In Love and Rescue
K. Alex Walker
Copyright © June 2014 by K. Alex Walker
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. No part of the book may be reproduced in any matter whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
All is fair In Love and Rescue…
His goal was to keep Larke Tapley safe, which was exactly what former US Navy SEAL Desmond Harding had initially intended to do. The mission was simple: get Larke out of the country and keep an eye on her, while his private military contracting firm investigated who’d hired the two men he’d seen standing over her unconscious body at her townhouse in DC. However, when he whisks the beautiful Assistant US Attorney to the island of Jamaica, they are blindsided and attacked, and Larke is taken. Desmond tracks and rescues her from her captors, but his mission then transforms into trying to keeping her one step ahead of the men hell bent on getting her back, protecting her with his life, and doing his best not to fall for her…all over again.
www.kalexwalker.com
Dedication
To my family, especially my sisters, who were there since Destiny, Faith, and Hope and Easter to support my writing.
To Lynada, and our decades of friendship.
And to Brandon, because despite all of our ups and downs, we built a pretty solid friendship, and I love you for it.
About the author
K. Alex Walker is a Caribbean born, five-foot-two, introverted spitfire. When she is not writing, she is reading and eating. Sometimes eating and reading. Because of this, she is indebted to loves the gym.
One day, she will get a dog (most likely a German Shepherd or a Yorkie) and spend all of her days on Instagram or Tumblr uploading pictures of it in T-shirts with its head cocked to the side.
In the meantime, she would love to hear from you. You can reach her at [email protected] -or- twitter.com/kalexwalker.
To my readers:
I know that you want to go ahead and start reading, so I’ll be quick.
Thank you, with everything that I have, for taking the time to read In Love and Rescue. Creating Larke and Desmond was an amazing experience and watching their relationship unfold even made me fall for Desmond a few times.
I hope that I’ve succeeded in bringing you a story that is both enjoyable and entertaining, and that I can continue to do that in the future.
Visit me at kalexwalker.com to send me a message or even read some of my musings.
I look forward to hearing from you…
All my love,
-K
Chapter One
“Michael.”
The name spilled helplessly from her mouth as Larke Tapley slid her hands up the shirt of the beautiful man she’d met less than two weeks ago. His tongue flicked knowingly against the sensitive spot at the base of her throat, and she gripped his biceps as hot, sinuous waves rippled throughout her body. Closing her lids, she reflected on how she’d wound up in this situation—in the middle of a deluxe suite on the island of Jamaica, and underneath a man she’d known for only ten days.
As one of the youngest federal prosecutors to ever work in the US Attorney’s Office in Washington DC, she’d assumed that her accomplishment had meant that she’d finally reached the pinnacle of her career. Unfortunately, because of her accomplishments and unsurpassed legal knowledge, she’d been handed one of the most high profile cases that the area had seen in years: renowned businessman Edward K. Jarvis was the prime suspect in the murder of his longtime friend and associate, Federal Judge George Vickers.
In the court of public opinion, Jarvis was undoubtedly innocent: he’d donated millions to charity over the course of his business career and had volunteered overseas to work in poverty-stricken areas. However, that didn’t stop him from callously murdering the judge and disposing of his body nearly fifty-miles away from the judge’s two-story contemporary home in Fredericksburg.
To make matters even more complicated, Vickers public approval had tanked once it was leaked that his alcohol addiction had played a major role in a catastrophic accident that had claimed the lives of several White House staff members, and that his involvement had then been covered up by officials. However, the minute the case fell into her lap, Larke had felt unusually obligated to prove to everyone just how cold-blooded Jarvis truly had been, regardless of Vickers’ indiscretions. Her star witness, Cory Adelson, had helped her do just that.
Cory Adelson was a high school student who’d recently graduated with a 3.92 GPA from Heritage High School in Baltimore. The winter before his spring enrollment at the University of Maryland, Cory’s mother had involuntarily granted him his independence by tossing him out on the street just days after his eighteenth birthday. With nowhere to go, Cory spent his first night on his own collecting whatever pieces of clothing he could find before taking shelter in an alley in an attempt to stay warm for the night.
Jarvis, mistaking Cory’s shivering from the harsh winter snap for drug withdrawal, had ignored the boy as he walked past him and tossed a black plastic trash bag into an isolated dumpster near where Cory had been lying. When Jarvis left, Cory retrieved the bag hoping to find something warmer he could add to his layer, but ended up finding some of Vickers’ remains instead. With future aspirations to attend law school at his heels, Cory had then walked until he found a phone at an all-night diner seven blocks from the dumpster to place a call to authorities. As law enforcement officials swarmed to the crime scene, they took one look at Cory’s young face and offered him a warm bed for the night. The next day, they tracked down a long lost aunt in College Park who’d graciously taken him in.
