Harlequin Intrigue June 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: To Honor and To ProtectCorneredUntraceable

by Debra

  Cam had walked through that in his mind. Over and over. He could soft-pedal it all and fill in blanks. But that wouldn’t be fair. She’d been strong and right by his side throughout the entire ordeal. He owed her as much information as he could give her and a shoulder to cry on when the disappointment about Sandy hit.

  “The truth.” He’d mess up if he tried to do anything else, anyway.

  “Smart.” Holt nodded. “But that’s a rough story. Her uncle—”

  “They weren’t blood related.” For some reason, that mattered to Cam. He didn’t want her tied to Sandy any more than she was.

  “I don’t think that will be a comfort, since he ran drugs, killed, scared her on purpose, tried to kill you and possibly killed her father.”

  Man, that list. Cam ran through it in his head, but hearing it out loud sounded so much worse. And that wasn’t even all of it. He knew it would get worse over the next few days as they gathered more information on the choices Sandy had made. Then came the criminal part. No way would that man go down easy.

  But that wasn’t even the biggest problem of all. Julia’s feelings for him were. “She loved him.”

  Shane snorted. “Well, her taste in men stinks.”

  “Thanks.” Since that actually made Cam smile, he didn’t bother to shoot an insult right back at his teammate.

  Holt looked over at him. “I guess this means you’re off the market.”

  “Was I ever on it?” Cam kept his dating life light. It had been a good system until he met Julia.

  “You were single.” Holt shrugged as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Fight it all you want, but I saw the look on your face. You want her.”

  The knee-jerk reaction to deny and minimize had faded. When Holt delivered his assessment, Cam could only agree. “I do.”

  Shane put a hand on Cam’s shoulder. “Then don’t mess it up.”

  That seemed simple enough. Maybe too simple. “That’s your advice?”

  “Hey, it’s good advice.” Shane walked toward the door.

  “Call us if you need a ride,” Holt said as he joined Shane. “Otherwise, Connor said you should take some time off.”

  “He’s a hopeless romantic.” Cam had never thought he’d say that about a six-foot-something bruiser who could shoot and run and do anything Corcoran needed. But Cam did admire Connor’s ability to balance his marriage and the work. He wasn’t the only one. The entire Annapolis office was paired off.

  They’d all survived dating. Maybe he could, too. He rubbed a thumb over the back of Julia’s hand. Maybe it just depended on the partner.

  “I’m thinking all of you have marriage fever.” Holt sounded disgusted by the possibility.

  Shane touched his chest. “Except me.”

  Holt nodded. “Right, except me and Shane.”

  Cam remembered saying something similar and thinking it was brilliant. Now he knew better. “Your time will come.”

  Holt’s smile fell. “Don’t come back with that attitude.”

  * * *

  JULIA CAME AWAKE in bursts. She’d wake up and try to open her eyes, then drift again. Every time she thought she’d reached the surface, she would feel a hand in hers or the brush of fingers through her hair. It was that loving touch that had her keep trying. She craved it.

  On the last swim to the top she heard her name spoken in a deep, husky voice. She knew that voice, which meant she knew that hand. Using all her energy, she opened her eyes. The light flooded in and had her blinking. She wanted to lift her hand to block it, but her muscles weighed too much to lift.

  “Hey there.” Cam leaned in farther as she woke up.

  “What happened?” She remembered being in the house and the sense of desperation. Then there was glass everywhere. She didn’t even know what had happened to Sandy and why he’d locked the house down.

  “Sandy set the security system and you couldn’t get out.” Cam kept up the gentle caress of his fingertips against the back of her hand. “The doctor said that shock along with being dehydrated was too much for your system.”

  “Am I okay?”

  “Yes.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You need rest, which is what I think I said to you about a hundred times.”

  She wanted to roll her eyes, but it hurt to move her head. “I’m not weak.”

  “Of course not.” His head pulled back. “Is that what you thought I was saying?”

  She thought back to all he’d told her. He’d praised her. She didn’t remember the word weak or any other negative word. He wasn’t her father or like any man she’d ever dated. “I just wanted you to know.”

  He raised their joined hands to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “I know.”

  She knew she should close her eyes and drift off. Him being there made her feel safe, but there were so many questions spinning in her head. She started with the obvious one. “Sandy was involved, wasn’t he?”

  A flash of pain crossed over Cam’s face. She knew then that he was trying to hold that back and protect her. But she’d already guessed the truth. The second she’d looked for her cell and found it gone and then couldn’t get out of the house, her mind had gone from thinking Sandy was being overprotective to knowing he was hiding something.

  Part of her wanted to believe he’d done it because he hadn’t thought Cam safe. But she knew that wasn’t it. Sandy had become secretive, and that security system kept growing to include new and scary features. When she’d stopped visiting, his mood had turned surly.

  Cam continued to hold her hand in his. “We think Sandy is the drug runner, Julia. The boss. In charge of it all.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to let those words sink in. “I can’t imagine him doing it.”

