Page 1 of Too Guarded to Love (Project VIPER #3)

O livia clutched the steering wheel of her rental car like it was her only tether to reality.

Rain lashed against the windshield and turned the outside world to shadows and water.

The thud of metal still echoed in her bones.

She didn’t need to look to know the rental’s front bumper was cracked—maybe worse.

The parking meter hadn’t stood a chance.

A blaring ring filled the car’s interior. She glanced at the number on the dashboard display. “Are you freaking kidding me?” Her voice trembled with exhaustion, fury, and something far colder. She’d blocked Jonathan’s number and somehow, he still got through.

She grabbed her phone from the center console and yanked the cord as she pulled in a shaky breath.

Held it.

Blew it out.

I’m okay.

But she wasn’t. Not after headlights had swerved into her lane and her tires squealed as she’d wrenched the wheel, or after she’d jumped the curb and screamed from the sudden impact .

Jonathan’s ringtone stopped as she closed her eyes and breathed deeply again. The jittery knot in her stomach didn’t untwist. Neither did the unsettling feeling she hadn’t been able to unravel for weeks.

Could someone really be watching her?

“That’s ridiculous.” Since she’d been a kid, she’d been watched by half the population in her hometown, but this sense of unease felt different.

She flung the car door open. Cold raindrops stung her bare arms as her phone rang again. With a curse, she hurled it to the curb. The device landed with a splash in a shallow puddle.

Spinning toward the foam-capped waves thrashing in the darkness, she speared her fingers into her wet, salt-laced curls.

Rainwater seeped into her worn cowboy boots.

She curled her toes in the damp leather as she stepped back and drove her heel into the phone.

With a sharp twist of her foot, she obliterated contact with the man who’d played her as cruelly as the storm shrieking down the beach.

The late-March wind twisted the hem of her dress around her knees as she huffed at the raging sea.

Not only had her phone-smashing tirade soaked her favorite boots, but she couldn’t call for help if fixing the car posed a challenge.

The front passenger tire was as frayed as her nerves, and the power in the beach town had gone out a few miles back.

The flat she could fix, even without light from a lamppost. Her grandfather had taught her to change the tire on his classic Buick so she could help herself in a situation like this. The collision with the parking meter might be out of her limited expertise though.

Worst of all, which sounded ludicrous because she could have died minutes ago, her grandmother was right about her choice in men.

Again.

At least the airbag hadn’t been deployed, she hadn’t been injured, and Jonathan couldn’t call anymore. If her wild feeling that she was being watched, not only tonight but for the past six months or so, held any truth, she had one less person on her tail.

“Bye-bye, jerkface.” The keening wind joined the final farewell to the ex-boyfriend who hadn’t understood “we’re through.

” He hadn’t received the message back in Atlanta, where they both lived and worked.

She’d left no doubts tonight when he’d surprised her at the airport after her flight landed in Washington, DC.

Now, Olivia doubted her impulsiveness. After she’d told off Jonathan, she should have stuck to her original plan and headed to her brother and his fiancée’s house in Virginia, just outside of DC.

But halfway to the car rental desk, she’d received an urgent call from Harlee, her patient she shouldn’t be talking to, who said she needed to share information about Jonathan and couldn’t do it over the phone.

Now, thanks to the erratic driver who’d run her into a parking meter, both Harlee and the reason Olivia had flown to the East Coast to ask her brother for help had to wait.

A chill that had nothing to do with the rain penetrating her thin cotton dress seized her body.

The unexplainable sensation—like the fictitious sixth sense Gran claimed to possess—had been happening on and off again for weeks.

Believing she was being watched sounded as incredulous as Gran’s premonitory claims. Still, she couldn’t squash the feeling that something lurked in the shadows.

Like my bad decisions. She glanced down at her mangled phone.

With electronics and men.

The latter lapse in judgment ended now. She wouldn’t waste any more time with guys who thought they could control her.

A fast tire change would get her to Harlee sooner.

During their last appointment, Harlee had mentioned she’d be visiting her family’s beach house on the East Coast sometime this month.

Olivia hadn’t intended to contact her while she was in the area.

