Guarding a forbidden lov.., p.20
Guarding a Forbidden Love, page 20
Sam got out of his truck and helped Harper into the passenger seat. “All ready?” he asked once he was behind the steering wheel.
“Ready,” she agreed as she tightened her seat belt. As always, just being around Sam broke her heart all over again. The scent of his cologne smelled like love. His body warmth that wafted toward her made her want to curl up in his arms and never leave.
She drew in a deep breath and released it slowly as he started the truck engine. “Before you take me home, would you please take me to the bakery?” Her heart was already hurting because of Sam. Maybe it was the right time to get all the hurt out of the way today.
Sam looked at her in surprise. “Are you sure you’re up to that right now? I thought your discharge instructions were for you to go home and get plenty of rest.”
“I don’t intend to do anything at the bakery. I... I just need to see it.”
* * *
Even though he didn’t think it was a good idea, he turned down the street that would take them to the burned-out business. His heart hurt for what she was about to see. He knew she would be devastated by the damage.
He loved her so much and he wished he could protect her from the heartache he knew she would feel. But he couldn’t protect her.
He pulled up in front of the bakery. From this vantage point the damage wasn’t really visible. “I need to get out,” she said. “Do you have time?”
He hesitated a moment and then nodded. “I have all the time you need.”
She cast him a grateful smile and then opened the truck door. He quickly got out of the truck and hurried around to meet her.
He frowned as she pulled her set of keys from her purse. He hadn’t realized she meant to go inside. Oh, this was going to be so tough on her. He was just glad he would be with her when she got her first glimpse of all the damage. He’d hate for her to face it all alone.
She unlocked the door and pushed it open. Immediately the smell of smoke and wet wood drifted out to greet them. She paused for a long moment and then stepped inside with him at her heels.
The walls inside were dark with smoke damage and the tables and counters were covered with a thin layer of soot. She said nothing as she walked through to the kitchen area where the laundry room was nothing more than charred wood. The back door was completely burned out, leaving a gaping hole in the building.
She stepped out of it and walked to the center of the backyard, her gaze on the back of the bakery. He felt her tears before she began to shed them, silent tears that slowly trekked down her cheeks.
“Harper, we’ll clean it...and we’ll rebuild it,” he said fervently. “We’ll make it better than ever.” He wanted to do something...to say anything that would stop her from crying, stop her from hurting.
“I knew it was going to be bad, but I still hadn’t realized just how bad it was going to be,” she said amid her tears.
“I swear, Harper, I’ll be right by your side to set this all right.” He couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t just stand there and watch her cry all alone.
He reached out for her and she came willingly into his arms. She buried her face in the front of his T-shirt and began to cry in earnest.
He held her tight, rubbing one hand up and down her back in an effort to soothe her. At the same time, he whispered words of encouragement, of caring and of love into her ear.
She finally stopped crying but remained in his arms. “Oh, Sam, why do you have to be so wonderful?” she asked softly.
He released a small laugh. “I’m not consciously trying to be wonderful. I just... I just love you, Harper.”
She completely stilled and then she finally raised her head and gazed up at him. “I love you, too.”
His heart lifted at her words even as confusion filled him. “Then why did you send me away from you?”
She stepped out of his arms and stared back at the bakery. “I tried to do the right thing for you.” She turned and looked at him and, in her eyes, he saw a combination of confusion and sadness and love.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I tried to send you away so you could find a woman your own age, so you could have a family if you wanted one. I sent you away because I’ll never really be enough for you.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “I hate him,” he finally said.
She looked at him in confusion. “Who?”
“Your ex-husband, the man who made you believe you aren’t enough. I think he crippled you, Harper. He made you believe you weren’t pretty enough or smart enough to hold a man’s attention. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes because I think you’re a real catch.”
She gazed at him for several moments and in those moments, he found it impossible to read her. “Sam, I’m very set in my ways,” she finally said.
He smiled at her. “The good news is that I’m very set in your ways, too.” He was rewarded with her small burst of laughter. Encouraged by her response, he continued. “The good thing is you’re a woman young at heart and I’m an older man at heart. That makes us absolutely perfect for each other.”
“You know occasionally I have...uh...my own personal summers,” she said.
“You mean your hot flashes,” he replied. “They don’t last long and besides, I’m not surprised you’re having them because I find you a very hot woman.”
He’d been hoping she would laugh again, but instead she frowned. “Sam, I don’t want to be the one to keep you from anything you might want in your life.”
“Don’t you get it? Harper, all I want is to spend my life with you. I never thought marriage would be for me until I met you. Harper, I want to marry you. I want to cook and eat meals with you, I want to watch movies with you and have you in my arms when I go to sleep for the night. I want you, Harper, for the rest of my life.”
“I’m so afraid of hurting you,” she replied softly. “I do love you, Sam. I love you with all my heart and soul, but I’m so afraid of hurting you.”
