The Naughty Nine: Where Danger and Passion Collide

by Nina Bruhns

  There was a lot to consider, and as the ship neared the homeport, he wondered about Seyed Hossein. With what he’d done by marrying Abby, well, he knew he’d made enemies, but not knowing and knowing what they were up to were two very different things. That old saying, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’—he’d made an enemy with the CIA, because there was a difference between taking an ordinary US citizen and taking the wife of someone in his position.

  Standing on the deck of the ship as it approached the port, Abby cradled Rachel. As they came in, the crew scrambled around her, readying the ship for docking. The crowd that was gathered could be heard as they approached, and it was something that filled every part of Eric with such joy that he couldn’t quite put it into words.

  Eric leaned down, and, with a subtle brush of his lips, he said, “It’s time you went back down. Petey will take you to my cabin. Wait there until I come and get you.”

  “But I want to watch us dock.”

  “This isn’t the time or place. When I give an order, I expect it to be obeyed,” he said. The last thing he wanted was for her to fall over or get bumped by some over-exuberant sailor, and that was a very real possibility. Eric snapped his fingers in the air and got Petey’s attention. “Take my wife down, and stay with her until I come down.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Petey said.

  Eric could see Abby’s disappointment, but, to her credit, she left with Petey.

  * * *

  Eric leaned against the frame of the open door to his cabin. He could still hear the roar of the crowd for their loved ones. He knew Mary-Margaret would be out there waiting for Joe in that crowd. He could hear the crew on deck, every one of them shouting and jumping, anxiously waiting to kiss and hug their wives, their girlfriends, anyone who was waiting for them. Eric now had Abby. He took her in with a full sweep of his eyes.

  “Thanks, Petey. You’re dismissed. Grab your gear.”

  The young man didn’t linger. “Thank you, Captain,” he said as he jumped out the door.

  “Are you ready to start your new life?” Eric asked as he stepped toward Abby and pulled her into his arms. Rachel was cooing from the cradle by the desk.

  Abby didn’t pull away but looked up at him with her chin resting on his chest. “Yes, as long as you’re with me.”

  Leaning down, he claimed those luscious lips, soft with passion, cupping her head as he took what was his. He was breathing heavily as he rested his forehead against hers. “My God, woman, what you do to me. Go pick up our girl. Let’s go home.”

  Abby lifted Rachel from her cradle, and Eric lifted the duffel bag packed with all their belongings, tossing it with ease over his shoulder and then leading them out.

  Saved: Chapter Thirty-Three

  Mary-Margaret was waiting for them when they disembarked from the ship. She was bouncing up and down when she saw Joe. She had blue eyes, short brown hair, round cheeks, and a slim figure. After she finished giving her husband a kiss, she looked over to Abby, who glanced at Eric and blushed. Mary-Margaret hit Eric in the arm.

  “Hey, what was that for? Joe, your wife just hit me.”

  Joe just laughed, and Abby wasn’t sure what to make of them.

  “I cannot believe you got married! Well, introduce me.” Mary-Margaret gestured with her hand for Eric to hurry up.

  “Abby, this tough broad here--”

  Mary-Margaret smacked his arm again. “Hey, be nice,” she said, jabbing her finger at him. “Abby, I’m Mary-Margaret.” She slid in between them, bumping Eric over with her hip, sliding her arm around Abby. “Now, you come with me. We’ll let these two sailors bring up the rear with the kids. Abby, that’s Taylor, my oldest. He’s ten, Janey is eight, and Steven is seven. As you see, Joe didn’t give me much of a break there for a while.” The kids were shouting and hanging off their dad. “Can I hold her?” Mary-Margaret asked, gesturing to Rachel. Abby just nodded, and Eric noticed she was looking a little overwhelmed. Mary-Margaret started fussing over the baby as she walked away with her in her arms.

