by Susan Stoker
PRAISE FOR SUSAN STOKER
“Susan Stoker knows what women want. A hot hero who needs to save a damsel in distress . . . even if she can save herself!”
—CD Reiss, New York Times bestselling author
“Irresistible characters and seat-of-the-pants action will keep you glued to the pages.”
—Elle James, New York Times bestselling author
“Susan does romantic suspense right! Edge of my seat + smokin’ hot = read ALL of her books! Now.”
—Carly Phillips, New York Times bestselling author
“Susan Stoker writes the perfect book boyfriends!”
—Laurann Dohner, New York Times bestselling author
“These books should come with a warning label. Once you start, you can’t stop until you’ve read them all.”
—Sharon Hamilton, New York Times bestselling author
“Susan Stoker never disappoints. She delivers alpha males with heart and heroines with moxie.”
—Jana Aston, New York Times bestselling author
“Susan Stoker gives me everything I need in romance: heat, humor, intensity, and the perfect HEA.”
—Carrie Ann Ryan, New York Times bestselling author
“Susan Stoker packs one heck of a punch!”
—Lainey Reese, USA Today bestselling author
DISCOVER OTHER TITLES BY SUSAN STOKER
Silverstone Series
Trusting Skylar
Trusting Taylor
Trusting Molly (July 2021)
Trusting Cassidy (December 2021)
Mountain Mercenaries Series
Defending Allye
Defending Chloe
Defending Morgan
Defending Harlow
Defending Everly
Defending Zara
Defending Raven
Ace Security Series
Claiming Grace
Claiming Alexis
Claiming Bailey
Claiming Felicity
Claiming Sarah
Delta Force Heroes
Rescuing Rayne
Rescuing Aimee (novella)
Rescuing Emily
Rescuing Harley
Marrying Emily
Rescuing Kassie
Rescuing Bryn
Rescuing Casey
Rescuing Sadie (novella)
Rescuing Wendy
Rescuing Mary
Rescuing Macie
Delta Team Two Series
Shielding Gillian
Shielding Kinley
Shielding Aspen
Shielding Riley
Shielding Devyn (May 2021)
Shielding Ember (September 2021)
Shielding Sierra (TBA)
Badge of Honor: Texas Heroes Series
Justice for Mackenzie
Justice for Mickie
Justice for Corrie
Justice for Laine (novella)
Shelter for Elizabeth
Justice for Boone
Shelter for Adeline
Shelter for Sophie
Justice for Erin
Justice for Milena
Shelter for Blythe
Justice for Hope
Shelter for Quinn
Shelter for Koren
Shelter for Penelope
SEAL of Protection Series
Protecting Caroline
Protecting Alabama
Protecting Alabama’s Kids (novella)
Protecting Fiona
Marrying Caroline (novella)
Protecting Summer
Protecting Cheyenne
Protecting Jessyka
Protecting Julie (novella)
Protecting Melody
Protecting the Future
Protecting Kiera
Protecting Dakota
SEAL of Protection: Legacy Series
Securing Caite
Securing Sidney
Securing Piper
Securing Zoey
Securing Avery
Securing Kalee
Securing Jane
Beyond Reality Series
Outback Hearts
Flaming Hearts
Frozen Hearts
SEAL Team Hawaii Series
Finding Elodie (April 2021)
Finding Lexie (August 2021)
Finding Kenna (October 2021)
Finding Monica (TBA)
Finding Carly (TBA)
Finding Ashlyn (TBA)
Finding Jodelle (TBA)
Stand-Alone Novels
The Guardian Mist
A Princess for Cale
A Moment in Time (a short story collection)
Lambert’s Lady
Writing as Annie George
Stepbrother Virgin (erotic novella)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2021 by Susan Stoker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542021425
ISBN-10: 1542021421
Cover design by Eileen Carey
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Connect with Susan Online
Chapter One
Eagle sighed in frustration. He really hated grocery shopping. It was a task assigned to Shawn Archer, Silverstone Towing’s newly hired cook, but he’d been given the week off with pay to spend with his daughter. Both of them needed it after what they’d been through. It would be a very long time before the man was comfortable letting Sandra out of his sight again.
Eagle couldn’t blame him. If his child had been kidnapped, he’d have a hard time letting her do anything without him. It had been a very close call with Ricketts. The man had almost taken the most important thing in Shawn’s life.
But the time off for their new employee meant that Eagle was back to doing the grocery shopping for the week. He could ask one of his friends to do it, and they would without issue, but since he’d always shopped for Silverstone Towing, he felt an obligation to continue.
He turned down the street where the grocery store was located and pulled into the lot.
The moment he parked, the lot suddenly filled with police cars.
