Hero At Large

Keshon Gray

Smoldering brown eyes, a disarming smile—an

utterly charming rogue.

He’s prepared to do anything to serve his country

and complete his mission. But his past and present

collide when a passionate reunion with the stunning

woman he’d loved—and lost—poses a serious

threat to his case…and his heart!

Rennie Williams

A raven-haired, mahogany-eyed beauty who yearns

hopelessly for one man.

Although she’d vowed to forget all about Gray, one

electrifying kiss is all it takes to irresistibly draw

her back into his life. But the man of her dreams is

acting mighty suspiciously….

Seth Greene

Enigmatic and fiercely driven, he is determined to

keep his partner in line.

Agent Greene knows all about regrets—

and derailed romances—but in the name of justice,

he isn’t about to allow Gray’s woman

to jeopardize their case!

Dear Reader,

Have you noticed our new look? Starting this month, Intimate Moments has a bigger, more mainstream design—hope you like it! And I hope you like this month’s books, too, starting with Maggie Shayne’s The Brands Who Came for Christmas. This emotional powerhouse of a tale launches Maggie’s new miniseries about the Brand sisters, THE OKLAHOMA ALL-GIRL BRANDS. I hope you love it as much as I do.

A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY continues with Hero at Large, a suspenseful—and passionate—tale set on the mean streets of L.A. Robyn Amos brings a master’s touch to the romance of Keshon Gray and Rennie Williams. Doreen Owens Malek returns with a tale of suspense and secrets, Made for Each Other, and believe me…these two are! RITA Award winner Marie Ferrarella continues her popular CHILDFINDERS, INC. miniseries with Hero for Hire, and in January look for her CHILDFINDERS, INC. single title, An Uncommon Hero.

Complete the month with Maggie Price’s Dangerous Liaisons, told with her signature grittiness and sensuality, and Dad in Blue by Shelley Cooper, another of the newer authors we’re so proud to publish.

Then rejoin us next month as the excitement continues—right here in Intimate Moments.

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Hero at Large

Robyn Amos

Dear Reader,

Hero at Large is my first Silhouette Intimate Moments novel. I was thrilled to be asked to participate in the A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY series, because it gave me an opportunity to explore new territory in an area I love—romantic suspense. One of the new experiences I encountered through Rennie and Gray was the vibrant, trendy city of Los Angeles, California. Writing a story that takes place in L.A. was fun because the city nightlife is dramatically different from the nightlife of my own home city of Gaithersburg, Maryland. While writing this story, I also enjoyed tunneling into the dark, shadowed life of an undercover government agent and rediscovering how the power of love can heal even the worst betrayals. These new elements were fun for me to explore, but there was one aspect of Hero at Large that was very familiar to me. Writing about a heroine who makes her living as a psychologist came naturally because I was once on the road to becoming one myself. After graduating from college with a degree in psychology, I decided that writing about the suspenseful and romantic lives of the people in my imagination was more fulfilling than writing research papers. I hope you enjoy Hero at Large.

Sincerely,

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Prologue

Regrets were a waste of time. Keshon Gray had lived as a criminal long enough to know that much.

Stepping onto the rooftop, he took a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. Gray only had a minute or two before he had to go back to the pretense of being a bouncer for L.A.’s trendy nightspot Ocean. But this time, as he struck a match and held it to the end of his cigarette, a strange sensation washed over him.

Before his break he’d helped move a shipment of cocaine, but that wasn’t what was pushing against the edges of his conscience. Nor was it the crates of semiautomatic Street Sweeper shotguns stacked in the storeroom beside the paper cups. He released a short puff, and as he watched the blue smoke curl and blend with the cool November air, it hit him.

Once he’d hated cigarettes…and smoking. At the back of his mind lived the memory of a time when he’d sworn the habit would never touch him.

Gray’s first toke on a cigarette had been to prove himself to his boys. And even after he’d long outgrown that need, the habit remained, like sooty residue in the wake of a fire.

