Heroes in Uniform: Soldiers, SEALs, Spies, Rangers and Cops: Sexy Hot Contemporary Alpha Heroes From NY Times and USA Today Bestselling Authors

by Sharon Hamilton

  Additional Books by Patricia McLinn

  LOST AND FOUND GROOM (A Place Called Home, Book 1)

  HIDDEN IN A HEARTBEAT (A Place Called Home, Book 3)

  PRELUDE TO A WEDDING (The Wedding Series, Book 1)

  SNOWBOUND

  The Protectors Series — Book Two

  by Karen Fenech

  Snowbound: Chapter One

  “So, how does it feel knowing you’re taking your last ride?”

  Mallory Burke didn’t respond to the latest comment made by Hugo from behind the wheel of the sedan, refusing to let him bait her. He’d been doing his best to get a reaction out of her since they’d embarked on this journey into the Adirondack mountains of New York State a few hours ago when Hugo had discovered that Mallory wasn’t just the new bartender his boss Billy Wilder had hired for his strip club, but an undercover federal agent.

  Hugo had called Wilder with that newsflash and Billy had ordered that Mallory be brought to his mountain cabin—pronto.

  Though Mallory wasn’t responding to Hugo’s running commentary, she was reacting all right. The gravity of her situation had her heart pounding so hard she wondered if Hugo and his associate, Miles Pratt, the other man in the car, could hear it.

  Pratt, seated beside her in the back seat, turned to her and smirked. His unibrow looked like a caterpillar crawling across his forehead. His large bulk took up more than his share of the leather bench seat, wedging Mallory in tight between him and the rear passenger door. The door was locked, though with her hands tied behind her back she wouldn’t be able to open it in any case. She was currently working on loosening the knot, but Hugo tied a knot with the skill of a sailor. Lucky for her, she was good at untying knots. This one was just about undone.

  The knot wasn’t going to be her biggest obstacle to getting away from these bozos. When she did untie her hands, she was going to have to escape into the snow storm outside. As she thought that, the big sedan skidded and the rear fishtailed.

  “Fuckin’ snow,” Hugo muttered.

  On this, Mallory agreed with him.

  Snow or not, there was no way she was going to the cabin. She’d overheard Hugo and Miles say with no small measure of respect—and fear—that the “Don” would be there. Though she wanted to encounter the “Don”—Paul Considine—with a fierceness that had her pulse pounding, she wanted it to be on her terms. Not like this. Not at Considine’s mercy.

  Mallory swallowed hard. Hugo and Miles had been taunting her with all of the things they would do to her when they had her at the cabin. Despite her professional training and years of experience with the Bureau, she couldn’t hold back a shudder at the methods of torture they’d described that were specific to her gender. There was no way she could allow these two to touch her and, she had accomplished her assignment, found out what she’d gone undercover to learn and now needed to take that information back to the Bureau. The lives of twelve young women depended on her. Mallory closed her eyes briefly. She could not fail.

  Wind rattled her window. Mallory jerked back, nudging Miles. For once, he didn’t comment. He removed his safety belt and leaned forward in his seat. Eyes narrowed, he studied the near whiteout conditions. The wipers swished across the windshield at full speed, clearing snow for an instant before the glass was pelted again and covered.

  “Slow down, man,” Miles said.

  “No way.” Hugo swiped a hand across his mouth. “It’ll be my head if we don’t get her up there fast.”

  Fast seemed optimistic and foolhardy. They hadn’t come across another car since Hugo had turned down this road. Apparently, others had the good sense to stay away today. Trees that lined this stretch of road swayed, buffeted by the force of the wind. Hugo’s hands, inside brown leather gloves, were clamped around the steering wheel. He was trying to keep the car steady, keep it on the road, Mallory thought as the wind struck the sedan and the car veered off to the right. Just where the road was at this point was a guess. The thick snow clinging to the ground obliterated the road and it was only the line of trees that provided orientation. With the road conditions as treacherous as they were, Mallory might not have to worry about what awaited her at the cabin. She had a more immediate worry that she might not make it out of the sedan alive.

