by Ana Barrons
“I haven’t got a cat. And you’ve overstepped the rules of polite conversation.”
“Nope, that was you, way back at the outlaw remark.”
He had a point, and she didn’t have a comeback, so she kept quiet. The diner would open soon. All she had to do was wait this out.
“Look, I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure we’re having a moment here. And…” He paused and turned his palms up. “Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but when you’re having a moment, those rules you mentioned are suspended…momentarily. When you’re having a moment you gotta grab it by the balls, or else something wonderful might pass you by.”
Straightening her back, she met his eyes. “All right, rules suspended. Let me be clear. Edmond is real and true, the truest thing in my life. He makes me believe in the possibility of happiness…even for someone like me. He’s my best friend, and I’d be lost without him.”
Kicking a chunk of ice with the toe of his boot, he dropped his eyes and said, “Fuckin’ shame. That coffee-or-cuffs line was one of my better efforts.”
At last, Nevaeh unlatched the door.
Sky blew out a relieved breath. “Nice meeting you, detective.”
“Danny.” He opened the door, motioned for her to go first.
“I’m Skylar,” she said, taking a step toward the door.
“Sky. That suits you.”
Wondering what he could possibly mean by that remark, she hesitated. And that brief, indecisive pause seemed all the invitation Danny needed to grab the moment by the balls. Allowing the door to swing closed in front of them again he said, “Your eyes are sort of a soaring blue. Your skin looks like you woke up this morning and washed your face in a mountain stream.” His fingers found a lock of her unruly brown hair. “Your hair ripples like that stream. Smells like meadow flowers…and wind and stars.”
Her heart thumped in her chest, as any woman’s would when confronted with such lovely lies from such a lovely man, but as she pushed past him into the beckoning safety of Jolene’s, she mustered a retort. “Look, I’m no expert, detective, and please, correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me congratulations are in order. Unless I’m mistaken, you’ve just topped your own bullshit.”
Hard to say for sure, but out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw him wink.
The more she wanted out, the more they dragged her back in.
With A Vengeance
© 2013 Jacqui Jacoby
Daughter to murdered CIA officers, niece to a deputy director, Jaime Walsh has never known life outside the world of espionage. Until a high-action case in Buenos Aires leaves her gutted. Physically, emotionally…and professionally.
She’d planned for her long-overdue vacation to be a time to rest and reassess. With her longtime partner Stephen not far behind, it’s a tropical paradise away from work. A paradise where boundaries will be tested.
From their training days, Stephen Reid has watched Jaime kick ass while performing what has become his second job—watching her back. But now his feelings have grown.
As best friends look at each other in a new light, they like what they see. And Jaime dreams of a new life outside “the company”.
Except someone from their past won’t be satisfied until Jaime and the man she loves are hunted to the brink of death. Now Jaime must find the strength to trust her heart and let go of her fear. Before she loses everything…
Warning: This book contains world travel with stops in exotic locations, a kick-ass heroine who just wants to be left alone and a sexy hero who can’t seem to stop himself from watching her back.
Enjoy the following excerpt for With A Vengeance:
Jaime, Collin and Stephen splashed through the drainage pipe, heading into the belly of the city, long since immune to the stench around them. The pipe narrowed two more feet, forcing them to hunch over. In the dark, they felt their way along the wall, knowing sooner or later they were going to find a manhole or drain from the street or something big enough to let them crawl out of this hellhole.
“Hawaii,” Jaime said, breaking a long silence.
“What about it?” Stephen asked, directly behind her. He kept one hand in hers, the other on the wall.
“I think I’m going to go to Hawaii.”
Collin chuckled from in front of her. Always the heroes, they had stuck her in the middle. Again. “When is that taking place?”
“As soon as I get out of here. I need a vacation.”
Now Stephen laughed. “You wouldn’t know how.”
She stopped to stretch. The roof was too low for her to stand, so she leaned over, stretching her back and arms. “I might surprise you.”
Here in Argentina their job had been simple. To ascertain the production of uranium was used for nuclear reactors and not nuclear weapons. So far, the job had been a piece of cake. Posing as American representatives of the civilian company, Agency of Nuclear Technology, they had easily obtained access to the Ezeiza Processing Plant and the Pilcaniyeu Enrichment Plant.
Rico Chavez, an employee of Ezeiza, had been born in Argentina and educated at MIT. Already suspicious of his superiors’ motives when Jaime had approached him with an offer of cash in exchange for a look into the Ezeiza records, he had readily agreed.
The records indicated nothing improper was happening at the plant, and the crew had been about to call it quits and head home.
Except now Rico Chavez had been hit and Jaime had been seen in the room.
God, I’m tired. Jaime couldn’t even remember the last time she had taken a holiday.
