by Tawny Weber
All she had to do was step into the possibilities.
She was terrified.
Not that he was lying. But that he really meant it.
She wanted Travis. She loved him with depths she’d never thought possible. She admired him and respected him. But she was so scared of being with him. Of losing herself to him. She’d spent her life trying to be independent, but Travis was so forceful, lived life so huge. How could she withstand that and still be her own person?
Slowly, carefully, Lila slipped her hand free of his and took an infinitesimal step away. Because she was watching so closely, she saw his wince. Saw the pain flash in his eyes just before his expression cleared.
It was that pain that made her realize what a jerk she was being. But she couldn’t help it.
Trying to find the right words, Lila folded her fingers together, straightened then folded them again. Travis laid his hand over hers, stilling the nervous gesture and warming her so much, the fear melted.
“I’m afraid,” she admitted.
“Of what? I’m in security, remember. I can protect you from damn near anything.”
Lips twitching, she couldn’t resist rubbing her hand over his chest in appreciation. For the words, and because she’d forgotten just how amazing his chest was.
“Of losing myself.” She wet her lips and tried to explain. “I’ve struggled my entire life to stand up for myself against strong men. And even though I am finally able to, I’m lousy at it.” She remembered how hurt her father and brother had been that she hadn’t contacted either of them to help her when she’d first gotten in trouble in Puerto Viejo. “I get pretty insistent on being independent. So insistent that I was recently told that I hurt people who care about me.”
“Like when you skipped out on me in Puerto Viejo?”
Ouch. “Yes. Like that.”
“And you think I can’t handle that?”
“I think it wouldn’t be right to expect you to handle that.”
He rocked back on his heels and nodded, his expression mulling as he considered her.
“I actually get that attitude,” he finally said. “And I used pretty much the same argument with myself before coming here.”
“You did?” It was her own argument, but Lila still felt offended.
“Well, you did ditch me, blow off my protection and needed to be rescued. So the independence thing isn’t news to me. But here’s the thing. As willing as I am to protect you, it’s not because I think you need me for that. I have complete faith that you can take care of yourself.”
“Costa Rican crime rings aside.”
“Crime rings are the exception, not the rule. So I have to say in that case, I’d snap into protection mode,” he agreed, his smile flashing. “But for life in general, I’m more interested in a partner than a subordinate.”
Lila’s heart simply melted. She wanted him so much, and this was it, her chance to have him. She opened her mouth to agree, her body tensing in preparation for jumping into his arms.
Before she could, he took both of her hands in his and pulled her close again.
“You might not believe it, but I need you just as much as you need me.”
No. Big strong alpha men didn’t need anyone. She was already shaking her head before he finished his sentence.
“I do. Seriously. Lila, you pulled me out of a crappy place I don’t think I could have gotten out of myself. You not only reminded me of my purpose in life, you made me believe I could handle it. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be swinging in that damned hammock.”
“My advice made that much of a difference?” Suddenly, she felt invincible. Like she could be as important to him as he would be to her. Her imagination soared, picturing everything she could do to make a good life with him.
She could spend forever making sure he never forgot how special he was. And, she realized as the last of her fears fell away, she would actually believe him when he showed her the same.
“I want that,” she told him. “I want us. A future together. A life together. I want to see if we can make it work.”
“I know we can,” he vowed, releasing one of her hands to rub his knuckles over her jaw. “But I’m willing to give it as long as you need until you’re just as sure.”
“You’re perfect,” she said with a soft laugh, her heart finally settling into a happy place. And just like that, she had all the confidence in the world—which meant she had as much as Travis—that they’d spend the rest of their lives making each other happy. “We’ll be perfect.”
“I promise I’ll respect your independence and value your choices,” he said, brushing a whisper of a kiss over her lips.
“Then I promise to let you know when I’m feeling overwhelmed, and to always tell you what I want and need, instead of assuming you should know.”
“Never assume,” he said, the words a cadence she knew he’d repeated hundreds of times. “With one exception.”
Using the hand he held, he pulled her to him until their bodies were pressed close. He wrapped one hand around her waist, his fingers cupping her butt and holding her tight against him.
“You can always assume that I love you.”
Lila’s breath caught painfully in her chest, but her pounding heart finally pushed it free.
“You love me?”
“Yeah. I love you.”
“You know that I love you, too, right?”
“I’d hoped,” he said just before taking her mouth in a hot, wild kiss that sealed their future.
And just like that, the final piece fell into place and her life was perfect.
