by Addison Fox
Capable.
And no one to mess with.
It made the warm eyes and sexy smile that much more powerful. Like she’d tempted him just the slightest bit to go against character.
“You mentioned closing out a busy year to that guy. You don’t work here?”
“This is my parents’ store. I grew up working here and can still be counted on to take a shift every now and again.”
“This place is a Whisperwood institution.”
She laughed at that, the description not quite how she’d have classified a small town corner store. “One they know about all the way up in Austin?”
“My family’s here in Whisperwood. I grew up here and Mr. Reeves could always be counted on for a summer popsicle or a late night cup of coffee. I just came down for the evening for a family Christmas party and to put my dog at risk of my niece and her Legos.”
She glanced at the clock and thought that eight was awfully early for an evening family party to end, but held the thought. Maybe they started early or maybe the kids had to go to bed. But...it raised questions.
“How long have you been a part of the APD?”
“I went in straight out of college, so a few years now. I’ve wanted K-9, and Alex is my first opportunity.”
She did the quick math, estimating he was about four or five years younger than her. The thought was briefly unsettling—she usually went for older guys—but there was something about him that made the question of age seem more arbitrary than anything else.
Perhaps you’ve been looking in the wrong places, Bellamy Reeves.
Catching herself staring, she refocused on Alex. “You’re responsible for his training?”
“A good part of it. There’s a formal program for the entire K-9 team and their handlers, but we’re paired. He lives with me and works with me.”
She glanced down at the now-sleeping puppy and considered what that must be like. Fun, in a way, but what a responsibility. “What will he be able to do?”
“Once he’s fully trained? He’ll run the gamut on what he can find, including humans, drugs and bombs.”
“Wow.”
As she eyed the jean-clad form that even now leaned against her counter, she had to admit Donovan Colton made an impressive figure. And it wasn’t just his body, though she could hardly deny that she found him attractive.
Wow was right.
There was an intensity about him. Some indefinable quality that intrigued her.
He was interesting. And she’d often found the opposite of attractive men, especially if her sister’s long list of past boyfriends was any indication. It was as if somehow masculine features, a firm jaw and a sparkling smile negated any sense of humanity or interest in the world around them.
But not this guy.
“The K-9 team is designed to work across cases so we can go where we’re needed. There are six others in the APD. Alex and I will make seven.”
“It’s impressive. And while he’s obviously got great promise, you’ve got a big year ahead of you. I wish you the best.”
“Thanks.” Donovan’s gaze dropped toward the sleeping puppy before lifting back to her. “So if you don’t work here, what do you do?”
“I’m an employee at Lone Star Pharmaceutical. I’m just helping out here since my parents had plans tonight.”
“LSP. That’s impressive. Are you a chemist or something?”
“No, I’m in finance.” Ignoring the whisper through her mind of Maggie’s continued admonitions to showcase herself in the best light, Bellamy pressed on. “They’re wise to keep me away from beakers. Other than warming things up in a microwave, I avoid anything that involves cooking or open flames.”
“Maybe I should consider inviting you to dinner, then, instead of risking you making anything behind that counter for me.”
“Maybe.”
“What time do you get off tonight?”
“I close up at ten and this is small town Texas. Nothing’s open then.”
“What about next week?”
“Sure. I—” She broke off when a distracted air came over his face, his hand dropping to the phone clipped at the waist of his jeans.
“I’m sorry. I’m getting a dispatch.”
He excused himself and moved around the counter toward the door, his gaze morphing from friendly and sexy to straight cop.
Alex stirred, his senses on immediate alert at the emotional change in the atmosphere. He was on his feet and scrambling toward Donovan in a heartbeat. When he reached Donovan, he sat immediately, his little body arrow straight.
Bellamy marveled at it, the ease and trust she could already see between the two of them. If the dog was this responsive to training at ten weeks, she couldn’t imagine what he’d become once fully grown.
The low tenor of Donovan’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. Something had happened. Something bad, if his clipped responses were any indication.
“I’m sorry. I have to go. Can we take a rain check on that dinner?”
“Of course.”
The sexy cop and his trusty sidekick were out of the store as fast as they came in and for several moments, Bellamy simply stood and watched the door where they’d disappeared, wondering if the evening had actually happened.
It was only when she got the call a half hour later that she knew the exact accident Donovan Colton was called to. And that the people he’d helped pull from two tons of wreckage were her parents.
Chapter One
The last strains of “Jingle Bells” faded out, giving way to “All I Want for Christmas Is You” as Bellamy Reeves clicked the last email in her inbox. Despite the multicolored lights she’d hung in her office and the music she’d determinedly turned on each morning and kept on low throughout the day, nothing seemed to get her in the holiday spirit.
