Santa Assignment

“Santa will find you,” Ashley promised. “I’ll make sure of it.”

He considered that with his now-pensive green eyes. Ashley had seen those eyes before. Brayden’s eyes. It stirred at least a dozen new emotions seeing them on a child she loved.

Then Brayden was there, in the doorway, watching them.

“I want you to accept my offer to stay at my house,” he said softly. “You might think I’m a couple of steps below navel lint, but I didn’t ask you to come here so you could get hurt.”

So, he didn’t dismiss her fears of the stalker. Didn’t give her one of those icy cop glances. It was one nearly perfect moment in what had been far from perfect between them.

And Ashley knew exactly where this had to go. Maybe she’d always known, but she’d needed this visit with her nephew for it to sink in. Now, she only hoped she could live with the decision she was about to make.

“I’ll do it,” she heard herself say. “I’ll have your baby.”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

Our romantic suspense lineup this month promises to give you a lot to look forward to this holiday season!

We start off with Full Exposure, the second book in Debra Webb’s miniseries COLBY AGENCY: INTERNAL AFFAIRS. The ongoing investigation into the agency’s security leak heats up as a beautiful single mom becomes a pawn in a ruthless decimation plot. Next up…will wedding bells lead to murder? Find out in Hijacked Honeymoon—the fourth book in Susan Kearney’s HEROES, INC. series. Then Mallory Kane continues her ULTIMATE AGENTS stories with A Protected Witness—an edgy mystery about a vulnerable widow who puts her life in an FBI special agent’s hands.

November’s ECLIPSE selection is guaranteed to tantalize you to the core! The Man from Falcon Ridge is a spellbinding gothic tale about a primitive falcon trainer who swoops to the rescue of a tormented woman. Does she hold the key to a grisly unsolved murder—and his heart? And you’ll want to curl up in front of the fire to savor Christmas Stalking by Jo Leigh, which pits a sexy Santa-in-disguise against a strong-willed senator’s daughter when he takes her into his protective custody. Finally this month, unwrap Santa Assignment, an intense mystery by Delores Fossen. The clock is ticking when a desperate father moves heaven and earth to save the woman who could give his toddler son a Christmas miracle.

Enjoy all six!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Santa Assignment

Delores Fossen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former air force captain Delores Fossen feels as if she was genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Lieutenant Brayden O’Malley—San Antonio Police Department. To save his young son, Brayden asks his former sister-in-law, Ashley, to have his child.

Ashley Palmer—Once a rising star among criminal defense attorneys, for the past two and a half years she’s been hiding from a vicious stalker. However, to save her nephew, she’s willing to risk everything to have Brayden’s baby.

Colton O’Malley—Brayden’s three-year-old son and Ashley’s nephew. He’s too young to realize the sacrifices Ashley and his father are willing to make for him.

Miles Granville—Ashley’s former boyfriend. He’s jealous of Brayden and Ashley’s relationship, and is holding an old grudge, since Ashley once defended the two men who tried to kill him.

Trevor Chapman—Once Ashley’s close friend. Is Trevor hiding behind a timid facade, and is he the stalker who’s been tormenting her?

Hyatt Chapman—A fugitive who blames Ashley for his felony conviction.

To my editors, Denise O’Sullivan and Stacy Boyd.

Thanks for everything.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Prologue

Northern Virginia

He’d found her.

Finally.

And that meant now he could kill her.

From across the street, he watched Ashley Palmer as she parked her dark blue compact in her driveway. Since there was no garage, she stepped out in plain view. Practically right in front of him.

Yes, it was Ashley all right. A different hair color. But definitely her.

She turned—not in his direction, though—and ducked her head down slightly, probably to shelter her face from the angry December wind. A few stray snowflakes swirled through the air, some landing on her hat and scarf. Her breath created a filmy cloud around her face.

Her footsteps slowed as she approached her house, and she examined the other vehicle parked in front. Not his. But a rental, driven there by a visitor who was probably the last person on earth she expected to see today.

Well, the second to the last anyway.

He almost certainly had the honor of being at the very bottom on that theoretical list. But he had no plans for her to see him.

Not until he was actually in the process of killing her, that is.

He smiled. The thoughts of her death sent a rush of pleasure and anticipation through him. It wouldn’t be fast. Not some impulsive act born out of rage and the need for vengeance. It would be methodical. Precise. Cold-blooded. Because she had to be punished for what she’d done, and a quick bullet to the head wouldn’t punish her enough.

No.

Not nearly enough.

