His father’s name had been Marshall Winston, III. He’d been the teenaged son of one of the local wealthy families. When his parents had discovered the pregnancy, they’d seen their promising son’s life vanish before their eyes and had forbid him from having anything to do with his mother.
“It had hurt,” she said. “I won’t lie to you. But I wasn’t going to insist that he thwart his family and I was too proud to ever ask for any help.” She paused. “Just when I had given up, he’d come back to me--back to us.” She’d smiled then, remembering, but the grin slowly faded. “I was five months along when he died. Killed in a boating accident out on Fawn Lake. You have his eyes.” She’d paused and her weary gaze had clouded with memory. “Anyway, after he passed away, I got a letter from his family requesting that I never contact them. It was so sad. You would have thought that they would have wanted the only part left of their son--you--but...that wasn’t the case. I’m sorry,” she’d said. “Frankly, son, I don’t know what’s taken you so long to ask. I would have told you at any time, but since you never brought it up...” She shrugged. “I took the easy way out and never did either. I’m sorry.”
She had nothing to be sorry for, Huck had told her, and she damned sure had never taken the easy way out. She was the most kind-hearted, hard-working person he’d ever known and he loved her.
Much like Sapphira, he’d realized. Their qualities were remarkably similar.
At the end of that meeting, he’d come home with the answers to his questions and a cookie bouquet the size of an apple basket. Huck grinned.
Remembering her cookie fetish, even the bouquet had made him think of her. He’d promised to share it with her after all, hadn’t he?
Huck’s gaze found Payne’s once more. “I don’t know what to say,” he finally told him.
“Can I make a suggestion?” McCann said.
Huck turned. “I think you should say thank you. Then I think you should go and tell her about it so that you can get her back and you all can live happily ever after. It’s, uh... It’s what we do around here,” he explained, as though Huck were a little slow on the uptake.
“She won’t see me,” Huck said. “I’ve tried. And you know the property. There’s only one way in and out and every stretch of fence is covered in motion detectors.” He shrugged. “Short of dropping onto the--“ Huck stilled as the brilliant glimmering of a plan began to take shape.
McCann smiled. “There we go,” he said. “Now you’re thinking like a Falcon. Think you’ve got one more jump in you?”
Huck nodded, the first tingling of excitement beginning to infect his blood. And it wasn’t from the jump, he realized. It was because he was going to see her again. Because, thanks to Payne, he could fix this. He could make her his.
Huck shot him a grateful look. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you for this.”
A full-fledged smile transformed his face. “You can start by not screwing it up. I’ll call the airport and have the plane readied.”
McCann whooped. “All right! Let’s go kiss some ass!”
Flanagan glared at him as though he’d lost his mind.
“Well ‘kick some ass’ certainly doesn’t apply, does it?” he defended. “And if he marries her we all know he’ll be doing more ass-kissin’ than kickin’.”
“True,” Jamie said, nodding thoughtfully. He sighed heavily. “But it’s worth it.”
Huck chuckled, despite himself and slapped McCann on the shoulder. “You’re growing on me, man. You’re growing on me.”
“That’s because he’s a parasite,” Jamie said. He smiled at Huck. “Congratulations, man. We’re happy for you.”
Touched, Huck smiled. But they couldn’t nearly be as happy for him as he was happy for himself.
And right now there was a mouthy little rich girl confined in a gilded cage who desperately needed rescuing.
* * *
“I think you’re a fool,” Cindy said, seemingly outraged. “You let him go? You let him walk away? For what, Sapphira? Belle Charities?”
“You know better than that, Cindy. We’ve been over this.”
Cindy seemed genuinely baffled. “Let me tell you what I know. I know that with enough hard work we could have drummed up the funds to free you from this posh prison. I know that finding someone you love--who loves you back--is priceless and shouldn’t be tossed aside so easily.”
