Romantic Suspense, Action & Adventure
Date Published: paperback release date 12/29/20
Publisher: HQN
When investigative journalist Jessie Kegan’s father, a colonel in the army, is accused of treason, Jessie is determined to clear his name. Reluctantly, she turns to former Special Ops soldier, Brandon Garrett, her late brother’s best friend--a true heartbreaker, according to her brother.
With danger coming from every angle, time is running out and the game being played is deadly. Working together, Bran and Jessie must risk everything to solve the riddle and confront the threat--before it’s too late.
Excerpt:
Too
much downtime always made him nervous, kind of edgy as he waited for the other
shoe to drop. It had been a week since
his last client had headed back to Nashville, a week of peace and quiet he
should have enjoyed.
Instead,
he had this nagging feeling that something bad was coming down the line.
Lounging
back in the chair behind his desk at Maximum Security, Brandon Garrett looked
up at the sound of the front door swinging open. A gust of cool, late October winds swept in,
along with a petite, whirlwind of a woman with the prettiest strawberry blond
hair Bran had ever seen.
She
had a sweet little body to match her fiery curls, he noticed, outlined by the
dark blue stretch jeans curving over her sexy little ass and the peach knit top
that hugged her breasts.
It
wasn’t tough to read the anxiety in her big green eyes as she surveyed the
room, but instead of heading for the receptionist’s desk, those big green eyes
landed on Bran and as she started toward him, there was something about her
that rang a distant bell. Interest
piqued, he rose from his chair. “Can I
help you?”
“You’re
Brandon Garrett, right? You were a
friend of my brother’s. Danny
Kegan? I recognize you from the photos
Danny sent home.”
The
mention of his best friend’s name hit him like a blow, and the muscles across
his stomach clenched. Daniel Kegan had
been a member of his spec ops team, a brother, not just a friend. Danny had saved Bran’s life at the cost of
his own. He was KIA in Afghanistan.
Bran
stared down at the girl, who was maybe five-foot-four. “You’re Jessie,” he said, remembering the
younger sister Daniel Kegan had talked so much about. “You look like him. Same color hair and eyes.”
She
nervously wet her lips, which were plump and pink and fit her delicate features
perfectly.
“My
brother said if I ever needed help, I should come to you. He said you’d help me no matter what.” She glanced back toward the door and his mind
shifted away from the physical jolt he felt as he looked at her to the worry in
her eyes.
“I’ll
help you. Danny was my closest
friend. Whatever you need, I’ll
help. Come on. Let’s go into the conference room and you can
tell me what’s going on.” When her gaze
shot back to the door, his senses went on alert.
“I
didn’t mean I needed your help later,” Jessie said nervously. “I meant I need your help right now.”
Gunshots
exploded through the windows. “Get
down!” Bran shouted to the other guys in
the office as he shoved Jessie down behind his desk and covered her with his
body. Glass shattered and a stream of
bullets sprayed across the room.
Jaxon
Ryker popped up, gun drawn, and ran for the door. Hawk Maddox and Lissa Blayne were shuffling
through their desks, arming themselves.
Jonas Wolfe drew his ankle gun and ran for the rear entrance, ready for
any threat that might come from there.
“Black
SUV with tinted windows,” Ryker reported.
Six feet of solid muscle, dark hair and eyes, Jax was a former Navy
SEAL, currently a PI and occasional bounty hunter. “Couldn’t get a plate number.” Jax’s gaze swung to the front of the
room. “Mindy, you okay?”
The
little receptionist eased up from beneath her desk. “I-I’m okay.
Should I call the police?” Around
here, it was never good to jump to conclusions.
Bran
hauled Jessie to her feet. He could feel
her trembling. Her eyes looked even
bigger and greener than they had before.
“Are they coming back?” he asked.
“I-I
don’t know. It could have just been a
warning.”
Bran
turned to Mindy. “Unless someone’s
already phoned it in, let’s wait to call the cops till we know what’s going
on.” His attention returned to
Jessie. “We need to talk.”
She
just nodded. Her face had gone pale,
making a fine line of freckles stand out across her forehead and the bridge of
her nose.
Bran
took her arm and urged her toward the conference room. “Keep a sharp eye,” he said to The Max
crew. “Just in case.”
Jessie
sank unsteadily down in one of the rolling chairs around the long oak
conference table. The man she had come
to see, Brandon Garrett, sat down beside her.
“Okay,
let’s hear it,” he said. “What’s going
on?”
She
thought of the men who had just shot up his office and her pulse started
thumping again. “Danny said if I ever
needed help--“
“Yeah,
I get that. Your brother knew he could
count on me. Like I said, I’ll help you
any way I can, but I need to know what’s going on.”
Bran
was taller than Danny, around six-three, with a soldier’s lean, hard body,
vee-shaped, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. Powerful biceps bulged beneath the sleeve of
his dark blue T-shirt. With his slightly
too-long mink brown hair, straight nose and masculine features, he was
ridiculously handsome, except for the hard line of his jaw and the darkness in
his eyes that contrasted sharply with their beautiful shade of cobalt blue.
“Start
at the beginning,” he demanded.
Since
she wasn’t sure exactly where to begin, Jessie dragged in a shaky breath and
slowly released it.
“I’m
here because of my father--Colonel James Kegan, Commander U.S. Army Alamo
Chemical Depot. Just before he died a
little over two months ago, my father was removed from active duty. He was charged with larceny--specifically the
theft of chemical weapons stored at the Depot.
Because the Army believed he was selling the weapons to a foreign
entity, he was also charged with espionage and treason. I need you to help me prove his innocence.”
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