Operation Proof of Life (29 page)
About the Author
Misty lives with her real life hero and hubby, Mark, her twin sons Sam and Ben, and her big dog, Max, in a small town along the Mississippi River. She’s an award-winning, multi-published author who divides her writing time between suspense and paranormal. Once a month, she indulges her love of fashion by blogging at
www.solestruckfashions.com
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www.readmistyevans.com
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Look for these titles by Misty Evans
Now Available:
Super Agent Series
Operation Sheba
I’d Rather Be in Paris
Proof of Life
Tickle My Fantasy
Witches Anonymous
He makes the rules. She breaks them. This battle of wills just crossed the line…to deadly.
I’d Rather Be in Paris
© 2009 Misty Evans
Super Agent Series, Book 2
Elite CIA operative Zara Morgan has a reputation as a loose cannon with a penchant for breaking the rules. Now she’s got a chance to prove she can be a competent field officer, but the test doesn’t end there. She’s been paired with sexy covert ops team leader Lawson Vaughn, a man who lives and breathes protocol.
Methodical is Lawson’s middle name. He specializes in high-risk search and rescue, not missions that involve tracking down terrorists. Especially while trying to keep the lid on a partner who has a problem with authority and skates by on wits and bravado.
Even before they get on the plane for Paris they’re under each other’s skin…and fighting a scorching sexual attraction. Drawn into an unauthorized game of vengeance, Lawson is forced to dance a tightrope in order to protect his partner from their quarry—a terrorist who’s about to unleash a biological nightmare on the Muslim world. And Zara is the first target.
With her life, and that of millions of innocent people, on the line, Lawson must become the one thing he despises. A renegade.
Warning:
Either you’re in or you’re out. There’s no playing it safe anymore.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
I’d Rather Be in Paris:
He couldn’t believe it. Zara was kissing him back.
When she rose up on her toes and sighed into his mouth, all his brain processes shut down. The kiss turned wetter, hotter and when her hands went under his jacket, pulling him in tight, his brain exploded in an array of fireworks.
Jesus, she wasn’t just kissing him back, she was inhaling him.
This is wrong
. She’d just been through a hell of an experience and here he was, jumping at the chance to wrap his arms around her and console her. He was taking advantage of her at a weak moment.
There’s not an ounce of weakness in her.
He broke the kiss and slid his lips to her neck. She tilted her head to give him better access, and he buried his mouth in the curve of her shoulder. She hitched her breath in that familiar way, and he enjoyed the response her body gave as she arched into him a little further.
She’d been emitting that whole woman-in-charge aura since the minute they’d walked off the plane at Charles de Gaul. Even up to a few minutes ago, she’d been cool, calm and collected every step of the way.
Jesus, he hated women ball-busters, but this take-charge woman was starting to grow on him. Hell, she wasn’t just growing on him. At the moment, with her hands tangled in his hair and her tongue halfway down his throat, he was ready to drop her robe on the ground and let her drive more than his getaway car…
The sound of a motorcycle cut through the lust building in Lawson’s body and he stilled, every sense on high alert. He raised his head and listened.
“Lawson?”
He put a finger to his lips and his eyes slid to the left, checking the dark highway. Traffic was light and the bike was still a half-mile away. No sirens, but something about it had his gut knotting and the spot between his shoulder blades twitching.
Lawson tried to place the make and model of the bike. High-precision, high-speed.
Ducati
.
“Get in the car,” he said and hustled Zara into the backseat. For once, she didn’t protest or ask why. He ran around to the driver’s seat and jumped in, jerking the car into drive and pulling onto the road in a spray of gravel.
Zara’s voice sounded calm. Too calm. “Police?”
The motorcycle’s headlight hit the rearview mirror. It was picking up speed. He planted his foot on the accelerator while he adjusted the seat to fit him. “Keep your head down.”
The Audi was an older model, but the owner had kept it in good condition. It wasn’t as easy to manipulate as the Duke but it was damn close. Germans, they knew how to build kick-ass cars.