  “We need to turn back,” Mallory said. “We can’t go on in this.”

  “Hear that, Miles? Little Miss Fed’s got somethin’ to say.” Hugo met her gaze in the rearview mirror and bared his yellow teeth in a smile that made the fine hairs on the back of Mallory’s neck rise. “Save your breath, sweetheart, for when we get to the cabin. You’re gonna need it when you start screaming.”

  Mallory wanted to come back with a smart retort, but Hugo’s words struck home and her mouth went dry. Work the knot. Work the knot. She increased the pace on the ropes to a frenzy, twisting and pulling. Perspiration trickled down her brow while she shivered with cold. Panic was setting in and she was losing it. Losing it was the surest way to get herself killed.

  She forced herself to stop jerking frantically on the rope. Forced herself to fight back the panic clawing at her. Directing her focus to the task at hand, she went back to working the knot.

  Miles had disarmed her, but she could see her gun tucked into the waistband of his black pants. Once she freed her hands . . . done!

  She was panting like a racehorse. Adrenaline pumped through her. She would have one chance to grab her gun. One chance. She blocked out the thought of what these two would do to her if she failed.

  She glanced at Miles. His attention was all on the road. His shoulders hunched as he leaned forward so he was now perched on the end of the seat, clasping the head rest of the unoccupied front passenger seat.

  “Slow down, will ya! I can’t see nothin’ but snow!” Miles’s shout was barely audible above the wind.

  Mallory reached out to grab her gun. The sedan went into a spin. The world swirled crazily as the car whirled like a top. Her screams echoed with those of Miles and Hugo.

  The sedan struck something—hard. Mallory was flung forward. The seat belt cut across her chest, cutting off her breath but holding her in place. In a blur of movement, Miles was thrown to the front of the car and through the windshield.

  Windows shattered, peppering Mallory with slivers of glass. She screamed. She was dressed in jeans and a jacket which protected her body but her head and face were bare. She swung her arms up and hunched her shoulders to protect herself from the spray of glass.

  The sedan crumpled. The crunch of metal blended with Hugo’s pain-filled shrieks and then there was silence.

  She’d been holding her breath. She released it in a rush, the sudden surge pounding in her ears. She was alive. She repeated that thought and took another breath. Pain radiated from her right arm, leg and side. Her head hurt. When she lifted it from the seat back, her head swam and her vision grayed. Wind and snow blew in through the shattered windows. The cold air and wet flakes that struck her face revived her. She blinked quickly and fought back the blackness.

  She wanted to get out of the car but was pinned by the front seat. The sedan had struck an outcropping of rock and the front of the car had been pushed back on impact. Miles’s body was crushed. There was no doubt that he was dead. Given what she’d learned of his involvement with the twelve women, she wouldn’t regret his passing.

  Mallory shifted position carefully, testing how deeply she was wedged in. Not as tightly as she feared. Keeping her movements slow, but steady, she raised her arm. She gasped at the pain that shot through her, but took heart in the fact that she was able to move her arm at all.

  Gritting her teeth, she levered up on her uninjured arm to free her lower body. Her breath shallowed and perspiration broke out on her forehead as she continued the slow, arduous process of extricating herself.

  She was almost completely free when her ankle caught. Again, she cried out when she forced movement, but made another attempt, then another until her foot was clear.

  That slight exe
rtion had left her panting. She bolstered her flagging energy. Her cell phone had been confiscated by Hugo before he’d tied her. There was no way to get to the phone the way he was positioned. But Miles also had a phone.

  She grunted and pushed the crumpled passenger door but it wouldn’t open. Averting her face, Mallory reared back as far as she could in the cramped space and with her uninjured foot, kicked out the few shards of glass that still clung to the rear windshield then climbed out of the car. Outside, the blowing wind was deafening. Miles and Hugo had nabbed her as she’d been leaving the club that morning at the end of her shift. She’d already changed out of the mini skirt and halter top that were part of her outfit while she tended bar and had put on her jacket. She was thankful for that now as the bitter cold stole her breath and burned what felt like a raw wound on her head.