  She’d never known him to use drugs or even alcohol. He’d shamed her father repeatedly on the alcohol issue. It made her wonder if dealing was his way of proving he was stronger and everyone else was weaker. That did fit with his personality.

  “He pretty much admitted it to me and the team.” Cam exhaled. “He got caught up in telling us how great he was and started talking about this.”

  “I bet he’s trying to back off of that admission now.” The thought of Sandy in prison made her mind rebel. The guy liked comfort. Big-time comfort. Thinking about him in a uniform with set mealtimes... What had he been thinking?

  “We set him up at the hospital and he took the bait. Came to the clinic to kill Ray, the one guy who could finger him, but it was really Shane in the bed.”

  The body blows kept coming. That was not the man she knew. Watching who he was unwind in front of her made her wonder if she knew anything about men.

  She glanced up at the only other man who had meant so much to her. She lay there waiting for Cam to deliver the news that he was off to a new assignment or going to live under a new name. There was an automatic finality that came with being with him.

  “You can just tell me.” She braced for the pain that would come when he uttered the words. “You don’t have to be careful with your words or worry about my feelings.”

  Instead, he frowned at her. “What?”

  “That you’re leaving. How you hate commitment.”

  “When did I say that?”

  “You’ve said it before and I want you to know I’m ready for the speech.” But she wasn’t. She totally wasn’t.

  “Do you want me to go?” He laid her hand against the bed but kept his over it.

  “No.” She practically screamed the answer. A nurse walking by in the hallway did a double take.

  He shot her that sexy dimpled smile. “Then why are you trying to get me to say something I don’t want to say?”

  Her brain kept misfiring. She had no idea what they were talking about or how they’d gotten here from where they were the last time they’d discussed this subject. “But you—”

  “Julia, I wasn’t kidding when I told you I felt something I’d never felt before. I haven’t had wild love affairs or had the benefit o
f growing up in a big family and watching my siblings pair off.” He switched seats so that he sat on the edge of her bed. “I want you.”

  “A date.” It felt risky to even put that out there knowing how he felt about the subject.

  “I’m hoping for a lot of dates.” His eyes gleamed. “See, I’m falling for you and it seems to me when that happens, two people should spend a lot of time together.”

  She couldn’t figure out how to open her mouth to speak.

  “Let’s try this.” He lowered his head and took her mouth with his. The dragging kiss had her remembering every touch and wanting so many more.

  When he lifted his head again, her body sparked to life. This time she grabbed his hand and pressed it right between her breasts. “That falling thing?”

  “Yeah?”

  Oh, that smile. “You’re not falling alone.”

  Falling, fell. They could use whatever words he wanted. She just knew she thought about him all the time, even when he was right beside her. Something about him—the charm or maybe the bossiness—had gotten under her skin from the beginning.

  He turned his hand to trace a line along her collarbone. “In the interests of disclosure, my world is about danger and secrets and—”

  “I’ve known that from day one. Literally.” He’d busted into the house and nothing had ever been the same.

  “True.” His expression grew serious. “I want to give us a chance. A real chance.”

  She was in for that. She could give him as long as he needed. She’d waited. “So long as we give it a nice long chance.”

  He nuzzled her nose with his. “Months and months.”

  She grabbed his face and held it in front of her. “No more informal dating.”

  He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Not with you.”

  “I knew I liked you from the beginning.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and brought him in closer.

  His laugh had someone outside the door hesitating for a second. The person stood there and then moved on.

  “Now be honest,” he said with a smile. “You didn’t like me all that much for a long while.”

  That was probably fair. The beginning part, anyway. The fear had come first and quickly dissipated. The driving need and blinding attraction had seemed to settle in and refuse to go, even after they’d slept together. “But the second I got to know you, I was hooked.”

  He leaned down, almost climbed into bed with her. “And I plan to keep you that way.”

  She rubbed her hand up his arm. “I like your style, Cameron Roth.”

  “And I like everything about you, Julia White.”

  “Then let’s get me out of here and to that hotel you promised.”

  He winked at her. “Done.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Holt and Shane sat down in the bar nearest to the clinic. Watching Cam fall deserved a beer. Maybe a bottle of gin. The good thing about this island was they had plenty of those. Seemed something about the cool, wet air got people drinking.

  Law enforcement had swooped in and started investigating everything. It looked as though Sandy was in big trouble going forward. Ray hadn’t rolled, but Shane and Holt had a bet he would.

  Neither Ray nor Sandy was the type to thrive in prison. They both had skills, but their egos were problematic. The prosecutor was already offering a deal for testimony. Ray would be dumb not to take it.

  Shane lifted his beer in salute. “We lost another one.”

  “And Cam.” Holt felt he should say a prayer or something. “He was pretty clear that he was out when it came to the long-term-girlfriend thing.”

  “That vow lasted all of four seconds after he met Julia.”

  “She is hot.” Holt had to be fair about that. She was off-the-charts pretty and probably way out of Cam’s league, or at least that was what Holt planned to tell him all the time.

