He knew when he had to back down.
“I’ve sent some officers to arrest the henchmen who chased me down this afternoon,” Ford said. “Except Alan won’t be among them. He decided dying was better than failing to send me over a cliff.”
Bo held a blank gaze.
“I’ll want to question the hotel desk clerk. Any idea where he is?”
“I don’t know. Have you tried his home?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I stopped by there on my way here. He wasn’t there, but his car was still in his garage. There was an uneaten pizza on top of his oven. Looked like someone snatched him right before he was about to have dinner.”
“Maybe he decided to skip dinner before going on vacation.”
“A lot of people seem to be doing that lately, going on vacation without telling anyone. Strange, don’t you think?”
“Very.” Bo did an amazing job of hiding his emotion, when he had to be stewing inside.
Ford had struck a deep blow catching Wade, but he had yet to gain the grand prize.
CHAPTER 14
Lights dotted the nearly empty parking lot outside the police station; the night was windless and quiet. Walking beside Ford, Gemma felt the illusion of peace settle over Cold Plains. She no longer had to worry about being accused of Jed’s murder and Ford no longer worked for Bo. Their ties to Samuel were severed. He had nothing to hold against them. But there was still the matter of the five unsolved murders, Jane Doe’s in particular. Now that Ford had decided to take his experience and put it into P.I. work, would he still pursue the case?
“What are you going to do now?” she asked.
“I was thinking of dinner in tonight.” He put a hand on his ribs and grimaced.
“Or a hospital?”
“Dinner in. With you.” He stopped walking and faced her.
Gemma stopped, too, wary of his meaning. She hadn’t forgotten that he’d walked out on her. “I was actually talking about you. You quit your job.”
“I’ve got some money saved. I’ll open my own private investigation office in town.”
“Samuel might not like that.”
“There’s nothing he can do to stop me.”
“Yes, I think by now he knows you’re an opponent he can’t win against. If you stay out of his way, he’ll stay out of yours.”
“I’ll stay out of his way until I have evidence against him. Bo, too.”
So, he wasn’t going to stop looking into the Jane Doe case. She wasn’t surprised. Ford wasn’t a quitter, especially when it came to the law. He had his future all planned. What was she going to do? Stay in Cold Plains? Move?
With a baby on the way.
Saddened, she looked toward the front of the well-lit police station. No one exited. More illusionary peace. Her inner peace was beginning to fall apart.
“Gemma.” Ford moved closer and took her hands in his. “I was wrong to walk out on you,” he said. “You were right about me. I tried to avoid falling in love. But the truth is, I have. And I’m terrified of you having a baby, but there’s nothing on this planet that I want more.”
Numbed by what he’d said, Gemma had trouble responding. “Ford…” If he wasn’t sure about this, then they’d come up with some kind of compromise. He didn’t have to be with her if it wouldn’t make him happy. She had lots of money now. Things would be different for her than they had been for her mother. And she’d raise her child with love and plenty of guidance.
“Please forgive me, Gemma,” he said. “I was confused before. I’m not anymore. I’ve gone so long without a family, I don’t know how to be a part of one anymore. Every semblance of family that I’ve ever had I’ve lost.”
“I won’t force you into anything. If you need time, that’s okay. I’ll give you time. I’m not ready for this, either. Motherhood? Hell, I just got a divorce!”
His brow lowered in consternation. “I want to give this a try. Us. The baby…being a family.”
Her heart pinged with bursting joy and apprehension. And then the echo of something he’d said pushed into her conscience.
“Wait a minute. Did I hear you say you’ve fallen in love with me?”
He grinned. “Don’t look so shocked.”
She breathed a laugh. “It’s just… Earlier you…”
“Earlier I should have known what you were up to at the grocery store. I didn’t want to accept it. I do now, Gemma. I want to be a father. A husband. More than anything, I want to have a family again.”
“Ford…” She refrained from jumping against him. Was she being too impulsive in believing him? He had a lot to overcome. Like her.
Or did they?
“I know it’s soon. We just met. But you’re pregnant, so if you’re willing…” he hedged.
Willing to do what? It could only be one thing. He was going to ask her to marry him. Too soon. But too right to say no. He was nothing like Jed. There was no comparison.
Meeting Ford had healed her. And meeting her had healed him enough to conquer his fear.
“Will you marry me?” he finally asked.
With a huge smile, she threw her arms around his neck. He lifted her against him, grunting with pain but holding her to him.
She covered his face with kisses. “Ford. Oh, Ford.” Never had she been more sure about anything.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes!” She kept kissing him.