  Eric picked up Abby’s hand, smiling at her, and pulled her along with him, following Joe, the kids, and Mary-Margaret. “I think you’ll really like Joe’s wife. She can be a little out there sometimes, but she’s put up with me all these years.”

  Eric stopped and watched her for a minute. She was taking everything in, and then she stepped closer to him and pulled the sweater she was wearing tightly around her.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “There’s just so many people. And just to be here… I didn’t expect all this.” When she looked up at him, she tried to smile, but there was something there in her eyes, and she looked away as if trying to hide it.

  “Abby, you’re safe here. We have a house on base waiting for us. No one gets on or off base without going through security, which is tight. There’s an alarm in the house.”

  She swept her hair back and peeked up at him. “You think I’m being silly?”

  “No, but I want you to feel safe.” He slid his arm around her and pulled her closer.

  Joe whistled and shouted from the purple minivan everyone was piling in, “Hey, you two, come on!”

  “Let’s go before they leave us behind and take Rachel home with them,” Eric said. And this time, when Abby smiled, there was light in her eyes.

  Saved: Epilogue

  Two years later

  Abby stood on the pier with the other Navy wives and kids. She felt the familiar butterflies churn in her stomach as she held tight to Rachel, now a rambunctious two-year-old with jet-black hair and dark eyes, like her father.

  There were times when she’d catch a glance at Rachel when she was running or reaching for something, just from the side, and she thought of Seyed. She would never, ever say anything to Eric, because the fear that haunted her for so long that he’d find her had returned a few months ago. After Eric left on this deployment, she wondered if she’d ever get used to having him gone for so long at a time, staying at home and pretending everything was fine. He made her feel safe, and while he was here, she slept soundly, peacefully.

  She could not see Eric through the flow of sailors disembarking, so she stood on her toes, anxious, searching, when she spotted him in back, almost a head taller than many of the men. She waved frantically to him, wanting nothing more than to run to him and throw herself into his arms.

  Making her way through the crowd, she felt the familiar pull to him, which had only intensified over the last two years. Reaching him, she couldn’t stop the tears that always came when he left and when he returned. It was a roller coaster of emotions, and her eyes were like a damn faucet.

  “There are my girls,” he shouted and effortlessly scooped Rachel in his arms while pulling Abby with her, and Rachel screamed with delight, “Daddy, Daddy, my Daddy!” Eric kissed them both and then pulled away as he felt the baby kick.

  Reaching down, he laid his hand possessively on Abby’s swollen belly. Then he leaned down and kissed her again. “Sooo? How’s my boy today?”

  Good God, she swore the man was more handsome than when he had left, and he took her breath away. Just hearing his voice made her heart jump, and she felt his hands running over her. She held his hand as she tried to smile through her tears. “Your boy’s fine. Your wife is ready to have this baby, though.”

  Laughing, he bent down and gave her a deep, passionate kiss that still had the power to leave her breathless. He slid his arm around her shoulder, Rachel in his other arm, still carrying the weight of his duffel bag. Eric led them to the car. “Come on, wife of mine. Let’s go home,” he said.

  And Abby knew that tonight, she’d be safe.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Lorhainne Eckhart

  Lorhainne Eckhart is a 2013 Readers Favorite Award winner, frequently a top 100 bestselling author on Amazon in Romance, Westerns and Police Procedural. Author of 25 titles which includes novels, collections, and short stories. She writes three genres, western romance, r
omantic suspense and military romance and has sold more than 250,000 eBooks since her bestseller The Forgotten Child landed on the Amazon #1 Bestseller list for Westerns and Western Romance.

  The German Foreign rights for The Forgotten Child have since been acquired by a major publisher, retitled The Forgotten Boy and released March 18, 2014, now a top 100 overall bestseller on Amazon. Lorhainne lives on sunny Salt Spring Island with her family where she is working on her next book.

  Lorhainne Eckhart loves to hear from readers!