Losing both parents over the summer had left a hole in her life and in her heart. She’d braced herself, of course, well aware the holidays would be a challenge. But even with the knowledge the season wouldn’t be the same, she’d diligently clung to the belief she could find some sense of joy, somewhere.
How wrong she’d been.
The days seemed to drag, no matter how busy she made herself, and her job at Lone Star Pharmaceutical—a job she’d worked hard at for several years—couldn’t fill the gaps.
“One more email,” she whispered to herself on a resigned sigh. “I’ll do the last one and cut out early.”
The company was estimated to finish out the year with stellar earnings, and management had given everyone an extra day of comp time as a reward for all the hard work. Most people had used the time to go shopping for presents in nearby Austin or to take in the pretty decorations scattered throughout downtown Whisperwood. She’d done none of those things, not up for walking the sidewalks and making small talk with her fellow townsfolk.
Which had also meant she was still sitting on the extra time. Perhaps an afternoon off would provide a chance to recharge and shake the malaise that seemed determined to hover around her shoulders.
She missed her parents terribly, but it was also the first holiday in more than she could remember that wasn’t encumbered by illness. Her father’s loss of mobility five years before had taken a toll on all of them and her life had been filled with pill bottles, a wheelchair and ramps throughout the house, and bouts of belligerence that telegraphed DJ Reeves’s frustration with his body’s betrayal.
It hardly spoke well of her, that she was relieved that stage of life had passed, but in her quiet moments of honest reflection she could admit it was true.
Illness. Suffering. And an endless sort of wasting away that stole the joy out of life. All of it had affected her mother as surely as her father’s loss of mobility in the accident had decimated his. Where her mother ha
d once found joy in simple pleasures—gardening or cooking or even a glass of wine—watching her husband deteriorate had caused a matched response. Ginny Reeves had wasted away as surely as her husband had and nothing Bellamy had tried could coax her out of it.
The kidney failure that finally stole him from them in June had been the final straw for her mother. Her mental health had deteriorated rapidly after that, and the heart attack that took her in late July had almost seemed unavoidable.
“And here I am, right back to maudlin and depressed,” she whispered to herself as she reached for the bottle of water she kept perpetually refilled on her desk.
The water had been another nod to health, her recognition of mortality—a fact of life with her parents, and an equally relevant fact of life working for a pharmaceutical company. Lone Star Pharmaceutical had hired her out of college and she’d steadily worked her way up through the ranks, responsible for any number of financial projects. For the past two years, she’d been part of the team that managed the costs to bring new drugs to market and had honed her skills around price elasticity, working with insurance companies and ensuring LSP had a place on doctors’ prescription lists.
The role had been meant for her, honing her accounting knowledge and expanding her contribution to the overall business and its bottom line. She’d loved LSP already, but coupled with the professional advancement, her employer had also been understanding of her family situation. They’d allowed for flexible scheduling when she’d needed it and hadn’t asked her to curtail the care and attention her parents needed.
She’d met enough people in waiting rooms at the hospital to know that flexibility was a gift beyond measure. The fact she’d also had an opportunity to still be considered for and receive promotions had cemented her sense of loyalty to LSP that was impossible to shake.
The company was a good one, with a focus on making life better for its consumers, its employees and even the community where it made its home—Whisperwood, Texas. Their CEO, Sutton Taylor, was a longtime resident and had stated on many occasions how important it was to him that his company have the same deep roots as he did.
Deep Texas roots, he usually clarified with a wink and a smile.
She couldn’t hold back a faint smile of her own at the image of Sutton Taylor, standing tall in his suit and cowboy boots, proudly telling the employees how strong their year-end numbers looked. It wouldn’t bring her parents back, but she could at least take some small joy in knowing she’d worked hard and contributed to a job well-done.
Satisfied she might leave the office on a glimmer of a bright note, Bellamy returned to her email, determined to tackle the last one before leaving for the afternoon.
The missive still bold because it was unread, Bellamy scanned the subject line, registering the odd description. RE: Vaccine Normalization.
Normalization of what?
The sender said INTERNAL, a company address she didn’t immediately recognize, but she clicked anyway. A quick scan of the header information didn’t show a named sender, either, nor was there anyone in the “To” list. Intrigued, Bellamy leaned forward, searching for anything that resembled usable details to describe what she was looking at.
Was it a virus?
That subject never failed to make her smile, the fact they had a department that battled real viruses housed in the same location as one who battled the digital kind. The humor quickly gave way to the sobering details that filled the content of the note.
Bellamy caught the subject in snatches, the words practically blurring as she processed the odd, bulleted sentences.
LSP’s virus vaccine, AntiFlu, will be distributed in limited quantities, with release schedule held in the strictest confidence.
Quantities are throttled to highest bidder, with market pricing increased to match quantity scarcity.
Management of egg supply has been secured.
If those points weren’t bad enough, the closing lines of the email left no question as to what she was reading.