* * *
Don’t miss these titles in Tawny Weber’s
thrilling Team Poseidon miniseries,
available now from HQN!
Call to Honor
Call to Engage
Call to Redemption
Keep reading for an excerpt from Guarding His Witness by Lisa Childs.
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Guarding His Witness
by Lisa Childs
Chapter 1
Feeling like he’d been called to the principal’s office, Parker Payne settled nervously onto the chair in front of the desk of the new chief of the River City Police Department. The fact that Woodrow Lynch was also his new stepfather didn’t help his anxiety.
Even though it had been some years since he’d been in school, Parker remembered all too well the feeling of being called to the principal’s office. The anxiety that
gathered low in his stomach, twisting it into knots.
He’d spent a lot of time in this office, too, when he’d worked for the River City PD’s vice unit. But he’d quit the job a long time ago when his twin, Logan Payne, had resigned from being a detective in order to launch the Payne Protection Agency. Now Parker had his own franchise of the family business. He was a boss. But something about Woodrow Lynch and this office made him feel like the troublemaking kid he’d once been. Or at least like the rule-breaking vice cop he’d been.
“You’re probably wondering why I asked you to meet me here,” Woodrow began. The guy was family now, but the former FBI bureau chief was still intimidating as hell with his big build, iron-gray hair and stone face that revealed none of what he was thinking or feeling.
Parker, who was usually never without words, just nodded in response.
“It’s because I want to hire you.”
Parker’s jaw dropped. “But I already have a job.” His own damn business, actually—one that he loved and wasn’t about to abandon to go back to a place with too many rules.
Woodrow’s lips curved into a slight smile. “I know. That’s what I meant. I want to hire your agency.”
Panic struck Parker’s heart. “Why? Is Mom in danger? Are you?” His mom, widowed for nearly two decades, had just found happiness again. Parker hated the thought of anyone putting her life or her newfound happiness at risk.
“No, not at all,” Woodrow assured him. “She’s fine. This is strictly business.”
Parker narrowed his eyes and futilely tried to read his stepfather’s unreadable face. “Why me?” he asked. “Why my agency?”
His brothers, Cooper and Logan, had their own agencies. And Logan’s agency employed two of Woodrow’s former special agents, one of whom, Gage Huxton, was now his son-in-law.
“It’s business for me,” Woodrow said. “It might be personal for you.”
A chill chased down Parker’s spine. He hated when things got personal, which happened all too often with the Payne Protection Agency. “How’s that?”
“Luther Mills.”
That was all Parker had to hear, and the heat of anger and frustration burned away that chill of foreboding. For years he’d tried to bring down the biggest drug dealer in River City—maybe in Michigan—but he’d never succeeded. Fortunately, some members of his team, before they’d left the River City PD to become bodyguards, had been more successful. Or so he’d thought. “What about him?”
“He’s going to trial soon.”
Parker nodded again. He knew the story; it was how one of his bodyguards had finally left the force to join his agency. Clint Quarters had quit the vice unit after Luther Mills personally killed Clint’s informant. While Luther was responsible for many, many deaths in River City, he usually didn’t do his own dirty work, but he’d wanted to send a message.
“Some of his phone calls from jail indicate that he’s going to make sure that doesn’t happen,” the chief said.
“How?”
“He’s put a plan into motion to take out everyone involved with the prosecution, from the eyewitness to the CSI tech and even the judge’s daughter.”
“How does he know...?”
“There’s a mole somewhere,” Woodrow replied with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know if it’s in my department or the district attorney’s office. But because I can’t trust anyone in the department, I need the help of you and your team.”
“But that hit list could include some members of my team,” Parker pointed out. Probably Clint...
But Clint wasn’t the one who’d arrested Luther. A detective had had that honor.
Woodrow shrugged. “I don’t know. He must have found another way to communicate. We just know that he wants the witness taken out first and then the rest of the people associated with the trial. There could be others...”
Parker had taken longer than his brothers to assemble his team. He’d known whom he wanted because he’d worked with them before—in the vice unit. But he’d had to work at convincing them to leave the River City PD. He didn’t want to lose any of them. But if he took this assignment, he was very afraid that he would.
Luther Mills was the most dangerous criminal Parker had ever crossed paths with. And that was something, considering the number of criminals he’d dealt with in his lifetime.
Because of that, he knew he couldn’t say no to the chief. Luther Mills could not get away with murder again. He had to be stopped.
* * *
He will not be stopped. Your life is in danger...
