Steve drained his can and crumpled it in his fist. “I haven’t put up a tree and I don’t think I’ve got a single present, but it’s already been the best bloody Christmas I’ve had. Ever.”
“You’ll remember this one forever,” Caden told him.
Steve nodded. “Yup.”
Montana sipped her glass, as Caden took a mouthful straight from the bottle.
“We don’t have anywhere to hang out for Christmas day,” Caden said. “Why don’t you invite us over to your place?”
Steve snorted. “I’m a shitty cook.”
“I’m not,” Caden replied. “I saw a chicken in your freezer when I was in your kitchen last time. We could make some sort of Christmas dinner out of that. Montana?”
“As long as you’re fine with orphans for Christmas, Steve, I would love to hang out on the swing on your porch.”
“It’s a bloody verandah,” Steve told her. “Yank,” he added.
She grinned. “But it’s a great swing.”
“Flattery will get you an invite. Sure.” He stretched. “My mum died in February this year, so I guess I’m an orphan, too.” He carefully didn’t look at anyone as he said it.
Montana caught Caden’s glance and could almost read his thoughts. Steve was a lonely man. She was suddenly glad they were spending Christmas with him.
Then Caden brought out his other hand, the one not holding the wine bottle. There was a Christmas gift bag hanging from it.
“For me?” Montana asked, as he swung it toward her.
He rested the bag on the table in front of her. “Yes, and don’t get maudlin on me and complain that you didn’t get me anything.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did. It just didn’t come wrapped in Christmas paper.” He pointed to the bag. “Open it.”
She dug into the bag, and pulled out... “Vinnie-too!” The bear was wearing a traditional Christmas cap, but more importantly, the buttons on his waistcoat had been neatly repaired. “You fixed it,” she said softly.
“Kinda what you did with me,” Caden said.
She couldn’t help the soft smile she gave him. “You should have been up on that table with me at the start of the night.”
He shook his head. “Not my kind of thing.”
“You deserve it.”
“Laurels ain’t his color,” Steve said softly. “If too many people figure out than under that tough shell he’s really all soft and squishy and he’s actually on the side of the good guys, he’s going to lose all his street cred and he won’t be able to do what he does anymore. So standing up on tables and accepting accolades is out. Scaring surfers and women because he’s a big freaking dude is his raison d'être.”
Montana stared at Steve. “That was almost…poetic.”
Steve shrugged. “Ignore the poetry. Focus in on what I’m saying. It’s only what I was saying in the hospital, just gentler.”
Montana smiled at him. “You’ve been working on that for a while, haven’t you?”
“Since I fucked it up in the hospital and muscles, there, walked out on you.” Steve grimaced. “Not one of my better days,” he added.
“I dunno,” Caden said softly. “It worked out well for me. I needed an excuse to walk out on her, to see what she was really feeling. You gave me the perfect scenario. I should be thanking you.” He glanced around and smiled. “By the way, there’s someone here who wants to say hello, but he’s too bashful.”
Montana looked around. “Where? Who?”
Caden swiveled and put his hand to his mouth. “Patrick! Get over here!”
Montana could feel her eyes bug. “Patrick? Not the guy...?”
“Who’s Patrick?” Steve asked.
“The guy on the boat,” Montana told him. “The one Caden and I pulled out after we all came out of the caves that morning.”
Steve’s eyes widened. “The one in love with Arrabella? That Patrick?”
“The very one.” Caden grinned. “You’ll like this. Brace yourself,” he told Montana.
“What?” Alarmed pricked her. She looked around and spotted a huge man coming towards them, with bright blue eyes dancing in the firelight and a trim, sandy goatee.
“Patrick?” she breathed.
“Well, blow me down, he wasn’t lying!” Patrick said. “Hey, Arrabella! Come here!” He beckoned behind him and turned back to face them. “Caden said it was you they was throwing this shindig for but I didn’t believe it.”
A pixie-sized woman stepped up to Patrick’s side. Patrick was a good few inches over six feet and she barely came up to his shoulder. She was delicate in a pink and golden way, with eyes as bright as Patrick’s. “You must be Montana,” she said, holding out her hand. “I wanted to thank you for trying to save Patrick’s life the other night. He told me about it all, you see.” Her voice was as delicate and childish as her appearance.
Montana glanced at Caden and Steve. Steve was staring at Patrick, his expression absolutely neutral, but his jaw was flexing suspiciously.
Caden was enjoying himself. She could see silent ripples of laughter shaking his shoulders as he watched the pair with a grave face.
Montana looked back at Arrabella. This was the wonderful Arrabella? “It’s very nice to meet you,” she said stiffly.
Patrick gave a chuckle. “I’ve had a few drinks with Caden and we sorted out a few details, but I wanted to have a quick word with you before I finalized everything.”
“Finalized what?”
“Caden tells me you’re partial to this part of the world but that you’re probably not going to be able to come back in the near future, because of one thing or another, most of it official bullshit. Would that be correct?”
