Out of Nowhere Read online

  She was in the open. Exposed.

  The realization brought a surge of panic, all her senses registering danger. Yet the gathering darkness in the harbor was reassuring. It helped hide her from whatever might be out there in the night. Except the man who loomed over her in the boat, making her nerves jump. Max was too close. But he might not be her worst problem. Something had happened. Something so terrifying her mind wouldn’t recall it.

  “Trust no one. The enemy will try to stop you.”

  Someone had drummed that into her, over and over. Someone—but not Max. She knew that much.

  His clothes clung to him, outlining a muscular chest and hard thighs. His chiseled face looked concerned, and his voice sounded worried. Or was that just an act?

  She pressed a hand to her throbbing head. Pain pounded in her brain, obliterating thought and memory. But she had to remember. She knew her life depended on coming up with the right answers. And not just her life….

  Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

  Those April showers go hand in hand with a welcome downpour of gripping romantic suspense in the Harlequin Intrigue line this month!

  Reader-favorite Rebecca York returns to the legendary 43 LIGHT STREET with Out of Nowhere—an entrancing tale about a beautiful blond amnesiac who proves downright lethal to a hard-edged detective’s heart. Then take a detour to New Mexico for Shotgun Daddy by Harper Allen—the conclusion in the MEN OF THE DOUBLE B RANCH trilogy. In this story a Navajo protector must safeguard the woman from his past who is nurturing a ticking time bomb of a secret.

  The momentum keeps building as Sylvie Kurtz launches her brand-new miniseries—THE SEEKERS—about men dedicated to truth, justice…and protecting the women they love. But at what cost? Don’t miss the debut book, Heart of a Hunter, where the search for a killer just might culminate in rekindled love. Passion and peril go hand in hand in Agent Cowboy by Debra Webb, when COLBY AGENCY investigator Trent Tucker races against time to crack a case of triple murder!

  Rounding off a month of addictive romantic thrillers, watch for the continuation of two new thematic promotions. A handsome sheriff saves the day in Restless Spirit by Cassie Miles, which is part of COWBOY COPS. Sudden Recall by Jean Barrett is the latest in our DEAD BOLT series about silent memories that unlock simmering passions.

  Enjoy all of our great offerings.

  Sincerely,

  Denise O’Sullivan

  Senior Editor

  Harlequin Intrigue

  OUT OF NOWHERE

  REBECCA YORK

  RUTH GLICK WRITING AS REBECCA YORK

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Award-winning, bestselling novelist Ruth Glick, who writes as Rebecca York, is the author of close to ninety books, including her popular 43 LIGHT STREET series for Harlequin Intrigue. Ruth says she has the best job in the world. Not only does she get paid for telling stories, she’s also the author of twelve cookbooks. Ruth and her husband, Norman, travel frequently, researching locales for her novels and searching out new dishes for her cookbooks.

  Books by Rebecca York

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  143—LIFE LINE*

  155—SHATTERED VOWS*

  167—WHISPERS IN THE NIGHT*

  179—ONLY SKIN DEEP*

  188—BAYOU MOON

  193—TRIAL BY FIRE*

  213—HOPSCOTCH*

  233—CRADLE AND ALL*

  253—WHAT CHILD IS THIS?*

  273—MIDNIGHT KISS*

  289—TANGLED VOWS*

  298—TALONS OF THE FALCON†

  301—FLIGHT OF THE RAVEN†

  305—IN SEARCH OF THE DOVE†

  318—TILL DEATH US DO PART*

  338—PRINCE OF TIME*

  407—FOR YOUR EYES ONLY*

  437—FATHER AND CHILD*

  473—NOWHERE MAN*

  500—SHATTERED LULLABY*

  534—MIDNIGHT CALLER*

  558—NEVER TOO LATE*

  606—BAYOU BLOOD BROTHERS

  “Tyler”

  625—THE MAN FROM TEXAS**

  633—NEVER ALONE**

  641—LASSITER’S LAW**

  667—FROM THE SHADOWS*

  684—GYPSY MAGIC

  “Alessandra”

  706—PHANTOM LOVER*

  717—INTIMATE STRANGERS*

  745—BOYS IN BLUE

  “Jordan”

  765—OUT OF NOWHERE*

  HARLEQUIN BLAZE

  31—BODY CONTACT

  117—BEDROOM THERAPY

  Dear Reader,

  A few years ago, I wrote a Harlequin Intrigue book called Nowhere Man about a tough, wounded hero named Hunter, who survived a terrible ordeal only because a woman named Kathryn Kelley loved him enough to fight for his life. Recently, Nowhere Man was reissued in a volume called Guarded Secrets, and I hope the reprint gave a lot of readers the chance to find out about the book because it’s one of my personal favorites.

  In Out of Nowhere, I wanted to do a reverse twist on Nowhere Man and write about a tough, wounded, bewildered heroine named Annie, who could survive a terrible ordeal only because a man named Max Dakota loved her enough to fight for her life.