Each guise he’d taken on over the years—and there had been many—left a new layer of grime clinging to his soul. But he had no more choice now than he’d had thirteen years ago.

He may not have chosen the right path in life, but he’d done it for survival—not his own, someone else’s. He’d made up his mind to do whatever he had to, but he hadn’t been quick enough or strong enough then, and someone he’d loved like a brother had died.

Suddenly Gray’s throat constricted and he felt as if he was choking. His cough was rough as he struggled to clear his throat, his eyes watering with the effort.

Even now, he couldn’t think of that episode in his life with the numbing cool he was able to apply to everything else. For that reason, Gray had never failed again—at anything. He approached each new challenge as though someone’s life depended upon his success—and more often than not, it did.

Since he’d returned to L.A., he’d reconnected with the remains of the gang he had belonged to. Those who weren’t dead or in prison had been floundering on the edges of the L.A. drug trade and getting nowhere fast.

He herded them off street corners where they’d been hustling, and yanked them out of basements where they wasted their days getting high. It was time for them to move from petty street dealing into the big time. Making real money in this business required contacts, which he’d been cultivating carefully. Add a little weapons brokering into the mix, and they had an organized operation with the flashy L.A. club scene as the perfect cover.

The secret agency Gray worked for, SPEAR (Stealth, Perseverance, Endeavor, Attack and Rescue) was on the trail of a traitor—not a small problem since most government organizations didn’t even know that SPEAR existed. Those that did know of SPEAR recognized them as a group of the most elite, well-trained operatives in the world. A fact that made this turncoat’s threat to the agency all the more menacing.

He was willing to do whatever he had to do to bring down the enemy, but the fact was, he’d been hiding in shadows for so long, he no longer knew what he looked like in the light.

Gray stared at the cigarette burning between his fingers. Reflexively, he spread his index and middle finger and watched the cigarette fall over the edge of the roof and into the darkness below.

The time for mourning lost opportunities had passed. He’d made his choices and now he had to play them out. It didn’t matter that he’d never based those choices on his own needs. Trying to find the man he’d lost so many years ago was pointless. In fact, that man had never existed. Gray had only been sixteen when his identity had begun to slip away.

He took a step back, straightening the collar on his black blazer, which he wore over jeans and a T-shirt, both black. His break was over. And so was the bittersweet glimpse of his past.

As Gray hurried down the stairs, he couldn’t know that after nine years, he was about to look into the eyes of the only person who had ever known the real Keshon Gray.

Chapter 1

Even small victories deserved to be celebrated. Rennie Williams had been a psychologist long enough to appreciate that fact.

She smiled across the table at her two best friends. Their busy schedules had prevented them from having a girls’ night out for quite a while, and now they were making up for lost time.

“We have a lot to celebrate tonight.” As she reached for her margarita, Rennie’s gaze shifted to the first person she’d met when she moved back to L.A.—a corporate attorney she’d picked out of the phone book to help her sort through the legal details of setting up a private practice. “To Marlena, the only woman to be made a partner at Loudon, Crosby and Wade.”

Then Rennie turned to the second woman at the table, a nurse at the Family Planning Clinic, which was located in the L.A. Help Center on the same floor as Rennie’s office. “To Alise, after two years with a man who didn’t deserve you, you’re finally free. And to me, for making it through my first year on my own as a counselor for women.”

The women started to raise their glasses in salute, but Rennie held them off. “I’m almost done. To feminine energy, wisdom and strength,” Rennie said, finishing her toast. “We’ve proven we can do anything.”

Marlena and Alise cheered, clinking their glasses against hers.

The past year hadn’t been easy for Rennie, but that only made her small successes more meaningful. Tonight one of her clients, Sarita Juarez, was making her singing debut in Ocean nightclub’s Sand Castle Lounge, which featured salsa music. It was the perfect opportunity for Rennie to have a well-deserved good time with her friends and to show support for the client Rennie had struggled hardest to reach over the last few months.

