by Cindy Gerard
Tears pooled in her eyes and he realized she was still afraid of this. “How can you know that? You don’t even know me.”
“Val . . . I’ve known you all my life.”
She shook her head. “You know ‘Valentina’. You know a face in a magazine. A sound bite. A commercial. You fell in love with a media image.”
“I fell in lust with an image. But I fell in love with the woman. A strong, compassionate woman. A woman who’s been through hell and came through it like a warrior.”
She gave him a sad smile. “Why do you have to be so good at that? At making me want to believe?”
It hurt that she was fighting this. Fighting against believing not only in him, but in herself. He thought he knew why, but he asked anyway. “So what’s stopping you?”
She turned her head away and stared at the ceiling. “I’ve made so many mistakes in my life, Luke.”
The turmoil in her voice broke his heart. “And you think I’m a mistake?”
“No,” she said quickly and turned back to him, her eyes searching. “But if I let myself love you and you end up walking away, I don’t think I’ll be able to recover this time.”
His heart beat wildly with a rush of tenderness and relief and optimism. Her admission was as close to a profession of love as he could wish for.
“Then problem solved—because I’m not walking anywhere.
“Look,” he said as the doubt in her eyes fought the transition to hope, “as little as seven days ago, I was ready to walk away from everything. The job. Who I was . . . hell, who I wasn’t and what I’d become. And then you came into my life—and life had meaning again.
“You’re my heartbeat, Val. You’re my reason for being the man I need to be. With you, anything’s possible. Without you . . . without you, I’m not the man I want to be.”
Her tears fell freely now.
“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I can’t tell you that your schedule and my job aren’t going to give us some problems. But I am telling you, with everything that I am, that I will never, ever walk away from you.”
He lowered the side rail so he could get closer.
“Look in my eyes, Val. My heart is there. My promise is there. Let yourself believe.”
“I do,” she finally whispered, and with her smile, he saw the tension drain out of her body and the trust slip in. “God help me, I do.”
His own eyes burned as he crawled carefully into bed beside her. “God help us both, Angelface.” He settled against her warmth and drew her against him. “Because I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be in for one helluva ride.”
Epilogue
Val stood behind Luke watching him deal cards around the poker table in the Tompkinses’ game room. He’d clamped an unlit cigar between his teeth; a green dealer’s visor sat jauntily on his forehead. She’d watched Crystal, Johnny, Rafe, Gabe, and Gabe’s wife, Jenna’s, stacks of poker chips dwindle substantially over the past hour, while Luke’s now spilled onto the table in front of him.
She shook her head and glanced around the table.
“You all know he’s cheating, right?”
Rafe tossed his cards facedown onto the green felt. “It’s his thing. He gets real pouty if we don’t let him beat us. I fold, by the way.”
Completely unruffled, Luke flipped a five-dollar chip into the pot. “One, I’m right here and I can hear every word you say. Two, I don’t have to cheat to beat you amateurs. And three”—he grinned across the table at Val—“whatever happened to ‘stand by your man’?”
“Look at him,” Reed said, “all cocky and smug now that he’s got his own woman.”
“In or out, people?” Luke fanned his index finger impatiently over the edge of the deck. “I’m growing roots here, waiting for you all to decide to stay or fold.”
“In.” Jenna Jones counted out three chips and shoved them toward the growing pot. “I’ll call your bet and raise you ten bucks. Baby needs a new pair of shoes.”
“Too rich for my blood.” Gabe tossed his cards on top of Rafe’s and pushed away from the table. He leaned down and pressed his lips against the gentle rise of his wife’s abdomen. “Don’t let Mommy gamble away your college fund.”
The beautiful redhead reached up absently and caressed her husband’s cheek. “Come on, Tink. Let’s take this chump to the cleaners.”
“Disrespect,” Luke lamented. “All I ever get from these people is disrespect.”
“So how are you adjusting to life in the circus?”
