by Regan Black
The smoke seemed to be thinning. The firefighters must have the worst of the blaze contained. What would Murtagh do when he noticed? Behind him, she caught a movement at the hallway. Stretched out on his belly, Jason was signaling something to Grant.
“If you want to kill me, just do it,” she said, stepping forward, keeping Murtagh’s attention on her. “Let these guys go.”
Stephen caught her hand in his.
She shook him off. Taking the focus was all she knew to do to give Grant and Stephen a chance to escape. “Come on, Randall. Man up. Let them go and just take the shot. You’ve tried everything else to get me out of the PFD. This is the last chance you’ll have.”
“Kenzie, no,” Stephen said.
A man shouted from the front doors, identifying himself with the police department, ordering Murtagh to stand down.
“Hostage negotiator,” Grant explained. “You should talk to him. Want my phone?”
“There’s nothing to negotiate,” Murtagh said.
“Sure there is,” Kenzie said in a soothing voice. “This can be the end of it. A simple misunderstanding. You and I can start fresh.”
Murtagh’s shoulders slumped and for a split second, Kenzie thought they were making progress. Then he looked up and she knew he’d gone over the edge. His gaze was blank, his motions stiff as he started shooting wildly.
Stephen yanked her to the floor and covered her body with his. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs. Another gunshot bit into the bar, missing them by inches and sending splinters through the air. Grant swore as one more gunshot sounded. There was a heavy thud and then an echoing silence.
She squirmed out from under Stephen, intent on helping whoever had been shot, but it was too late. Murtagh had killed himself.
She didn’t realize she was sobbing until Stephen tucked her close to his chest, hiding her face from the gruesome view. “I’m here. Let it go.” He let her cling as waves of sorrow and confusion shook her body.
Voices surged all around them, but he held on, sheltering her while she lost it. She couldn’t even pinpoint why she was so upset for a man who’d aimed so much vitriol and hatred at her.
Time seemed to slow as Stephen stroked his hand over her head, down her braid, again and again. She breathed in the earthy, honest scents of the garage and the man underneath.
“Are you hurt?” She peeked under his T-shirt, grateful the gun hadn’t burned him.
“Not a bit, thanks to you.”
She dropped her head to his shoulder as the emotions began to subside. “I love you,” she murmured.
“I know,” he replied.
She smiled against his chest, hugging him tightly. He was her lifeline, her connection to the bravest part of herself. “You love me back,” she said.
He tipped up her face until she was mesmerized by those steady hazel eyes. “I know.”
His lips met hers in a kiss sweeter than their first. Laced with the undeniable passion they’d discovered in each other, it was a kiss full of hot temptation wrapped with comforting acceptance.
It was a kiss between lovers with plans for a long future together.
* * *
Stephen finally believed it was over when they were safely back at the garage. They were home. The police statements had been made, the news reporters directed to her lawyer and the assurances given to her family and his. Grant had even told them an initial search of Murtagh’s laptop proved he was the source of the cyber bullying.
In the trailer Kenzie had showered and changed into those cutoff shorts and a snug tank top sporting patriotic red, white and blue. He’d cleaned up as well, choosing khaki cargo shorts and a loose, short-sleeved cotton shirt, thinking they might both benefit from a long, leisurely drive tonight.
Right now, she was still too wound up to enjoy much of anything. Stephen caught the tremor in Kenzie’s hands as she reached for the tea he’d brewed for her. He understood that quaking, as everything inside him still trembled, as well.
“I can’t believe Grant has to close the club,” she said.
It was hardly the first time since the fire was contained that she’d expressed that concern.
“Grant’s faced far worse,” he reminded her. “He’ll get through it and have the place open again in no time.” Stephen thought Grant and Kenzie had that unflagging spirit and fortitude in common. Traits he’d not seen in himself until Kenzie made him take a closer look.
“Probably,” she agreed, her smile not quite up to full power yet.
Stephen kept expecting to hear something stupid come out of his mouth about risks and the benefits of a safe distance. It didn’t. He wanted to hold her, to sleep beside her every night and wake up with her every morning. To laugh and curse over back-ordered parts and challenging repairs. He wanted to ask her to take the real risk of tying her future to his. For today, for a lifetime.
“You were amazing,” he said, not for the first time.
“You saved my life,” she murmured, staring into her tea.
“I panicked,” he admitted, sliding into the bench seat next to her and drawing her close to his side. “You had it under control.”
Her body hitched on a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. She managed to sip the tea and he felt her relaxing into him.
“He didn’t have to kill himself,” she said at last.
Stephen sighed. “Murtagh was troubled. Beyond the bitterness of any injury or insult that a woman saved him from a fire.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “He was lost in a dark place.”
