by Cindy Dees
Vinny set aside the plate of sandwiches and sliced apples, and an almost feverish look entered his stare. Here it came. He was going to attack her now. She forced her body to relax, to give away no sign of her intent to fight back. She had to wait for an opening when his guard was down. She sawed even more frantically at her wrists. It would help a ton if she could regain use of her hands. And the rope felt as if she’d almost shredded it through.
If she could just delay him a few more minutes. Then maybe she’d have her hands free. “Tell me more about yourself, Vinny. I feel as if I hardly know you.”
“Shut up, Anna. It’s time for you to beg.”
* * *
Brett charged over the hill, and Rico and Zimmerman were already down, their throats slit by an insurgent who was still bending over Zimmerman’s corpse, tugging at his assault rifle, which was caught under Zimm’s body.
He charged forward and the insurgent fled. Reggie, hovering frantically beside Rico’s gutted body, darted forward to block Brett’s progress, and let out one short, sharp bark, bodily leaning against Brett, trying desperately to herd him backward. Away from danger.
Reggie had actually knocked him over, he had shoved Brett so hard. Which, of course, saved his life. Brett was falling backward as a satchel charge, hastily hidden under Rico’s body by that insurgent, blew up. It had been a big one.
Reggie barked again, and Brett looked up sharply. Montana. Snow. Bright daylight. And Reggie was running back toward him. Brett braced himself for the dog to fling himself at Brett, but instead, Reggie turned in a quick circle and ran back to where he’d just been.
Brett pulled the rifle off his shoulder, and John and Joe did the same. John signaled the ranch hands to stay back and let the three of them go first. Brett took the lead, moving with all the stealth learned in a decade of combat. He approached the outcropping of rock that Reggie was now standing beside, wagging his tail eagerly. He’d nearly reached the dog before he saw the opening. An old mine entrance was carved out of the rock face.
Quietly, he attached a leash to Reggie’s collar and passed the leash to John. His father leaned down to cup the dog’s nose in his hand and Brett started. He’d forgotten that command. Rico used to do that when they needed Reggie to be quiet and make no noise. His father passed the leash to Hank Mathers, and Reggie sat obediently beside him.
Brett eased into the tunnel with Joe on his heels and John bringing up the rear. Brett moved forward quickly, shielding his small pocket flashlight with his hand as he used it to see the footing.
The tunnel split. He briefly considered going back to get Reggie when he heard a female voice from the larger tunnel, leading to the right.
His entire being clenched. That was Anna, and she had just cried out in pain. Joe’s hand landed heavily on his arm, and just in the nick of time. He’d gathered himself to charge headlong down the tunnel to her rescue. Just like he had charged into the ambush.
His men had disobeyed orders and rushed ahead with him when he’d specifically told them to lie down and form a shooting line on top of that pile of rock. As tempted as he was to disobey Joe now, common sense told him to go slow.
In the meantime, the realization that his men had disobeyed his orders roared through his brain. That was why they’d all been charging down that pile of rock, right into the blast zone, when the satchel charge blew! He hadn’t led them into it like he’d feared!
Flashlight off now, he crept down the tunnel carefully, feeling each step before he took it, making sure to move in utter silence. He went about fifty feet when the tunnel turned again. Light shone around the corner.
He signaled Joe to break right into the room and that he would break left. Joe nodded his understanding. John would hang back and cover them both, and he nodded as well. Thank God for military veterans who knew how to do this sort of stuff.
Brett held up three fingers. Folded down one finger. Two. Folded down a second finger. One.
And then he went.
He burst into a small chamber perhaps twenty feet across, lit by a lantern and several candles. Two people were wrestling on the floor. He saw the one on the bottom raise a hand over the head of the one on top and bring an object down hard on the back of the top person’s head.
The top person shouted and reared back, arm raised. Vinny. Something metal flashed in the man’s hand. Knife.
Brett identified Anna on the ground beneath him and fired at Vinny. He tapped the trigger twice in fast succession. From his right, two more shots came at almost the exact same time.
