Outside the Law

by Michelle Karl

  It had felt like the longest two months of her life.

  “Hi,” he said, stepping inside.

  “Hi.” She felt the warmth of a blush creep up her cheeks, followed by a sudden flood of butterflies in her stomach. What was going on? She was a grown woman! She’d dodged bullets and faked her own death, and not once had she felt this nervous. Her only consolation was that he looked just as anxious to be standing in front of her again.

  “These are for you,” he said after a few moments of silence. He handed her the white box, setting the flowers on top. “I admit that I don’t know what kind of flowers you like, so I figured what’s inside the box would be a good consolation. Plus, uh, I don’t know if you’ve had any for a while.”

  She lifted the flowers and set them aside—and gasped in delight as she opened the box. “Cinnamon rolls!”

  “I wasn’t sure if those were the right thing to bring, or...”

  She set down the box and wrapped her arms around him in a grateful hug, blinking back tears. Without hesitation, he returned the embrace and held her tight. The security she felt in his arms brought a sense of home that she hadn’t felt for months, and she didn’t want to let go—but she also hadn’t heard from him since that moment the FBI had dragged her off at the Pentagon, and she didn’t want to scare him away if anything had changed.

  “It’s good to see you,” she said. “You look good.”

  He shook his leg, a goofy grin appearing on his face. “Of course I do. I’m all healed up and come bearing good news.”

  Her heart leaped. “Really? I could use some.”

  “Let’s sit down.” Noel guided her to the couch and they sat at either end, but he scooted closer to her and took her hands. “I wanted to be the one to tell you personally that as of this morning, the last of the black ops soldiers has been located and arrested. The Department of Defense spent weeks interrogating General Stark, and it took an outrageous amount of manpower to find these guys, but it’s over. Stark’s trial hasn’t happened yet, but it’s a done deal. There’s no one left to come after you.”

  Yasmine’s lips parted, surprise stalling the words on her tongue, but Noel beat her to it.

  “You can go home.”

  She reached out and hugged him again, a quick hug of gratitude, but where she thought she’d find relief, a sudden sense of melancholy rushed in.

  Noel cupped the side of her face, rubbing his thumb lightly across her cheek. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy to hear it.”

  She should have been happy. She knew that. But she couldn’t shake the sense that she no longer really had anything to go home to. “Noel, I’m grateful—don’t get me wrong, but—”

  “The rolls are from Cinnamon Sunrise.”

  She froze, uncertain if she’d heard him correctly. “What?”

  He grinned. “Your aunt and my mother made them. Mina, they’ve been running your bakery since the day we drove off in my mother’s car. The place is a rousing success, and frankly, I’m not sure they’re going to want to give it up if you go back.”

  Laughter bubbled up from inside, and she felt a smooth joy begin to creep back into her spirit. “That’s amazing. Auntie Zee...well, I suppose it’s fitting. Half of the recipes were hers, anyway.” She paused, his final words sinking in. “Wait, what do you mean if I go back?”

  He shrugged. “I mean, it’s up to you.”

  “But of course I’m going back. Even if they’re the ones running the bakery, I’m sure I can find a new apartment and help them out. And you’re working in Buffalo, right? So...”

  Noel slipped off the couch and knelt on the floor, leaning over. Yasmine thought he’d bent over to tie his shoe, but when he straightened, he held a dark blue velvet box toward her. “Yasmine, I know we haven’t seen each other for a few months, and I know our reunion before that wasn’t ideal. I’d always hoped to see you again, and I never expected that it would happen with bullets flying over our heads. But truth be told—”

  His voice began to waver. Yasmine held her breath in disbelief.

  “Truth be told, the moment you dove across the hood of my car and rolled into the passenger seat, shouting at me to drive, I knew. It didn’t matter that we’d spent ten years apart. It took me a while to admit it to myself, but Yasmine, I love you. And I have always loved you. I always will love you, if you’ll let me. I’ll help you open a branch of your bakery in Buffalo, or on the other side of the country, wherever you want, if you’ll let me. I don’t know where the FBI will take me, but I do know that I want you by my side. I never want to be apart from you again—and certainly not for ten years.”

  He flipped open the box, revealing a beautiful, sparkling diamond ring. Yasmine gasped as her heart took flight.

  “I love you, Yasmine Browder. And I know you love me. The way I see it, if our childhood love was able to span an entire decade apart, I know that with God’s help, we can make anything work. Will you marry me?”

  She couldn’t help but grin. “A new branch of the bakery, you say? You’re willing to help me franchise Cinnamon Sunrise? Sounds like a terrifying challenge, but I can’t imagine anyone else I’d want to dive into uncertain danger with.” Yasmine laughed and leaned in to give him the kiss she’d waited these past two months for. “So, yes, you ridiculous, incredible man,” she said. “I will.”

