by B. J Daniels
“So...” Jaime said when Gabby just stared at him for long, ticking seconds. “How are you feeling?”
She didn’t answer, just kept staring at him with that hauntingly unreadable gaze.
“Well, I, uh, have things to do,” he forced himself to say, wrenching his gaze from searching her face for signs of things that were none of his business.
“Take off your sunglasses,” she said in return.
“Gabby—”
She reached over and yanked them off his face with absolutely no finesse. “Hey!”
“You look different,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“A haircut and a shave will do that to a man,” he returned, still not meeting her shrewd gaze. He had a mission. A job. A duty. Not for him, but for her. For her.
“You look scared.”
“Scared?” he scoffed, despite the overhard beating of his heart. “I hardly think—”
“Then look at me.”
Scared? No. He wasn’t scared. He was strong and capable of doing his duty. He was a reliable and excellent FBI agent. He could face down a man with guns and evil, he could certainly face a woman—
Aw, hell, the second he looked at her he had to touch. He had to pull her into his arms despite the console between them. He had to fit his mouth to hers and feel as much as know she was there, she was alive, she was safe.
He brushed his hands over her hair, her cheeks, her arms, assuring himself she was real. Her fingers traced his clean-shaved jaw, over the bristled ends of his hair, as she kissed him back with a sweetness and fervency he wasn’t supposed to allow.
“I’m not supposed to be doing this,” he murmured against her lips, managing to take his mouth from hers only to find his lips trailing down her neck.
“Why not?” she asked breathlessly, her hands smoothing across his back.
“Space and...healing stuff.”
“I don’t want space. And if I’m going to go through all the shit of healing, I at least want you.”
He focused on the edge of the console currently digging into his thigh, because if he focused on that instead of kissing her in daylight, real and free, he might survive.
He managed to find her shoulders, pull her back enough that her hands rested on his forearms.
Flushed and tumbled. From him.
“I’m supposed to give you space,” he said firmly, a reminder to himself far more than a response to her.
“I don’t want it,” she said, her fingers curling around his arms. “And I think I deserve what I want for a bit.”
She deserved everything. But he wanted to make sure giving it to her was...right. Safe. “I’ve had to see a psychiatrist, and there’s some...mandatory psychological things I’ll have to do before I’m reinstated to active duty. I’m sure the doctor suggested the same thing to you.”
“Therapy, yes.”
“There’s a chance...” He cleared his throat and smoothed his hands down her arms, eventually taking her hands in his.
That wasn’t fair because how did he say anything he needed to when he was touching her? “You shouldn’t feel obligated to continue what happened in there. You should have the space to find out if it’s what you really want.”
She cocked her head, some mix of irritation and uncertainty in the move. “Do you feel obligated by what happened?” she asked.
“No, but—”
“Then shut up.” Then her mouth was on his again, hot and maybe a little wild. But it didn’t matter, did it?
He didn’t want it to matter. He wanted her. This strong, resilient woman.
She pulled back a little, always his warrior, facing whatever hard things were in her way. “I want you. The Jaime I met in there. And I want to get to know this you,” she said, running her finger down the lapel of his suit. “The thing is, awful things happened in there, but it was eight years of my life. I can’t...erase it. It’s there. Forever. An indelible part of me. I don’t need to pretend it never existed to heal. I don’t think that’s how you heal.”
“But I have this whole life to go back to, Gabby. I know you aren’t starting over, but people knew I was coming back. I’m coming back to a job. It isn’t the same space we’re in. I don’t want you to feel as though you need to make space for me. That...you need to love me or any of it.”
She studied him for the longest time, and the marvelous thing about Gabby was that she thought about things. Thought them through, and gave everything the kind of weight it deserved.
Who was he to tell her she needed space? Who was he to tell her much of anything?
“I will tell you when I need space. You’ll tell me when you need some. It’s not complicated.” She traced a fingertip along his hairline, as though studying this new facet to him. Eventually her eyes met his.
“And I do love you,” she said quietly, weighted. “If that changes, I’d hardly feel obligated to keep giving you something I didn’t have.”
“Such a pragmatist,” he managed to say, his voice rusty in the face of her confession. “I was trying to be very noble, you know.”
Her mouth curved and he wondered how many things he would file away in his memories as first in daylight. The first time he’d kissed her with the sun shining into the car. The first smile under a blue sky.
He wanted them to outnumber his memories of a cramped room more than he wanted his next breath.
“I don’t want noble. I want Jaime.” She swallowed. “That is, as long as you want me.”
“I practically lost my life’s work for wanting you, and I’d do it a million times over, if that’s what you wanted. I’d give up anything. I’d fight anything. I hope you know, I’d do anything.”
She rubbed her hands up and down his cheeks as if to make sure he was real, and hers, though he undoubtedly was. Always.
“Come inside. I want to tell my mother and grandmother about the man who saved me.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did. I’d stopped counting the days. I’d stopped hoping. You came in and gave me both.”
His chest ached, a warm bloom of emotion. Touched that anything he’d done had mattered. Moved beyond measure. “We saved each other.” Because he’d been falling, losing all those pieces of himself, and she’d brought it all back.
