A Wanted Man (Cold Case Detectives Book 1)

by Jennifer Morey

  After a brief pause, Lucas said, “Then I’m hired?”

  “I’d like to meet in person again. Sort of a formal interview for HR purposes.” And to make sure the man was legitimate.

  “Just say when.”

  Kadin set up a time. As he disconnected, he looked up and saw Penny standing in the doorway.

  He stood.

  “Hi,” she said.

  She didn’t seem so distant now. In fact, she seemed like herself again. Feisty Penny. And beautiful and radiant in a yellow dress.

  “Hi.”

  She stepped into his office and closed the door. When she faced him, she said point-blank in true Penny fashion, “I’m going to have a baby. Our baby.”

  “Yes, I’ve thought of little else since coming home.” Actually that wasn’t completely factual. He’d thought of her right along with the baby.

  She moved toward him, walking around the desk to stand before him, where she slid her hands up his chest and turned churning apprehension into the ignition of passion.

  “I went to visit my mother,” she said, hardly the come-hither he expected her to deliver.

  “Yeah?”

  “Turns out she was waiting for Mr. Right all along.”

  He wasn’t sure what that meant. “She found Mr. Right?”

  “I was wrong about her. I was wrong about me, too.”

  “You?”

  She pressed her body against his and hooked her arms over his shoulders. “I thought ending up like my mother was a bad thing. Turns out, I’m going to end up like her and I’m going to be happy.”

  “How’s that?” He slid his hands around her waist and held her, grinning and going along with her.

  “My mother waited for the right man to come along.”

  “She found someone?”

  Penny nodded in her sultry way. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “And...so have you?” he guessed.

  “Right again, cowboy.” She poked the brim of his hat to move it up his forehead a bit. Then she traced her forefinger down the left side of his brow and cheek and then followed the crease beside his mouth.

  “We’ll take it slow, okay?” She rose and pressed a kiss to his mouth. “We don’t have to do this the way everyone else does. We can be unconventional. Live together. Take one day at a time.”

  Kadin put his hands on her shoulders and set her back a bit.

  “No, Penny. We won’t take this slow. I meant it when I said I loved you and that I want to marry you.”

  “But...you don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  “This isn’t about proving anything. This is about meeting a woman I didn’t expect to fall in love with. Now we’re going to have a baby.” He couldn’t stop a beaming smile. “It’s a miracle, one I didn’t recognize until I saved you. The idea of losing you shook me. And then everything became suddenly so clear. You.” He brought her closer again, his arms sliding around her waist. “The baby.”

  After a while where she registered what he said, tears moistened her eyes. “You’re not...?”

  “Full of dread and regret?” He shook his head. “No. I’m full of hope. I know I’ll have bad days and moments when I’ll wish Annabelle was alive, but the other moments, the ones with you and our child—our new family—will overshadow that. I’ll be able to hang onto the good memories I have and be grateful for the new ones we make.”

  “Oh, Kadin!” She leaped up with a soft sob, hugging him tightly.

  He lifted her off her feet and held her, feeling her warmth and smelling her sweetness, closing his eyes to it all because he finally knew he had her.

  She was his. They were a family.

  “What about your job?” he asked. He wouldn’t take her career from her.

  Back on her feet, she kept her arms looped around him, sniffling back happy tears. “I’m going to consult for Avenue One until I decide what I want to do after the baby is born.”

  He’d be all right with anything she decided, as long as she stayed near him. She pecked his mouth with a kiss. “I might want to stay home with the baby, though.”

  “Whatever you decide, I support. Except moving from Rock Springs.”

  “I would never ask that of you.” He received another kiss. “I love you too much, and I know what this place means to you.”

  “Thank you.” Reminded of another step toward healing he’d achieved, he said, “I talked to my mother. We had a good conversation.”

  “The man comes full circle,” Penny said, truly happy for him. “I’m glad.”

  “I told her about you. And the baby.”

  “Wow. A real milestone.”

  “She said I could bring you when we were ready.”

  “Great. Then we’ll go next week.” She smiled as she joked.

  “Okay.”

  Her smile fled. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I want you to meet them. And them to meet you. Before the baby is born.”

  Penny kissed him again. “You are on the mend, Kadin Tandy.”

  “Not quite.”

  She leaned back and looked for signs of teasing. What did he mean?

  “You haven’t told me you’re going to marry me yet.”

  Relaxing, she smiled softly. “Oh...that.”

  He grinned at her teasing.

  She laughed and kissed him. He kissed her back, taking over, softening the touch and then deepening the intimacy.

  “I’ll marry you, Kadin Tandy, my lover. Protector of the innocent. I’ll be your wife and mother to your children. We’ll grow old together. Hold hands in public. Laugh and love.”

  “I like your optimism.”

  “Get used to it, Detective.”

