“He gives lots of money to charities, but it’s more than that. He investigates leads about looted art, because he wants to fix the wrongs that have been done. He wants to give back to the victims, people he doesn’t even know. He believes in justice.”
“A warrior. That’s sexy, but you’re still not painting him hot.”
“Oh, I didn’t think I needed to do that. Just look at him. He’s six feet five inches of hard muscled, alpha male.”
“That’s more like it.”
Sadie laughed. “Are you looking for dirty details Miss. Beatrice?”
“Can you blame me?” Her lined face lit up with a smile.
“Yeah, he’s awesome in bed. But I’m not going there. That’s between us.”
“Okay, so we got a handsome hero, oozing with testosterone… who has integrity and knows his way around your body. I agree that’s nice. Very nice. But not enough to get married.”
“But there’s more, so much more.”
“Spit it out.”
“It’s the way he makes me feel.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about the sex.”
“Not the sex, at least, not just the sex. When I’m with him he makes me feel totally loved and honored. Like I’m the most important person in his world. I can tell him anything. It’s like he’s my best friend, as well as my lover.”
Beatrice moved her arms, pretending to play an invisible violin. “Like he completes you?”
“You asked.” Sadie could feel heat dance across her cheeks. She hadn’t verbalized her feelings before. It had been easier to keep her emotions close to her heart where no one could make fun of them or use them to hurt her. She’d learned long ago that the world crushes those who expose themselves. She folded her arms in front of her. “Words just make my feelings sound silly.”
“Like a love song.” Beatrice stopped playing her imaginary instrument. “Shake your cheekbones Sadie. You are head over red stilettoes in love. Denying it will only cause you and Sebastian heart ache. It’s time to accept your feelings and act on them.”
“I’ll think about it.” She tried to make a solemn face. “I’m just so used to going it alone, and then there’s the whole issue we have about my job.”
“A smart woman like you should be able to figure out how to make it work.” Beatrice looked over her reading glasses. “When did you say Sebastian was returning?”
“Tonight.”
***
Sadie dunked her head beneath a foot of rose scented bubbles in the bath tub, before she pulled out her work phone. She pushed the speed-dial number for Jeremiah Cole’s office.
“Hi sugar, how are you doing?” His southern drawl set her at ease, as she knew he intended it to. Everything about Cole was calculated.
“Just wanted to tell you that I’ve completed my report and sent it in. I went over it several times. I think every detail is in there.” Of course he would know that, so why was she bothering to tell him?
“And?”
“Did you find out more on the KOTL?”
“No. We have questioned Leon Krykos IV for hours. I don’t think he knows anything.”
“What will you do with him?”
“We’re playing a waiting game. He sits in a comfortable, albeit not luxurious, room on foreign soil, not knowing what will happen to him next, not even knowing who is holding him. He only knows that we act on your behalf. Detaining him could make him tell us more. His father is going crazy looking for him. We may be able to make a deal with him. We’re letting both of them sweat for now. And as for their organization, the KOTL, I’m hoping they will figure out it’s not in their best interest to keep harassing you. We’ll see.”
“I’ve been reading my great-aunt’s journal.”
“Anything new?” Anxiety laced his words. What did he know about Aunt Emma that he wasn’t sharing? Sadie scrunched her face. Was he being sketchy or was it her imagination? One could get too paranoid in the shadow world.
“Not yet,” she replied.
“Would you tell me if you did find something?”
She laughed. “Maybe. Look I’ve got to go. Things to do.”
“Sebastian’s coming tonight?”
He knew. Of course he knew. “Yup.”
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You need to lose him, honey. One day he’ll get you killed. Or he’ll get killed by getting in the way.”
“So far, he’s saved my ass twice. I think I’ll keep him.”
“Your feelings run too deep. He matters too much. And someone, someday, will use that love to get to you. I don’t like busting your love-bubble, but I care about you, Sadie. I don’t want to see you hurt. Or dead. You need to end your relationship.”
