by KaLyn Cooper
“No, no problem at all.” Nita hugged each of the newcomers. “Marcus and I have gotten stupid drunk together more than once.” She was suddenly glad she’d never slept with the tall, dark, and very handsome ATF agent. He’d always seemed attracted to Tori, although Nita wasn’t sure if her friend even noticed.
“You promised we were never going to talk about Tori’s birthday party again.” Marcus grinned as he hugged her. “Great house. Where do you want me to put these?” He held up a case of beer.
“There’s a cooler on the deck. Everybody’s out back.” Nita gave them a brief tour as she led them through the house to the French doors.
When the doorbell rang again, she could hardly see the two men behind huge gift bags. “Uncle Tom, Monsignor Francis, it’s great to see you.”
“Where are the children?” Tom asked.
“Bella is napping and everyone else is out back. Perfect timing. We were just bringing the food out.” Both men leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“You look lovely, Nita.” Uncle Tom gave her a warm smile. “It looks like you’re ready for today.”
She nervously giggled. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
An hour later, Nita stretched out on a lounge chair and glanced around. Grace, Griffin, Katlin, and Alex were on one side of the water volleyball net and Tori, Marcus, Lei Lu, and Santiago were on the other side involved in a cutthroat game.
Cristobal Maximo, Uncle Tom, and Daniel took the chairs next to her.
“So, Cris, what happened after we left Central America?” Daniel poured more wine in Nita’s glass and refilled his own.
“Last time I saw you two was in Managua.” He smiled. “General Cortez showed up right after you left and told the former presidential guard they could either join his army or join their former president in jail.”
“Exactly what is it you’re doing here in the states, Cris?” Leave it to Uncle Tom to come straight to the point.
“General Cortez sent me here to show several congressional subcommittees exactly what the new Nicaraguan governmental plans include.” Cris sipped his scotch. “We’re going to need a lot of money to build the canal and railroad in the timeframe set out by your new president. The man is ambitious.”
“Nicaragua needs that canal,” Daniel stated. “It’ll provide a future for the country’s children for generations.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, my friend.” Cris swirled the amber liquid in the crystal glass. “I just hope the United States keeps its promises.”
The corners of Uncle Tom’s mouth kicked up. “Ever since we gave back the Panama Canal, we’ve been looking for a fast, inexpensive way to move from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Don’t be surprised if our government asks yours for a two-hundred-year contract.”
Cris laughed openly. “Don’t be surprised if my government says no.” His face turned serious as he looked at Daniel. “Now that you’re no longer in the spy business, or running guns for your government, would you consider being a lobbyist for the new Nicaraguan government?”
“Daniel already has a job,” Uncle Tom interjected. “As soon as he’s ready, he’s going to be the lead Central American analyst.”
Nita smiled. The job offer had come just the other day, and it would be perfect. Daniel would be permanently stationed in the United States, since technically his cover had been blown. His job would have regular hours Monday through Friday.
“So you have a desk job?” Without looking for confirmation, Cris turned toward Nita. “I take it you’ll be sticking closer to home now? No more work with the CDC? Or was it the World Health Organization?”
“I’m actually active duty United States Army. Unfortunately, my job will continue to be unpredictable. I go wherever my government sends me.” She sipped her wine.
Cris looked back and forth between Daniel and Nita. “Who will be taking care of my niece and nephew?”
Nita suddenly realized that Cris and Daniel would always be tied by the children.
“We hired an awesome nanny.” Daniel had been so pleased when Katlin suggested Top Cooper’s sister-in-law. She was perfect. Regrettably, she’d lost her husband a few months after she had retired from teaching first grade. With grown children, but no grandchildren yet, she was at a loss of how to stay busy. Simon and Bella would certainly fill her time.
A baby’s stirring could be heard through the monitor next to Nita. Bella’s nap was over and the next part of the day’s activities were about to begin. “That’s my signal. I need to go get baby Bella up and ready.”
