Raven's Prey - Softcover

Krentz, Jayne Ann; James, Stephanie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 037377074X ISBN 13: 9780373770748

Publisher: Hqn Books, 2005

Synopsis

Raven's Prey by Jayne Ann Krentz released on Nov 29, 2005 is available now for purchase.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Raven's Prey

By Jayne Krentz

HQN Books

Copyright © 2005 Jayne Krentz
All right reserved.
ISBN: 037377074X

PERHAPS HE WAS MERELY an adventuresome tourist who

had drifted into the obscure little Mexican town insearch of some action. Perhaps he had wandered into thecantina for the same reason she had: to get a bite to eatand have a bottle of the local beer. Perhaps he was a perfectly innocuous male who, when he realized there wasanother North American in the cantina, would comeover to her table to chat.

Then again, perhaps he was her executioner.

My God, Honor Knight thought bitterly, I'm reallygetting paranoid. She forced down another swallow ofthe robust beer she had been nursing for the last hourand deliberately looked away from the line of men whowere standing and leaning with varying degrees of casualness against the bar. That was all she needed now,she chastised herself. She mustn't lose her grip on reality. She must not succumb to genuine paranoia or lifewould become intolerable. She really would go out ofher mind with fear.

But the image of the stranger as he hooked a bootedfoot over the bottom rung of the bar would not be banished simply because she chose to look away. It was natural that he would stand out in this crowd, Honor assuredherself. He was the only other gringo in the room besides herself. Standing at the bar, even lounging againstit on one elbow as he was, he topped the Mexican menaround him by several inches in most cases.

And while the other men were dressed in the dusty,loose-fitting trousers and shirts of poor, hard-workingfarmers, the stranger was dark and hard and lean in apair of black jeans and a black cotton shirt.

His clothes weren't the only things that were darkabout him and that made him seem a part of the shadowy night outside. In the brief glance she had allowedherself, Honor had been aware of the deep black shadeof his hair. There were subtle highlights of iron-gray inthe heavy pelt which indicated the stranger at the barwould soon be staring his fortieth birthday in the face.

Even without the iron in his hair Honor would havebeen able to guess his age from the unforgiving hardness of his features. Uneasily she allowed her eyes toslide once again over his profile.

He had ordered tequila, not beer, she realized, watching from her sheltered table as he sipped the clear liquid in the small glass he held. How much longer beforehis roving gaze discovered her against the back wall?She hadn't yet confronted that gaze directly and, basedon what she'd seen of the rest of him, Honor didn't particularly want to do so. There was a ruthless predatoryquality about this man, which disturbed her on severallevels. It was there in the hawkish nose, the grimly setmouth and the fiercely etched lines of his face. Somehow he seemed aloof and coldly removed from thescene around him, as if he didn't particularly needhuman companionship.

Determinedly Honor picked up her fork and took another bite of the corn tamale she had been eating whenthe newcomer had walked through the door a few minutes earlier. There was nothing to fear, she told herselffirmly. After all, she thought on a note of half-hysterical humor, she'd seen plenty of pictures of professionalhit men and none of them had ever been wearing jeansand boots! They always seemed to be attired in suits thatbulged in the wrong places, and they tended to speak inEast Coast accents. Not that she'd heard the strangerwhen he'd ordered his tequila, but somehow Honordidn't think he would have an eastern accent. Morelikely a southwestern drawl.

No, she wasn't going to give in to the lure of paranoia. She had to keep a realistic perspective on her present situation or she would become a gibbering idiot!Honor swallowed another sip of the warm beer and resolved to keep her head. It was the only way to survive.

The stranger was probably from Texas or Arizona.Perhaps he had business here in this Mexican village orperhaps he'd merely come south looking for someamusement. One way or another he wasn't a threat toher. He couldn't be!

And then she glanced up again and found his night-dark gaze on her.

For an instant everything in the smoky, too-warmcantina seemed to freeze, including Honor's insides.She had known instinctively that she didn't want tomeet his eyes directly but instinct hadn't prepared herfor the devastating experience when it finally did occur.

She had been half expecting a predatory sensualityin those eyes, Honor realized as her throat went dry. Casual, masculine lust would have fit with the man and thescene in which he found himself. After all, men whowandered into smoke-filled taverns the world over wereusually looking for liquor and a willing woman. Butthere was no sign of even the most superficial desire inhis gaze.

If there was no sensuality in his eyes, neither wasthere any other emotion she could name. No curiosity,no dislike, no anger, no expectation, no friendliness, noresentment, no humor, nothing. Just the chilling, totallyself-contained, nonreflective gleam of a beast of prey.Honor had never seen such a total lack of emotion in another human being in her entire life. In a very real senseit was far more frightening than if the man had simplypulled a gun and aimed it at her.

Then he picked up his glass of tequila and started toward her. In that moment she realized he knew exactlywho she was. The panic threatened to choke her. Itwelled up from the pit of her stomach and literally immobilized her limbs. Desperately she fought to keep itunder control. It was one feeling that definitely wouldnot aid her now. Unfortunately she couldn't think ofanything that would help her. She had no choice but toplay out her role and pray that the presence of so manylocal townspeople there in the cantina would lend someprotection. Did professional killers have the cold, emotionless eyes of a hawk? It seemed far too likely thatthey did.