Sadie sank her head beneath the bubbles and felt the warmth of the water soak into her skin. Like hell, Cole, like hell. When she re-emerged, he had stopped nagging.
“Cole, you don’t get to tell me what to do in my personal life.”
But the line was dead. He’d already gone. She threw her cell against the wall. Logic told her the friggin master spy was right. Love told her a whole other story.
After an hour in the bath Sadie, wrapped herself from head to foot in towels and then lay back on her sofa. She had a couple hours to spare before she would get ready for Sebastian. Enough time to read more of her great-aunt’s journal. Touching the soft-leather, book jacket, she stopped for a moment and tried to imagine the woman talking directly to her. A voice from the past.
Emma-Mae wrote, “I didn’t want to put my lover in danger.”
17
Chapter Seventeen
Sebastian arrived two hours later. She couldn’t wait to tell him what she had learned from her aunt’s diary, but Sebastian had his own surprise.
He dropped to one knee before her.
Oh no. This can’t be happening. I can’t let it happen. Not marriage. That’s way too much commitment. Not marriage. No. Not again. I can’t be a wife. It’s not for me. Been there, done that; have the scars and a shredded tee shirt. Cole would kill me.
Sebastian’s blue eyes, the color of the sky at dawn, held hers with all the love he held for her in his big, earnest heart. How could she possibly say no to the best man she had ever known.
A small smile slid across his face.
She couldn’t do this. A marriage of two globe-trotting, independent people would be a disaster. They couldn’t manage to keep a dog safe. How could they expect to keep themselves safe? It couldn’t work.
He cocked a brow as if he heard her thoughts.
Despite all the reasons she shouldn’t consider a proposal, the moment swept her away like a fairy tale. Some tough spy! Her heart raced. Her love for him was the truest love she had ever known, greater than she thought humanly possible. And he had dropped to his knee for her. “Sebastian,” she said, reaching for his face. She traced it with her hand. “We need to talk.”
“It’s my turn to talk,” he said in his low husky voice. He pulled a small, royal blue velvet pouch from his back pocket. “Sadie.”
The way he said her name undid her. Oh my goodness. She didn’t deserve him. She swiped at the tears flowing down her cheeks. When had she started crying? The whole situation was beyond, way beyond, anything she had ever fantasized about. “Just give me the ring.”
He laughed. “No.”
She sniffed. Where were the tissues when you needed one? Her mascara was probably running, and her eyes would get all puffy and ugly red. And her heart beat so loud she was sure it would burst. Wasn’t a woman supposed to be poised at this life-turning moment? She swiped at another tear.
“I have loved you since the moment I met you.”
Cliché. I can deal with clichés. Forcing herself to breathe deeper, she sniffed again.
“You are the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Like she hadn’t heard that before. But coming from him, it meant so much more.
“I’m not talking about your hot body, or
your dedication to justice.”
She laughed. Couldn’t help it. What man talks about justice when he proposes to his love? Only Sebastian. A one of a kind. Her one of a kind.
He laughed with her. “Seriously, I love how you care about everyone and how you put your life on the line to make the world a safer place.”
“Does that mean you accept me being a spy?” The words spilled out of her. If he couldn’t accept her for herself, this would never work.
His eyes darkened. “Sadie, in a perfect world you would not have to be a spy. I understand why you do it, and I respect you for it.”
“But?”
“I long for the day when you will let others carry on the fight and settle into being with me and have a family.”
A family? She gulped, imagining a little Sadie chasing a little Sebastian around her legs with a bottle of pink nail polish gripped in her hand. She gulped again. And then there was JaJa, her adopted son. He could have a real family. The image was nice, but… “Sebastian, I’m not ready for that.”
“I know.” He slid the ring from the pouch. It was perfect, a white gold band with a ruby at its center surrounded by sparkling diamonds. Sadie swallowed. It truly was a fitting symbol of their love.
