Joint Engagement

by Karen Anders

  A mystery boat drifts in the fog…with all of its passengers dead. Two investigators are called to uncover a shocking conspiracy…

  CGIS investigator Kinley Cooper finds the vessel and makes a grisly discovery. This is a chance to get her career back on track. So it galls her that lethally handsome NCIS agent Beau Jerrott is made lead on the case. The earth-shaking attraction between them doesn’t make things easier.

  The last time Kinley got involved with a partner, it cost her dearly. And yet, despite his reputation with women, Beau’s Cajun charm…and unexpected compassion…melt her resistance. Tracing a lead to the Bahamas, the pair find themselves under fire. But fighting terrorists and a drug cartel is easy compared to fighting their undeniable feelings.

  “Tell me to let you go,” he said, his voice balanced on a keen edge and soaked with desire. “I can be your shoulder, Cooper, but…I’m thinking things that are probably not a good idea. Have been thinking these things since I laid eyes on you.”

  She smoothed her palm up his arm and covered his hand. “You do things to me that have never been done before, but we work together, so I was trying to keep it professional, and I have history. Not fair to you. So…so…”

  A nicer guy would have helped her to fill in the blanks.

  Beau was not a nice guy.

  He brought up his other hand, bracketing her face between his palms, delving into all that tantalizing red hair. He leaned down and kissed her, opened his mouth over hers and gave in to that hard, utterly decisive need to feel her heat. He felt as if he’d just jumped from a plane and was free-falling.

  She melted against him, opening herself even more to the kiss. It was such a tease of what he really wanted: more her.

  ***

  Be sure to check out the next books in this exciting new miniseries:

  To Protect and Serve—A team of military operatives and civilians are called to investigate…

  * * *

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  Harlequin Romantic Suspense! #harlequinromsuspense

  Dear Reader,

  My To Protect and Serve series continues with Joint Engagement pairing up a southern Louisiana Cajun charmer NCIS agent and a by-the-book special agent in the coast guard to investigate a drifting coast guard cutter with six dead men aboard.

  Coast guard special agent Kinley Cooper starts her workout on a foggy morning that brings back memories of the day her father was murdered when she stumbles on a drifting cutter. Once the ship is piloted to the Hamptons Road docks, it’s discovered that the six men on board aren’t coast guard at all. They are civilians in black-market fake coast guard uniforms—except for one naval petty officer. Enter special agent Beau Jerrott. Once they lay eyes on each other it’s a volatile mix of heat, conflict and danger as they each wrestle with their own demons. The investigation takes them first to the Bahamas, then Cuba, where the danger escalates. With only each other to trust, national security and their lives hanging in the balance, they race against time, terrorists, a ruthless drug cartel and their own hearts.

  Best,

  Karen Anders

  JOINT

  ENGAGEMENT

  Karen Anders

  Karen Anders is a three-time National Readers’ Choice Award finalist and an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award finalist, and she has won a prestigious Holt Medallion. Two of her novels made the Waldenbooks bestseller list in 2003. Published since 1997, she currently writes romantic suspense for Harlequin. To contact the author, please write to her in care of Harlequin, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279, or visit karenanders.com.

  Books by Karen Anders

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Five-Alarm Encounter

  To Protect and Serve Series

  At His Command

  Designated Target

  Joint Engagement

  The Adair Legacy Series

  Special Ops Rendezvous

  Visit the Author Profile page at

  Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To CDR John R. Barrett, USCG, retired, 23 years

  on active duty, for his invaluable help and insights.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  Chapter 1

  United States Coast Guard special agent Kinley Cooper stretched as she rose at the annoying sound of her 5:00 a.m. alarm. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and turned off her alarm, dreading this day. She reached for her dark gray jogging bra that was draped across black Lycra cotton shorts on the back of the chair near her bed.

  Yawning, she pushed back the painful memories that clogged her chest and twisted her heart. They were always there, especially the one of that terrible morning. It sat at the back of her mind as she gathered up her dark auburn hair and pulled it into a tight ponytail. She grabbed the shorts, wiggled into them, then donned socks and her running shoes.

  Exactly twelve years ago, her father had been murdered outside their London residence as he was taking her to school before heading to work at the American embassy.

  She took a deep breath. She had been active in the Coast Guard for eight years now, and had been accepted into the Coast Guard Criminal Investigative Service two years ago. The good-ol’-boy system had taken one look at her and assumed she was a pushover, but she’d taken care of that. She’d conducted investigations and had done a fine job.

  She lived in Kroebuck Beach, Virginia, and drove in to the CGIS office that was geographically located in the southeastern corner of the state. The area was known as Hampton Roads to the residents.

  Heading for the back door, she pressed the timer on her sports watch and stepped through the screen door. She stopped dead.

  Fog. Thick, cloying and cold, like it had been that fateful morning. The mist brushed up against her face and she recoiled from it like she would from a cold hand. A shiver racked her.

