by Box Set
He asked her in a lowered voice. “Will you?”
The screams of the crowd seemed to abate as though everyone held their breath. She didn’t have all the answers, but she did have this one.
“Yes.”
The roar washed over her, and she was suddenly on her feet and in his arms. Life didn’t always offer a first chance, much less a second—but Zeke was hers, dammit, and she would be his. Their lips met, and she drank in his nearness. Andie let out a gagging noise after a moment and they broke apart, laughing.
“I don’t know how…”
He touched a finger to her lips, quieting her. “We’ll figure it out, pretty lady. You me and the squirt here, we’ll figure it out.”
They would. Her mother was right. Zeke was right.
“Together.”
For the first time since she’d sent him away, true joy burst through her. Maybe they were getting a late start, but they had the rest of their lives to figure it out.
“Does that mean I can call you Dad now?” Andie asked.
The pride shimmering in Zeke’s eyes twisted her in knots all over again. “Absolutely,” she said even as Zeke nodded, as though the emotion was too much for him.
“Great…go win this game, Dad!” Andie gave his cheek a kiss then wiggled to be put down.
Charity had half-forgotten the game, and she glanced around at the crowd cheering them with laughter through tears. “I can’t believe you asked me in front of everyone.”
Zeke grinned. “I wanted it very clear who the Friar belonged to, and who belonged to me.”
When he held out his hand, she glided back into his arms and they ignored their daughter for a moment for another long kiss. As she pulled back, she murmured against his lips. “Go kick their ass so we can celebrate.”
“Hell yeah,” he agreed. “I’m already a winner.”
They both were.
About the Author
National bestselling author, Heather Long, likes long walks in the park, science fiction, superheroes, Marines, and men who aren’t douche bags. Her books are filled with heroes and heroines tangled in romance as hot as Texas summertime. From paranormal historical westerns to contemporary military romance, Heather might switch genres, but one thing is true in all of her stories—her characters drive the books. When she’s not wrangling her menagerie of animals, she devotes her time to family and friends she considers family. She believes if you like your heroes so real you could lick the grit off their chest, and your heroines so likable, you’re sure you’ve been friends with women just like them, you’ll enjoy her worlds as much as she does.
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Also by Heather Long
Always a Marine
Once Her Man, Always Her Man
Retreat Hell! She Just Got Here
Tell It to the Marine
Proud to Serve Her
Her Marine
No Regrets, No Surrender
The Marine Cowboy
The Two and the Proud
A Marine and a Gentleman
Combat Barbie
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
What Part of Marine Don’t You Understand?
A Marine Affair
Marine Ever After
Marine in the Wind
Marine with Benefits
A Marine of Plenty
A Candle for a Marine
Marine under the Mistletoe
Have Yourself a Marine Christmas
Lest Old Marines Be Forgot
Her Marine Bodyguard
Elite Warriors
Pure Copper (Elite Metal)
Target: Tungsten (Elite Ghosts)
Fevered Hearts
Marshal of Hel Dorado
Brave are the Lonely
Micah & Mrs. Miller
A Fistful of Dreams
Raising Kane
Wanted: Fevered or Alive
Wild and Fevered
The Quick & The Fevered
Going Royal
Some Like It Royal
Some Like It Scandalous
Some Like It Deadly
Some Like it Secret
Some Like It Easy
The Love Thieves
Catch Me
Treasure Me
Mongrels
Mongrels, Mischief & Mayhem
Omega Team (Kindle Worlds)
Keeping Karen
Southern Shifters (Kindle Worlds)
Scent & Scentability
Pryde & Precious
Soulgirls
Into the Spotlight
Taking the Stage
Waiting in the Wings
Playing Against Type
Behind the Curtain
Wolves of Willow Bend
Wolf at Law
Wolf Bite
Caged Wolf
Wolf Claim
Wolf Next Door
Rogue Wolf
Bayou Wolf
Untamed Wolf
Wolf with Benefits
River Wolf
Single Wicked Wolf
Desert Wolf
Snow Wolf
Hero in Disguise
Sharla Lovelace
Edited by Christine Glover
Hero in Disguise
Billionaire heir, Jake Jericho has it all—money, possessions, women. He wants for nothing. Except something real. Twice in his life, he’s found that. As a delinquent teenager when he was sent to work on a ranch . . . then afterward in the arms of the only girl he ever loved. One helped shape him. The other he had to leave behind.
Harper Haley has a singular focus—to keep and run the coffee shop her mother started. Only once did she let her walls down, and all that got her was heartbreak. Now, a big corporate giant wants to buy out and level the waterfront buildings, and her shop is on the chopping block. Over her dead body.
Now, twelve years after they loved and lost each other, Jake and Harper are thrown back together. Can Jake stop his father’s company from ruining the woman he still loves? Or will deception destroy them both?
To Troy, who inspires me when all the good words fall out of my head, and lives with way too many dinners from Sonic while I do this. Love you baby.
