by Linda Conrad
Josh couldn’t bear to see the pain written on her face. He turned his head as the tears leaked down his own cheeks.
He didn’t deserve her. He’d thought he could be the one to give her the family she’d secretly desired. He’d been her superhero and was all set to save her from a life of loneliness. He had every intention of becoming her lover, her husband, her friend. Her everything.
But turned out, he wasn’t any kind of hero. And now she had a ready-made family. Four brothers and their wives and kids. A gigantic set of close relatives able to provide all the love she could possibly need.
Josh staggered to his feet. There was no place for him here. And nowhere to run away and lick his wounds in peace.
“I can’t…” He swiped at his cheeks. “I have to get some sleep before I fall over. You two can stay and talk but point me at a bed, please.”
“Upstairs. First door on the right. Bathroom is the next door down.”
Josh turned his back to be sure he could walk away from her without breaking down. As he made his way up the stairs, a refrain kept rolling in his head.
She doesn’t need me.
*
Nina stayed awake and talked to Sam at the kitchen table for the entire night. She couldn’t have slept anyway. He told her about their parents’ deaths and how Lacie and their brother Colt figured out who really had murdered their mother. Nina cried softly at the news; she could still hear her mother’s voice calling to her through the years: Cami, love.
“Our mother’s sister took you away after Mom and Dad were gone.” Sam’s eyes were misty, too. “I’m afraid that’s mostly my fault. We didn’t stop her. I was so overwhelmed that I… That I…”
Nina laid a hand over his on the table. “I don’t blame you. I blame our aunt. My memories of her are not kind. Somehow during my time with her, I was physically abused. Still have a couple of scars to prove it. I plan on finding her someday and…”
“She’s dead, Cami. Turns out she was a drug addict and her body showed up in a morgue about five years after taking you from us.” Sam looked as stricken as she felt. “We’d have found her and made her talk if she’d been alive. We’ve been desperate to find you through all the years. Especially Gage. He never gave up.”
Nina made them a pot of coffee just as the sun peeked through the window blinds. Minutes later, Lacie and Nina’s newfound brothers Colt and Travis showed up to tell her the news.
“Sheriff Hunt spilled everything.” Lacie sat down beside her while Colt and Travis each got coffee. “He really hadn’t wanted anyone to get hurt, but unfortunately he’s been taking money from a local politician on a regular basis.”
Lacie shook her head. “Money always spells trouble. Anyway, the politico murdered his mistress in a fit of rage to shut her up about their relationship—which is what you saw, by the way. Afterward, he insisted Sheriff Hunt find a way get rid of you. I think at first they just wanted you to leave the state, but things didn’t turn out that way.”
“Does this look familiar?” Travis handed her an advertising flyer for a local campaign with the politician’s photo in the center.
“Yep. That’s him. That’s the man I saw.”
“Damn.” Travis’s expression barely held in his suppressed anger. “I counted this guy as a friend. I actually helped him raise money.”
At that moment, her other newly discovered brother, Gage, showed up with his and Travis’s wives along with a pile of combined and related kids. It was overwhelming.
But through all the noise and clatter, she felt the warmth. The real love. Something she’d had precious little experience with in her life.
Only one thing was missing. Josh. She needed him to help her make sense of all this.
And she needed him—because she loved him. That was the only reason that counted. She just wanted him beside her to make a new life together. Would he want to stay with her here in Texas for a while so she could build a new past—and future?
“Could you excuse me for a few minutes?” she said to no one in particular and to everyone. “I need to check on Josh.”
She made it as far as the bottom of the stairs when she met Josh coming down. His expression was hard and somber. Even seeing her didn’t change the defeated look in his eyes.
“How are you feeling this morning?” she asked as brightly as she could manage.
Was he in pain? Could that be why he didn’t look directly at her?
“The pain’s manageable. And someone rounded up clean clothes that almost fit. So I guess I’m good to go.”
He looked delicious and fit to her. All she could think of was taking him in her arms and— “Wait. Go where?”
“Back to the Hotshot team. Well, maybe with a short visit with my brother first. I need to go back to work.”
“You’re leaving? So soon?” What she wanted to say was that he couldn’t leave. They belonged together.
“Uh, yeah. But you’ll be okay. They’ll probably need you to testify in the murder trial. Your new family can take excellent care of you.”
From somewhere in the back of her mind, she noticed that some of her new family had assembled at the door to the kitchen and were listening in to their conversation. She didn’t care. She couldn’t care about anything but the idea of losing Josh.
“No,” she said like a volcanic eruption. “They can’t take care of me the way you can. You can’t leave me.”
It wasn’t in her nature to beg, but that was another thing she didn’t care about at the moment.
“You said there was something for us to talk about, remember? What were you going to say?” It had to be that he loved her. It had to be.
He stared down at his shoes. “Um, that was about your brothers. I wanted to tell you first but you remembered.”
“Stop it.” She stepped into his space and pushed the toes of her shoes against his toes. “That’s not good enough. I told you that I loved you and you never answered me. Tell me how you feel.”
