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  One Hot Winter’s Night

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  One Hot Winter’s Night

  Serenity Woods

  Indiana Jones meets Lara Croft in a hot, desperate treasure hunt that spans the globe and captures the imagination.

  Dr. Cat Livingstone works for the British Museum, and she’s frustrated as hell when the mysterious man she knows only as the Silver Fox snatches yet another artefact from under her nose. Determined to steal the priceless necklace back, she tracks him to the Swedish Ice Hotel, but she doesn’t bank on him being the most gorgeous guy she’s ever laid eyes on.

  Heath has no idea that the hot blonde in the ice cold hotel has ulterior motives. But when a night between the sheets ends with both Cat and the necklace gone in the morning, Heath jumps into action.

  Unfortunately for Cat, Heath lives for the thrill of the chase. And the chase is on.

  About the Author

  Serenity Woods lives in the sub-tropical Northland of New Zealand with her wonderful husband and gorgeous teenage son. She writes fun, flirty, and sexy romances in a variety of romantic sub-genres. Serenity has won several writing competitions and is a member of Romance Writers of New Zealand. She would much rather immerse herself in reading or writing romance than do the dusting and ironing, which is why it’s not a great idea to pop round if you have any allergies.

  You can check out all her books at www.serenitywoodsromance.com.

  Also by Serenity Woods

  Summer Fling

  Click here to find out more at Amazon.com

  Or here for Amazon.co.uk

  To my very own Silver Fox

  Contents

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Also Available From Escape Publishing…

  Chapter 1

  “How come Lara Croft never froze her butt off like this in Tomb Raider?”

  Dr Cat Livingstone grumbled aloud to the cold air, her voice muffled by her black balaclava. Why, out of all the possible careers in the world, had she chosen to be an archaeologist? True, travelling across the globe hunting for artefacts was exciting, but this was plain ridiculous. The temperature in the snowy Swedish forest had fallen to minus fifteen degrees Celsius, and she wore three layers of clothing beneath her huge, padded snowsuit.

  She huddled in the dog sled, her face like an ice cube even though she wore a balaclava and thick reindeer-fur hat; she shivered as the huskies dragged the sled across the snow, and cursed her employer with copious, colourful swear words.

  “…And next time the museum tell me they ‘absolutely must have’ a precious, ancient artefact, I’ll tell them to stick it up their—”

  “Did you say something?” Niklas shouted the words from his position on the sled behind her, and she jumped.

  “How much longer?” She had to yell to the musher over the crunch and crackle of the snow and the dogs’ excited yapping.

  “We’re nearly there.” Niklas pointed ahead. Yellow light glimmered through the trees, and he directed the huskies toward the wooden house.

  She sighed, relieved. “Thank God.” Wiggling her toes in the thick boots, she hoped she didn’t have frostbite. How did people live in this ridiculous climate? She’d only been in Kiruna a few hours, and she was already turning into one of the ice sculptures she’d seen outside the tiny airport. Maybe they were actually tourists who had stayed outside for too long without the proper outerwear. Nothing would surprise her in this strange country where the sun didn’t rise at all for three weeks of the year.

  As the sled stopped, Niklas jumped off and ran forward to check on the dogs. Cat struggled to get out of the seat on her own and eventually admitted defeat, waiting for him to come and give her a hand up, helpless in her thick suit. “I feel like the Michelin Man,” she complained as he heaved her to her feet.

  “The clothing’s necessary for the cold weather,” he said.

  “I know—it was a joke…”

  He looked at her blankly before striding up to the house. Cat rolled her eyes, waddling after him, sure any moment she was going to fall flat on her face.

  However, as her boots scrunched in the thick snow, the realization struck her. She was actually there—the necklace was nearly hers. She welcomed the fierce thump of her heart, pleased with the proof that she wasn’t cryogenically frozen as she’d feared. Lifting up her goggles awkwardly with her thick gloves, she gasped as the cold air bit into her face.

  Niklas banged on the front door. It opened a crack, and a slim, blonde woman in her late forties or early fifties peeped out. Niklas spoke to her in Swedish while Cat waited, tapping her foot. The woman looked over at her and said something, and Niklas beckoned Cat in.

  Heart still pounding, she followed the two of them into the house, and the woman closed the door behind them. Thick rugs decorated the floor and a log fire crackled in the grate. The warm air was a welcome relief after the cold outdoors.

  Cat looked across at Niklas, her excitement making her impatient. “Well?”

  He’d lifted up his own goggles and taken off his hat and balaclava, revealing his thick brown beard and bushy eyebrows. “This is Ragnara,” he said.

  Cat nodded at the woman and gave her a brief smile before turning back to Niklas. “Does she have the necklace?”

  “One moment, please.” He turned to the woman and began to speak Swedish to her again. Cat tried to hide her impatience. Only gradually did she become aware something was wrong.

  “What’s going on?”

  Niklas frowned. “It’s not here.”

  Cat’s heart took a nosedive and disappointment flooded through her. “I don’t believe it. My contact told me he’d overheard her saying she’d inherited it. She described it perfectly.”