“All I ask is that you commit to me, to us, now and forever. The rest, I have faith, will happen.”
“Sebastian I love you more than I can say. I love everything about you, but mostly I love that when we are together I feel whole and happy and complete. The only promise I can make is that I will love you and only you forever.”
“Good enough for me.” He stood up and slipped the ring on her finger. It glistened in the morning sunlight.
“Oh Sebastian.” Her heart burst with happiness, into millions of kaleidoscopic shards of pure joy. Never had she felt so wild, so free, so filled with love.
“It was my great-grandmothers, fashioned in Amsterdam.” Sebastian’s voice gentled. “This is forever Sadie. You and me, forever. I don’t want any of the hip new-monogamy stuff where we move on to others when the mood catches us. Just you. Just me. Together, forever.”
“It’s perfect.” Stretching out her hand she stared at his offering of love, a symbol she would proudly wear for the rest of her life. “So perfect.”
Sebastian looked down at her. “Is my kick-ass spy crying?”
“You tell anyone, and I will kick your ass.”
He laughed and with his giant fingers wiped away her tears with the gentleness of a whisper. They stayed like that for a minute. Her looking at the ring. Him—stroking her face. A frozen moment in time.
Balance? The word she had thought so much about for the last six months sprang into the forefront of her mind. What happened to her dream of finding balance in her double life? Oh hell. Balance sucks. It lacks excitement. It lacks reality. Forget balance.I will live my life fully—push all the limits. With Sebastian at my side. The tears stopped.
Sadie looked up and gave him a seductive smile. She lifted a brow. “What now?”
“Payback time.” His voice went low and ragged to the point of scary as he gave her his killer smile. The one that sent tingles to her lower belly.
Normally he’d have pulled her into his arms by now. But he hadn’t. Nothing about this day was normal. What was he up to?
Out of his jacket pocket, he pulled two, red silk scarves and held them up, one in each hand. “What do they say? ‘All is fair in love and… sex.’”
Not the End
Coming Soon
Till Danger Do Us Part
Mata Hari #4, a full length novel
More Books by the Author
A Ghost & Abby Series
Midnight Magic
I Messed Up Christmas
Death by Seance
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The Gambling Ghosts Series
A Highland Ghost for Christmas
A Viking Ghost for Valentine’s Day
Confessions of a Pirate Ghost
The Biker Ghost Meets His Match
*
The Vancouver Blues Series (Danger waits in the alley …)
Steamy Romantic Suspense:
Black Cat Blues
Ain’t Misbehavin’
*
Mata Hari Series (A single woman ~ A double life)
Steamy Romantic Suspense:
Covert Danger
Ancient Danger
Lovin’ Danger
*
Writing as Doomsday Carson
Bête Noire
About the Author
Jo-Ann Carson has lived most of her life on islands off the west coast of Canada, surrounded by snow covered mountains, lush rain forests and pristine beaches.
Growing up, she dreamed of traveling the world like James Bond, searching for relics like Indiana Jones, and finding true love, so it’s no surprise that in her Mata Hari Series she combines elements of adventure, danger and steamy romance.
Chapter One of Black Cat Blues
Chapter One of Black Cat Blues
“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Berthold Auerbach
Vancouver, Canada
Walking through a dark alley at three-thirty in the morning wasn’t smart, but Maggy Malone didn’t have a choice, or at least not one she liked. A bone-numbing, cold wind off the Salish Sea hit her face as she opened the back door of the Black Cat Blues bar. Pulling her jacket close to her body with one hand, and holding her guitar case in the other, she descended the stairs into the inky darkness of the night. But her first step, she checked over her shoulder.
Vancouver in November—endless grey skies and drizzle. The waning moon slipped behind layers of dark clouds leaving her little light to help her on her way. She quickened her pace. A warm glow beckoned from the street lamp, just a hundred yards away. Her scalp tingled as if a dozen spiders slipped across it. She took a deep breath of the salty night air.