“Baby, the only way you’ll hurt me is if for some crazy reason you keep your love away from me. Harper, surely the events of the last few days has proven to you that life is far too short not to be happy. You have to trust me. You have to trust in us. If I’m your happiness as you are mine, then choose me. Build a life with me.”
Tears began to seep from her eyes once again and his heart crashed to the ground. He had no more he could say to her, no more to give to her to make her see they belonged together.
“No matter what our personal relationship is, if you allow me then I’ll rebuild your bakery,” he finally said. “I’ll give you your dream where it’s concerned. That, I can promise you.”
“Forget about the bakery,” she said. She swiped her tears from her cheeks and offered him a small smile. “Sam, you are one tenacious man. And I want you,” she replied, her eyes suddenly shining brilliantly. “I choose you, Sam.”
He didn’t give her a chance to say anything more. He reached out, drew her into his arms and kissed her with all the love he had in his heart for her.
She returned his kiss, leaning into him as she wrapped her arms around his neck. When the kiss finally ended, he smiled at her. “That’s my girl,” he said.
She stepped away from him and grabbed his hand. “Come on, Sam. Let’s go home.”
His heart roared with happiness. Home. Home with Harper. He couldn’t wait for his future with her to begin.
Epilogue
Harper sank down in a folding chair and released a deep, tired sigh. All around her people were working to scrub clean the walls inside the bakery.
It had been almost two weeks since the fire. When she and Sam had begun the cleanup work two days ago, Harper had been stunned by the amount of people who had shown up to help. Not only had her regular customers come in to work, but also townspeople she’d never even met came in to assist her.
The work on the outside had also begun. Even though it would take a while for the insurance issue to all get settled, Sam and his brothers had been tearing out the burned wood and replacing it.
Despite the fire and the destruction of her property it had caused, Harper had never been happier in her entire life. Sam had moved back in and every night she fell asleep in his arms.
She was surprised to realize there were far more people who didn’t have a problem with their relationship than the few vocal people who did. The naysayers no longer bothered her and they had never bothered Sam and that was all that was important.
Sam was not only planning their first trip together, but he was also encouraging her to plan a wedding. He insisted he wouldn’t be completely happy until they were married and even though she had never thought she’d get married again, she was positively thrilled by the idea of becoming Sam’s wife.
He had brought so much change to her life, wonderful changes that excited her and inspired her. Life really was too short not to reach out for happiness and love when it came your way.
Fifteen minutes later Harper was thanking people and telling them goodbye as closing time arrived. As the place emptied out, Sam came through from the back.
His white T-shirt was filthy and soot streaked his face. He’d never looked as handsome to her. “Hi, cutie,” he said to her once the last person had left. He drew her into his arms. “How’s my best girl?”
“Good,” she replied. “I’ll be better if I get a kiss from my best guy.”
His eyes twinkled brightly. “I think I can do that.” He leaned down and captured her lips with his in a kiss of infinite caring and endless love.
Nobody could predict the future, but Harper knew her future was with the handsome hunk who had unexpectedly walked into her life and had filled it with an abundance of love. Her sweet, sweet Sam had made her life complete.
* * *
Dallas sat in his office alone. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his tired eyes. It was after midnight, he should be home in bed, but lately he’d been reluctant to go to sleep. When he did finally fall asleep, he suffered from horrendous nightmares.
In those bad dreams, despite their mouths being sewn shut, Sandy and Cindy cried and screamed for justice. Despite being tied to poles, they chased him through a dark landscape until he woke up panicked and out of breath.
So far, the killer hadn’t made any mistakes. He’d been organized and controlled, both qualities that made him more dangerous and harder to find than the garden-variety messy killer.
As yet, he’d found no motive in Cindy’s or Sandy’s personal lives that would explain their murders. It appeared the killer had picked his victims randomly, as well as the places he’d left their bodies.
Dallas leaned forward once again and stared down at the thick pile of notes from interviews he and his officers had conducted over the past two months. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing in those papers to give him a clue as to who he was chasing. Right now, he was just chasing his own damned tail.
He knew people were frightened in his town and it killed him that so far, he’d been able to do nothing about it. Right now, Millsville was a playground for a killer who turned young women into human scarecrows. The thing that scared him the most was that it was going to take more murders before the killer finally got sloppy and left a real clue behind.
He couldn’t stand the thought of another young woman losing her life. But at the moment he felt like he was just holding his breath until another murder occurred.
* * *
Don’t miss Carla Cassidy’s previous title
in The Scarecrow Murders:
Killer in the Heartland
Other titles include:
The Last Cowboy Standing
The Cowboy’s Targeted Bride
Cowboy’s Vow to Protect
Available now from
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Keep reading for an excerpt from Her Texas Lawman by Addison Fox.
