“You look like a different person. It’s amazing.”
She shrugged. “I know. But unfortunately, I can’t wear contacts, and I’m blind as a bat without my glasses.”
He nodded absently. “Do you need a ride home?”
“I have another pair in my car, but thanks anyway.”
“Good night then.”
“Good night. And, Josh? Everything will be all right. I promise.”
He stared after her for a moment, still marveling at how different she looked without her glasses. Different…and yet oddly familiar….
* * *
THE DOORBELL awakened Fiona from an uneasy sleep. Grabbing her robe, she stumbled down the hallway and across the living room to the front door. She peered into the peephole, then drew back the door in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“May I come in?”
“Is something wrong?” Fiona asked with a note of panic. “Josh—”
“Josh is fine.”
The phone started ringing then, and Fiona glanced behind her. “Can you hold on a second? I’ll be right back.”
But the moment she turned her back, Fiona knew that she’d made a mistake. It was one of the first things she’d learned at Quantico. Never turn your back on a potential adversary. Lesson Number Two: Never underestimate the enemy.
* * *
A STRANGE PREMONITION had descended over Josh after Dana left, and he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that something was wrong. He was too wired to sleep so instead of going home, he decided to drive around for a while, hoping it would clear his head.
He didn’t have a destination in mind but wasn’t really surprised to find himself driving down Fiona’s street. He pulled to the curb in front of her apartment, and sat for a while, staring up at her window.
There was no good reason to feel so betrayed, he told himself. He’d known all along that she was working for the DPS. The relationship they’d cultivated had never been real. It had been pretend all along and he’d known that. He’d known the first time he’d kissed her. He’d known when they’d announced their engagement to the world. He’d known last night when he’d made love to her.
It had all been just make-believe, and yet last night…
Last night he’d convinced himself that it could be something more. He and Fiona had something special, something worth keeping after her assignment was over.
They could still have it, except…she was too damn good at her job. She’d played her part too well. How would he ever be able to trust her again? How would he be able to tell what was real and what was fantasy with her?
Reaching for the gearshift, he started to drive away, but then a shadow moved across her window, catching his attention. Someone was in the apartment with her.
Josh felt a rush of anger as he stared up at her window. It was after midnight. Except for a lover, who would she be entertaining at this hour?
* * *
WHEN FIONA CAME TO, she found herself lying on the floor, her hands bound behind her back. And now Dana was busily binding her feet, which told Fiona she’d only been out for a few minutes. She tried to struggle away, but it was too late. The ropes around her wrists and ankles were secure.
Dana rose and grabbed the gun from the floor.
“Why are you doing this?” Fiona asked softly, trying not to alarm the woman. The last thing she wanted was for Dana to panic.
“Because I want Josh to come to me, to need me the way he did after Schyler was kidnapped.”
“You took Schyler?” Fiona whispered in shock.
“No, of course not. I’d never harm a child. But Josh came to me after it happened. He was so distraught. So stricken with grief. I’d never seen him like that. He was afraid someone had kidnapped Schyler to get back at him. He was thinking about pulling out of the race. And he came to me. To me,” she said proudly. “Not to Nell. Not to you. He came to me. And I realized something that night. Josh always comes to me in moments of crisis.”
“Like when he received a death threat,” Fiona murmured. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
Dana smiled. “And when Teri went away.”
She was full of surprises, Fiona thought fleetingly. “You knew Teri?”
“I was her roommate in college. She and Josh met because of me. I saw him first. She knew I wanted him, but that didn’t stop her from going after him. So I had to get rid of her.”
“By calling Josh’s father?”
She shrugged. “He offered her money, but she still wouldn’t leave.”
“So how did you get rid of her?” Fiona asked. “You killed her, didn’t you? And when Josh thought she’d left him that gave you an excuse to keep in touch with him.”
“I followed him to Boston when he went to Harvard. He never knew it, of course. I changed my name, my nose, got new glasses, a job with a law firm and waited for him to graduate. When he moved back to Denver, I came back, too, and applied for a position with the Justice Department where he worked. He never recognized me.”
“And all these years, you’ve waited for him to notice you.”
“He would have, too, if people hadn’t kept getting in the way. First Teri, then Nell, and now you. I know who you are, you know. I overheard you and Josh talking at the cabin.”
“You followed us?”
“Of course. I’ve followed Josh for years. I’ve even been in his apartment when he was home, and he didn’t even know. I’m very good at what I do.”
The irony was a little hard to stomach. “If you know who I am,” Fiona said, “then you know I’m no threat to you. Josh and I aren’t really engaged.”
“Yes, I know, except…I’ve seen the way he looks at you. It’s only a matter of time before he falls in love with you. Maybe he already has.”
Fiona wanted to believe that. Oh, how she wanted to believe it. “He despises me now,” she said. “There’s no reason for you to do this.”
“When you’re gone, he’ll come to me for comfort. And I’ll be there for him—”
“Just like you always have been,” a voice said from the doorway.
