Dance Away, Danger (22 page)

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Liar, Liar

Chapter One

If Grady Cooper had any hope of salvaging his professional reputation, he needed to charm Devin McQueen into giving him what she’d never given any other man.

He tucked his keys into his cargo shorts, stared up at the five-story office building and cursed the humidity.

And his dilemma.

Needing anyone was bad enough. Being forced to rely on a complete stranger to help prove he wasn’t a menace to society was as appealing as the Red Sox using his head for batting practice. If she refused to help him, he’d lose his job for sure.

“That’s not going to happen,” he whispered. He’d do whatever he had to, promise her the world even, to get himself out of this mess and restore his reputation. By the time she realized he had no intention of honoring his pledge, he’d be a free man and he could get back to chasing the bad guys instead of being labeled one.

Whatever it took.

He pushed the glass door open and flew up the stairs two at a time to the third floor. As he walked down the hallway, he glanced at the business names on the doors: law offices, non-profit offices, save the bleeding heart offices. Rooms of people he’d probably chased a bail jumper for at one time or another.

Loud thumps filtered into the hallway from somewhere up ahead.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Trade rule number one: Always expect the worst. Still, the noises could have been any number of things: a fallen chair, a muffled voicemail message, boxes of printer paper being dropped. It could have been nothing connected to this woman.

As he got closer to the door with Soul Survivors carved on it, the name of McQueen’s business, the noises got louder. Glass shattered. A series of thumps passed from behind the door. A woman’s voice flew through the walls like a high-pitched war cry.

What if someone wanted Devin McQueen even more than Grady did?

Too bad. He had to put his own needs first.

Adrenaline pushed him. He turned the doorknob. Damn it. Locked.

He shoved his shoulder against the wooden door. It budged. Barely. Inside, more glass broke. A male voice growled through a string of swear words. Whoever stood on the other side of this door could not have her.

Grady gritted his teeth and jammed his shoulder against the door again. This time, it flew open and hurled him into the office.

Silence reigned across the room. With his shoulder throbbing, he scanned the scene. One upended chair, one thug cradling his nuts, the other, older one, bleeding from his nose and one wild-eyed woman in the center of it all. The bleeding man had his arms wrapped around the woman’s chest, crushing her…assets under his forearms.

Grady bit back a grin. If this was Devin McQueen, then some of the rumors were true. She could hold her own. But now she didn’t need to.

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Wake Me

Hidden Destiny Book 1

Chapter One 

Sarah McKinley didn’t need to hear the cops talking to know the truth. Thanks to her supposed gift, she could fill in some of the details about the girl’s death no one understood yet. “Dead for hours, floating like a piece of trash,” she whispered. Excited chatter sailed through the crowd around her. College kids on their ways to classes gawked, appearing intrigued to find a coroner van along with three police cars by the ancient water fountain.

“How do you know?” the young woman on her right with the bluish brown hair asked.

Damn. “Huh?”

“You said a woman’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?” someone else asked.

“What? There’s a body?”

“I thought I heard one of you say it. Or somebody closer to the front.” Would they believe her? Or had she whispered herself into a whole world of trouble? The buzz around her head grew louder as more students joined the crowd. Yellow tape secured the crime scene several yards away, but limbs still stuck over the cement edge of the water fountain. A guy in plain clothes ducked under the tape and ventured toward them. A gold shield hung from his belt. “Can anybody tell me what happened?”

“She can!” a male voice from behind called out.

Hoping to take attention off herself, Sarah joined the other students in whirling around to see who the guy meant. Several voices rushed toward the man, accosting him with different versions of the crime. Sarah floated through the sea of people, away from the crowd. For the nine months she’d lived in Austin, she’d never mentioned a word about her so-called psychic gift. Almost a full year had passed. She’d started to think she would be normal again.

But a brand-new dream reminded her she would always be different. Heading toward the street, she picked up her steps. Don’t look back. You’ve done enough damage.

“Miss! Hey, wait up!”

“Damn.” She slowed her feet. No point in trying to run. She’d look guilty of something then the cops would have a reason to haul her off the school campus in cuffs. Turning, she came face-to-face with the striking plain-clothes cop.

“I’m Detective Cordell with Austin Police.” He stood at least six inches taller than she, his jet-black hair sheared in a standard cut for police. The bulk of his chest stretched the material of his short-sleeved dress shirt. With dark eyes and sexy confidence, he was all sorts of captivating. If he hadn’t been such a threat to her freedom, she might even have called him handsome. “Do you have a minute? I’d like to ask you some questions.”

There died his charm.

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Her Highland Champion

  She turned to the bedside. A man stood there dressed in dark green sweats, with both hands clenched around the silver bedside bar. He was handsome, with light eyes, dark hair cropped close to his head, and a firm jaw. It was his hands, though. They drew her attention. Clean skin, defined knuckles, large fingers. Hands rough enough from a hard day's physical labor, and yet, she imagined, gentle enough to caress the afternoon's sufferings away.

  “It's good to see you awake.” He smiled. “You gave us all quite a fright.”

  Okay, the Scottish accent drew her attention, too. At once it both melted away some of her fears and sparked a whirlwind of questions.
  “Where am I?” Her throat scratched like sandpaper.
  “St. Catherine's Hospital.”
  She swallowed hard. “Where is that?”
  “Fort William.” He reached for something on the table by her bed and brought back a plastic cup with a straw. “Here.”
  “Thank you.” The warm water coated her sore vocal cords. She handed the cup back to him.
  Wait a minute. Fort William? The only Fort William she knew was in Scotland. “I don't understand. How did I get here?” Ignoring the aches in her body, she pressed palms to the sheets on each side of her and pushed herself up. The blanket fell away from her chest and a new chill surrounded her. “What's going on?”
  Her arms shook, and she collapsed back to the bed.
  “Relax.” The man set his palm on her shoulder, as if to keep her flat against the mattress. The heat of his fingers seeped through her hospital gown and into her skin. “I found you unconscious on the beach in Glenhalish. I called for an ambulance, and they brought you here.”
“I was in Glenhalish?”
“Aye, on a three-day tour of the Highlands. Do you not remember being there?”
“No.” She squinted and studied him. No memories surfaced. “Do I know you?”
He shook his head. “Only from the beach. I'm Malcolm Fraser.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again. Her gaze drifted to her lap as tears burned in the corners of her eyes. Panic swelled in her chest and into her throat.
  “What is it, lass?” he asked with such tenderness.
“Can you tell me my name?”

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