True Love Lost (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 3)) (3 page)

Mother Nature was being bitchy this winter, and she was tired of the crankiness.

Just last week it took her two hours to dig out from the snowy free-for-all. It wasn’t something she ever thought she’d like or adjust to either. Snow should fall
in inches and not in feet. That was unjust punishment from Mother Nature. Back home in the bayou there was never snow, and as a kid she was jealous and wanted to see the fluffy white stuff. Now she was sorry she even thought that it might be fun. It wasn’t at all. In fact, she could say without a doubt it sucked.

As she looked at the big stone house behind hers, protectively surrounded by the privacy fence, there had to be a good six inches of new fallen snow on the crest. Crap
! That meant it snowed more last night.

That was it! Nature won, and she was going to do the smart thing and hire someone to plow her driveway and sidewalks.
Even if it cost a fortune, it meant not having to freeze her ass off. That alone was worth it.

Desdemona laughed
, as she’d once had the same thoughts about the sweltering heat of the bayou. Packing up her little car to head off to college, she swore she’d find a place with more than one season- HOT! Now she was thinking maybe it wasn’t the location, and it was really her being overly picky.

Maybe she missed her
family, and she was just trying to make an excuse to sell the house and run again.

Desdemona Adare watched the smoke from the stone chimney on her neighbor’s house and thought about her family. There weren’t many people left to call her own. Her
mother disappeared years ago when she was just a small child. One day Trinity Adare went out into the swamp to gather roots for her grandmother and never returned. It didn’t matter that there was a swamp wide search for her, or that they put up posters. She had gone ‘POOF’!

Some said she ran off with a young man that
grand-mère wouldn’t approve of, and some said she fell into the swamp only to become a snack for the gators. Either way, Desdemona lost her desire to be from the bayou the day her mother disappeared.

Then there was her sister. Oh, she loved her with all her heart.
Cordelia Adare was the spitting image of her mother. Tall, lean and so achingly beautiful that Desdemona couldn’t help but be jealous. Unfortunately she got the short end of the genetic stick, literally. Where her sister was light and sunny, she was dark and sinister. Okay, maybe that wasn’t a good word to use, but she was a Medical Examiner, and she did like to wear a lot of black. As much as she wanted to be like her cherished sister, she was just going to have to let it go and be happy with being whimsical and kooky.

Desdemona did miss her
grand-mère. The woman was her rock and stability. When she told her that she didn’t want to stay, but move north for medical school, her grandmother supported her and helped her pay for the education. How she did it that was the big mystery. Whenever Desdemona asked her grand-mère, she was told to ‘hush and not worry’. Maybe it was for the best, and what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you. If you looked in the dictionary under the word ‘bizarre’, you’d find her grand-mère's picture. Desdemona was convinced she inherited her kookiness from that part of the family tree. 

Going to c
ollege had meant everything to her. The academic accolades, the push through the best medical schools in the country, and graduating top of the class with honors. It all meant the world to her, because no one expected a bayou girl to make anything of herself. Proving them wrong was the best payback. Now she had the big house, the fancy car, and enough money to support her sister and grand-mère back home. Life was good.

Almost.

Desdemona left working on the east coast for one major reason. It wasn’t for the money; she had already had a cushy job that paid well. She left because
HE
had found her again. As she dotted the country trying to stay one step ahead of him, she came into and left jobs that she loved. Now she worked for the FBI, and as much as a mystery caught her attention, it was the fact she could carry a gun that made the job the selling point. When being stalked, having a gun and working in one of the most secure buildings in the world offered a great deal of comfort.

It wasn’t
as if she didn’t try to find out who it was harassing her. Desdemona tried and in fact, she’d filed reports, asked for help and then finally moved. Each time she had going to the authorities, and was patted on the shoulder and told it was her imagination.

It wasn’t her imagination!

There was that sense of always being watched. One moment it would be fine, and the next it would be there. This awareness would come and go, and then when she let her guard down, the messages would start back up again. At first she went through all the ex’s and tried to figure out if it was one of them
and nothing. Each had moved on and had their own life. Now it wasn’t only a mystery, but a colossal pain in her ass. It was like the stalker wanted her isolated, alone, and scared. There were no friends to lean on, and no men to keep her safe. She’d had to forgo all of that in the attempt to keep herself and them safe from being a target.

It was a horrible existence.

Not to mention creepy.

Always looking over your shoulder and wondering if the person behind you was the one
; it was making her paranoid and edgy.

“Great, I’m a creepy, paranoid kook,” she muttered, taking another sip of coffee.

Creepy was one thing.
Don’t get her wrong, Desdemona always liked creepy, and always had a fondness for the things that went bump in the night. It was just her ‘thing’ in life. It even influenced her career path in life and the way she dressed. As a child she always wanted to know what came after death. Was there more? Now she was the death doctor, and it was her job to figure out how someone came to the end of their existence.

Desdemona laughed,
as she thought about her life.The Medical Examiner who lived alone, dressed all in black and thought she was being followed.

How the hell did she pass the FBI psych profile?

Maybe the way she dressed was the outlet she desperately needed. In life she shrank from attention, but when it came to dressing, she enjoyed being center stage. Some called her clothing Goth, but she just thought it was fun and easier. Black was not only slimming, but easy to match to everything in a wardrobe. As for the big clunky shoes or the giant heels, they had nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with height.