In a pretty white jumper with red flowers and bright green leaves, a miniature version of Nita’s sundress, the two made an entrance on the deck.
Daniel, in his white and red Mexican guayabera shirt and khaki slacks walked over and kissed both of them. “You look beautiful. But that’s not the only reason I love you.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked around and called, “Simon, out of the pool and get your shirt on.”
Nita had to laugh. She didn’t know who was more disappointed, Monsignor Francis or Simon.
Daniel put his arm around Nita as they waited for Simon to join them on the deck. “Nita and I want to thank you for joining us today,” he announced. “Having all of you here has been absolutely wonderful. We want you all to feel welcome in our home. I suggest you call before dropping in, though.” He gave Nita a quick kiss. “We might be busy.”
That brought laughter from everyone.
“We also wanted all of you here for another reason.” Daniel dropped to one knee.
All the women gasped. Except Nita.
“Nita Banks, you were my friend in the past, you are my friend in the present, and I want to ensure you are my friend in the future.” He opened a ring box. Three round diamonds gleamed like droplets of water in the bright Virginian sun. “My father used to travel to Africa often, and he would buy my mother diamonds straight from the mine. Although she preferred blue diamonds, he often gave her white diamonds. He told me once the white diamond was like a woman, so many facets to the same gem, and all of them make her sparkle. I love every facet of you. You are the light in my life. Will you do me a great honor and agree to marry me, and brighten my life forever?”
Nita thought she’d been ready for this. Nothing could have prepared her for the beautiful words Daniel had said.
“Of course I’ll marry you.” Her throat had tightened, and she’d nearly choked on the words. He stood and slid the ring on her finger then kissed her—long, deep, and slow. Only when he withdrew did she realize everybody was whistling and clapping.
“So, when’s the wedding?” Cris asked.
Daniel and Nita looked at each other, and then at Monsignor Francis Gilpatrick.
“Right now.” Daniel picked up Simon and turned to face his uncle.
Surrounded by their friends and family, Nita and Daniel held their children as they pledged their lives to each other.
As soon as they had ended their first official kiss as husband and wife, Uncle Francis signaled for them to turn around. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to present Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Callahan.”
“You’re now my mommy, right?” Simon asked amidst the clapping and cheers.
“Yes.” A warmth like she’d never known filled her to overflowing. She was now mother to these two beautiful children whom she loved with all her heart. It was up to her and Daniel to raise them, protect them, and teach them. Daniel slid his arm around her and kissed her temple as though he knew her thoughts.
“Mommy,” Simon called. “I gotta go potty.”
Well, fu—…heck. She smiled at her official welcome to motherhood.
What’s next for the Ladies of Black Swan?
Continue reading for a Sneak Peek at
Unbeatable Love: Marcus & Tori
Black Swan novel #5
Scarred outside and in, why would his beautiful friend ever want more with him?
Sneak Peek
No one was more
surprised than Marcus Hernandez when his friend Katlin Callahan appeared in the window next to the driver of the semi and flashed a badge. When their gazes met she shook her head so slightly that if he hadn’t been watching carefully he would have missed it. “This is going to take a while. Why don’t you men get out and stretch your legs. Your load is secure. We have guards posted all the way around your rig.”
Thank God for small favors. He couldn’t wait to get out of the cab where he had been squeezed between two large men for over six hours without stopping. At just over six-feet, Marcus wasn’t small, but he had the body of a long-distance runner rather than that of the linebackers who had sandwiched him in the truck. Ever since his…incident…and the subsequent surgeries, he found that muscles surrounding his once-broken bones tightened when he sat in one position too long. He’d passed that point hours ago.
As soon as all three men were on the ground, Katlin herded them to the side of the truck away from the prisoners. “Keep your face hidden,” she ordered in a tone Marcus had never heard from her before. It was brusque, and assertive. “I don’t want anyone to be able to identify you.”
