Under Her Skin (7 page)

Five years ago, Emma Cooper would have thought a blown tire in the middle of a blizzard was bad. But
bad
was the small, spiked metal ball her fingers found embedded in the rubber—and
worse
was the truck, its headlights on bright, pulling off the two-lane highway and onto the shoulder twenty yards behind her Jeep.

The tire iron in her hands rattled against the one lug nut she'd had time to crack loose. She hadn't even raised the jack yet; it lay on the icy asphalt behind the flat front tire.

No, not much time had passed at all. He must have been waiting off the road for her to drive by, his truck concealed by the dark and the snow.

Don't panic
, Emma told herself, and pulled in a long breath between her chattering teeth. Now was definitely not the time to panic.

Still gripping the tire iron, Emma rose from her crouch. The rattling rumble of his diesel motor cut off. The pounding of her heart filled the sudden, snow-muffled silence.

Stay calm.
She tugged open the front door of her Jeep, slid into the driver's seat, and hit the locks.

Emma had been living in Seattle the past five years, but she'd kept up on the local news. In the last eighteen months, four vehicles—each with flat tires—had been found abandoned on this rural stretch of an Oregon highway. Each time, searchers recovered the body of a woman from the surrounding woods. Each woman had been raped and strangled.

The truck door slammed shut.
Oh, God.
She squinted against the glare of headlights in the rearview mirror, but couldn't see anything. With her right hand, she rummaged blindly through her purse on the passenger seat and found her cell phone.

It had been years since she'd dialed the number, but she still knew it by heart. Nathan Forrester answered on the third ring. She spoke over his sleep-roughened greeting.

"Hey, Sheriff Studly." Emma could see the dark figure in her side mirror now. The silhouetted shape was tall, and wearing a thick coat and a cowboy hat. She couldn't tell if he carried a gun. "I'm on the side of the highway with a flat tire, and I could really, really use a lift."

"Emma? Oh, Christ. Emma, listen—
don't accept any help.
"

"I didn't plan on it." She stared at the mirror. He'd walked half the distance to her Jeep. Her fingers tightened on the tire iron, her nails drawing blood from the heel of her palm.
Stay calm.
"But I think he plans to offer help anyway."

She heard Nathan swearing and running across a wooden floor. "Where are you? You still have your Jeep?"

"About ten miles before the Bluffs turnoff. And, yes. I still have it."

"Okay, Emma, I'm on my way, but you've got to drive. Stay in low gear. The flat tire will pull hard at your steering wheel, but your Jeep will go. So you start it now and get the hell out of there."

Emma jammed the phone between her cheek and shoulder, turned the ignition key. The engine fired up. A shadow darkened her window.

She looked over just he swung her jack through the glass.

It was worse than the others had been—the window shattered, the door hanging open, blood splashed in the snow. Gun in hand, Nathan jumped from his Blazer, his unlaced boots skidding on the icy road. He slid into the side of the Jeep, glanced inside.

The seats were empty.

The breath he drew to roar her name felt like the first he'd pulled into his aching chest since he'd heard the breaking glass and her aborted shriek.

"Emma!"

The echo faded, leaving the whisper of falling snow and the low growl of his truck engine. A trail of blood and thrashed snow led behind the Jeep. Nathan followed it, the freezing air biting at his face, his uncovered ears.

From the pine trees alongside the road came the snap of a breaking branch. Nathan swung around, scanning the night. The light from the half-moon barely pierced the tree line, and the shadows between the pines danced in the flashing red and blue lights from his truck. His muscles tensed; something was moving through the woods, its eyes reflecting the strobe lights like a cat's. He aimed his flashlight, switched it on.

The high-powered light flooded Emma's pale face before her hand flew up, shielding her eyes.

Oh, thank God. Thank God. His knees almost gave out, but through some miracle, he remained standing. He skimmed the light down her body, and his heart lurched. Blood stained her sweater and jeans. He pushed into the snow drift on the highway shoulder, began to wade toward her. "Are you hurt?"

"No." She lowered her hand. Her voice was steady. "He's gone. Toward Pine Bluffs."

And must have turned down a side road. Nathan hadn't met anyone on his way here. "Is that his blood or yours?"

"His. I panicked and bit him." Her head tilted back as he drew closer, and he could see the trail of blood under her jaw, the faint smear on her chin.

"Good," he murmured, and lifted his cold hand to her warm cheek, gently turning her face. A livid bump had formed beneath the short dark hair; the skin was broken.

"Biting him was
not
good, Nathan. Not good at all." She sighed, then winced when he brushed his thumb over the bump. "He whacked me with the jack."

Hit in the head with a jack, and she was still upright? There was no chance that that was going to last; she must be running on pure adrenalin. He slipped his arm around her shoulders, turned toward the road. "Let's get you back to town."

Back. Finally.
But he hadn't imagined her return would be like this.

And God only knew why she'd left in the first place.

Emma waited in Nathan's truck while he spoke with the deputy who pulled in behind him a few minutes later. She warmed her hands in front of the heater as Nathan grabbed her suitcases from the back of her Jeep. Melting snow darkened his brown hair to black, and plastered the short strands to his forehead. He'd come without a hat, without tying his boots, without changing out of his checkered flannel pajama pants. He'd remembered to button his sheepskin jacket over his bare chest only after Deputy Osborne had arrived.

"Once word of this gets out, your deputies are never going to let you live it down," she said when Nathan slid into his seat.

He glanced over toward Osborne. When he looked back at Emma, his broad grin kicked her heart against her ribs. "Word
isn't
getting out. Last year, I caught Osborne in the break room singing—and dancing—to Britney Spears."

