Dark Sky

by Carla Neggers

  Juliet got to her feet. “May I see him?”

  She nodded, exhausted, and pointed vaguely out toward the back of the house.

  A uniformed maid with a pleasant smile showed Juliet out to the pool. Ham was there, sprawled on a lounge chair in the sun. Juliet grinned at him. “You’re going to be a wrinkled-up old man one day.”

  He grinned back. “I hope so.” He squinted up at her. “Am I in trouble?”

  “Nope. I’m just visiting.”

  “Did my mother tell you she and my father paid the five million, then took it away? It explains why Kelleher turned on Mia O’Farrell. Why he went crazy with his conspiracies. He had five million in his bank account one day, and the next day—poof. Gone.”

  “He figured only a conspiracy involving a high government official could explain what happened.”

  “And me—I was already a traitor because I was so close to uncovering his emerald smuggling.” He sat up, crossing his legs. He had on swim trunks, and his ribs showed, but at least the bites and bruises had healed. “I joined the Marines.”

  Juliet looked out at the warm, rippling water of the kidney-shaped pool. The air was warm by her standards, but cool for bony Ham to be out sunning himself, although he didn’t seem to notice. “The Marines, huh?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, you’re a genius, right? You’ll have considered all the pros and cons. You tell Ethan?”

  “He says I’ll last twelve hours before they kick me out.”

  “And you plan to show him.”

  Ham grinned. “Yes, ma’am, I sure do.”

  Juliet winked at him. “You hang in there for the thirteen hours, Ham. After that, you’ll have proved yourself to Brooker, and the Marines’ll make you a general.”

  When she left, she had him laughing. But she didn’t see Faye or Johnson Carhill on her way out, although the maid gave her warm almond coffee cake wrapped in aluminum foil. “For Ethan,” she said.

  “He’s not here—”

  “Oh, yes.” And she nodded, smiling, toward the driveway. “He’s here.”

  And he was, sitting behind the wheel of her rented car. She pulled open the passenger door. “What did you do, parachute in?”

  “Luke.”

  “Ah. The co-conspirator.”

  But it’d been three weeks since their night on the lake, and Juliet couldn’t hold back her pleasure at seeing him. “Ethan. Damn.” She climbed into the passenger seat and kissed him. “I’m not sleeping in a tent here. Not only do you have poisonous snakes, you’ve got wild hogs. I hate snakes—poisonous or not—and I don’t plan on running into any wild hogs. I want a bed.”

  He smiled at her. “A bed.”

  “Your parents—I met them. Very nice people. They want you to be happy again. However, if getting a bed requires—”

  “They’ve gone to San Antonio for the weekend. Spur-of-the-moment trip.”

  “San Antonio?”

  “It’s another city in Texas.”

  “I know—” She sat back in her seat, noticing he had the air-conditioning turned on—a good thing, because she was hot. “That means we get the house to ourselves.”

  After they made love in the guest room and took a long, soapy shower together, they poured wine and went out into the backyard and watched the west Texas sunset. Juliet had never seen such a glorious sunset, deep, rich, fire colors with sparks of lavender and a soft glow, here and there, of pale pink. “I’ve taken a job in Washington,” she said. “Nate Winter offered it to me. I’m joining a special joint task force to find Kelleher’s vigilante cohorts.”

  “D.C., huh?”

  She nodded. “I start next week.”

  “Where are you going to live?”

  “Mia O’Farrell has offered to sublet her apartment in Georgetown to me. She’s on a leave of absence, or that’s what she’s calling it. She and Joshua—” Juliet, who’d gone home to Vermont last weekend, pictured her brother walking up to the apple orchard, Mia on one arm, his daughter on the other arm. He’d never seemed happier. “They’ve hit it off. She’s spending the next few months in Vermont.”

  “You’ll like her apartment.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “I’m living there. I moved in last week.” He glanced sideways at her, his expression impossible to read. “She’s subletting to me, too. These devious Beltway types…”

  Juliet gave him an amused, suspicious look. “I smell a conspiracy.”

  “The thing about stopping to see Nate and Sarah, you never know who’s going to be eating fried pies on the back porch. I ran into President Poe two weeks ago. He asked me to come work for him.” Ethan shrugged. “I’m not used to telling the commander in chief ‘no.’”

  “Well, I should warn you. I bought a fish.”

  “Juliet—”

  “I love you, Ethan, but I know you’ve had a difficult year. We can take this a step at a time. There’s no rush. I’m not going anywhere.” She looked at him. “But that’s not a promise you can make.”

  “I can love you forever.”

  “That’s a promise you can make.”

  “Juliet…” He tucked his hand into hers. “You didn’t buy just one fish, did you?”

  She smiled.

  Don’t miss the next riveting book from Carla Neggers

  BREAKWATER

  In stores February 2006

  When Quinn Harlowe goes to her bayside cottage looking for a troubled friend, the last thing she expects to find is a dead body—let alone the dead body of her friend. The authorities deem it a suicide, but Quinn knows better. Deciding to investigate on her own, she stumbles upon information that leads her to Breakwater, a high-security compound near her cottage. When Quinn realizes she’s being followed—by a man who claims to be a bodyguard at Breakwater—she must make a decision: trust him or risk losing her life.

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