Marcus slid a glance toward the line of approximately fifteen cuffed men and women. The guards were in all black, carrying military machine guns with more weapons strapped to their bodies. They looked and moved like the special operators he had worked with before. One by one they were handed off and escorted onto the black bus.
In the flashes of red, white, and blue emergency lights, he squinted to make out the tattoos on the men’s faces and necks. Those were Salvadorian Vipers, SV-16, one of the fastest-growing gangs nationwide. Why had they been shooting at this truck? Had Katlin come from one of those cars that had protected them? He knew his friends worked for Homeland Security, and was aware they weren’t your average female military officers, but he couldn’t imagine why they were in the middle of Georgia on a nearly deserted interstate taking down gang members.
As he rounded the front of the cab, he could feel the heat pouring off the huge Peterbilt engine. One glance toward their precious cargo slapped him to reality. The SV-16 were trying to hijack their load of activated nuclear rods. In the wrong hands, the fissionable material in that trailer could give a terrorist gang more than enough firepower to flatten any major U.S. city.
Holy fuck.
“Stay here.” Katlin stepped away speaking authoritatively into a hidden microphone.
Marcus had been on similar operations and knew she was probably speaking with some kind of a command center as well as everyone else involved. He looked at the other two men he’d just spent far too many hours cooped up with in a cab. Neither seemed to be connected to the op. When the driver’s phone rang, he stepped aside.
Dash Lawson chuckled. “Looks like you and I are the only ones left out of this loop.” The man from the Department of Energy was right.
Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus saw Katlin approach. “Agent Lawson, I’ll brief you in a minute. Agent Hernandez, follow me.”
Katlin led the way to the very end of the trailer. He recognized Grace Hall as she stood guard, rifle to her shoulder scoping the area between the gravel road side and the tree line fifty feet away. He didn’t say anything to her. He knew better.
“Hey, Marcus. Thanks for holding our cover. If you need to call to me, my handle is Lady Hawk.” Katlin constantly scanned her surroundings, keeping a close eye on the prisoners and their guards. She held the machine gun so casually, as though she did it every day. “For now, don’t speak to anyone other than me. If I’m not able to explain everything by the end of this op, I promise you I’ll tell you what I can when we get home.”
Home. Although they didn’t live in the same building, he spent lots of time on the top floor of the DuPont Circle condo where Katlin and her team lived. He hung out with his former ATF team member, Harper Tambini, and her fiancé Rafe Silva, who worked for Katlin’s fiancé, Alex Wolf. Sometimes Washington D.C. was really a small place.
“Will do, Lady Hawk.” He gave her his crooked smile. It was the best he could manage, but she understood. Many of the muscles in his face still didn’t work correctly, even after four surgeries. At least they had been able to repair the muscles around his mouth when they restructured his broken jaw, and after nearly a year of speech therapy, he could form almost every word properly. They were still working on matching both sides of his face and reducing the jagged scar that started at the corner of his eye and crossed his cheek. He was able to hide part of the thick red line under his beard that also covered several of the surgical scars. Maybe someday he wouldn’t look like Frankenstein’s monster.
Since his incident nearly two years ago, he hadn’t found many women who could see beyond his disfigured face long enough to get naked with him. Of the few he had managed to get into bed, they fell into two categories. There were the women who were curious and wanted to examine every scar as closely as his dermatologist. These women wanted to hear all the gory details of how he had been captured in the United States by a Colombian cartel and beaten within a breath of his life. The other women he had convinced to have sex with him, didn’t want to touch him. They were appalled, not in pity for him and what he had endured for nearly two days, but for themselves for having to see such damaged skin. One woman had even demanded he keep his T-shirt on as they had sex. If he hadn’t been so aroused, he would have walked away. Needless to say, he never dated any of those women again.
Katlin’s attention was diverted by something she obviously heard in her ear. She mouthed the word sorry then headed toward the bus where one of the women was refusing to enter. Marcus watched her determined strides. She was one of the six women who didn’t seem to notice his physical impairments. All of them were physically gorgeous women, but good down to the bone. They were truly his friends.
