by Regan Black
In USA TODAY bestselling author Regan Black’s new Escape Club Heroes thriller, a guarded man builds a future with a woman without a past...
Outside of one of Philadelphia’s busiest nightclubs, a woman stumbles from her taxi. Beaten and bruised, Melissa Baxter is an amnesiac with a target on her back. Gun-shy, Melissa relies on a handsome hero to help her uncover who she really is.
Carson Lane—a paramedic with his own dark history—can’t help but bring this beautiful, vulnerable woman under his wing. Still reeling from his partner’s murder, he’s no stranger to risk. But as he and Melissa begin unraveling the mystery of who she really is, Carson realizes falling in love could be the biggest risk of all.
“You’re not making this easy.” Lissa’s gaze flitted everywhere but wouldn’t alight on him.
“I’m not trying to,” Carson said. “If you want to stay at a hotel, we’ll stay at a hotel. I think staying here is more convenient and comfortable. Either way, the last few days are proof enough that trouble is likely to catch up wherever we go.”
“And the kiss?”
She was killing him. “House or hotel, I’ll kiss you whenever you ask me to.” He gave in and reached for her, sweeping the heavy fall of her hair back from her eyes. “You’ve had a tough day on top of a series of tough days. Let’s take this inside.”
“Kiss me.” She scooted across the bench seat, crowding his side of the cab. “Please.”
* * *
Be sure to check out the next books in this miniseries:
Escape Club Heroes: Off-duty justice, full-time love
* * *
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Dear Reader,
Welcome back to the Escape Club in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania! It’s a riverside hot spot for music lovers, as well as safe haven for people with problems that slip through the cracks of typical law-enforcement channels.
Carson is a paramedic who could have been an excellent doctor. Instead, he chose life on the front lines as a first responder. When an injured woman stumbles out of a cab and into his arms while he’s working at the club, what else would he do but help?
Writing this story had me wondering, how is it we know who to trust in those moments when we’re at our weakest? Even suffering amnesia, Melissa senses she can trust Carson. At that weak point, with no other reference, she follows the only thing she has left—her intuition.
I think we’ve all experienced that moment when a close friend or a licensed professional swoops in and saves us from ourselves in a crisis. Whether it’s a soothing voice, a uniform or swift, competent guidance, something assures us deep inside that we can let go and accept the offered help.
Carson and Melissa have an uphill battle between her memory loss and his self-doubt, but watching them grow and believe in each other was a wonderful journey for me—as I hope it will be for you.
Live the adventure,
Regan Black
A STRANGER SHE
CAN TRUST
Regan Black
Regan Black, a USA TODAY bestselling author, writes award-winning, action-packed novels featuring kick-butt heroines and the sexy heroes who fall in love with them. Raised in the Midwest and California, she and her family, along with their adopted greyhound, two arrogant cats and a quirky finch, reside in the South Carolina Lowcountry, where the rich blend of legend, romance and history fuels her imagination.
Books by Regan Black
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Escape Club Heroes
Safe in His Sight
Harlequin Intrigue
Colby Agency: Family Secrets (with Debra Webb)
Gunning for the Groom
Heavy Artillery Husband
The Specialists: Heroes Next Door (with Debra Webb)
The Hunk Next Door
Heart of a Hero
To Honor and To Protect
Her Undercover Defender
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For my editor, Patience. Those of us who love
Mondays must stick together.
And for the paramedics and first responders who
make a positive difference in their communities
every day.
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
Excerpt from Reunited with the P.I. by Anna J. Stewart
Chapter 1
Carson Lane hesitated in the hallway, the rack of clean pint glasses growing heavy in his arms. Only a few strides separated him from the sea of humanity singing along and cheering the band blasting from the Escape Club stage. This persistent slip and slide of nerves through his gut was ridiculous. Not one person out there would notice him. The longer he stalled, the more attention he’d gain from the bartenders who needed the glassware.
His knee ached, and the muscles in his thigh burned as he struggled with the extra burden. He’d worked a full first shift today, substituting on a Philadelphia Fire Department ambulance, and though his body begged for a break, his mind wasn’t ready to rest. For more than eight months, only exhaustion brought him any peace. His current choices were clear: walk into the heart of the club or walk out and keep going. He had to choose, to do something, or he’d drop the glasses and have a bigger mess to clean up along with the unwelcome questions about his fitness.
Pivoting, he pushed through the swinging door with his shoulder and back. The path memorized, he averted his gaze from the faces in the crowd. People were oblivious to the risks and pain that could be the end of any one of them at any given moment. Official “managed” risks and protocols hadn’t kept his best friend and partner on the ambulance rig alive when they’d answered the call that would be her last.
