In the Dead of the Night

by Spear, Terry

  Allan hotwired the car, then hit the garage’s automatic door opener. As soon as the door rose far enough, he put the car in reverse and squealed out of the garage.

  Immediately, a pickup truck slammed into the side of her vehicle, turning it toward the house, then pinned it against the brick wall. Both yanked off their seatbelts and readied their guns, their doors blocked. They said nothing to each other, each listening for any movement, readying themselves for the men who would come after them.

  The back windshield shattered. Jenny turned to look back, twisting around to get a better shot. No sign of a living soul. She assumed Allan would continue to watch their front. For a split second, she wished they were still cozy in the cottage bed in New Hampshire, making love to each other.

  Then a gas grenade was tossed into the car through what was left of the back windshield. With a sinking heart, she feared the worst as the fumes spread toward the front seat.

  Allan shoved his seat back, reclining it as low as it could go, then said with a coughing voice, “I’m going…to knock…out…the front…window. Keep…your eyes…shielded.”

  She couldn’t open her eyes at all, tears poured out of them, the gas blinding them. She heard the front windshield shatter.

  A strong hand grabbed her arm and she cried out in fright before struggling against the hold. Allan hacked and choked as he spoke, trying to help her through the front window. “Just me. We’ve got to…get out of here. They’re…waiting, but…we’ve got…to get…fresh…air.”

  She’d barely reached the hood of the vehicle when hands grabbed at her and pulled her from the car. She screamed.

  “Jenny!” Allan’s panicked voice sent an ice shard into her heart. She struggled with the men to keep her gun, blind as she was. She kicked at them with her tennis shoes, wishing she’d worn combat boots instead.

  “Boss wants a word with you, Mr. Thompson,” a man said.

  Jenny stopped breathing. Where had she heard that voice before? Caruso. On the phone. She’d listened briefly to a phone conversation between Caruso and Wilson, but hadn’t heard anything of significance. Just his dark voice with a slight Bostonian accent she would know anywhere.

  She squirmed and wriggled, trying to get free of the two men who hurried her away, half-carrying and half-dragging her. Then they tossed her into a vehicle. Allan landed on top of her. She grabbed him, and he wrapped his arms around her, embracing her warmly, comforting her like an electric blanket on an ice cold day.

  “Can you see?” she whispered.

  “Yeah. Some. But they removed my guns.”

  “Where’s the gang?”

  “Arriving too late.”

  Suddenly a man yanked the vehicle’s door open. Before she could react, a needle was jabbed into her arm. Allan soon met the same fate. “A sedative,” Jenny said against his mouth as they reclined in the backseat.

  “We’ll…figure out…ssssomething,” Allan said, slurring his words.

  ***

  Allan opened his eyes as the truck he and Jenny rode in pulled to a stop in the dark sometime later.

  One armed, husky guard sat in the passenger’s seat as both he and the driver kept their eyes glued to the road. Allan attempted to reach for his gun, but his hands were tied. Then he remembered he’d been relieved of his weapons. He peered over the front seat again. They were stopped at a traffic light. Restaurant security lights, streetlights, and headlights dimly lit the area. It was late, maybe three or four in the morning. The sidewalks had all been rolled up for the night in the small Texas town. Not a business was open, except for a honky-tonk, where the sign hung tilted in the breeze and was missing a couple of letters. Dirt marked the missing letters. “Joe’s.” Four battered and dusty old pickups sat in the parking lot.

  If he could wake Jenny, he had to get her out of the truck before they arrived at Wilson’s place. Allan nudged her as they pulled up to another traffic light.

  She moaned softly.

  He whispered into her ear. “Jenny, honey, wake up.”

  She opened her eyes, then twisted her head around to look at the front seat.

  “Can you get your door open?”

  She nodded.

  “Do it.”

  In a sluggish instant, they both tugged their doors open, and fell out of the truck. Allan jumped to his feet like a drunken bum and swaggered around the backside of the vehicle attempting to reach Jenny who met him halfway. Like him, her hands were tied in front of her, and she couldn’t free them.