At five foot five, she had to look up at her bosses
and felt like she needed to be on equal footing. Her first week working with them, she went home with a wicked crick in her neck every night and decided enough was enough. Out came the heels and she’d at least lose the munchkin status in the workplace.

Ethan Blackhawk stood a whole foot above her and then his wife… She was a whole other story.

The first day she met Elizabeth Blackhawk, the only thing that she could think of was ‘
holy shit the woman was intimidating’
. Everyone in the lab talked about their boss. There were plenty of warnings, some that worried her, and some that she didn’t think would affect her.

Then she met her.

Elizabeth walked into the lab to meet her, and she wasn’t anything that she expected. There were visions of a FBI suit, gun, black glasses and a serious attitude. Well, the toughness was there, but so were the cowboy boots, a belt buckle and an Amazon woman standing at just six feet tall.

This was her boss? Oh boy.

Then there was the simple fact that when she stood next to Elizabeth, she felt like the ugly duckling. Desdemona wasn’t unattractive, but she wasn’t Elizabeth Blackhawk beautiful. All the men that she dated fell for her because she was unique and cute. It was the mix of black and red hair and the green cat colored eyes. On a good day she was pretty, on a bad day Desdemona was a Goth-y mess. But her boss… Yeah, if she wasn’t intimidated by the stories she heard, then she was by how gorgeous Elizabeth was in person.

Director Elizabeth Blackhawk
seemed friendly enough, but the icy blue eyes seemed to stare right though you into your soul. As if she was measuring the person hidden beneath in some sort of silent assessment, and she was deciding if you were friend or foe. Yeah, inadequate wasn’t far from how she felt around her.

Intimidated, nervous
, and plain scared shitless
. 

In the four months
Desdemona had worked with her, she tried to be friendly, but she just wasn’t good at making friends. People who stand around with their hands deep in the guts of a dead body weren’t exactly the people you wanted to hang out with. Elizabeth just seemed unapproachable. Desdemona had even asked her supervisor, if the hardness was because Elizabeth was pregnant. Maybe it was some hormonal thing that she didn’t quite understand.

Chris Leonard
laughed at that, telling her that Elizabeth Blackhawk had been known to kick ass regularly, and that pregnancy actually mellowed her out.

So,
Desdemona stopped trying to get to know the woman, and just hoped she’d stay under the radar and not do anything that would piss the bosses off.

Ethan Blackhawk was a totally different story. Yeah, he was something. The tan skin, the dark
blue-black eyes and the smile were stunning. When he called to ask a question, there were little butterflies in her stomach. The sexy radar went off the charts, and then it promptly stopped when she remembered his wife.

Director Special Agent Ethan Blackhawk had a
very deadly looking, ass kicking, body hiding wife that could drop kick all one hundred and five pounds of her back to Quantico easily.

Desdemona laughed out loud. Okay that was a definite exaggeration, but that’s
the impression one would get. There were rumors around the lab that Elizabeth Blackhawk wasn’t to be messed with, and she believed each one of them. 

Preservation demanded it.

As a scientist she was a firm believer in the theory of ‘
survival of the fittest’
. Her survival depended on staying out of Elizabeth Blackhawk’s range and under the radar.

Walking through her house, she admired the grandness of it. Growing up as a kid she was poor. No, that’s not true. She was
three levels below poor. The Bayou wasn’t exactly a place of riches and wealth. The people there were simple, and they liked it that way. When she worked for a few years, she realized that her career wasn’t going to go away, and it was okay to spend some of her salary. When she moved to FBI West, and Doctor Leonard gave her the salary being offered for the position, she really relaxed. Yeah, the house was an investment, but at the time the stalker had been leaving her alone.

Damn it! Didn’t she deserve to have something she loved?
Why was her life so void of happiness and friendship? Deep down she wanted to trust, but in the same recesses of her heart where she longed to fit in, she also knew it was never going to happen.

Doctor Desdemona Adare was destined to be a loner. But now all she really wanted
was to have a safe place to call home. She’d forgo the love and friendship to just be safe.

It was her secret hope and dream.

Running her fingers up the mahogany banister, she appreciated every single thing in her house and cherished it all. This was her home, and from the top of the line security system to the dog she planned on buying. She was going to feel secure.

One way or another.

Standing in her closet, she looked through all the clothes and settled on the most logical for the weather. Dressing, she glanced into the mirror and smiled. Yeah, her choice was a little silly, especially when you worked for the FBI, but it made her smile. And that’s what mattered.

Life was too short to be what other’s wanted you to be.

Desdemona Adare gave up trying to fit in, and now all she was striving for was to just find the one thing that she prayed was achievable.

Happiness.

Red River

The previous
afternoon

Red River was a tiny town just outside the snowy mountains. Nothing earth shattering ever happened there, and that was what James Duffy liked most about it. As sheriff of the town, he could come and go as he wanted, and take the day off if he so desired. Red River was a living, breathing quintessential Norman Rockwell painting, and that’s how he hoped it would always stay.

Strolling
back into his office, after taking the morning off, he found that everyone that was supposed to be on duty was indeed there. Sheila Court, his secretary, was busy filing some reports that the deputies had completed earlier in the day. Julian Littlemoon was sitting at his desk, filling out his logs for the day.

“Jimmy,” she said, nodding. “How was your morning
off?”

Sheriff James Duffy tipped his cowboy hat and considered the question. “Well, I got wood hauled in, and I managed to sneak in a nap too,” he said
, grinning the good ole boy smile that always worked with the ladies.