Secret Agent Under Fire

by Geri Krotow

  “I will, Rio.” Abi kept filing.

  “Abi.” She looked up. Rio’s expression was grave, his eyes seeing everything. “You need to go now. The case is closed.”

  Abi looked away. She couldn’t handle what she saw in Rio’s glance. Understanding, yes, but also compassion, sprinkled with pity. Abi didn’t need anyone’s pity, not even Rio’s.

  “I’m sorry we didn’t get him alive, Rio.” Her voice was low as she fought tears through her words. “He deserved to be locked up for the rest of his life, not die a martyr.”

  “Yes and no. And it doesn’t matter. You saved the lives of dozens of girls, and the women all have a chance at reentry into a normal life. The men who weren’t arrested will start over, too.” Rio put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  Abi sighed. Rio was right. It would have to be okay. Because she was done and she had to start over. Even if it meant she was going to be without Keith. She’d all but got down on her knees and begged him not to leave her when he’d broken up with her at the quarry. Broken up? They’d barely had a chance to enjoy their newfound love. The hope of a future had withered three times as quickly as it had blossomed.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow, right?” Rio referred to Silver Valley Police Department’s social event of the decade. The wedding of Colt Todd to Claudia Michele.

  “Of course.” It would be her last officially related function she’d attend. After that, no more law enforcement unless Trail Hikers needed her on an extraordinary case.

  “He’ll come around, you know.” At Rio’s words she straightened her spine.

  “No, he won’t.” She didn’t bother to ask Rio how he knew so much about her and Keith. Keith’s sister Kayla was engaged to Rio, after all. “And it’s okay, Rio. I’m on to the next chapter in my life. It would have been great if Keith wanted to join me, but, well...” Her throat constricted and she swiped at the tears on her lashes.

  Rio put his hand on her shoulder. “Hang in there, Abi.”

  She’d hang in there, all right. She was going to throw herself into her reliable new love, Silver Valley Adventures. And do her best to accomplish the impossible: let go of the one man she’d ever loved so completely.

  * * *

  Keith stared at the fire department’s work schedule on his phone as he waited for Rio in the diner. He still couldn’t make heads or tails of it and it had nothing to do with the small screen.

  Go to her.

  Abi’s face as he’d walked away from her in the quarry had haunted him for the past month. But no matter how many times he went over it, he came to the same conclusion.

  If he loved Abi, he had to let her go.

  It made sense on paper but the hole in his heart was still screaming, still raw. He didn’t want Abi to ever feel like this. Out of control, unable to protect the one she loved.

  “Hey, bro.” Rio settled into the bench across from his in the red leather booth.

  “What’s so important that I had to meet you here with only hours before Chief Todd’s wedding?” Keith didn’t feel a need to hide his annoyance from Rio, the man who’d seen him at his worst and in fact had saved his firefighting career last year. Without Rio acting like a bulldog with the couple who had brought the negligence charges against him, Keith might still be out of a job.

  “You’ve been pouting for the last month, Keith. Time to man up and go after the woman who’s got your heart.”

  Keith felt like steam was coming out of his ears. “Leave it, Rio. None of your damned business.”

  “Oh, but it is. You see, my beloved, your sister, is distraught that you’re keeping yourself from the love of your life. She’s got it in her head that your stubbornness is going to cost you everything.”

  “Answer me this, Rio. How do you promise my sister to love her forever when you can be taken out at any time? When you go to work each day not knowing if you’ll come home?”

  Rio sat back and looked at him. “You’re kidding. You really don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?” Keith wondered if the diner’s AC was broken. He felt hot and cold and clammy at the same time.

  “It’s because I know how precious life is that I’m giving it all to Kayla. And besides, man, it’s her choice. I’m just damned grateful she said yes.”

  The diner door’s bells jingled as more customers poured in; the sound of clanging pots and clinking plates roared in Keith’s ears as he stared at Rio and absorbed his words. But all Keith heard was his heart pounding in his throat.

  Rio didn’t appear to notice that Keith was in the middle of the most important realization of his life as he waved a waitress over and asked for coffee.

  Keith reached for his wallet and pulled out a bill. He slapped it on the table as he got out of the booth. “It’s on me. I’ve got to go.”

  Rio’s expression turned from stunned to delighted. As Keith pulled open the diner door he heard his friend’s shout. “Finally!”

  * * *

  “Dang it.” Abi used her eye makeup remover to take off the sloppy job she’d done with the black liner. Her hands were shaking the way they did when she had to do something she absolutely did not want to. Today she had to go to a wedding of all things and face the one man she wished she’d be spending the rest of her life with. Instead they’d be like strangers, as if they had no connection.

