Shadow of Perception by Kristine Mason Page A

coyotes had been feasting for two days. Tearing off bits and pieces of the doctor and scattering the bones. By this time tomorrow, other than the head and maybe a few scraps—inedible for even a starving coyote—he doubted he’d find any other traces of Elliot.
    The coyotes wouldn’t have to worry, though. By this time tomorrow he planned to have their next meal prepared.
    Then the feeding frenzy would begin again.  

Chapter 4
    Before Hudson parked the car, Eden had her seatbelt undone and her hand on the door handle. She needed space. She needed a moment alone. Being near Hudson brought back too many memories, and she’d realized she wasn’t as immune to him as she’d hoped.  
    “You planning on waiting until I stop or are you gonna do some sort of tuck and roll onto the concrete?” he asked as he veered the Trans Am into a parking space.
    “It’s already close to ten, and I need to make it into the station before noon.” And being near you is driving me crazy.
    “I told you—”
    “Yeah, yeah.” She sighed. “Your rules. No workout, no work, no anything else.”
    He parked the car, then turned off the ignition. “I didn’t mean that you couldn’t work or anything else. I just...this case is priority.”  
    Of course.  
    The sarcastic barb sat at the tip of her tongue.  
    Hudson’s job, his cases, had always been top priority. Not her, and she’d do well to remember that, even if a small part of her—the part that still held a little something for this ruggedly handsome and somewhat broken warrior—wished otherwise. Men like Hudson would never change, and she wouldn’t expect him to. Her career gave her identity, and she suspected it was the same for him.  
    Rather than give him the reply she’d wanted and start an argument, she climbed out of the car. Besides, if she said anything, it might come across bitter. Always perceptive when it came to people, Hudson might misconstrue and think she still harbored feelings for him. And while she did—on a very small level—she figured those feelings bent more toward lust than anything else.  
    Lust she could handle. The anything else? She pulled her purse strap over her shoulder and crossed her arms. She’d do her damnedest to keep reminding herself he’d broken her heart once and avoid anything else that might make her look like a fool a second time around.
    When he rounded the car, though, desire pulled deep in her belly. Although she wasn’t a fan of his shaggy hair, the man still did a number on her hormones. His walk alone conjured images of his powerful body above hers. Hovering between her spread thighs. His lips a hair’s breadth from hers.  
    She cleared her throat and her mind, then looked to his Trans Am. Black, with the classic gold firebird painted on the hood, the car could have been used as a double in the movie Smokey and the Bandit . “What happened to the El Camino you used to drive?” she asked to divert her thoughts from him, his body, his rough calloused hands and all the things she knew he could do with them.
    He pointed to the corner of the parking garage. “She’s right over there. I sold her to Rachel, the woman we’re meeting, about six months ago.”
    She’d remembered how much he’d loved that car. One warm spring night after they’d made love—sex, they’d had sex—he’d told her that after he’d left the CIA and joined CORE, he’d begun refurbishing the El Camino. Therapy, he’d said, a way to help stop the nightmares.
    She hadn’t pried or asked what those nightmares entailed. Based on the scars that had marred his body, she’d figured the emotional and mental scars were probably much worse. Instead of going into reporter mode and drilling him, she’d run her fingers through the soft hair lining his chest and had rested her head on his shoulder. And listened. To how he’d overcome the nightmares, then later, to his breathing as he’d drifted off to sleep.  
    That night, his trust had opened up