  Email: Lorhainne@LorhainneEckhart.com

  Twitter: @LEckhart

  Facebook: LorhainneEckhart

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  More books by Lorhainne Eckhart:

  Vanished

  The Outsider Series

  Walk the Right Road

  EVERYTHING HE NEVER WANTED

  by Mary Leo

  Everything He Never Wanted: Prologue

  Antonio Milani awoke to an empty bed. Regrettably, that unfortunate state had turned into his norm on any given morning, but on this particular morning there should have been a woman lying next to him, a sultry blond-haired beauty named Margot . . . something. He was horrible at names, especially last names. He’d been born with a short-term memory issue he’d spent most of his life trying to overcome.

  Obviously, he still had a ways to go.

  At forty-one he’d managed to keep himself single despite the efforts of his last two girlfriends who had done everything possible to get him to marry them, short of proposing. But Antonio wasn’t the marrying kind, at least not until he was older . . . much older. Then, maybe he’d consider it if the right girl came along, but so far the right girl seemed as elusive as a unicorn.

  Perhaps Margot was the right girl.

  He’d met the delicious diva--who should have still been in his bed--at a book launch party on the Upper West Side. That part he remembered well. He hadn’t wanted to attend the party after a crushing day of having to placate two of his more high-maintenance type authors who always needed his attention whenever they were in town. His family still retained the controlling shares of one of the last privately owned publishing houses in the states, Market Street, a company his great-grandparents had started in their living room in nineteen-twenty-five, publishing pocket-sized translation books for Western Europeans who migrated to America. Not only had it been a wise business decision on his father’s part to keep Market Street family owned when times got rough, but in the last three decades it had made him and his six siblings quite wealthy, and despite the current trend of indie publishing, Market Street was still doing quite well.

  Unfortunately, unlike some of his brothers and sisters who merely acted as board members and pursued other interests, his position as Senior V.P. of Operations required more hands-on time with the authors and this was one of those times. He’d promised his younger brother, Paulo, he’d attend the launch party, and Paulo was not the type of guy who let anyone renege on a promise. He had insisted, despite Antonio’s gallant attempt at feigning the flu.

  “I can’t go. I’m sick,” he’d whispered into the phone, trying to sound weak and frail.

  “You’re lying.”

  “No I’m not. I have the flu.” Cough-cough.

  “Sounds more like a cold.”

  “You’re right. It’s a cold.”

  “You tried to use the cold excuse for the last launch party. You need to come up with something else.”

  “I’ll work on that.”

  “Be there at eight. There’s a brilliant new author we’re courting that I’d like you to meet.”

  “Eight-thirty and not a minute sooner.”

  “Great! The party starts at nine.”

  In the end, Antonio had arrived promptly at eight due to the fact he couldn’t remember the time details.

  The party took place at a high-end art gallery that catered to New York’s up-and-coming. Everyone who was anyone gladly attended, which didn’t remotely impress Antonio half as much as it seemed to impress his brother. Nonetheless, Antonio dutifully schmoozed with New York’s elite who loved to drink expensive wine, gaze at interesting art pieces and discuss books they’d barely read just so they could eventually lead all conversations back to themselves, a pastime the über-rich loved more than buying outrageously-priced art they didn’t particularly like.

  He doubted the featured author cared about the book launch party. This was her twenty-third book and the pre-orders alone had already propelled her to the usual number one slot on the lists. A phenomenon his grandfather would have hated. He’d believed an author lived or died by the quality of his or her work, and not by merely stamping their name on the cover. These days an author lived or died according to how many cyber friends they had, by the footprint of their online presence or how many hours the author was willing to put in each day to garner readers on social media. Gone were the days when a shy introvert could hide themselves away and keep writing and releasing amazing books from their tiny office and rarely make contact with a reader. Today they had street teams and Facebook friends eager to spread the word about their latest title before it even hit the bookshelves. Sure, an author still had to write a great book, but with the new order of things, a Charles Dickens might not stand a chance.

