Luke wondered how long she’d been in Tampa. Had she been this close, practically right under his nose, all along?
Six years since she had slept with him, lied to him and stolen from him.
He’d known about the lying—he just hadn’t cared, as she was fantastic in bed. So she hadn’t used her real name? So what? A lot of people had secrets, and they had their reasons. He wasn’t marrying her; it was just about the sex. Or so he’d thought. For Nicky, it was all about the access.
Oldest trick in the book, and he’d fallen, hook, line and sinker.
But the stealing, that was another thing altogether. She’d stolen information from the company he’d owned then—information that someone else had been blamed for stealing.
It had ruined a life. Taken a life.
Luke’s fault, because he hadn’t looked deeply enough until later. As he’d dug into the theft, he’d found who had really committed the crime.
And she was long gone.
So he’d waited. Set traps, gone about his life.
He knew he’d find her one day, and he’d make sure she paid.
“And there you are,” he said to himself, watching as she finally walked out of the building, sexy and confident as ever. In black pants and a white blouse—not exactly high fashion for Nicky—yet she was still all long legs and sexy swagger.
He felt his body respond and harden—it was difficult not to react to the sight of her, though he told himself it was just the anticipation of bringing her down. Making her pay. He was going to send her to jail, and he had the proof to make it happen. Only then could he truly make peace with the past.
“What scheme are you running now, Nicky?” he said softly in the empty car as he eyed her approach a snow-white Mustang parked near the curb.
Nicky always had style. He’d give her that.
Though that style was sacrificed to whatever scam she was running, it appeared, as she headed instead across the small lot to her car, a Toyota that had seen better days. Nicky loved hot cars, and it must be killing her to drive that pile of scrap, he thought with a small smile. Whatever it was she was after, she must want it bad. A long con of some sort to put this much work into her cover.
Pulling out of the lot, she headed down the palm-tree-lined street, and Luke waited a few seconds, then pulled out behind, following.
They headed down busy streets, through several lights and turns over the causeway out of the city, until Luke thought perhaps she’d made him and was trying to lose the tail. Then she pulled into the short driveway of a small block home at the edge of the intercoastal and got out of her car. Sighing, she looked tired as she reached in the back and hauled out her large bags, tugging them over her shoulder and heading to the door.
The cottage was cute, probably a rental. Totally not her style. Whitewashed cinderblock encased big windows and a terra-cotta roof that had a lot of charm, especially with the two towering palm trees providing shade in the front yard, but not much luxury. Whatever Nicky was up to, she was lying low.
Well, the jig was up. Luke got out of his car. He wasn’t going to risk having her slip from his grasp one more time.
As he crossed the street and approached the house, he noted the name Grant on the pelican-shaped mailbox and smirked. Was she stealing someone’s real identity? Someone who actually lived here but was out of town?
But then a neighbor emerged from the yard next door, an older woman who smiled and called out to Vanessa, and Nicky turned, bestowing a smile on the woman. They started talking about something that Luke couldn’t make out, and he walked down the side of the Toyota to wait behind the corner of the house until Nicky was alone again.
Just then, Luke noted the wire that ran across the inside of one of her windows...and the tool marks on the sill that showed someone had come in and out through that entry point.
The wire came from the top of the window down to the sill, and appeared to head toward the door. Luke had seen that type of wiring before, and his mind stilled as he looked through the window and noted what looked like two bricks taped to the walls inside the door, attached to the wire.
Luke cursed.
As he heard Nicky call out a goodbye and thanks to her neighbor, he turned the corner of the house.
“Nicky!”
She didn’t seem to hear him, intent on opening the door as she picked up her bags and once again started to insert her key into the lock on the door.
He heard the click, heard the turn of the knob as she opened it and then the whoosh from inside as he ran up the steps and tackled her, pulling her over the railing with him. They both landed hard on the grass, but they were still too close.
“What—” she gasped, wincing as he pulled her roughly up. They only had seconds, literally, as the door swung open. Maybe less.
“Nicky! Nicole, move,” he ordered when she didn’t move, pulling her from the grass and making her run with him down past a cement wall where they could take cover.
Damned if anyone was going to kill her before he got her to jail.
The blast was deafening and knocked them both flat, heat searing the air around them as the house went up in a mass of flames.
The heat receded, and Luke rose, taking a look, and heard the sirens just a second later.
Nicky lay on the cement, scraped, pale and staring in shock.
“What the hell is going on, Nicky?” he asked, sitting up. Sirens screamed in the background.
She looked at him, pale and confused. He would have thought she was faking if the physical evidence wasn’t there—the trembling, the pallor, the way her pupils were too dilated. Her breath was coming too fast, and he shook his head. Nicole had never been easy to shake, but maybe nearly getting blown up did the trick.
“Take deep breaths, try to calm down,” he instructed harshly. “I need you to stay conscious, Nic, so you can make it to jail today instead of the hospital.”