  Finally, something he could look forward to. He lifted her into his arms and carried her toward the stairs to his upper level apartment. “We’re going to need a bigger house,” he said as he climbed.

  “Much bigger. You’re going to give me more than one baby.”

  He’d enjoy every moment of obliging her. “We’ll start looking tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow...

  Instead of gloom, tomorrow held the promise of love and happiness again. He’d spend the rest of his life cherishing that. And Penny.

  * * * * *

  If you loved this novel, be sure to pick up these other suspenseful titles from Jennifer Morey:

  THE MARINE’S TEMPTATION

  EXECUTIVE PROTECTION

  THE ELIGIBLE SUSPECT

  ARMED AND FAMOUS

  ONE SECRET NIGHT

  Available now from Harlequin Romantic Suspense!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from

  PROTECTING THE COLTON BRIDE by Elle James.

  http://www.harlequin.com/harlequinexperience

  We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Romantic Suspense title.

  You want sparks to fly! Harlequin Romantic Suspense stories deliver, with strong and adventurous women, brave and powerful men and the life-and-death situations that bring them together.

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  SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM

  ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

  Can this Colton cowboy save his wife—and his beloved ranch—when a killer threatens everything they hold dear?

  Read on for a sneak preview of

  PROTECTING THE COLTON BRIDE

  by New York Times bestselling author Elle James,

  the fourth book in the 2015


  COLTONS OF WYOMING continuity.

  “Why don’t we get married?”

  Even though she’d known it was coming, it still hit her square in the chest. The air rushed from her lungs and a tsunami of feelings washed over her. A surge of joy made her heart beat so fast she felt faint. She crested that wave and slid into the undertow of reality. “A marriage of convenience?”

  “Exactly.” Daniel reached for her hands.

  When she hid them behind her back, he dropped his arms. “It wouldn’t have to be forever. Just long enough to satisfy the stipulations of your grandmother’s will and save your horses, and that would help me get past the Kennedy gauntlet. We could leave tomorrow, spend a night in Vegas, find a chapel and it would be over in less than five minutes.”

  With her heart smarting, Megan forced a shaky smile. “Way to sweep a girl off her feet.”

  He waved his hand and Halo tossed her head. “If you want, I can make an official announcement in front of my family.”

  Megan shook her head. “No.”

  “No, you won’t marry me?”

  “No.” She pushed past him to pace down the center of the barn. “Your plan is insane.”

  “Do you have a better one?” he asked. “I’m all ears.”

  The plan was the same as the one she’d been thinking of before Daniel had woken up. Only when she’d dreamed it up, it didn’t sound as cold and impersonal as Daniel’s proposal. Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d hoped that marriage to Daniel would be something more than one of convenience.

  After yesterday’s kiss, she wasn’t sure she could be around Daniel for long periods of time without wanting another. And another.

  Don’t miss

  PROTECTING THE COLTON BRIDE

  by New York Times bestselling author Elle James,

  Available September 2015

  www.Harlequin.com

  Copyright © 2015 by Harlequin Books, S.A.

  Read on for a sneak preview of FATAL AFFAIR,

  the first book in the FATAL series

  by New York Times bestselling author

  Marie Force.

  Fatal Affair

  by Marie Force

  Chapter 1

  The smell hit him first.

  “Ugh, what the hell is that?” Nick Cappuano dropped his keys into his coat pocket and stepped into the spacious, well-appointed Watergate apartment that his boss, Senator John O’Connor, had inherited from his father.

  “Senator!” Nick tried to identify the foul metallic odor.

  Making his way through the living room, he noticed parts and pieces of the suit John wore yesterday strewn over sofas and chairs, laying a path to the bedroom. He had called the night before to check in with Nick after a dinner meeting with Virginia’s Democratic Party leadership, and said he was on his way home. Nick had reminded his thirty-six-year-old boss to set his alarm.

  “Senator?” John hated when Nick called him that when they were alone, but Nick insisted the people in John’s life afford him the respect of his title.

  The odd stench permeating the apartment caused a tingle of anxiety to register on the back of Nick’s neck. “John?”

  He stepped into the bedroom and gasped. Drenched in blood, John sat up in bed, his eyes open but vacant. A knife spiked through his neck held him in place against the headboard. His hands rested in a pool of blood in his lap.

  Gagging, the last thing Nick noticed before he bolted to the bathroom to vomit was that something was hanging out of John’s mouth.

  Once the violent retching finally stopped, Nick stood up on shaky legs, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and rested against the vanity, waiting to see if there would be more. His cell phone rang. When he didn’t take the call, his pager vibrated. Nick couldn’t find the wherewithal to answer, to say the words that would change everything. The senator is dead. John’s been murdered. He wanted to go back to when he was still in his car, fuming and under the assumption that his biggest problem that day would be what to do about the man-child he worked for who had once again slept through his alarm.

