Chapter Nineteen Jake yanked open the doors of Dani’s real estate office and stepped inside. Dani’s boss, a former Miss Texas who’d had so much work done she looked like a perpetually smiling scary clown, lifted her bloodred-tipped nails and gave them a waggle. “Jake. Nice to see you, sugar. Dani’s in the back.” “Thanks.” He hurried to Dani’s cubicle and leaned over her divider. She was on the phone, so she lifted a finger and then quickly wrapped up the call. After she disconnected, she fist-bumped the air. “That makes closing number ten! I’m going to be the top producer this month, Jake. Mark my words.” He smiled. Dani’s powerful mother had gotten her the job, so Dani had been hell-bent on proving she could be a success on her own. Everyone had their doubts, including him. Seemed she’d figured out how to control her unwanted dreams enough to make a real go at it. He couldn’t be happier for her. “Knew you’d get there. How about I—” “Yes, you can buy me lunch. I’m starving.” She grabbe
Chapter Twenty Jake showed up at Farber’s office fifteen minutes before his appointment. The men tailing him waited in the parking garage below. The receptionist looked up from her desk. “Hello, Mr. Morris. Come with me, please. We need to get you an employee badge.” He followed the woman down a long hall that held offices on either side. She stopped outside one that had the name “Ashton Reynolds” on the nameplate. She pointed to the man seated at his desk, deep into work. “What do you think? Does he look enough like you?” Jake leaned his head inside the door. The guy had similar coloring, was about the same age, but skinnier. “Yep. Close enough.” The receptionist walked in and held out a hand toward Ashton. “You drew the short stick. Credentials, please.” He glanced up, gave Jake the once over from head to toe, and then tugged his wallet from his suit pants. He slipped out his driver’s license and then unclipped his employee badge from the suit coat hanging on the back of his chair. H
Chapter Twenty-One Jake rolled down his car window and pressed the call button on the gated entrance to Suzy and Gabby’s estate. A male voice answered. “Yeah?” “Jake Morris. Here to see Suzy.” Gabby had told him Suzy had changed her name, too, so he wasn’t sure what her last name was. The gates slowly parted. “It’s the one on the left.” “Thanks.” Jake put his car into gear and started up the paved drive. There were large trees on both sides of the road and perfectly landscaped hedges. Foliage so thick the homes weren’t visible from the main road. At the top of the hill, he encountered a fork in the driveway, so he went left, but he’d have rather gone right to see Gabby. It was just after six, so she might be home from work. But Moretti said he had to get past Suzy first, so that’s what he’d do. Both houses were large two-story brick with white columns in front like much of the architecture in the area. So different from the Pueblo-style stucco home he owned. Sometimes he forgot how wea
A year or so later . . . Gabby sat on the edge of her seat, waiting to hear the verdict in her father’s trial for shooting Pablo Garza. The outstanding charges for her father’s other alleged crime had been dropped. The plaintiff in that case had died the previous year, and the grand jury didn’t have enough evidence anymore to bring the case to trial. She didn’t want to know how the evidence against her father had disappeared. She chose to believe her father really had cleaned up his act and wasn’t guilty. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” still applied. Her dad’s freedom had hung mostly on Jake’s earlier testimony. Jake took her hand and held it as the judge read the verdict the bailiff had just handed him. The judge’s brows arched before he said, “The jury has found the defendant not guilty.” The breath Gabby had been holding whooshed from her lungs as Jake gave her hand a squeeze. The crowd watching buzzed with opinions, mostly in disbelief that Moretti had slipped through the hands of the law
Acknowledgments As always, I’d like to thank everyone at my wonderful publisher, Montlake Romance. Each and every person on the team, from those who acquire, edit, and market to those who give superb author gifts. You all make it such a joy to work with you. And of course, thanks to my critique partners, Sherri, Louise, and Robin, for reading my pages each and every week. A special shout-out for this book goes to Louise, who knows just about everything when it comes to history. And she’ll be the first to tell you she’s always right! :0) I also want to thank my agent, Jill Marsal, and my family, who is always there to support me. But, mostly, I want to thank my loyal readers, for you are what makes writing books fun!