Every day that he woke up and hauled himself out of bed, he wondered why it had been her and not him. So far, no one had ever given him a decent answer.
Unless faced with a crisis, people had a tendency to ignore the precious, fleeting nature of being alive. As a paramedic, he dealt with the frailties and miraculous resiliency of the human body through every shift. He’d loved his job, despite the occasional sad ending, right up to the shift that had changed everything with an irreversible finality.
William, the bartender working this end of the bar, made room for Carson to stock the clean glasses. “Just in time, man.”
With a nod, Carson completed the task of restocking, picked up the racks of dirty glassware and headed back to the relative quiet of the kitchen. Only an hour until the last set for the band and last call for drinks. He could make it. Had to make it.
In the back of his mind, he heard the echo of his partner’s voice urging him to get over his current mental roadblocks. “Mind over matter” is what she’d say about now, and shove his shoulder. “Gotta do the job.” Sarah Neely hadn’t been known for her tact among the PFD emergency medical personnel, only renowned for her competence and compassion wi
th their patients.
Carson set up the next rack of dirty glassware and pushed it into the dishwasher. He decided she just wouldn’t understand how much of him had died along with her all those months ago. 254 days ago to be exact, and the terror and memories remained raw and painful. Perpetually caught at the edge of that nightmare, he scrubbed his hands on his apron, confused when his palms didn’t leave bloody trails on the white fabric.
“Carson!”
He wheeled around to find Grant Sullivan, owner of the Escape Club, leaning into the kitchen doorway. “Sir?”
“I need a word.” He tipped his head toward his office. “Come on back.”
“Sure thing.” Carson untied the apron and left it on a hook by the kitchen door, then followed Grant down the hall. The man’s stocky build and easygoing outlook belied his quickness and boundless energy. At his boss’s gesture, he eased into one of the two chairs facing the desk. The office was quiet, only the dull throb of the band’s bass carrying through the floors.
“How did things go today?” Grant’s brown eyes were bright with anticipation. “On your PFD shift, I mean.”
“Smooth and normal shift,” Carson replied, hoping his relief at the easy question wasn’t too obvious.
Grant nodded, his thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows dipping low with his frown. “And the knee is holding up?”
“Yes.” Carson forced a smile. “Feeling stronger every day.” It was a small fib. The bullet had passed through his thigh, just above his knee, causing all kinds of damage to muscles and connective tissue along the way. He’d resumed walking three weeks after the surgery, but the pain had leveled out around week eight. Contrary to the physical therapy consensus, the motions never got easier. Mind over matter, he thought, as Sarah’s face flashed through his mind.
“I got a call from Evelyn today. She says she’d like to get you back on the schedule full-time.”
“She said as much to me,” Carson admitted, more than a little surprised his PFD supervisor had spoken with Grant. As a former cop, Grant’s connections with first responders in the city went deep, but it still seemed like a stretch.
“So, why do you keep hanging around here?”
Carson fidgeted in his chair, well aware Grant understood the complexities of recovering from bullet wounds. The blow to his confidence in his skills and his faith in the human condition were more significant obstacles than the aggravating pain lingering in his knee.
Grant had lived through the pressures and challenges of life in public service. Forced to take early retirement because of an on-duty shooting, he’d survived the upheaval of a recovery and a significant career change from cop to club owner. His compassion for others in similar circumstances had prompted him to open the Escape Club. His determination to assist those who helped the community was the reason more than half his employees at any given time were like Carson, men and women waiting with varying degrees of patience for reinstatement to their positions.
Except Carson wasn’t sure he could go back to the job. Going back full-time meant a steady partner, a professional commitment and a mutual trust he wasn’t ready to tackle. The idea of forging that connection with someone new terrified him.
He and Sarah had been an effective team. They’d learned to read each other, often without saying a word. Yet when she’d needed him most, bleeding out in his arms, he’d let her down. He still had nightmares of her valiant effort get out those last words. Words he’d never been able to decipher, though his frequent nightmares gave him too many second chances to do just that.
He scrubbed at the stubble on his jaw. What if it happened again and another call ended in gunshot wounds? Would he be able to live with himself if he failed another partner?
“Carson?” Grant prompted.
“I stay because I like the music here,” he replied.
Grant gave a bark of laughter, drumming his fingers on the desk. “Come on. You can give me a better reason than that.”
“Are you tossing me out?” Carson swallowed the lump in his throat. He would deal with it if he had to, but he hoped he hadn’t worn out his welcome. Money wasn’t an issue thanks to his substitute shifts as a paramedic and his occasional work with a construction crew, but shifts here filled a great many empty hours in his daily routine.