  “You mistake me—I meant to say it was here. But this morning a man turned up claiming to be from the British Museum. She sold the necklace to him.”

  Cat stared at them both, not believing her ears. Ragnara’s brows knitted together. She said something, and Niklas translated. “She is very sorry. She really thought he was the museum’s representative.”

  “What did he look like?”

  Niklas asked Ragnara and translated her answer: “He was very tall. And he had silver hair.”

  Cat’s eyes widened. She stared at Ragnara. “Did he leave anything here?”

  Speaking swiftly, Ragnara picked up something from the table and handed it to Niklas. He in turn gave it to Cat. “He told her a woman would follow him here, and she should give this to her.”

  Cat took the object. It was made out of tinfoil, folded like paper origami into an animal. Fury boiled in her stomach. Without another word, she turned and walked out of the house, scrunching the foil up in her hand.

  Behind her, Niklas gabbled something to Ragnara before following Cat out into the cold. The air seemed crueller than ever after the warmth of the house, but Cat was too angry to care. She stomped up to the s
led, wanting to scream her frustration but afraid she’d frighten the dogs.

  “Madam? I don’t understand.” Niklas waddled up to her. “Who was he? And what is the significance of the wolf? Why did he leave it for you?”

  “It was a fox. A silver fox.” She threw the foil away into the snow. “I don’t know who he is, but he’s the bane of my life. For the past few months, we’ve been after many of the same artefacts. Sometimes I get to them first—sometimes he does. I began leaving him a model of a black cat to let him know I’ve been there. He leaves me a silver fox. It started as a joke. But it’s getting beyond that now. Lately he keeps pipping me to the post. That’s the third time in as many weeks he’s stolen something from under my nose. The third time!” Her voice rose, and the huskies barked in response.

  Niklas pulled on his balaclava and lowered his goggles. “He knew you were coming here?”

  “Clearly. The cheek of it. Posing as a member of the British Museum.”

  Niklas shrugged. “I don’t understand the importance of a piece of jewellery.”

  Cat sighed. “It wasn’t just any old necklace. You’re Swedish—you know about the goddess Freyja, don’t you?”

  “Of course, the goddess of war and death. The goddess of love.”

  “Yes, well.” The story behind the artefact was rubbish, obviously, but that didn’t mean the item wasn’t real. “She wore a necklace—legend calls it Brísingamen. Made of quartz. In southern Sweden there’s a vein of quartz running through the granite that has markings—they’re thought to be natural cracks, but they look like runes carved into it.”

  “I know of this,” he said. “We call it Runamo—the earth dragon.”

  She stamped her feet, the cold starting to seep into her bones. “That’s the one. Historical documents have mentioned it for the past thousand years. Supposedly, a twelfth-century Swedish queen made a necklace from this quartz, claiming it had magical powers because of the runes that lay within the rock. Scholars thought the necklace a myth, but recently there have been rumours it has come to light—and then I found out about Ragnara.”

  Niklas nodded. “And this Silver Fox… He must have heard the same rumours.”

  Cat looked out across the dark forest. The sun didn’t creep above the horizon in December this far north. “Yes, and once again he’s beaten me to the finish line.”

  “But you have no idea who he is?”

  “None.” She ground her teeth. “I don’t even know if he’s a private collector or if he works for a museum like me. He hides his tracks well. But one day I’ll find him. Then I’ll give him a piece of my mind.” Or the sharp end of an axe. Or a vial of poison. She’d spent many pleasant hours thinking of ways to get her revenge. And it looked like she would be spending a few more now. He had to learn that nobody crossed the Black Cat and got away with it. She was a formidable adversary, she told herself—smart and ingenious. A force to be reckoned with.

  At that precise moment, a heap of snow slid from the branches of a nearby conifer onto her head. She stood there for a moment, fuming, before shaking it off with a curse.

  “Well, I know where he’s staying, if you want do it sooner rather than later,” Niklas said. Behind his goggles, his eyes glimmered with amusement.

  She gritted her teeth. “How do you know?”

  “Ragnara spoke to his translator before he left. He told her he was taking the man to the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi.”

  “The Ice Hotel?” Cat had heard of the expensive and supposedly magnificent place to stay. Her budget hadn’t extended to such sumptuous accommodation though. “How far away is it?”

  “Not far. There are coaches from the airport. You can be there within the hour.”

  Cat nodded. “Let’s go.” She climbed back into the sled, and Niklas readied the dogs. He stood behind her, yelling to the huskies that soon pounded through the snow, dragging the tiny sled behind them.

  Cat snuggled down, formulating a plan. It was time she took revenge on the man who’d been her nemesis for the past few months.

  What would be the best way to get the necklace off him? Revealing her identity would be a mistake—clearly, the man had no scruples considering he’d snatched the item from under her nose. Okay, that also meant she didn’t have scruples either, but that wasn’t the point. He wasn’t going to say, “Oh, I’m sorry, please, take the necklace back. I didn’t realise it belonged to you.” She would have to resort to an alternate method of persuasion.

