Stoking the Embers (New Adult Romantic Suspense): The Complete Series

by Johnson, Leslie

  In that moment, I realize that everything I’ve feared in my life doesn’t really matter. Fear is elusive. It hides in our thoughts and whispers, ‘what if’. The reality of fear is much different.

  “What if I point the gun at your little best friend?” she says, her head tilting to the right.

  She doesn’t know Beth is gone, I realize and laugh. She narrows her eyes, but I say nothing. Her eyes flick to the cell that had been holding my friend. “Check it,” she tells the enormous man.

  He walks to the cell and looks in. “Gone.” The word is a grumble.

  “How could you?!” Anna shrieks so loud that her voice pierces my ears. She screams and screams before lifting the gun again.

  She fires and I’m hurtled backwards, crashing onto the floor. Pain blooms and expands, becoming a black hole that sucks me into its void.

  Chapter 22 – Ken

  Screams echo throughout the warehouse as we step through the door. Then a gunshot reverberates all around me.

  No!

  Beth is running toward a hole in the wall. I follow and overtake her, hitting the stairs first. I’m down them and around the corner, taking in everything in front of me in an instant. A woman with a gun. Two men, one of them a giant. Oh God. Steph’s on the floor, Jerome’s on top of her, blood spreading across his chest.

  I dive at the woman, taking her down, and the gun clatters to the floor. Gage comes from behind me and tackles the giant, his shoulder in the guy’s gut, reeling him backwards. I scramble for the gun, get a hand on it and roll to my feet as Beth surprises the guy in the suit from behind. She jumps on his back and they crash to the ground. She comes up fighting, hitting him in the back of the head.

  “Stop!” I yell and point the gun at the giant. He’s the biggest threat—literally—and needs to be stopped. The man freezes as he faces the barrel and raises his hands in the air.

  “Gage, put him in a cage!” Beth yells from her position on the other man’s back. “Make him empty his pockets. He has keys.”

  “Turn around,” Gage instructs and pats the guy down, police style, and takes everything from him. He opens the door and thankfully the brute walks in. The door clangs behind him.

  The woman on the floor is crying and cursing. Her face, hands and knees are bleeding from where I knocked her to the concrete.

  I hand the gun to Gage, and then run to Steph. I pull Jerome off her. Her eyes are closed and she’s covered with blood. I fall to my knees to feel for a pulse. Thank God. I find it. I begin to check for wounds.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Beth stand up. “Here, let me help you,” she says in a sing-song voice to the woman. She extends a hand and helps the woman up. When the blonde is on her feet, Beth swings, connecting a right hook to the woman’s face and knocks her back down. Beth then kicks at her before Gage wraps an arm around her middle and pulls her away. Beth shrugs loose and runs to where Steph lies.

  “Is she okay?” she asks and when I nod, she bursts into tears. I can’t find any life threatening wounds although I can’t stop myself from continuing to look.

  Seconds later, a clatter of voices and running feet float down the stairwell. Gage yells, “Don’t shoot!”

  Ramsen comes around the corner first, gun drawn, and accesses the situation. He lowers his weapon and yells, “Clear!”

  Grimes is behind him, followed by an army of feds. Grimes walks over to me, kneels down and places her fingers at Jerome’s throat. She yells, “Need a bus.” Shit. That means Jerome is alive and needs medical attention. I was hoping the fucker was dead.

  Beside me, Stephanie moans and opens her eyes. Her eyes grow wide when she sees me. She looks around, sees Beth and grabs her friend’s hand, giving it a long squeeze.

  She looks at me and tries to sit up, but I press her down, still hunting for the source of the blood. “I’m okay. It’s not my blood. I wasn’t hit.” She raises her hand to the back of her head and winces.

  “You found me,” she says and tries to get up again. This time I let her. I pull her to my chest and she hangs on tight.

  “I would have never stopped looking,” I whisper in her hair.