  Her ankle balked at supporting her weight and she fell back onto the wide trunk. She needed support—a cane of some kind. Looking about wildly, she saw that improvising a cane wouldn’t be a problem. Thick tree limbs littered the snow covered ground and she retrieved one.

  Miles had landed a few feet from the car in a bank of snow that was red with his blood. As she crouched over the fallen man, she saw that his neck was bent at an impossible angle. He was clearly dead.

  In the short time since she’d left the car, her fingers had stiffened from the cold. She flexed them and blew on them, then began patting Miles down. She found his phone in an outer pocket of his jacket. Broken. Unusable. She let out a frustrated sigh. Her semi-automatic was no longer in the waistband of his trousers. Likely, it had been flung away when he was thrown from the car. She didn’t like being defenseless, but she was hardly in a condition to go traipsing into the snow drifts in search of it. It was all she could do to remain on her feet.

  The sound of a vehicle approaching rose above the roar of the wind and then a metallic blue van came into view, glowing like a beacon amid all the white. She knew that van. It was one of Billy’s from the bar. Her stomach clenched.

  The driver met her gaze and his eyes widened.

  Mallory’s breath caught. Staying on the road was not an option. The mountains lay beyond. He couldn’t pursue her into them with the van. He’d have to follow on foot and she’d have a chance.

  Heart hammering, she trudged into the mountains. Her boots sank in the snow. For an instant, the tracks marked her trail but then disappeared beneath fresh snow.

  The van slid to a stop. One door slammed. Then another. So there were two of them. Keep moving. Keep moving.

  Her jacket was red. The color would make it impossible for her to blend in with her surroundings. The men would spot her easily in all the white. Without breaking pace, she removed it. She wanted to turn the jacket inside out and wear it with the liner exposed but the inner lining was also red. Her long sleeved T-shirt, though, was white. She dropped the jacket into the snow. She was cold and wet in an instant. The T-shirt offered little protection against the biting wind or the icy snow that soaked through the thin cotton fabric and left her shivering.

  Snow crunched behind her. She glanced back. The men were giving chase, running toward her, overcoats flapping in the wind, slipping and sliding in their black loafers. The short distance she’d crossed had left her winded, but she increased her pace.

  She had nothing to cut the wind that screamed like a banshee or the snow soaking her hair, her clothing and clinging to her eyelashes. She tucked her hair into her collar for what added warmth it could provide then huddled in the shirt. Particles of ice struck her exposed skin. Some of the flesh on her hands was cut from the spray of glass when the car windows shattered and now ice bit like tiny needles.

  Another wave of dizziness struck her and she shook her head to clear it. She blinked more snow from her eyes and forced her protesting body to keep moving to increase the distance between her and her pursuers.

  She glanced over her shoulder. She couldn’t see the men now, but she could still hear them behind her. Hoping to throw them off her trail, she changed direction, moving deeper into the mountains.

  Her side burned and each breath became harder to take. Her right leg had become a dead weight, forcing her to drag it and depend more heavily on the cane. Mallory suspected the reason she wasn’t feeling intense pain from her ankle was because she was knee-deep in snow and numb from that point down.

  She could no longer hear her pursuers. Hadn’t heard them for some time. It appeared she’d lost them. Her stomach unclenched in relief.

  She could not turn back and risk running into the men and she could not remain out here indefinitely. She needed to take shelter. She needed some time to think and she needed to find a way to communicate with the Bureau.

  Focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, she moved on. Eventually, she came to a cabin. Her body seemed to sway toward it, but she ignored the yearning. Entering a cabin could be dangerous. She shuddered, leery of ending up at Billy’s cabin. She would need to take some time to observe the place before approaching to ascertain that the place was not Billy’s.

  She needed to find out if the cabin was occupied. There was a large front window, but she couldn’t risk exposure from it. A window high on the front door, devoid of curtains, would give her a view of the inside.

