Colton 911: Caught In The Crossfire (Book 5)

by Linda O. Johnston

  Casey didn’t bother to mention that could have been planted by the murderer. Had the couple been assaulted before being put into the car and aimed toward the wall?

  And would they ever find out?

  Well, Everett on the case might be quite helpful in determining the truth.

  But more deaths. Sure, Casey might have detested Sean and Delilah for what they had done, but he hadn’t wished them dead.

  For the rest of the day, what was left of it, Casey couldn’t concentrate. Sure, he saw a lot of nasty things as a deputy sheriff, but this somehow really got into him.

  People died, however it occurred. Life wasn’t a sure thing.

  And his life? Oh, it was okay the way it was...yet all of this made him think of Melody again.

  A lot.

  As his workday ended, he called her, hoping she was back at the ranch. She sounded surprised to hear from him, yet somehow happy. At least she didn’t hang up on him. And, yes, it was getting late enough that the cattle were all enclosed behind fencing for the night.

  “Can I come see you now?” he said. “I’ll come to your ranch, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Sounds good. See you soon.”

  See her soon? Yeah!

  As he hung up and closed down his computer so he could get out of there, he thought about seeing Melody. Now—and in the future?

  That sounded so good.

  Had he gotten over whatever his hang-ups were about starting a relationship?

  Maybe.

  He had a feeling he’d figure it out that night.

  * * *

  Casey was coming here? Melody was in a stall in the barn, brushing Cal and combing his long, soft mane after removing his saddle for the night.

  Why? And why was she looking forward so much to seeing Casey?

  Well, she knew the answer to that last question. She missed him. The bond they’d formed while following the cattle, chasing down the rustlers and spending nights together felt unbreakable.

  Unless, of course, he was coming here to deliver some kind of blow, like he was moving away, or he’d found a girlfriend...whatever. She’d find out soon.

  She finished with Cal and returned to her apartment, where she quickly showered and changed into a nice gray shirt and black slacks, better looking and better smelling than the outfit she had worn at work that day. She left her hair loose, not in its ponytail.

  Then she exited the building and walked to the main ranch house, which was the first thing Casey would see as he entered the ranch property again.

  She had to smile. It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet, but Clarence had already had at least the outside of his long, one-story red house decorated for Christmas. There were wreaths around the door, and lights mounted around the windows; they weren’t lit yet despite the current darkness of twilight. A string of holly had also been attached at the sides of the couple of steps up to the porch.

  And most amusing was that he had had mistletoe hung a couple of places from the top of the porch roof. Was Clarence planning on kissing visitors to his ranch?

  For now, though, she glanced at her phone after pulling it from her pocket. It had been about half an hour since she’d talked with Casey, so he should arrive anytime now...she hoped. For now, she stood at the side of the porch, waiting.

  Maybe, if he’d be here a while, they could go sit on the porch to talk. The mistletoe was spread out enough that they could just ignore it and not walk underneath it.

  Although...well, the idea was tempting but unwise.

  Sure enough, a car passed through the gate at the base of the driveway. Casey’s dark SUV, which resembled, but wasn’t, an official sheriff’s vehicle, pulled up and parked near the porch.

  Casey got out. He was still in his deputy uniform...and looked good in it. And now that they were back in town, he was clean-shaven.

  Melody smiled. Broadly. She was so glad to see him.

  But she didn’t know why he’d wanted to get together that evening. Maybe something was wrong. And so she just stood there, swallowing her smile, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

  “Hi, Melody,” he called, then joined her where she stood. She considered giving him a welcoming kiss but didn’t.

  She still didn’t know why he’d come.

  “Look, there are a few things I want to discuss with you. Can we just go sit up there?” He pointed toward the porch. “Although, if Clarence is home and he can hear us, that won’t be a good idea.”

  “I don’t believe he’s home yet. Plus he had his house built to be perfect in every way, or so he says. In any case, it’s supposed to be soundproof.”

  “Hope so.” Casey reached out and took her hand, leading her onto the porch, where they sat facing one another on a couple of the fancy vinyl deck chairs there.

  “So what’s up?” Melody attempted to sound cheerful, but her concern rose. The expression on Casey’s wonderfully handsome face was bland, and gave nothing away.

  “Let me get the bad stuff out of the way first, okay?”

