“Just fine, thanks. So, you think you might want to quit CIU and join the FDA instead?”
“Not unless you intend to fire me.” But Neva’s wide grin appeared confident that wasn’t in the cards. And she was right.
Treena unbuckled her own seat belt and went back to chat with Neva and the rest of her team, Alan and Doug. She thanked them again, yelling a bit over the engine growl of their compact jet.
But her mind had been percolating on a plan. She had two other people to stay in touch with and thank.
Soon she returned to her seat. An idea had come to her, and she made notes about it on her laptop.
She smiled when she was done. “Let’s see what happens with this,” she said aloud.
* * *
A month had passed since Preston Corcoris had been shot and subsequently arrested.
Beth was on a commercial jet heading from Seattle to Washington, D.C. Judge Treena had asked her to come. There were some things about the case against Corcoris that she wanted to discuss.
Beth thumbed through the magazine on her lap, not really noticing the pages. She looked forward to seeing the judge who had helped to save her life.
Even more, she hoped she would see Daniel, who had been right there beside her. Who had definitely saved her life, and more. Had celebrated with her and made sure she was okay as she gave her initial testimony to the investigators on the case.
And then left her after several more nights of incredibly hot and wonderful sex that she would never, ever forget.
She had finally remembered to check the lottery ticket she had bought all those weeks ago. Unsurprisingly, it hadn’t been a winner.
Beth hadn’t cared. She had been a winner in the ways that counted—saving her life and her family’s.
Her parents, her brother and his family—they were all fine now. They’d taken that planned trip while things were still being worked out. Since then, she had even been able to visit them briefly. And consider moving home.
But now...well, it would take more than luck to get her through the meetings to come, but she knew she could handle it.
Couldn’t she?
She sighed now as one of the flight attendants asked if she would like a glass of water. She said yes. But what she really wanted was something to help her deal with the next couple of days.
Would it be better if she saw Daniel to officially say goodbye?
Or would it be better if she never saw him again?
* * *
“You’re kidding me, aren’t you?” Beth was in Judge Treena’s office at the U.S. Marshals Service in the building occupied by the Department of Justice.
“Not hardly.” Judge Treena glared at her from across her standard-issue metal government desk with its pristine top bare except for her computer and two stacks of files. As always when Beth had seen her, Judge Treena wore a dark suit that contrasted nicely with her unkempt blond hair. “I don’t want an answer immediately unless it’s positive. But your working for us makes a hell of a lot of sense, Beth.”
Her voice had softened just a little. Startled, Beth looked at her. She was smiling with what appeared to be sympathy.
“What if I like proofreading online newspapers and magazines? When this is all finally over, I can move back to Moravo Beach and do that from my home, with my family around.”
But Beth’s mind was circulating around the job offer the judge had just presented: join the Identity Division, not as an investigator for the Covert Investigations Unit but as one of the people within the Transformation Unit who helped to create new identities for deserving victims who’d been menaced by awful, crooked people but hadn’t been able to collect a shred of usable evidence to get the crooks prosecuted and in prison where they belonged.
Just as she had been not so long ago.
She wouldn’t admit it to the judge, but she was extremely tempted. Helping people the way she had been helped. Having her life changed from hopeless to full of promise for actually having a future. She would be away from her family, but she could visit often.
But if she took the job, she would be headquartered in D.C.
And so was Daniel.
That was the crux of her problem. She had heard from him during the past weeks, sure. Now and then, when he’d had a few minutes to talk, not to see her.
He was on another undercover assignment. That made it a case of “don’t call me, I’ll call you.” He could get in touch with her whenever he felt like it, but she didn’t dare call or even text him. He had told her not to. Email messages? Sure. And he even responded to them occasionally.
How could she live in this area knowing that the man she loved was here but not here and not really interested in her—for, yes, she had admitted to herself, though not to him, that she had fallen for Daniel McManus. Hard. And she needed time to get over him...if she ever did.
“Well, it’s ultimately up to you,” Judge Treena said. “But I do have a little help on my side.” A huge smile lit her gracefully aging face, surprising Beth.
But only for an instant. When Her Honor looked over Beth’s shoulder to the door behind her, Beth knew who she’d see if she turned around.
Which she did.
Daniel stood there grinning sexily at her. Hungrily. Oh, heavens, why was he doing that in front of Judge Treena?
And what were the two of them still doing there, instead of rushing to the nearest hotel?
Okay. Time to get ahold of herself. But she stood quickly anyway and found herself running into Daniel’s arms.
His kiss was immediate and hot, and her insides, especially down below, simmered with need.
“I’ve missed you,” he muttered against her mouth.
“All right, you two,” the judge said from behind her. “I’ll give you some alone time right here, but it’s a good thing I don’t have a bed in this office.”