Rule #10: A real man doesn’t buy respect. He earns it.
Chapter 1
Just get on the damn plane.
Jake Jericho sat in the back of the limo, letting the dark absorb him as an Ozzy Osborne song filled his head through his ear buds. If anything could have given him the gonads to go, it was that, but he found himself unable to get on. He stared at the running jet steaming up the wet runway, safety lights blinking in the dark. The letters JE glowed from near the tail in the signature gold lettering. He wore his favorite worn-soft jeans and a faded black button down shirt, and had chosen not to shave so he’d look a bit rougher around the edges, but the private jet stuck out like a dog’s dick. And why did he care? There was nothing embarrassing about success.
Except that it wasn’t success. It was being born a Jericho. Normally Jake was okay with that, but today he felt like a fraud.
The limo’s divider lowered, and Jake pulled his earbuds out.
“Mr. Jericho? Is there a problem?” the driver asked.
“No.,” Jake busied himself with his phone like a kid caught not doing his homework. “I’m finishing a text.”
“No problem sir.”
The partition moved back up, and Jake dropped his head along with his phone.
Damn it.
Why couldn’t he just get on the plane?
Because he’d spent the entire day going down paths he hadn’t thought of in years.
Suck it up boy. Real men make the hard choices.
Yeah. Like that one.
A John Stone classic. He always managed to drop those little gems at the perfect time, like he’d crafted the situation in order to use them.
; John Stone. Probably the only man besides his grandfather who never took his shit. Not even the first day Jake had arrived in Montana, on a dusty bus at Saddle Creek Ranch. He hadn’t wanted to get off, pissed that his grandfather had sent him to the fucking middle of nowhere, and that his father hadn’t intervened.
Then John had strode onto that bus like God himself, and asked him what his problem was.
“I don’t belong here,” Jake had said, all the arrogance of his privileged seventeen years oozing out of his pores.
“Really?” John pulled a piece of paper from his jeans pocket, unfolded it and squinted at whatever was on it, all the lines around his eyes deepening. “You Jake Jericho?”
“Yeah.”
John looked up sharply. “That’ll be yes sir from now on. There’s your first lesson. Respect your elders.”
It was the first time anyone besides his grandfather had backed Jake down, and it was a little unsettling. And intriguing.
Grand. Theft. Auto,” John read. “Plus damages.”
“That was a trumped up charge,” Jake said. “I didn’t steal it. It was the company limo.”
“Your company?”
“My dad’s,” Jake said.
“Then you stole it,” John said, continuing. “Driving under the influence. Underage drinking. And robbing a liquor store?” He shook his head. “My God, boy, if you were anyone else, you’d be behind bars till you’re thirty. Be damn grateful you just have to sweat a little.”
Jake scrubbed at his face. “Jesus.”
“If you call on him, I’d better hear you praying, because we don’t take the Lord’s name in vain here.”
“Any other rules?”
John threw back his head and laughed. A hearty, belly laugh. It was the first time a smile had cracked the rough exterior. And it was a little scary.
“You have no idea,” he said.
“I don’t suppose arranging some cash to come your way would turn this bus around and bring me back to the airport?” Jake asked.
The smile left, and that was scarier.
“Son, that’s the last time you’ll speak of money to me,” he said. “Your money is worthless here.” He took a step forward. “You think you’re a man, Jake? Because you may look like one, but a real man is made of more than years. He knows that character and integrity are never to be sacrificed. That respect has to be earned.” The last word was shoved through clenched teeth. “Are we clear?”
That day changed Jake’s life. For a while. For a time after he returned home, even, but real life—Jericho life—made it hard to stay disciplined. He stayed away from that as much as he could, doing volunteer work at a soup kitchen in Brooklyn. Anything to stay grounded. He tried, to prove to his skeptical father he’d changed. He tried to keep his grandfather proud. John and his grandfather rode the same fence in his mind. Real men, whose words had weight. But then the old man died, and his dad was more and more gone, and any moral compass Jake had gained slipped away.
John Stone and Saddle Creek Ranch became a distant memory of another time. A time when things were simple and made freakishly perfect sense. In the absolute hidden and twisted recesses of his mind, Jake liked knowing he was so far removed from it. That way, Jake couldn’t disappoint John.
Until now.
John had a stroke.
Rayne McCoy, the only girl on the ranch back then, still lived there in Saddle Creek and texted everyone she could find to let them know. He was in a coma. Prognosis uncertain.
Jake should get on the damn plane waiting for him and see his mentor. Do the right thing. Make the hard choice. Whatever other damn rule he could pull out of the archives that made him a respectable man.
But that was the problem.
No amount of rule-spouting made Jake that man. The one that could stand before John with a clear conscious, look him in the eye, and say he’d become who John taught him to be.
Right now, he wasn’t too far removed from that stupid boy who didn’t want to get off the bus. The bus was just a limo now, and one he didn’t have to steal.