Clearly something had happened, and Eagle sighed again. Of course he couldn’t go to the store without there being some incident or another.
He got out of his Jeep Wrangler, glad that he’d parked in one of the farthest spaces from the store and wasn’t in the thick of whatever was happening, and waited a few minutes before slowly walking toward the chaos, letting the officers do their thing. Eagle and the rest of his teammates knew a lot of the officers who worked for the Indianapolis Police Department. They didn’t work side b
y side with them, but Silverstone had offered its services a time or two.
As Eagle headed for the two closest officers, he noticed a woman standing by herself nearby with her arms around her stomach. She was biting her lip . . . and the expression on her face hit him like a punch to the gut. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen nervous or scared women before. He had, both in his job at Silverstone Towing and when he had been in the military. But this woman seemed to be holding herself. She was uncomfortable, but he could also see resignation in her body language. As if she expected everyone in the vicinity to turn on her at any second.
It bothered Eagle deep down. He didn’t like to see anyone look so . . . alone.
He’d never seen her before. Eagle would know if he had. He remembered every single person he’d ever met. His brain was wired differently from most people’s, and he had a photographic memory when it came to names and faces. It was one of the reasons he was so invaluable to his team at Silverstone. He’d spent hours studying most-wanted lists, and if they ever came across someone on the lists, Eagle would know it.
The woman was average height, probably around five-seven or five-eight. She had on a pair of well-worn jeans, scuffed Converse sneakers, and a long-sleeve T-shirt. Her brown hair was curly and held back by a hairband, but even that couldn’t seem to contain the curls.
Eagle had the insane urge to touch it, to see if his fingers got tangled in the wild strands.
She glanced up for a split second and caught his eye, and Eagle barely contained a gasp. The resignation was even stronger in her eyes. As if she expected him to judge her. Her eyes were dark brown—from this distance almost black. Even as he stared, he saw her bite her lip again, uncertainly.
And oddly, he hated that too. Hated that she was nervous, especially after seeing him. She didn’t know it, of course, but he was as dangerous to her as a rock. He didn’t hurt women . . . well, not those who weren’t criminals. And Eagle’s gut was telling him that this woman had lived a tough life and that she was no threat to him or anyone else.
“Hey, Eagle!” one of the officers called. Eagle recognized him as Emmanuel Brown, an officer he’d worked with in the past. The greeting snapped him out of his inspection of the woman. He had no idea who she was or why she was standing there . . . but he was going to find out.
He turned toward the policeman and gave him a small head jerk. “Hey. What’s going on?”
“Altercation in the parking lot. Apparently two people wanted the same parking spot, and when one guy pulled into the space, the other guy took exception. He claimed he’d been waiting for it. They started fighting. One guy pulled a knife, and they both ended up bleeding. After they go to the hospital, they’re both getting charged.”
Eagle whistled. “Sounds messy.” He really wanted to ask about the woman, but bit his tongue.
“It was. Crazy thing was that there was an empty space just two cars down. I’ll never understand people,” Officer Brown said with a shake of his head.
“Luckily there were lots of witnesses,” another officer added. His badge said Nelson. Eagle hadn’t worked with him before.
“Yeah?” Eagle murmured, encouraging the man to keep talking.
“Yup. Got statements from five bystanders, and it seems clear the man who was pissed he didn’t get the spot started the whole thing.”
He couldn’t stand it anymore. Eagle motioned to the woman who’d caught his eye. “She a witness?”
Both officers looked over at the woman, then back to him.
Officer Nelson nodded. “Yeah.”
“What’s she waiting for?” Eagle asked. “I don’t see any other witnesses around.”
“Most have already left. We got their contact information if need be. But we’re waiting for the approval of the captain to let that one go. She was right there from the second everything started, so she’s the best witness, but there’s an issue.”
Officer Brown snorted. “That’s an understatement. She’s claiming she’s got some disability—I don’t remember what she called it—where she can’t recognize faces. I guess it’s some kind of 50 First Dates kind of thing . . . remember that movie? With Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore? It’s hilarious. Anyway, sucks that she’ll be no use as a witness. She won’t be able to pick out the two perps in a lineup or if this shit goes to court. So we’re trying to figure out if we should officially turn in her statement or just go with what we’ve already got.”
Eagle couldn’t help the surge of curiosity at hearing the officer’s explanation. She couldn’t recognize faces? God, there were times he wished he didn’t immediately recognize people. “How long has she been standing there?”
Both officers shrugged.
Irritated on behalf of the woman, he made sure his facial expression showed nothing of what he was feeling. “Any problem if I go talk to her?”
“Nope. We expect to hear from the captain any minute now, and I’m guessing she’ll be off the hook. No lawyer’s gonna want to bring her in as a witness. She’d be torn apart by the defending attorney.”
