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“You’re wrong, Everly. You can’t trust me.”
But will he choose duty—or desire?
After leaving the FBI, the last thing Wyatt Thornton wants is to get involved in a murder investigation. Yet Everly Baker is desperate for his help in solving her brother’s mysterious death. The connections between cases tantalize Wyatt, as does the victim’s sister. And when a criminal puts Everly in his crosshairs, Wyatt must trust his crime-solving instincts to protect her—and catch a killer!
JENNIFER D. BOKAL is the author of the bestselling ancient-world historical romance The Gladiator’s Mistress and the second book in the Champions of Rome series, The Gladiator’s Temptation. Happily married to her own alpha male for twenty years, she enjoys writing stories that explore the wonders of love in many genres. Jen and her husband live in upstate New York with their three beautiful daughters, two aloof cats and two very spoiled dogs.
Also By Jennifer D. Bokal
Wyoming Nights
Under the Agent’s Protection
Rocky Mountain Justice
Her Rocky Mountain Hero
Her Rocky Mountain Defender
Rocky Mountain Valor
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk
Under the Agent’s Protection
Jennifer D. Bokal
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-1-474-09445-0
UNDER THE AGENT’S PROTECTION
© 2019 Jennifer D. Bokal
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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Everly stood in the middle of the living room.
The unmistakable glint of a metal blade was at her neck. The perpetrator was hidden behind her, face obscured. Wyatt’s heart beat in triple time. His palms grew damp and a bead of sweat trickled down his back.
He inhaled and exhaled, slowing his racing heart. There were only two things Wyatt needed to do: save Everly’s life and catch the serial killer. Good thing he’d brought a gun to a knife fight.
“Drop that blade or I’ll shoot,” he said, remaining hidden in the shadows.
The knife flashed, gouging Everly’s skin. Like a seam had opened, a bead of red blood gathered on her cheek. She shrieked. A shadow took form and rushed from the room. The back door shut with a crack.
Wyatt sprinted through the living room and pushed against the door. It didn’t budge. He fumbled with the doorknob and leaned his shoulder into the door, knowing it was a smart move on the intruder’s part. Barricade the door. Wyatt was trapped—a prisoner in his own home.
Dear Reader,
I am beyond thrilled to continue the Rocky Mountain Justice series. Yet, there is one person who I need to thank above all others—and that is you, Dear Reader! As excited as I am that I get to continue to write the RMJ series, the exhilaration pales in comparison to the fact that the previous books were enjoyed by readers everywhere. I’m sure you’ve heard before that writing is a solitary endeavor. While that is somewhat true, authors don’t publish books to stay hidden. In fact, we write because we are driven to share our stories.
Thank you, Dear Reader, for giving all of the Rocky Mountain Justice books a place in the world.
Under the Agent’s Protection, along with the subsequent four books in the miniseries, began with an editor’s single suggestion: You know what we’d love to see? A serial killer.
That seed took root in my imagination. It was watered with a good bit of research and interviews about the formation of serial killers and what drives those who study and pursue them. In writing this book, I was forced to ask a very personal question: What frightens me the most? Rocky Mountain Justice expanded from Colorado and took up residence in the small town of Pleasant Pines, Wyoming. To all of that I added four separate love stories, and this newest miniseries flourished! As always, it is my honor to create smart and sexy books for you, Dear Reader. I hope you enjoy reading Under the Agent’s Protection as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Regards,
Jennifer D. Bokal
To John. You are always the one.
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Introduction
Dear Reader
Dedication
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
Chapter 16
Epilogue
About the Publisher
Prologue
Wyatt Thornton cocked back his arm as far as he could, then released his grip. The stick somersaulted through the air. Kicking up the remnants of last winter’s snow, his dog, Gus, barked happily and gave chase. The land, these miles of foothills in the Rocky Mountains, belonged to Wyatt. It was more than a home, it was a refuge—his place of escape, where the world hardly knew he existed.
A place he could truly be alone.
Gus returned and dropped the slobbery branch at Wyatt’s feet. After ruffling the Lab’s ears, Wyatt once again picked up the stick. This time, he threw it harder, sending it sailing through the clear blue sky. With another excited bark, Gus raced after it, disappearing into the woods.