  Cat chewed her lip as she played through a variety of choices in her head. In her career, she’d sometimes gone to great lengths in order to obtain the artefacts she wanted.

  In Italy, she’d taken lessons in advanced Latin in order to converse with the head of the National Museum of Rome, who liked to pretend to be Julius Caesar at parties. He’d asked her about her family motto, and when she told him, “Quantum placui tibi” (How was it for you?) he’d sold her twice the amount of Roman coins she’d gone there to buy. She’d refrained from pointing out his tiled entrance floor said “Carpe Canem” (Seize the dog) instead of “Cave Canem” (Beware the dog) until she had the coins in her hand.

  Slightly more adventurously, when she’d heard one of the stone pillars at the Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey was up for sale, she’d taught herself how to belly dance in order to woo the chief archaeologist. Stripping down to seven veils and wiggling her hips in public hadn’t come naturally, but she’d done her best. To her frustration, he’d turned out to be German, but the sight of her shaking her chiffon-covered booty had still been enough to convince him to sell her the pillars.

  No, she wasn’t averse to going to ridiculous lengths to get what she wanted. But how could she get the necklace off the Silver Fox? Unfortunately, she didn’t know anything about him and had no idea of his weaknesses. She sighed, her breath clouding before her. In the absence of any useful data, she would have to resort once again to her womanly wiles.

  She frowned as the sled bumped over the carpet of sparkling snow. It had worked before—there was no reason it wouldn’t work again. God had given her a pleasing enough figure and naturally shiny blonde hair, and thankfully the average man didn’t seem to need more than that to become distracted enough to part with whatever item she had her eye on.

  She did have some scruples. When she wanted an item, first she tried bargaining, and attempted to win the seller over with her wit and impress them with her knowledge. And she’d never bought a relic from someone at a ridiculously cheap price because they had no idea of its worth. She would also never take an item from its cultural home if its context remained imperative to a local community. She liked to think she had some standards.

  But she had no problem with using the gifts God had given her to get what she wanted. Of course, sometimes it rankled that the size of her breasts and not the letters after her name appeared to interest men the most, but honestly, where was the harm in fluttering her eyelashes or using her feminine charm if it meant she got what she wanted? As the British Museum’s most successful finder of rare artefacts, the role was very precious to her, and she was determined to stay top of the league.

  Briefly, she thought of Alexander and imagined the disapproving look that usually appeared on his face when he saw her employing these tactics. The thought made her squirm a little, but she forced her uneasiness away. It wasn’t any of his business. They were her assets to use in whatever way she chose—what did it have to do with him? And anyway, the Silver Fox was the unscrupulous one. The necklace was hers and he’d whisked it from under her nose. He deserved to get what was coming to him.

  Chapter 2

  Dr Heath Roberts smiled at the waitress as she placed a cocktail in front of him. He stretched out his legs with a contented sigh and sipped the colourful, liqueur-laced vodka. The Absolut Ice Bar was busy, but he’d found a quiet corner to enjoy his drink and admire the surroundings.

  Bathed in atmospheric blue lighting, the bar was like no other place he’d been. Carved entir
ely out of ice like the rest of the hotel, it served its cocktails in ice glasses, and the seating consisted of ice blocks covered in reindeer-fur cushions. It wasn’t exactly the warmest place in the world, measuring at a fresh minus five degrees Celsius, and he wore a thermal shirt and long johns, pants, and two sweaters beneath the thermal silver cloak they’d given him when checking in. But he also had the glow of satisfaction from knowing he’d beaten the Black Cat to yet another precious artefact to keep him warm.

  Man, would she be mad when she eventually got to the little log cabin in the woods. He tried to picture her face when she saw the foil animal he’d left with the Swedish woman, but it was difficult when he didn’t know what she looked like. He sipped the cocktail. He’d formed a clear mental picture of his rival based on her devious nature and the fact that she annoyed him: short, plump, and in her late forties, with closely cropped black hair on her head—and under her arms. With a face that could sink ships and a physique that could win arm-wrestling competitions against Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  One day they would meet. He didn’t particularly relish the thought. She’d beaten him to relics he’d wanted enough times for this to have become more than a game. Their rivalry had turned into a war, and he had no intention of submitting to the next Attila the Hun.

  He looked around the bar. He was the only person on his own, which was a shame, because he felt a distinct need for female companionship. He kind of missed Vanessa, which was saying something considering how surprisingly unaffected he’d been when she finally ended their lukewarm relationship. No, he corrected himself—it wasn’t Vanessa in particular he missed but the feel of a warm body next to his at night. It was two months since they’d shared a bed. So he hadn’t been laid in about…sixty-two days. Roughly translated, he was horny as a tomcat, with no discernible outlet for his pent-up sexual frustration.

  He sighed heavily. If he were a less moralistic man, he might have found himself a “professional companion,” but he’d never had to resort to paying for it in the past, and he had too much self-worth to start now.