“What’s her name?” Eagle asked.
“Taylor Cardin.”
Eagle hadn’t heard the woman’s name before, but because of his unique ability, he knew he’d never forget it. “Thanks. Stay safe out there,” he told the two men before turning and heading for the woman.
Taylor had been watching him talk to the officers and kept her eyes on him as he approached. She didn’t wait for him to get to her before she spoke.
“I’ve already told the officers everything I saw.”
“I know,” Eagle told her. He held out his hand once he was in front of her. “I’m Eagle. Well, my real name is Kellan, but no one calls me that.”
The woman looked down at his hand, but didn’t reach for it. Her arms stayed wrapped around herself.
He continued to speak, dropping his hand. “I’m not a cop. I’m acquainted with a lot of them, as I work for Silverstone Towing, and I’ve gotten to know them over the years. Are you all right?”
She stared at him for a long moment before saying quietly, “You’re the first person to ask me that.”
Alarmed, Eagle’s eyes raked over her slender frame, trying to determine if she was injured. “You’re hurt?”
She shook her head. “No.” She glanced over at the policemen, then back at him. “And I’m nothing like Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates,” she said, quietly but firmly.
Eagle was surprised at the ferocity in her tone, especially considering how fragile she looked.
She went on before he could comment. “I have prosopagnosia, otherwise known as face blindness. There’s nothing wrong with my memory. Tomorrow, I’ll remember everything about what happened here, I just won’t be able to identify the men who were involved.”
Making a mental note to look up prosopagnosia the second he got to a computer, Eagle nodded. “I’ve got the opposite issue. I’ve never forgotten a face or a name in my entire thirty-six years. Sometimes I have trouble if I met someone when they were a kid and now they’re grown, but I’ve never forgotten a name.”
“Ever?” she asked with a tilt of her head.
“Ever,” he confirmed.
Then Taylor smiled.
And it blew Eagle away. It transformed her face. He hadn’t thought she was anything special, looking at her earlier. She’d seemed just average. But when she smiled? Holy shit, her whole face lit up, and it was almost as if he could see a bit of her soul shining through. A little cheesy, and people would tell him he was crazy, but Eagle didn’t care.
“What are the odds?” she asked.
“The odds of what?” Eagle asked, still somewhat in a daze.
“Of us meeting. I don’t recognize anyone, and you recognize everyone.”
“Seems to me it’s fate,” Eagle told her.
Taylor rolled her eyes, and he could see her arms relax a fraction. The fact that he could relieve her stress meant a lot to Eagle. She was a stranger, but he could see a lifetime of
pain in her eyes. Heard it in her voice when she had to defend her medical condition to him. He hated that.
He was concentrating so much on Taylor that Eagle didn’t hear one of the officers he’d been talking to earlier come up to them. Jerking in surprise at the officer’s voice, Eagle could only mentally laugh at himself. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had snuck up on him.
“Talked to the captain. She said we have what we need from the other witnesses. If we need to talk to you later, we’ve got your info,” Officer Brown said.
Taylor nodded at the officer, then turned and headed for the grocery store without another word.
Surprised at her abrupt departure, and somehow amused by the fact she’d completely turned her back on him, Eagle nodded at the officer and ran to catch up with Taylor.
“What’s the hurry?” he asked as he fell into step beside her.
“I hate grocery shopping. I always seem to run into someone who knows me, and it sucks when I have no idea who they are. I thought coming early might prevent that from happening, but instead, all it did was put me smack in the middle of two idiots fighting for a damn parking spot. I’m tired, hungry, and sick of people looking down on me because of something I have no control over. I’m going to get my food, go home, and eat a dozen doughnuts to try to forget this disastrous morning.”
“Mind if I tag along?” Eagle asked.
At his question, Taylor stopped in the middle of the entranceway to the store. She turned to look at him with a frown. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, because I have to shop too. And like you, I hate it. Not because people might recognize me, though. But because I hate to cook. I suck at it. I’m also responsible for shopping for Silverstone Towing, and I always buy the wrong shit. It’s like a game to everyone who works there, telling me everything I forgot to buy or how I bought whole wheat flour instead of the regular crap.” He shrugged. “I thought maybe two people who hate grocery shopping could muddle through if we worked together.”
Taylor stared at him for so long, Eagle was afraid she was going to turn around and leave him standing in the doorway like a fool. But she took a deep breath and held out her hand. “Hi. I’m Taylor Cardin.”
Eagle grasped her hand in his and shook it. “Kellan Trowbridge, but my friends call me Eagle.” Her palm was warm and smooth. His was covered in calluses from working on the tow trucks and from the missions he and his team went on.
