by Justine Davis, Amy J. Fetzer, Katherine Garbera, Meredith Fletcher, Catherine Mann
He howled, tottering backward, grabbing the hilt and yanking it out. For a split second, he stared at the blade. “You really think that made a difference!” He threw it aside and extended his arm, aiming.
But Darcy was already sighting down a .9mm barrel.
Maurice’s eyes widened.
“You fired a gun at my son, my mother and my friend,” she said with each step closer. “You pathetic little worm.”
His gaze flicked to the chopper lifting higher, the TV news van crew spilling from the van, already filming. But Darcy’s attention was on his face, his finger on the trigger.
“ABS cameras are rolling. It’s over Maurice. You’re on national news trying to kill your wife and son. You’re ruined.”
His face twisted with rage and he pulled the trigger. Darcy lunged right and heard the shot whiz by her as she returned fire. Her bullet impacted his shoulder, knocking him to the ground. Rushing forward, she kicked the gun out of his hand.
He clutched his shoulder, breathing hard. Blood fountained between his fingers. “I’ll make you pay for this. This is assault! I won’t go to jail, you know it. I own people!”
“All that money, and you’re still such a loser.” She pointed the gun at his head, breathing hard. “Payback’s a real bitch, ain’t it?”
For the first time, she saw real fear in his eyes.
“Darcy?”
The familiar voice floated to her, clear and determined. Jack.
“Don’t. He’s not worth it.”
At the sound of Jack’s voice, Darcy felt something invigorating slide through her and she lowered the pistol. Maurice deflated like a spent balloon.
“You’re not going to die, Maurice. That’s too easy. You’re going to live in the same hell you put me in.”
Suddenly cops were everywhere, one man checking Maurice for weapons, then pulling him off the ground. He groaned, bleeding all over himself. He could barely stand.
An officer clamped on handcuffs, ignoring Maurice’s wince of pain.
Darcy moved close, in his face. “You know what, Maury?” she said, disgusted. “I want a divorce.”
Chapter 17
Darcy turned away from Maurice and let the cops search her, but her gaze was on Jack standing a few feet away.
Her eyes teared, the tension of the past hours flowing out of her in hard breaths. Her son and mother were safe in the air with Josie. Maurice was in handcuffs.
And Jack was here.
When the police had her knives and Meg’s gun, she lowered her arms. For a second, she just stared at Jack. Then he rushed to her, clamping his arms around her. He buried his face in the side of her neck.
“Woman, are you ever going to stop scaring me like this?”
Darcy closed her eyes, tears of relief falling. “Yes, I promise. No more,” she said and he leaned back to look her in the eyes.
“What made you think you could—”
She pressed two fingers to his lips. “I had a plan, you know.” She gestured to the news van, the chopper that was circling the estate.
“Athena graduates?”
“Yeah, they’re the best kind of people.” She glanced back toward the parking area. “Go, Tory.”
Tory Patton kept the cameras on Maurice, shoving her microphone in his face, asking him why he had tried to kill his wife. Maurice just glared at Darcy as she walked with Jack toward the gathering of flashing lights and cameras.
The police read Maurice his rights, and Darcy watched as they put him in a cruiser.
“Did they find Kel or whatever his name is?”
Jack gestured to a police cruiser. “The actor didn’t go far from Hollywood.” Darcy marched up to the car. Jack grabbed her back.
“I want to punch his lights out.”
“I took care of that for you.”
Darcy blinked, then looked at Kel. He had a black eye and a split lip.
Smiling, Darcy grabbed Jack’s right hand and kissed the scrape. “You’re such a knight,” she said.
“I figured if you got a hold of him, he wouldn’t be fit for trial.”
She smiled.
The chopper hovered, then like a feather falling gracefully to the ground, Josie set it down on the front lawn. The blades beat slower as the door slid back and her mother hopped out, hair whipping as she reached for Charlie.
Darcy ducked and ran near, grabbing up her son. She met Josie’s gaze through the windshield. “Thank you,” Darcy said, though she knew Josie couldn’t hear above the noise.
Grinning, Josie threw her a salute. Darcy hurried her mother away from the chopper and Josie lifted off, swooping high and out of sight.
“Men are in real danger if Athena produces women with guts like you three,” Jack said, walking up behind her.
Charlie shrieked Jack’s name and lunged into his arms. Jack held her son tightly, then wrapped his arm around her and pressed his lips to her temple. “No more secrets, Darcy, no more.”
“A girl has to have a few. How else can I keep a man interested?”
Jack smiled. “It wasn’t your secrets that kept me around, darlin’.” He pressed his forehead to hers,both releasing a heavy sigh. Then he kissed her, staking his claim. And Darcy let him.
Oh, glory glory, she thought happily. Let freedom ring.
Several months later
Darcy stared at her mother. Her drinking had aged her. She was only about fifty but looked sixty-five.