  So I’ve dropped Annie into the middle of a terrifying mess. She’s got a vital mission to carry out. The trouble is, she can’t remember what it is. And the nasty, bitter people who trained her have drummed into her that she can trust no one. Max Dakota has to work his way under her prickly exterior and prove to her that her only chance of success is with him—and a team from Randolph Security and 43 Light Street, who volunteer to help her. But when they find out the terrible secret she’s hiding, the truth challenges even their considerable resources.

  You can check out my Web site at

  www.rebeccayork.com.

  Love,

  Ruth Glick, writing as Rebecca York

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Max Dakota—A secret agent with a past.

  Annie Oakland—A woman with no past and no future, who’s desperately trying to find her present.

  Bert Trainer—As the sheriff of Hermosa Harbor, he loves his job, especially the intimidation part.

  Nicki Armstrong—Is her nightclub a front for dirty deals?

  Hap Henderson—He keeps an eye on the newcomers to Hermosa Harbor.

  Angelo—What role does this shadowy figure from Annie’s past play in her present predicament?

  Suli—The sister Annie would save—if she could.

  Thorn Devereaux—He’s got the right credentials to help Annie figure out the mess she’s in.

  Kathryn Kelley—Can she offer Annie the insight she needs?

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Prologue

  She had lived a life of terror. A life of deprivation. A life in which nothing had been free or easy. She had learned how to get along in the world any way she could.

  But she had never been as frightened in her life as she was now. Because the moment was almost here—unless her pounding heart exploded inside her chest, and she died first.

  “You thought you knew what you were getting into,” she murmured. “But you were only fooling yourself.”

  Over the past months she had come to understand that the people holding her captive had placed an impossible burden on her
shoulders.

  They had trained her in the skills they said she would need. They had crammed a foreign language and a million facts into her head. They had made her spend hours in the gym, honing her body into a fine-tuned machine. They had hardly given her a moment to herself.

  But now that the time for departure was almost here, nobody would look her in the eye. Alone, she sat in the molded-plastic chair encased in her tight-fitting one-piece suit.

  Underneath that layer of protective clothing, her stomach was churning and her heart was racing.

  She pressed her booted feet to the cement floor and looked at the metal door, waiting for one of them to come get her for the final trip to hell.

  Her pep talk from Angelo that morning echoed in her head. At first he had sounded almost kind, which was a departure from his usually harsh and frightening tone.

  “You are tough,” he’d said. “You are smart, and you are as well prepared as a human being can be. But I cannot emphasize enough what I have told you so many times. You must rely on your own skills. You can trust no one.”

  “But what if I need help?”

  “The enemy will try to stop you. Trust no one. They may even be waiting for you.”

  “How?”

  “I do not know. But that could be what went wrong the other times,” he’d said in a grating voice. The voice she remembered so well. The Angelo she remembered.

  She might have tried to run away. But there had been no place to go. And she knew Angelo would only hunt her down and punish her for her failure of nerve.

  So she was here. Waiting for the end of her life as she knew it.

  Chapter One

  Hermosa Harbor was the perfect town for murder, Max Dakota thought as he breathed in a draft of the sea air, then glanced from his fishing line to the pink-and-orange-tinged sky. Well, at least for a murder investigation.

  He was here on the Atlantic coast of central Florida, in a veritable tropical paradise, with nothing to do but figure out who had dumped Jamie Jacobson’s body in the marshland outside of town.

  The killers had tried to make it look like an accident. A drunken man falling facedown in the swamp and drowning in a few inches of water.

  The local police didn’t seem too concerned about his death. But Jamie’s mother was paying the Light Street Detective Agency to solve the murder. Max hoped she wasn’t going to hate the final report, because he was just getting to the good part. And it wasn’t pretty.

  His small boat drifted along one side of the channel leading from the ocean to the harbor. It wasn’t a particularly good spot to catch smallmouth bass. But it was an excellent vantage point to watch traffic on the fifty-foot-high drawbridge over the channel. Probably some of those vehicles were moving drugs from a storage point to dealers who were going to take the stuff north.

  Max had been in town for a month, and as far as anyone knew, he was just a guy who’d pulled out of the dot-com bubble before it burst. Since then, he’d been enjoying his early retirement.

  Of course, his last name wasn’t really Dakota. He had been born Maxwell Daniels, although he hadn’t actually used that name in a long time. Max Dakota was one of the aliases he’d picked up during his spy career.

  After stowing his fishing gear, he started the outboard motor, then steered toward the bridge, heading back to the marina at a slow pace because this was a high-traffic area.

  He’d already learned that Jamie wasn’t the only poor jerk who had cashed in his chips in Hermosa Harbor in the past few months. A federal agent had been found floating facedown in the harbor. And a local fitness instructor had taken a dive off his high-rise balcony.

  Max was pretty sure Sheriff Bert Trainer was helping to protect the Hermosa Harbor drug trade. At the least, he was willing to look the other way when shipments moved in and out of the community—probably through Nicki’s Paradise, the favorite nightspot in town. If the owner, Ms. Nicki Armstrong, wasn’t using the club as a storage depot for pot shipments from the Caribbean, Max would eat his baseball cap.

  So Max was playing it cool. He’d spent what looked like an indolent afternoon fishing. But suddenly the evening didn’t seem quite so lazy. There was something hanging heavy in the humid air. An unsettled feeling of expectation.

