by Tawny Weber
“Drugs,” I mutter. And then: “Stay.”
I bolt into the bedroom, her laughter following me. I throw on my clothes, shove my keys and my wallet inside the back pocket of my jeans, and race out to the truck with her bag. Toss that shit inside and return trip it to the house. She’s pulled on her clothes while I’ve been gone.
“Shoes,” she says.
I look down at her feet, but she’s already wearing the emergency flip-flops I bought her when she stopped being able to tie stuff. She laughs again, and I look down. Fuck. I’m the one who’s barefoot. Two minutes later, that problem’s solved and I’m carrying her out to the car. She protests, but now that it’s D-Day I’m not letting her waddle across the yard in the dark. There could be gopher holes, snacks, a secret ninja tripwire—fuck me if I know where the danger is, but it won’t touch her.
I buckle her in, slam the door, and sprint for my seat. All that fire fighter training pays off, because I’m not even out of breath when I gun the engine and tear down the dirt road leading away from our house. It’s forty minutes to the hospital if I go seventy. I can shave another five minutes off at eighty, and I know my truck can handle ninety. I timed it.
“It’s not the Indy 500,” she says, then pants through another contraction. Jesus. Aren’t first babies supposed to take forever to come? Time seems to be passing double-time. I hit the gas, and we fly.
The next ten hours alternate between feeling like ten minutes and ten thousand centuries. God must have a thing for fire fighters or Abbie’s on His good side (and I’d put my money on Abbie), because we make it to the hospital in record time. I drive straight up to the maternity entrance, throw the truck into park, and race around to Abbie’s door, bellowing for an assist. Yeah. The hospital staff doesn’t exactly race to lend me hand—presumably because they do this a hundred times a week or more—but someone comes out pushing a wheel chair and then time does that speed up/slow down thing again. There are way too many contractions, and Abbie’s yelling, and all I can do is hold her and be there for her as she brings our baby into the world.
And then it’s over. There’s a frantic burst of activity, and the doctor and the nurses go double-time, and then… there’s a baby crying. Abbie’s crying too, and I’m not gonna touch my own face because I might have teared up. Once. Maybe twice.
I’m gonna meet our baby.
The nurse whisks the pink, pissed off Peanut away and I wrap my arms around Abbie and hold on. I’m not sure what to say, but she’s crying and babbling out bits and pieces of words, and she looks like she just ran a marathon followed by fighting a fifty-thousand acre fire. She’s so fucking beautiful it hurts, so I say the only thing I can.
“I love you.”
I’m crazy about her, and then she leans back against me and the nurse advances carrying a bundle of cloth topped off by a blue-and-pink stripped hat.
“I’d like to introduce you to your daughter,” she says and you know that feeling you get when you jump clear of the plane and there’s nothing but blue sky above you and a monster forest fire below you, so you’re swinging crazy in the air, trying to hit the landing zone you can’t see any more, running on blind luck and dumb faith in the spotter who told you to jump now? Yeah.
This is a thousand times stronger.
My stomach hits my feet, my heart’s thundering in my ears, and both Abbie and I reach for the baby. This moment is perfect and it’s ours.
“Welcome home,” I whisper to our daughter.
Dear Readers,
HER FIREFIGHTER SEAL is a standalone novel in my When SEALs Come Home series, where the heroes are a team of sexy but sometimes broken SEALs who return to the mountain town of Strong, California to fight forest fires as members of a smoke jumping team. There are seven other novels and novellas in the series:
Burns So Bad
Smoking Hot
Sweet Burn
Yours for Christmas
Heated
One Hot SEAL
Her Christmas SEAL
IF YOU’D like to be the first to know when I have a new book, sign up for my newsletter. To learn more about me and my books, you can also visit my website at http://www.anne-marsh.com or drop by Facebook.
AND IF YOU’RE IN THE MOOD for more sexy SEALs, check out ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights, with books releasing monthly through Summer 2016.
NOBODY’S HERO by Patricia Keelyn
Sam Cooper has done his time on the hero circuit. First as a Navy SEAL and then as an FBI agent, Cooper learned how easily a man could stumble on that path. Now he’s nobody’s hero, a PI living on his boat and working cases where the only thing at stake is money.
Then Jessie Burkett shows up on his dock, insisting he help find her missing sister, Nicole. Although all of Cooper’s instincts scream at him to set sail for the wide-open waters of the Caribbean, he can’t turn his back on the stubborn woman whose captured more than his professional interest and leave her to the ruthless men surrounding her.
Soon, he’s once again following a hero’s path, but in his search for Nicole, he’s made some powerful—and deadly—enemies. Worse, he can't seem to keep his hands off Jessie. Right now he's her knight in shining armor, but will she still want him when she no longer needs a hero?
Dedication
For Melissa Beck, Susan Goggins, Carol Springston, and Lynn Styles, who helped me create KK.
I couldn’t give you that one, so I thought it fitting that you should have Cooper’s story.
Prologue
Nicole thought first of Jessie.
Racing through her dark house, grateful for the cold, silent marble floors beneath her bare feet, Nicole worried about her sister. About Jessie. About what it would do to her sister when Nicole turned up dead.
