Rules in Defiance

by Nichole Severn

  Her skin tingled where he touched her, her nerve endings on fire. For him. He’d risked his life for her, given up his most valuable possession for the chance to be with her. His willingness to try to make this work between them deepened the ache behind her sternum. “What’s it like not having a backup plan for once?”

  “Not sure yet. I literally deleted the files ten minutes ago. Still hasn’t sunk in, but I can tell you the time I took to put them together is now free.” His eyebrows bounced on his forehead and she couldn’t stop the laugh forcing its way up her throat. “I should tell you I kept one file.”

  Vulnerability claimed her, and she sank flat on her feet from her toes as she stared up at him. Her hand slipped to his shoulder, careful to avoid the bullet wound on one side. “What file?”

  “Kate’s,” he said.

  “Are you going to tell her the truth?”

  “I have to. She could still be in danger.” Elliot ran a hand through his hair, clearly affected by the event. “She thinks it’s over.”

  Kate had helped save her from Blake Henson’s clear coffin at the bottom of the ocean. All this time, the team’s psychologist had kept it together after losing the most important person in her life. How? “She deserves to know.”

  “Nobody knows outside of the team.” He held her a bit tighter, reflecting the growing need inside her to keep him as close as possible. Because if she lost him again... No. She couldn’t think like that. Couldn’t imagine a life without him in it. Didn’t want to. “I didn’t tell you I was the one who looked into it after the ambush happened and found the shooter a few days later. He’d been off his meds for a while and I got him the help he needed in a hospital.”

  “Then why keep the file?” she asked.

  “Kate needs to know what really went down that night.” Elliot threaded his fingers into her hair at the base of her neck. “If something like that had ever happened to you, I’d want to know the truth.”

  “Then you should tell her.” She nodded. “Just, however you do it, remind her you’re the messenger and don’t get yourself killed in the process, okay? I almost lost you once. I’m not about to let it happen again.”

  He buried his nose in her neck and inhaled deep. Elliot squeezed her tight until air pressurized in her lungs, but she didn’t dare push away. Lifting his head, he brushed a strand of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. Electric jolts speared through her, her insides, down to her bones as he locked those mesmerizing gray eyes on her. No one had ever looked at her as he did. Like she was important. Like he needed her to breathe. “Careful, Doc, you’re starting to make me think you care about me.”

  “Maybe a little.” Her lips spread thin in a wide smile. “I mean you’re the only one who knows my secrets. Kind of freeing in a way. I’d like to hang on to that feeling for a while.”

  “Oh, is that all I’m good for?” Elliot slipped his hands to her waist, swaying them back and forth in a slow rhythm. Taking her uninjured hand, he extended it out away from them and swung her to one side. He set his mouth against her ear as they danced in the middle of her living room, one hand pressed against the small of her back, the other tightening in hers. Thoughts of their first dance outside this very apartment pulled her deeper. “I’ll take it. I’ll take anything I can get from you for the rest of our lives, but you’re going to have to tell me why you have moving boxes all over your apartment sooner or later.”

  “Aren’t you a private investigator?” She studied her living room and the dozens of open boxes, rolls of packing tape and labels. This apartment had once been a safe haven, somewhere she could get away from the demands of her job and binge on peanut butter Oreos and her favorite TV shows as long as she wanted. All the while knowing her best friend lived next door. “Or was kissing me too much of a distraction?”

  A deep laugh rumbled through him and she reveled in the vibration running through her body. “You think highly of yourself, don’t you?”

  “I’m going to be honest. I haven’t showered in two days because I can’t stand the thought of going back in that bathroom. I’ve been brushing my teeth over the kitchen sink. It doesn’t feel the same as it did before.” The images ingrained in her head when she’d found Alexis would stay with her for the rest of her life. And she couldn’t stay here anymore. Nerves fired through her as she turned back to him and she licked the dryness from her lips. “So... I bought a place. I’m moving in two days, but it’d be nice to have a bodyguard living with me in case someone else at my company decides to kill me.”

  “Why, Dr. Hargraves, are you asking me to move in with you?” He stopped swaying, pulled her closer. A brightness in his eyes speared straight through her, filling her with hope, chasing back the darkness that made up her DNA. “Are you sure that’s a good idea considering your Dr. Jekyll, Ms. Hyde situation?”

  “You’ve already taken down one monster.” She refused to let the events of the last week encroach on this moment and slipped her fingers over the gauze taped to his shoulder. “I think you’re up for the challenge.”

  “You’re not a monster, Waylynn.” He notched her chin higher and forced her to look at him, all sarcasm, all joking leaving his voice. “You’re the kindest, sexiest woman I’ve ever met and nothing in this world will ever convince me otherwise. Besides, if it turns out you are, I could chain you to the bed, right?”

  A wide grin deepened the lines at the edges of his mouth.