Josh! She had no idea how he’d gotten into the apartment. Dana must have left the front door unlocked. Perhaps she wasn’t as good as she thought. And one mistake was all it took.
Fiona’s frantic gaze rushed to his. He was unarmed. Oh, God. He didn’t know what he was walking into—
“I realize that now,” he said softly. “I realize what a good friend you’ve been to me, Dana. How much you’ve come to mean to me. Put away the gun,” he said. “So we can talk about this.”
“No. You don’t really mean that. You’re just saying it to save her.” She took a few quick steps back so that she could keep both of them in sight. She pointed the weapon at Fiona. “She’s not who you think she is, Josh. She’s trying to pin the blame for Schyler’s kidnapping on you. But I won’t let her. I won’t let anyone hurt you, Josh.”
She put both hands on the gun, and as Josh rushed toward her, she whirled toward him and fired. He might have been hit at pointblank range if Fiona hadn’t managed to kick Dana’s feet out from under her.
Dana fell sprawling to the floor and the gun went flying. Josh was on her in a flash, holding her down until the fight went out of her. “It’s all over, Dana. Allison. Whatever the hell your name is.”
“My name is Mrs. Joshua Langworthy,” she said, and then began to laugh or sob hysterically. Fiona wasn’t quite sure which.
CHAPTER TEN
“IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE that you can know someone for that many years, work with them that closely day in and day out, and still not realize how sick they are.”
Fiona shuddered as she and Josh walked through the woods near the cabin. A week had passed since that night in her apartment, but in some ways it seemed like a lifetime. After Dana’s arrest, everything had come out. Her stalking, the threat against Josh’s life, Fiona’s undercover assignment. Josh was no longer considered a suspect in his nephew’s kidnapping, but whe
ther the public would stand behind him was yet to be seen. He’d slipped in the polls. With the election only a few days away, the race was now virtually a dead heat.
“I’m sorry for the way things turned out,” Fiona said. “I’m sorry you’ve been hurt by all this.”
“A lot of people have been hurt. My sister most of all.”
“We’re not giving up the search, Josh. We’ll find Schyler. I promise you that. But in the meantime…” She slipped off the engagement ring and held it out to him. “I guess I won’t need this any longer.”
He took the ring and held it up to the light. “When I first saw this in the jewelry store, it reminded me of you. All clean and clear and beautiful. I can’t imagine anyone wearing it but you.”
Fiona gazed up at him. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
He stared at the ring for a moment longer. “I think you should keep it.”
She gasped. “I couldn’t. It must be worth a fortune. Josh, I couldn’t—”
But he’d already taken her hand and was slipping the ring back on her finger. The fit was perfect. It always had been.
“I think maybe that’s where it should stay,” Josh murmured.
“What are you saying?” Fiona’s breath was coming so fast now, she could hardly speak.
“I think we should get engaged. Again. This time for keeps.”
“You’re asking me to marry you?” Fiona actually felt light-headed. He couldn’t be asking her to marry him. Not after everything that had happened. Could he?
“Will you marry me, Fiona?”
“Oh, my God!”
“Shall I take that as a yes?”
“Oh, my God.” She stared at the diamond.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “I do want to marry you. More than anything. I’m so in love with you.”
He reached for her then, but Fiona took a step back. “Wait. I have to tell you something first. You have to know…who I really am.”
A shadow flickered across his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“When I told you that I work for a private investigative firm, that’s not altogether true. I’m an agent for a covert division of the DPS called Colorado Confidential. I was recruited by the man who heads up the Chicago office. That’s why I left the FBI.”
“And you’re first assignment was to investigate me,” he said dryly. “Your future husband. That’s something to tell our grandkids, I guess.”
“Then you still want to marry me?”
“Of course I still want to marry you.” He reached for her again. This time she didn’t resist. “In fact, I think we should take this discussion inside. I’ll even let you interrogate me if you feel you must.”
“I’d have to frisk you first,” she warned, running her hands inside his shirt.
He gave her a slow, sexy smile. “Take your time, Agent Clark. I’ve got all night….”
* * * * *
Omega Sector: Under Siege comes to a gripping conclusion when Agent Ren McClement has the opportunity to finally bring down an elusive terrorist…by using the man’s “dead” wife as bait. But when he gets too close to the seemingly innocent beauty, Ren faces the ultimate battle, between duty and desire…
Read on for a sneak peak of IN THE LAWMAN’S PROTECTION by Janie Crouch
CHAPTER ONE
For a dead woman, Natalie Anderson was pretty paranoid about security.
She rested her forehead against the back of the heavy wooden door. The closed, locked and completely bolted, heavy wooden door. And even though she hated herself for it, she reached down to double-check the security of the locks again.
Double-check, ha. Double-checking could be forgiven. This was more like octuple-check. And it wasn’t just this door. It was every door in the house. And every window.
And she was about to start round nine. She had to stop herself. This could go on all night if she let it; she knew that for a fact.
“Get your sticky notes, kiddo,” she muttered to herself. “Work the problem.”