  Bad stuff. Melody drew in her breath. “Sure,” she said.

  And it really was bad. She certainly didn’t like Sean and Delilah Dodd, but she hadn’t wished them dead. Imprisoned forever, yes.

  The fact that they had a baby they’d left behind during the pasture trek only made things worse. What would happen to the child now? Casey said that Georgia had brought the six-month-old, a girl named Kennedy, to court and was apparently caring for her now, but Georgia still could—and hopefully would—go to prison for a good long time.

  Casey had no answer for what would happen to the child, but he clearly felt awful about it, too—as he did about the suicides of Sean and Delilah. Although he appeared not to have fully accepted the deaths were self-inflicted and mentioned that Everett would be around again for a while to conduct an investigation.

  “But that’s not the main reason I wanted to see you,” Casey said, staring at her earnestly.

  Oh, no. What was to come? An admission of a girlfriend, a request that Melody keep their night of passion to herself? Something even worse?

  “With all that’s gone on, all we’ve been through together...well, I really like you, Melody. I’m not asking for any kind of commitment, but I’d like for us to go out together. On dates or whatever. Get to know each other better. And...see where it leads, if anywhere.” He paused, reaching for her hands. “What do you think?”

  “I think...yes!” Melody smiled, stood and held his hands tightly as she pulled him to his feet.

  Okay, it was silly, meant nothing, but she pulled him to where the nearest sprig of mistletoe hung—and she kissed him.

  No, he kissed her. They kissed each other—deeply and sexily and wonderfully. It was a long kiss, and Melody loved feeling his body hard against hers, his mouth searching hers.

  And when they both pulled back, it was only for an instant. They kissed again.

  “So we’re on for your spending Christmas dinner with my family?” Casey said.

  “Of course. But that’s still weeks away. Can we see each other between now and then—on dates or whatever?”

  “Absolutely,” Casey said, then he bent toward her to seal that commitment with an even sexier kiss.

  Dates together for the foreseeable future. And Christmas with his family.

  No commitment, sure. But Melody felt overjoyed. Despite her misgivings before, the idea of having Casey in her life now, and maybe forever?

  Delightful!

  * * *

  Don’t miss the books in Linda O. Johnston’s

  K-9 Ranch Rescue series:

  Trained to Protect

  Second Chance Soldier

  All available now from

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  Cavanaugh Stakeout

  by Marie Ferrarella

  Prologue

  He hated the expression “feeling your age.” More than that, the onetime robbery detective hated the fact that getting in behind the wheel of his dark blue sedan was now a two-step, sometimes three-step, procedure that involved lowering himself into his seat, then physically picking up and lifting his left leg in order to maneuver it into position inside the vehicle.

  Not that he would ever actually admit as much to anyone. After all, he was Seamus Cavanaugh, the eighty-one-year-old patriarch of the Cavanaugh clan, a family known and respected for its many members within the law-enforcement community.

  Cavanaughs didn’t complain, not when it came to things they had no control over.

  Like time.

  That sort of thing came under the heading of resigned acceptance.

  If his sons ever suspected how often various parts of his body ached and gave him trouble, there would be no end to their trying to talk him into permanently retiring from the security firm that he had founded.

  A laugh rumbled deep within his chest. As if that would ever happen.

  He had tried retirement once and had concluded that retirement, even retirement in comfort, was for the birds—definitely not for him. He liked being active, even if that activity came with a price, like painful knees, aching shoulders and a back that insisted on periodically acting up.

  To him the alternative was to slowly wither away and then finally die.

  No, thank you, Seamus thought, shifting so that he could get comfortable—if that was even possible—behind the wheel before he started up the engine. The hell with retirement. He needed to be vital. That was why he was out here in one of the industrial-complex areas within Aurora’s neighboring cities long after dark. He was doing an unexpected final check on one of the buildings his security firm protected. There’d been an attempted break-in on the building a little more than a week ago and he just wanted to be sure there were no repeat occurrences in the making despite the fact that the alarms and cameras on the premises had been silent.

  Thanks to his grandchildren, grandnieces and grandnephews, he knew how easily systems could be bypassed or hacked into. The expert IT crew he employed at his firm was considered to be the best in the business, but Seamus was still old-fashioned. As far as he was concerned, nothing beat a hands-on approach.