Val smiled at Ann Tompkins when she walked up beside her. “Ringling Brothers has nothing on this crew.”
Val had liked Ann and Robert Tompkins immediately when Luke had introduced them. Val’s celebrity generally garnered one of two reactions from people who, like the Tompkinses, were in power positions: They either groveled or they postured, and both made her uncomfortable.
The Tompkinses had done neither. They’d simply made her feel at home in their lovely Virginia home. They were sincere, open, and clearly loved the entire team they’d welcomed into their hearts and home after their son Bryan had died.
The reasons for gathering them all together this Labor Day weekend were many, babies being the recurring theme.
The gentle affection that tough Gabe Jones showed Jenna, who was due in December, brought tears to Val’s eyes. She was completely taken with the beautiful redheaded journalist, and they’d already talked about the possibility of Jenna doing a piece on the bush wives of Sierra Leone—a project that would bring renewed attention to Val’s cause.
Sophie and Wyatt “Papa Bear” Savage were an interesting couple. The soft-spoken Georgian had struck Val immediately as a gentleman. She still had difficulty reconciling the combat stories Luke had told her about Wyatt with the man bouncing his six-month-old daughter, Mariah, on his knee and with his loving acceptance of his adopted daughter, Hope. The same could be said for Sam Lang. He was a dark, intense man whose face transitioned to light and indulgence when he looked at his wife, Abbie, and their children, Thomas, almost a year old, and two-year-old Bryan, named after their fallen brother.
Yes, she thought again, the BOIs were quite a crew. Even Nate had come, although his wife, Juliana, had not been able to join them, disappointing everyone. Val had heard so much about Juliana, she was looking forward to meeting her.
The only BOI absent from the party was Joe. And his absence had thrown a bit of a pall on the otherwise festive gathering. She glanced toward the open French doors that led to the patio. Nate was out there, deep in conversation with Ann and Robert’s daughter, Stephanie.
“Steph and Joe kind of have a thing going,” Luke had confided when she’d asked him what was going on. “But since Sierra Leone, he’s pretty much dropped out of sight. No one knows what’s going on with him. It’s working on her.”
It was working on all of them. Val could tell that all the guys were concerned about Joe. Something had happened to him in Sierra Leone. Something cold and dark that was clearly eating at his soul.
“Hey, Tink,” Reed called to his wife. He’d given up on the poker game and was cradling the little pink bundle that was Mariah Savage in his arms. “Look how cute she is. I think I want one. S’pose we can stop by Walmart and pick up one just like her?”
Crystal glanced up from her cards and gave her husband a look. “Three o’clock feedings. Smelly diapers. Responsibility.”
“Oh. Right,” Johnny said with a thoughtful look. “I’d have to grow up.” He kissed the baby’s little pink cheek and handed her back to her mother. “So . . . who wants a beer?”
“How much did you take them for?” Val asked as Luke sank down on the sofa beside her a little while later.
The game had just broken up. She was keeping an eye on little Thomas while Sam and Abbie put Bryan to bed.
“Fifty and change,” he said, looking put out. “Crystal rallied or it would have been closer to a hundred.”
“You’re a shameless hustler,” she said wi
th a grin.
“I’m also incredibly horny,” he said as if he was announcing that he was hungry or thirsty or tired. “What do you suppose we ought to do about that?”
She laughed. “Not in front of the children.”
“He’s a cute little pork chop, isn’t he?” Luke stroked his big hand over Thomas’s curling brown hair as he toddled by, dragging a tattered blue blanket and leaving little handprints all over Ann’s glass-topped coffee table. “You ever think about making one of these?”
His question was light, but the look in his eyes told her that her answer was very important to him. And the fact was, she had been thinking about it lately. She’d been thinking about it a lot.
“Might be nice if we were married first.”
His eyes warmed and he lifted her hand to study the pearl engagement ring he’d given her last week. Because of her abhorrence of the Sierra Leone diamond trade, he’d known better than to buy her diamonds. “You say the word, I’m there, Angelface. My mom’s been waiting a long time for some woman to make an honest man out of me.”