  Unable to check himself, he looked quickly toward shore. All he saw were small waves lapping against the weeds and a blue heron looking for dinner in the shallows.

  He should have been reassured, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of being in the crosshairs of somebody’s scope. Getting shot in cold blood was unlikely, he told himself. The other recent murders were all set up to look like accidents.

  Still, he knew something was making the skin prickle on the back of his neck. It was like the tension in the atmosphere as a storm was about to break.

  It wasn’t just a feeling in the air. He was picking up an unpleasant smell, too. Taking a deep breath, he tried to place the odor. Ozone. As though lightning had struck something metal nearby. But he hadn’t seen a flash of light.

  He was about to chalk up his jangled nerves to the bowl of spicy fish chowder he’d eaten for lunch, when a deep rumbling sound made him jump.

  Then in front of him, a wavering pattern of light crackled across the darkening sky.

  His mind registered the sequence. Thunder first, then lightning. “That’s the wrong order,” he muttered.

  Bursts of brightness danced rapidly back and forth in the sky, illuminating the bridge, then the clouds, then the bridge again.

  He’d never seen anything quite like it. While he watched, a car whizzed past, as though the driver was anxious to get away from the strange phenomenon.

  His gaze was fixed in that direction when he saw something else. A person—a woman, judging from her slender, curvy body. From where he sat, it seemed as if she had materialized out of the light show. Wearing what looked like a cyclist’s outfit and a helmet, she seemed to be poised on the rail of the bridge. Or just above the rail, which was, of course, a physical impossibility unless somebody he couldn’t see behind her was holding her up.

  Was she planning to commit suicide? Or was one of the lowlifes in town standing out of sight, getting ready to push her off?

  As she clawed at her helmet and flung it away from her, the thought flashed through his mind that the drug trade in Hermosa Harbor was about to claim another victim.

  Straining his eyes, he struggled to get a better view of what was going on up there—just as she went flying over the edge and into the water.

  An exclamation sprang to his lips, even as he opened the throttle of the outboard motor and headed toward the spot where she’d plunged like a rock into the dark water.

  By the time he got there, half a minute later, he saw only a circle of spreading ripples. Turning in all directions, he scanned the channel for some sign that she’d come back to the surface. But he saw nothing in the twilight.

  He pulled near her point of entry and cut the engine. Could he find her down there? Probably not, but he knew he had to try. Kicking off his shoes, he reached for his belt buckle and skinned his pants down his legs. After dragging in a deep breath, he dived.

  The water was relatively clear, and the lights from the bridge penetrated partway into the darkness. Still, he could see only a few feet in front of his face as he plunged downward, thinking that all he could do was give it his best shot.

  He was a good swimmer, and he kept up his surge toward the bottom, his powerful legs kicking, his hands reaching out in front of him and cutting through the water. But he knew that he couldn’t stay below much longer. Just as he was about to turn and kick for the surface, his fingers brushed against something that wasn’t rock or mud.

  It was the woman, lying still as death on the channel bottom. He scrabbled at her slick, one-piece suit but found nothing he could grab on to.

  His lungs were near bursting, and he had to fight the impulse to breathe in what would be a lungful of water.

  Then his hand touched a strip of fab
ric. A belt, he surmised as he scraped his way underneath the webbing and closed his fingers around it. Kicking for the surface, he dragged the woman’s limp body with him, fighting the fuzzy feeling that threatened to overwhelm his brain.

  Finally he broke into the twilight and greedily dragged oxygen into his lungs. He shifted the woman to her back. Slipping his arm under her breasts, and taking a couple of deep breaths, he turned to look at her. She floated unmoving on the surface, a sleeping mermaid, her hair streaming out behind her like strands of blond seaweed.

  The boat had drifted toward the shore, and he struck out, dragging her into the shallows where he could stand on the muddy bottom. With an effort, he lifted her into the boat, then hoisted himself over the edge.

  After the exertion of getting her out of the water, he wanted to throw himself onto the seat and lie there panting. But he knew her need was greater than his. He was still breathing. She was pale and lifeless.

  She looked childlike, although he guessed she was in her mid-to late twenties. And she took care of her body. The flesh he’d felt when he handled her was solid.

  Grasping her by the shoulders, he turned her facedown over one of the seats. Then, hunching over her, he pounded on her back.

  He didn’t know how long he worked on her, expelling the water from her lungs, while his own breath sawed in and out.

  It felt like an eternity before she coughed and said something he couldn’t quite catch.

  “Thank God,” he muttered in answer to those first stuttering breaths.

  He rested on his haunches as she pushed herself up, then flopped onto her back. The suit she wore was molded to her skin, showing him every detail of her body as if she was naked. He saw that her shoulders were broad for a woman, her breasts medium-size with nipples puckered from her dunk in the cold water.

  Moments ago he’d been working frantically to get her breathing again. Now he was conscious of his own state of undress. His wet shirt was plastered to his chest, and his briefs clung obscenely to his lower body.

  The woman’s eyes zeroed in on him. In the last rays of the setting sun, he couldn’t tell their color. But he went very still, caught and held by the intensity he saw there.