It had been six months since Maurice’s arrest. The trial had been the sensation of Hollywood. Televised and drawn out. She’d testified, staring Maurice down in the courtroom. Her mother had confirmed the details, and Darcy had watched her humiliate herself on the witness stand to do it.
Darcy had seen Delores only once since then. Now she was asking to be a part of their lives.
“I’m sorry, Darcy. If I hadn’t been drinking maybe I could have gotten Charlie out or helped you.”
“Yes, you’re right, but Maurice wasn’t giving up easily.” Her mother seemed to crumble a little.
Darcy studied her, remembering her childhood, all the things her mother had done for her to try to make her life better. She’d worked two jobs, made her clothes, and it wasn’t until she’d remarried for the third time that the drinking had started. One day they’d have to sit down and understand why she sank into a bottle. They were all frail, she thought, each with fears and lost hopes. And Darcy had a feeling her mother hadn’t experienced a lot of love in the past years.
She reached out, gazing into her mother’s eyes, and said the words her mother needed to hear. “I forgive you, Mom. We all make mistakes. Sometimes we pay for them for a long time.”
Delores’s eyes teared and she whispered, “Thank you.”
Darcy hesitated for a second. “I want you to know that I really can’t let you near Charlie till you’re sober and willing to go for treatment.”
“I know, I know. I have been to AA meetings.” When Darcy’s look doubted, she showed her the chips awarded for sober months.
Darcy smiled, genuinely pleased. “I have to be able to trust you.”
“Honey, I know. I have to trust me, too.” She looked longingly out into the backyard where Charlie was playing with his new puppy. “Some things are worth it.”
Darcy held back her tears and said, “Go on, Mom.”
Delores met her gaze, her eyes glossy. She sniffled and gripped her daughter’s hand. “Thank you, Darcy. I’m so proud of you, you know. So very proud.”
Darcy kissed her cheek, and then because she needed it more, she hugged her mother, whispering that she was proud of her, too.
When they parted, Delores’s gaze shifted past her daughter. Darcy turned.
Jack sipped coffee, his shoulder braced on the doorjamb. Like an excited child, Delores went outside to Charlie.
“I know what it took to forgive her,” he said.
“Not as much as I thought.” Darcy watched her mother kick off her shoes and drop to the ground with Charlie
. There was a comfortable silence between them before she asked, “So, are you going back on the force?”
“What do you want?”
She met his gaze. “I have what I want. My son, my real name back, my divorce. My shop’s doing well without me there 24/7 so I get more time with Charlie.”
Jack’s smile was patient. “You’re missing the point.”
“Jack, it’s not my life, not my decision. But I’d rather you be a detective than on the street chasing crazies.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Why?”
She made a frustrated sound, fidgeting. “Because I really like you.”
“Like?” He looked insulted.
“Jeez, Jack, what do you want from me?”
He pushed off the wall and set his cup down, then slid his arms around her. He pulled her against him, every inch of them sealed together.
“I want the truth. The honest to God truth. There’s no one to hide from, no one after you. You still have your network, though most of it’s illegal as hell.”
“Jack,” she warned. “I’m trying to make it all legal, you know that.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
She smoothed her hand up his arms to his big shoulders. “So what’s this big truth you want to know?”
He brushed her hair off her face. “Tell me…what’s in your heart, Darcy?”
She gazed up at him, feeling as if they were standing on the edge of a cliff and not in her kitchen.
“You, Jack.”
His smile was warm and slow. “Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah. Deep in there.” She plowed her fingers into his hair, tipping his head near. “You’re sorta like that stray dog that won’t go away.” He snickered. “I’ll keep you around.”
“And around and around and around,” he murmured against her mouth, then kissed her with all the hunger she’d been longing for in a lifetime.
Soon she’d tell him how much she loved him. How she wanted to share her new life with him. But it was new to her, this freedom. She was trying it on still, still learning about the woman she was meant to be.
Jack seemed to know her already. He’d seen beneath the masks, understood who was hidden behind the alias. And he’d stayed beside her, with quiet strength, as she rediscovered her freedom.
He’d wait for her, till it fit right.
Because if Darcy knew anything about Jack, it was that he had infinite reserves of patience.
And she hoped, persistence.
EXPOSED
KATHERINE GARBERA
Published by Silhouette Books
America’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance
To my family—Courtney, my little kick-*ss girl who knows there’s nothing she can’t do. You make me so proud to be your mom! Lucas, my stubborn won’t-give-up-until-I’ve-tried-every-avenue guy. And Matt, who gave me the greatest gift of all—our loving family.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Shannon Butler, who took time out of her busy schedule to explain to me how the television news business works and how to conduct an interview with a man who’d come back from the dead.
Thanks to Amy Fetzer and Cathy Mann, who helped me with the military stuff.