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed OUTSIDE THE LAW, look for these other titles by Michelle Karl:

  FATAL FREEZE

  and

  UNKNOWN ENEMY.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from MISTAKEN IDENTITY by Shirlee McCoy.

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  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for coming along with Yasmine and Noel on their whirlwind journey. Both of these characters started out feeling a sense of displacement—they were at the start of new chapters in their lives and not entirely settled into the changes yet. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve felt like that. When folks ask me, “Where are you from?” I tend to answer with, “Which province? I grew up in four.” Yep, my family moved a lot! But each time I entered a new phase of life—and I don’t even think a person necessarily needs to move geographical locations to feel this way—that sense of displacement was a God-given learning opportunity. Often a tough one (albeit not tough like bullets and car chases, phew!), but I’ve learned that home is, well, where you find the ones you love.

  I also hope you enjoyed seeing a few familiar faces in this story—if you’ve read Fatal Freeze, you probably recognized the heroic CIA agent Shaun! If you’ve read Unknown Enemy, you probably recognized Chief Black, who helped out Colin and Ginny, as well as a return appearance of the Kingdom of Amar via Yasmine’s family background. I hope these little cameos were as much fun for you to read as they were for me to write!

  I love hearing from readers. Come hang out with me at michellekarl.com or find me on Twitter, @_Michelle Karl_. Thank you so much for reading Outside the Law!

  Blessings,

  Michelle

  Meet the FBI special agents of the elite Classified K-9 Unit in this exciting new novella, AGENT IN TRAINING!

  These FBI agents solve the toughest cases with the help of their brave canine partners

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  GUARDIAN by Terri Reed

  SHERIFF by Laura Scott

  SPECIAL AGENT by Valerie Hansen

  BOUNTY HUNTER by Lynette Eason

  BODYGUARD by Shirlee McCoy

  TRACKER by Lenora Worth

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  Mistaken Identity

  by Shirlee McCoy

  ONE

  Trinity Miller didn’t scare easily, but she was scared now.

  It wasn’t the darkness of the woods that stretched out to either side of the old dirt road that had her rattled. It wasn’t the full moon hovering over mountain vistas. It wasn’t even the silence in her old Jeep Cherokee that was getting to her.

  It was the weird feeling she had.

  The one that seemed to be telling her to turn around and leave. If she’d told either of her brothers about it, they’d have said she should listen. Of course, she hadn’t told Jackson or Chance what she was doing. They both thought she was on a weekend jaunt to New England to see the fall foliage, eat the crisp, ripe apples. Decide what direction she wanted her life to go.

  All of those things were true.

  There just happened to be a couple of tiny little details that she hadn’t offered. Like the fact that she was going to pay a visit to a man who was notoriously private. Like the fact that he lived in Middle-of-Nowhere, Maine.

  Like the fact that she hadn’t told Mason Gains she was coming or asked permission to drive down the road that had been clearly marked with no-trespassing signs.

  Yeah. She’d skipped a few details when she’d been explaining things to her brothers. They’d been too busy with their work and their families to notice she was hedging around questions and offering minimal details. Twelve hours ago, when she’d left her Annapolis home and headed north, she’d been happy about that.

  Now, with fear sitting like a hard rock in her belly, she wouldn’t have minded having one or the other of her brothers sitting beside her.

  Go home.

  That’s what they’d have wanted her to do. Knowing them, they’d have found a way to send her packing so they could handle the situation themselves.

  Whatever the situation was.

  She frowned. It wasn’t like she was heading into a hostage rescue mission. She was going to talk to a guy who made prosthetic limbs for a living. How dangerous could it be?

  Unless Mason Gains had a gun and decided to shoot first and ask questions later, Trinity should be just fine. She’d done her research, used her computer forensic background to find out everything she could about Mason. She hadn’t found any hint of violence, any indication that he’d been in trouble with the law. He’d served his country, gone to college, gone into business doing something that could enhance the lives of wounded warriors.

  He was a hero.

  Heroes didn’t shoot unarmed women.

  She hoped.

  If they did, there were sure a lot of places to hide a body around here.

  At least Bryn knew where Trinity was. If she didn’t return home, she could count on her best friend to let everyone know where she’d been and what she’d been up to.

  By that time, it would be too late, of course.

  Trinity would be buried somewhere in the forest, her body concealed under layers of dirt, dead leaves and fallen pine needles. She frowned. That was not a good direction for her thoughts to go. Not when she was already scared.

  “You shouldn’t be scared,” she muttered, breaking the eerie silence.