Looking up at her with pain written across his face, he stepped back. “It’s too late for that. You don’t need me anymore. You have family and a place to call home. You’ll be a lot better off without me.”
She took another step closer, coming face-to-face with him. “Bull. Of course I need you. I still need physical therapy and training to get back in shape. Who’s going to help me with that? And as much as I like and know I’ll grow to love my brothers and their families, I’ll need a place of my own soon enough. Who’s going to be my roommate? My partner through life?”
He looked down at her with a thousand questions in his eyes. “You think you want to stay in Texas for good? And not ever go back to the Hotshot team? That’s a big step for a woman who didn’t want any part of the state only a few days ago.”
Was that what she wanted? “Maybe.”
“Um, excuse me.” Travis, who ran the big conglomerate that was the Bar-C Ranch, took a hesitant step closer to them. “Couldn’t help but overhearing and I have a proposition. I didn’t want to say anything until you got used to the isolation of a place like Chance, but the town needs a new fire chief. The last one was a longtime volunteer and his doctor made him stop fighting fires about a year ago.”
Nina and Josh stood speechless and staring.
Travis grinned. “The position doesn’t pay much but there are perks. Like a fifth of the Bar-C Ranch and any of its vacant property that’s suitable enough to build on. I’ve also been saving up a fifth of the ranch’s profits in a trust for you, baby sister. That, along with your inheritance from Mom, means you won’t have to work. But we sorely need a new fire chief, so I’m hoping you will.”
It was too much to take in all at once. She needed Josh. Moving closer, she snuggled against his good arm and wished for a hug.
“Help me,” she whispered. “Tell me what to do.”
He didn’t put his arm around her like she’d hoped. “Sounds like a hell of a deal for you. But I still say you don’t need me. What would I do?�
��
Travis cleared his throat and inserted his own answer. “Well… Actually, this county also needs its own doctor. Its own clinic. New families are moving in every day. I’d be willing to arrange any kind of financing you’d need to make a go of it here.”
“I…” Josh looked flustered. A tiny ray of hope seemed to light in his eyes. She wanted him to step up and be the superhero she knew him to be.
It was time to make him see the light.
She inched close enough to feel the warmth his body created, and the old zing traveled between them. “Travis will wait for an answer, but I won’t. Look at me.”
Gazing down at her, his eyes filled with wetness. But he remained motionless.
“Do you love me, Josh White? It’s a simple question. ’Cause if you do, it won’t matter where we live or what we do as long as we’re together.”
He studied her through glazed eyes for a second, then wrapped his good arm around her and kissed her, his mouth desperate and hungry. The same way she felt.
“God, yes, I love you,” he said at last. “I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you for days.”
He kissed her again until her pulse sped up and her body shuddered. She felt herself grinning the way a kid would. The way she never had as a kid.
“Nina…Cami—whatever you want to go by, the amazing thing is I’ve discovered I need you. I need you to make my life worth everything I went through as a kid just to stay alive. Damned straight we’ll do this together. Marry me and we’ll be at home wherever you want.”
She giggled. Imagine that. For the first time in her memory her life ahead looked bright.
“Cami Chance-White. I like the sound of it.”
Josh leaned in to kiss her again. Her family in the background disappeared, leaving them alone for the moment.
Throwing her head back, she laughed out loud.
Her family. A real family of her own.
And the love of her life, who loved her back.
She couldn’t ask for more. With Josh by her side, she had finally found her one true home.
*
Keep reading for an excerpt from A Kiss to Die For by Gail Barrett.
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Chapter 1
Trouble was brewing. Haley Barnes could feel it. She’d spent enough years living on the streets to know.
She stood on the steps of her shelter for pregnant teenagers, her gaze on the dusky street. No traffic rumbled by. No D.C. commuters hurried past, despite the evening hour. Even the homeless man who’d taken up residence in the empty row house several doors down had gone to ground, drowning who-knew-what demons in a bottle, no doubt. And her teenagers were safe inside the shelter, warming themselves before the fire.
Except for one. The one who worried her the most.
Ignoring the premonition of danger stirring inside her, Haley hurried down the steps to the sidewalk, then started up the empty street, heading toward the metro station where the runaways sometimes hung out. She should have watched Lindsey more closely. The teen had exhibited the classic signs of depression—refusing to eat, unable to sleep, rebuffing Haley’s attempts to talk. Instead, she’d withdrawn into a sad kind of silence, slipping outside when no one was looking, and nine hours later, she hadn’t come back.
Not that Haley blamed her for feeling depressed. Lindsey was fourteen and pregnant. Her boyfriend had dumped her, her family disowned her—and Haley knew exactly how that felt. She understood the despair that threatened to engulf her, the terror of her unknown future, the knowledge that her childhood had abruptly ended in the most fundamental of ways.
Haley had tried to offer her comfort, to give her a shoulder to lean on and pull her back from the brink. But the girl had rejected every overture of help. She’d retreated into moroseness, into the overwhelming dejection of someone who’d given up hope. Haley just prayed she hadn’t done anything drastic—to herself or that unborn child.