  Just like that, she was back on that familiar London street, panting hard, running through the fog away from armed men, one in particular, his eyes cold and calculating, obviously the leader. His voice. It chilled her, the flat inflection in Arabic. She would never forget how it sounded.

  Kinley stood in a pocket of fog, but it didn’t seem like a pocket to her. She tried to shake the feeling of being swallowed, erased and eradicated by this enveloping whiteness. It was so white, it hurt her eyes. Staring at it made her feel like she was staring at herself, staring at nothing. Her mind fought hard to get away from the visions and the memories. But the insubstantial wisps mocked her. Each thought she had seemed loud and exposed, just as every movement she made in the silence that wrapped like the fog around her seemed to gather attention. And her father. Oh, God, her father. Maybe the fog was somehow in her, just as she was in it?

  There was no reason to be afraid of fog. Mist was created when warm air hit cold air. It was a weather pattern, and didn’t hide memories, ghosts or the chunk of herself from when she’d lost her father. She’d been so sheltered, protected and her world had been safe and secure. Since then, she’d f
ound out that the world was a hostile and tough place to maneuver, and had developed a thick skin.

  Her next-door neighbor’s dog woofed as he usually did every morning when she ran, but he sounded distant, as if she was hearing his barking underwater.

  Everything looked and sounded unreal. The fog was so thick she could just barely make out the shoreline across North First Street. Whiteness obscured the ocean. It swooped in and skirted around the homes and the trees like a giant eraser.

  Just like the day that those men had robbed her of her father. And the US government had robbed her of justice. They hadn’t been all that forthcoming with details of the investigation. All they would tell her was that they were looking into it and it was terrorists who had murdered him. She’d only been a child then with no pull whatsoever. Even now, they were still vague with the details.

  She made herself move, took off into a slow lope. The sun would be up soon and burn a lot of this off. She wasn’t worried. She knew this beach like the back of her hand. But as she hit the soft sand, her house was swallowed up like a great white whale had just opened his maw and devoured it. She even lost the feeling of being on land. The fog and the sea joined with each other; even the waves lapping against the shore were quiet. And her heart was heavy as she ran, as if the ghost of her father ran with her, trying to catch up from that sixteen-year-old to the woman she was today. As if he was always one step behind her.

  Muffled popping noises suddenly sounded over the water. Kinley slowed down, her breathing harsh in her ears. She attempted to quiet it. Stopping completely, she turned her head and looked out, remaining still and listening intently. Her heart lurched and then started pounding. She couldn’t be sure of what she was hearing. The fog or her mind could be playing tricks on her. Damn these doubts. She wasn’t going to panic. Trying to stay calm and in investigator mode, she waited. The burst of sound came again in rapid succession, but with the fog blanketing everything and the visibility almost nil, Kinley couldn’t see anything but light flashes in the distance.

  Flares? she thought, scanning back and forth. Fireworks?

  Cocooned in the eerie opaque cotton, she strained her eyes trying to detect what it could be. The sounds seemed to be coming from everywhere, leaving her disoriented and unable to quite tell from which direction the noises originated.

  She waited, listening intently and almost holding her breath. She tried to identify those softened explosions.

  She took a step closer, the water lapping at her feet, and peered out into the dense mist. Her stomach was tied up in knots. She’d heard that sound in the fog before...on a London street. Was it her imagination or real automatic gunfire?

  It came again and a chill raced over her skin. Her breathing went shallow. Without concrete proof, she was not going to guess. She never guessed. Not anymore.

  She heard a terrible scraping sound, like metal against sand. Thumping and muted voices.

  The fog cleared suddenly, a patch of it misting across her eyes, and she saw...something whiter than the fog loom out at her, and a bright red splash of color before it was quickly covered and obscured again.

  Her stomach dropped. Everything went dead still, deader than the deadening fog—the sounds, her hands, her heart—and it felt as if every drop of blood had drained from her head.

  Suddenly the muffled sound of a boat’s engine, gunning away fast, surrounded her.

  She turned back the way she’d come and took off at a run, kicking up sand as she pounded back to her house, momentarily stumbling around until she got her bearings. After streaking across the street, she slammed into her house, rushed to her nightstand drawer and grabbed her holster, clipping it to the back of her shorts. She stuffed her ID into her sock. Snatching her cell phone off the nightstand, she was on the move again, back to the beach and the small dock where her former boyfriend had left a small motorboat. He’d hoped they would fish together. But that was never going happen as she’d refused to have him move in with her, which had pretty much killed their relationship.

  She jumped into the boat and started the engine, heading to the vicinity where she’d heard that ominous scraping and popping noise. She searched the thick haze, and caught another glimpse of something large, white and red.

  White...oh God, red. Her stomach plummeted to her toes. “No, it can’t be. Much too close to shore.”

  Guiding the light fishing boat over the slightly rocking sea, she moved slowly through the dense fog, her attention caught by the sound of an outboard motor. She looked to her left to make sure she wasn’t going to hit anything.