He’d made a mistake when he’d killed her sister, Dana. But he’d learned a lot from that little faux pas. Without suffering, retribution just wasn’t very satisfying. This time, there would definitely be suffering.

In fact, he’d already set his plan of suffering into motion with the surprise he had left in her house while she was out. It’d been easy to disarm the security system and slip inside. And his gift would perhaps rid her of any peace of mind she’d managed to find since her sister’s death.

Sweet, delicious torture. With the promise of much more to come.

But for now, he watched.

Waited.

And savored the scene that was unfolding right in front of him. He resisted the urge to open the van window so the heavily tinted glass wouldn’t obstruct his view of her and the encounter that was about to take place.

Pausing at the bottom of the steps, she stared up at the tall imposing visitor in the black coat who stood on her front porch. Even through the tinted glass of his car window, he could see Ashley’s expression go from astonishment to concern.

He laughed.

Because he knew that concern would only get worse, much worse, when she learned why her former brother-in-law, Lt. Brayden O’Malley, had come all the way from San Antonio. It was a stroke of luck, really. A special kind of torment for both of them that even he couldn’t have planned.

Not only had the lieutenant indirectly led him to Ashley—through the PI the man had hired to check up on her—but Brayden O’Malley would be the one to deliver the first blow. Or maybe the second, if she found the little surprise first. But it definitely wouldn’t be the last.

No. He would do the final deed himself.

After he’d played with her for a while.

He laughed at that thought, too. And he settled back into the seat, turned up the volume on his eavesdropping equipment and waited for Ashley Palmer’s world to come crashing down around her.

Chapter One

“Did hell freeze over?” Ashley asked, stepping onto the porch.

She spared him a glance, barely, before she turned her back to him and pulled out a key ring from her black leather shoulder purse. A tiny canister of pepper spray dangled from the large brass ring and clanged against the keys.

Brayden took a deep steadying breath. It didn’t help. Of course, that was asking a lot from a mere breath. Not much would steady him at this point. Especially not coming face-to-face, or rather face-to-back, with a woman he’d vowed never to lay eyes on again.

He’d made that vow exactly two years, seven months and four days ago. At a moment when Ashley still had his dead wife’s blood on her hands—both literally and figuratively. But Brayden had to push aside those brutal images. While he was at it, he had to dismiss the vow he’d made.

Because he desperately needed her.

Of course, now he had to figure out how to tell her that he wanted to take her seemingly ordered life and turn it upside down. Oh, and that the upside-down part would include forging a highly intimate, permanent relationship with a man she hated—him.

Whatever the opposite of a piece of cake was, this was it.

“Maybe hell did freeze over,” Brayden admitted under his breath. “Because I could swear there was just a sharp drop in the temperature.”

He obviously didn’t mumble it nearly low enough because Ashley glanced over her shoulder at him. The corner of her peach-tinged mouth lifted. Not from humor. Nope. There wasn’t a trace of fun and merriment on that mouth or in her cool turquoise-blue eyes.

So that she could reach the lock on the door, Ashley stepped closer. Close enough for him to catch her scent.

Something exotic and high priced.

A reminder that his former sister-in-law had expensive tastes, even if she no longer lived in luxury. This modest one-story place was a far cry from her sprawling upscale house in San Antonio.

Ditto for her present job. According to the background check he’d had run on her, she was practicing law—but mainly pro bono cases—for single mothers trying to collect overdue child support. Not exactly a six-figure income, and it was a huge financial step down from being the rising star of criminal defense attorneys in San Antonio.

“Come inside before you get frostbite or something,” Ashley said, shifting the paper sack of groceries to her hip so she could open the door. The security system immediately began to whine, and she reached inside to press the buttons on a keypad to disarm it.

Like her pseudosmile, her words weren’t really an invitation. Definitely not driven by a need to be polite, they were no doubt a product of curiosity. But he sensed apprehension as well. Lots of that.

Brayden understood completely.

Every inch of him was apprehensive.

She set the bag on a counter that separated the tiny living area from the dining room and peeled off her burgundy leather coat and hat. She’d cut her hair. Short and fashionably unstyled. And it was no longer honey-blond, but a dark chocolate that was a startling contrast against her cool pale skin. And surprisingly attractive.

Brayden truly wished he hadn’t noticed.

It had to be the fatigue and the stress.

It had to be.

“I’m not sure how this should work,” Ashley admitted, moistening those peachy lips. “Do we try some chitchat first? Or should we just get straight to the point of the argument that we both know we’ll end up having?”

His former sister-in-law had faults, but her directness sure wasn’t one of them. Under the circumstances, he found it refreshing.