What the hell. She could handle a few minutes of fear. Singing in the best blues bar on the coast had been her life dream. If it meant getting up close and personal with the creepy, back alley on occasion, then so be it. Her shoulders tightened.
Stepping over dirty needles, used condoms and Micky D wrappers left behind by the people who shared the alley, the prostitutes, the addicts and the homeless, she tried not to let the sadness of their lives reach inside her. But the stagnant stench of rotting garbage and urine turned her stomach. If only it would really rain, then the city would be washed clean.
Where are the street people? Usually there’d be one or two around at this time of night, huddled against the cold brick walls with only a blanket to keep out the cold and misfortunes of the night. Something felt wrong. She couldn’t put her finger on it … but something. She looked over her shoulder again. No one.
A chill crawled slowly up her spine. She adjusted the weight of her canvas guitar case into her other hand, and prepared herself to run. She wasn’t sure what she would be running from, but just in case. A woman in an alley has to be ready.
It had been a long night. She should never have descended into this God forsaken alley. Friggen Frank. It was his fault. She took a deep breath, as her eyes darting in every direction. The feeling of darkness, much darker than the night around her kept picking at her senses. Her throat tightened and she couldn’t swallow.
I’m just scaring myself. The lights of the street were only a few yards away. Everything will be fine.
Then she saw the body lying still in a pool of blood. A silvery spike protruded from his chest. Her breath stopped. It was the handsome stranger she had seen in the bar an hour ago. Maggy ran to him.
She checked his breathing. It was shallow, but he was still alive.
She punched 911 into her cell phone.
Waiting for the connection, she yelled into the dark night, “Help.” But no one came running.
Alone with a dying man. Was his murderer close by? No one gets a spike in their chest by accident. Was the murderer watching her? Tiny hairs on the b
ack of her neck rose.
“911. State your emergency.” The operator’s toneless voice cut into the night.
“There’s a man. He’s been stabbed…” Maggy took her scarf off and pressed it on top of his wound around the spike. Could she stop the flow of blood? “Hurry.”
“Where are you ma’am?”
“In the alley behind the…” Her own voice sounded dry and robotic. She needed to get the words out. “The Black Cat Blues bar on Fifth.”
“An ambulance is on the way.”
Maggy looked at the man. Would they make it in time?
“You need to apply pressure to the wound …”
I’m friggen doing that. Bright red blood oozed through the scarf and onto her hand. The man’s face paled as his life force drained out of him. She put down the phone, swallowed hard, and used both hands to apply steady pressure on her scarf. “Hang in there, buddy. Don’t die on me.”
His eyelids moved just a fraction. But they moved.
Swollen and cut, his face looked like it had taken a beaten. She leaned down to listen at his mouth. His breathing was faint and ragged. Seconds ticked by slowly.
Then his lips moved. Maggy leaned in.
“Tell Logan,” he rasped. She waited for him to say more. Pain flooded his eyes. His lips trembled, but no sound came out.
She could barely breathe herself. The man’s life was sliding away in front of her, and there was nothing she could damn well do to stop it. She pressed down anyway, and his blood seeped through her fingers.
“Tell Logan,” he repeated. She bent closer. “The Emer…old…”
He made a horrid gurgling sound and a gush of blood flowed from his mouth. His muscles jerked and quivered. He was fighting to live, as his organs shut down.
As the sound of sirens pierced the night, Maggy sat up and met his dead eyes. Shivers ran through her body. Tears streamed down her face.
“May you find peace,” she said. She closed his eyes and waited.
***
“And he said nothing?” Inspector Peterson from the Vancouver Police Department asked in a low gravelly voice that raked her senses.
Maggy tried to tell her body to stop trembling, but it wouldn’t. A tiny stream of blood flowed dangerously close to where they stood a couple yards from the body. A policewoman snapped pictures of the dead man. A medical examiner directed two assistants to take evidence. The paramedics waited for orders. It was like standing in the middle of a CSI set, only it was real, all too real.
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