  With a weird sense of something looming right at the corner of her peripheral vision, Kinley wrenched her gaze back to the front and the now impending white/red monster careening out of the fog. She jerked hard on the throttle and swerved to the left at the last moment. The small boat rocked madly as it grazed the side of the hulking silhouette, making a loud screeching sound. Adrenaline sizzled through her blood, her heart beating hard against her chest wall.

  “My God, what the hell are they doing running without lights?” she murmured to herself.

  She looked back at the ship that had suddenly materialized out of the fog. “Cutter, Point class. Eighty-two footer,” she said absently. They wouldn’t run without lights, not in this kind of fog. Her heart accelerated from alarm. Something was wrong. She felt it in her bones when she looked at the vessel. That ship should be alive with movement, lit up. Then it struck her. There was no thrumming—the engines were silent.

  Kinley twisted the throttle and sent the small boat revving back toward the massive and eerily quiet ship.

  There was a Jacob’s ladder hanging on the side of the ship. That ladder was only lowered when people were getting off. Otherwise it was stowed. There was no one around, the ominous absence of the engine and the fog that still lay thick around her completely muffling all sound. That persistent chill seeped through her. A chill of apprehension.

  She cut the engine and anchored the little boat. Pulling out her cell, she tried to find a signal so that she could call her boss. No luck. “Damn,” she swore under her breath, torn between investigating herself and persisting in reaching her boss. What if there were CGs up there in distress and her inaction inadvertently caused someone to die? After setting down the phone, she grabbed the knotted rope sides, set her sneaker onto the first rung and pulled herself up. She looked up the side of the vessel but there was no visibility whatsoever. It looked like the fabled ladder that led to the clouds and heaven.

  The churning in her stomach left her clammy, but she swallowed hard and climbed, pressing the foreboding back with a sheer wall of determination.

  It was the fog and the anniversary of her father’s death that triggered the haunting memories, the fear, the pain and the realization that she wasn’t really safe in the world. Ever. The terrorists would have killed her, too, had chased after her, but the fog had deterred them. It had saved her life, yet it wasn’t a friend. All she’d heard were the gunshots.

  She’d never even seen her father die.

  The boat dipped in a swell and her eyes popped open. She took a breath and heaved it out as she started to climb again. When she reached the rail, she hauled herself over, pulling out the SIG Sauer handgun at the small of her back. She flipped off the safety and chambered a round.

  She still couldn’t see a damn thing. Crouching low, she sidestepped her way across the deck, heading for the bridge. She kept quickly checking her six, leading with her slightly bent elbows and the black-as-hell weapon.

  “CGIS! Is there anyone aboard? Identify yourself!”

  Only her voice echoed back to her, sounding tinny in the thick fog that enclosed her.

  Then suddenly she tripped and flew forward, and she was back on the London street again, stumbling and falling to the pavement, landing right alongside her father’s frozen face and his open, d
ead eyes.

  It took her a moment to push back the panic and turn her head. As she did, the fog lifted on a sudden breeze. She cried out and scrambled backward.

  Blood was on her hands, smeared on her weapon and down the length of her body. Staring at her with open dead eyes was a man dressed in a Coast Guard uniform. She turned to look behind her and was met with a similar grisly scene. Another man lay prone, more blood, more staring eyes.

  “Ohmigod,” she said softly, rising and trying her best to ignore the metallic smell of the blood and the red. Pearled drops dripped off her forearm as she raised her firearm and moved again, this time stepping over the body and checking the deck in front of her.

  She was breathing hard, clammy sweat beading and running down her temples and her back.

  As the sun rose, the ship became more visible. Crouching, she circled the bridge and approached the open door. Another no-no on a ship at sea. All doors were always closed and secured. It was a hardcore CG rule.

  When she breached the door and glanced quickly inside, she found no threat. Just more bodies, obviously deceased. Without pausing, she did a check of the rest of the ship, and found one more dead. She lowered her weapon and headed back toward the bridge and the radio, stepping over each body. Six in all.

  She searched for, but couldn’t find, the logbook that would identify the vessel. Walking back outside, she leaned over the side of the railing, but there were no call numbers on the hull. No name, either. Back inside the bridge, she picked up the mic. Taking a breath to calm the trembling in her body, she pressed the transmission button and said, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Special Agent Kinley Cooper aboard the unknown Coast Guard vessel, unknown Coast Guard vessel, unknown Coast Guard vessel at position 37.0431°N, 76.2933°W. The vessel is drifting on the tide. I repeat. The vessel is drifting on the tide. No call numbers, no name, no logbook. Request immediate aid to secure the vessel. No medical personnel are required. All crew aboard are dead—six in all. Request contact of Coast Guard Investigative Services special agent in charge Kirk Stafford. Engines are silent. But there is no visible damage to the vessel. It is intact and has not yet run aground. No hostiles aboard. Over.”