Keeping to the left, they traveled through the maze.
The tunnels led to a ladder. A manhole. The street above. Two cars were parked directly beside them, blocking their ascent to the real world from anyone who might happen by. The rain fell, but it had lost its wrath.
When they crawled onto the street, they didn’t have a clue how far they were from where they entered the drains.
Collin replaced the cover and put his arm over Jaime’s shoulder. They walked off, Stephen two steps behind. The buildings they walked by advertised rooms for rent by the hour.
Collin detoured into a late-night market while Jaime and Stephen leaned against the outside wall.
Collin was back within three minutes, stuffing a small package into his jacket pocket.
They kept moving.
Walking past a dilapidated building whose neon window sign proclaimed the establishment simply as “Hotel”, they exchanged looks, walked over the threshold and got themselves a room.
The clerk’s eyebrows arched when he looked up from his newspaper. His chapped lips spread into a crooked smile over his short, dirty beard when they requested one room for the three of them.
“Si.” He leered. “Si, si.”
If they hadn’t been so tired, if they had cared one iota what this moron thought, they might have defended themselves. But they were and they didn’t, so they let him think his perverted thoughts, grabbed their key and took the stairs to the second floor.
The carpet had been red at one point. Torn and discolored, it fit perfectly with the spotted walls that screamed for paint.
Room 2A. Top of the stairs and to the right.
Stephen entered first, turning on the lights.
Collin shut the door behind them, snapping the lock.
“Bathroom. Now,” Stephen ordered Jaime.
She grunted as Collin pulled out the brown paper bag and tossed it to Stephen. Stephen caught it overhand.
Jaime sat down on the edge of the stained tub, her hands on her knees as she waited for the torture.
The three-by-five bathroom reeked of things living where they shouldn’t be living. Stephen sat on closed toilet seat and used the back as a table. Opening the bag, he pulled out the peroxide, aspirin, gauze and first-aid tape. Stretching his leg out, he reached into his jeans pocket and got out his Swiss Army knife.
She saw him in the mirror on the back of the door as he worked, the concentration etc
hed on his chiseled features, his blue eyes watching his own fingers move.
“This could really use some stitches,” Stephen said.
“And?” she said, wincing when he dabbed at the wound with a cloth soaked in peroxide.
She could see her blood on his fingers and on his watch. A droplet was even running down the back of his hand, but he ignored it.
“FYI,” he said, tossing the cloth into the sink. “You scared me,” he added, looking her straight in the eye before cutting a couple of butterfly bandages.
“You should learn to drive better.”
He smiled. Jaime always loved his smile. It made even the worst times seem okay.
Like now.
“You do need to get another hobby besides babysitting me, you know,” she told him. He smiled again, only this time there was a mischievous edge to it and she knew she would pay.
She did.
He pushed harder on the cut, making her yelp.
“Bastard,” she said.
“Whiner,” he shot back.
Collin appeared in the doorway. “There’s no phone so we can’t check in,” he said.
Jaime winced as Stephen pulled the edges of the cut together with the tape.
“We’ll sleep here and call first thing in the morning,” Stephen said.
“There’s only two double beds,” Collin said. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a coin, positioning it on his bent thumb. “Head’s gets the single. Tail’s gets her.”
Son of the Enemy
Ana Barrons
The truth is buried in her memories. Unearthing it could kill them both.
FBI Agent John Daly has spent twenty-three years studying psychology, trying to understand how his father wound up in prison, convicted of a brutal murder.
And then he gets the letter. Telling him of evidence tampering. Telling of the sole witness, a six-year-old girl who’s now a twenty-nine-year-old school director. Somewhere, buried in her memories, is the identity of the real killer.
John knows he has no business going undercover to get close to Hannah Duncan, but blood is thicker than the ink on his paycheck.
Hannah is trying hard not to fall for the writer researching an article about her school, but John is breaking down every defense she’s built since her mother’s murder and her father’s rejection. Igniting a flame that burns brighter and hotter than any she’s felt before.
Someone is watching, leaving her roses and cryptic notes. And as the similarities between Hannah’s stalker and her mother’s killer become increasingly alarming, John must decide which means more to him: his father’s freedom…or Hannah’s love.
Warning: Contains a deeply wounded hero and heroine who, together, are greater than the sum of their scars. Breath-stealing emotions and heart-pounding suspense could cause an attack of whitened knuckles. Best read under the covers with a flashlight.
eBooks are not transferable.
They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Son of the Enemy
Copyright © 2013 by Ana Barrons
ISBN: 978-1-61921-572-6
Edited by Anne Scott
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: June 2013
www.samhainpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
About the Author
Also Available from Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
About the Author
Also Available from Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Copyright Page