  Pounding on her front door stilled her. She forced herself to calm down and not overreact, but it was difficult. Her instincts were always trained to assume danger lurked around every corner. Her bare feet relished the cool hardwood floor as she padded down the hallway and looked through the windows that framed the front door.

  Keith. She’d know his frame, his shape, his bearing anywhere.

  Opening the door with more calm than she thought possible, Trail Hikers training be damned, she pasted a smile on her half-made-up face. “Keith.”

  “Hi, Abi.” He was in a T-shirt and old jeans, his hands in his pockets. “Do you have a minute?”

  “That’s about all I have. The wedding is in less than two hours, and I’m supposed to help with greeting the guests. Come on in.” She didn’t wait to see if he followed her but instead went to the kitchen. “Want a glass of water?”

  “I didn’t come here for water, Abi.”

  “It’s been a month, Keith. No phone call, no texts, not even an email. And now you want to talk?” She pointedly swept her gaze over his disheveled appearance. “When we both need to get ready for the wedding?”

  He actually looked chagrined, regretful. “That’s on me. I’m sorry. You’re right—I should have come sooner.”

  She eased her back against the counter and crossed her arms. “Well, you’re here. Go ahead and say whatever you need to.” Abi didn’t think her heart could hear his crappy excuses for why he couldn’t be with her again, but, whatever. “Wait—is this so that you’ll feel comfortable at the wedding? Did you come here to do some kind of firefighter damage control, so that I don’t make a scene in front of our friends?”

  His fingers on her lips silenced her. He leaned in and she smelled him. Soap and firehouse. The promise of sex, and more. The warmth from his fingers radiated down to the place between her legs, where she pulsed for Keith.

  “I’m here to ask you one thing, Abi.”

  She shook her head and pushed his hand away from her mouth. “I can’t do this again, Keith.” She’d barely started to breathe again without her heart hurting.

  “Abi. I didn’t give you the one thing I thought I would never take from you. Your own choice. By trying to protect you, what I was really doing was controlling you. I was trying to control what’s between us, to save both of us from potential hurt in the future. That’s not possible. And I can’t live without you.”

  “You’re just realizing that now?”

 
“I’m a slow learner.” The ghost of a grin etched hard lines in his face. “Tell me, Abi. If you had a choice to accept the risk of losing me each day, and allowing me to accept the fact that I could lose you during one of your Trail Hikers missions, would you do it?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not doing Trail Hikers ops anymore.”

  “You will, Abi. You have to. You know it. And I want you to do it. And I want to be the one there for you when you come home.”

  She wanted to believe him. So badly.

  “You’ll let me make my choice about being with you? You won’t take it back again? Because I can’t handle it again, Keith. If you’re asking me if we can start again, you’d better mean it this time.”

  He stepped closer, only inches from her, and cupped her face with his hands. “Abi, please forgive me for being so blindingly stupid. For putting you and putting us through this past month of hell. Can you forgive me?”

  She fought to keep her eyes open and on him, instead of closing them and pressing her lips against his like she wanted to. “I forgive you, Keith. If you ever pull a stunt like this again—”

  His lips silenced her and Abi couldn’t pretend to hold back or deny what she’d missed for the past month. What her whole life had led up to. Being with Keith.

  He kissed her with his lips, his tongue, but more, with his heart. When he lifted his head she had no doubt he’d come back to her. For good.

  “Aren’t you going to the wedding, too?” Her breath was a whisper. All she wanted was to be with him.

  “Yes. But there’s something I have to take care of first.” He kissed her again and pulled her pelvis up against his. Her breath stopped at the feel of his hard length.

  “Keith, we have no more than thirty minutes before I have to be out the door. And you need a suit, don’t you?”

  “It’s in my car.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. “I’ve had a real bed delivered since the last time.”

  * * *

  Abi sat with Keith on the right side of the wedding seating in the refurbished barn, near the back. She’d been shooed from her role as guest-greeter by Kayla as soon as Rio had spotted Abi and Keith together, holding hands.

  His firm thigh was pressed against hers, his body heat a potent reminder of what they’d shared only an hour ago. Abi smoothed down the skirt of her fit-and-flare pink dress as she wiggled her painted toes in the silver, glittery sandals that matched her clutch. She hadn’t had an occasion to dress up in too long, and wanted to make a break from her usual professional clothing. Make it clear to everyone, but especially herself, that she was beginning a new chapter in her life. A new business, a new home—she’d transferred her rental lease to a mortgage. And now she had the one man she wanted to share it all with. To start anew with.

  “Hey, sexy.” Keith’s voice thrummed in her ear.

  “Aren’t you on the wrong side of the aisle? You’re a friend of the groom.”