Meeting her was as risky as performing surgery in the dark.

If Olivia’s director found out she was communicating with a patient while on suspension, she’d be terminated from Southern Memorial Hospital quicker than the waves crashing into the sand.

But she couldn’t say no. The urgency in Harlee’s tone suggested she needed to talk soon.

Goose bumps rose on Olivia’s skin. At least it would be dry at Harlee’s condo on the bay.

And she could power up her computer and email her director in Atlanta.

She was not planning on quitting. She aimed to fight her unjust suspension with every resource she possessed.

Giving up wasn’t an option. She’d made a promise to Harlee and intended to fulfill it, even if she had to circumvent hospital policy to get there.

And hopefully not lose my license to practice in the process.

Breathing in the turbulent salt air, Olivia scanned the empty street.

The rain-pelted sand dunes. The foam-tipped surf she could just make out in the inky night.

Another disturbing rush of whatever weird, invasive feeling her overworked, overstressed mind conjured streaked through her bones along with the lightning over the water.

The crest of the waves glittered as she counted the seconds until the first clap of thunder.

One.

Two.

Three.

The disconcerting feeling intensified with each second.

She spun to face the street. A rumble sounded above.

Her gaze met eyes as dark as the sea. A scream wrenched up her throat and mingled with the thunder.

She stepped back from the hooded figure dressed in black.

Arms flailing, she fought for purchase on the slick pavement.

As her backside skimmed the ground, warm fingers wrapped around her bare bicep and yanked her upright.

“Careful.”

She jerked back from the deep voice, her breathing as uneven as her balance.

Careful.

Not even three hours ago, Jonathan had issued the same warning. Well, too bad if her ex hadn’t appreciated her tone, or the insults she’d flung at him at the airport. She hadn’t appreciated the horseshit-loaded bomb she should have seen coming.

She hadn’t seen this stranger coming either. What did that say about her instincts?

The hooded man shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. He stood still, as if his imposing height and formidable body were enough to make even the storm think twice about challenging him.

“He’s gone.” The stranger cocked his head toward the mini-golf place at the end of the street.

“Who? The lunatic driver who tried to kill me?” She darted her gaze up and down the street. “Of course he’s gone. Why would I expect anything to go right today?”

“I couldn’t catch him, but I got his plates.”

She snapped her full attention to the sultry voice. His hood obscured his features, but his intense stare blazed electricity through her body. She crossed her arms under her breasts despite the heated rush, wishing she hadn’t thrown her sweater at Jonathan before she stormed out of the airport.

“How did you get his plate number?” The street had been deserted when she’d taken a forced detour to the sidewalk. “The asshole who hit me took off minutes ago.”

Just long enough for her to smash her only means of communication and come face to face with…

Lightning illuminated the sky again. For a heartbeat, she caught a glimpse of full lips and golden skin marred by an angry-looking bruise on his impossibly high cheekbone.

Evidence of another blow he’d taken to the face shadowed his angular jaw.

The bruise, from a fist if she had to guess, straddled the line where smooth skin met a heavy five o’clock shadow.

The lamppost flickered, as if the God who created this dark man granted her a much-desired second peek.

Biting her lip, she shifted her gaze upward to his patrician nose, the evidence of an old break detectable to her clinical eye.

The slight imperfection, along with the fresh bruises, didn’t detract from his classical beauty.

Nothing could overshadow those obsidian-colored orbs framed by heavy lids and lashes so thick they looked store-bought.

If anything, the carnage to his face made him more alluring, like whatever mayhem he’d gotten into mirrored the mysterious danger she couldn’t shake.

Except on him, the visible shadows and wounds seemed mesmerizing.

Tragic. Like he was the one who needed to be saved tonight.

But he wasn’t an injured horse or a patient on her operating table.

This man looked more powerful, more beautiful than her gray quarter horse back home on her family’s farm in West Virginia.

Stronger than any athlete she’d ever treated, and more dangerous than Jonathan’s treachery.

In her six-month relationship with the neurosurgeon—only three really counting the time her mind and heart were present—her body had never responded like this.