Turning his face to the sun, Wyatt closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He’d never gotten used to the sweet, fresh Wyoming air—not when compared to the miasma of exhaust fumes, cigarettes and sunscreen he had lived with for more than a decade in Las Vegas. The scents of the Strip, everyone used to joke. After exhaling fully, Wyatt again inhaled. A primal wail shot through the silent morning and his breath caught in his chest.
“Gus?”
Heart pounding and legs pumping, Wyatt rushed between the shadows cast by the towering trees.
“Gus,” he called. “Where are you, boy?”
He heard a yelp in the distance and his chest contracted. All the dangers that might have befallen his faithful companion came to him in one horrifying rush. A newly awake and hungry bear. An unseen ditch and the dog’s broken paw. Poor footing on a slope that ended with Gus maimed at the bottom of a ravine.
He stopped and listened. The silence was total, not even interrupted by the whisper of a breeze.
“Gus? Where are you?”
His call was answered with a bark. The noise ricocheted off the hills, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Wyatt stopped and focused.
The first bark was followed by another, this one louder and definitely from his right. Wyatt’s pulse spiked, and he followed the sound up a hill. The soft ground crumbled underfoot, and he scrambled on hands and knees to the top of the rise. One hundred yards in the distance stood the old schoolhouse, the farthest point on his land.
Made up of a single room, the century-old stone foundation was still intact. There was a hole in the ceiling where part of the roof had collapsed in the corner. Gus stood on the threshold, whole and healthy. He barked, and his tail was a wagging blur.
Wyatt wiped his hands on the seat of his pants, while his racing heartbeat slowed. “There you are,” he said between breaths as he half jogged to the schoolhouse. “Come here.”
Gus barked again. With a whine, the dog looked over his shoulder.
“What is it, boy?” Wyatt asked.
Gus darted into the dilapidated building. Wyatt approached and stopped short, recognizing the smell of decay. It was like the rot of a slaughterhouse, but stronger.
Swallowing down his deepest sense of revulsion, he stepped slowly into the structure.
Gus stood near a far corner and pawed at the floor. Behind the dog was the unmistakable form of a corpse.
“Easy, boy,” Wyatt said to his dog. With a slap to his thigh, he added, “Come here.”
With one last look at the lump on the floor, Gus moved to his master’s side.
No matter how long he’d been out of the game, the skills Wyatt had developed over years of training rose to the surface. He began to catalogue all the details—some obvious, others more subtle.
The deceased was male and Caucasian. His age appeared to be between 25 and 40—quite a range, but a wild animal had gotten to his face and throat, making a more exact guess impossible. Wyatt looked around for blood splatter on the walls or floor.
There was nothing.
Wyatt moved in for a closer look, kneeling next to the body.
Dressed in a flannel shirt, down-filled coat and lined denim jeans, John Doe wore the same outfit as three quarters of the state of Wyoming. What made him interesting were the accessories—his hiking boots were high-quality and retailed for over 700 dollars per pair. Wyatt knew that fact as he had a pair himself. The treads were worn, and the tops were scarred with scuff marks. John Doe also wore a top-of-the-line smartwatch. The screen was blank.
But there was no visible sign of trauma. No blackened bullet hole to the chest. No knife wound to the side, crusted over with blood. It was almost as if this man had wandered into the abandoned schoolhouse and died.
No, Wyatt thought, correcting his thinking, there was no almost about it.
Cardiac arrest? Perhaps.
Wyatt began to question the scenario before him. Perhaps John Doe—a wealthy tourist, no doubt—had lost his way while hiking in the mountainous terrain. Maybe he’d sought shelter from the frigid temperatures in the old schoolhouse. But in the mountains, it wouldn’t have been enough.
The lack of snow was deceptive. The last few nights the temperature had dropped into the low twenties, maybe even high teens. Either way, it was cold enough for someone to die from exposure. It happened all the time, so much so that it was hardly news anymore.
Then again, there were other things that Wyatt would’ve expected to see and didn’t. He touched the flagstone floor. It was smooth, cold and inexplicably spotless. Wyatt inspected the corpse’s hands. The fingernails were clean and smooth. It meant that John Doe had hardly struggled in the wild to survive.
No footprints.
No injuries.
No clues.
He pulled a wallet from the man’s back pocket and checked for ID. There was an Illinois driver’s license in the name of Axl Baker. Conflicting feelings of trepidation and adrenaline dropped into Wyatt’s gut. It was the same feeling he had at the beginning of every new case. And even though the scene felt familiar, this time it was different. This time, Wyatt would have nothing more to do with the dead guy on the floor.
