He looked like a soldier. Or maybe a mercenary—there was something lethal about him, though she had no idea how she knew that. In her entire life she’d known assholes and saints, and assholes outweighed the saints by a ton, but this man was something else entirely.
His face was angular, but she wasn’t going to stop and think whether he was handsome or not. It made no difference if he was model gorgeous or a monster. He was a threat, and she needed to get rid of him.
His jaw was strong beneath the scruffiness, but it was his eyes that drew her. They were a bright, absolutely compelling green-blue, like the color of Caribbean waters. They were deep and mesmerizing.
And oddly familiar. The wrong color, but she knew those damned lying eyes, even if she hadn’t seen them for five years.
She leaned forward, seemingly casual, and before he realized what she was doing, she grabbed the gun from the table, turning and pointing it directly at his heart.
“You bastard,” she said in a low, vicious voice.
If he was disturbed that she’d taken the gun he didn’t show it. “There you go,” James Bishop said calmly. “I was worried you’d forgotten me.”
“I did my best. It was your self-satisfied smirk that gave you away. What are you doing here, James? If that’s even your name. And what the fuck did you do with my diamonds?”
The man she’d known as James Bishop watched her, seemingly unconcerned about the gun she was pointing at him. “You may as well keep using that name. It’s as good as any.”
Damn, she wanted to pull the trigger. She wanted to blow a hole in him the size of the Grand Canyon; she wanted to shoot him with so much firepower that he was blown through the back of her very solid camper. The pistol was nothing but a .22, and while she could probably do some real damage, her ability to kill him even at close range was iffy.
She looked back at him, not bothering to disguise the hatred she felt. She thought she’d gotten past it. Damn it, she had moved past it. Only to have it dredged up with his shocking reappearance, with the wrong eyes and the wrong hair and the wrong everything. She really wanted to kill him.
“Why are you here?” Her voice was icy cold. She would have done anything to convince him that she felt nothing, not even anger, but that ship had sailed. “For that matter, how did you find me?”
He leaned back, watching her out of those familiar-unfamiliar eyes. “Are you going to shoot me?”
“Maybe.” She kept a hard grip on the gun. “How did you find me?”
“I never lost you.”
She almost pulled the trigger at that. It was a good thing for him that the safety was on. She glared at him. “Is there any chance you’re going to explain yourself any time in the next twenty-four hours?”
“No.”
She cocked the gun and pointed it at his head. “Leave,” she said in a cold voice. “I don’t want to get blood and brains all over my camper, but I’ll do it, and I’ll bury your goddamned body where no one will ever find you. Either that, or leave you for the scavengers. Save me a lot of trouble and just get out.”
He looked at the gun, then to her eyes. “Oh, my angel, how you’ve changed,” he drawled, and she pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
His smiled widened. “Really, Angel? I didn’t think you had it in you. You think I’d let you have a gun with bullets in it? I would have taken it away from you if it was loaded. But I have to say I’m charmed that you had the balls to actually try to blow my brains out.”
“Sentimental, aren’t you?” she growled. She didn’t give up the gun, though.
“Always.”
She wasn’t going to ask him again, only to get another oblique answer. She sat very still, watching him as he drank the beer, not touching her own. She felt as if she were in some kind of swirling, Daliesque nightmare, spinning through her formerly safe world. How could he be there, appearing out of nowhere in her camper? Was he even real?
On impulse she reached out and pinched him, his warm, smooth flesh, and he didn’t flinch. He cocked his head, amused. “You mean your second line of defense after shooting me is pinching me? I think you need a little training in the art of self-defense.”
“I wanted to make sure you weren’t a nightmare. Though in fact you are—every nightmare I’ve ever had wrapped up into one smarmy man.”
“Smarmy?” he echoed. “Now that stings, Angel. My charm is one of my very best weapons.”
“Weapons? Oh, that’s right, your job is so dangerous. You seduce and abandon idiotic young women and take them for whatever they have. I’m surprised you even remember me.”
His eyes were half-closed as he considered her. “How can I forget my sweet little wife?”
She glared at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Tsk-tsk. Such language, and from a professor, no less! Angel, you’ve grown bitter in the last few years.”