Vinny collapsed on top of Anna as Brett raced forward. But before he could get to her, she shoved Vinny off her and clambered to her feet. As she did so, she scooped up the knife and held it in front of her, panting.
Brett pulled up short in front of her. The last thing he needed to do was pull an Eddie and impale himself on a damned knife while she was too panicked to do anything about it.
“Put the knife down, Anna,” Joe said calmly from behind him.
It clattered to the stone floor and Brett rushed forward, wrapping her in a crushing embrace. She hung on to him with all her might, her face buried against his neck.
How long they stood there like that, Brett had no idea. But by the time he looked up, John and Miranda and Reggie were rushing into the cave and joined in on the hug.
The dog barked excitedly at Anna, and that finally reached past Brett’s weak-kneed relief. “You have to reward him for finding you. He won the game and you have to play with him, now.”
Anna laughed and leaned down to scratch Reggie’s ears before dropping a kiss on his nose. “You’re the best dog ever, aren’t you?”
Reggie licked her back, and everyone laughed.
Anna straightened and looked Brett in the eye. “I knew you’d come for me. I believed in you. I only hoped you would believe in me and know I didn’t run away again.”
He stared hard at her, hoping against hope that she meant what he thought she did. “I’m here, aren’t I? I knew something was wrong as soon as you didn’t come home from work on time.”
“You were right,” she declared.
“About anything in particular?” he asked cautiously.
“I had plenty of time to think about everything you said. I also thought long and hard about what happened the night Eddie died.”
“And?”
She glanced over at Joe and then back at him. “The police got it right. I was so panicked that he was going to beat me with his belt that I froze. I panicked. You’ve seen me panic before, and you know I freeze, right?”
Brett nodded. “Right.”
“Once I got past my guilt and self-loathing to think rationally about that night, I realized Eddie was the one at fault. He caused me to panic and he impaled himself on that knife. If he hadn’t been blinded by his rage, he would have seen the knife and stopped.”
A smile started somewhere inside Brett’s chest and started working its way up toward his face as she continued.
“I’ll always feel bad about that night. And I’m willing to testify in court about exactly what happened. I’m confident I’ll be exonerated from any fault in his death.”
John Morgan growled, “You’ll have the best lawyer money can buy.”
Joe added, “Oh, I imagine when Mona’s lawyer sees the police files I got this morning from California, sees Eddie’s history of run-ins with the law, and he reads the police report from the night of Eddie’s death—which by the way says pretty much the exact same thing you just did, Anna—he won’t have any stomach to pursue Mona’s claim.”
* * *
Anna looked around the room, crowded with people who had come roaring to her rescue when she was in trouble, her heart so full she could hardly contain all the feelings in it. “Is this what having a real family is like?” she asked Brett in a small voice.
He grinned at her
. “Yup. Get used to it, kid. You’ll never have a moment’s peace again. They’ll be all up in our business all the damned time.”
Our business. “As in you and me?” she asked hopefully.
“As in us together forever if you’ll have me.”
“Are you asking me what I think you are?” she gasped.
He dropped down on one knee to a chorus of cheers. “Anna, will you marry me?”
“Of course I’ll marry you, Brett Morgan!” She dragged him to his feet and laid a big, hot kiss on him that promised many more of the same to come. A lifetime more.
Eventually, when his head was swimming with more joy than he could believe, he lifted his head and saw the tears of his parents and broad grins of the ranch hands who were his family. They’d never abandoned him, even though God knew he’d given them plenty of reason to. He couldn’t think of anyone else he would rather share this moment with.
He looked down at Anna and murmured, “Happy?”
“Ecstatic. You’re perfect!”
He snorted. “I’ve got a long ways to go to get there—” he looked over significantly at Willa Mathers “—but I’m willing to do the work. For you.”
Willa’s eyebrows shot up. “What changed?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I remembered a few things I’d forgotten until I was under enough stress to trigger the memories. I think I’m going to be okay.”