  Sure, she was in the middle of nowhere. Sure, there was nothing but trees and mountains as far as the eye could see, but she’d been hiking in rougher areas. She worked search and rescue, and she’d been out on rainy nights and snowy ones, serving as a flanker for K-9 teams. She’d trekked through mountains and wetland, and she’d done it without even a shiver of alarm, so she had no reason to be sitting in her locked Jeep, her heart pounding with fear as she drove down a pitch-black mountain road.

  She leaned forward to ease the tension from her lower back. She’d been driving for hours, just stopping long enough to gas up and move on. Mason Gains didn’t like being interrupted. He had important work to do, and he couldn’t be bothered with unexpected visitors. He’d made that clear in a couple of interviews he’d done. Both had been taped several years ago. Since then he’d been quiet, living and working—according to his company website—somewhere in New England.

  It had taken just under two weeks for Trinity to figure out exactly where that was. For the first time in longer than she cared to remember, she felt like her expertise in computer forensics was paying off in a way that would really matter to someone she cared about.

  In ten days Bryn’s son Henry would have surgery to remove his left leg. The cancer that was growing in his bone could almost certainly be stopped that way. So could his running dreams. An all-star athlete, he’d been training for Junior Olympics and Bryn had been told that he’d go even farther than that. Henry had his Navy SEAL father’s drive, but he didn’t have his father. Rick had been killed in Iraq when Henry was a toddler. Bryn had been working her butt off ever since, trying to be mother and father to their son.

  This newest blow had shaken her, and Trinity was doing everything she could to buoy her.

  This journey was part of that.

  It was possible Mason would turn her away at the door. It was possible he’d refuse to hear her out. It was even more possible that he’d listen and then tell her what she already knew—he only made prosthetic limbs for veterans. He didn’t work with kids.

  She’d still had to come. She’d had to try.

  She’d just rather not die doing it.

  She eyed the dark trees, the distant mountains and the road that stretched out in front of her. Not a light. Not a house. Not any sign of civilization. Maybe she should turn around; return when the sun came up.

  “Five minutes,” she whispered because the silence was starting to get to her and the only thing she was getting on her radio was static. “If I don’t see something by then, I’m turning around.”

  The wind howled, sweeping through the forest and swirling along the road. Normally, Trinity loved storms, but if one was blowing in, she didn’t want to be on a dirt road in an area with spotty reception. Even Jeeps could get stuck in mud or crushed by falling trees.

  So, that was that.

  She was turning around.

  She’d drive the fifty miles to Whisper Lake and find the little bed-and-breakfast she’d reserved a room in. She’d get a good night’s sleep and she’d come at the problem fresh in the morning. Obviously she’d miscalculated the distance to Mason’s property. For all she knew, she wasn’t even on the right road. Aside from the no-trespassing signs, the road wasn’t marked. She had no idea what the street address for the house was. She didn’t even know if there was one. All she knew was what she’d found by accessing public records—Mason Gains owned two-thousand acres of land somewhere very close to where she was driving.

 
She slowed, trying to find a wide enough spot to turn around, and caught something in her periphery. A light glimmered through the trees to her left.

  A window? It looked like it, and if there was a window, there had to be a house.

  Her pulse jumped and she accelerated again, following the curve of the road through the trees and out into the open. The road ended there, stopping abruptly at the edge of a grassy field.

  A mile out, a house jutted up against the blue-black sky, the forest pushing in behind it, crowding close enough that Trinity couldn’t see where the house ended and the forest began.

  That had to be Mason’s house.

  At least, she hoped it was his house.

  If it wasn’t, she was about to walk across a field and knock on a stranger’s door.

  Who was she kidding?

  Mason was a stranger.

  He wasn’t going to be happy to see her. She was going, anyway. She’d promised Bryn that she’d try, and that meant giving her best effort.

  Hopefully it wouldn’t get her killed.

  She shoved her phone and keys in her jacket pocket and got out of the Jeep. The early fall air already held a hint of bitter winter, the moisture in it biting and cold. Lights spilled out of several windows of the ranch-style house. She could see the details more clearly as she approached—the wrap-around porch, whitewashed and gleaming. The black door and gray siding. No shrubs or bushes butted up against the house. No trees. No fences. Nothing that would impede the owner’s view of the road and the field.

  That didn’t make Trinity feel any more comfortable with the situation. Mason had served three tours overseas. He’d been a helicopter pilot and had seen his share of combat. It was possible that—like so many of the men and women he worked with—he had PTSD. If he did, he might be even less likely to appreciate a random stranger showing up at nine in the evening.

  She walked up the porch steps, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket as she went. She didn’t know if she had cell reception, but she felt better holding on to the possibility.