  “And the bride. Remember, Claudia read me into TH, too.” He whispered this into her ear, too, bared by her updo. The single tendril the hairdresser had artfully twirled near her ear vibrated with Keith’s breath.

  “Not the place for it, Paruso.”

  His hand grasped hers and she nearly jumped out of her seat. She hissed. “Not the time for it, Paruso.”

  Keith stood, refusing to let go of her hand. “Walk with me, Abigail. We’ve got twenty minutes before Colt and Claudia get hitched.”

  Abigail. He’d called her Abigail. It sounded like the sweetest music on his lips.

  Abi allowed Keith to lead her out the barn’s side door into the bright morning sunshine that reflected in the budding trees and fields that lay before them. The barn was historic and from the ridge on which it lay all of Silver Valley was visible.

  She turned to him, relishing the love in his eyes. For her. She’d be happy to drown in their ocean-blue depths. “How lucky are we, Keith?”

  He lifted her chin. “I’m the lucky one, Abi. Blessed.”

  “Keith.” A whisper.

  As she met his gaze she found that she wasn’t drowning in their depths, she was awash in...light. Laughter. Love. The promise of more. Tomorrow’s hope.

  “I love you, Abigail Redland. I was a fool to walk away from you. When I saw you down in that damned quarry and didn’t know if you’d made it, I came unglued. And I know that’s what I’m asking you to go through every damned time I walk into a burning building. But I can’t live without you, Abi, and I don’t want to.”

  She stared at this man who came off so tough, because he was tough. Sexy, because he was sexy. Loving...because he was lovable. Her man.

  “Paruso, you are a fool. You think because you showed up here in this killer suit—” she fingered the lapels of his lapis-blue jacket “—and put some gel in your hair—” she mussed his short locks with her fingers “—that I’m going to go all to jelly and agree to your...what is it that you’re proposing, exactly?”

  “You know damned well, Abigail.” His eyes burned with need. “I want you in my bed, in my life, next to me for the rest of eternity. You and me. Together.”

  He got to one knee and took her hand. With his other hand he held up a small velvet box. “How did you do this so quickly?”

  “The Silver Valley jeweler’s a high school classmate. I wanted to do this at your place, but we got distracted. Now may I continue?”

  “Yes.”

  “Abigail Redland, will you be my wife? Will you agree to be true to yourself, do whatever job you want to do and know I will always do my best to come home safe and sound each day to you?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times, yes. I love you, Keith. You’re my firefighter.”

  She wrapped her arms around him as he pulled her to him and his lips met hers with complete command, desire and love.

  * * * * *

  If you loved this novel,

  don’t miss other suspenseful titles in the

  SILVER VALLEY P.D. miniseries:

  HER SECRET CHRISTMAS AGENT

  HER CHRISTMAS PROTECTOR

  WEDDING TAKEDOWN

  Available now from Harlequin Romantic Suspense!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from

  COVERT KISSES by Jane Godman

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  Covert Kisses

  by Jane Godman

 
Chapter 1

  Take his breath away.

  That was her one and only aim for this first encounter, and Laurie Carter had three things working in her favor as she kept the target in her sights.

  First, there was the understated designer swimsuit that molded itself to her curves, while also cleverly drawing attention to the length of her legs.

  Then there was the fact that she was wading ashore onto his private lakeside property. As he sprang to his feet from the rock where he had been sitting gazing out across the water, no doubt he was about to point that fact out to her. Laurie did a rapid check, reconciling this man’s physical attributes with the photographs she had carefully memorized. Dark, wavy hair, swept back from a broad brow and worn slightly long so that it curled onto his neck. Deep-set eyes above high, Slavic cheekbones. A hawk-like nose and lips that were contrastingly full. She had the right man. There was no mistaking him. Tall and powerfully built, he moved toward her with the grace of an athlete, a frown line pulling his dark eyebrows together.

  Judging the distance between them to perfection, Laurie waited until he was close enough. As she fell into a pretend faint, she saw shock and something more register in the hazel depths of Cameron Delaney’s eyes. Advantage number three was always going to be the one that clinched it. As his reflexes kicked in and he scooped her up into his arms, Laurie let her head flop back, allowing him a clear view of her face.

  His exhalation was an audible hiss. Mission accomplished. The fact that she was trespassing on his land had been the thing that made him notice her. The swimsuit had drawn his attention to her curves and kept him looking. Neither of those things had succeeded in driving the breath from his lungs. That had been achieved for one reason only...because she was the mirror image of his dead girlfriend.

  * * *

  Pure adrenaline fired through Cameron Delaney’s nerve endings as he gazed down at the head resting against his arm. It’s not her. His head insisted on repeating that mantra, even as his heart tried to tell him a different story. Her eyes were closed, so he was free to drink in the features he thought he’d never see again.