On the stairs she moved slower, listening to see if they’d followed her yet, knowing not even the marble could mask the sounds of booted feet.
Nothing.
She hurried on, slipping into the safety of her suite, her sanctuary, and locking the door behind her. Leaning against it, she pressed her ear to the hard wood, listening. She heard only her own wildly beating heart and heavy breathing. No one had followed her. She was safe.
For the moment.
But the suite wouldn’t shelter her for long. Not even Robert could protect her now. She knew too much. She’d seen the Colonel’s face. It was a simple as that.
Panic fluttered through her.
Moving to her desk, Nicole picked up the phone and dialed the number she knew by heart. Jessie would know what to do. But when her sister answered, Nicole couldn’t speak. She couldn’t draw Jessie into this.
“Hello,” Jessie said again. “Is anyone there?”
Two loud knocks sounded on the door.
Nicole froze, and then hung up as quietly as possible. When the knock came again, louder this time, fear washed over her like a cresting wave.
“Nicki!” Robert’s voice, but he wouldn’t be alone. “Let me in.”
Frantically, she glanced around the sitting room. There were only two other ways out—through her bedroom or through the double French doors that opened onto the second-floor veranda. She dismissed her bedroom immediately; it led back to the hall where they waited for her. That left the veranda and a long drop to a concrete patio.
“Nicole!” he said again. “Open the goddamn door!”
The veranda was her only option. Because if she waited until they broke down her door, she’d have no chance at all.
Chapter 1
Whenever trouble found him, it usually appeared in the form of a woman. He didn’t know what drew them to him or why they always spelled disaster. But from the looks of things, this time was no exception.
He’d noticed her the moment she’d set foot in the marina, and the uneasy feeling that hit him in the gut predicted problems. She wore jeans and a dark, long-sleeved blouse, and she looked as out of place in the Fort Lauderdale heat as snow in Miami. But she wasn’t a tourist figuring to rent a fishing boat f
or the day. This woman wanted something else entirely, and he didn’t want to know what.
He’d watched her walk up and down the docks, scanning the boats. Then she’d spotted the Freedom Chaser and headed straight for him. For once, he wished his instincts had been wrong.
He continued varnishing the teak trim as she approached, not bothering to look up even when she stopped on the dock beside his boat.
“You’re not an easy man to find,” she said in a voice as deep and dusky as a moonless night.
He kept his attention on his work. “I like it that way.”
“Don’t you ever check messages? Or return your calls?”
“Sometimes.” Her voice disturbed him. Almost as much as her presence.
“Sometimes?” She hesitated, and he guessed his answer wasn’t to her liking. “That seems like a hell of a way to run a business.”
Without standing, he shifted to look up at her for the first time. She stood with her back to him, so he couldn’t make out her features, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t know her. Didn’t care to, despite the way those jeans snugly clung to her long, slender legs, or the way her voice sent waves of pleasure down his spine.
“You are Sam Cooper,” she stated, obviously uncomfortable with his scrutiny and his silence. “The private investigator.” She made is sound like ‘the serial killer.’
He returned to his varnishing, touching up a spot here, evening out a streak there. “Yeah.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you for days.” Then, when he didn’t respond, she added, “I’m Jessica Burkett. Jacob Anderson sent me.”
“Figures.”
“You’ve talked to Jacob?”
“Nope. But there aren’t a whole lot of people who know where to find me.” He set the brush into a nearby pan of turpentine and, wiping his hands on a rag, stood and faced the woman who’d invaded his sanctuary. He could tell he wasn’t going to get much else done until he’d sent her on her way. “Fewer still who’d have the nerve to send someone after me.”
Now that he’d risen to her level, he could see her better. She was a small woman, delicately boned, with a short cap of dark, wavy hair. She struck him as a bundle of barely contained energy within a pixie-cute package, but something in her large eyes told him she wouldn’t appreciate being called cute. How like Anderson to bait the hook with a pretty woman.
But Cooper wasn’t biting. Not this time.
“I’m afraid you’ve wasted a trip, Ms. Burkett.” Anderson might know his weaknesses, but it wasn’t going to work. “Now run on back to Chicago and tell your boss I’m not interested.”
“My boss?” She crossed her arms, evidently in no hurry to respond to his dismissal.
“Jacob Anderson. Tell him I’m on vacation.”
“I don’t work for Jacob.”
Somehow Cooper doubted the truth of that, but he remained silent.
“He told me where to find you,” she continued, “because I want to hire you.”
“Well then, I’m doubly sorry you’ve wasted your time. As I said, I’m on vacation.”
“I can pay you.”
Cooper let out a short laugh. “I doubt you can afford me. And even if you could, I don’t do private work.”
She looked confused, and Cooper silently cursed Anderson once again. “I don’t work for individuals,” he explained, wondering why he bothered. He didn’t owe this woman anything, but he spelled it out anyway. “I don’t work for people with more at stake than money.”
“How nice for you.”
He suppressed the urge to defend his position. Again, he reminded himself that he didn’t owe her anything. He started to turn away, but stopped when she said, “Mr. Cooper, I’ve traveled fifteen hundred miles to find my sister and then spent two days tracking you down. The least you can do is hear me out.”
