“I know, Damien, but I can’t come back right now,” Lana said into her phone.

“The stalker hasn’t bothered you all this time. That tells you he’s someone from the public and doesn’t have the access he used to have. He’s probably moved on to another target. You can’t stay in Montana indefinitely,” he argued.

Her manager for the last two years, Damien Mitchell, had turned her into gold. After the movie she’d had a part in, he’d picked her up and pushed her career to new heights. She didn’t take his domineering tactics to heart. He’d been that way since she’d met him but never drove her too hard when she put her foot down.

“Do you really think it’s that simple?”

He sighed and she smiled, knowing he wanted what was best for her. “No. Things in life are never that easy. But you had very good bodyguards here, Lana. After that last break-in, we restructured your whole team. You can still work and stay safe,” he told her.

“Is the agency looking to fire me?” she asked, worry stealing into her chest.

“Of course not. This is business, darling, and you are very, very good business. Even if I didn’t love you like my own bank account, I wouldn’t let them write you off. You’ve done enough for this group to keep you around permanently, even if on a spokesperson level.”

Lana laughed at his dark humor. Narcissistic, Damien may be, but she could always count on him to do what was best for his bank account. If she were good for his bank account, he’d bend over backwards to keep her happy. And she’d been doing well for it throughout her career with him.

“Terry has been calling, wondering where we’ve been keeping you,” Damien added.

She groaned. She should have expected that he would. Terry, God save him, had agreed to keep the farce of dating and then separating going. He was the reason she was on hiatus—to the public, anyway. Lana thanked her lucky stars she had such a good friend like him.

“He can reach me if he wants to,” she said. He would, of course, not that the agency needed her permission. He could call her at any time and she’d answer.

“You kids still fighting? Not good. He’s one of the top-billing male models in the industry. Don’t want to make it seem like you won’t work with him, kiddo.”

“I’ll work with him just fine, I just won’t date him, and he knows why. But tell the agency I’ll be back as soon as I get this cleared up. I have no intention of leaving my day job.”

Hawk entered the room as she finished her call. “Who was that?” he asked.

“Damien. He wanted me to come home.”

“Damien is the manager, right?”

“You got it. I’m one of his top clients. Doesn’t have as much to do without me there. And Terry has been laying the wanting-me-back game down thick.”

“How long have you been play-dating him?”

“We’ve been off and on for about a year.”

“Hmm,” Hawk answered without further comment.

“You don’t think it could be either Terry or Damien, do you? They have nothing to gain by stalking me. They could reach out to me at any time and I’d connect with them. Why would they stalk me?”

“All I’m saying is, you can’t write anyone off. Stalkers don’t have to have a clear-cut reason to go after anyone. You just have to be aware of that. It can be the devil you know, as they say.”

Lana shook her head but didn’t comment. She knew for certain it wasn’t either of them.

Hawk moved around the table to sit down, and she couldn’t help admiring his physique or remembering she’d seen him with nothing on. He had the body of a Greek god, and he carried himself in an easy manner of confidence rather than cocky. She liked it, a lot. And the way he interacted with his team was heartening. He hadn’t touched her again, either. Instead, he’d updated the security in her home, taught her how to properly saddle a horse, and had even given her a few self-defense classes. But the kisses and overt possible sexual nature of their relationship had disappeared. How she could miss what she never truly had, she didn’t know, but Lana missed him. Over the last week, she’d had no attempts by her stalker to contact her, or even any sign they knew where she was, but Hawk had her make a list of every person close to her. With her job, that was a lot of people. She had hair stylists, makeup artists, photographers, and publicists. Anyone at the agency knew a lot about her, and her manager stood at the top. All in all, she gave Hawk a list of twenty-five people, and she realized modeling left her open in ways she’d never dreamed of.

“Let’s narrow down the pool, shall we?” he asked.

They sat across from each other at her dining room table, heads bowed over the list she’d given him.

“How?”

“I want to know who came into contact with you before the letters and the Paris visit.”

Hawk looked over the list and scratched out the names of those who were most recent.

“Why not the ones after the letters were sent?” she asked him.

“Because someone who is an intimacy-seeking stalker has had some time to develop this romantic entanglement. They will have a story of the love between you, and will cite glances, smiles, or even slight touches as expressions of your love for them.”

“Paris was around the time the letters started coming, and I had a different team then. Let me mark off the ones who came way after that time period.”