  Thoughts of John, dating back to their first meeting in a history class at Harvard freshman year, flashed through Nick’s mind, hundreds of snippets spanning a nearly twenty-year friendship. As if to convince himself that his eyes had not deceived him, he leaned forward to glance into the bedroom, wincing at the sight of his best friend—the brother of his heart—stabbed through the neck and covered with blood.

  Nick’s eyes burned with tears, but he refused to give in to them. Not now. Later maybe, but not now. His phone rang again. This time he reached for it and saw it was Christina, his deputy chief of staff, but didn’t take the call. Instead, he dialed 911.

  Taking a deep breath to calm his racing heart and making a supreme effort to keep the hysteria out of his voice, he said, “I need to report a murder.” He gave the address and stumbled into the living room to wait for the police, all the while trying to get his head around the image of his dead friend, a visual he already knew would haunt him forever.

  Twenty long minutes later, two officers arrived, took a quick look in the bedroom and radioed for backup. Nick was certain neither of them recognized the victim.

  He felt as if he was being sucked into a riptide, pulled further and further from the safety of shore, until drawing a breath became a laborious effort. He told the cops exactly what happened—his boss failed to show up for work, he came looking for him and found him dead.

  “Your boss’s name?”

  “United States Senator John O’Connor.” Nick watched the two young officers go pale in the instant before they made a second more urgent call for backup.

  “Another scandal at the Watergate,” Nick heard one of them mutter.

  His cell phone rang yet again. This time he reached for it.

  “Yeah,” he said softly.

  “Nick!” Christina cried. “Where the hell are you guys? Trevor’s having a heart attack!” She referred to their communications director who had back-to-back interviews scheduled for the senator that morning.

  “He’s dead, Chris.”

  “Who’s dead? What’re you talking about?”

  “John.”

  Her soft cry broke his heart. “No.” That she was desperately in love with John was no secret to Nick. That she was also a consummate professional who would never act on those feelings was one of the many reasons Nick respected her.

  “I’m sorry to just blurt it out like that.”

  “How?” she asked in a small voice.

  “Stabbed in his bed.”

  Her ravaged moan echoed through the phone. “But who… I mean, why?”

  “The cops are here, but I don’t know anything yet. I need you to request a postponement on the vote.”

  “I can’t,” she said, adding in a whisper, “I can’t think about that right now.”

  “You have to, Chris. That bill is his legacy. We can’t let all his hard work be for nothing. Can you do it? For him?”

  “Yes…okay.”

  “You have to pull yourself together for the staff, but don’t tell them yet. Not until his parents are notified.”

  “Oh, God, his poor parents. You should go, Nick. It’d be better coming from you than cops they don’t know.”

  “I don’t know if I can. How do I tell people I love that their son’s been murdered?”

  “He’d want it to come from you.”

  “I suppose you’re right. I’ll see if the cops will let me.”

  “What’re we going to do without him, Nick?” She posed a question he’d been grappling with himself. “I just can’t imagine this world, this life, without him.”

  “I can’t either,” Nick said, knowing it would be a much different
life without John O’Connor at the center of it.

  “He’s really dead?” she asked as if to convince herself it wasn’t a cruel joke. “Someone killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  Outside the chief’s office suite, Detective Sergeant Sam Holland smoothed her hands over the toffee-colored hair she corralled into a clip for work, pinched some color into cheeks that hadn’t seen the light of day in weeks, and adjusted her gray suit jacket over a red scoop-neck top.

  Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves and settle her chronically upset stomach, she pushed open the door and stepped inside. Chief Farnsworth’s receptionist greeted her with a smile. “Go right in, Sergeant Holland. He’s waiting for you.”

  Great, Sam thought as she left the receptionist with a weak smile. Before she could give into the urge to turn tail and run, she erased the grimace from her face and went in.

  “Sergeant.” The chief, a man she’d once called Uncle Joe, stood up and came around the big desk to greet her with a firm handshake. His gray eyes skirted over her with concern and sympathy, both of which were new since “the incident.” She despised being the reason for either. “You look well.”

  “I feel well.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He gestured for her to have a seat. “Coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Pouring himself a cup, he glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve been worried about you, Sam.”

  “I’m sorry for causing you worry and for disgracing the department.” This was the first chance she’d had to speak directly to him since she returned from a month of administrative leave, during which she’d practiced the sentence over and over. She thought she’d delivered it with convincing sincerity.

  “Sam,” he sighed as he sat across from her, cradling his mug between big hands. “You’ve done nothing to disgrace yourself or the department. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Not everyone makes mistakes that result in a dead child, Chief.”

  He studied her for a long, intense moment as if he was making some sort of decision. “Senator John O’Connor was found murdered in his apartment this morning.”