by Desiree Holt
“Something sure smells good.” Alex came up to her and put his arms around her, pulling her close to his body.
The warm timbre of his voice, vibrating through her, always made her smile.
“Beef stew. Nothing fancy.”
“Are you kidding? Your beef stew is a culinary work of art.”
Micki laughed. “Then you have seriously been lacking artful cooking in your life.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t think MREs fall into that category?”
She knew MREs were the infamous Meals, Ready To Eat that all branches of the service dined on at one time or another on deployment.
“I think those days are gone forever for you. Go on, get washed up. I thought we’d have a cold one on the deck before we eat.”
He studied her face. “You aren’t prepping me for bad news, are you?”
“I hope not. Go on. Take a quick shower.”
He’d gotten into the habit of doing that, too, each day when he came home, claiming he needed to wash off the stink of the biggest concentration of evil he’d seen in a long time. She was waiting on the deck when he came out in jeans and a clean T-shirt, her mouth going a little dry as it always did when she saw his lean yet muscular body with its broad shoulders and narrow hips. Her eyes drifted to the fly of his jeans, and a pulse kicked off between her thighs as she remembered the hard, thick cock behind it. A cock she now craved so often she astonished herself.
She was already holding her beer, but she had one sitting on the table waiting for him. Before he picked it up, he bent down, cupped her chin, and gave her a long, slow kiss, his tongue sliding easily into her mouth. Slivers of ease tumbled through her as she eagerly welcomed his taste. Then, without warning, he lifted her, bottle and all, snagged his own drink, and settled in the other chair with her in his lap.
“I don’t know how you always do stuff like that without dropping anything,” she complained. “I’d land on my head.”
“It’s my secret,” he teased. “Besides, I’m more than a handful for you to pick up. Now, out with it. What’s going on that you think I need coddling. How bad is the news?”
“I hope you think it’s good.” She took a fortifying sip of beer. “I called my boss today. You know, he did give me an indefinite leave of absence and has been following the situation on every news media.”
“Who hasn’t.” Alex snorted.
“Well, anyway, I know he’s been wondering how long he’d have to hold it open for me, and if he could still do it.”
Beneath her his body tensed into one big, hard muscle. “Do you have to go back?”
“I don’t have to do anything, but I thought he needed an answer.” Here goes, she thought. “I handed in my resignation.”
He was silent for so long, she wondered if she’d misread their situation.
“Alex?” she urged. “Did I make a mistake?”
He set both their bottles down on the table and took her mouth in a kiss that curled her toes.
“Hell, no,” he told her. “I’ve been memorizing my arguments to convince you to do just that. But…I hope that means you’re staying. With me.”
“Yes, it does. I mean, if you’ll have me.”
“Damn, Micki. I wasn’t sure you wanted to have me.” He treated her to another of his toe-curling kisses. “God, babe. You’ve made my day. No, make that my year. No, my life. But what will you do? I can’t see you sitting around the house all day.”
“Actually, that’s kind of what set me thinking about everything this week. Doug Merensky came out himself to take my statement—and, by the way, I thanked him huge for not making me come into town to do it. Anyway, we got to talking over coffee, and he asked me if I’d consider relocating to his staff. He—”
“Are you kidding me? I was trying to figure out how to suggest it to him and you, but I wasn’t sure if I should wait until all this crap was over.”
“Yes, yes, okay. But let me finish here.” She snagged her beer and took a swallow. “It wouldn’t all be sex crimes. Thank the lord, except for this debacle we’re in now, there’s a fairly low percentage of them in this county. I told him I thought I’d like to vary the cases I try. Anyway, he sent out all the paperwork for me, which I’ll fill out tonight.” She glanced at his face. “I’m putting this down as my permanent residence, right?”
“Oh, yeah.” He brushed his mouth over hers, licking the taste of beer from her lips. “I hadn’t planned to do it quite this way, Micki. I wanted to take you out for a special dinner, the whole nine yards. You deserve it.”
“Maybe, but I don’t need it.” She nibbled his chin.
“In that case, how about we go down to the county courthouse and get ourselves a license. I did ask the clerk if she’d make a special exception and let us do it after hours and out of the limelight. I’m sure Jason would be happy to give you away, and Hank would be my best man. We could do a quiet ceremony right here.”
She studied his face. “Is it really going to be that easy?”
He laughed. “Babe, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that nothing in life is easy. But it’s definitely going to be worth it.” He rose, holding her in his arms against his chest. “Think that stew will keep a little longer? I think this calls for a celebration.”
“I think it will keep as long as we need it to.”
“Great because I plan to take a good long time with this.”
Her body clenched with need and arousal at his words. And a feeling of happiness she’d never dreamed she’d have.
Guarding Jenna
Want to learn how this story began?