Once she did, the list of twenty-five had been reduced to fifteen.

“Better, if not great,” he commented.

Glass shattering halted any other conversation. Hawk leapt to his feet and cleared the table before Lana could blink. Forcing her under the table with his hand, he held her down firmly.

“Stay right here, don’t move. I’m going to check it out. You don’t move until you hear me tell you to come out, no one else. Got it?”

Lana nodded, unable to talk around her heart in her throat. She’d gotten too comfortable, and that made her vulnerable. Without any contact from her stalker, she’d slid into an easy existence with Hawk on the ranch over the week. She looked up so that she could see him, and he hit the front door. He left it open, and she could see a straight line over her land. An engine revved, and then a motorcycle raced by, kicking up dirt and dust so she couldn’t make out anything. Hawk’s large frame filled the doorway, and then he went to the object lying on the floor.

“What is it?” she called from her hiding spot.

“A note,” Hawk answered.

“What does it say?”

“It says, ‘It’s your fault she’s gonna die.’”

 

*

 

Lana had entered The Twilight Zone. That was the only explanation for why her ranch was filled with not just one, but eight SEALs, a CIA agent, and a Delta Force member. She sat in the middle of the chaos as they checked her windows for prints, scoured the perimeter of her home, and even looked in the cupboard under her stairs to see if anyone had been hiding under that. The moon hung heavy in the sky, and she hadn’t spoken a word since Hawk had told her what the message said. It didn’t seem directed at her as much as him. Her stalker had managed to find her, even in little Eagle Rock, Montana. Her throat went dry as she struggled to take a breath. Even here, protected by a SEAL, the stalker had found her and looked to scare her. He’d succeeded. While she’d been thinking of Hawk and the chance to have him in her bed, she’d been watched by a predator, and the bubble of her sphere of safety popped in her face.

Hawk look over his shoulder at one of the men, Welsh. “Where’s the new guy?”

“He didn’t come, out of respect,” Glitz answered, instead. “And his name is Big Boss.”

Welsh stepped in and put his hand on Hawk’s shoulder. “One last mission, just for us.”

Hawk nodded, and look away, but Lana’s view was block when Tiffany stepped up.

“Don’t give him the power,” the CIA agent said.

With a wild mane of auburn hair and fair, porcelain skin, Tiffany Cannon could have been a model herself. She also gave the boys a run for their money, as she wore two shoulder holsters with handguns tucked inside. Dressed in black slacks and a white button-up shirt, her businesslike manner didn’t go with the guns, but she scanned the room steadily, just like the men, and Lana knew she’d be prepared for anything.

“The stalker,” she reiterated. “Don’t let him have the power. You know he’s out there, watching, so you show him strength. No one is going to get to you while we’re here, and we don’t leave our boys behind.”

“You can’t stay here,” Lana said.

“Why not?”

“You all have jobs to get back to.”

“Hawk is our brother, and we’re here. Unless the world catches fire and all our phones start ringing, we aren’t going anywhere. Official R&R or some sort of asset job, I think,” T said with a secret smile.

“You made us assets again, Vixen?” Hawk asked.

She nodded. “I did. We go nowhere until the bastard is found. Hiya, roomie.”

Lana couldn’t respond.

“You get used to the way they bulldoze,” Hawk said, coming toward her.

“Did you find anything?” Lana asked.

Hawk sighed and shook his head.

“This is impossible. How can we find a ghost? I’m surrounded by people every day. It’s impossible to know who wants to hurt me and who doesn’t. It could be a random person who just saw me on the street,” Lana cried.

Hawk pulled her into his arms and pressed her face into his shirt. “It couldn’t be. You had an excellent idea to come to Montana and hide it from everyone but your inner circle. That means it can only be one of them.”

“But we already decided that list is about fifteen strong.”

“And it’s about to get shorter. Who is within five-foot-eleven and six-foot- four, and in a range of a hundred and forty to a hundred and eighty pounds?” Hawk asked.

“How did that even come up?” she asked, confused.

“Because I was fast enough to catch the assailant jumping on their motorbike, I just couldn’t catch up to snatch them off. Let’s go over the list with the whole team here. We’ll find them.”

With everything that was happening, and the fear now dispersing, she couldn’t do much else but slip into darkness.

“Lana!”

She heard him, but she couldn’t force her eyes open.