“Darn it,” Zara said from the backseat. Her head was down but Lawson saw clothing flying around.
“What?”
“I don’t have any underwear.”
He was pushing one hundred miles an hour on the speedometer and the bike was still crawling up his ass. The headlight in his mirrors blinded him enough to keep him from identifying whether there was more than one person on the bike, and more importantly, whether or not either of them was armed.
He heard the sound of a zipper from behind him, and Zara muttered something in French. Then the back window shattered and she screamed.
His blood ran cold. Question answered. The men on the bike were definitely armed. Swerving the car from side to side to make them a harder target to hit, he asked the real question burning in his gut. “Zara? Are you all right?”
The second it took her to answer was the longest one he’d ever endured. “I think so,” she said, her voice still sounding unnaturally calm. “But there’s glass everywhere. I’m afraid to move.”
He let out the breath he was holding and zigzagged by a car in front of them. An oncoming car dodged out of his way, horn blaring, but the flustered driver blocked the motorcycle for crucial seconds.
He had two options. Evade the threat or eliminate it. “Get up here and drive.”
“What?”
“Come on, you’re a woman of action, right? You wanted to drive, so get up here and drive the damn car.”
Zara’s head rose from the backseat, her gaze catching his in the rearview mirror as she leaned forward. “Stop yelling at me.”
Lawson reached back and grabbed her arm, hauling her into the passenger seat. She flailed and fumed and once she’d righted herself, he saw she’d exchanged the robe for her leather jacket and miniskirt. She tugged the hem of the skirt down and sent him a scathing look. “What exactly—?”
“Take the wheel. We’re going to exchange places, okay?”
“While the car’s moving?”
Lawson flipped the steering wheel up as high as it would go. He set her hand on the wheel. “You’re going to slide on top of me, got it? Like you’re going to sit in my lap.”
Her hand tightened and Lawson saw her shift into spy mode. A second later, she climbed across the gearshift and slid between his legs.
He released the wheel and extracted his body from around hers. “Keep the car on the road, but don’t make it easy for them to shoot us again. When I give you the signal, I want you to pull the hand brake and crank the wheel to the left like you’re doing a hard U-turn. You’re going to turn the car counterclockwise and land on three o’clock. The car will be blocking the road and I’ll be facing the motorcycle. Got it?”
She dropped her hand and repositioned the seat. “And what are you going to do?”
Lawson hauled the gun out of his waistband. “My Dirty Harry impersonation.”
“Oh God.” She gripped the steering wheel in a ten-and-two position. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
“No,” Lawson grunted, checking the clip in his gun. “We are not going to die. Ready?”
The road ahead was empty of traffic. He moved to lean out the passenger-side window and Zara said, “Wait! What’s the signal?”
“I’ll yell ‘go!’”
“My mother is going to spend the rest of her life scandalized because her only daughter died bare-assed in the middle of France in a stolen car.”
But then she said, “I’m ready.”
And Lawson yelled, “Go!”
The true threat lies within the heart
Deception
© 2008 Sharon Cullen
A
Love on the Edge
Romance
Kate McAuley once thought Lucas Barone loved her, and returned that love for all she was worth—until the day he walked away without a word. Now, four years later she answers a knock on her door and finds Luke on her doorstep, broken, bleeding and unconscious. He brings with him all kind of emotions, and all kinds of questions. Where has he been? Why did he leave? And what’s an accountant doing with wounds like these?
As a covert ops specialist with the U.S. government, Luke deceived, betrayed and conned so many people he couldn’t keep them straight—except Kate. Their time together was magical, until the call came and he was forced to walk away. For four long years, memories of her have kept him alive and sane. Now, hunted by his own government, desperate and injured, Kate is the only one he can trust.