As men went, they didn’t get more honest than Luke Colter. Val smiled. “Then let’s work on that.”
Just as Luke leaned in to kiss her, little Thomas let out a squeal.
Luke laughed and picked him up. “Hey, little man. Not cool to ruin the moment when a guy’s putting a move on his best girl.”
A flood of tenderness and love swamped her as she watched this big, strong man hold that precious little boy with such gentle care.
“Oh, man. Now I’m horny,” she whispered.
Luke grinned and baby high-fived Thomas. “I take back what I just said to you, Thomas. You are now officially my wingman.”
Luke had sprung for a five-star hotel for their last night in the States. Tomorrow morning they would say their final good-byes to the Tompkinses. He’d head back to B.A. with the team, and Val had a late flight for a photo shoot in L.A. He planned to meet up with her there later in the week and take her to meet his parents. His mom was already baking. His dad, well, he had no doubt that Val would win over his father.
In the meantime, tonight was all about them. The hotel room was dark and cool. The bedding was sumptuous and lush—like the naked woman catching her breath beside him.
“I have so missed that fedora,” she said stretching her arms above her head and arching her back like a satisfied cat. “Thank you for that.”
“My pleasure.”
She’d reminded him a couple of days ago how sexy she thought he looked in that hat, so he’d dug it out. When she’d walked out of the bathroom after getting ready for bed, he’d been waiting for her, stretched out on the sheets wearing nothing but the fedora and a smile.
After she stopped laughing, he’d gotten lucky. Real lucky.
He propped himself up on an elbow and looked at the source of all that good luck.
She was so freaking beautiful. Her dark hair spilled across the pillow, a long tangle of silk. Her eyes were slumberous and a deep, melting brown as he trailed a fingertip slowly between her breasts, where her heartbeat thrummed in the aftermath of their lovemaking.
He leaned in and kissed her there, where her skin was hot and salty and damp, and knew that he would love her with his dying breath.
“Think we’ll ever get tired of this?” he whispered against her breast, then smiled when a shiver of arousal rippled through her body.
“Not a chance,” she said on a husky laugh. “As long as you keep the fedora, we’re golden.”
Turn the page for
a sneak preview of
the final novel in the
exciting Black Ops., Inc. series!
Last Man Standing
by
Cindy Gerard
Coming in early 2012
Freetown, Sierra Leone
Joe Green was as good as dead. He’d known it the moment he’d started digging for answers to questions no one wanted asked.
What he hadn’t known was the magnitude of the havoc his hunt would create.
What he hadn’t wanted was for the priest to die.
The teenage boy standing beside him was frozen in horror.
“No, man. Oh, man. You—”
“Quiet,” Joe snapped.
Pale candlelight cast his and Suah’s shadows in tall, wavy relief along the far wall of Sacred Heart Cathedral.
On the stone altar floor in front of them, crimson blood pooled beneath the priest’s head and crept around the base of the chancel rail before spilling down the single step that elevated the altar.
The barrel of Joe’s SIG was still hot as he tucked it into his waistband at the small of his back. He dropped to a knee and pressed his fingers to the cleric’s neck.
There was no pulse.
Just as there was no life in the eyes that stared at the ornate stained-glass windows depicting the Stations of the Cross in bold, saturated colors.
“Is he—?”
Joe swallowed heavily. “Dead.”
Penitence, self-disgust, and defeat pounded through his veins, reminding him that what he had started would come to no good end.
Jesus. Ends don’t come much worse than this.
He glanced up, beyond ornate gold candlesticks placed on the white cloth draping the high altar, above the yards of maroon velvet cascading beneath an alcove that held a life-size statue of a benevolent Christ cloaked in white robes and surrounded by a sunset sky.
God help me . . . what have I done?