  “And she didn’t spook when guys died in front of her. She held on.” Shane nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. She is hot.”

  “It’s like a disease in the office.” Holt touched his chest because the idea of hooking up and getting married gave him pain. “Any chance there’s a vaccine?”

  “I’d ask, but then I’d accidentally insult one of them.”

  Made sense, since the entire office was now taken except for him and Shane. Connor and his wife had been estranged, but the rest of them had found women and in record time went from confirmed bachelors making fun of the married agents to one of them. The traveling team had vowed to stay out of the fray, but now that deal was busted, as well.

  Shane lifted his half-empty glass. “I’m going to need another one.”

  “What if Ms. Right is here tonight?” Holt looked around, scanned one table after the other. But he never saw what the others did. He got pretty. He liked smart and resourceful.

  “If the right woman comes in, I’ll know because she’ll buy me a beer.” Shane stared at the door. When it remained closed and he didn’t have a new beer in front of him, he shrugged.

  That was the Shane Holt loved and admired. “Romantic.”

  “We need a new pact,” Shane said. “Except...”

  Holt knew this was going to be bad. “What?”

  “I bet you’re next.”

  “Double or nothing.” Holt was willing to hand over his house to win that one.

  “We’ll see.” Shane downed the last of the glass. “We’ll see.”

  * * * * *

  Look for SHELTERED, the next book

  in HelenKay Dimon’s CORCORAN TEAM:

  BULLETPROOF BACHELORS miniseries,

  next month. You’ll find it wherever

  Harlequin Intrigue books and ebooks are sold!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE GUARDIAN by Cindi Myers.

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  Chapter One

  Abby Stewart was not lost. Maybe she’d wandered a little off her planned route, but she wasn’t lost.

  She was a scientist and a decorated war veteran. She had GPS and maps and a good sense of direction. So she couldn’t be lost. But standing in the middle of nowhere in the Colorado wilderness did have her a little disoriented, she could admit. The problem was, the terrain around Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park tended to all look the same after a while: thousands of acres of rugged, roadless wilderness covered in piñon forests, and scrubby desert set against a backdrop of spectacular mountain views. People did get lost out here every year.

  But Abby wasn’t one of them, she reminded herself again. She took a deep breath and consulted her handheld GPS. There was the shallow draw she’d just passed, and to the west were the foothills of the Cimarron Mountains. And there was her location now. The display showed she’d hiked three miles from her car. All she had to do was head northeast and she’d eventually make it back to her parking spot and the red dirt two-track she’d driven in on. Feeling more reassured, she returned the GPS unit to her backpack and scanned the landscape around her. To a casual observer, the place probably looked pretty desolate—a high plateau of scrubby grass, cactus and stunted juniper. But to Abby, who was on her way to earning a master’s degree in environmental science, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison was a treasure trove of more than eight hundred plant species, including the handful she was focusing on in her research.

&nb
sp; Her anxiety over temporarily losing her bearings vanished as she focused on a gray-green clump of vegetation in the shadow of a misshapen piñon. She bent over, peering closer, and a surge of triumph filled her. Yes! A terrific specimen of Lomatium concinnum—desert parsley to the layman. Number four on the list of species she needed to collect for her research. She knelt and slipped off her pack and quickly took out a digital camera, small trowel and collecting bag.

  Intent on photographing the parsley in place, then carefully digging it up, leaving as much of the root system intact as possible, she missed the sounds of approaching footsteps until they were almost on her. A branch crackled and she started, heart pounding. She peered into the dense underbrush in front of her, in the direction of the sound, and heard a shuffling noise—the muffled swish of fabric rubbing against the brush. Whoever this was wasn’t trying to be particularly quiet, but what were they doing out here, literally in the middle of nowhere?

  In the week Abby had been camped in the area she’d seen fewer than a dozen other people since checking in at the park ranger station, and all of those had been in the campground or along the paved road. Here in the backcountry she’d imagined herself completely alone.

  Stealthily, she slid the Sig Sauer from the holster at her side. She’d told the few friends who’d asked about the gun that she carried it to deal with snakes and other wildlife she might encounter in the backcountry, but the truth was, ever since her stint in Afghanistan, she felt safer armed when she went out alone. Flashes of unsettling memories crowded her mind as she drew the weapon; suddenly, she was back in Kandahar, stalking insurgents who’d just wiped out half her patrol group. As a woman, she’d often been tasked with going into the homes of locals to question the women there with the aid of an interpreter. Every time she stepped into one of those homes, she wondered if she’d come out alive. This scene had the same sense of being cut off from the rest of the world, the same sense of paranoia and danger.

  Heart racing, she struggled to control her breathing and to push the memories away. She wasn’t in Afghanistan. She was in Colorado. In a national park. She was safe. This was probably just another hiker, someone else who appreciated the solitude and peace of the wilderness. She inched forward and pushed aside the feathery, aromatic branches of a piñon.