Kenzie snuggled closer. “Sounds like the voice of experience.”
“To a point,” he confessed. “I never truly considered ending my life, but I did what I could to increase the odds.”
“Picking fights and hunting drug dealers is dangerous,” she said.
“Says the woman who runs into burning buildings and calls it a good day.” He stopped and stared at her. “Wait. You knew I did that?”
She sat up, brushing his hair back from his face. “I’d been warned about your odd hobbies. Falling willy-nilly wasn’t one of them.”
Kenzie had set him free, restoring his hope and giving him good reasons to spend more time living his life than haunting his past. Since the narcotics team had moved in and cleaned up the street at last he didn’t feel the need to keep up the “odd hobby.”
“Grant told you.”
She nodded.
“Is that why you stuck around every time I tried to push you away?”
“Please.” This time her laughter came much closer to that bold joyful sound. “You did everything except beg me to stay.”
“Yeah? Well, I was getting to that when the fire interrupted us.” He shifted in the seat and took her hands in his. He really should have a ring, but he didn’t want to waste another moment. “Marry me, Kenzie. Be my partner in life and I promise we’ll find something to laugh over every single day.”
Her blue eyes sparkled and he wanted to kiss her. It took all his willpower to leave her mouth free to give him an answer.
She glanced to the ceiling before meeting his gaze. “If I say no, you’ll probably forget how to laugh again,” she said, tracing the line of his finger with her thumb.
“So say yes,” he murmured.
“Yes.” She brought his face to hers and kissed him soundly. “Yes.” She peppered more kisses over his nose and cheeks. “You’ll be my husband and give me great cars. I’ll be your wife and give you great headaches, kids and cookies.”
He laughed, backing out of the dinette space and pulling her along with him.
“Plenty of laughter and love, too,” she added.
“We’ll put that in the vows,” he said, his hands sliding under her top and lifting it up and over her head.
Outside, he heard a car horn at the gate. He muttered an oath as he checked
the display on his phone. “It’s Matt Riley.”
She groaned and scrambled for her shirt.
“You could wait here,” he said, halfway out the door. The sooner he made delivery, the sooner he and Kenzie could get back to celebrating their engagement.
“I want to meet him,” she said. “I’ll get the keys.”
“All right.”
Stephen opened the gate, then jogged over to open the bay door, grinning at the sight of the 1972 Plymouth Cuda he and Mitch had restored for Matt’s father.
The driver parked in front of the bay where the Camaro SS was waiting under a protective cloth cover.
General Ben Riley emerged from the driver’s side a fraction slower than his son leaped from the passenger side.
“Is she ready?” Matt asked.
“All set,” Stephen replied, reaching out to shake hands with Ben. “I appreciate the repeat business, sir.”
Ben leaned back. “Something’s different about you,” he said.
“Oh, it’s the smile.” Kenzie joined them, a set of keys dangling from her finger. “He’s been practicing more lately.”
Stephen slid his arm around her waist. “My fiancée,” he said, making the introductions.
Ben offered hearty congratulations and wished them a marriage as long and happy as he’d shared with his wife. Stephen noticed Matt was a little more reserved, most likely distracted by the purpose of the visit.
“Go on,” Stephen urged. “She’s all yours now.”
Matt pulled back the cloth and gave a whoop of joy. “Perfect!” He circled the car, then came around and gave Stephen a manly hug, utterly delighted.
Kenzie held out the keys. “She handles like a dream.”
“It would’ve taken me forever to get her into this kind of shape,” Matt said from the driver’s seat a moment later. “Dad, look at these details.”
“Excellent work,” Ben agreed.
“We just worked to your son’s specs,” Stephen said.
Matt started the engine, his face as bright as a kid at Christmas.
“I hope you have a place to run her wide open once in a while,” Kenzie said. “It’s a great experience.”
Over the top of the car, Ben grinned at them. “We know of a few places to open her up.”
“Good.” Stephen felt Kenzie lean in, her finger hooking in his belt loop.
He accepted the check for the final payment and waved the Rileys and their muscle cars through the gate. He hoped they kept their word to send him even more business. The restorations were a challenge he enjoyed.
Though not as much as he enjoyed the woman beside him.
He reached for Kenzie. “Now, where were we?”
She scooted away, walking backward to the trailer, gathering the hem of her T-shirt, giving him an irresistible glimpse of her midriff. “We might have been celebrating that I said you could be my husband.”
Her sassy grin lit him up. “Oh, that’s right,” he said, chasing her down and sinking into the kiss when she let him catch her. She’d healed him, brought him back into the world, body, heart and soul. Whatever life tossed at them tomorrow or in all the days to come, he knew he could face it with laughter and courage, because Kenzie had taught him how to love.