Thanks to Sue Kearney for helping me out when I thought all hope was lost.
Thanks especially to Eve Gaddy for always being willing to listen.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to
Katherine Garbera for her contribution
to the ATHENA FORCE series.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 1
Victoria Patton held the phone away from her ear for a second and carefully covered the mouthpiece. “Hot damn!”
It looked as if all of her hard work had paid off. Of course, a good deal of luck was responsible for her being in the office when her boss had called in with the story. But he’d specifically asked for her, so she knew it was the break she’d been waiting for.
She pulled the phone back. “Of course, Tyson. I’ll be ready to go by six o’clock.”
Smiling, she hung up the phone, leaning back in her office chair. The halls of UBC, United Broadcasting Company, were quiet during the lunch hour. She spun her office chair around and stared out at the skyline of Manhattan. An office with a nice view wasn’t bad for a girl from a cattle ranch in south-central Florida. Days like today made the hard work and separation from her family worth it.
She turned back around and took in the evidence of how much she’d already achieved. One wall of her office held her journalism degree in a frame that her father had given her. The other wall held awards and framed photos that she’d picked up during her career. Her low credenza had neat and orderly shelves, but the top was cluttered with photos of her friends and family.
The surface of her desk held a blotter that she used to jot notes on and a green alligator pencil cup her brother had sent her when she’d done a story on the Florida Everglades. She also had a PVC figurine of Buttercup from the Power Puff Girls, because her practical joker co-workers thought she resembled the steely-eyed, tough-as-nails girl.
Tory was an up-and-coming television news reporter who’d been proving herself on the national level for the past five years. At five feet two inches tall, she knew she wasn’t exactly an imposing figure, but her insightful questions and keen ability to read between the lines had given her an edge few reporters had. She had black hair and green eyes that she’d been told were as mysterious as a cat’s. She knew that line had been corny flattery, but it suited her image of herself. At the age of twenty-eight, she was poised to take the national news media by storm, following in the footsteps of her role model, Diane Sawyer. At least, once she completed this interview she would be.
She was young to be considered for the job that her boss, Tyson Bedders, had just offered her—an exclusive interview with Commander Thomas King, a navy SEAL who’d been presumed dead for the past six months after a failed mission in the volatile island country of Puerto Isla in Central America.
Bedders had received a call from Joe Peterson, a public-affairs officer with the U.S. Navy, inviting Tory to go to Puerto Isla and interview King. Tory was to contact the minister of foreign affairs once she arrived on the island. The minister would coordinate the interview.
The details of King’s mission were sketchy, but she knew that the members of the SEAL platoon he’d been directing had all been killed and King had been declared dead with the rest of the troop. According to the information Tyson had, King’s platoon had been ambushed when they went in to rescue a group of American hostages being held on Puerto Isla.
The phone rang before she could completely digest the fact that she was leaving for Central America in less than six hours. There was a lot to do, including contacting her favorite cameraman, Jay Matthews. She wanted someone with her whom she could count on to film the story the way she wanted it captured.
“Patton.”
“Hi.”
It was Perry Jacobs, her boyfriend. She smiled to herself. Perry said he was too old to be anyone’s boyfriend. He always referred to himself as her significant other. She hated that term, because it suggested that there was nothing significant about her without that other.
Perry was a producer at UBC and they’d been working together for more than five years now. They’d been dating for the past four. He was nearly twenty years her senior and had more experience and knowledge of the business than anyone she knew.
&nb
sp; Tory had been attracted to Perry from the first. At the start, she’d ignored the chemistry, not wanting to be fodder for the office rumor mill. Then they’d worked together on a feature story in Virginia, and the relationship had grown from there.
“Will you be home for dinner?” Perry had recently asked Tory to move in with him, and she still wasn’t sure about the situation. Her relationship with Perry was one of the things in her life that she questioned.
Which was why she’d kept her own apartment and never stayed over with him more than once a week. She didn’t want to encourage Perry to think too strongly in terms of permanency until she knew for sure that she really wanted to be with him for the man he was and not for the producer who had helped to make her into a top-rate journalist.
“Can’t. I’m going to Central America on assignment.”
“Where?” he asked. There was a note of resignation in his voice, and she suspected he knew that even without the assignment she wouldn’t have come over tonight.
“Puerto Isla. Tyson got me an exclusive with a navy SEAL who’d been presumed dead.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
Perry was right. Puerto Isla was dangerous. The small island was still struggling to keep its new government in place after a bloody coup four months earlier.
Alejandro Del Torro, the new leader, had been cooperating with the U.S. government to get much-needed aid to his suffering people. He’d come to power after leading a rebel movement. The people of Puerto Isla were leery of following another military man, but Del Torro was only an interim leader and was organizing the government and preparing to hold elections within the next six months.