Kate’s innocent phone call for help sets in motion an evil that reaches the highest echelons of political power. With accusations of murder and treason hanging over their heads, it’ll take every ounce of Luke’s training, intelligence—and Kate’s trust—to keep them alive.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Deception:
“Tell me about your painting,” he said. “What are you working on?” He studied her closely as his mind went to the empty guest bedroom in her home that had once housed her easel and paintings, to the pencils and sketchpad he’d bought that had so far sat unused.
She stiffened. “I don’t paint anymore.”
Luke sat back, his earlier nervousness gone. He was in his element now, a master at retrieving information. And he was determined to find out exactly what had happened to her dreams. “Oh?”
“I, um.” Her gaze lifted to his then skittered away. “I’m a bartender.”
It took him a moment to stop reeling from that bombshell and to absorb the implications. “You’re a painter, Kate. You draw beautiful, emotionally charged pictures, not drafts.” Anger rolled through him at the thought of her dodging the wandering hands of drunks. She was a painter, damn it. A great painter. Well on her way to becoming famous.
She stood suddenly, gathering her plate and his, avoiding his glare. “I’ll clean up since you cooked.”
“Tell me why you’re not painting.”
Pain flickered through her eyes right before she closed them. An answering pain twisted him into knots. Just what had happened to her? His leaving wouldn’t cause the pain he’d seen in her. Something else, something terrible had happened and he needed to know because he wanted to help.
“I, um… It wasn’t paying the bills.”
“You’re lying.”
Her eyes flew open and she pursed her lips, anger darkening her expression. For a second Luke didn’t know if she intended to throw her plate at him or take it to the sink.
“You have no right,” she said, her voice wavering. “You left. And you didn’t come back. You have no right to question my decisions, how I live my life.”
“I can’t pretend not to see your pain, just like you can’t pretend not to see mine. What happened?”
Tears welled in her eyes, overflowed and dripped. “Damn you!” She put the plate down and swiped at her cheeks. “I don’t paint anymore! Is that what you want to hear? I’m a bartender. I pour drinks and listen to people’s pathetic stories. Or at least I did. I’m sure I’m out of a job by now.” Her shoulders shook. “Just when I finally get my life back on track, you come falling through my front door and tear my world apart again!”
She whirled around and ran out, closing the door so hard the boat rocked. Luke stared at the dirty dinner dishes, at the overturned saltshaker and the empty iced tea glasses.
With shaking hands, he picked up his plate and took it to the sink. She had her secrets. He had his. Yet, he couldn’t force her to tell him her secrets when he refused to divulge his. What a pair they made. Haunted, hurting.
Hunted.
He looked out the window over the sink, staring into the dark night, not seeing anything but his own reflection in the glass. He didn’t like what he saw. He scrubbed a hand down his face but the action didn’t erase the man he was.
Kate stood on the dock, staring into the dark recesses of the forest. The breeze whistled through the branches, the leaves rustled in the trees, the lake lapped against the side of the boat and the crickets chirped.
She shouldn’t have said those things, even if they were the truth. Luke couldn’t help it that someone was after him and she was glad he’d been there the night Hank Stuben broke into her house. Of course, Hank Stuben wouldn’t have broken into her house if it hadn’t been for Luke.
She took a deep breath of the still-stifling night air. She should go back and apologize. The look on Luke’s face right before she’d turned around and left indicated her words had cut deep.
But she couldn’t go in. Because she was afraid. Afraid he’d bring up her painting. Afraid of his questions. Afraid of her answers. Afraid to divulge the awful truth of what she’d done. Afraid he’d hate her if he knew.
She stepped off the dock, her feet landing on hard, firm ground, and turned to look at the houseboat. Lights shone from the windows. Up top, the string of party lights created a festive rainbow, beckoning her to return from the dark night.
Luke’s form floated past the kitchen window. The lights backlit him until he was nothing but a dark shadow against bright yellow.
She could have sworn their gazes touched, but that was impossible. She couldn’t really see him and he probably couldn’t see her. A breeze brushed past her and she shivered, clutching her arms about her waist and rubbing her elbows.