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Her Texas Lawman
by Addison Fox
Chapter 1
Noah Ross looked out over his team in the south Texas FBI field office, headquartered in the heart of Midnight Pass, and mentally cursed their continued bad luck. He counted himself fortunate—he hadn’t had a team this good in his decade and a half with the Bureau—and they fought by his side every day. But even with their dedication, expertise and collective smarts, they were no closer to their goal: capturing their former boss and the recent predecessor of Noah’s current position, Rick Statler.
“Intel puts him in Juárez on Friday.” Ryder Durant gave his report with a steady calm and minimal inflection in his voice. No mean feat considering the man’s hatred for their quarry.
Durant was one of the best on the team. He also had a personal interest in this one since Statler had held Durant’s fiancée, Arden Reynolds, and Statler’s ex-girlfriend, Shayne Erickson, at gunpoint a month prior.
Noah quickly amended his thought. The running assumption had been that Shayne Erickson was Statler’s ex, but in the weeks since the hostage situation that proved to be all it was. An assumption.
One they had continued to review, over and over, as they evaluated the time Statler had spent with the woman and what his possible connections might be since he escaped FBI custody two weeks prior.
Arden had sworn up one side and down the other that Shayne wouldn’t have helped Statler, but Noah was keeping his options open. He’d managed far too many cases where a hurt, misbegotten woman was left behind, only to pair up with a piece of scum after a few frilly promises.
Hadn’t his ex-wife done the same? Or was the proper term late wife? The monikers conflated in his mind too often for comfort, and on the way to being an ex before she died was too complicated to work through every damn time he thought of Lindsey.
Besides, he preferred ex, anyway. While he had desperately wanted her out of his life a decade ago, he’d never wanted her dead.
Ignoring the shot of regret he’d never been able to convince himself to abandon, he refocused on Durant and his report. “So, Mexico is his latest known whereabouts?”
“It’s false.” Ryder’s response was immediate and devoid of emotion. “He knows how to cover his tracks and there’s no way he’d let himself be seen that easily on local cameras. He’s either stayed close or he’s far from here. But the intel feels like a plant.”
“Do you think he’s close?” Noah asked.
“Yeah.” Ryder lifted his cap and ran a hand through his hair. “I think he’s got further plans here in Midnight Pass.”
“You think he’s going to make another play for Shayne Erickson?” Brady Renner spoke up.
“We have to assume that despite showing no signs of attachment behavior before, Statler’s attached to Erickson,” Durant answered. “That was clear when he kidnapped her. He also doesn’t like to lose. He’s spent too long and come too far to give it all up now.”
Noah cursed the realities of what they were dealing with. An ex-FBI leader who knew intimately how they worked, now with proven mob ties and an ex he’d formed an unhealthy attachment to. Hadn’t his escape further attensted to his determination? A well-placed bribe against a vulnerable agent assigned to hold him and Statler had escaped into the seeming ether.
And that bribe only scratched the surface of what the man was capable of.
Statler’s list of sins was long and growing longer with each discovery the team made. From supporting local criminals when he was still in Boston to the trafficking and criminal underworld he supported once he got his promotion and arrived in Texas, Rick Statler had fooled a lot of important people for a very long time.
Which only added to the crap storm that hovered over them as they worked the case.
Top brass with egg on their face never boded well for anyone.
“Any other sightings?”
“Nothing else in the past week.” Durant shook his head before standing and walking to a large dry-erase board they’d set up in their conference-room-slash-war-room. He gestured to the map they’d set up, a trail of surveillance photos tacked beside it. The same board had the supposed sightings to date as well as the safe house where Statler had hidden out. Ryder’s K-9, Murphy, had advanced first on that rescue mission and had taken Statler down pretty hard.
Ryder continued, “And even with the few weeks he spent in custody on antibiotics, Murphy’d done a number on him. I know we keep saying he could just as easily be holed up here in town as he could be buried deep somewhere in Mexico while the heat cools off, but my money’s on here.”
Noah’s money was on here, too, but he valued Durant’s assessment. He’d also been doing this long enough to know that sometimes it was worth it to talk things out. Put one idea after another, trying them on for size. Which brought them squarely back to Texas or points farther south or any freaking place in between.
That was what they were dealing with.
And they had so little to go on, nothing pointing them in any definitive direction.
So they’d keep working what they did know. Or were still uncovering. A shocking amount continued to come out on Statler’s past activities, on top of the exhaustive interrogation they’d done while they had him in custody. The discovery that Statler was working with several drug cartels outside the country had put everyone on edge.
But the biggest surprise—discovered on Shayne Erickson’s tech after they’d confiscated it—was that the work with the cartels was the tip of the iceberg. Statler had apparently gone all in with a prominent and multifaceted Russian mob organization, a situation that had only escalated the scrutiny on the case and ensured the highest echelons of government wanted this situation handled PDQ.