Montana felt her eyebrows lift. “Yes, that would be one way to put it.”
“Well, I’ve discovered that Caden’s good at logistics—moving things from place to place—but my specialty is legal loopholes. So between us, we’re going to see what we can figure out.”
“Oh, hey, no, please don’t do anything to upset the arrangements—” she begun quickly.
Patrick held up his hand. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”
She shrugged and held up her hands helplessly. “You’re Patrick?”
He laughed a bit. “Patrick O’Neil. I suppose, if you’ve been hanging out with these characters, there was no way our paths could cross. I’m the managing partner of O’Neil, Dempsey, Mulligan and Brown—about twenty-five of the top legal minds in this country. There isn’t a legal specialty we don’t cover, including international law.”
She felt dazed. “I see….” she said slowly, not really pulling it together at all.
“Couple of things I’ve arranged that you should know about,” Patrick finished. He held up a long forefinger. “One—I’m now your personal solicitor and attorney, in perpetuity and gratis. Wherever you are in the world, you just reach out for me and I’ll be there. That’s my thanks to you.”
“I have my own thanks,” Arrabella added in her tiny voice. After Patrick’s big, booming tenor, she sounded even more delicate and pixie-like. “Patrick will have to process the paperwork for you, but I have a house up on The Hill, overlooking the ocean, that Caden assures us you adore. It’s yours. I’m giving it to you and I hope that you get to use it many, many times.” There were tears in her eyes and she blinked them away furiously.
Montana glanced at Caden again, looking for guidance, for support. He was watching her with his black eyes. Enjoying it, damn him.
Steve cleared his throat and Patrick glanced at him. Steve nodded in greeting and Patrick nodded back. It was the neutral greeting that Australian men tended to give each other when they were complete strangers thrown together in social settings.
Steve grinned. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?”
Patrick frowned. “We’ve met? I’m usually very good with names and faces.”
Steve’s grin broadened. “I don’t think anyone would blame you for this lap
se. The morning after your bachelor party. I came to your house and turned off your Wurlitzer.”
Patrick’s eyes narrowed as his brain kicked into gear. “Then you have to be Steve Scarborough, the cop I’ve been hearing so much about.” He thrust out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in a condition when I can actually remember you.”
“You know how to celebrate, mate, I’ll give you that,” Steve told him, shaking his hand.
Patrick looked around the beach. “I dunno. I think this mob could teach me a thing or two. This looks like a pretty fine affair of its own and I bet it didn’t cost nearly as much as mine did.”
“Or annoy the neighbors as much,” Steve replied.
* * * * *
Caden put the bottle of wine in the sand, screwing it in deep so it would stay upright, and glanced at the wetsuit lying next to Montana on the table. “Nice present.”
“It’s an O’Neill suit. One of the best,” she said and blinked. “I’m really feeling this wine.”
“Drink up, then. Soon you won’t feel it any more. So they gave you a wetsuit because...?”
“Australia’s one of the few places in the world you can surf without a suit most of the year.”
“Ah.”
She leaned towards him. “I don’t have the heart to tell them I probably won’t do any wind surfing in New York.”
“That’s where you’re heading back to?” He was watching her with the steadiness of someone who was lot more sober than she had originally thought him to be.
Steve had left for home about fifteen minutes before. He had stood and stretched after glancing at his watch. “Time to let everyone here relax and let their hair down again.”
Despite her protests he had insisted. “I know these guys. They’re just waiting for me to leave so they can pull out the hard stuff. For the sake of my job, I’m going to go home so they can. Then all of us can look each other in the eye in the morning.” He had hesitated, then leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Merry Christmas, Montana.”
She had wished him the same absently, trying to process the meaning behind his words. “You’re staying here in Margaret River, Steve? You’re keeping your job, despite everything?”
“Of course he is,” Caden said. “He has even more reason to, now.”
Steve stepped back and shrugged. “Borelli was bad crooked and he bent Chris Goonewardene, too. Who else did he get to in the station? I have to clean the station out and I have to protect the town until there’s good cops in place.” He looked vaguely uncomfortable saying it, but there was a core of determination, too.
“They’re making you captain?” Montana asked.
“Acting, until they sort things out.” He shrugged again. “I’ve got some sorting out to do, too.” He nodded at Caden. “See you tomorrow, Rawn. You, too, Montana. I’ll dig up some more Plantagenet I think I’ve got tucked away in a cupboard. You can sip it while you’re on the swing.”
He had headed up the beach, fading into the darkness while Montana watched.
“He’s a good guy,” Caden observed. “They could do worse than making him the permanent Captain.”
But now Caden sat looking at Montana expectantly, waiting for her answer to his question.
Montana shrugged. “New York seems like the logical place to locate to. I’ll have to head to DC to sort out all the paperwork and stuff they’ll want before I’m completely quit of the State Department.”
