Page 41 of Too Lethal to Love

Conner—Two

Danny —Three

Kane—

Oh, hell no, Kane would not be her fourth victim.

She waved at the door with both hands. “You have to go. Call Nic. Or Linc. I don’t care if you call Chris and Scarlett to babysit me. Just leave.”

In a move as quick as when he’d subdued the liquor store hoodies, he pinned her hands at her sides. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re number four, Kane.” She struggled against his hold, trying to edge him to the door so she could push him out. “Your life is in danger because of me. You need to go.”

He pulled her to a recliner tucked next to the fireplace and nudged her to sit. “I survived getting my leg blown off and crawled through the sand to save my life. I can handle a stalker who doesn’t have the balls to show himself when he threatens a woman. Now tell me what the number four means.”

Panic sizzled in her veins.

Her bones.

Her heart.

An earsplitting alarm pealed in her mind. “It’s a threatthat won’t remain on paper for very long, and that threat isn’t to my life. It’s to yours.”

He leaned forward and rested an arm on top of the cushion behind her. “Start talking. Now.”

“No, I can’t tell you.” Her whisper held a hysterical pitch that scared her. “I have to show you.”

Beth didn’t look at the towering wrought iron gates as Kane parked outside the cemetery. The cloud cover from the impending storm and the streetlights losing a battle with the fog created an ominous enough backdrop for what she needed to tell him.

As he put the truck in park, she sucked in a fortifying breath. “The reason I didn’t want you to come home with me is this.” She pointed to the gate. “That’s where Danny is buried, first grave to the right of the entrance. You know how he died.”

She heaved in another breath and pointed down the long driveway weaving through the tree-lined cemetery. “Conner is back there. We knew each other in high school and dated in college. He died in a bar fight when we were home for spring break. One minute, we were hanging out at Mary’s Tavern. The next, he was knocked out from a punch that he never woke up from. The fight started because he’d caught a guy from out of town trying to slip something into my drink.”

She grasped the medallion hanging in the swell of hercleavage. “And way back near the woods is Matthew. He was my boyfriend my senior year in high school. One night, a few weeks before graduation, my friend Evangeline convinced me to go to a party in the next town over. When I wanted to leave, Evangeline refused to go because she was hooking up with some guy. I called Matthew to pick me up. He was killed by a drunk driver on the way.” She shook her head. “He’d just gone through hell fighting cancer and beat it and then…”

“Is he the reason you volunteer at the hospital?”

She nodded, the slight movement a blunt contrast to the sympathy in Kane’s voice. In the microsecond it took him to add up her dead boyfriends, a fourth grave flashed in her vision. She slammed her eyes shut against the waking nightmare, but lighting still struck the headstone her mind conjured one, two, three times. The fourth time, she swayed as a whip of fire etched Kane’s name into the black marble and cemented his demise.

Kane caught her arm and steadied her. “And you think the letter in the mailbox is a message that I’m next?”

She opened her eyes and slowly turned toward him. Something dark swirled in his gaze. She couldn’t pinpoint the emotion in the dimness, but it ratcheted the tension about to burst the bodice of her gown. “Whoever sent that letter knows about my past.” She pointed to the cemetery behind her. “This is the reason Rita was surprised I have a boyfriend. The reason Jerry commented about being afraid I’d never date again.”

The reason I can’t fall for you.

Kane’s brow furrowed. “I’m not following.”

Her stomach pitched as the words formed on her tongue. “Every guy I’ve dated from North Bensen died while we were dating. I’m known in town as the Black Widow.” Saying thenasty nickname left an oily taste on her tongue. “Just ask the women in the gossip brigade.”

“The gossip brigade?” Kane’s lips twisted like he’d eaten something sour. “Why do they think dating you had something to do with those guys dying?”

She shrugged, hiding her cringe at the ludicrous explanation. “According to them, I must have done something to piss off the powers that be. Losing boyfriends is my punishment or curse or whatever.”

“You don’t believe that bullshit, do you?”

The incredulity in his question, as if he feared she did believe, shrunk her into the seat.

“It doesn’t matter if I believe it or not.” God, she didn’t want to think for a moment that the happenstance of loving her—a woman cursed for reasons unknown but surely deserved, according to some people—had resulted in three deaths. But the time she’d wasted believing in mystical nonsense was as real as the gravestone.

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