How dare she imply it was easy! Sapphira thought, blinking back what felt like the millionth tear. It hadn’t been easy, dammit. Watching him walk away--and the rest of her selfish hopes and dreams right along with him--had been the most difficult thing she’d ever had to do. But unlike Cindy, Sapphira was a realist. If it were possible to raise that kind of money...then why hadn’t they? Why did they always have their hand out? Why did it feel like they weren’t doing enough?
No, she was wrong, Sapphira thought. She hadn’t made the easy choice, but she had made the right one. Until her circumstances changed, she didn’t see any way out of her current arrangement with her father.
But she had gone to see him, and she had told him that she was tired of being on salary without a job. Though she knew it could potentially ruin everything, she hadn’t been able to sit idly by and do nothing anymore. She’d told him a bit about her charity work and told him that she planned to do more. Curiously, her father had paused long enough to look at her--truly look at her. He’d blinked, seemingly startled, then had gruffly given his consent. “Do whatever you want to,” he’d said. “I just don’t want to lose you.” It was the closest thing to affection she’d felt from her father in a long time. Pity she’d had to lose Huck to get it.
And God how she missed him. She’d spent last night at the hospital with Carmen, but had planned on staying at home tonight to lick her wounds in private.
Unfortunately, one look at her big lonely bed had quickly changed that plan.
In fact, she could honestly say that she couldn’t look anywhere around this house--what used to be her sanctuary--without seeing him. There, slouched in her recliner. Seated at her kitchen table. Curled up on her couch and, heaven help her, sprawled out across her bed. She missed him more than ever imagined she could long for a person. That wicked smile, those mysterious smokey gray eyes. His laugh. She blinked back another fresh wash of watery emotion and dabbed at her eyes with the perpetual tissue she’d held in her hand since last night.
How had things gone so very wrong? Sapphira wondered. How had she managed, in less than a week, to put herself in this sort of position? And there went another plane, she thought, cursing the fact that they lived so close to the airport. Now she’d never hear one and not think of Huck, his fearless body sailing through the air and the resulting injury which had ultimately made their paths cross.
Ella knocked on her door. “Sapphira, could you come outside please?”
“Ella, do I really--“
“Come on, child. Sunshine will do you some good.”
Mumbling under her breath, Sapphira reluctantly heaved herself from off the couch, dusting the cookie crumbs and chip flakes--evidence of her food therapy--from her chest in the process.
The only thing the sunshine was going to do was make her puffy eyes ache, Sapphira decided, joining Ella out in the front yard.
Ella shielded her eyes from the sun and looked skyward. “Hmmm,” she said. “Well, would you look at that?”
Sapphira frowned, cupped a hand over her own eyes and glanced up. “Look at--“
Her breath caught in her throat, smothering the last part of that sentence and felt her heart skip a beat in her chest. No, she thought, staring at the sky diver headed right for her front yard. It couldn’t be-- He wouldn’t--
But even from this distance she knew it was Huck. She’d know that lean muscular body anywhere. Furthermore, she could feel him getting closer, coming into her range, so to speak, where she could pick him up on her internal radar.
He’d said he couldn’t sky-dive anymore. He’d told her that h
is knee wouldn’t hold up to the stress of the landing. That’s why he’d left the military, had given up his dream.
What the hell was he doing? Sapphira thought, as his form drew closer and closer. She could make out his smile, see the absolute euphoria on his face. And, sweet heaven, how dear that was. Her chest grew so tight with emotion she feared it would burst. She hurried forward as he drew closer, started screaming at him before he ever hit the ground.
“Have you lost your mind?” she screeched. “Are you trying to kill yourself? Put yourself in a wheelchair for the rest of your life?”
Huck landed with a gentle, graceful roll at her feet. “That depends. Are you willing to push me around for the rest of my life?”
Seriously, her damned heart was going to explode. He couldn’t do this to her. She had to say no. She’d taken a baby step with her father, but she couldn’t see him going completely for this.
She dropped to her knees, her gaze tracing the woefully familiar lines of his face, his hopeful expression. “Huck, please don’t do this.”