When Rennie’s mind drifted back from her reverie, she noticed that Alise and Marlena were having a spirited discussion on their favorite topic—men.

Marlena shot Rennie one of her world-famous probing looks. “You’re the shrink, Ren. Why are women so attracted to bad boys?”

Caught off guard, Rennie looked from one woman to the other. “How did you two get onto this topic?”

Alise grinned. “Marlena has a theory that certain types of men are like irresistible poison. She thinks if we compare notes, we can come up with an antidote.”

“Yeah. There must be some psychological concept to back my theory, right, Rennie?”

She took a long sip from her drink, enjoying the tangy lime taste. “I’m off the clock, guys. You’re on your own.” The spicy salsa tempo was working its way down her spine. She was having too much fun to get into a heavy discussion about men.

Marlena threw a twenty on the table. “There. That should cover fifteen minutes of your time. Go,” she ordered, snapping her fingers.

Laughing, Rennie threw the money at her friend. Marlena was the type who expected to get her way and it was useless to fight it. “Fine. It’s really not that complicated. A woman has an inherent need to tame the wild beast. We’re attracted to bad boys because they’re sexy and dangerous, and we secretly believe that we can change them.”

“Yeah, but we all know that’s a crock of—”

“Marlena.” Alise cut her off. “Don’t try to pretend you’ve never gotten taken in by a bad boy. What about Troy Hopkins in college?”

The smug lawyer blushed. “I was young. I didn’t know better, and besides, it’s hard to resist a guy who looks that good in a pair of jeans.”

Alise giggled. “Apparently, half the girls on campus felt the same way. He had so many girlfriends Marlena had to book her dates three weeks in advance.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Enough about me,” Marlena said, draining her glass.

“Well, everybody already knows my story.” Alise rolled the edge of her cocktail napkin between two fingers. “I’m lucky I finally got rid of Ron before he spent what was left of my 401K. What about you, Rennie? Have you ever dated a bad boy?”

“No,” she answered without thinking as she scanned the dance floor.

There hadn’t been many men in her life. The few she’d dated in college were bookish introverts who’d had no problem keeping her company in the library on Saturday nights. Getting a scholarship to college had been an opportunity she’d had no intention of wasting.

Rennie had stayed out of the social scene, partially out of self-preservation and partially because she’d been too numb inside to allow herself any fun.

“You’ve never dated a bad boy? Not even in high school?” Alise asked. “No guys who drove too fast or smoked under the bleachers?”

“Uh…well, maybe one. But everyone just thought he was a bad boy. He really wasn’t.” Rennie stiffened. At least, she hadn’t thought so at the time.

“I see. It’s the old ‘he’s just misunderstood’ routine,” Marlena said. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why did everyone think he was a bad boy?”

Rennie bit her lip. “Because he was in a gang.” She felt her face heat, knowing how incriminating her words sounded. Alise and Marlena had grown up in normal suburban households. She couldn’t expect them to understand how complicated circumstances had been then.

“Whoa.” Alise’s eyes went wide.

“A gang?” Marlena looked intrigued. “As in Crips and Bloods? That type of a gang?”

Rennie shifted uncomfortably in the booth. “Sort of, but it was a much smaller local gang.” Why had she opened her big mouth?

Marlena grinned wickedly, clearly enjoying herself. That meant she was getting ready to grill Rennie over an open flame. “So, Ren, how did your guy look in a pair of jeans?”

Rennie was surprised that she still felt a gnawing ache in her heart when she allowed herself to think about Gray. So many regrets. So many what ifs. But despite the sting, her body still remembered him with heat that could burn white-hot.

“He was really good-looking,” Rennie said, wishing she hadn’t allowed herself to become the center of attention. “He was light-skinned with a body like a Chippendale’s dancer. Need I say more?” Her description didn’t do him justice, but it was enough to satisfy her friends.