Rosie Mendez shivered as she read the message someone had slipped under the door of her apartment. She didn’t need the warning to know she was in danger. But she appreciated that one of Javier’s old friends must have risked his safety to deliver the message to her.
Maybe she wasn’t the only one who missed her brother. Sometimes she felt as if she was. She felt so alone now that he was gone. Too soon at just twenty years old.
Eight years older than he was, Rosie had felt more like his mother than his sister most of their lives. But that hadn’t been just because of the age difference. It had been because she’d been more of a mother than their mother had ever been capable of being—to either of them. So when Javier had died, she’d felt like she had lost a part of herself. The best part...
Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. She’d already wept herself out over Javier’s death. All the crying in the world wouldn’t bring him back. But he deserved justice. So Luther Mills wasn’t going to scare her off.
And maybe that was what the note was. Maybe it wasn’t a well-meant warning at all. Maybe it was a threat intended to get her to run. Or at least to tell the prosecutor that she would not testify. But there was no chance in hell that she was going to let her brother’s killer go free.
He wasn’t the only one responsible for Javier’s death. If only that other man could be brought to justice, too...
But he was even more untouchable than Luther Mills.
She glanced at the note again. She hadn’t noticed it when she’d come home from work, and she would have walked right over it when she’d entered the apartment. The white slip of paper stood out against the dark hardwood floor. That was how she’d seen it when she stepped out of the kitchen. Someone must have slipped it beneath her door when she’d been getting a snack from the galley kitchen of her tiny apartment.
A breeze wafted through the open living room window. But it was eerily quiet for a night in this building. Where was the rumble of voices from the alley that window overlooked? People were usually hanging out back there. She couldn’t even hear voices or movement from the other apartments, and the walls were paper thin.
Where was everyone? She walked up to the door and peered through the peephole—at an empty hallway.
Where was the young officer who’d escorted her home from her second shift at the hospital? Usually he was posted at her door until another officer took his place in the morning. Had he seen whoever had left that note and chased after him?
That left her completely unprotected. Not that one officer was much protection against the army that worked for Luther Mills. The drug lord could probably have had her taken out any time that he’d wanted.
What was he waiting for?
The trial was due to start soon. She wasn’t the only witness, though. If she had been, the prosecutor wouldn’t have even brought the case against Mills. Eyewitness testimony was too often discounted as unreliable.
Rosie would never forget what she’d seen, how her brother had been gunned down in cold blood right in front of her. Even as she’d screamed and dropped to her knees next to his bleeding body, she’d braced herself for the bullets she’d been certain would be fired into her body as well.
Instead of killing her, Luther had leaned close and whispered into her ear, “You have Clint Quarters to th
ank for this...”
Thank him? She’d wanted to kill him—just like she’d wanted to kill Luther. Like the drug lord had said, Quarters was almost as responsible as if he’d pulled the trigger himself. He’d certainly been the one who’d put the target on Javier. Yet there were no repercussions for him.
He hadn’t lost anything—while Rosie had lost everything. She had nothing else to lose now but her life.
She shivered again.
Where had that officer gone?
Had he been injured?
As a nurse, it was her duty to try to treat him if he was. The peephole offered only a limited view of the hallway, with its dirty beige walls and dim lights. Maybe the officer was lying on the worn vinyl floor, bleeding out just like Javier had. Despite her training as an ER nurse, she hadn’t been able to save her brother. He had died in her arms.
She blinked against another rush of tears. The last thing Javier had done before he’d died was reach up and wipe away her tears. “Don’t cry for me, Rosie,” he’d told her.
But that wasn’t all he’d said.
She couldn’t think about the rest of it, though—not without getting furious. He’d wasted his dying breath on Clint Quarters. She hated the man for that almost as much as she hated him for causing her brother’s death.
Despite her efforts, that fury rushed back, and the sheer force of it quashed her fears. She was not going to cower in her apartment while someone might be hurt and in need of her help. Her hand trembled slightly as she fumbled with the row of dead bolts on her battered door, but she managed to turn them all. Then she grasped the knob and pulled open the door.
And she gasped as she stared up into the unfairly good-looking face of the man she hated most—even more than she hated Luther Mills. Was she just imagining him there? Surely after she’d thrown him out of her brother’s funeral he wouldn’t have had the guts to seek her out again.
Would he?
The man certainly looked like Clint Quarters with his golden-blond hair and square jaw with stubble a few shades darker than his hair. He stared down at her with those deep green eyes of his.