Willa shook her head. “Anna, I have got to talk to you about how you did it. I’ve never met a more stubborn, pigheaded man than Brett, and yet you broke through to him when no one else could. What on earth is your secret?”
Anna wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned into him, trusting him to catch her if she fell. Trusting him always to catch her. She looked over at Willa and said warmly, “That’s easy. Love is the secret.”
* * *
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Colton Baby Conspiracy
by Marie Ferrarella
Prologue
They enjoyed being in control; they always had. Even back in the early days, alone and struggling to make ends meet, a day-to-day world nothing if not hopeless and bleak, they’d dreamed of being in a position when they would finally be in control.
Slowly but surely, they had worked relentlessly toward reaching that goal, moving from stepping-stone to small stepping-stone until finally, finally arriving at a place of authority. When they finally controlled people who didn’t even realize they were being controlled.
I am that good, they thought with a self-congratulating smile.
And this, this, they thought, looking at the email draft on their laptop, was going to be the ultimate achievement, the crowning glory. Because when this email went out and at long last set this greatest plan in motion, they were going to be in control of not just a person or a small group of people but of a large, thriving company.
An entire, billion-dollar company.
It would be, they thought with a smug, self-satisfied smile, like going from presiding over a tiny cottage in the forest to ruling over a giant kingdom.
My giant kingdom.
Oh, there would be a figurehead to front the company, but they would be the one who told that figurehead what to do, what to think. They would be the one in charge of everything.
As it should be. After all, who better to control all those employees? Who was more deserving to reap all those rewards?
They laughed to themselves.
“Why, me of course. I’m the most deserving person I know,” they announced to the surrounding darkness of the small office where they presently oversaw the organization they had created and molded out of nothing.
Taking a deep breath, they pulled back their shoulders and focused on the task at hand. The shadowy figure reread the words that had been typed and then retyped so many times since this idea had begun to take its final shape.
This had to be perfect.
The email had to sound coherent. To read as if it was written by an intelligent person—but not by someone who was overly intellectual. Or that some delusional, misguided person had written it.
Above all, it could not come across as if it was a hoax. It had to read as if every word was nothing but the absolute truth.
They wanted the message to read as if the person who wrote it was cool, calm and just a touch superior. Because I am, they thought. Superior to the lot of them. And more than just by a touch. Because once they acted on this knowledge, it would be the beginning of their downfall.
It might take a week, or a month or even a year—although they doubted it would take that long—but they would definitely fall.
A smug smile curved their lips as they relished the thought and looked forward to the day all of this would come together.
For what felt like the hundredth time, they scanned the words on the computer screen. Words they had been tweaking and tinkering with for what felt like an eternity now.
They would really love to sign a name to the email, but in order for this to work, to avoid intense scrutiny and questioning, the source generating this had to be thought of as anonymous.
One last time, they read each word very slowly.
To: Colton Oil Board Members Listserv
From: Classified
Subject: Colton Oil CEO Ace Colton is NOT a real Colton
Ace Colton, born 40 years ago on Christmas Day in Mustang Valley General Hospital, was switched at birth with another newborn baby boy in the nursery. This shocking truth can be confirmed with a simple DNA test that will prove Ace is not a Colton by blood. Since the Colton Oil bylaws state the CEO must be a biological Colton, Ace must be ousted. I will provide you with no further information, but rest assured this bombshell is the tip of the iceberg.
Good Day
As their eyes rested on the last word, they felt their smile widen, even more smug and far more self-satisfied than it had ever been.
“Perfect.”
Now there was nothing left to do but send this email to all six members of the Colton Oil board—and then sit back, calmly waiting for the fireworks to start going off.
With a mixed surge that was composed of equal parts excitement and confidence, they handed the computer over to their tech expert. This trusted employee had organized the logistics of this mission and would continue to monitor it. They pressed Send.
“And now it begins!”
Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Books S.A.
ISBN-13: 9781488063909
Navy SEAL’s Deadly Secret
Copyright © 2020 by Cynthia Dees
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