Feeling her face redden, Beth backed away from Daniel, but only a little.
“Save all that for when you’re by yourselves tonight,” Judge Treena ordered as she moved around them and out the door. “But I expect you to do your job, Daniel, and convince Beth to accept the position I offered her.” Then the judge was gone, closing the door behind her.
Beth heard herself giggle—and she couldn’t recall when she’d last giggled. “So are you going to try to convince me?”
“I sure am,” he responded, looking down at her with blue eyes so tender that she almost melted and accepted the job right there. “But, honestly, it’s up to you whether to take the job and move here. Although after all the evenings we spent together, I still owe you a home-cooked meal—and I’m a damned good chef. Right now, though, I have something else I need to convince you to do.”
Beth’s heart started pounding. Surely he wasn’t—
But in moments, Daniel was on his knees on the floor in front of her. “Beth Jones, aka Andrea Martinez, will you marry me?” He pulled a jewelry box out of his pocket and opened it. A lovely engagement ring sat in it, and he pulled it out as he held her hand and stood. “Please? It’s been hell since we’ve last been together. I have to warn you that I’m keeping my job here, and that means I’ll be out in the field a lot, still doing undercover work. But if I have you to come home to...well, I’ll work a lot faster. I promise. So...?”
“Yes,” Beth exclaimed, and then she smiled. “Yes, I’ll take Judge Treena’s offer.”
The hope that was on Daniel’s face suddenly segued into worry. “But what about my offer?”
“Oh, yes, Daniel McManus. I will definitely marry you.”
He grinned as he slipped the ring onto her finger. It was gorgeous and a perfect fit.
And as they kissed, Beth knew that this, Daniel’s love and anticipating spending their lives together, made up for all she had gone through.
> “I love you, Daniel,” she whispered against him.
“And I love you, Beth.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from COLD CASE, HOT ACCOMPLICE by Carla Cassidy.
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Chapter 1
For the first time in three and a half years, Aunt Liz was late. Roxy Marcoli checked her watch for the third time in the past five minutes and tried not to panic.
The older woman had never been late delivering the baked goods that were offered each day to the customers of the Dollhouse. She always arrived at six-thirty, a half hour before Roxy turned the closed sign to Open, signaling the beginning of another day at the restaurant.
It was now quarter till seven and still no sign of Aunt Liz. Roxy had already called her aunt’s house twice, and there had been no answer. She’d also tried Liz’s cell phone, but it had gone directly to voice mail.
“Maybe she’s held up in traffic,” Josephine Landers, Roxy’s manager, said as she checked the quiches that baked in the oven.
“Yeah, because traffic jams are such an issue in Wolf Creek, Pennsylvania,” Roxy replied drily. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard of a traffic snarl in the relatively small tourist town twenty miles up the mountain from the bigger city of Hershey.
“You know she’d never answer her cell phone if she was driving. She’ll probably be walking in here any minute now,” Josie said, obviously unconcerned about Liz Marcoli’s punctuality or lack thereof.
What worried Roxy was that her aunt Liz was the one person in the entire world she’d always depended on, the one person who had always been there for her. She checked her watch once again. Almost seven. This was so out of character for Aunt Liz.
A thousand scenarios played out in Roxy’s head, one worse than the other. Maybe she’d slipped and fallen in the shower. Or she’d been in a car accident and was at the hospital. Half the time she forgot to carry her purse with her, so if she was in an accident and rendered unconscious, it was possible that nobody would know her identity.
Stop it, Roxy commanded herself. Stop thinking so negatively. She’d been told often enough by both of her sisters and her aunt that she was prone to always seeing the bad side of any situation.
Maybe for once in her life, Aunt Liz had simply overslept. But then why hadn’t she heard the phone ring? “Maybe I’ll just give Marlene a call and have her run over and check in at Aunt Liz’s,” she said, more to herself than to Josie.
“Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better do it fast because our first customers should be coming in any minute.” Josie pulled the tray of homemade quiches from the oven.
Roxy grabbed her cell phone from her apron pocket and punched in her middle sister’s number. Marlene picked up on the third ring, her voice groggy with sleep.
“You’d better be profusely bleeding or on fire,” she said to Roxy.
“Neither, and I’m sorry to bother you so early, but I can’t find Aunt Liz,” Roxy replied. She leaned one hip against the large butcher-block island in the center of the kitchen.
“What do you mean you can’t find Aunt Liz?”
Roxy could hear the rustle of bedsheets and could easily imagine her blond-haired, beautiful sister sitting up in her bed in her tiny walk-up apartment bedroom. “She didn’t come this morning with the baked goods, and I’ve tried to call the house and her cell phone, but I get no answer.” Roxy tried to keep the worry from her voice, but it was obvious Marlene heard it.
“You want me to go over there and check things out?”