Lone Star Pharma has a zero-tolerance policy for discounted distribution of AntiFlu for the annual flu season. There will be no acceptance of annual contract prices with existing accounts.
Bellamy reread the email once, then again, the various details spiking her thoughts in different directions.
Throttled availability? Controlled pricing? Fixed scarcity?
And the fact there was mention of the egg supply—the incubation engine for production of the vaccine—was shocking.
What was this?
She read the note once more before scrolling back up to review the header details. The sender was veiled, but it did originate from an LSP email address.
Who would send this to her? And worse, why would anyone possibly want to keep the very product they created for the public’s good out of that same public’s hands? She knew for a fact they had more than enough flu vaccine for the season. She also knew the scientific team had followed the CDC’s guidelines for which strains of flu needed to be included.
She scrolled through the details once more, daring the words to change and prove her interpretation incorrect. But one more reread, or one hundred more, wasn’t going to change the information housed in the email.
If this email was to be believed, the company she loved and believed in had turned to some dark and illegal practices.
* * *
“WELCOME BACK TO WHISPERWOOD, Alex. Quintessential small town Texas, from the tippy top of the big white gazebo smack in the middle of the town square, to the string of shops on Main Street.”
Donovan Colton glanced over at his companion as he passed the gazebo and turned from Maple onto Main, unsurprised when he didn’t receive a pithy response or even acknowledgment of his comment. As a matter of course, he’d have been more concerned if he had received a response.
His large black Lab possessed many talents, but a speaking voice wasn’t one of them.
What Alex—short for Alexander the Great—did have was a nose that could sniff out explosive materials and he knew exactly how to translate that knowledge back to Donovan so he could in turn secure help. The fact Alex had several hundred million scent receptors in his nose—and had been trained almost since birth to use them in support of police work—meant Donovan had a powerful partner in their work to capture the bad guys.
It also helped he got along far better with his canine partner than he ever would have with a real live human one.
Donovan had been an animal lover since he was small. His various chores around the Colton ranch never seemed like chores if an animal was involved. Whether it was horse duty, mucking stalls or collecting eggs from the coops, he hadn’t cared or seen any of it as work, so long as he got to spend time with the furry and the feathered Coltons who shared space on the large ranch that sprawled at the far west end of Whisperwood.
That love ran ever deeper to any number of mutts who had called the Colton ranch home.
Just like me, Donovan added to himself, the thought a familiar one.
Shaking it off, he focused on the gorgeous dog next to him. Donovan had loved each and every canine that had graced his life, but Alex was something extra special. Alex had been trained since puppyhood for life on a K-9 team; the two of them had bonded quickly, one an extension of the other. Alex looked to him for security, order, discipline and the clear role as alpha of their pack. In return, Donovan stroked, praised, and directed the animal into any number of search and rescue situations, confident his companion could handle the work.
And Alex always did.
From bombs to missing persons, Alex did his job with dedication, focus and—more often than not—a rapid wag of his tail.
Yep. Donovan would take a four-footed partner over one with two feet any day.
Not that he could technically complain about any of the fine men and women he
’d worked with in the past, but something just fit with Alex. They had a bond and a way of working that was far easier than talking to someone.
Their trip to Whisperwood had been unusually quiet, he and Alex dispatched to an old warehouse site to confirm the Austin PD hadn’t missed any drugs on a raid the prior week. The cache they had discovered had been worth millions and Donovan’s captain wanted to ensure they hadn’t overlooked anything.
Donovan’s thorough site review hadn’t revealed any missed stashes but it was Alex’s attention to the crime scene that reinforced the fact the initial discovery team had found all there was to find. Donovan would bet his badge on it.
If Alex couldn’t find it, it’s because it didn’t exist.
What it also meant was that his trip to Whisperwood was over far earlier than Donovan had planned.
And disappearing back out of town—especially after greeting the local chief of police at the crime scene—wasn’t going to go down very well. If his mother knew he’d come through and hadn’t stopped by, no amount of excuses could save him.
“You’re just too damn good, Alex.”
The dog’s tongue lolled happily to the side while he maintained a steady view of the passing scenery outside the car. The use of his name had Alex’s ears perking but even the warm tone couldn’t distract the dog from the holiday wreaths hanging neatly from each lamppost in town.
Donovan took in the view, his memories of his hometown not too far off the mark of the real thing. The wreaths came out like clockwork the Monday before Thanksgiving, hanging until precisely the third day after the new year. A town committee changed out the ribbons on each wreath every week so they remained perfectly tied throughout the holiday. Red, green and gold, they alternated in a steady pattern, accompanied by bright, vibrant banners that wished people the happiness of the season.
His gaze drifted toward the corner store, an old memory pushing against his thoughts. A night, several Christmases past, when he’d had a sick little puppy and had flirted with a woman.