  Somewhere during the self-indulgent evening Antonio had hooked up with the new author Market Street was courting: a fetching woman who gave him one of those offers he couldn’t refuse. “Isn’t there someplace we could go that’s less crowded?”

  That was all he needed to hear.

  Twenty minutes later, they walked into his apartment and five minutes after that they were ripping at each other’s clothes while lying on his bed.

  Within minutes they were naked and doing things he hadn’t thought of in too many years to remember. Then somewhere after their second act, and the third bottle of Grace Family Cabernet Sauvignon, things got a little personal.

  “Do you live in Manhattan?” he’d asked as her fingers danced over his chest. She was lying next to him, her head resting on his chest, her legs tangled up in his as he lay on his back, no blankets or covers impeding their movements.

  “No,” she’d said. “London.”

  “Too bad. We could’ve had some fun.”

  Antonio didn’t believe in long-distance relationships. Matter-of-fact, Antonio didn’t believe in any relationship where the word ‘long’ was involved. His longest running relationship had been with a girl in high school. That relationship had lasted for an entire year. It ended when he caught her kissing Mr. Todd, their History teacher, who she’d been screwing the entire time she’d been dating Antonio and telling him she didn’t want to go all the way until she was married.

  “We still can. It’s a short flight over the pond,” the diva in his bed suggested as she slowly slid her hand down the center of his chest.

  “I should tell you up front, I don’t do long-distance relationships.” Then he grabbed her hand, and moved her lovely body under him. “Let’s just enjoy the night, shall we?”

  She had smirked up at him as he leaned in to kiss her and take her once more before he collapsed into a deep sleep.

  It was Sunday morning in New York. The one day of the week when he kicked back and enjoyed the little things in life, like reading the New York Times in bed with an entire pot of coffee on his nightstand along with sweet cakes from Giovanni’s Bakery which were delivered fresh every Sunday morning promptly at nine a. m.

  He glanced at the clock on his nightstand hoping it was close to delivery time. To his utter shock the damn thing read twelve nineteen. Antonio never overslept, ever. He lived by a built in brain alarm that woke him every morning at precisely seven-thirty no matter what time he’d gone to bed. He figured the clock on the nightstand needed new batteries. He slid out of bed, and made his way to the bathroom feeling woozy and nauseous and, of all things, cold. Both sensations were extremely rare for him.

  Antonio seldom experienced a hangover an
d he almost never required sheets or blankets of any kind, nor did he wear any nightclothes. His nighttime temperature ran hotter than most people so he’d been sleeping nude on a silk sheet since he was a young boy. The good thing about it was none of his siblings would share a room with him. The bad thing was most women he’d shared his bed with needed blankets during the night, which at some point in his relationship caused his woman to sleep in another room, or at the very least another bed.

  But there were no blankets on his bed which meant either he’d finally found the perfect woman, or Margot Something never spent the night.

  As he showered, trying to wash away his hangover, he remembered that he and Margot had spoken about Dickens, about the rare books and the first editions Antonio owned. He faintly remembered showing Margot his latest acquisition sometime after their first lovemaking encounter and the second bottle of wine. The book was a signed copy of Oliver Twist made out to a friend of Charles Dickens, that also contained a personalized letter. Antonio had recently purchased the book at auction for well over two-hundred thousand dollars . . . worth every penny. It completed his Dickens collection. He now owned every major first edition title Charles Dickens ever wrote, and many of them were signed.

  Antonio stepped out of the shower remembering how he’d carefully punched in the code that unlocked his climate-controlled bookcase, and pulled out the book to show an excited Margot. He didn’t like to keep his books hidden somewhere where he couldn’t see them or hold them or read them whenever he liked. Yes, he took the proper precautions for his collection, but he wanted the books to be accessible for people like Margot who had seemed surprisingly interested. Most of the women he’d brought home over the years barely knew who Charles Dickens was, let alone his brilliant work.