“Let’s skip the chitchat. And just to let you know up front—brace yourself because you’re not going to like the point,” he volunteered.

“I figured as much.” She propped her hands on her hips. Not waif hips either. Curved ones. She was definitely built like a woman, and the snug jeans only emphasized that.

Yet something else he wished he hadn’t noticed.

Ashley studied him a moment. “So, you found out, huh?”

Brayden was almost certain he blinked. He hadn’t thought she would be the one delivering the surprises today. “Found out? About what?”

She blinked too. And for a split second, there was a panicky look in Ashley’s eyes. But she quickly covered it with a huff, which had a definite duh tone to it. “About where to find me, of course. Let me guess—you want to confront me about your unresolved anger? And this is some kind of requirement for a twelve-step program to help you deal with Dana’s murder?”

“No twelve-step program could help with that.” It’d taken long agonizing months to push the pain of his wife’s death aside just so he could function. It’d taken longer still for the numbness to go away. And even now, his life wasn’t normal. Never would be.

“Well, yeah,” she grumbled. “You got me there.”

Ashley turned her back to him again, pulled a pint of caramel-fudge ice cream from her grocery bag and strolled toward the fridge. She tried to look nonchalant—distant, even—but her tight at-war jaw muscles gave her away. This was no proverbial piece of cake for her, either. Especially since she’d let something slip. So, you found out, huh?

Brayden would let that pass.

For now.

Ashley took out a spoon from one of the drawers and opened the ice cream. “Wow, this must really be something earth-shattering for you not to get right to the point. You’re not the beating-around-the-bush type.” She sampled the caramel-fudge, made a sound of approval and recapped the carton.

“This isn’t easy.” Man, what an understatement. Brayden shook his head and wished he’d at least practiced what to say. He’d interrogated serial killers and hadn’t felt this uncomfortable.

“So, why don’t we just start with you telling me how you found me?” she prompted. “I’ve changed my name and kept my address a secret, so I seriously doubt you just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

“I hired a private investigator to find you.”

“A PI? This must be important.” Ashley had already reached for the freezer door, but she paused just a second before she opened it carefully as if the handle were fragile and might shatter in her hand. “So just how important is it?”

“Very. It’s Colton.” It was all he could manage to say without taking another breath.

Her gaze rifled to his. She stuffed the ice cream in the freezer, slammed the door and went toward him. Not slowly this time. Her long strides quickly ate up the space between, and she stopped only a few feet away.

“What happened?” she asked. “Has he been hurt?”

Brayden was thankful for the true concern that went through her eyes. The only real connection he had left to Ashley was through Colton. His three-year-old son. And her nephew. It was that connection that had brought him to her.

He was prepared to beg if necessary.

“He wasn’t hurt,” Brayden explained. “He’s had some medical problems.” A simple almost sterile explanation. It still put his stomach in knots.

Ashley reached out as if to touch him but immediately withdrew her hand and crammed it into her back jeans’ pocket. “Will I need to sit down before I hear the rest of this?” she asked.

“Possibly.”

Another nod that was edgy and clipped, and she dragged out not one but two chairs from beneath the small tiled table. Brayden didn’t take her up on her nonverbal gesture to sit. He continued to stand even after she dropped down into the seat.

“The diagnosis is acute lymphocytic leukemia,” he went on, after another breath.

She made a small helpless sound and pressed her fingertips to her mouth. “Oh, God. Leukemia. How he is? Is he okay?”

No. His son wasn’t okay. But Brayden didn’t even try to get that out. “He’s had chemo and is stabilized for now. But he needs a bone-marrow transplant. Not immediately. But eventually.”

“Okay.” She pulled in her breath, hard, and repeated that one word several times. “So, you need me to be tested to see if I’m a match—”

“You’re not a match,” he explained. “You’re already in the bone-marrow registry so Colton’s doctors were able to check. That’s not why I’m here.”

That brought Ashley slowly back to her feet. “Then why did you come?”

It was a good question, and Brayden considered a detailed, clinical answer. One that would make her at least think about his proposition before she tossed him out the door.

But there was no way to make this clinical.

Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Mercy, you’re not here to tell me he’s not going to make it—”

“Colton needs a sibling donor,” he interrupted, not wanting her to finish that thought. Then, he paused. Waiting to see if she had a response. She didn’t. Ashley just stared at him. “A sibling with my DNA. And his mother’s.”

She shook her head. Maybe because she didn’t understand what he was asking, or God forbid, maybe because she was already saying no.

She couldn’t say no.

He couldn’t lose his son.

He just couldn’t.

“I’m asking you to have a baby,” he explained.