He chuckled, low and deep. “Anna will be thrilled. We have a lot of news she’s been waiting a long time to hear.”
Gemma burst with excitement. “I can’t wait to get to know her. Take me to see her like she asked.” When his work was finished. It was finished now.
“Let’s go home and call her.”
“We can convert the guest room into an office. You can use it to start your business.”
“It’ll be nice to get out of that apartment.”
Her home was now their home. Cold Plains wasn’t a fairy tale for her anymore, but she’d have her own with Ford. Their house. Their family. Kissing him once more, she paid no attention to the car that had pulled to a stop along the curb.
“I’m going to love redecorating.” She kissed him some more. She’d also love to donate a good chunk of Jed’s money to charities for abused women.
“I’m going to love you.”
She laughed lightly and kept kissing him as a car door shut and footsteps drew closer. A man clearing his throat broke them apart. He was tall and well-built like Ford, with medium blond hair and brown eyes.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he said to Ford.
“Hawk Bledsoe.” Ford told Gemma. “The agent I told you about.”
“Gemma Johnson.” She stuck out her hand. “Thank you for helping Ford.”
He took her hand. “He didn’t need much.”
Ford glanced back at the police station and then surveyed the parking lot as though looked for something amiss. “What are you doing here?”
“Rafe called me a few minutes ago. He asked me to tell you his son’s just been kidnapped.”
Kidnapped? She’d heard the boy had been missing before. How had he turned up missing again?
“He didn’t call it in,” Hawk continued. “Bo might interfere. As you can imagine, he’s out of his mind with worry.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
And Gemma knew he would.
Hawk gave a nod. “I assume you’ve heard about Lacy Matthews by now?”
Lacy? What had happened to Lacy? Apprehension rose in Gemma. She moved closer to Ford and put her hands on his back and chest. Was Lacy all right?
Ford put his arm around her. “Yes. I planned to check into that, too.”
“I was on my way to meet Hawk when Bo started following me. I stopped at Cold Plains Coffee,” he explained. “Alan was there, looking for Lacy. She’s been missing for two days.”
Gemma inhaled along with the chill that news triggered. This town had a bad case of missing persons. Would it ever end?
“We’ve started a search with local police,” Hawk said.
“What could have happened to her? Has someone taken her and the girls?” Why would anyone do that?
“Either that or she ran,” Ford said.
From Samuel. Could it be? Had Lacy turned against Samuel and his cult? Was she no longer under his influence? That made the most sense to Gemma. But had Lacy fled, or were she and her girls the newest Cold Plains murder victims?
A shiver racked her.
Ford rubbed her arm to comfort her.
“Do you have any leads?” she asked Hawk. “Did anyone see her two days ago?”
“A pair of red shoes was found in the woods not far from here. We’ve confirmed they belong to one of Lacy’s twins, but I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got right now.”
“I remember her showing them to me.” She’d been so excited to bring them home to her girls. She tipped her head up to see Ford. “Who would hurt two three-year-old girls?”
“Maybe they ran away, Gemma. Others have.”
She rested her head on the pad of his chest, wishing she knew he was right. He rubbed her arm some more, defusing her tension.
Once again, Hawk took note of the intimate contact. “One of the officers helping with the search told me you quit your job today. I think he was glad to hear it.”
Ford wasn’t the only officer on the force who suspected Bo was corrupt.
“He’s starting a P.I. business.” Gemma gazed up at Ford with a smile that Hawk noticed.
“Looks like that’s not all he’s started.”
Gemma laughed. “You have no idea.” She was pregnant and they were getting married.
“Congratulations.” He turned to Ford. “I’ll let you two recover from all you’ve been through. Let’s stay in touch.”
“Thanks. I’m nowhere near finished with Grayson.”
Gemma waved her farewell after Ford shook Hawk’s hand. The agent walked away.
“Let’s go home,” Ford said.
Nothing sounded sweeter. Never once had she anticipated escaping a violent ex-husband only to fall into the arms of a cop who far exceeded all she’d ever dreamed of finding in a man. All the disasters of Cold Plains dropped away with the prospect of a new future with Ford. She was going to cherish her life with him every day. And she’d do everything she could to outlive him, protect their child from harm and see that he never knew loss again.
* * * * *
ISBN: 9781459226289
Lawman’s Perfect Surrender
Copyright © 2012 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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www.Harlequin.com
“Please help me figure out who I am.”
How can she leave him to die? June Farrow works for Cold Plains Search and Rescue as cover for her real mission—helping Devotees escape from Samuel Grayson’s evil cult. The rugged man she finds in the woods has no memory, but evidence points to his being one of Grayson’s murderous enforcers. Hardwired to save lives, June’s only option is to take him to the safe house.