Alise pushed her daiquiri, half full, to the side so she could lean closer to Rennie. “What was he like?”

“He was sweet. Gray looked out for me. He made sure no one bothered me, and—”

“Gray?” Marlena’s brow wrinkled. “Is that his real name?”

Rennie shrugged. “His first name is Keshon, but his mother named him after an uncle who was, as he liked to say, a few ants short of a picnic. Everybody’s always called him Gray.”

“So give us the dirt, girl.” Marlena was through warming up. She was ready to get tough. “So far you’re making him sound like a Boy Scout, but a guy who ran with a gang can’t be a complete angel.”

“I’m not saying he was, but it’s not what you think. The only reason he joined was to look out for my older brother.”

“Your brother was in a gang?” Lines of confusion creased Alise’s forehead. “I didn’t even know you had a brother. You never mention him.”

“He was killed when I was fourteen.” Rennie drained the rest of her margarita without tasting a drop of it. Suddenly, she felt exposed. That was a time in her life she didn’t want to revisit.

Her friends made sympathetic coos before falling into silence. Rennie banged on the table. “Hey, what’s with the long faces? I didn’t mean to bring everybody down. We came out tonight to have fun.”

Alise still looked a bit stunned, but Marlena immediately picked up on Rennie’s plea to change the subject. She signaled for the waitress.

“When is your girl Sarita performing, Ren? I’m in the mood to kick up my heels.” Marlena wriggled her shoulders to the music.

Rennie looked at her watch. “She should be taking the stage any minute now.” Sure enough, a few minutes later, the lights dimmed and Sarita was introduced.

The curtain parted, revealing a bandstand in front of a giant sand castle. Red and yellow spotlights swirled, and Sarita ran on stage wearing a short dress in a stunning electric blue. The lights went up, and she began to sing a swinging salsa number. The infectious tempo of the conga drums had Rennie and her friends dancing in their seats. It wasn’t long before Marlena stood, grabbed a guy lounging at the bar and began spinning around the dance floor.

Sarita sang four more songs before the lights dimmed on stage and she disappeared behind the curtain.

Marlena returned to the table, dabbing her forehead gently with a cocktail napkin. “That was fun. Why didn’t you guys come out?”

Alise laughed. “We didn’t feel like being up-staged. Where did you learn those fancy dance steps?”

“My ex-boyfriend taught me to salsa. He was a really boring date until you got him on the dance floor. Too bad he never learned to move his hips like that off the dance floor.” The three women shared another round of raucous laughter.

Rennie nudged Alise so she could slide out of the booth. “I’m going to try to catch up with Sarita backstage. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Gray entered the storage room behind Ocean’s Sand Castle Lounge, where Flex and Los were stacking crates. Despite the years they’d spent apart, Gray knew the guys working with him would take a bullet for him just as quickly now as they would have at sixteen when they’d been running the streets together.

There were five of them left, including Gray, and nothing bonded a group of men together more than knowing each one would die for the other. That’s what being in a gang meant. It was family—bound together by choice rather than genetic obligation. It meant never being alone or on your own.

That simple truth should have made things easier for Gray, but a lot of the time it only made what he had to do more difficult.

“Hey, G.” Los passed with a loaded hand truck, humming the theme song to “The Jeffersons.”

“Hey. I tried to break away in time to help you guys unload the truck, but I got tied up working the door.” Gray walked over to the closest shipment. “Kalashnikovs?”

“Yep, sixty crates,” Flex answered, stacking the last one.

Gray rubbed his hands together. “Let’s have a look.”

Los handed him a crowbar, and Gray brushed away the packing material to inspect the gun.

Flex leaned forward, issuing a low whistle. “Man, that is tight. When you gonna hook me up with one of those?”