She’d discovered the sticky note trick around year two of being “dead.” That if she put one of the sticky pieces of paper on each window and door after she was one hundred percent certain the locks were in place, she could finally stop checking it again. Didn’t have to worry she’d accidentally missed one. Otherwise it was hours of the same thing over and over, just to be sure.
She grabbed the knockoff sticky papers she’d gotten from a discount store and began her process. She checked every single door—again—then every single window. The little yellow squares all over the place gave her a sense of security.
Although she had to fight the instinct to check them all one more time just to be absolutely sure.
She hadn’t needed sticky notes in a while. Her tiny, threadbare apartment—not even a full studio, just a room and bathroom that was part of a garage—only had two windows and one door. That didn’t take a whole lot of stationery to make her feel safe.
Agreeing to house-sit a gorgeous beach house in Santa Barbara had seemed liked such a great idea two weeks ago. Something different. Beautiful sunsets on the beach. A place where she could get out her paints, ones she’d caved and bought when she couldn’t afford them, even though she hadn’t painted in six years. Yeah, house-sitting had seemed like such a great idea.
Olivia, a waitress friend at the bar where Natalie worked in the evenings, had talked Natalie into it. Olivia was supposed to have been doing the house-sitting, but her mother had had a stroke and she’d had to go out of town.
So here Natalie was, in a million-dollar home with a view of the Pacific, and instead of cracking the doors to hear the sounds of the ocean or getting out her paints, she had every drape pulled tight and every door battened down enough to withstand a siege. Did she really wish she was smelling the motor oil that permeated everything in her apartment on the far east side of town rather than the brisk February California night air?
She turned away from the front door and forced herself to cross to the living room and sit on the couch. Once there the exhaustion nearly overwhelmed her, settling into her bones. Seven hours at her cleaning job today, then another six washing dishes at the bar.
That was her life almost every day. Seven days a week. For nearly the past six years.
None of the jobs paid even minimum wage. But they all paid in cash, and that’s what mattered. She hadn’t filled out any tax papers or had to show any ID. Because anyone who tried to pay Natalie Anderson Freihof would find out rather quickly that Mrs. Freihof died six years ago, caught in a freak shootout between law enforcement and some bank robbers.
The irony of that entire situation wasn’t lost on her. Law enforcement had come for the robbers, never knowing there was a much bigger criminal—her husband—trapped right in the lobby with all the other victims. They could’ve made the world a much safer place by leaving the thugs with guns and masks and taking the man in the impeccable three-piece suit into custody. Would’ve saved a lot more lives.
Including Natalie’s.
But she had made it away from Damien, thanks to some idiot bank robbers, gung-ho SWAT members and a freak biological hazard scare at the local hospital, which required the immediate cremation of all corpses that day.
In other words, chaos on multiple levels. But Natalie had taken the chance and ran.
Whatever the reason it had all worked out, she wouldn’t question. She was just glad it had. Just glad she had gotten away from the hell she’d been trapped in. If she had to work under the table, doing low-paying junk jobs, for the rest of her life she would do it. At least she was alive.
Most people would probably think staying completely under the radar even after all this time would be overkill, not that she had ever told anyone about her situation. That after a funeral and burial—even if it had been an empty casket—her husband would accept that she was dead. Wouldn’t be searching for her.
But Nata
lie would put nothing past the methodical bastard that had systematically controlled her life and tortured her for years. Checking to make sure she wasn’t drawing a paycheck years after she’d been declared dead? She could totally see Damien doing something like that. Then casually strolling through the door of her place of employment the next day.
She should probably move to Nebraska or Missouri where the cost of living wasn’t so high or somewhere that wasn’t SoCal so she wouldn’t have to work so hard. Even the rent on her tiny apartment was ridiculous.
But California was the only place he’d ever said he hated. That he never wanted to step foot in again. Natalie had been praying that was true for six years and, so far, it had been. So she would stay here, even if she was tired. Even if fear was her constant companion. Even if half her salary was spent on sticky notes.
Agreeing to house-sit had been a mistake. The view was nice, as was the coffee machine she used to brew her cup in the mornings. And the linens were at least a three times higher thread count than she was used to. But the unfamiliarity of it all just added to her stress.
More windows to check. Longer bus rides to and from work.
The feeling like eyes were on her.
She’d fought that compulsion so often in the early days. The fear that she would get home and Damien would be there. Or that he was watching her from across the street. Ready to take her back into the hell he’d trapped her in for so long.
The feeling that she was being watched had to be just the unfamiliarity. The exhaustion. She needed sleep.
She wished she could convince herself that was the case.
It was so hard to know. In the early days, she’d so often given in to the panic. Let it dictate all her moves. She tried not to do that anymore, tried instead to make logical decisions based on actual circumstances rather than gut feelings.
Gut feelings couldn’t be trusted. Her gut had told her that marrying Damien was a wise move, that he would provide her a happily-ever-after.
So she didn’t trust a gut to tell her what to do now. Especially when she knew exhaustion was playing such a large factor in everything happening inside her head.
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