  Pulling away, she looks around and sees Jerome lying on the ground. His eyes are open now and his breaths are coming with great effort. He turns his head and looks at us, then his eyes seem to focus on Stephanie. With a struggle, he reaches toward her. I try to pull her away, but she won’t let me.

  “It’s okay,” she says and crawls over to where he lies. My jaw tightens when she takes his hand, but it loosens when she says to him, “Thank you for saving me.”

  He tries to speak, but blood bubbles from his lips. He begins to shake and tries again, his lips quivering with the effort. “I…” That was it. He dies before any other words are formed.

  Epilogue – Stephanie

  Five months later…

  “Stephanie Grace Vonnegut.”

  As my name is called and I walk across the stage to accept my diploma, Ken and the guys go wild. Most of them are here, jumping up and down and yelling at the top of their lungs. Is Octavio crying?

  I smile and wave, holding my diploma in the air. The guys go wild again and I see Ken’s camera flash another picture. Our eyes meet and he winks at me. My insides stir. He still does that to me.

  His sister, Hannah, is standing beside him. She looks so much healthier. So much happier. Her hair is a bright scarlet today, to match my school colors. After everything settled down, we learned that, after she ran away to Vegas as a teenager, she’d been taken under Anna’s ‘wing’. If you can call being forced into prostitution and given drugs so you become an obedient zombie ‘protection’.

  Once Anna had been arrested, she sang like a bird, spilling her guts in return for a reduced sentence and witness protection. When she turned, it busted a human trafficking ring wide open. Over two hundred people were arrested in connection with trading over forty thousand women and children over a period of twelve years. Some of those people have been recovered and returned to their families. Most are gone. Most likely forever. Not everyone gets a happy ending.

  Captain Frank and his wife, Mary, are here. They’ve practically adopted me. Mary has taught me how to do things that mothers teach you... sew on buttons.... and cook things other than pasta. She’s knitting scarves for prostitutes still on the street. The nights can be cold here in Vegas and Mary goes around, places a scarf around a girl’s neck and kisses her cheek. I cried so hard the first time I went with her.

  The captain helped me find a new place and the guys helped me and Beth get moved in. It’s a little three bedroom home. No picket fence, but it’s mine. There’s a small pool in the back and a wonderful place to barbeque. My house has become quite the gathering place. A real home.

  I was able to buy my house because, surprisingly, when Jerome’s home was cleared out, they found a will dated over three years ago. In it, he left all of his possessions to me. They’d found a suicide note with the will. It was dated the same day as the will. It said:

  My lovely Stephanie,

  Please don’t be sad that I’ve decided to leave this torment of a life. You’ve been a bright light in the darkness, but even your glow can’t keep the shadows away. I don’t have much, but I leave everything to you. Have a good life.

  Love Jerome

  When Agent Grimes first handed me a copy of the letter and the will, I’d thrown them in the trash. I was appalled. I wanted nothing from him. Then, I went through the box that contained my journal and flipped back to the same date his suicide letter was written. I’d journaled the following:

  I surprised Jerome today. I packed us a picnic and dropped by his apartment unexpected. You should have seen his face when he saw me. He even had tears in his eyes. We went to the park and then we went back to his place and made love for the first time. I’m no longer a virgin! We spent the entire night together. I’m so happy.

  I pondered on that for the longest time and realized he must have written that letter a
nd drafted his short will just before I’d arrived at his door that day. I’d saved him from killing himself, but I hadn’t saved him. Even now, I can’t help but wonder how my life would be different if I hadn’t packed those sandwiches.

  I look up at Ken and realize we’d have probably never fallen in love and I shiver at the thought. I would have never had the financial resources to purchase a house just for me either. More than that, I would never been able to open a place like HEAL.

  HEAL is Healing Exploitation through Acceptance and Love, the center Beth and I are opening in a few weeks. It’s how I used most of what Jerome left to me. Beth’s dad helped us get incorporated and all that legal stuff. Her mom did the decorating with our input. Hannah is going to be our receptionist.