He pulled an iced cookie--no doubt one of his mother’s--from the front chest pocket of his jumpsuit and handed it to her. The words, “Will you marry me?” had been written in pink icing.
She felt it then. Her heart actually came apart. “Huck, I--“
“You don’t have to choose, Sapphira,” Huck told her. “I’d never ask you to do that.” He smiled, reached up and swiped a tear from her cheek. “But you don’t have to. Payne wants you to come to work for him, head up his charities. He’s going to increase your salary by twenty percent so that you can bring Ella with you.”
If she hadn’t already been on the ground, she would have surely fallen over. Even now, her legs felt like jelly. “Are you serious?” she breathed.
He nodded. “I love you. I would never ask you to give up being who you are, unless I knew you could still be who you are...with me.” His lips curled into an endearingly unsure smile. Her arrogant caveman, laid bare, prone, and at her feet, unsure. She choked on a sob. “Oh, Huck, I--”
He held up a hand and quirked a brow. “I sense some name-calling coming on. You aren’t about to call me anything you’ll regret are you?”
Behind them, Cindy and Ella laughed, and at some point all three gentleman from Ranger Security had managed to get onto the property.
Smiling, Sapphira leaned down and pressed a tender kiss against his lips, cupped his beautiful face with her hands. “How does fiancé sound?”
Huck chuckled, his heart in his eyes, and kissed her back. “A damned sight better than ‘insufferable, boorish clod,’ I can tell you that.”
EPILOGUE
Watching Huck and Sapphira seal their new status with a kiss, McCann opened his palm and held it up to the other two men standing with him. “Pay up,” he said. “I pegged it from the beginning.”
Both Payne and Flanagan smacked another couple of C-notes into his hand and shook their heads. “I’d dearly like to know how,” Flanagan grumbled. “You’d never even met him.”
“I didn’t have to. I knew. I knew the minute he walked in the room and laid eyes on her.” He rocked back on his heels. “I’m getting pretty damned good at this love thing.”
Flanagan snorted. “That or you’re just the luckiest bastard I’ve ever seen.”
“Speaking of luck,” Payne piped up. “I heard from Garrett today. He’s sending another recruit our way.”
Guy stilled. “Really? This soon? Who?”
“Mick Chivers. A reputation for being a bit reckless, but a good Ranger. Same unit with Huck.”
“Why’s he leaving?”
Payne rubbed his jaw. “Now that’s the mystery. There doesn’t seem to be a reason.”
Guy chuckled softly. “Oh, hell, there’s always a reason.”
Finding it out, that was always the interesting part.
THE HELL-RAISER - Sneak Peek!
Mick Chivers is about to meet his match! Here’s a sneak peek of THE HELL-RAISER.
CHAPTER 1
Nice ass, Mick Chivers thought, staring at one of the multiple pictures he’d been given of his target. Hardly appropriate given the circumstances--first assignment, new job at Ranger Security, chance to start over, yada yada yada--but he’d never given a second thought to appropriateness before and wasn’t about to start now. He absently rubbed his temple and slouched lower in his chair, seemingly unconcerned, confident and unaware of the four pairs of eyes currently trained on him. He smothered a snort.
As if.
But Sarah Jane Walker did have a nice ass. Even in this out-of-focus sorry excuse for a photograph. Who took this? he wondered, irritated. A monkey? Granted he was only a hobby photographer, but he knew his way around a camera well enough to do better than this. His moody gaze slid back to her face. She had a nice mouth, too. And that hair. Long, thick and wavy, well below the back of her bra, a pretty dark blonde with wide caramel highlights. He almost smiled.
And he had to admit, the tool belt was a nice touch.
“An architectural salvage expert, eh?” he asked no one in particular. “What exactly is it that she does?”
Though he didn’t look up, Mick could feel Brain Payne’s intense blue gaze. Good construction prevented the noisy downtown Atlanta sounds from seeping into the room, but Mick imagined he heard the occasional honk of the horn.