“A mutual saving. I like that.” She smiled that beautiful sun-drenched smile and then she got out of his car, and so did he. They walked up the path to her home with a bright blue sky above them, free and ready for a future.
Together.
* * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from Trouble in Big Timber by B.J. Daniels.
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Trouble in Big Timber
by B.J. Daniels
Chapter One
The narrow mountain road ended at the edge of a rock cliff. It wasn’t as if Ford Cardwell had forgotten that. No, when he saw where he was, he knew it was why he’d taken this road and why he was going so fast as he approached the sheer vertical drop to the rocks far below. It would have been so easy to keep going, to put everything behind him, to no longer feel pain.
Pine trees blurred past as the pickup roared down the dirt road to the nothingness ahead. All he could see were sky and more mountains off in the distance. Welcome back to Montana. He’d thought coming home would help. He’d thought he could forget everything and go back to being the man he’d been.
His heart thundered as he saw the end of the road coming up quickly. Too quickly. It was now or never.
The words sounded in his ears, his own when he was young. He saw himself standing in
the barn loft looking out at the long drop to the pile of hay below. Jump or not jump. It was now or never.
He was within yards of the cliff when his cell phone rang. He slammed on his brakes. An impulsive reaction to the ringing in his pocket? Or an instinctive desire to go on living?
The pickup slid to a dust-boiling stop, his front tires just inches from the end of the road. Heart in his throat, he looked out at the plunging drop in front of him.
His heart pounded harder. Just a few more moments—a few more inches—and he wouldn’t have been able to stop in time.
His phone rang again. A sign? Or just a coincidence? He put the pickup in Reverse a little too hard and hit the gas pedal. The front tires were so close to the edge that for a moment he thought the tires wouldn’t have purchase. Fishtailing backward, the truck spun away from the precipice.
Ford shifted into Park and, hands shaking, pulled out his still-ringing phone. As he did, he had a stray thought. How rare it used to be to get cell phone coverage here in the Gallatin Canyon, of all places. Only a few years ago the call wouldn’t have gone through.
Without checking to see who was calling, he answered it, his hand shaking as he did. He’d come so close to going over the cliff. Until the call had saved him.
“Hello?” He could hear noises in the background. “Hello?” He let out a bitter chuckle. A robocall had saved him at the last moment? he thought.
But his laughter died as he heard a bloodcurdling scream coming from his phone. “Hello?” he yelled. “Who is this?” The scream was followed by a woman’s desperate pleas.
“No, please, don’t hurt me anymore.” Another scream and the sound of breaking glass.
“Hello?” He was yelling, frantic, having no idea who was on the other end of the call—just that she was in trouble. Had the woman meant to call 9ll? Maybe it was a pocket dial and she hadn’t meant to call anyone—let alone a stranger.
“Tell me where you are!” he yelled into the phone, but his voice was drowned out by another scream, this one filled with pure terror—and pain. He knew both too well.
The sound of something hard hitting soft flesh was followed by a choking sound. Choking on blood? The woman was being attacked. By an intruder? Or someone she knew? He’d never felt more helpless as he listened to more breaking glass and the woman’s screams.
“No! Please, Humphrey, you’re going to kill me! Please. Stay back. Don’t make me...” The gunshot sounded deafening—even on the phone. Then there was no sound at all coming from his cell.
Ford stared down at the phone in his hand, shock shuddering through him. The woman on the other end of the line had called the man Humphrey. His already pounding heart thumped against his ribs, making his chest ache. It couldn’t be. He stared at the name that had come up on his phone. No. He tried to call the number back. It went straight to voice mail. Someone must have found the phone and shut it off. Or declined the call.
His heart was pounding. For a moment, he was too stunned to move, almost to breathe, at what he’d just heard, what he’d been unable to stop. Rachel. The call was from his former college roommate’s wife, Rachel Westlake—now Mrs. Humphrey Collinwood.
He’d only recently added her number to his contact list after she’d sent him a friend request on social media and they’d exchanged cell phone numbers.
His pulse pounded so loud that he couldn’t hear himself think. Fumbling in his fear and panic, he hit 911. It couldn’t be true. He knew Humphrey. They’d been roommates mtost of their time in college. His former friend wouldn’t hurt anyone. Humphrey idolized Rachel. But from what he’d heard on the call...
Outside the pickup, the wind howled in the pines. A gust blew dirt over the cliff and into the abyss, reminding him how close he’d come to making that same descent. The only thing that had stopped him was the phone call. Or would he have hit the brakes on his own? He would never know.
The 911 operator came on the line. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
“I think I just heard someone being attacked and possibly killed on what I suspect was a pocket dial.” His voice broke. “Her name is Rachel Westlake. Sorry, it’s Collinwood now.” He listened as the dispatcher asked him a question. “No, I don’t know where she lives exactly. A ranch north of Big Timber. That’s all I know. We only recently reconnected. That’s how she had my number. Please, you have to find her. She might still be...alive.”
Copyright © 2021 by Barbara Heinlein
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ISBN-13: 9780369703941
Deadly Secret
First published as Rustled in 2011.
This edition published in 2021.
Copyright © 2011 by Barbara Heinlein
Stone Cold Undercover Agent
First published in 2017. This edition published in 2021.
Copyright © 2017 by Nicole Helm
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in
any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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