* * * * *
Don’t miss other books in Regan Black’s
Escape Club Heroes series
Protecting Her Secret Son
A Stranger She Can Trust
Safe in His Sight
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Colton’s Cinderella Bride
by Lisa Childs
Chapter 1
Everything happens for a reason...
Mama had told Juliette that so many times over the years and so often during the long months of her terminal illness. Not wanting to argue with or upset an invalid, Juliette had just nodded as if she’d agreed with her. But she hadn’t really. She had seen no reason for Mama getting sick and dying, no reason to work two jobs to pay off Mama’s medical bills and her own community college tuition.
But as she stared up at the little blond-haired angel sitting atop the playground slide, her heart swelled with love, and she knew Mama had been right. Everything happens for a reason, and Pandora was that reason.
Her daughter was Juliette’s reason for everything that had happened in the past and for everything that she did in the present.
“Is it too high?” she called up to the little girl who’d convinced Juliette that since turning four, she was old enough to go down the big kid slide. She was small for her age, though, and looked so tiny sitting up so high that a twinge of panic struck Juliette’s heart.
Maybe she was just uneasy because it looked as though it might start storming at any moment. The afternoon sky had turned dark, making it look more like dusk than five thirty. Since July in Red Ridge, South Dakota, was usually hot and dry, rain would be a welcome relief—as long as it came without lightning and thunder, which always scared Pandora.
Juliette probably shouldn’t have stopped at the park that apparently everyone else had deserted for fear of the impending storm. But when she’d finished her shift as a Red Ridge K9 officer, and had picked up her daughter from day care, the little girl had been so excited to try the slide that she hadn’t been able to refuse.
“Come on, honey,” she encouraged Pandora as she pushed back a strand of her own blond hair that had slipped free of her ponytail. “I’m right here. I’ll catch you when you reach the bottom.” She wouldn’t let her fall onto the wood chips at the foot of the slide.
“I’m not scared, Mommy,” Pandora assured her. “It’s supercool up here. I can see all around...” She trailed off as she stared into the distance. Maybe she could see the storm moving in on them.
As if she sensed it, too, Sasha—Juliette’s K9 partner—leaped up from the grass on which she’d been snoozing. Her nose in the air, the beagle strained against her leash that Juliette had tethered around a light pole. Sniffing the air, she emitted a low growl.
Despite the heat, a chill passed through Juliette. Sasha had been trained for narcotics detection. But what was she detecting and from where? Nobody else was in the park right now. Maybe the scent of drugs had carried on the wind from someplace else, someplace nearby.
“Mommy!” Pandora called out, drawing Juliette’s attention back to where she was now h
alf standing, precariously, at the top of the slide.
“Honey, sit down,” Juliette said, her heart thumping hard with fear.
Pandora ignored her as she pointed across the park. “Why did that man shoot that lady with the purple hair?”
Juliette gasped. “What?”
Pandora pointed again, and her tiny hand shook. “Over there, Mommy. The lady fell down in the parking lot and she’s not getting back up.”
Like her daughter, Juliette was quite small, so she couldn’t see beyond the trees and playground equipment to where her daughter gestured. She hurried toward the slide and vaulted up the steps to the top. Then she looked in the direction Pandora was staring, and she sucked in a sharp breath. About two hundred feet away, in the parking lot behind the playground area, a woman lay on the ground, a red stain spreading across her white shirt while something red pooled on the asphalt beneath her.
“Oh, no...” Juliette murmured. She needed to get to the woman, needed to get her help...but before she could reach for her cell to call for it, a car door slammed and an engine revved. That car headed over the grass, coming across the playground.
The shooter must have noticed Pandora watching him and figured she’d witnessed him shooting—maybe killing—someone.
Juliette’s heart pounded as fear overwhelmed her. She wrapped her arms around Pandora and propelled them both down the slide. Ordinarily her daughter would have squealed in glee, but now she trembled with the same fear that gripped Juliette.
The car’s engine revved again as it jumped the curb and careened toward them. Juliette drew her gun from her holster as she gently pushed Pandora into the tunnel beneath the slide. The side of the thick plastic tunnel faced the car, which had braked to an abrupt stop. A door creaked open.
Juliette raised her finger to her lips, gesturing at Pandora to stay quiet. The little girl stared up at her, her green eyes wide with fear. But she nodded.
Sasha was not quiet. She barked and growled, straining against her leash. Instinctively she knew Juliette and Pandora were in danger. But with the man between them now, Juliette could not release her partner to help. And maybe that was a good thing. She had no doubt that Sasha would put her life in danger for Juliette’s and especially for Pandora’s.