Seated in the lounge area of their office, the other three men in the room had taken a chair around a big coffee table laden with a variety of snacks. Jamie Flanagan nursed a high energy drink. Guy McCann idly flipped through a sports magazine. Hands dangling between his knees, Lucas “Huck” Finn--his good friend, former unit mate and no small reason he’d been offered this job after his hasty exit from the military--leaned forward and studied him closely, those keen grey eyes probing for answers Mick was disinclined to give.
What was there to say really, other than he’d screwed up and nearly cost another soldier his life?
It was Payne who finally answered. “In a nutshell, she goes into old houses--usually ones that are slated for demolition--and saves everything of value. Mantles, crown molding, built-ins, stained glass, doors. Those sort of things.” He leaned against the back of Flanagan’s chair. “Interesting work for a woman, but our research says she’s very good at what she does. Her father was in the construction business. Apparently, she apprenticed under him.”
So she learned her trade from her father, Mick thought. How novel. The only thing he’d ever learned from his old man was how to leave. His mother, too, for that matter. He’d certainly gotten used to watching their tail-lights disappear every time they dropped him off at Mars Hill Academy, a beautiful, rigorous old military school located in the beautiful hills of North Carolina. Far enough from their eastern Kentucky home to put enough distance between them, but drivable in the event of an emergency. Or so he’d overheard his mother say once to a friend.
Deemed “a problem child” at an early age, Mick had been shipped off to military school after the sixth grade--probably would have been sooner if his parents could have found a school to accept him--and had only been allowed home over the Christmas holidays and summer break.
And since he’d spent the latter with his paternal grandfather, Charlie--usually repairing the barn or building a new addition onto the old house--instead of his parents, he could honestly say that he typically spent two weeks out of the year at what other people actually called “home.” He inwardly shuddered at those awkward holiday memories. The forced smiles, the fake happiness, when it was all too plain they couldn’t wait to send him back, to be rid of him, as though his being born and screwing up their lives had been his fault. He passed a hand over his face and swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth.
It was no damned wonder he hated Christmas.
Water under the bridge, Mick told himself, releasing a shallow breath. Hell, they’d actually done him a favor. Despite the somewhat harsh and uber-structured format--and the occasional thrashing for mischief--he�
��d thrived at military school. He’d learned to love his country, to revere the men who founded it and more importantly, to honor the soldiers who’d died for it by becoming a Ranger and taking up their cause. He’d learned that honor was rewarded, deceit punished, that hard work tested the measure of a man and boundaries were meant to be pushed. Another almost smile flirted with his lips. Actually, if you asked any of his former instructors they’d probably say he’d learned that lesson best of all. He hadn’t been nicknamed The Hellraiser for nothing.
One of these days you’re going to go too far, Chivers.
Regret and disgrace formed an enormous ball in his gut and sank to his feet. The one-of-these-days warning had come true recently, much to his shame and horror, and was the single most reason he’d left the military. A vision of Carson Well’s agonized face rose in his mind’s eye, tormenting him with an image he’d never forget. If that bullet had been an inch higher and to the left, it would’ve surely killed him. Too close, Mick thought, because as predicted, he’d gone too far.
He’d made the call and the mistake.
Never again.
Fortunately--or at least that’s what he was telling himself--Colonel Carl Garrett had referred him to Ranger Security. Landing a job with the elite agency of former Rangers--men from his background--was a coup, one he was certain he would celebrate when he was less inclined to hate himself. At the moment, it was all he could do to sit here and pretend he wasn’t losing his mind right along with his life and career. That he wasn’t the eternal screw-up his father had always claimed.
Furthermore, he honestly didn’t have any idea why they’d hired him. He’d made a monumental error--had almost cost another soldier his life because his reckless judgment. How could they possibly think he deserved this job? Could he do it? Certainly. But he imagined the only reason he’d scored the hire was because Huck had gone to bat for him. And at the moment, that little bit of knowledge was the only thing that would ensure that he did a good job.
The Loner: Men Out of Uniform Book 4 Page 16