“Mrs. Shaw!” she yelled, as if she hadn’t even heard him. She stood, running back toward the house. “Mrs. Shaw!” she yelled, and it took Luke a second to realize she must be calling out to her neighbor.
Nicky ran hazardously close to the flames as she raced inside the porch of her neighbor’s home, and Luke followed.
“Oh, no,” Nicky cried, finding the older woman passed out on the front yard.
“Let me see,” Luke said harshly, pushing Nicky aside to check the older woman’s pulse. “Her pulse is good, but call an ambulance, Nic.”
She blinked at him, those big blue eyes clouding over. “Who are you? Why did my house explode, and why were you there, and why do you keep calling me Nicky?”
Luke barked out a harsh laugh. “Give me a break. Don’t you remember me? Way to hurt a guy’s feelings after the things we did together,” he said, sending her a humorless leer.
Her cheeks showed the first signs of color, her eyes snapping.
“I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about, but I know for sure I’ve never done anything with you,” she said, outraged.
Nice act. The lack of recognition on her face was downright artful. Honed by years of practicing her craft of deception. Apparently she was going to play this to the end.
He nodded to the house. “Looks like someone else found you, just like I did. And as usual, more innocents left in your path, hurt because of what you do, Nicky.”
She stood up shakily, looking at him as if he must be mad, shaking her head. Luke grabbed for her, but she was too fast, moving quickly down the sidewalk as police cars pulled up to the curb. In the distance, more sirens wailed, probably the EMTs. Luke stayed with the older woman, who had started to come to again, and he murmured something comforting to her as he watched Nicky talk to the cops.
She was beautiful, even with her less-than-glamorous schoolteacher look, and the police were happy to help. Of course. Nicky knew her way around a man like Marco Polo knew the Silk Road.
They wouldn’t listen to him now, but he had proof that would make su
re they listened later. An officer approached him.
“We’ll need you to come to the station, sir. As a witness, of course,” he said, but Luke could tell by his look that Nicole had already worked her magic, casting an aura of suspicion over him.
“No problem, Officer. Here are my credentials, and I’ll be happy to cooperate in any way I can,” he said, handing the man his license and his Berringer Bodyguard ID. “I think this young woman should be brought in, too, for her own safety. You’re going to find that this explosion was no accident. I saw the wiring in the window just before she opened the door.”
The officer looked at him, his ID and then at Nicole, who frowned. Luke met her confused gaze; whatever game she thought she could play, he could play better. He’d been thinking about this for years. Savoring the idea of the moment he could take her down.
As the EMTs arrived and took over with Mrs. Shaw, he waved away their concern for him, keeping his eye on Nicky as they examined her by the roadside. Her face was streaked with tears as the initial shock wore off and emotional response set in. If he didn’t know the truth, he’d truly feel sorry for her.
But he did know, and when it came to Nicole, he didn’t feel anything but the need for justice.
The police talked to her for a second, clearly informing her that she, too, would have to report to the station and ushering her toward a cruiser near the curb. Luke smiled and happily joined them. He didn’t miss the look of outrage on her face as he opened the door for her to get into the backseat.
As he joined her, stretching his arm out along the back of the seat and watching her scrunch away from him, he pinned her with a look. She could only keep this act up for so long. Soon, he’d make sure that Nicky Brooks was put away for good.
* * * * *
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1
Six months later...
DRESSED IN A courier’s uniform, newly minted security agent Judd Willingham made the short walk up the cracked sidewalk to the small front porch of the nondescript brick house. Twinkling Christmas lights with more burnt-out bulbs than working ones sagged from the eaves and a sad-looking wreath hung from a door in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. Dead weeds, their crispy skeletons all that remained from a robust summer, pushed up between the evergreen shrubs, crowding the flower beds on either side of the entrance, and a rusty mailbox hung drunkenly from a lone nail which was dangerously close to slipping from the mortar. Judd grimaced.
This was the safe house? Really?
Granted he hadn’t expected a mansion—the little town of Mossy Ridge, Mississippi, could barely afford its five-man police force, let alone a state-of-the-art safe house—but surely something a little more sound could have been made available. Considering this was the third time his target, Noelle Montgomery, had been evacuated due to another failed attempt on her life, no doubt their choices were dwindling.
Honestly, when he’d been briefed on his first assignment for Ranger Security, Judd had expected something a little less grave than protecting a key witness to a murder trial. After all, Jeb, his twin brother—older by two minutes and his exact mirror opposite—had merely had to find a jewel thief burgling a high-end retirement community. No life-or-death situation there. In fact, other than potentially getting run over by a motorized scooter, he hadn’t been in any danger at all. At least physically, anyway. Judd inwardly grinned. His heart was another matter altogether. Much to their equal astonishment, Jeb had found himself married at the end of his assignment.
