it was all he could do not to smile. He guessed she was sixteen—maybe—but he could tell that to suggest such a tender age would only incense her. So he chose blatant flattery. "Twenty?"

  For the first time since he'd turned on the light, Greg saw honest amusement in her face. She glanced at him, then at the soft glow from the bedside lamp.

  "Remind me to always stay in dimly lighted rooms. The light just took several years off my age."

  Greg gave a start. Surely she must be lying. But why? And at the moment he had other, more important considerations to face, like trying to get caught up on some much-needed sleep.

  "Look, Vm sorry, but I've been up for almost twenty-four hours and I'm dead on my feet. If it's all right with you, I'd like to postpone this meeting until sometime later in the morning."

  He waited for a response. When she continued to watch him without saying anything, he shook his head. The chill of the room was making itself felt. With sudden decisiveness he stood and shucked off his pants, then yanked the covers up and crawled beneath them. He was still almost a foot away from her.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he added, "Just do me a favor, okay? Try not to scream if I accidentally brush against you again. I promise to do my best to stay on my own side of the bed."

  With that he turned off the light and pulled the covers over his broad shoulders, his back to her.

  Brandi sat there stunned for a moment, startled by his attitude.

  "But you can't sleep here—"

  Without moving, he muttered, " Watch me."

  "But I don't know you! I mean, you could be—"

  "I'll sign an oath in blood not to touch your body if you'll just shut up and let me get some sleep now. We can spend all day tomorrow talking, okay?"

  Brandi continued to sit there staring at his back with dismay mixed with a certain amount of admiration. Here was a man who could handle himself in an unusual situation. Her unexplained presence hadn't fazed him.

  Brandi slowly slid back down into the bed, making sure the distance between them did not lessen. What was she going to do? Obviously, her options were limited. She could get up, get dressed and start hiking down the side of the mountain.

  And then what? She could call... who? Who could she call if she couldn't find Tim? Who could she trust? Who would believe her bizarre story, anyway? She had no way of knowing why she was being pursued with such single-minded zest.

  If only she weren't so tired, perhaps she could think straighter. Brandi knew that her behavior bordered on paranoia, but how could she help it? In her case, there really seemed to be an Indian behind every tree. And she didn't know what guise he would be wearing.

  At least she felt safer here at Tim's. Surely no one had been able to follow her here.

  She turned and stared at the blond head that seemed to be buried in the pillow next to her. For now she might as well follow his example and get some sleep. Maybe everything would look better tomorrow. She didn't know Greg Duncan or what he did, but he was quick-witted enough to make her feel like a witness being cross-examined. Perhaps she would tell him what had happened to her tomorrow, when the sun was shining and everything looked brighter.

  Brandi slipped into sleep once again, unaware of how she was drawn to the body heat nearby, unaware of curling up to a broad back and feeling safe for the first time in days.

  Greg came awake instantly when he felt Branch press closely against his back. He waited for her to say something, and when she didn't he realized that she was sound asleep. He smiled to himself without moving and drifted off to sleep once more.

  ❧

  The alluring aroma of freshly brewed coffee drifted into Brandi's dreams several hours later. Without opening her eyes, she stretched luxuriously, feeling rested, relaxed and more like her old self than she had in days.

  When she awakened enough to register the smell, her eyes blinked open and s
he stared at the slanted roof over her head.

  She wasn't at home, because there was no one there to prepare coffee and the ceiling of her bedroom was not formed by two of the bedroom walls coming together to meet overhead.

  It was only then that she remembered the night before, and glanced at the other side of the bed. She had a certain sense of a good-news-bad-news situation. The good news was that she was alone. The bad news was that she was not on her side of the bed, or even in the middle. To be technically accurate, Brandi had awakened on the same side of the bed that had been occupied by Greg Duncan. She could only hope that she had moved restlessly after he had gotten up. Otherwise, she knew that she wouldn't be able to face him without her embarrassment showing.

  Now that she was awake, she became aware of other sounds and scents drifting up from downstairs. The mouth-watering aroma of bacon wafted up to greet her, as well as the soft, homey sounds of someone working in the kitchen.

  She also caught a distinct hum, as though whoever was in the kitchen were quite pleased with the world. Brandi lunged out of bed, quivering. Had she done something last night to put him in such a benign, even benevolent, mood?

  She couldn't remember. She shook her head, then realized that it was too cold to stand there shivering beside the bed trying to remember what she might have done last night. She found her clothes where she had dropped them the night before and hastily pulled on her turtleneck undershirt, a bulky sweater, a long pair of thermal underpants and her jeans. Then she grabbed a pair of thick socks and pulled them on. Her fleece-lined leather boots followed.

  Only then did she realize that she had to go to the bathroom, which was downstairs. But at least she felt protected now—against the cold and against the man waiting below.

  Greg Duncan from Missouri. If she hadn't been so tired the night before she might have responded differently to his presence. However, once she had accepted that he was a friend of Tim's, she had relaxed, feeling safe—safe for the first time in days. The sleep that overcame her had been like a powerful narcotic, deadening her to everything else.