About the Author Photo © 2012 Robyn Adams Tamra Baumann became hooked on writing the day she picked up her first Nora Roberts novel from her favorite bookstore. Since then, she’s dazzled readers with her own lighthearted love stories: Dealing Double is the second installment in her Heartbreaker series, which started with the novel Seeing Double. She’s a Golden Heart winner for Contemporary Series Romance and has also received the Golden Pen Award for Single Title Romance. Born in Monterey, California, Tamra led the nomadic life of a navy brat before putting down permanent roots during college. When she’s not attending annual Romance Writers of America meetings, this voracious reader can be found playing tennis, traveling, or scouting reality shows for potential character material. Tamra resides with her real-life characters—her husband, two kids, and their allergy-ridden dog—in the sunny Southwest. Visit her online at www.tamrabaumann.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/author.tamr
OTHER TITLES BY TAMRA BAUMANN
It Had to Be Novels
It Had to Be Him
It Had to Be Her
It Had to Be Fate
It Had to Be Them
Heartbreaker Novels
Seeing Double
Dealing Double
Kindle Direct Publishing
Matching Mr. Right
Perfectly Ms. Matched
Matched for Love
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2018 by Tamra Baumann
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503954199
ISBN-10: 1503954196
Cover design by Tammy Seidick
This book is dedicated to my brother, Gary, so he’ll stop asking me why I never dedicate books to him. This one’s for you, big bro.
Contents
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
A year or so later . . .
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter One
Sophia Moretti was pretty darned impressed with her usually reserved self. While on the run, and in just under thirty hours, she’d evaded trained assassins, driven without a bodyguard for the first time, and had managed to make it from DC to New Mexico without stopping, except for the essentials. A new record according to her burner cell phone. Her main cell, the one tracked by her mobster father, was probably still riding around under the back seat of the cab, where she’d purposely left it, in DC.
To buy herself some time.
Her j
ourney, which was thankfully almost over, was especially impressive for a dead person. Sophia Moretti had “died” in a car accident when she was just sixteen, as far as the rest of the world knew. Faking her death had been the only way to keep herself safe from the people who had killed her mother and brother twelve years earlier.
Her father had a lot of enemies.
Before her faked death, getting shipped off to Europe at ten years old with a new name had kept her safe. But the charade had left her mostly alone and with an empty heart.
Since then, she’d dyed her brown hair red, finished college with advanced archaeology degrees, and was now Gabby Knight. Keeper of artifacts in the underbelly of a DC museum, living a quiet life. That is, until her father broke his promise to clean up his act and stole the statue she’d been working on, right out from under her.
She glanced in her rearview mirror as she approached her destination and reminded herself she was done being that meek person. She was going to conjure up some of her family’s famous Italian tempers and show her father that he’d finally crossed the one person who wasn’t afraid of him.
She needed to start living the life she’d been spared twelve years ago.
As she pulled up to a secluded cabin in the woods, one with a property line that backed up to the land she needed to search, her eyes felt as dry as the desert she’d just driven through for hours.
New Mexico was like landing on the moon, compared with DC. It was an odd combination of sandy deserts; looming red-, orange-, and purple-layered cliffs; and mountain passes with pine trees and aspens reminiscent of Colorado.
Despite the beauty that was almost too much to take in, all she wanted was a soft bed. Even a hard one would do. Then, in the morning, she’d search for the Son statue purportedly buried on sacred land. The matching Father statue usually stood under guarded glass at a national museum. Until a few days ago. When her father decided to make it his own, forcing her to find the Son statue before he or his hired hands did.
She’d resorted to using Google Earth to locate the best cabin for her temporary stay. She couldn’t use her credit card to rent one or check into a hotel, which would expose her whereabouts. The nearest hotel to the dig site had said she could pay in cash, but she’d still need to show ID. Her father’s men, who wouldn’t hesitate to pull a gun for information, would find her in a heartbeat.
She’d reluctantly have to break into an empty cabin. Especially because a snowstorm was predicted to hit later, and she’d need shelter against the February cold. Hopefully, it wouldn’t snow too much so she could hike across the sacred Indian land to the site where the matching statue was buried.
Evidently, burying things—and dead people—in the New Mexico desert wasn’t so unusual. There were massive areas of undeveloped land due to the Indian reservations and old family land grants, so it happened more often than one would think.
Fascinating, really.
So, she’d hide out in a cabin, like Goldilocks, and hope no bears showed up later. But unlike Goldilocks, she’d leave money for the repairs after she broke a window to get in, and for any resources she used. She wasn’t a thief. Or so she’d told herself every half hour of the last twenty-four—she was not like her father.
She pulled up slowly to her first choice of hideouts. Looked like she was in luck. No cars out front, nearest neighbor pretty far away, and dark inside—all looked promising. After maneuvering her Jeep around a few stumps and foliage, she parked the car behind the little cabin and killed the engine. She hopped out, sucked in a deep breath of cold, pine-scented air, and then tiptoed to a window. It was dusky out, with just enough light to see inside the pretty wooden home with its green metal roof. It was a cozy-looking place, warm and inviting. And it surely had a bed to lay her tired head on.
She ran back to her Jeep; grabbed the gloves, duct tape, and all the rest of the items she’d picked up to repair the damage; and broke the window. After climbing through and falling hands- and headfirst onto the wooden floor with a thump, she dusted herself off. Then she found the kitchen to test if the utilities were on.