  The center is opening on New Year’s Day, appropriate I think. We’ll be providing a holistic approach to helping anyone exposed to sexual assault heal mentally and physically, prostitutes included. We have a wonderful psychologist who is dedicated to our mission. A medical doctor too.

  I know you can’t un-rape a woman, but you can give her love and a place to know she isn’t alone. In the City of Sin, I hope we can offer a little peace.

  I told Ken what I’d done with Jerome to save Beth’s and my own life. I needed to tell him, not let the secret consume me. Secrets lose their power over you when they’ve been shared. It’s like slowly letting air out of a balloon.

  In my heart, I’d known he would be accepting, but I worried that he might look at me differently. He hadn’t. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked me directly in the eye.

  He said, “You are a warrior and you did what warriors do. Survive. I’m proud of you and I’m damn glad you did what you needed to do to stay alive.”

  Then, he undressed me and made the most tender love to me imaginable. He kissed every inch of me; top to bottom and back again. With each kiss, he said something: I love you, I’m so grateful for you, I adore you. In those words and actions, my shame was washed away completely.

  Now, it’s graduation day. Another chapter closing. Another one opening. I look across the aisle and see Beth smiling back at me. I stand and throw my cap in the air. It gets lost in the sea of others.

  After graduation, the station hosts a barbeque in mine and Beth’s honor. The food is delicious and I eat so much I barely have room for a slice of cake.

  “We did it!” Beth squeals, not for the first time. We happy dance together, our faces hurting from smiling so much.

  After cake and ice cream, Ken yells to get everyone’s attention. He holds up his glass of soda and says, “I’d like to make a toast.”

  When everyone is quite, he begins…

  “Today we celebrate a milestone in the lives of two very strong and beautiful women, the lovely Stephanie Vonnegut and Beth Richards. Two warriors.”

  Cheers go up, so he has to pause. He waves his hands in the air to quieten everyone down. When all is silent again, he continues…

  “Everyone has a dream and Stephanie wears her dreams on her wrist.” There is murmured confusion and Ken waves me to the front. When I’m by his side, he lifts my hand in the air, the bracelet jingling on my arm.

  He lowers my hand and kisses the back of it, holding it to his chest. “Several years ago, Stephanie got this bracelet and purchased charms that had special meaning. One was a tiny diploma. Well, she got the real one today.”

  Cheers go up again.

  “But there are a couple other charms on here that haven’t been transformed to reality. You see, Steph here is a pet lover, but she’s never been able to have one of her own.”

  I gasp, intuiting what is coming next. Beth comes around the corner, two squirming balls of fluff in her arms. I squeal, jumping up and down, throwing my arms around Ken, causing him to spill most of his drink. I don’t care.

  I turn to see a tiny black Labrador puppy and a white long-haired kitten. Beth is dripping tears on them as she presents them to me.

  The kitten cries and I reach for him, holding him to my face while reaching for the puppy. I sink to the floor and cradle the animals in my lap, still unable to believe they get to go home with me.

  The little cat stiffens and swats at the puppy, who draws back looking painfully insulted. Then the kitten leaps on the pup and starts biting her ear. Everyone laughs. The sound scares the kitten and he puffs up and hisses. The puppy launches on him and they start rolling around, falling off my lap. They are so adorable, playing and launching themselves at each other, already good friends.

  I notice that Ken even bought them collars. The kitten’s is blue and has a little bell which is dinging merrily. The puppy’s collar is pink and also has something attached. Not a bell. What is it?

  Curious, I reach for the dog and lift her up. I gasp. It’s a ring. A diamond ring. I look up at Ken and he’s grinning so big his dimple is showing.

  He reaches down and unhooked the dog’s collar. He slides the ring off of it, then sticks out a hand. In a daze, I reach out and he pulls me until I’m on my feet. When I’m steady, he lowers himself to one knee.

  “Stephanie Grace Vonnegut, I hope that today, you’ve had a couple of dreams fulfilled. Now, I’m hoping you’ll fulfill one of mine.”