Turn the page for Chapter One in
Introduction
Jenna Daniels grew up in a world of great wealth and privilege. Powerful men and women from all over the country attended the lavish parties that her stepfather hosted on their Montana ranch. But the night of one party, one of those men crept into her bedroom, blindfolded her and viciously raped her, threatening to kill her if she spoke out. Years of therapy have helped her deal with it but she still freezes at the thought of an intimate relationship. Now she’s a true crime writer specializing in unsolved rape cases, determined to find others similar to hers and track down the rapist. When she uncovers several committed over the past fifteen years, she knows she must return to Montana to find her answers.
After twelve years in the SEALs, Scott Nolan doesn’t know what to do with himself. There’s not much in civilian life for a former sniper. Then a friend puts him in touch with Hank Patterson who heads Brotherhood Protectors and he feels as if he’s found a home again. He’s just finished his first assignment when Hank receives a call from Grey Holden, head of The Omega Team in Tampa, who asks him to have someone keep an eye on Jenna. Good thing, too, because she’s hardly settled into her rental cabin before someone leaves a threatening note under her windshield followed up by a dead skunk on her doorstep with another note.
Good thing the cabin has two bedrooms because Hank insists Scott move in with Jenna so he can monitor her twenty-four/seven. As Jenna gets closer to finding her answers, the attempts on her life increase. But is she in more danger from the unknown person or from Scott, himself a tortured soul but who wakens feelings she is afraid to face may be the only one who can get past her emotional fear and teach her how to love?
Chapter 1
It was the emails that pushed her.
Jenna Donovan had been keeping track of things online for the past fourteen years. She’d made a list of possibilities and every so often, when it wouldn’t get out of her head, she did a search for anything relating to those names. She had pitiful little to show for it, but her obsession with finding the right person was like an itch she could never scratch enough.
And then the emails arrived.
There is a rapist and killer here where you used to live. He’s killed ten girls in fourteen years. No one can stop him. He rapes them and then kills them if they report it. No one will help us. Please do something.
>
She could still feel the paralyzing shock that gripped her when she read it. Why had this person reached out to her? Did they know what had happened to her all those years ago? While she was still fighting back the nausea the memory caused, another email dropped.
We read all your stories. Please, if you can, we beg you to come investigate this or he will keep on doing it. Please.
Jesus!
Of course, it was the same man. Had to be. There wouldn’t be two in such a sparsely populated area. How old would he be after all these years? And how powerful was he that he could keep doing this without retribution or discovery? The memory had slammed into her as if it had just happened. Her stomach clenched again as the nightmare she worked so hard to suppress came flooding through her as if a damn had broken.
She had run to the bathroom and vomited until her stomach was empty. Then, after settling her stomach with a cup of peppermint tea, she sat back down at her computer. She’d sworn never to return to that place where her nightmares began, but she could feel the fear rising from the messages. And she could feel the fear and desperation in the emails. Was this a sign from the universe that it was time to deal with the past? That doing one of her investigative pieces was the way to do it? Returning now was what she’d call an evil necessity. And maybe she could put her demons to rest once and for all.
Could she do it? What would it be like returning there? Who would she talk to? She had absolutely no intention of communicating with Roger Holland, her stepfather. Or former one, since her mother was now dead. It was his house—his ranch—that had been the scene of the event that still haunted her every day and night. He might not have been the actual villain, but he had created an environment that attracted people like the one in her nightmare. She’d never told him what happened, knowing he’d call her a liar. He always defended his friends in any situation, to the exclusion of everyone else, including his family.
Fourteen years ago, she hadn’t been able to get away from Montana fast enough. The day she turned eighteen, she took all the money her father had left her and headed for college on the other side of the country. Despite the pleading and tears from her mother, for her own sanity she’d had to get away.
Since the day she left, she had done her best to avoid coming back here at all, the place where her nightmares began. The death of her mother in the middle of her freshman year left her without a reason to ever come back. She’d put herself through college and built a new life for herself away from any reminders of the nightmare. If she still had nightmares, well, she was dealing with them as best she could.
Putting aside everything else she had going at the moment, she did a deep search for killings in that county, going back fifteen years. And there they were, scattered over time, very brief news articles about girls who were strangled and left in the forested areas of the Crazy Mountains near her former hometown. Maybe if she went back there and helped uncover the perpetrator, her nightmares would stop forever. Maybe she could have a healthy relationship with a man. Maybe a lot of things.
“I have to go back,” she told her friend, Grey Holden. “This is a sign, Grey. If I can find out who this is, maybe I can finally have some peace after all these years.”
Grey had done his best to talk her out of it. Besides being her friend, he was the head of The Omega Team, a highly sought-after security and paramilitary agency, and former military himself. She still remembered the night he’d saved her from a meltdown in a bar, even though he hadn’t known her from Sally Jones at the time. After that, he’d become a confidante, support person, and all around good guy in her life. But she wasn’t going to take his advice on this. It was an itch she’d been waiting to scratch for a long time, one that was now almost an obsession with her. Somehow, she felt she needed to do this to get on with the rest of her life.
“Are you sure you want to follow through on this?” he asked. “Maybe you should reconsider doing the story. Going back there, digging around, is sure to bring back all those memories.”