The trial had been lengthy and complex as Jarvis’ defense team was compiled of some of the best attorneys in the nation. However, Larke had kept her head high, twirled her wooden pencil between two fingers, and held her breath, exhaling only when the verdict was read: We find the defendant guilty.
Unfortunately, even though the conviction had marked the end for Edward Jarvis, Larke’s troubles were only just beginning.
She became the target of anonymous death threats, hang up calls, and footprints in the snow underneath her townhouse’s bay window. Even after discovering a mutilated animal on her doorstep, she’d refused to file a police report, sure that once the sour had worn off, people would return to their senses.
However, the aggression only escalated.
Meeting her car without a rear windshield and four slashed tires one afternoon left her in front of her fireplace with a half empty bottle of cabernet and in tears, toying with the idea of renouncing her position and moving back to Wisconsin to be close to her family. However, she knew that her pride would never allow her to be driven away from her home. Instead, she’d taken a leave of absence and booked the first flight that she could find to Jamaica, feeling oddly as though she would find the answers to all her worries while there.
So, laying there in the middle of white, luxury bed linens as her new friend’s callused, manly hands worked their way up her thighs, she contemplated not ever returning to the states. The island’s fresh produce, beautiful vistas, and energetic spirit had been enough to put her mind at ease the minute that she’d landed. Michael had been the icing on the cake and she’d been instantly captivated by his dark, piercing eyes, the masculine lines of his jaw, and his taut, muscular physiq
ue the night she’d met him on the beach. And although falling into bed with a man that she’d known for less than two weeks was definitely not usual for her, she knew that after her few weeks in paradise, she’d have to return to what could possibly still be a threatening atmosphere in DC. At that moment, there was no better excuse for living her life to the fullest, than the possibility of returning home and losing her mind.
His lips moved to her ears and she held her breath in anticipation as his fingers played along the delicate rim of her vintage bathing suit. He then leaned in close and captured a lobe between his lips.
“Run.”
Confused, Larke’s eyes opened. “What?”
The dark, piercing eyes were no longer swirling with desire. “Run.”
Before he could get another word out, the wooden front door shattered. Michael shoved her so that she rolled off of the bed onto the floor, and she braced her hands just in time to prevent a rib-shattering fall. He then charged towards the footsteps now moving about the room. From the grunts and groans, she could tell that two others had entered and for whatever reason, Michael was fighting with them. Not only that, he’d known that they were coming.
A cry leapt from her throat when he reappeared at the bottom of her feet, staggering backwards to avoid crashing into an armoire that stood against the wall. One of the men rushed him and he raised his arms to challenge him back, disappearing from sight again once he’d managed to push the man backwards towards the middle of the room.
“Larke,” he yelled. “Go. Now.”
Her heart thudded so wildly that his words seemed muffled.
Gathering herself and her composure, she pushed onto her knees and peered over the side of the bed. She could clearly see the two men: one stood head to head with Michael’s six-foot-four frame but had a burly stature, full beard, and dreadlocks. The second man was also tall, but lankier with a military-style shaven head and a tattoo of the Jamaican flag on his left forearm.
Her eyes then traveled to the open patio doors to her left. Peeling her body away from the floor, she dashed towards the doors, but only a pinhole of sunlight was able to warm her skin before she was violently tugged backwards. A burlap sack swiftly went over her head, the rough texture abrading her skin, and her feet were tied as she was hoisted into the air. Michael cried out in sheer pain and as one of the men told the other that they could leave, she knew that they’d dealt him an injury incapacitating enough for them to escape.
The heat rose inside the sack and she realized that they’d left the suite. Hour-long seconds passed before she heard old doors squeak open and felt her body being heaved onto what felt like the backseat of a vehicle. Next came a prick between her toes that almost instantly turned her vision to haze. Through a distorted cell phone speaker, a third unknown voice appeared.
“Status,” it bit through the phone.
“We have the attorney,” one of the men growled.
There was a tone to indicate that the call was ended, then an engine sputtered to life. Assuming that whatever they’d stabbed her with was meant to kill her, hot tears rolled down Larke’s cheeks. She whispered a small prayer and sent silent goodbyes to her family. Then, the haziness completely overwhelmed her senses.
*****
Desmond Harding gritted his teeth in response to the pain slicing through his body. The gash across his abdomen was a good six-inches wide and about a half centimeter deep, but he’d managed to maneuver his body to avoid a full blow from one of the cutlass wielding assailants that had broken into the suite. Yet, despite all of his efforts, Larke had still been taken.
He left the room and made his way down to the private beach, then walked into the water until he was waist deep. His jaw clenched as the saltwater made contact with the exposed flesh, transforming the pain from a slicing throb, to a searing burn.
When the bleeding finally stopped, Desmond trekked across the beach to the late model yellow Tacoma he’d been using for island transportation, taking shade underneath a tall palm tree.