  Her vision wavered. The snow looked fluffy, untouched up here, thick and welcoming like a blanket. The urge to just lie down on that snow, to sink into it, pulled at her. She shook her head. She blinked and took another step. She had to make it. Just a few steps more.

  An overhang kept the snow from falling onto the porch but the snow drift had built on one side and was as high as her thighs. She waded through it toward the door, but stopped short of it, flattening herself against the cabin, letting the sturdy structure take her weight. She rose onto her toes to peer into the window. Her eyes rolled back. She fell against the door then everything went black.

  Snowbound: Chapter Two

  What was that? Gage Broderick turned away from the frozen dinner he was nuking. Sounded like a knock at the door. Impossible. It was a blizzard outside, and he was in the middle of nowhere.

  But the sound nagged. Ignoring the beep from the microwave signaling that his meal was done, he made his way across the rough-hewn plank floor of the cabin to the equally rough door and opened it.

  A woman fell into his arms. Gage caught her against him as a cold gust of wind blew inside. Snow swirled in the air, the crystal flakes dancing then landing on the wood floor and instantly becoming puddles of water.

  The woman was unconscious, wet, and so cold, goose bumps rose on Gage’s own flesh from merely touching her.

  The last thing he wanted was company. He felt a surge of anger at the intrusion. He had an instant—a flash—of just leaving her where he’d found her. He went still. He closed his eyes. It was a near thing but he wasn’t that far gone. He hadn’t completely lost his humanity. Yet.

  He lifted the unconscious woman into his arms and carried her inside, kicking the door shut behind him. With the door closed, the wind was gone. More than the absence of cold, the cabin was again quiet other than the sound of the clock on the mantel ticking and the groans and squeaks of the old wood as he made his way into the living room.

  He placed the woman on the leather couch and checked her pulse. Slow but steady. There was blood along her hair line. He parted her thick, brown hair gently and found a long gash at one temple that looked raw, enough to hurt but not severe enough to be life threatening. He probed further, but found no other cuts. He thumbed open her eye lids. Pupils were normal. Not concussed, then. He’d clean the head wound, but that was no longer his first concern.

  Her hair was tucked in the collar of her T-shirt. Oddly, she wore no coat. Her face had little more color than the white shirt. He had to get her warm.

  The snow on her skin was melting and droplets of water glistened on her face and in her hair. He got a towel from the linen cupboard and gently dried her skin, then moved on, drying her hair as best he
could with the cloth.

  Tossing the towel aside, he made short work of one boot, dropping it onto the floor, but as he tried to remove the other, it held. He ran his fingers gently over her lower leg and felt swelling in her ankle. Broken? He needed to free her leg. He estimated that the woman had been inside with him for about three minutes. She hadn’t stirred in that time. Better that she hadn’t. The way her boot had molded to her ankle, when he forced it, it was going to hurt.

  With her boots off, he saw that her white socks were soaked through. He peeled them off carefully. Her right ankle was swollen, all right. Swollen but not broken, he judged and on its way to getting one hell of a bruise. He figured she’d had enough ice on that foot, thanks to the snow. Nothing he could do for it.

  Her jeans were wet. Her T-shirt soaked through. No help for it, he was going to have to remove them. By the time he’d taken off the garments, he’d broken into a sweat. Not the result of shifting her slight body weight the few times needed to remove the clothing, but from what had been revealed to him. A tight, sexy body now clad only in a lacy bra thing and matching bikini panties.

  Her underwear was also too wet to leave on and would have to go as well. Gage rubbed a hand that was no longer steady down his face then quickly finished undressing her. He yanked the thick blanket that was draped along the back of the couch and wrapped her in it. He rubbed her arms and legs to stimulate circulation, careful of her injured ankle. When her flesh took on a healthy pink tone, he cleaned her head wound and applied antiseptic. The bleeding had stopped so he left it to air dry rather than dressing it.

  She’d slept through his treatment. He debated rousing her, but decided against it. Her color was back. Her head wound superficial. Her breathing was deep and even. No doubt she was tired after walking up this mountain—and in a blizzard no less. The woman was lucky to be alive.