by Amelia Autin
They were silent for a few minutes. Then Alana snuggled closer and asked, “So...corporate jet? You were coming after me? I didn’t need to jump on the first flight back to Hong Kong my uncle could book for me?”
He laughed softly. “Yes. I suddenly realized what an idiot I was being, and I was coming to get you. I was going to beg your forgiveness and throw myself on your mercy. Then confess everything.” He kissed the top of her head. “But I don’t think I can ever express what it means to me that you came to me, lang loi.”
“I think I can imagine. Because knowing you were coming to find me despite everything...” She propped herself up on his chest and stared solemnly down at him. “I’ll treasure that knowledge as long as I live.”
“So...you forgive me for deceiving you about my real identity. Right?” She nodded, but he said firmly, “I need to hear the words, Alana.”
“I forgive you.” She smiled the smile that had first captured his heart. “And you forgive me for not telling you about the baby. Right?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
She shook her head. “Just like you, I need the words, Jason.”
“If there was anything to forgive, I would forgive you,” he compromised.
She laughed at that and murmured, “You are such a man.”
He rolled her over so suddenly she gasped, then squealed when he found the heart of her desire and caressed her until she melted against his hand. “And aren’t you glad I am a man?” he demanded. “Your man, for better or for worse?”
“Yes,” she whispered, love and desire mingling in her expression and in her voice. Then she recited softly, “‘For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health...’”
“‘To love and to cherish,’” he continued, then drew a deep breath. “I will, lang loi.” A fervent promise. “I’ll love you and cherish you, to death...and beyond.”
He levered himself up and unclasped the chain he hadn’t removed since the day he’d had the dragon and phoenix medallion made right after Sean’s funeral. Then stared down at it for a moment, thinking about what it symbolized. Not just for RMM, but in the Chinese philosophy of feng shui. Then he looked at Alana, and he knew his heart was in his eyes when he handed her the medallion.
“I never told you,” he said in a low voice as he closed her fingers around his gift. “But the dragon and the phoenix—”
“Symbolize everlasting love and marital happiness,” she finished for him with a little smile.
Stunned, he asked, “How did you know?”
“I researched it online. Because I wanted to know everything I could about the man you are. The two cultures that shaped you. Because...no matter what you decided, I wanted my baby to know all about his or her father. To be proud of him. To grow up to be like him someday.”
Jason bowed his head for a moment, unexpected emotions threatening his self-control. “I don’t know what to say.”
Her voice held tenderness and understanding. “Just say ngoh oi lei again, lang jai.”
His head shot up. Even more stunned than before, he could only stare in disbelief. “What?”
“I looked those words up, too.” Her smile deepened. “That’s what gave me the courage to never give up on you, Jason. Because you said those words to me our very first time, even though you said them in Cantonese because...because you didn’t want me to know you were saying ‘I love you.’ Because you didn’t want me to know you loved me even then. The same way I already loved you.”
“But you never said you loved me then.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Of course not.” She didn’t say you idiot, but her expression conveyed she was thinking it. “If I had, you would never have touched me that day.” Her voice dropped. “And I wanted you to touch me, Jason. I wanted you to make love to me. Just like I want you to make love to me now.”
There could only be one response to that confession, and Jason made it.
* * *
Eons later Alana surfaced from a pleasurable dream, only to find it wasn’t a dream. Her head was pillowed on Jason’s chest, and one of his hands was idly caressing the bare skin of her back, sending little electrical sparks shooting everywhere. Then she suddenly remembered something. She jerked into a sitting position and began frantically scrabbling through the tangle of sheets. “Where is it?”
His voice was early-morning husky. “Where’s what?”
“My—here it is!” Her fingers located the dragon and phoenix medallion, and she raised it triumphantly, dangling it from its chain.
He caught it in one hand and gently took it from her, then used both hands to clasp the chain around her neck and settle the medallion in place. The chain was too long and the pendant nestled between her breasts. “You’ll need a shorter chain if you’re going to wear this...as a member of RMM.”
She caught her breath. “You mean it? Really? You’ll let me join?”
He smiled the faint smile she loved. “It’s not just up to me. I told you once that anyone who’s added to the organization is a risk to every one of us. So we put potential recruits to a secret vote of the entire organization. One nay vote and the answer is no, because we have to trust each other. Implicitly. But for what it’s worth, you’ve already got Cam’s vote. And Trevor’s. Where they lead, the others usually follow.”
“What about you?”