  So he had deliberately gone through all the safety protocols within the building, then driven around the building’s perimeter just to put any apprehensions to bed. Now that he had, he was ready to head home and have that well-loved nightcap he’d been promising himself. His cardiologist, Dr. Benvenuti, a specialist who had treated him for years, frowned on his habit, but his doctor only looked at his year of birth. He did not take into account the patriarch’s spirit.

  His age didn’t define him, Seamus thought rebelliously. He was still young at heart, still had a spring in his step, even though, he was willing to grudgingly admit, that spring had gotten just a wee bit rusty of late.

  It was going to rain, Seamus thought now, as he was ready to leave. His shoulder, the one he had gotten shot in in the line of duty almost four decades ago, ached the way it always did just before it rained. Fortunately for him, rain was not a regular occurrence where he now lived, in California.

  Preoccupied with his aching shoulder, Seamus wasn’t aware of what was happening until it was too late.

  One second he had just started to fasten his seat belt—his door was still open because he needed space to wrestle with the belt—the next, someone had come up to his car, aimed a gun at him and growled, “I need your car, old man. Get out!”

  Seamus didn’t know which bothered him more—the fact that someone was trying to steal his car, or being referred to as an “old man.” Having a gun aimed at him notwithstanding, his response was automatic.

  “The hell I will!” Seamus growled.

  The would-be car thief’s expression registered surprise, then darkened. “Wrong answer, old man,” he snapped.

  It was the car thief’s turn to be stunned. Seamus didn’t willingly hand over his car keys or his car. Instead, he angrily demanded, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Still partially hidden by shadows, the tall, well-built, dark-haired man’s face went from handsome to foreboding. Despite himself, Seamus felt a chill go up his spine. Out of the corner of his eye, Seamus thought he saw another figure move, but he couldn’t be sure. He was completely focused on the car thief.

  “I’m the man who’s going to be driving that car of yours. You’re two steps away from death, old man, and trust me, you won’t be needing it,” the car thief informed him.

  “But I’m not dead yet,” Seamus countered as he shot out a hand to grab the other man’s wrist.

  With his other hand, Seamus reached for the weapon he carried in his pocket. Although he no longer belonged to any branch of the police department, Seamus had a permit to carry a concealed weapon and he went regularly to the firing range to continue honing his already considerable skills.

  “Wrong move, old man,” the other man snarled.

  Using leverage, the car thief pulled hard, yanking Seamus out of his car. Seamus put up a fight, but he was at least two decades older than his opponent and it acted against him.

  The tug-of-war was short-lived, and Seamus wound up smashing his forehead against the concrete, cutting his temple as he landed facedown in the parking lot.

  Seamus had put up more of a fight than the car thief expected. A barrage of heated curses were heaped on Seamus head.

  Gaining possession of Seamus’s gun, the car thief laughed in satisfied triumph. “How did you think this was going to turn out, old man?” he demanded, uttering another round of curses. Then, drawing in a deep breath as if to fortify himself for what he was about to do next, the car thief shot at Seamus with the weapon he was holding.

  Fighting to remain conscious, Seamus thought he heard a woman’s scream, but that might have just been the buzzing noise in his head. He couldn’t tell.

  “That’s what you get when you mess with your betters, old man,” the robber crowed. He began to bend down to check if he had killed the old man who had had the audacity to try to overpower him. He also wanted to grab the watch that had caught his eye. But as he reached for it, he froze.

  The sound of an approaching car had him abandoning the watch. Instead, he focused on his own survival. Another string of curses erupted from his lips, as he damned Seamus’s soul to hell after his insides had been ripped out and eaten by rabid wolves.

  Seamus couldn’t make out the words. His gut instinct said they were meant for him. Darkness was closing in around him, sealing him away, which was just as well. He couldn’t endure the excruciating pounding in his head any longer.

  Just before he slipped into the smothering embrace of a dark world, Seamus thought he heard the sound of two doors being shut.

  And then there was the sound of a car—his car?—driving away.

  After that, mercifully, there was nothing.

  Copyright © 2019 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella

  ISBN-13: 9781488041525

  Colton 911: Caught in the Crossfire

 
Copyright © 2019 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Linda O. Johnston for her contribution to the Colton 911 miniseries.

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