"How'd you know it was Britney Spears?"

"It's a damn good thing
he
never asked me that, isn't it?" Nathan made a U-turn, lifting his hand as he drove past Osborne. "How's your head?"

She prodded the bump on her scalp and grimaced. "Not bad. It only hurts when I touch it."

"Then—"

"Don't touch it." She met his eyes. There was warmth and laughter there, just as there'd been six years ago when she'd fallen off one of his horses, bruising her pride and her elbow. Her aunt Letty had given her the same advice then—don't touch it. "Yes, I know."

His smile faded as his gaze swept over her again. "We'll stop at Letty's, have her look at that bump. Then I'll take you both to my place."

Aunt Letty's old farmhouse shared a lane with the Forrester property. "Do you think that's necessary?"

"Yes." The instrument panel cast a faint green light over his hard profile and the grim set of his mouth. "We're pretty sure he's local. And even if we try to keep your identity quiet, word
will
get out."

And everyone knew where Aunt Letty lived, where Emma would be staying. "Will he come after me?"

"If he thinks you can identify him, yes. No one's gotten away from him before."

Nathan had already asked if she'd recognized her attacker. Emma hadn't. She'd know him if she saw him again, though. Or smelled him.

With luck, however, she wouldn't have to taste him again. "I bit his hand pretty hard," she said.

"I can see that." His gaze dropped to her shoulder. The blood soaking her wool sweater overwhelmed almost every other odor in the Blazer, so that beneath its metallic scent she only detected a faint hint of coffee, vinyl seats, the earthiness of male skin, and his lingering fear. "We'll keep a look out for any hand injuries. But this time of year, everyone's wearing gloves. Even if you took a good chunk, he could hide it."

More than a chunk. Nausea churned in her stomach. "His truck had a diesel engine. It was a pickup truck.. I know it was one of the big ones, because the lights were high up."

"Good. That's good, Emma. That'll help us." He rubbed his hand over his face before flipping the windshield wipers to high, whipping away the heavy flakes. "What the hell were you thinking, driving through this mess in the middle of the night?"

She'd been thinking that even if her Jeep had gotten stuck, even if it had slid into a ditch, she'd be fine. Running the distance to Aunt Letty's would have been no effort. It would have been
fun
.

"Well, I wasn't thinking that a murderer would give me a flat tire." She waited until he glanced over, met her eyes. "You're only pissed at me because you were scared. Believe me, I was scared, too. Out of my freaking wits."

Nathan clenched his jaw, looked through the front windshield again. "You're calm enough now."

And barely holding onto that calm. Her senses were filled with blood, with Nathan. "Trust me," she said softly. "That's a good thing."

Even waking her at two in the morning didn't trip Aunt Letty up. Telling her about Emma's run-in with a serial killer didn't either, but Emma hadn't expected it to. No, not Aunt Letty. Her only reaction was one similar to the reaction she gave the first time Emma had changed into a wolf in front of her: she stared at Emma with eyes like steel, but with softly pursed lips.

Then she'd ordered Emma to sit at the kitchen table while she collected her first aid supplies from the pantry. Her white hair was braided for sleep; beneath the mint green terry-cloth robe, Emma knew there would be a sprigged flannel nightgown with a bit of lace at the hem. Her cool fingers were all wrinkles and knuckles, gentle as she cleaned the wound.

"So, young man," she said to Nathan as she unwrapped a bandage, "you're moving us to your place because you're worried he'll come after my Emma."

"Yes, Miss Letty," Nathan said from the kitchen entrance. If he'd had his hat, Emma thought, it'd have been between his hands. Before retiring last year, her aunt had been both teacher and nurse at the tiny Pine Bluffs high school. Emma hadn't met anyone in town below the age of fifty who didn't speak to Letty with the same deference that Nathan did.

"And what did Emma say to that?"

"She didn't argue."

Letty arched her white eyebrows. "Well, isn't that something?" she murmured. "I thought for sure Emma would have said she'd handle any threat on her own."

"I bit him," Emma said quietly, her gaze locked with her aunt's. "He's dangerous—and going to get worse."

"Then it seems to me that, before things get worse, you've got some explaining to do." Letty straightened up. "Maybe you can get started on that while I pack."

Emma sighed, and watched Nathan step aside to let her aunt pass into the hallway. Of course Letty was right. But knowing was easier than doing. Knowing was
always
easier than doing.

But that was why she'd come back, wasn't it? There were things to do, and to explain.

She just hadn't realized she'd be starting this early.

"You might as well change now, too," Nathan said, his deference going as easily as it had come. His fear had passed, too. And his anger. In their place was speculation. His eyes narrowed as he assessed her from head to toe. "I'll need your clothes as evidence. It's unlikely that you'll be getting them back."

"That's fine." Emma hooked her fingers beneath the hem of the blood-stained sweater, and paused. "You're going to watch?"

"I will if you take them off here where I can see you."

In answer, she pulled the sweater over her head. He'd been teasing her, she knew. But now his smile froze in place as Emma took off her t-shirt and threw it on top of her sweater. Then she began to shimmy out of her jeans.

She heard his approach, the racing of his heartbeat. His hands flattened on the table on either side of her hips, closing her in with his wide shoulders and tall frame. "Stop it, Emma."

The growl rumbling up from her chest stole her response. She kicked the jeans free of her feet, and stood in front of him in her bra and panties.

Nathan's face darkened; his breathing deepened. "We got along before, pretending we could just be friends. I can't do that now, not after that phone call, not after hearing you scream and not knowing—" He bit off his words. His throat worked and he leaned in, forcing her back against the table. "So you should think a little before stripping off in front of me."