"Honor Knight." Her name was a statement, an identification, not a question, and there was a slight southwestern drawl in the low, gravelly intonation of his voice.The dark stranger sat down across from her withoutbothering with the formality of asking permission. Hemoved with an easy, smoothly coordinated energy whichsuggested controlled strength and physical prowess.

When Honor made no response, continuing to sit utterly still staring at him, the man sipped again at his tequila and then asked calmly, "Are you going to makethis easy on yourself or are we going to do things thehard way?"

He wasn't armed, Honor told herself frantically. Atleast not with a gun. It would have bulged somewhereagainst the fabric of the sleek-fitting jeans and shirt,wouldn't it? Perhaps he used a knife? Or perhaps herimagination had truly run amok. Maybe he wasn't thereto kill her. Above all else she must keep her head andnot panic.

Knowing that her life depended on staying calm,Honor made herself exchange a level glance with theman across the table. She stifled a shiver as the impenetrable darkness of his gaze met hers. "I'm sorry," shebegan stiffly, "but you must have mistaken me for someone else. I don't know you and I don't know who it isyou think I am but I would appreciate it if you wouldleave me alone." She tried to make her voice as cold ashis eyes.

He watched her silently for a moment and she couldalmost feel him assessing and cataloging the sum of herfeatures. Good God, how detailed a description had hebeen given? Could she bluff her way through this? Afterall, there was nothing all that remarkable about herlooks, was there?

She was twenty-nine, but age could be deceptive ina woman hovering between her twenties and her thirties, especially to a man. Her hair was a dark amberbrown, but he would probably have been told she wassimply a brunette. There were a lot of brunettes in theworld, especially in Mexico. And hazel eyes were surelyalmost as common? Dressed as she was in jeans and awhite shirt, her slender figure with its small breasts andgently flaring hips must have appeared similar to thebody shapes of countless other women in the world.

"Honor Knight," the man said again and then reachedinto his shirt pocket and drew out a color photograph.Deliberately he placed it on the table between them, andthen he waited. Honor went even colder.

In helpless fascination she stared down at the pictureof herself. There, caught by the camera's eye, were allthe elements that were so hard to describe verbally, theelements that went together to make each human beingdistinctive and unique. In her case that meant not justhazel eyes, but wide, intelligent eyes of a complex shadesomewhere between green and gold. It meant not justbrunette hair but a heavy, amber mane which, althoughshe had recently cut it to shoulder length, still had acharacteristic wave even when worn in a clip at the napeof her neck as it was that evening. It meant a mouth thatwas soft and, in the photo, smiling with femininewarmth. It meant a faintly tip-tilted nose, a proud lift tothe chin. It meant no real beauty in the accepted sensebut rather an impression of sensitivity, intelligence anda hint of vulnerability.

It meant, Honor realized, disaster. The man could bein no doubt whatsoever that he had found the rightwoman. Slowly she lifted her eyes from the damningphotograph."There is also a scar," the stranger went on coolly,

"on the left wrist." He reached across the table andcaught her hand before she could hide it in her lap. "Amark left over from a botched suicide attempt, I'm told."

She flinched as he captured her hand and exposed thedelicate skin on the inside of her wrist. The angry redscar was clearly visible, even in the smoky light.

"A rather badly handled effort," the man observed,his touch remote and dispassionate. "You either didn'twant to do a good job or else you must have used apretty dull knife." He released her hand and Honorshoved her fingers into her lap to hide the trembling inthem. "My guess is you probably didn't set out to really take your own life. You probably just used the attempt as a means of getting the kind of attention youseem to need."

"Who are you?" Honor whispered.

"I'm the man who's been sent to bring you home,"he said quietly, lifting his tequila glass again. The dark,unfathomable eyes went over her stark expression witha total lack of sympathy or any other emotion. "Myname is Judd Raven."

Raven. The name fit him, Honor thought bitterly. Abird of prey. A bird of menace. That explained the eyes,the lack of emotion. The connotations of danger and illfate that surrounded the word "raven" were not lost onher. In her lap her nails began to eat into the palm of herhand, but her chin stayed proudly lifted.

"Home?" she questioned grimly. There was somecause for hope, she told herself. If he had been sent tofetch her rather than to kill her she still had some chance.

"Your father and brother are damned worried aboutyou," Raven said musingly. "But, then, I suppose youknow that, don't you? That's why you're here in the firstplace."

Her father and brother? "How did they know whereI was?"

"They don't. Not precisely. They only knew the general region of Mexico into which you disappeared. Theydon't speak Spanish themselves so they realized theydidn't have much chance of tracing you. That's whythey hired me. I've been tracking you for almost a week.You're a foreigner in this country and people remembered the nice gringa with the big hazel eyes and thelousy Spanish. It took some legwork but here I am."

"My father and brother," Honor said carefully, "sentyou to bring me home?"

He raised his glass in mocking acknowledgment ofher apparent slow-wittedness. "Are you disappointed?Would you rather one of them had come with me to lookfor you? Afraid you won't get as much comfort and attention from me as you would from them?"

Continues...

Excerpted from Raven's Preyby Jayne Krentz Copyright © 2005 by Jayne Krentz. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Hqn Books
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 037377074X
• ISBN 13: 9780373770748
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 251