“Not tossing you anywhere. I like having you here.” Grant’s brown eyes turned serious as he leaned forward. “You’ve spoken with the department chaplain about the incident and your recovery, right?”
“Several times,” Carson said. Hell, several times last month. Although the counseling sessions helped, they didn’t keep the dread at bay for long. Nothing did. Not physical therapy, not a successful shift as a substitute on the rig. Not a beer with friends, not holiday dinners with family, not a house that was too damned big. In short, he was floundering. If the people around him were worried, he knew they had good reason. Hell, he’d told others the same thing he heard too often lately: get back in the saddle and lean on friends as needed. Too bad he couldn’t go back and retract those platitudes now that he understood just how useless they were.
He’d been an excellent paramedic in no small part because of Sarah. While he could still do the job well—his substitute shifts proved that—he refused to go back full-time and put someone new at risk. What if—
“Counseling is only one piece of it.” Grant’s voice cut into his downward-spiraling thoughts. The chair creaked as he rocked back. “What does help, son?”
Carson bristled against the concerned tone that veered dangerously close to pity. He didn’t need help generating pity. Although he wanted to resist and deny, to push back and claim one final time that he was fine, he couldn’t muster the right words. “Would you believe I’m considering some different career options?”
“That’s fair and reasonable.” Grant nodded. “There’s no judgment here,” he said after a few more beats of silence. “Is it true? Whatever you say stays right here, between us.”
Carson knew that. He also understood the stress he was about to put on that promise. “When you were shot, did you hate the shooter?”
Grant went absolutely still, quite a feat for the man who was always moving, tapping fingers or a foot in time with whatever beat the bands on stage were playing. “Yes.”
“Given the chance, would you...would you have done something stupid?”
“I’m not on the force anymore, but I do not want to hear your definition of stupid,” Grant replied. “I will admit my hate and frustrations eased when I found a new outlet and purpose.”
“Even after the shooter was acquitted?” Carson queried.
“That was a hard day,” Grant admitted. “Alcohol might have been involved in shaking off the news.”
“He ended your career and irrevocably changed your life. How the hell do you get over that?” Carson realized too late he was shouting, and his hands were balled up into tight fists on Grant’s desk. He stretched his fingers wide and raised his hands, palms out in surrender as he sat back into the chair. “Sorry.”
“No need for apologies.” Grant tapped out a quick syncopation on the desktop. “Neither you nor I was charged with negligence or any kind of errors in our unfortunate incidents.”
Carson rolled his shoulders against the prickle of self-loathing sliding down his spine. Being cleared by an official report couldn’t bring Sarah back to life. If he hadn’t made a mistake somewhere during that call, Sarah and he would still be on the job together. Until he identified his mistake, he shouldn’t be trusted as a full-time partner.
“What do you do when you’re not here or subbing on a rig?” Grant asked.
“The police call me in as a sketch artist occasionally. I still help out a friend in the PFD who flips houses on the side.” On the days when his friend had work that didn’t aggravate Carson’s knee injury too much.
“What do you do for yourself?”
Carson shook his head. There was nothing else. What life did he deserve after letting Sarah die? Every time that night replayed through his mind, he searched for an alternate ending. If he’d taken a different route to the call, if he’d handled the victim differently, would she still be here? Maybe, technically speaking, they’d done everything right and yet Sarah had been killed when two other men stormed the ambulance and robbed it. He had to be sure he wouldn’t repeat the mistakes that got her killed.
“I keep waking up,” Carson said at last. “Keep hauling myself out of bed.” It was a lousy answer, but he was pretty sure Grant, having been through something similar, could see right through his excuses. “Someone said it would get easier.”
“Time heals all wounds?” Grant let loose a bark of laughter. “Yeah, that someone is full of crap if they didn’t finish that theoretical statement.”
“What do you mean?”
“It gets easier only when you start letting go.” Grant sat forward again. “You let go only when you start living again. I’m not you, son, and our experiences are different, but shifting the focus from the past, being in the present and finding something to look forward to, carried me through the worst of it.”
Carson didn’t think that accounted for the fear and doubt that plagued him in those rare moments when he managed to shake off the worst of the guilt. “You’re suggesting I find a hobby or something?”
“I’m suggesting you look for something outside my kitchen and your friends in the first responder circles,” Grant said. “And I want to hear how much you enjoy that something.”
By the tone, Carson heard the words as an order rather than a suggestion. “Got it.” He pushed to his feet and left the office, returning to the kitchen to finish up the last responsibilities for his shift. As he went through the motions of closing and cleaning, he forced his mind to think about alternatives for tomorrow instead of dwelling in the past. Other than his family, he didn’t have close friends who weren’t connected to the police or fire departments. Where was he supposed to start searching for a new hobby?