After one of his operations, he hadn’t wanted to return to the lonely postsurgical rehabilitation center, so Harper offered to take care of him at her place since Rafe was in training in Miami. When she had been called out on an explosives job in Oregon, Katlin and her friends moved him to their apartment next door and took care of him. They were like the sisters he never had. With one exception.
His mind immediately went to Tori. What he felt for the beautiful, former model, was far from sisterly. Even before the cartel had beat the shit out of him, he’d known she was way out of his league. Hell, he had no idea how to even play that game. He wasn’t good enough back then for the most stunning woman he’d ever met, and now, he was thrilled when the lovely woman merely glanced his way. Relegated to the friend zone, the only way she’d go out with him was because she’d pitied him and he couldn’t handle that, especially from her.
Out of the darkness, a tall feminine figure strode toward him. He’d know that walk anywhere. He had memorized the distinct curves of her lithe body. The gentle sway of her hips as she placed one foot almost exactly in front of the other, eating up the distance between them with a stride nearly as long as his own. Damn, the woman had the most attractive long legs, currently hid underneath baggie black cargo pants tucked into military boots.
“Hi, Marcus,” Tori said with a smile when she was five feet away. “I didn’t expect to see you out here in bumfuck Georgia in the middle of the night.” She glanced up at the semi. “I take it you’re here in an official capacity?”
He gave her his half-grin because he couldn’t see her and not smile. “Yeah. ATF had reliable intelligence that someone was targeting the nuclear shipments.” He chuckled. “I guess they were right.” His gaze trailed off toward the bus as the last of the terrorists were being loaded. “But as usual, we were behind the power curve. I was along for the ride to see what security measures were in place and to suggest enhancements.”
For a long second he studied her perfect face. Dark skin, far from black, closer to the color of a cream-rich latte, he wondered about her heritage. When they had started to rebuild his face, they asked him if he wanted to change his appearance, and if so,
what nationality he preferred. Since then, he had spent hours studying facial features.
She had high cheekbones like those of Native Americans, yet her eyes were very large and oval in shape. Her nose was slightly squatty as though she had some African mixed in but her flawlessly bowed lips spoke of northern Europeans. He supposed she was a conglomeration, like most Americans. Being the melting pot, she was likely to have a little bit of everything in her genealogy. However, the Greek goddess Aphrodite must have blessed her with the gift of beauty. As Tori stood regally in front of him, almost at eye level, he couldn’t believe she was actually talking to him. Yes. It was work related. He touched his most recent scar next to the outside of his left eye where they were rebuilding the socket.
Refocusing on their surroundings, he asked, “So, is this what your team does? Security for the Department of Energy? Protecting loads of uranium?”
Her sideways glance and hesitation gave him his answer.
Tori returned her gaze to him. “That’s what we did tonight.” She gave him a halfhearted smile. “We’re all still active duty military. We do whatever the hell they tell us to do.”
“But you’re still with Homeland Security, right?” Marcus stared as the last prisoner was loaded onto the bus. “I guess I can see how SV-16 could be considered a terrorist group, or are you working with immigration?”
Tori burst out laughing. “I’m the last person who knows who the fuck I’m working for tonight. They just tell us where to go, who to meet, and what’s our goal.” She threw her hands in the air. “Tonight, this was it. Tomorrow night we could be wearing ball gowns and dancing with congressional staffers at a state dinner.”
Marcus knew how stunning Tori was in a full-length gown. When he was homebound in Katlin’s condo, Tori had been assigned a job at a White House function. Sore, aching, and drugged with postsurgical painkillers, he still managed to get hard when she had walked into the condo asking for someone to zip up the dress. Lounging on the couch, most of his face wrapped in bandages, he was thankful for his one good eye. He touched the softest skin as he pulled up the zipper, dodging sequins. She’d smelled like heaven. All he’d wanted to do was brush his lips over every inch of skin exposed by the low back.