  “You could try.” A soft laugh escaped her throat as she closed her eyes and set her ear over his chest. The strong beat of his pulse kept rhythm with hers, as though they were the same body, the same soul, and she never wanted to move. Except the movers would force her to when they came to load her boxes onto the truck.

  “No matter what happens, we’re in this together,” he said. “I was stupid to push you away. I love you, Doc, and I will prove it to you every day of our lives to make it up to you if I have to.”

  “Yes, you were, but I still love you. Always have. Always will.” The nightmare was over. Officer Ramsey had informed her Blake Henson would serve life behind bars for the murder of her assistant and for his stunt trying to drown her in the ocean. The board had overturned Dr. Stover’s decision to let her go and she was free to return to work as soon as she was ready. With a promotion and a raise, considering the events of the past couple of weeks. But maybe taking her work to a different lab wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. As long as Elliot came with her.

  Waylynn pulled his mouth to hers and lost herself in him all over again. Would she ever get used to the way he affected her? His clean, masculine scent dived deep into her lungs and sealed the deal. No. Never. He was hers. No matter what happened from here on out, they were in it together. Forever. “Now help me with these boxes. They’re not going to pack themselves.”

  Most important, she had Elliot.

  Her best friend. Her bodyguard. Her everything.

  EPILOGUE

  Kate Monroe pulled two photo frames from the box and arranged them on her desk in her office, skimming her thumb over the glass. The team had left everything the same since she’d taken her leave, but couldn’t they have at least watered the plants?

  Three knocks on her door snapped her head up.

  Elliot Dunham stood in the doorway, a manila file folder in his hand. The cocky private investigator always had a smile on his face these days. One of the upsides to being in love, and her heart panged. Not out of jealousy. Out of admiration. “Looking good, Monroe.”

  “Thanks. Glad to see you back, too.” She shuffled the paperwork from her last case for Blackhawk Security to a corner on her desk as a distraction. The case had been assigned to her a year ago. Before... She stopped that thought in its track. She’d have to look into that one and see what became of the profile she’d written for Vincent. “How’s your life? Does Waylynn need—”

  “No, thank you. She’s
great. Other than she still has nightmares a couple times a week.” Hesitation deepened the lines in his forehead as he moved fully into the office. “But she’s not why I’m here.”

  Confusion slithered through her. Elliot hadn’t been assigned any new cases as far as she knew. He wasn’t supposed to be back in the office until next week. “Do you need a profile?”

  “Actually, I’m here because of you.” He tossed the folder onto her desk, the sharp corner hitting the back of her hand. The label spelled out her name and she narrowed her attention on him. What was this? “I’m here because your husband is alive, Kate.”

  * * *

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  Rules in Surrender

  by Danica Winters

  Your husband is alive, Kate.

  Blackhawk Security profiler Kate Monroe stared at her reflection in the broken picture frame on the floor. Had it really been an entire year? She hadn’t set foot in this house since the ambush, too traumatized to pull the bullets out of the walls, too sentimental to put it on the market. Everything had changed that night. Tightening her grip on the manila file folder in her hand, she couldn’t ignore the truth. Declan hadn’t died as she’d been told while recovering in the hospital from her own injuries. He’d survived. He’d disappeared. And he’d left her behind.

  Glass crunched under her shoes, bringing her back to the moment, and the photo came into focus. Her and Declan dancing at their wedding, surrounded by smiling guests. Burying the burn behind her sternum deeper, she stepped over the frame. Blackhawk’s private investigator had found proof—a time-stamped photo—of Declan taken a month ago in downtown Anchorage. She’d stared at it for hours, picked it apart pixel by pixel to fight the anger and resentment bubbling up her throat. In vain. The photo was real. Declan was alive and she deserved to know why he hadn’t come home.

  There had to be something here that would lead her to his location. Setting the file on what was left of the kitchen table, she fought back the memories of hundreds of dinners as she dragged her fingers over the bullet-ridden surface. She pulled out drawers in the kitchen, emptied the bookshelf beside the desk Declan had built for her, scattered old patient files across the carpet. Bending to pick them up, Kate froze as the dark stains at her feet came into focus. Blood. Ice worked through her. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes against the memories fighting to rush forward and forced herself to take a deep breath. She’d been a psychologist. She’d helped others through their trauma, their pain—why couldn’t she get past her own?

  She traced over one mound of scar tissue below her collarbone, leaving the files where they fell. Swallowing against the tightness in her throat, she straightened. Gunshot wounds never healed. Not really. Six months since the last surgery and the physical pain from three shots to the chest hadn’t lessened. Then again, she’d been lucky to survive at all. The gunman who’d opened fire on her and Declan hadn’t meant to leave anyone alive.

  Movement registered off to her right, and she automatically reached for the Glock in her shoulder holster. Depressing the safety tab, she took aim, heart in her throat. Blackhawk Security’s founder and CEO insisted his agents trained in wilderness survival, weapons, hostage negotiation, recovery and rescue, and more, but she was a profiler. Not former military like Anthony. Not a former NSA consultant like Elizabeth. She’d never had use for a gun. Her hands shook slightly as the weight of it threatened to pull her arms down. She’d never aimed her gun at another human being.