“On the other hand,” she pointed out, “it may be the only way to put them to bed once and for all. Someone went to the trouble of sending me an email, using a net café so they could be anonymous.”
“But all you have,” he pointed out, “are very brief articles over a fourteen-year span about the murders of some girls who reported being raped. I understand that the timing isn’t exactly coincidental. They report the rape and then why’re dead.”
“Because that’s what he threatens,” she insisted. “That’s what he said to me. If I opened my mouth to anyone I’d be dead meat. Murdered.”
“And how did he—whoever he is—know about the complaints? Did the sheriff tell him? If they don’t know his name, how would anyone know who to leak the information to?”
She bit her lip. “Somebody knows, and I want to find out who’s been shielding him all these years. If he’s been getting away with it all this time, it means he’s a man with a great deal of power and influence. Maybe even reaching into the office of the sheriff. It’s even possible he’s such a powerhouse in the area that the girls or their parents confided in him, asking him what to do. It has to be something like that, because the rape complaints weren’t made public.”
“And you’re sure these are connected? I have to ask.”
She swallowed her frustration. “Yes. And whoever sent me the email said he—or she—knew for a fact it had happened to each of the girls who were murdered. I think this person knows or knew some of them, because the email described things about the rape that were never made public—big man, rough hands large enough to cover her eyes and mouth, powerful, arrogant, as if he was untouchable. And that shortly after they reported it, they were found dead. Strangled. That’s what the rapist threatened me with.”
“Jesus, Jenna.”
“These murders have occurred over a period of several years,” she reminded him. “Some of those victims would be closer to my age now, except they’re dead. And who knows how many others were victims between the time I left and now? Girls who haven’t ever come forward.”
“And you’re sure this is the same man? ”
“Please.” She snorted a laugh. “How many stories like this do you think come out of rural Montana, anyway? You know I never believed I was the only one this guy targeted.”
“Yeah, I know. I know.”
“I’ve been at this for a long time, Grey, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts. When I started looking into the murders, I couldn’t believe the number of cases I found. And who knows how many rapes happened that were not reported? Like mine.”
“Okay, so he killed the girls who came forward,” Grey reminded her. “Even if, like you, they couldn’t identify him. Even though all they had was the location and situation and sketchy information. Just on the off chance they might remember the tiniest detail. He was sending a message to all the others, right?”
“Yes, and Grey? One of them was one of the few friends I made when I lived here. Julie Kemp. At the time, I had no idea she’d been raped. She just one day stopped seeing me or anyone. When her body was found, the sheriff said it had to be a stranger in the area, but no one was ever caught. I’m still devastated about it.”
“All the more reason to be cautious.”
“But—”
“The person who wrote the email had to know more than one of the victims if she told you he’d warned each of them,” he reminded her. “Just like he warned you what he’d do if you ever said anything.”
“But that’s why he keeps getting away with it,” she cried. “Because he’s some kind of powerful figure, ruled by his ego. He makes sure the girls are too intimidated by him to act, or he kills them. This is a habit that’s gone on for several years. For whatever reason, those girls took the chance.
“And they paid with their lives,” she told him, her voice tight at the thought of it.
“Let me repeat this. Because somehow word got out about what they’d done, and he made good on hi
s threat. Of course that wasn’t mentioned in any of the stories. We don’t know how it leaked, so you’ll` have to watch your step everywhere.”
“I believe there has to be someone who knows who he is. They just keep quiet about it because it doesn’t matter to them. If he’s one of Roger’s friends, I can tell you they’d all overlook just about anything. They all have more money and/or power than you can imagine, and they think they are untouchable. It’s time for it to stop.”
“You’re a good reporter, Jenna,” he told her. “You’ve won some prestigious awards for your work. You’ve written two very successful true-crime books. Chances are he’s aware you’ve been digging into these cases. It’s very possible he’s paying someone in the sheriff’s office to keep him in the loop. That’s why none of the cases ever go anywhere. What if he’s been keeping an eye on you all these years, especially after your awards and your very successful books? If you show up in his playground, you might as well paint a target on your back.”
“Truthfully? I think he’s arrogant enough to believe I have no idea who he is, or that I’ll find out. Or if I do, that despite everything I’m too scared to tackle him or he’s too untouchable.” She blew out a breath. “Maybe if I can finally identify him and nail him, I’ll have some peace myself and be able to get on with my life.”
She’d been carrying this bag of heavy rocks for a long time, and she desperately wanted to get rid of it. She knew for a fact she’d never fully heal unless she did.
“You’re sure he lives in that area?” he asked again.
She nodded. “I am. Believe me, I’ve thought about it a lot. Too much. He could have been one of the many elite of the world who flew in for the high-dollar events my stepfather liked to host, but I just have the nagging sense that he lives around there. All the girls who came forward lived in that area. And something he whispered in my ear made me think he was local. It kills me that I can’t remember what it was.”