“It’s just plain Cooper, ma’am. And as I said, I don’t take on private clients.” This time he succeeded in turning back to his work.
“Jacob said you were the best. That if anyone could find Nicole, you could.”
He leaned over to replace the lid on the can of varnish. “I’m sure you can find someone else who’ll do just fine.”
“Mr. Cooper—”
“Look. . .” He swung back around. “I’ve got an appointment with a couple hundred square miles of sea and sky, and I’m leaving first thing in the morning. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to finish getting this boat ready for sea.”
He continued to clean up, placing cans of varnish and mineral spirits into a cardboard box and carrying them below. When he returned topside, he wasn’t surprised to find the woman still standing on the dock. Obviously she didn’t give up easily. Anderson was going to owe Cooper for this one.
“It’s important,” she said. “A matter of life and death.”
“I’m sure it is.” But not his problem.
“My sister is missing, and I need help to find her.”
“Sorry.” She couldn’t stand there forever, he assured himself. Meanwhile, he would ignore her. Along with his nagging conscience. “Find someone else.” He’d done his time on the hero merry-go-round, first as a SEAL and then later for the Bureau, and he knew it was a never-ending ride. He wasn’t about to climb back on for some wide-eyed woman with a sexy voice.
“I’m not leaving until you hear me out,” she said.
“You could wait a long time, and see those clouds . . .” He nodded toward the horizon, to the storm gathering over the Everglades. “This time of year, late-afternoon thunderstorms are a daily occurrence. In another couple of hours, things are going to get dicey out here.”
She glanced behind her and then turned back to him, her features set in a stubborn frown. “I’m not afraid of a little rain.”
Cooper swore under his breath. If she’d cried, he might have been able to carry through with his resolve to ignore her. He’d learned long ago how to steel himself against a woman’s tears. Or if she’d pleaded, he would have cut her off without a second thought. Too bad she just stood there, as relentless as the South Florida heat. Determination. Strength. They were his undoing.
“All right,” he said, deciding it was the only way to get rid of her. “I’ll hear you out. But only so I can recommend someone else.”
“But—”
“That’s the deal, Ms. Burkett. Take it or leave it.”
She looked ready to argue further but nodded instead. “Okay.”
“Come aboard then.” He reached up and offered his hand.
She took a step backward. “Uh, could we talk somewhere else?”
“Somewhere else?”
She shrugged and shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “It’s awfully hot, and I could use a drink.” She pulled her hands free again and gestured toward the end of the dock. “I noticed a bar at the other end of the marina. I’ll buy.”
“Look, Ms. Burkett, I don’t have time for this. Whatever your problem is—”
“I don’t like boats,” she snapped. “Okay?”
He couldn’t believe it. A few minutes ago she’d been like a pit bull with a bone, threatening to wait out a thunderstorm in order to talk to him. Now she was afraid to come aboard a boat—one tied to the dock, no less.
“Uh, how about that beer?” she offered again, with a forced smile. “Just one.”
When he didn’t respond right away, she visibly straightened and took a step toward him. “Of course, if you really want to talk here—”
“Forget it.” Again, that show of determination overriding her fear got to him, and he had to wonder if he’d lost his mind. He’d certainly lost all sense. Grabbing his shirt from one of the deck chairs, he stepped off the boat and made a sweeping gesture toward the end of the dock. “Lead on.”
Jessie wasn’t sure why Cooper had decided to come with her. For a few moments, while she’d fought down her absurd fear of boats, she thought she’d blown it. She’d seen the exasperation on his features and expected an abrupt dismiss
al. Then, the next thing she knew, he was following her toward the small bar she’d spotted earlier. She didn’t have a clue what had changed his mind, but at this point she wasn’t about to question her good fortune. Now they sat at a table on the outside deck of a place called Jerry’s, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway.
“Okay,” he said, once a waitress in the shortest shorts Jessie had ever seen delivered two draft beers to the table. “You’ve got until I finish this beer. Then, as I’ve said—”
“I know,”—irritated that he could so easily dismiss her—“you’ve got an appointment with the wide-open spaces.”
To her surprise, he grinned. “Yeah. I do.”
It disarmed her for a moment, his smile and the laughter in his eyes. It was the first time he’d done anything but scowl at her. “You’re not what I expected,” she blurted out, and instantly regretted her words.
“Really?” He sipped at his beer, amusement lingering in eyes almost too blue to be real. “I suppose you’d be more comfortable with a short, balding man in a trench coat.”
Feeling like an idiot, Jessie nodded and took a drink of her own beer. “Something like that.”
“It’s too hot.”
“Too hot?”
“For a trench coat.”
Again, he’d caught her off guard, and she couldn’t help but laugh. Yes, she’d been expecting Colombo. Instead, she’d found Magnum with sun-bleached hair and dancing eyes.
“Call me Jessie,” she said.
“Okay, Jessie.” He smiled, and his perfect white teeth completed the beach boy picture. “So how did you get hooked up with Jacob Anderson?”
“He’s an old family friend.”