  They staggered across the four-lane road through the slight traffic. The passenger of the pickup bolted after them while the driver veered his truck into an oncoming truck and sped to intercept them.

  Allan’s heart hammered as he attempted to use his body to guard her, slamming his shoulder into the man on foot in the parking area of a service station.

  He got a fist in his face for the effort and stumbled back with the impact, somehow managing to stay on his feet as the pain radiated through his skull.

  “I’d just as soon kill you here,” the man growled. “But the boss wouldn’t like it.”

  Jenny suddenly appeared and kneed the man in the groin. He bent over in pain, and she jabbed her knee into his nose. Allan took over, slugging him in the side of the head with his fists with such force, the man keeled over and lay still in the parking lot.

  Allan quickly retrieved the man’s gun and a knife, then ran with Jenny toward a service station closed for the night, too. But if he could break in, the police would be alerted.

  The driver of the truck squealed the tires to a stop inches from Jenny and yanked his door open.

  Allan turned the gun on him and fired. One shot, straight to the head. The man dropped to the ground, dead. Allan fired the next two shots into the glass door of the store. Alarm bells rang out to his relief.

  He worked on the ropes to his hands, then cut Jenny’s bindings. Lights from another vehicle shone into the station. They turned to see a black SUV dash into the parking area.

  Allan handed Jenny the knife and shoved her into the store. “Hide in the back office. We’ve got to buy us some time until the police get here.”

  Jenny ran to the cash register counter instead, grabbed the phone, and ducked behind the high counter.

  Allan waited in the semi-dark on the other side of the store behind a row of shelves stacked with cookies and candies, gun readied as he kept his eye on the front door. Suddenly, the SUV ran into the plate glass window. Well, hell, he hadn’t planned for that.

  Four men piled out of the SUV. Allan fired his weapon and hit the first in the head. Then his weapon jammed.

  The three men rushed him.

  Three shots fired in succession.

  Caruso said, “He’s dead.”

  ***

  All Jenny could think of was saving Allan, but when Caruso said what he did, her heart plummeted. She fought the tears that threatened to undo her. If nothing more, she had to get Wilson for Allan. She had to.

  She’d called 911 and the woman told her to stay on the line. But Jenny jumped up from her hiding place and screamed, “Hey! You want me, come and get me!”

  There were only two men left and both turned. Only one smiled broadly at her.

  “My God,” she said under her breath. Wilson—only his hair was black now instead of blond and his blue eye contacts were black. He’d been with the caravan all along.

  Caruso stormed across the floor toward her. She dashed for the door, pretending to be unarmed and panicked as a female civilian might have been, trying to keep him off guard. When he grabbed her left arm, she whipped around.

  “Miss Brant,” he said, harshly, wrenching her arm to the side.

  She had only one chance to kill him. Swinging the ten-inch blade she’d hidden behind her back, she plunged it into his chest, aiming the steel at his heart. His eyes widened and he choked out a curse. She shoved the knife harder into his chest, the adrenaline coursing through her body rapidly, the hatred for him burning
on her lips. “Die, you bastard.”

  He collapsed to his knees, then fell onto his face.

  Suddenly, the parking area was filled with sirens, rotating colored lights, and headlights.

  Doors jerked open and slammed shut as officers pointed guns at the store.

  Wilson charged across the floor and before Jenny could escape him, he grabbed hold of her wrist and slammed her back against his chest. Wrapping his arm around her throat, he threatened to choke her to death with his muscular arm. She could barely breathe, yet she tried to remain calm, hopeful someone would kill him before he killed her. Her thoughts shifted to Allan. Her stomach grew nauseous. Their plan had turned out all so wrong. What the hell had happened to his partners? And damn Garcia for not having more men at her house.

  Wilson walked with her outside, a gun pointed to her temple. “Jenny, Jenny,” he said as he kissed her head. “What you’re going to do for me once we’re out of this mess.”