Gray’s laugh had an icy edge. “We don’t deal on the front lines anymore. Don’t think street thug, think businessman. Trust me, if you find yourself in need of this kind of hardware on the regular, you’re doing something wrong.”

“Yeah.” Los smacked Flex in the back of the head.

Flex shrugged. “Hell, I just thought I might, you know, start a collection or something.”

Gray opened a few more crates and did a quick count to make sure all the guns were accounted for. The client for this particular shipment wasn’t one of the heavy hitters, but Gray had built a reputation for providing reliable service, and these small-time deals were starting to lead them to the big ones.

The biggest problem Gray had faced in the last few months was convincing his boys to look at the big picture. When he’d rolled into town, they were still committing petty crimes with quick payoffs they could blow through in less than a day. Most of them didn’t have the patience for the kind of jobs that would bring in real money.

Their world hadn’t changed much while he’d been gone. Success was still measured more by what you owned than by how you lived. In the neighborhood they had all grown up in, the trick had been to live hard and collect as many toys as possible because no one expected to live long.

Life had a different value on their side of town. A good pair of athletic shoes was worth more than a kid’s life. For teenagers, even light conversation was heavy. Instead of talking about which couples were hooking up or breaking up, they talked about who’d been shot lately. Instead of fantasizing about the kinds of jobs they would get or the houses they would buy, they picked out the music for their funerals and the types of caskets they wanted.

How, Gray wondered, was anyone supposed to have hope for the future? For them, a better life just didn’t exist.

This was it. The only way out of the ghetto was drugs and guns. So why not do it right? No more petty thieving. No more quick payoffs. Why not hold out for the big score? They knew how to get the money, but it took a lot of planning and patience.

The transition from street thug to businessman had been easiest for Los, who looked more like a fashion model than a common thug, anyway. He was willing to do anything that would bring in enough loot to keep him in designer clothes, trendy cars and materialistic women.

Franco, Los’s younger brother, who was tending bar in the VIP lounge, wasn’t much of a problem, either. He did whatever his older brother told him to do, but Woody and Flex were another matter.

Woody had gotten his leg shot off in a drive-by when he was eighteen. Even though his prosthesis wasn’t really made of wood, no one could resist the nickname. He hadn’t been too keen on the idea of checking ID and collecting cover charges at the door. He and Flex still didn’t understand why they had to do real work at the club in addition to their private endeavors. But their positions at Ocean were crucial to the operation.

As long as they got their work done and made regular contributions, Ocean’s manager, Paul Nocchio, didn’t care what other business the men conducted on the side. It hadn’t taken Gray long to make connections with local arms dealers and begin to funnel business through the club. With just a few deals, he’d been able to start swimming with the big fish.

Now he planned to catch himself a shark.

Sarita leaned over and gave Rennie a hug. “Thank you so much for coming, chica.”

Rennie squeezed her in return. “Thanks for the invitation. We’re having a great time. Are you doing another set tonight?”

Sarita nodded. “One more at ten-thirty. Then I’m going home to get some sleep. I was so keyed up about this performance that I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

“Then I’ll let you get ready,” Rennie said, backing toward the door. “I’ll see you at our group session tomorrow evening?”

“You bet.” Sarita walked her to the door. “Do you know how to get out? This place can be confusing, and all the doors backstage look the same. Make sure you leave through the second door. Otherwise, you’ll end up in the storage room.”

Rennie stepped into the hallway, feeling a rush of pride for Sarita. She’d come such a long way in just nine months. When Rennie met her, Sarita had been dancing in a run-down strip bar trying to pay for her sister’s hospital bills after the younger girl had her face slashed by an all-girl gang. It had taken Rennie months to get Sarita to trust her.

Now Sarita was going to nursing school, working part-time at the hospital, and she’d even met someone special. Her new boyfriend, who worked as a bouncer at Ocean, had helped Sarita get this singing gig. Rennie smiled. She was really beginning to feel like she’d made a difference in the young woman’s life.