He shook his head slowly, suddenly serious. “I try not to influence anyone, either yea or nay. But since I’ll be the one proposing adding you to the organization...” His smile returned, and he drawled with the understatement for which the British were justly famous, “It’s a fair bet they’ll know how I intend to vote.”
“Oh, Jason!” She threw her arms around him, hugging him fiercely.
He kissed the top of her head. “I have to ask. Would you...would you mind waiting until after the baby’s born?”
“Of course I wouldn’t mind,” she assured him. “I would never put our baby at risk.”
“I’m glad you feel that way,” he whispered, his arms tightening around her. “But I’ll be honest. The alpha male in me says I’m an idiot for letting you risk your life for RMM the way I do—the British side of me, too, not just the Chinese side. But I can’t make that decision for you. It has to be your choice.”
A new emotion unfurled its petals inside Alana as intense love for this man overwhelmed her. It would kill him if anything happened to her. She knew that as surely as she knew she’d never recover if anything happened to him. But the respect that dictated he let her choose her own path? Priceless.
“‘Let us have faith that right makes might,’” she quoted softly. Listening to his heartbeat accelerate to the words that meant the world to him...and to her.
I made the right choice, she thought, pure joy permeating throughout her body. Not just to love Jason and steadfastly believe he would eventually see the light despite all evidence to the contrary, but to believe that heroes still existed in the first place. To believe that good could triumph over evil when there were men like Jason to see to it. Men for whom the words duty, honor and justice weren’t just words, but a solemn pledge.
“Ngoh oi lei, lang jai,” she breathed, entrusting her heart into his safekeeping as she’d entrusted her life to him from the moment they’d met. “Ngoh oi lei.”
* * * * *
If you loved this novel,
don’t miss these thrilling titles from Amelia Autin:
THE BODYGUARD’S BRIDE-TO-BE
KILLER COUNTDOWN
A FATHER’S DESPERATE RESCUE
LIAM’S WITNESS PROTECTION
ALEC’S ROYAL ASSIGNMENT
KING’S RANSOM
MCKINNON’S ROYAL MISSION
CODY WALKER’S WOMAN
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FATAL THREAT
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Fatal Threat
by Marie Force
A JOGGER SPOTTED the body floating in the Anacostia River just south of the John Philip Sousa Bridge.
“I hate these kinds of calls,” Lieutenant Sam Holland said to her partner, Detective Freddie Cruz, as she battled District traffic on their way to the city’s southeastern quadrant. “No one knows if this is a homicide, but they call us in anyway. We get to stand around and sweat our balls off while the ME does her thing.”
“I hesitate to point out, Lieutenant, that you don’t actually have balls to sweat off.”
“You know what I mean!”
“Yeah, I do,” he said with a sigh. “It’s going to be a long, hot, smelly Friday down at the river waiting to find out if we’re needed.”
“I gotta have a talk with Dispatch about when we’re to be called and when we are not to be called.”
“Let me know how that goes.”
“To make this day even better, after work I have to go to a fitting for my freaking bridesmaid dress. I’m too damned old to be a damned bridesmaid.”
His snort of laughter only served to further irritate her, which of course made him laugh harder.
“It’s not funny!”
“Yeah, it really is.” With dark brown hair, an always-tan complexion and the perfect amount of stubble on his jaw, he really was too cute for words, not that she’d ever tell him that. Everywhere they went together, women took notice of him. For all he cared. He was madly in love with Elin Svendsen and looking forward to their autumn wedding. Wiping laughter tears from his brown eyes, he said, “I won’t make you wear a dress when you’re my best-man woman.”
“Thank God for that. I need to stop making friends. That was my first mistake.”
“Poor Jeannie,” he said of their colleague, Detective Jeannie McBride, who was getting married next weekend. “Does she have any idea that she has a hostile bridesmaid in her wedding party?”
“Of course she does. Her sisters left me completely out of the planning of the shower, no doubt at her request. I’ll be forever grateful for that small favor.” Sam shuddered recalling an afternoon of horrifyingly stupid “shower games,” paper plates full of ribbons and bows, and dirty jokes about the wedding night for two people who’d been living together for more than a year. The whole thing had given her hives.
But Jeannie... She’d loved every second of it, and seeing her face lit up with joy had gone a long way toward alleviating Sam’s hives. After everything Jeannie had been through to get to her big day, no one was happier for her—or happier to stand up for her—than Sam. Not that she’d ever tell anyone that, either. She had a reputation to maintain, after all.