  Her heart beat so hard, the blood rushed in her ears. She grappled with his arm, trying to loosen his hard grip.

  The headlights from the police cars nearly blinded her as she attempted to make out the uniformed men crouched behind their vehicles with their weapons pointed in their direction. “Drop your weapon!” one of the police officers shouted.

  “Little lady won’t get hurt, if we get a vehicle, and nobody follows us,” Wilson said.

  A new vehicle arrived, no police lights, just a plain black SUV. As soon as it skidded to a stop, Cameron, Lantham, Dale, Beasley, and Samuel poured out of the vehicle. Her heart lifted for an instant.

  Dale said, “Give it up, Wilson.”

  Wilson squeezed his arm tighter around Jenny’s neck. She closed her eyes and dug her fingers into his arm as he cut off her breathing.

  “She dies if I’m not allowed to leave here with her.”

  Her mind drifted as the oxygen was being cut off. The headlights began to fade and blackness sprinkled with white stars appeared before her eyes.

  “You’re not taking her anywhere,” Allan said behind them, his voice firm.

  Jenny knew she’d crossed over to the other side. Allan was dead. Caruso said so.

  A shot fired behind her, but she couldn’t see what had happened.

  Wilson cursed and loosened his grip around her neck. When he did, she struck his gun-hand up and back, forcing it to slam into the bridge of his nose. Immediately, she turned and grabbed his gun-hand. Pushing the weapon against his thumb, she forced him to lose his grip on the weapon. Dale and Samuel dashed forward and shoved him to the pavement, pulling her down with them.

  Jenny turned to see Allan as she scrambled to get to her feet. His forehead was bleeding and his face was pale. She dashed around Caruso, his hand on his ear, dripping with blood, and ran to Allan. He held onto the doorframe of the shop, barely able to stand.

  “He’s one of the good guys,” Cameron hollered, as a police officer tried to arrest Allan.

  Tackling Allan, she almost knocked him over with exuberance. She kissed his cheeks, his eyes, his lips, and he kissed her back, smothering her in the same fashion, his arms wrapped securely around her. “It’s over,” she whispered against his mouth.

  “It’s only the beginning,” he whispered back. “Just the beginning.”

  A police officer joined her and bound his wound with a cloth. She could tell it was a minor injury, just a bullet graze.

  He reached up and touched her cheek. “Forgive me?”

  She swallowed hard and kissed his lips. “Whatever for, hero of mine?”

  “For wanting you to quit the team?”

  Her lips quirked up. “Does this mean you want me to stay with the Agency?”

  “The other guys were late.” He motioned at Dale and his men. “I couldn’t have found a better and more reliable teammate.”

  She sat down next to him on the cement. “For better or worse?”

  He grinned, then groaned. “Hurts to smile, honey.”

  “Think maybe we’re about due for another honeymoon?”

  “Yeah, the last one was a bit rough.”

  Dale walked over and handed her the phone. “Boss wants to talk to you.”

  “Hey, Garcia, Allan’s not able to go to Oregon at the end of the week,” she said.

  “Yeah, Dale told me Allan got hit, but the wound was only superficial.”

  “Right, so, we’re taking another honeymoon.”

  Silence.

  “Garcia?”

  He chuckled. “Good. Caribbean cruise all right with you?”

  Sounded great to Jenny. “Can we manage a Caribbean cruise, Allan?”

  “Yeah, tell him make it one of the long ones.”

  “Make it the longest one you’ve got,” she said into the phone.

  “You’ve got it. Oh, and Jenny, I need a married couple for a deal going down along the Texas border as soon as you and Allan—”

  She clicked off the phone and handed it to Dale. The details of the next mission could wait. For now, she and Allan were going to get to know each other like a real honeymooning couple would.

  Dale’s phone rang. He lifted it to his ear and listened. He smiled as he looked at Jenny and Allan. “Sure thing, Garcia.”

  He shut off the phone. “Boss says the whole gang and our families are to go on a Caribbean cruise. You know, to kind of watch out for the two of you. Says we all need a well-deserved vacation after catching one of the most wanted terrorists in the States.”