“Would you mind? I’m just about to open my doors, and I can’t imagine what’s held her up this morning. This has never happened before.”
“It will take me a few minutes to pull myself together and get over there, but I’ll call you back as soon as I know something.”
Roxy released a small sigh of relief. “Thanks, Marlene. And if she shows up here in the meantime, I’ll give you a call back.”
Roxy hung up at the same time she heard a rapid knock come from the front door of the three-story Victorian home she’d turned into a restaurant.
For the past year, the first three customers at the door every Monday, Wednesday and Friday were three of Hershey’s finest who, before beginning their shifts as detectives, started their day with a hearty Dollhouse breakfast.
As Roxy left the kitchen to open the front door, pride of ownership filled her heart. The restaurant consisted of three seating rooms, the large kitchen and a small storage area that had once served as a mudroom.
She was open six days a week, from seven in the morning until five in the evening. She’d initially envisioned the intimate restaurant to be popular with small women’s groups and lunching ladies. She’d never expected the men who showed up for breakfast, and as a result, her morning offerings had become bigger in size, heartier than the lunch menu.
When she reached the front door, she was unsurprised to see the three familiar men standing on the porch. Jim Carmani, Frank Delaney and Steven Kincaid were all detectives with the Wolf Creek police force. As she opened the door to let them in, her stomach twisted into a small knot of tension.
She busied herself turning the sign from Closed to Open in the glass pane of the front door, and the three men seated themselves where they always did, at the round table nearest the front window.
Knowing they would want coffee all around, she hurried to the kitchen to grab a serving pot of the fresh-brewed drink and then returned to their table and placed the silver pot in the center.
Jim and Frank both murmured a good morning. Steve eyed her with bright blue eyes and a sexy smile that should be considered illegal. “Foxy Roxy, you’re looking stunning this morning as usual.”
This was the man who twisted the knot in her stomach. Half the time after serving them, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to pull out his shaggy surfer blond hair or her own black curly strands.
“Don’t call me Foxy Roxy,” she snapped.
“Why not?” he asked. A light of amusement shone in his ocean-blue eyes as his gaze perused her from head to toe.
“Because I told you not to,” she said and then smiled at Jimmy and Frank. Both of them were dressed in black slacks, white shirts and lightweight suit jackets, while Steve was clad in a pair of slacks and a blue dress shirt that emphasized the color of his eyes and the shoulder holster that held his gun.
“What can I get for you this morning?” she asked Jimmy. “I’m afraid I don’t have any cinnamon rolls or muffins. They haven’t been delivered yet.” She tamped down a new burst of worry about her aunt. Where could she be?
“I’ll take your breakfast special, scrambled eggs with bacon and white toast,” Jimmy said.
“And those Belgian waffles are calling to me, the ones smothered with bananas and caramel topping,” Frank added.
Roxy nodded and turned to Steve. He grinned at her, and the knot in her stomach twisted a little bit tighter. “I’d like a plate of your long gorgeous legs and a hint of your pretty smile.”
“Vegetable quiche,” she said as she wrote on her
pad, knowing few men ordered the delicate dish.
“No, wait!” Steve released a low rumble of laughter. “Give me the same as Frank.”
“That’s what I thought you said,” she said drily and then twirled on her heels and left the table. “That man,” she exclaimed as she entered the kitchen where Josie and Gregory Stillwell, another employee, were manning the oven.
“Let me guess,” Josie said as she took the order sheet from Roxy. “Detective Steve Kincaid?” She didn’t wait for Roxy’s answer, but instead pointed Gregory to the waffle maker while she got eggs from the fridge. “I don’t know why you let him get under your skin. Every woman in town thinks he’s hot and sexy and would love to get a little of his flirtation and a taste of his lush lips, but we all know he’s not really the serious type.”
“He looks like some surfer dude who wandered in from a beach instead of a detective on the police force.”
Josie grinned at her. “And you look like a hot, take-me-to-bed-right-now kind of woman instead of the man-hater you really are.”
“I’m not a man-hater,” Roxy grumbled. “I just refuse to buy into anything any of them are trying to sell.”
Josie looked down at the wedding ring that had adorned her finger for the past three months. “Sometimes they’re just selling you love,” she replied, her voice gooey with sentiment.
The honeymoon stage, that’s all it was, Roxy thought. Josie had married her high school sweetheart three months ago. Sooner or later the honeymoon would pass and real life would intrude—and that’s when everything went to hell.
Roxy knew.... She’d lived it with her mother for the first seven years of her life. Men had led her mother to utter destruction, and Roxy wasn’t about to make those same kinds of mistakes. She was good by herself, thank you very much.
It took only minutes for the three meals to be prepared and served, and by that time other diners had entered to get breakfast and enjoy the ambiance of the cozy eatery.
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