Jake jabbed at a button on the door, blowing out an irritated breath as the partition lowered.
“There’s been a change of plans.” He rubbed his eyes. “Let the pilot know we won’t be leaving tonight.”
“No problem, ” the driver said. “Is there another date you want to give him?”
Probably.
“Yes, but I don’t have it right now,” Jake said, hearing how unprofessional that sounded. The pilot would have jumped through hoops to file that last minute flight plan, get the jet fueled and ready, cancel any personal plans—and then the rich guy in the limo changes his mind.
If he were the pilot, he’d want to kick his ass.
“Where to, sir?” the driver asked, after a quick phone call to the pilot.
As the word home formed on his lips, Jake shut it down. Home was a minimalistic penthouse apartment that he loved most of the time but tonight suddenly it seemed—like more of the reason he couldn’t get on that plane.
Jake glanced at his jeans, then to the back of his driver’s head. A man who had picked him up and carted him from place to place nearly every day for he didn’t even know how long.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
The driver’s eyes met his in the rearview mirror. “DeSalle, sir. Frankie DeSalle. Is there a problem?”
“Where do you go when you want to get away, Frankie?” Jake asked. “To unwind.”
He saw eyebrows raise. Unvoiced questions bounced all over that car. The partial face in the mirror broke into an uncertain grin.
“Uh—sir?”
“Jake.”
The smile held and the eyes got wider. “Sir?”
“Jake,” he repeated. “Not sir. Not Mr. Jericho. That’s my father. That may sound like a bad cliché, but if you’ve ever met him you’d know what I’m talking about.”
Frankie’s eyes had laughter in them, even if Jake couldn’t see the rest of his face. “I have met him on occasion.”
“Then I rest my case.” Jake chuckled and looked away. “So you didn’t answer me.”
“Sir?” Frankie grimaced and shook his head. “Sorry—habit.”
“Where would you go right now?” Jake asked. “If you weren’t driving me around.”
“Uh, I’d probably be at Sticks,” Frankie said.
“Sticks?”
He looked at him funny for a second. “It’s a pool hall in Brooklyn my wife and I own,” Frankie said. “Or we did.” He looked back out the window. “Still, we’re there for a bit.”
“Anywhere else you go?” Jake asked. “For fun?”
Frankie laughed. “With two jobs night and day, going to bed is what I do for fun.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” Jake grinned, then leaned forward. “How about you take me to Sticks?”
The expression he saw in the rearview mirror wasn’t the one he expected. He thought he’d see more amusement, but it wasn’t. It was eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Why?” Frankie asked.
“Why not? I like pool.”
Frankie turned all the way around, and Jake realized he’d never really looked at him before. Not like a person. He was roughly the same age, and for some reason he’d always thought he was older. And he looked at Jake like he was a complete dick.
“Sir, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you messing with me?”
Sir, again. What the hell? Jake frowned.
“What? No.”
“You seriously want me to take you to Sticks?” Frankie said.
Okay, this was getting old. Maybe going home was better after all.
“Look—”
“Because you’re a Jericho,” Frankie said, his tone different.
“Damn, really?” Jake said, getting irritated.
Frankie held up a hand. “I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes for a second. “No disrespect intended. Just—with the sale going down, we’re all a little touchy.”
“What sale?”
He met his gaze. “The sale,” Frankie said again. “Of the neighborhood. We Are New York?”
That sounded familiar in a droning voice sort of way, but nothing to connect whatever the hell he was talking about. Jake shook his head.
“Oh, man,” Frankie said, smirking. “You don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
Frankie turned back around. “Nah. I’ll show you.”
***
After crossing the bridge, and texting his assistant Marco that the trip was postponed, Jake put his phone down when the partition lowered.
“Ever spent any time over here?” Frankie asked.
Jake nodded. “When I was a teenager.” Old memories played like a reel in his head. “I—volunteered at a place not far from here for a while.”
Jake’s mind rolled through the smells of grease, of the metal roof of the soup kitchen when it was hot, of food as it was cooking, of the rot of the garbage out back. And of the dark blue eyes and soft blonde hair that still showed up in his dreams when he managed to sleep.
The place—and the girl—that he’d walked away from. Before things could get more real. He shook his head free of things he had no business revisiting. It didn’t serve a purpose.
And this little trip to escape reality did?
A series of turns brought them down through an older section, bricked buildings darkened in places. Vacant in places. Going out of business signs flanked many of them, and Jake was struck with the sadness of eras gone by. It’s why he’d minored in architecture in college, even though he knew he’d never be able to use it. He loved old buildings. Old houses. Old neighborhoods. They spoke of generations past, and life that used to kick it there. He hated to see them go vacant and unused. Unloved. Because inevitably that led to someone tearing them down for modern crap or leave holes. Old neighborhoods didn’t have to be leveled. They just needed attention.