  Jenny stared at Dale in disbelief. Then she turned to Allan.

  He grinned broadly and groaned. “Typical Garcia fashion. One big happy family.”

  She sighed deeply. From now on, that’s what they’d be—her family, whether it was on a mission, or off. She could handle it. The Do-Not-Disturb sign would be glued permanently to their stateroom for the whole cruise. And that was a promise.

  ###

  About the Author:

  Award-winning author of urban fantasy and medieval historical romantic suspense, Heart of the Wolf named in Publishers Weekly's BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR, NOR Reader Choice for BEST PARANORMAL ROMANCE.

  USA Today Bestseller Terry Spear also writes true stories for adult and young adult audiences. She’s a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and has an MBA from Monmouth University and a Bachelors in Business and Distinguished Military Graduate of West Texas A & M. She also creates award-winning teddy bears, Wilde & Woolly Bears, to include personalized bears designed to commemorate authors’ books. When she’s not writing or making bears, she’s teaching online writing courses in the Heart of Texas.

  http://www.terryspear.com/

  Excerpt for:

  Exchanging Grooms

  by

  Terry Spear

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Terry Spear

  Exchanging Grooms

  Copyright © 2010 by Terry Spear

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  Discover more about Terry Spear at:

  http://www.terryspear.com/

  Chapter 1

  Glaring at the storefront windows displaying white satin wedding gowns trimmed in lace, Lisa Robbins cut the engine of her Ford Taurus. If she never had to look at another wedding gown as long as she lived, she’d be the happiest woman in the universe. Unfortunately, she had the horrendous task of returning her unused gown without a hassle. Or with a hassle, as long as she got rid of the fool expanse of lace and satin neatly stuffed in plastic in the back seat of the car and got her money back.

  The Bridal Occasions sign hanging prominently over the white brick building promised brides gowns that would turn them into royal princess look-alikes at their wedding of a lifetime.

  She rolled her eyes, then glanced back a
t the gown.

  With the sunlight bearing down on the car on the summery Texas day, heating the lipstick red interior to hotter than hot, she had to make a decision…and fast.

  Already perspiration trickled between her breasts covered in a pink floral spandex, short-sleeved shirt. The backs of her knees grew sweaty despite wearing denim shorts cut high on the leg.

  She hadn’t worn the wedding dress. Not once. Well, to try it on, but that didn’t count. It hadn’t been altered, and that was the point.

  It wasn’t her fault that Pembrooke Hastings had proved to be a louse. More than a louse. A real rat. Well, more than that. A real jackass.

  She blew out her breath.

  What was worse was that everyone pinned the crisis on her! Cold feet. That’s what her family claimed she had. Cold feet, her patootie. He was the reason for her leaving him standing at the altar, while she was a no show.

  She smiled with great satisfaction. If she could have been a fly on the wall of the chapel Saturday morning.

  She could hear her almost mother-in-law’s high-pitched whine, “I told you, Pembrooke, you should have married higher class.” And her almost father-in-law’s response, an emphatic nod like one of those dogs with the wiggly heads that bobbed up and down inside a vehicle when in motion. Her own mother would have fussed, complaining that Lisa was too unconventional for her own good. Her stepfather would’ve shaken his head, like he always did when she’d stepped out of line and mutter under his breath, “What next?”

  Her Auntie Mae was sure to lecture her on the do’s and don’ts of weddings…mainly, you do show up for the wedding and you don’t skip out on one of Dallas’s most eligible—and up until now—most confirmed and eligible bachelors.

  Then her stepsister, the vamp…

  Lisa’s blood boiled at the thought of her. Lyndell Hamlock. After catching her naked and nearly upside down in Lisa’s bed in the most awkward and compromising position, well, she didn’t realize anyone could have sex in such a contorted fashion. But it was Pembrooke’s beet red face as he peeked between Lyndell’s legs that frosted Lisa the most. She cursed under her breath, vowing revenge.