Because Wyatt Thornton had left the FBI for a good reason. And nothing, not even an unexplained death, could force him back to work.
Chapter 1
The radio in Sheriff Carl Haak’s truck crackled a moment before the 911 dispatcher’s voice came through. “You there, Sheriff?” she asked.
Carl looked at the clock on the dashboard. It wasn’t even 7:00 in the morning yet. He lifted the radio’s handset and pressed the talk button. He continued driving as he said, “Go ahead, Rose.”
“A call came in. A body’s been found in the old schoolhouse.”
Carl’s shoulders pinched together with tension and he eased the truck to the side of the road. He only had a couple of weeks left until retirement and looking into another death was not how he wanted to spend his time. Pushing his cowboy hat, emblazoned with a sheriff’s tin star on the band, back on his head, he asked, “A body? Whose?”
“A man by the name of Axl Baker. All the way from Chicago, Illinois.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t know, but the guy who found him didn’t think that it was foul play, if that’s what worries you.”
“What guy?”
“The one who bought the Hampton place a few years back,” said Rose. “Wyatt Thornton.”
The Hampton family hadn’t owned the sprawling piece of land for decades and still Carl knew exactly what property Rose meant. In fact, he passed it every day as he drove to work. “Not foul play? How does Mr. Thornton know?”
“He said there was no sign of injury and that Axl Baker probably died of exposure.”
Rose’s voice was wistful, and Carl knew why. Ever since Wyatt Thornton had moved to the area several years ago, he’d mostly kept to himself. That didn’t mean that his rare appearances in town didn’t cause a commotion—amongst the local women, at least. She continued, “He was so sweet on the phone. As nice as he is handsome. He almost reminds me of a movie star.”
“What would your husband think of you being sweet on Mr. Thornton?”
“Wyatt,” she corrected. “He told me to call him Wyatt, and by the way, Carl, it doesn’t do any harm to look. You know, I’m not dead yet.”
Carl ignored Rose’s comment. Pressing down on the radio’s handset, he asked, “How’d he know it was a natural death? Is he a doctor or something?”
The radio was filled with static, as if Rose was no longer on the other end of the call. The silence stretched. In reality, Carl knew next to nothing about Wyatt Thornton. When the other man first arrived in Pleasant Pines, Sheriff Haak thought about digging into his past.
Yet, Thornton didn’t drink, fight, drive too fast or even listen to his music too loud. In short, he was a model citizen. The job of sheriff was a busy one, more important cases arose and Carl never did get around to investigating Thornton.
Now, he wondered if that decision, made long ago, had been for the best.
Finally, Rose answered. “Honestly,” she said, “I don’t know. He just seemed positive, that’s all.” Another pause. “He’s waiting at the old schoolhouse.”
Pressing the talk button, Carl said, “Find out what you can about the victim.”
“Sure thing, Carl.”
Turning on his lights and siren, Carl swung the truck around on the empty road and dropped his foot on the accelerator. Fifteen minutes later, he was at the turnoff for the old schoolhouse. It was just a wide spot in a dilapidated barbwire fence with low scrub on what used to be a well-worn path.
The ground was covered with frost, and his truck’s undercarriage passed well above any dead bushes or brambles. In the distance stood the one-room building. As he got closer, he saw Thornton and his dog standing by the door.
“Just two weeks,” he mumbled to himself. Then Carl would be moving to South Carolina, where it was warm all the time and there was a beach two blocks from his tiny condominium. He put the truck in Park and killed the engine. The lights went dim and the siren fell silent.
Stepping into the cold, he shrugged on his jacket. The smell of death permeated the air.
“Morning, Mr. Thornton,” he said.
Thornton stepped forward, offering his hand. “Call me Wyatt.”
They shook, then the sheriff turned to business. “Well, Wyatt, can you tell me what happened?”
Wyatt gave a succinct rundown of his typical morning walk that today, ended with the dog finding the body. He concluded with, “There’s no signs of trauma, so I don’t think it’s murder.”
Carl hefted up his jeans by the belt loops. “How can you know that?”
“Experience,” said the other man.
Carl waited for a moment for more information. None was offered. “You a doctor, or something?” he asked, repeating his original assumption.
Wyatt shook his head. “No, I’m not a doctor.”
“A movie star?”