Having always enjoyed an almost supernatural twin connection, making sense of his brother’s feelings had been a little disconcerting. He’d picked up on a lot of awe, wonder, confusion and frustration. It wasn’t until Jeb’s, er, physical release—orgasms had never been a secret, a fact that had been quite embarrassing in their teens—that Judd had realized that his brother had fallen head over heels in love. Though he didn’t experience the sensations as strongly as Jeb—more shadowed and less profound than the original—he’d found himself a little envious of his twin.
Not envious enough to want to permanently shackle himself to a member of the opposite sex though. He’d come damned close to that in his last year at West Point, a mistake he didn’t ever intend to make again. He smothered a dark chuckle.
Fool me once...was enough. Lesson learned.
Naturally he knew that all women weren’t faithless money-grubbing connivers, like the one who’d almost tricked him into an until-death-do-you-part, but knowing it and having it make a difference were two different things.
Heather had studied him, understood his weaknesses and knew exactly what to say and do to appeal to his “hero” complex. In the end, his “damaged fragile flower in need of a protector” had been a two-time divorcée with multiple aliases and a rap sheet longer than the damned Declaration of Independence. And he’d nearly brought that viper into their family? His lips quirked.
They already had one of those, thank you very much—his grandmother.
The matriarch of the family and the formidable head of Anderson Enterprises, Twila Anderson was notoriously hard and could hold a grudge and her own opinion longer than anyone he’d ever known. She no longer had the ability to scare the hell out of him, but if he’d wanted to continue taking orders he would have stayed in the military. Though he could have gone to work for her, or any one of the company’s holdings, Judd had ultimately, once again, decided to follow in his brother’s footsteps.
Contrary to popular belief, he did have an original thought and they didn’t share a mind, but they were so closely tied to one another that living independently of the other was simply...unpleasant. They were more than brothers, they were best friends. And while Jeb had left the military after that horrible disaster in Mosul, Judd had actually been considering it before his brother had.
A sniper who couldn’t pull the trigger was essentially useless and, given that it had gotten increasingly more difficult with every target...
And the hell of it? He had no earthly idea why.
Judd had always prided himself on being able to do the hard job—making the conscious decision to end another person’s life was not easy, even if it was justified. Men who intentionally killed, mutilated and maimed innocent women and children were lower than pond scum and didn’t deserve to live, dammit. For every one of those people he finished off, he’d always congratulated himself with the lives he’d saved.
The end justified the means, the greater good and all of that. And he still believed it—he really did—but doing it... Putting a man in the crosshairs, making the kill shot. That was out of reach. He couldn’t do it anymore.
Not that he’d confided that to anyone—even Jeb. It was too galling, too shameful. Better that they thought he missed his twin than the truth.
Initially, he’d chalked his hesitation up to burn-out—it happened. He’d taken a short leave to Crete—he hadn’t had time to come home and wouldn’t have even if he could—but even the island paradise, lots of good sex, good food and good wine hadn’t made a difference.
He was done. His career in the military was over.
Luckily, Jeb had paved the way with Ranger Security and Judd couldn’t have been any more thankful. Owners and legendary Rangers Jamie Flanagan, Brian Payne and Guy McCann were the collective b
est of what Uncle Sam had to offer. Coolly efficient with an unmatched attention to detail, Payne had been nicknamed The Specialist and the moniker more than fit. With a rumored genius IQ and enough brawn to strike fear into the bravest of men, Flanagan had met and married Colonel Carl Garrett’s granddaughter, which was proof enough of his courage. And McCann’s mystical ability to surf the fine line between brilliance and stupidity and always land in hero territory had made him locker room lore.
Added to the fact that these men were former soldiers—and more significantly, Rangers—it made this job the perfect fit. Because he’d never been stateside long enough to outfit a permanent residence, Judd was thankful for the furnished apartment that came with his generous employment package and looked forward to finding a place of his own.
His new sister-in-law, Sophie, had even offered to deed him off some acreage from her farm, where she and Jeb had made their home. Admittedly, it was tempting, if for no other reason than it would make his brother his neighbor. And since he suspected that a little Sophie or Jeb wouldn’t be too long in the making, being the “fun uncle” held immense appeal.
A tinkle of low, feminine laughter sounded through the door, ringing an internal hum of awareness along his nerve endings. An unfamiliar prickling tightened the skin on the tops of his fingers, made his stomach clench. He frowned, shaking the bizarre sensation off, and focused on the job at hand. A quick glance along both ends of the street confirmed that he wasn’t being watched and that all was well. Judd pretended to check the address on the package he carried against the house number, then knocked on the door.
Utter silence. The laughing stopped as though a switch had been thrown.
He heard the soft shuffle of a heavy foot across carpet, could feel someone staring at him through the peephole and held up the box. “Bluebird Services. I’m here to deliver a package.”
His Kind of Trouble Page 18