“Jesse” is the name on his belt buckle—that’s about the only thing he knows. Now he’s being held prisoner by a beautiful stranger. The fierce attraction between them threatens to awaken details from his past. But how can he even trust himself when he might destroy those he’s trying to protect?
The Perfect Outsider
Loreth Anne White
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
CHAPTER 1
Eager was trained to alert on human scent.
And that’s exactly what his handler, June Farrow, was hoping to find as she worked her four-year-old black Lab in a zigzag pattern across the wind, the glow from her headlamp casting a pale beam into blackness. It was 4:00 a.m. Cold. The cloud cover was low, and rain lashed down through trees.
As June and her K9 worked their way up the thickly forested slope, the terrain grew treacherous, with steep gullies and hidden caves. June prayed that Lacy Matthews and her three-year-old twins, Bekka and Abby, were holed up in one of those caves, dry and safe from the storm.
Safe from Samuel Grayson’s men.
Because if Samuel’s men had found them, they were as good as dead.
Swaths of mist rolled down from the peaks and June’s hiking boots began to lose traction. More than once she had to grab onto brambles to stop from slipping down into one of the ravines hidden by the darkness and bush. Sweat prickled under her rain jacket and moisture misted her safety glasses. Water ran in a stream from the bill of her hat and it trickled uncomfortably down her neck.
While Eager was able to barrel like a tank through the increasingly dense scrub, the twigs began to tear at June’s clothes, hooking into her hair, clawing at her backpack, slowing her progress. This, she thought, as she stilled a moment to catch her breath, was why search-and-rescue teams used dogs—they could access places with ease that humans could not, especially a dog like Eager, who, with his stocky, deep-chested frame and thick coat, was impervious to the claw of brambles. And, having been bred from gundog stock, he was able to remain calm in the presence of loud rescue choppers and the big excavation machines often present in urban rescue.
June listened carefully to her surroundings, hoping to catch the faint sound of a woman’s cry on the wind. But a forest was never quiet, and in a storm like this, trees talked and groaned and squeaked as their trunks and branches rubbed together in the wind. Pine cones and broken branches bombed to the ground, and rain plopped from leaves. The pine needles in the canopy above swished with the sound of a river.
She could detect no cry for help amid the other sounds of the stormy night.
Tension coiled tight in her stomach.
Working solo was foolish, particularly for an experienced SAR tracker who knew better. But a desperation to find those three-year-old twins and their mother burned like fire in June’s chest, outweighing all caution.
Her own son had been thre
e when he’d died.
If June had managed to dig deeper into her own reserves, search harder, faster, sooner, all those years ago, she might have arrived in time to save Aiden. Now she had to save Bekka and Abby. The reason they were lost in the woods was partly June’s fault, and they’d been missing for two nights now. The clock was ticking and guilt weighed heavy.
“Eager!” she yelled over the wind. “Go that way, boy!”
Eager more sensed than saw his handler’s directional signal, and he veered in an easterly direction, moving across the base of glistening-wet rock. All June could see of him was the pale green glow of his LED collar, and every now and then the wet reflection of his coat as he cut across the beam of her headlamp.
The moisture was actually working in Eager’s favor—it enhanced his scenting abilities, but the wind was confounding. It punched down through holes in the canopy and swirled in eddies around the forest floor, carrying any scent that might have been pooling on the ground or in gullies with it.
June saw her dog hesitate a moment, then suddenly the green collar bobbed as Eager went crashing off in a new direction across the flank of a cliff.
He had scent.
June rushed after him, heart pounding as she shouldered through bushes and skidded over wet deadfall. Then she lost sight of the fluorescent light. She stilled, catching her breath as she wiped rainwater from her face. Her hand was shaking, and June realized she was exhausted.
She was going to make a fatal error like this.
She willed herself to calm. Life depended on it, and not just hers.
But as she dug deep for self-control an image hit her hard and suddenly of a search gone wrong five years ago. A search that resulted in the dramatic deaths of her husband and son. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to shake the accompanying and familiar sense of sheer and utter desperation.
It had happened because of a cult.
Her husband, Matt, had been sucked in by a religious organization, and when June had pressured Matt to leave, he’d kidnapped Aiden from day care, planning to take him to live on the cult compound.
Perfect Wyoming Complete Collection: Special Agent's Perfect Cover ; Rancher's Perfect Baby Rescue ; A Daughter's Perfect Secret ; Lawman's Perfect Surrender ; The Perfect Outsider ; Mercenary's Perfect Mission Page 72