“Call Patrick in. I have a feeling he’ll cut through all that bullshit, lickety-split. He means every word he said. Just in case you were wondering.”
She shook her head. “I hadn’t got around to processing Patrick’s offer, yet. Anyway, New York is only an hour away from DC and I’ve only ever visited there.”
But Caden didn’t seem to be very interested in her answer. His attention was wandering.
“What is it?” she asked him. “You’re trying to find a way to tell me something.”
“Ask you something,” he amended. He picked up the bottle and took another big mouthful from it.
“Tonight, you can ask me anything.”
His smile was slow. “Anything?”
She kept her expression straight. “Anything at all.”
He leaned closer, to defeat eavesdroppers. She met him halfway by leaning toward him.
“I wanted to ask you why you didn’t walk away from me at the consulate.”
She pulled back from him, startled.
He straightened up and took another swig at the bottle. He looked cool and complacent, but she knew that asking the question had cost him a great deal of courage. Her answer was important to him. She couldn’t afford to pass it off casually.
She settled for the truth. “I wouldn’t have been able to explain it to you that day, but I can now.” She grimaced. “It’s going to sound corny,” she warned him.
His gaze wouldn’t let her go. “I won’t laugh.”
It reassured her enough to speak. “You’re one of those rare people who have the ability to influence the world around them and make it a better place. You make a difference. It’s something I’ve always wanted to be able to do myself. At the consulate, I couldn’t leave you to the wolves when you’d already made such a difference to my world.” She tore her gaze from his eyes and plucked mercilessly at her torn and ragged fingernails—a product of weeks of frantic physical work. “I will never be able to make a difference the way you can,” she confessed.
The silence that followed was long. Finally, she felt his hand on her knee. “Hey.”
She looked up. He was smiling. “No influence, huh? Have a good look around. Tote up what you’ve managed to achieve here. Greg had it right. You’re a hero. You’ve touched every single life here on this beach. These guys came hotfooting into the forest despite every despised authority figure already there—and they came looking for you, to tell you about Steve because they knew you could do something about it.”
She stared at him. “I hadn’t thought of that.” She considered it in this new light.
“Do I really have to point out that it was purely your influence over Nelson that brought the US Army Rangers, Canadian Mounties and every SAS team in the area racing to the caves? They didn’t mount that operation based on hard evidence. They did it on your say so.” He sat back. “Don’t forget Steve and how he got caught up in this. He was doing it because of you.”
He settled himself at the table beside her and rested the bottle there. He took his time over it. Montana knew he was bracing himself to say something important and marveled at how well she could already read him.
Caden pushed his hand through his hair. “How long do you figure it’s going to take you to finish up in the States?”
“A few weeks, at least. Why?”
“When you’re done, why don’t you come out to Singapore for a few months?”
“You mean, come out to your place?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, revealing his awkwardness. Finally he let his hand drop with a sigh and just looked at her. “Please?”
“Well, perhaps. Just this once....” She smiled, dizzy happiness singing through her and let Caden pull her down to the sand and into his arms.
More Romantic Thrillers by Tracy Cooper-Posey
.
Dead Again.
They would do anything to get him.
He would do whatever it took to bring them down.
It was the wrong time to fall in love.
Ten years ago, Sophie and Jack survived a small plane crash. They fell in love in the five days they were stranded on a mountainside, but Jack’s injuries were ultimately fatal. Jack’s love and death left indelible fingerprints on Sophie’s soul and completely changed her life.
Sophie is now a stressed single mom in a small Montana Rockies town, running a café and warding off the attention of the town’s corrupt Chief of Police when a drifter called Martin arrives in Serenity Falls.
Martin holds the key to Sophie’s heart, along wi
th a secret that will rip apart the town. He plunges her into after-shocks caused by the five days she spent with Jack in the mountains, stirring up state governors, district attorneys and one of the deadliest crime lords in the land. Martin’s secret puts Sophie directly in their cross-hairs.
For Sophie, life is about to change all over again…
___
Suspense fans will find it difficult to put down. This is one of the best books I’ve read in quite a while. I literally could not put it down. I highly recommend Dead Again. Edie Dykeman – Vine Voice Reviewer for Amazon
THIS WAS FABULOUS…yes, in shouty caps. I couldn’t read it fast enough. What a RIDE! I highly recommend this one for a great afternoon’s reading pleasure. Kathie – Goodreads
Buy Dead Again now: http://bit.ly/1HW3qZn.
About the Author
Tracy Cooper-Posey is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author. She writes erotic vampire romances, hot romantic suspense, paranormal and urban fantasy romances. She has published over 80 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.
She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book Of The Year and Byzantine Heartbreak was a 2012 winner. She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University.
She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.
Her website can be found at http://TracyCooperPosey.com. Tracy appreciates hearing from readers and can be reached at [email protected].
Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Blood Knot Series (Urban Fantasy Paranormal Series)
Blood Knot
Terror Stash Page 33