Ashley blinked back the tears, and her eyes widened. “You’re…what?”

He swallowed hard and with it swallowed what little pride he had left.

Which wasn’t much.

“I’m asking you to have a baby,” Brayden clarified. “Our baby.”

FROM THE MOMENT Ashley had seen Brayden O’Malley standing on her front porch, she’d imagined lots of things he might say to her.

But this sure wasn’t one of them.

Not even close.

Still reeling from the news of her nephew’s illness, this latest addition to the conversation caused a serious information overload.

“Our baby?” Ashley repeated, certain she’d misunderstood him.

“Our baby,” he verified.

The words seemed to stick in his throat. And probably did. After all, he was talking to her. They weren’t friends. In fact, the last thing Brayden had said to her two years, seven months and four days ago was that he hoped like hell he never saw her face again.

She’d given him that. Ashley had disappeared from his life. From her nephew’s.

From her own life.

“The doctors think a sibling donor is Colton’s best chance for a bone marrow match,” Brayden continued. “Because the DNA will be similar.”

So, she’d heard him correctly. Her nephew had leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant. She and her former brother-in-law were the best bet for giving him that.

Oh, mercy.

When the full impact of that hit her, her heart landed somewhere in the vicinity of her knees. And because she didn’t want to risk something as dignity-reducing as her legs giving way, Ashley sat back down.

“It’s not a hundred percent,” Brayden went on. “I mean, nothing is. But at least this way there’s a fighting chance we’ll have a suitable donor. No one in my family matched. I’ve even contacted all of your relatives, including distant cousins. No luck. And there’s not a match in the international bone marrow registry, either.”

“Oh, mercy.” Ashley searched for whatever she was supposed to say in a situation like this and came up with a total blank. “A lawyer without an immediate opinion. That’s one for the record.”

“Well, this isn’t an everyday occurrence.” He groaned, scrubbed his hands over his face and tipped his eyes toward the ceiling as if seeking divine guidance. “I should have found a better way to say it.”

“Trust me, there was no better way to say what you just said. Besides, you got your point across—believe me. A baby,” Ashley mumbled, aware that by repeating it, she was starting to sound a little psychotic. “Fate sure has a twisted sense of humor, huh?”

He shrugged. And made a sound of agreement. A mild sound. Which wasn’t congruent with his rigid posture. In that calf-length black coat with a dark blue suit beneath it and with his conservative, short, bronze-colored hair, Brayden looked much like a judge or a military officer standing at attention.

Or perhaps waiting for a firing squad.

“I know it’s a lot to ask…especially since you have a new life here.”

“A new life not by choice,” Ashley reminded him, lifting her index finger in a let’s-not-forget-that-little-detail gesture. “But out of necessity.”

He nodded. “Because of the stalker.”

Oh, yes. Always the stalker.

A person who might or might not be her former client, Hyatt Chapman. A name that even now caused her lungs to tighten and her breath to go thin. The sociopathic slime, whoever he was, had given her some of the most terrifying and troubling moments of her life—excluding her sister’s death.

And this, of course.

This definitely qualified as troubling.

Ironically, it was easier to talk to Brayden about a crazed stalker who had threatened, and tried to kill her than it was to discuss her nephew’s illness or a possible baby. So, Ashley let her mouth go where her brain was already gladly leading her. “I haven’t received any threatening letters or calls since I changed my name and moved here.”

Another nod. “That’s good.”

The words were right, but Brayden’s body language added an important postscript to it. It was good that the stalker hadn’t found her, but if—and that was a huge if—she considered what he’d just asked her to consider, it would almost certainly mean her coming out of hiding.

It would also probably mean having to deal with the stalker all over again.

Oh, mercy.

Ashley wasn’t sure she was ready for round two.

Round one had nearly killed her.

“And I really have started over here,” she continued, talking more to herself than to him. “I mean, I’m doing something that matters.”

For once in her life.

Of course, that was the problem with doing something that mattered. It didn’t automatically exclude other things that mattered, too.

Like her nephew.

But a baby? This was no easy fix. No easy choice.

Brayden walked closer, hovered over her a moment and sank down onto the chair across from her. Directly across. The knees of his pants brushed against her jeans.

His gaze met hers. And there it was. That shock of stunning green. She’d almost forgotten all those tones of vibrant color in his eyes.

Almost.

What she hadn’t almost forgotten was his face. Ruggedly handsome by anyone’s standards. Good Celtic cheekbones. A naturally tanned complexion. Toned and lean.

He was thirty-three now and had tiny lines at the corners of his eyes. Character lines, people called them. As if he needed any more character on that face.