The thick wooden doors at the front of the cathedral swung open with an echoing thud. He whipped his head around. Several uniformed officers stormed into the nave. The police—Freetown’s bastion of corrupt law enforcement—had arrived in force, ending any hope of a quick search of the cleric’s body.
“Hide before they spot you,” he whispered urgently when Suah stood petrified in fear. “Duck under the high altar. Now!”
He shot to his feet and gave the boy a shove as the gunmen raced down the center aisle between the worn wooden pews. Satisfied that the kid was well hidden beneath the altar cloth, Joe made certain the men got a glimpse of him, then sprinted for the sacristy, leading them away from Suah.
He got as far as the epistle door. It swung open and the rattle of rifles being shouldered and the snick-click of a dozen safeties switching to off position greeted him. The beams of as many flashlights temporarily blinded him.
He was surrounded.
“Hands in the air,” a voice shouted from behind him. Slowly, he did as he was told. Slower still, he turned around and stared into the dark, angry faces of the officers who had passed the priest’s body to get to him.
Without warning, the butt end of an assault rifle swung around hard and slammed into his temple.
He fell to all fours, fighting screaming pain and the hard pull of unconsciousness. Yeah—he was as good as dead.
Then darkness sucked him under.
Fort Meade, Maryland
Two weeks earlier
The last thing Stephanie Tompkins needed was for him to show up tonight. Joe knew that. Yet here he was, drawn like a storm-battered ship to the welcome waters of a calm homeport.
It was so not fair to her, but he just couldn’t leave without seeing her one last time. Possibly the very last time, if this high-stakes game ended the way he suspected it would.
He walked slowly along the third-floor hallway, then stopped in front of her apartment door. It was going on midnight. She’d be asleep. And he was going to wake her to tell her something that was going to kill her.
Hell, just thinking about it was killing him. But he couldn’t check out on her without saying good-bye. And lie through his teeth while he did it.
Swallowing the rock of guilt lodged in his throat, he shoved his fingertips into his hip pockets and stared down at his boots while he screwed up some courage. Melting snow clung to his soles; he’d left slushy tracks on the tiled hallway. Like he was going to leave tracks all over her heart.
His
hand was cold when he finally lifted it and, after a heart-thumping hesitation, gave the door a soft rap.
Maybe she’d be lucky and wouldn’t be home. Maybe she’d gone to visit her parents in Virginia for the weekend and would escape dealing with the shitstorm he was about to dump on her. Maybe he should just turn the hell around and crawl back into his hole.
His heart kicked up when he heard movement inside the apartment. The soft whisper of footsteps. A tentative turn of the doorknob before she slowly opened up as far as the safety chain allowed and peered into the hall.
“Hi,” he said with a clipped nod when he met the surprise in her soft brown eyes.
Everything about Steph was soft. Her lush, curvy body. Her generous smile. Her nature, which made a hard man like him want to play white knight and save her from the dragons of the world that could hurt her.
But tonight he was the dragon. A fire-breathing, breath-stealing, soul-defeating dragon. And he was going to hurt her bad.
Someone should knock him senseless for doing it. If Bryan was alive, he’d damn sure kick his sorry ass from here to the next zip code. Her brother wouldn’t even let him within shouting distance of his kid sister.
But Bry was dead. A lump welled up in his throat. Even fifteen years later, Bry’s death was the reason Joe didn’t sleep most nights. It was also the reason he had to tell Stephanie good-bye.
“Joe.” Relief, happiness, and concern colored her tone. “Hold on.”
She shut the door, unhooked the chain, then swung it open again.
Her long sable hair, bed-mussed and fragrant, tumbled around her face and fell softly on shoulders. She’d hastily wrapped up in her short blue robe. The loose folds of silk exposed warm, sleep-flushed skin, the generous curve of a breast. She was gorgeous, sexy, spellbinding. Yet as beautiful as she was, it was her eyes that always got to him. Those soulful, deep brown eyes were open windows to her heart as she stood searching his face.
So many emotions. So little guile. And no defenses at all against the pain he was about to lay on her.