Stretching inside, he tugged open the glove box, pulled out a small, black pager-like device, and pushed away the decoy cover to reveal a more sophisticated display. He exhaled triumphantly when he turned it on a red blip appeared on the screen. According to blip, Larke was headed up the hill and moving forward at a good rate of speed.
He jerked open the door and slid onto the seat. Sending a quick message to headquarters back in DC to let them know that he had everything under control, he tossed the tracker onto the passenger seat before reaching underneath it. When he didn’t feel the pistol that he’d left lying there, he cursed and slammed his hand against the console.
The men had taken his weapon.
Someone had been watching them on the island long enough to know that he was associated with Larke, which was why they’d swept his truck. It also meant that her abduction was premeditated, which only made it that more crucial that he found her before it was too late.
Chapter Two
Larke’s eyes slowly fluttered open only to be greeted by darkness. As they adjusted to her surroundings, she realized that she was in the middle of a structure about half the size of a standard efficiency in downtown DC. A small gap in the space’s wooden slats invited in its only source of light, and the walls were made of wooden paneling that was cracked and rotting. The acrid, dry air seemed to consume all the remaining oxygen.
At the very least, however, she was awake, so the prick between her toes hadn’t killed her. Unfortunately, that knowledge didn’t offer any hope without her knowing where she was, who’d taken her, and what they’d planned to do with her.
A sharp, scraping noise startled her and a door was jerked open, ushering in a burst of sunlight. The same two men that had been tousling with Michael at the resort strode in, and she clenched her fists in preparation to fight against anything they would try to do to her.
“You’re awake,” the skinny one acknowledged. He detached a canteen from his waist and extended it towards her. “Here. Drink. You are probably thirsty.”
She eyed the canteen but didn’t accept. There was no telling what kind of flavorless poison the container had probably been laced with.
“Bitch,” the burly one spat. “We should let you die.”
“That’s not our orders,” Skinny argued.
The burly accomplice huffed, left the space, and took a seat within view on the steps outside the door. With his back facing the open door, he lit up a cigarette and looked out onto the landscape.
Realizing that she wasn’t going to take the canteen, Skinny reattached it to his waist, shook his head, and smiled. “You remind me of my wife some,” he said. “Same stubborn attitude. Same short, curly-brown hair. Skin like ripe mango flesh. But my wife, she died not too long ago. She was picking up some stuff from the shop downtown to make stew for dinner and then boom, just like that, she was gone. All because of this idiot kid trying to be in some gang, thinking that killing a young woman is what makes a man, a man. I know they say forgive and let God, but he was lucky the police found him before I did. He would have seen God much sooner.”
He remained standing in front of her for a few moments, his hand still lingering near his waist. Larke knew that he wanted to offer her a drink a second time, so she turned her head away. He dropped his hand and shook his head.
“Okay then. Tonight, you stay here. Gano or me,” he flicked his thumb towards his partner, “one of us will be back to bring you something to eat. In the morning, you will be moved again.”
Larke peered at the man sitting outside on the steps. “Are you sure he’ll bring me food? Maybe the bones after he’s finished sucking the meat off of them.”
Skinny bellowed out a laugh. “You got him right even though you don’t know him. That man will eat all of the soup at my house, then use the last of the bread to sop up the little bit from the bottom of the bowl.”
The one he called Gano didn’t stir although Larke knew that he’d heard the quip.
“Tony, are you done?” He asked, flicking his cigarette butt into the grass. “I don’t have all day.”
Skinny took one last look at Larke, sighed almost inaudibly, and walked through the door. She heard their footsteps thunder down the steps before the truck started up and drove away, leaving her once again enshrouded in darkness in the middle of nowhere, with no idea what fate lay ahead.
*****
Desmond peered through the bushes at the old wooden house where the tracker indicated Larke was being kept. It was precariously propped up by wooden stilts and swayed slightly whenever a strong breeze passed through. Its fluorescent blue paint was badly damaged and peeling, the galvanized roofing was corroded and partially caved in, and the window shutters were torn off, their openings covered only by screens and pieces of dark cloth.
The two men from the suite suddenly exited, secured the door, jumped into their truck, and followed the path back down the hill. When their truck was out of sight, he scanned the clearing before crossing it and stopped a few yards shy of the wooden steps. The front door had been jarred shut and even if Larke had thought about escaping through the screened windows, he knew that the two men would have never left anything inside of the shanty that she could use to pierce the metal. However, they’d kept her alive, which meant that they’d be back.
“Larke? Larke, can you hear me?” He called, climbing the steps. There was no answer, so he moved around to one of the screened windows.
“Larke?”
“Michael?” Her voice came from right beneath the window. “Is that you? What are you doing here?”
In Love and Rescue: When love is the perfect rescue... Page 1