She’d been in an unusually cranky mood since her husband, Nick, left for Iran two weeks ago for what should’ve been a five-day trip but had twice been extended. If he didn’t get home soon, she wouldn’t be responsible for her actions. In addition to worrying about his safety in a country known for being less than friendly toward Americans, she’d also discovered how entirely reliant upon him she’d become over the last year and a half. It was ridiculous, really. She was a strong, independent woman who’d taken care of herself for years before he’d come back into her life. So how had he turned her into a simpering, whimpering, cranky mess simply by leaving her for two damned weeks?
Naturally, the people around her had noticed that she was out of sorts. Their adopted thirteen-year-old son, Scotty, asked every morning before he left for baseball camp when Dad would be home, probably because he was tired of dealing with her by himself. Freddie and the others at work had been giving her a wide berth, and even the reporters who hounded her mercilessly had backed off after she’d bitten their heads off a few too many times.
During infrequent calls from Nick, he’d been rushed and annoyed and equally out of sorts, which didn’t do much to help her bad mood. Two more days. Two more long, boring, joyless days and then he’d be home and things could get back to normal.
What did it say about her that she was actually glad to have a floater to deal with to keep her brain occupied during the last two days of Nick’s trip? It means you have it bad for your husband, and you’ve become far too dependent on him if two weeks without him turns you into a cranky cow. Sam despised her voice of reason almost as much as she despised Nick being so far away from her for so long.
Twenty minutes after receiving the call from Dispatch, Sam and Freddie made it to M Street Southeast, which was lined with emergency vehicles of all sorts—police, fire, EMS, medical examiner.
“Major overkill for a floater,” Sam said as they got out of the car she’d parked illegally to join the party on the riverbank. “What the hell is EMS doing here?”
“Probably for the guy who found the body. Word is he was shook up.”
Dense humidity hit her at the same time as the funk of the rank-smelling river. “God, it’s hotter than the devil’s dick today.”
“Honestly, Sam. That’s disgusting.”
“Well, you gotta figure the devil’s dick is pretty hot due to the neighborhood he hangs in, right?”
He rolled his eyes and held up the yellow crime-scene tape for her. Patrol had taped off the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail to keep the gawkers away.
The closer they got to the river’s edge, the more Sam began to regret the open-toe sandals she’d worn in deference to the oppressive July heat. The squish of Anacostia River mud between her toes was almost as gross as the smell of the river itself. She had her shoulder-length hair up in a clip that left her neck exposed to the merciless sun.
Tactical Response teams had boats on the scene, and from her vantage point on the riverbank, Sam could see the red ponytail belonging to the Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Lindsey McNamara. She was too far out for Sam to yell to her for an update.
“Let’s talk to the guy who called it in,” she said to Freddie.
They traipsed back the way they’d come, with Sam trying to ignore the disgusting mud between her toes. Officer Beckett worked the tapeline at the northern end of the area they’d cordoned off. He nodded at them. “Afternoon, Lieutenant. Lovely day to spend by the river.”
“Indeed. I would’ve packed a picnic had I known we were coming. Where’s the guy who called it in?”
“Over there with EMS.” Beckett pointed to a cluster of people taking advantage of the shade under a huge oak tree. “He was hysterical when he realized the blob was a body.”
“Did you get a name?”
Beckett consulted his notebook. “Mike Lonergan. He works at the Navy Yard and runs out here every day at noon.” He tore out the page that had Lonergan’s full name, address and cell phone number written on it and gave it to Sam.
“Good work, Beckett. Thanks. Keep everyone out of here until we know whether or not this is a crime scene.”
“Yes, ma’am. Will do.”
“Why would anyone run out here during the hottest part of the day?” Sam asked Freddie as they made their way to where Lonergan was being seen to by the paramedics.
“For something called exercise, I’d imagine.”
“When did you become such a smart-ass? You used to be such a nice Christian boy.”
“Things began to go south for me when I got assigned to a smart-ass lieutenant who’s been a terrible influence on my sweet, young mind.”
“Right.” Amused by him as always, Sam drew out the single word for effect. “You were easily led.” She approached the paramedics who were hovering over Lonergan. “We’d like a word with Mr. Lonergan,” she said to the one who seemed to be in charge.
He used a hand motion to tell his team to allow her and Freddie in. The witness wore a tank top, running shorts and high-tech running shoes. Sam put him at midthirties.
“Mr. Lonergan, I’m Lieutenant Holland—”
“I know who you are.” His shoulders were wrapped in one of those foil thingies that runners used to keep from dehydrating or overheating or something like that. What did she know about such things? She got most of her exercise having wild sex with her husband. Except for recently, thus her foul mood.
Lonergan’s dark blond hair was wet with perspiration. His brown eyes were big and haunted as he looked up at them.