She slowly lifted the handle on the faucet in the sink just as she noted a light was on in the hallway. Warm water poured out of the spigot. So, the utilities were on, and the owners could appear at any moment. She glanced around the warm cabin and spotted a calendar on the wall, Xs marked on certain weeks. Was it a vacation schedule for the cabin? She flipped backward and forward through the months. Sometimes it noted two female names, or simply said “kids.” Like the children didn’t always come. But the best part was that the calendar was clear for weeks. Yes! It’d be safe to stay.
The grumble of her stomach joined the chorus in her head, begging her to get on with things and settle in for the night. But not before she fixed the window. It was too cold to leave a gaping opening in the wall. After that, she’d sleep like the dead before she set out on her artifact-retrieving quest.
In a foul mood, Detective Jake Morris tossed enough groceries for two weeks into his shopping cart. Suspended from duty for shooting an asshat? The guy had been hell-bent on killing a woman and her child. Some reward for being a good cop. Then confiscating his gun to investigate the shooting and putting him on administrative leave? That was the pretty term for it, but it felt like punishment for doing his damn job.
Next came the meeting in the lieutenant’s office. Ordered to take a month’s vacation because Jake hadn’t had one in five years. Insulting. Like crime ever took a vacation.
He’d been a little busy being the guy who closed more cases than any other detective in his squad. Sure, since his ex-wife, Dani, had cut back on sharing her woo-woo visions with him to help him nab bad guys, he hadn’t closed as many cases, but still, he was a damn good cop.
Wasn’t he?
It was just a slump. That’s all. Nothing to do with his divorce, as his boss had suggested. Dani was still his friend despite now being engaged to a stuffy lawyer. He and his ex got along great. Always would.
His other choice had entailed spilling his guts to the department shrink in lieu of the extended vacation. He didn’t want to talk about his crappy childhood again or explain why he didn’t like to be touched unless he was making love to a woman. Or how he’d been forced as a teen to work on a ranch run by a cruel foreman because he had nowhere else to go, or that his marriage had failed because he put his job first. He knew all of that. And he hated to be told he had to change his ways. He was fine.
When he found the right woman, that’s when he’d put the lessons he’d learned into play. He’d work less, settle down, and have a family. A nice family, dammit. With parents who’d never leave their kids to fend for themselves.
He threw his favorite chocolate cereal into the cart a bit too hard, earning a sideways glance from the one other patron in the store.
Maybe having a family had been a pipe dream, too. Hard to think straight when he was still seeing red after being told he’d be fired if he was caught using any police resources for the next thirty days. They’d taken his badge to be sure he complied. That had been beyond humiliating. His badge represented his heart, all that he believed in, the one thing he was proud of in his life.
Where was a punching bag when he needed one?
He got to the liquor section of the small country store and grabbed plenty of fuel for his pity party. Chips, dips, pretzels, and beer by the case? Check. Might as well get some hard stuff, too, for the lonely, cold nights and days ahead he’d need to fill. Doing what?
Maybe he’d do some fly-fishing in the river. He’d been meaning to do that for a long time. Or read books on his e-reader. Thank God he had Internet in the woods. He’d go nuts otherwise. He didn’t know what to do with himself when he’d had a few free hours at home, much less a month in the secluded cabin. The thought was depressing.
His demanding schedule meant Dani used the cabin more than he had. And she’d been nice enough to tell him to use it whenever he wanted, even though she’d gotten it in the divor
ce.
The times he’d joined Dani for the weekend, he’d never been bored. They had usually spent the whole time in bed. That part had never been a problem in their marriage—just everything else, because of him.
After topping off his cart to overflowing with junk food and frozen dinners, he made his way to the front to pay. He was starving and couldn’t get to the cabin quick enough. He’d been so busy trying to tie up loose ends before he’d left the station he’d forgotten to eat lunch. It was almost four in the afternoon, so a PowerBar at checkout was going to have to do until he could make it up the snowy hill the rest of the way to Dani’s cabin.
“Nice to see you again, Detective. Find everything okay?” said the daughter of the store’s owner. Shelly was a pretty blonde, too young, and completely off-limits, no matter how hard she flirted with him.
“It’s just Jake to you, kiddo. How’s that boyfriend of yours? Wes, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Shelly nodded as she bagged up his food. “He’s fine and belongs to some other lovesick fool now. So if you ever change your mind, and need someone to keep you warm up there in that fancy cabin, I’m always here.” She handed Jake the bags to pile into his cart.
“You’d be better off with someone your own age.” Being thirty-two had never felt more ancient.
She leaned forward and ran her scanner gun across the cases of beer he’d stowed on the bottom of the cart. She whispered, “I’m legal now, Jake. And eager to know what it’d be like to be with a real man. Like you.”
Dealing Double (A Heartbreaker Novel Book 2) Page 2