  I look down into his gorgeous face and it blurs before me, then clears again as I blink away the tears trying to blind me.

  “Marry me.” He puffs out a breath and laughs. “Wow, I never thought I’d be saying that.” I laugh too and sink to the floor to be on his level.

  “Will you?” he asks and reaches for my hand. I reach for his.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes!”

  The crowd goes wild and the kitten runs up my back, clinging to my shoulder and hiding in my hair.

  Ken slips the ring on my finger and leans toward me, pressing his lips to mine. The puppy barks and the alarms of the fire house join in.

  A room once full is almost instantly deserted as men pour out to do their duty and everyone else gives us some privacy. Ken stays; he has today and the next two days off. I think I know what we’ll be doing the entire time.

  He picks up the puppy while I manage to remove the kitten’s little claws from my neck. We’re still sitting on the floor, smiling crazily at each other.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for these little guys and for giving me a family and a future.”

  He grins. “Thank you for saying ‘yes’ to it all.”

  I laugh. “Did you really think I was going to say no?” I give him a ‘don’t lie’ stare.

  He looks from my eyes to my lips and back up to my eyes. “I was hoping, but yeah, there was a little devil on my shoulder that kept saying you were going to bolt.”

  I shake my head and lean in to kiss him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Promise?”

  I shiver, remembering another promise I made and broke not long ago. I shake the memory off and look into the eyes of the man I love.

  “Promise.”

  The End

  Click HERE to be notified when my next book is released!

  Announcing Ashes

  The story continues with Beth and Gage.

  She's the wind. He's the fire. Both are independent, hot headed, and strong. Neither want a relationship or to be tied down in any way. But outside forces have other ideas.

  When Beth is confronted by an old demon, she can't imagine the danger she's in. She's too stubborn to ask for help, but will she have a choice? How do they fight an evil that can't be seen or understood?

  Don't miss the first book in the Stoking the Embers steamy spin-off series, Ashes. If you loved Beth and Gage in Stoking the Embers, see what happens next in Ashes, a five book romantic suspense series.

  Available Now!

  Exclusively on Amazon and free on KindleUnlimited!

  Click here: Ashes Book 1

  Thank you lovely readers for your support, you are the best! You are the reason I keep writing books and you make me so happy. I appreciate every one of you and that is from the bott
om of my heart.

  I don’t want to forget my Facebook fans, editor, advanced reviewers, thank you for all your help and support in making the series the best it could be.

  About the Author

  Leslie is a California native but recently moved to Arizona after a stint in Arkansas. She enjoys travel and being with her grandchildren.

  She is an avid reader of many genres, but prefers romances with travel or thriller themes. She loves writing about strong women and strong men because the world needs both!

  Please visit me at:

  http://lesliejohnsonauthor.com/

  https://www.facebook.com/lesliejohnsonauthor

  Announcing Ashes

  The story continues with Beth and Gage.

  She's the wind. He's the fire. Both are independent, hot headed, and strong. Neither want a relationship or to be tied down in any way. But outside forces have other ideas.

  When Beth is confronted by an old demon, she can't imagine the danger she's in. She's too stubborn to ask for help, but will she have a choice? How do they fight an evil that can't be seen or understood?

  Don't miss the first book in the Stoking the Embers steamy spin-off series, Ashes. If you loved Beth and Gage in Stoking the Embers, see what happens next in Ashes, a five book romantic suspense series.

  Available Now!

  Exclusively on Amazon and free on KindleUnlimited!

  Click here: Ashes Book 1

  Other books from Atrevida Publishing

  Leslie Johnson - Firefighter Romance Series

  Fighting the Flames

  Jessie Taylor, running away from her cheating boyfriend, meets a new flame, firefighter Ryan James. Fate can be cruel or kind and she had been running from it her whole life. There would be no running this time.

  Fanning the Flames

  Cassie McDonald is courted by a millionaire with a dark secret, but along comes firefighter Brendan McKay.