Her sense of urgency mounting, Haley hurried down the cracked sidewalk, the low drumming of subwoofers a block away quickening her pulse. Trouble was right. The Ridgewood gang was on the prowl. No wonder everyone had fled the street. No one with any sense would risk confronting that violent group.
But she refused to give up. She’d made it her life’s mission to help these troubled girls, to give them the acceptance and safe haven she’d lacked. She knew the desperation that drove them, the terrible dangers that awaited them on D.C.’s brutal streets.
And she didn’t intend to lose one now.
The wind gusted hard, pushing loose strands of hair into her eyes, and she paused to shove them back. She scanned the row houses bordering the street, the late-model cars lined up along the curb, and searched for the missing girl. Her gaze landed on the dilapidated row house where the homeless man holed up. Another wounded soul. Another loner adrift in an uncaring world. Another stray she wanted to save.
One stray at a time. She had Lindsey to worry about first.
She just prayed she could find her in time.
*
Staff Sergeant Sullivan Turner slumped against the wall in his best friend’s row house, the whisper of oncoming danger prickling his nerves. Not his problem, he reminded himself firmly. Fighting the bad guys hadn’t been his problem in months—nine long months, to be exact. Not since he’d returned to civilian life.
He knocked back a swallow of vodka, then rubbed his aching leg. Dusk crept through the empty room, shrouding the corners in darkness, but it did nothing to subdue his nerves. He dreaded the night, dreaded battling the memories that inevitably flashed back, reminders of the ambush that had claimed his buddies’ lives. And he especially dreaded confronting the failures he couldn’t erase, no matter how much alcohol he drank.
He closed his eyes, inhaling around the desolation gripping his chest, and willed the images aside. He couldn’t afford to go there. He couldn’t afford to picture their grinning faces and remember the deaths he’d caused. And he definitely couldn’t afford to envision his best friend Jason’s cocky grin, that instant when he’d turned around, preparing to launch another laughing insult at Sully just as his world had come to an end.
By some miracle, Sully had survived. But his survival hadn’t been a blessing; it was a curse. A curse that would plague him until the day he died.
Determined to hold off the flashbacks, he drained the bottle of vodka and hefted himself to his feet. It was going to be one hell of a night, his wounded leg already aching with a vengeance, unwanted memories bombarding him like those RPGs that destroyed his squad. He tossed the empty bottle onto the counter and twisted the cap on another, but a faint mewling sound made him pause. Frowning, he limped across the kitchen to the glass door leading to the patio, his steps thudding on the wooden floor.
A furry animal huddled on the step outside. Great. Just what he didn’t need—a cat. If he could call him that. He was the most pathetic creature Sully had ever seen, with one missing eye, flea-bitten ears encrusted with filth and a scraggly, crooked tail. His fur was mangy and gray. A shock of white stuck up on his ruff, matching his face and legs. He had a lame front paw, a limp that matched Sully’s own. His chest swelled with unbidden sympathy—a feeling he couldn’t afford.
“Go away,” he told the cat through the glass door.
“I’m not taking care of you.”
The cat meowed and gave him a beseeching look with his good eye. Then the wind bore down again, ruffling what remained of his matted fur. He hunched his back, his thin body so undernourished, Sully was surprised he didn’t blow away. More kitten than cat, he decided. Lost and alone. Another misfit wandering the streets.
“All right,” he grumbled. “But just this once.”
Swearing, he shuffled back into the kitchen, his own stomach growling as he opened his last can of tuna—the sum total of his remaining food. But what the hell. The cat needed it more than he did. He cracked open the sliding glass door, nudging the cat back to keep him from slipping inside, and set the can on the ground.
“Don’t think I’m doing this all the time,” he warned him. “Don’t start hanging around, expecting handouts. I don’t need a damned pet.”
He shut the door. He didn’t need anyone to take care of—or another failure to add to the list. He’d already let everyone down enough.
Pushing aside thoughts of the needy cat, he crossed the empty room to the front window, his steps echoing in the gloom. The house had no electricity, no heat, no hot water. No furniture, except for the mattress Sully had hauled inside. Jason had cleared out before his last deployment, as if he’d known he wouldn’t be back. And for some unfathomable reason, he’d willed the place to Sully, his best friend since childhood.
The best friend who’d caused his death.
Sully braced his forearm on the glass and worked his jaw, trying to control the flood of regrets. Shadows bled across the pockmarked yard. Bare tree branches scratched at the gloomy sky. His sense of foreboding grew stronger, and he frowned at the empty street. He’d once trusted his instincts for danger. But then, he’d once felt invincible. He’d once believed in good versus evil, the glory and necessity of war.
No more.
The rhythmic thud of subwoofers made the floor pulse, rumbling through the lug soles of Sully’s boots. Tensing even more now, he skimmed the houses up the street, eyeing their peeling paint, their house numbers hanging askew, the weedy yards littered with trash. There was no sign of the approaching car, no sign of the gang that had been making inroads into the neighborhood. But he wasn’t fooled. The bad guys were out there.