Thornton gave a quiet chuckle. “Not a movie star, either.” After a beat, he added, “I used to work for the Behavioral Sciences Unit of the FBI.”
“You got any identification that says so?” Carl asked.
“What? That says I used to work for the Bureau? I still have my old creds. You can stop by and see them if you want.”
“I might do just that. Then again,” said Carl, “I’m retiring soon. Two weeks then I’m off to South Carolina.”
He waited for Wyatt to say something or offer the expected congratulations. Thornton said nothing. Carl cleared his throat. “One thing I know is that Rose will be excited to hear that we have a real-life G-man in Pleasant Pines.”
“If you don’t mind,” said Wyatt with a lifted palm, “I’d like to keep my former career in the past.”
With a nod, Carl said, “I respect a man of discretion.”
Wyatt gestured with his chin to the schoolhouse. “Sheriff, you should probably get a look at the scene.”
Wyatt walked through the front door and stopped. Carl followed. His gaze was drawn to the corpse at the far side of the room. A dead eye, gone milky white, stared straight at Carl.
Shaking off the skittering sensation that crawled up his spine, he got to work examining the body and the scene. Sure, he’d seen a few deaths in his time on the job—but something about this one just felt wrong.
“If you don’t mind,” said Wyatt. “I want to point out one thing.”
“What is it?” asked Carl.
“The floor’s clean,” Wyatt said.
A beam of sunlight shone from a hole in the roof, illuminating the interior of the structure. Where Carl would’ve normally seen dirt and debris, there was nothing. “Odd,” he agreed. “I would expect at least some dirt collected in a place like this.”
“Me, as well,” said Wyatt.
“How’d you get a name for the corpse?” Carl asked.
“I found his wallet in his pants pocket. He has a license from Illinois. I left it next to the body.”
Carl walked inside and found the wallet. Flipping it open, he found the driver’s license, complete with a picture. He looked back at the body. Even with the post-mortem injuries, they were undoubtedly the same man. Legally speaking, it was all he needed to make a positive identification on a John Doe. Standing, Carl dusted his hands on the seat of his pants. “Looks like this is Axl Baker.”
“I don’t want to disturb anything more than I already have. So, unless you need me,” Wyatt said while stepping toward the door, “I’ll be on my way.”
“I have to get an official statement,” said Carl. He followed outside. “Stop by my office tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock.”
“I’ll see you then,” said Wyatt. He called his dog and set off.
Carl watched until they disappeared below the crest of the hill. Returning to his truck, he picked up the radio. “Rose, you there?”
“I am, Sheriff. What d’you need?”
“Call Doc Lambert. I need him to come out and pick up the body.”
“Sure thing,” she said. “Anything else?”
“Did you get a next of kin for Axl Baker?”
“I did. It’s his sister, one Everly Baker, also of Chicago.”
Carl scribbled Everly’s number on a scrap of paper before signing off. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. Even here, there was a strong signal. He entered the number and held his breath. A woman answered the call.
“Yes?”
“Everly Baker?”
“Yes.” Her voice rose an octave. “Who is this?”
“Ms. Baker.” Carl paused. His temples began to throb, and he held his breath. Calls like this were the worst part of his job. With an exhale, he said, “This is Sheriff Haak in Pleasant Pines, Wyoming. I’m sorry to be bothering you, but I have some awful news...”
The following day
To Everly Baker, it looked as if Pleasant Pines had been carved out of the forest. Pine trees ringed the perimeter, and the center of town was taken up by a village green, complete with a gazebo. Wrought iron lampposts stood on each corner.
There had been a sign, welcoming all visitors and proclaiming that the population was a mere 3,200 people.
The streets were lined with businesses—a grocery store, a diner, a dentist’s office and the regional newspaper. People moved about, busy with their own lives. It looked as though not much had changed in the sleepy town for years. A spring snow had started, the flakes swirling across the road. Everly would’ve found the scene charming, if not for the circumstances.
After receiving the sheriff’s call about her brother, she’d caught a flight from Chicago to Cheyenne. From there, Everly rented a car for the last leg of her journey. After almost twenty-four hours of travel, she decided that Pleasant Pines was more than secluded—it was actually cut off from the rest of the world.
Driving down Main Street, Everly shuddered. She still couldn’t believe that this nightmare was real. Axl, dead? How could that be? The very idea that her brother was gone forever—and she was all alone in the world—was too overwhelming to handle.