  “You’re trespassing on private property. Come out with your hands where I can see them, and I promise not to shoot you.”

  The house had been abandoned for a year. Wasn’t hard to imagine the homeless taking advantage of a roof over their heads, and she wasn’t interested in forcing them to leave if that was the case. The house wasn’t going anywhere. It took everything she had to stay here this long.

  Shadows shifted across the intruder’s features, and her breath caught in her throat. Hints of moonlight highlighted the familiar shape of his stubbled jaw, his broad chest, muscled arms and short blond hair. Her heart beat hard behind her sternum as she stood there, unsure if he was real or a figment of her imagination. He closed the distance between them, slowly, cautiously, as though he believed she might actually shoot him. She couldn’t make out the color of his eyes in the darkness but pictured the ice-blue depths clearly from memory as he stared back at her.

  “It’s you.”

  She suppressed the sob clawing up her throat but couldn’t fight the burn in her lower lash line. Rushing forward, Kate wrapped her arms around his broad chest, his clean masculine scent working deep into her lungs.

  A year. A year he’d put her through hell. The grief, the anger. Why hadn’t he reached out to her? Who had she buried all those months ago? Why wasn’t he hugging her back? Clenching her back teeth to keep the scream at bay, Kate backed off but didn’t holster the weapon. Why was he just standing there? “Say something.”

  “You’re even more beautiful than I remembered.” That voice. His voice. An electric sizzle caught her nerve endings on fire and exploded throughout her entire system. She’d never thought she’d hear that voice again. Declan Monroe shifted closer, the weight of his gaze pressurizing the air in her lungs. “You don’t need the gun. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “That’s all you’re going to say to me?” It felt as if someone had driven a fist into her stomach. “You’ve been alive this whole time, and that’s all you’re going to say? They told me you died in that hospital. I—” The pain of that day, of losing her best friend, of losing the man she’d intended to spend the rest of her life with, the man she’d planned on starting a family with, surged to the surface. “I buried you.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.” He reached out, smoothed his fingertips down her jawline. Even with the ice of shock coursing through her veins, warmth penetrated deep into her bones, but his expression kept her from reveling in his missed touch.

  Declan lowered his hand as he studied the aftermath of the living room. The pockmarked walls, the broken picture frames, the destroyed sectional and cushions. She didn’t have the guts to see what’d become of the rest of the house, a home that’d once been their safe haven from their dark careers. “Is this where it happened?”

  Confusion gripped her hard, and Kate narrowed her eyes to see his face clearly. “What do you mean—”

  “I get these flashes sometimes. Of this house, of different things.” Declan motioned to his head then his gaze locked back on her. “Mostly of you. Some days it’s glimpses, other times I can see you so clearly walking through that front door with stacks of files in your arms and a smile on your face. Like it was real.”

  Her head jerked slightly to the side of its own accord as though she’d been slapped. Instinct screamed this wasn’t right, and she took a step back, the gun still in her hand.

  “But I still don’t know your name,” he said.

  Air rushed from her lungs. She struggled to keep upright as the world tilted on its axis. Strong hands steadied her before she hit the blood-stained floor a second time, but the
gun slipped from her hold. Leveraging her weight against the desk, she pushed back stray hairs that’d escaped from the low bun at the base of her neck. She had to breathe. Her pulse beat hard at the base of her throat as his hand slipped down her spine. How could he have forgotten her name? Every cell in her body rejected the idea her husband had been walking around Anchorage without the slightest clue he’d been married, had a life, had a job. Where had he been all this time?

  “You okay?” He was still touching her. Even through the thick fabric of her cargo jacket, she recognized those familiar strokes. “I’ll get you some water.”

  “No.” The city had probably turned off the water a long time ago. She’d been paying the mortgage on the house in addition to the rent on her small apartment, but utilities would’ve been a waste. Kate maneuvered out of his reach. “I’m fine. I...need some air.”

  Lie. Nothing about the situation, about the fact the husband she’d lost was standing in front of her, was fine. And fresh air wouldn’t do a damn bit of good. Space. She needed space. The home they’d shared for more than half a decade blurred in her peripheral vision as she headed for the front door. Debris and remnants of their life together threatened to trip her up, but she wouldn’t stop until there were at least two inches of door between them. Couldn’t.

  The cold Alaskan night prickled goose bumps along her arms as she closed the door behind her. She set the crown of her head against the wood, pressing her shoulders into the door. One breath. Two. None of this made sense. His surgeon had told her Declan hadn’t survived the shooting. That he’d done everything he could to save her husband, but nothing worked. Declan had lost too much blood, the bullets had torn through major arteries and nobody could’ve saved him.