A tumultuous reunion.

Logan took three steps towards her. He stared at her, and she found it difficult to breathe. It seemed forever before he spoke. And when he did, his voice was harsh and matched the haunted look in his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“All of a sudden I’ve got Redstone Security on my tail. They said you put them up to it. Why?”

“I’m trying to help,” she said.

He gave a low, humourless chuckle. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t waste your time.”

Liana studied him. Had he given up? Or was he just in shock over what had happened to him and hadn’t yet begun to fight back? She had to believe the latter; the Logan Beck who’d saved her life would never give up so easily.

“It’s my time to waste,” she said firmly.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Justine Davis lives on Puget Sound in Washington State. Her interests outside writing are sailing, doing needlework, horseback riding and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster – top down, of course.

Justine says that years ago, during her career in law enforcement, a young man she worked with encouraged her to try for a promotion to a position that was at the time occupied only by men. “I succeeded, became wrapped up in my new job, and that man moved away, never, I thought, to be heard from again. Ten years later he appeared out of the woods of Washington State, saying he’d never forgotten me and would I please marry him. With that history, how could I write anything but romance?”

Dear Reader,

As a writer, I spend a lot of time pondering human nature. As a writer of romance, I spend a lot more pondering the nature of heroes. The quiet kind who never gets the hero fanfare but never stops trying, even in the face of impossible, crushing odds. There’s the hero who takes a stand for what’s right in the face of fierce opposition, and the people who become situational heroes, ordinary people who respond heroically in a crisis.

Then there’s the hero I can never wrap my mind completely around, the one who regularly risks his life for strangers he will never see again. The one who believes in something bigger than himself and is willing to die for it. Perhaps it’s because I’m in such awe of that mind-set that I find it so fascinating. It is that awe and a simple question that inspired Deadly Temptation; what if someone had the chance to actually repay one of those heroes?

I hope you’ll enjoy Logan and Liana’s story; I have a feeling I’ll be revisiting this ground often.

Happy reading!

Justine Davis

Deadly Temptation

JUSTINE DAVIS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Chapter 1

Liana Kiley stared at the photograph in the newspaper on her desk. Read the caption again, then the headline, just to be sure. In some part of her mind she knew that when the initial shock wore off she’d be swamped by a mass of emotions and memories, but for now the buffer was there.

“Good mornin’.”

The drawled greeting from her office doorway—a doorway still half-blocked with two as yet untouched moving boxes—made her jump, and she smothered a gasp.

“Thought I’d see how you’re settling in.”

She stared at the tall, rangy man leaning against the doorjamb. So it was true. The great, the brilliant, the incredible Joshua Redstone really did make a tour of his own Southern California headquarters every morning when he was in the building. They’d told her—warned her?—but she hadn’t quite believed it until now, with her new boss standing there in front of her. He’d actually stopped to see her, the newest, lowliest face on the huge Redstone totem pole.

“I—” She swallowed, tried again. It wasn’t every day you talked to one of the richest, most successful entrepreneurs in the world. “I’m getting there, Mr. Redstone.”

He gave her a lazy smile that eased her nerves. “To anyone who works in this building I’m not Mr. Redstone. I’m Josh.”

“Josh,” she said, although even at his request it felt presumptuous.

“Need anything?”

They’d told her about that, too, that if you indeed did need something, job-related or not, these morning tours were the time to ask.

I should ask him to save Logan, she thought, flicking a glance at the newspaper she’d dropped on the desk.

“Problem?”

Her gaze shot back to her boss’s face. He was as quick as she’d thought he must be. This might be her first day on the job, but even she could see that something…alert had come into those cool-gray eyes.

She’d never been, as some were, fooled by the lazy drawl into thinking he was slow or stupid; she’d researched him and the empire he’d built too well before she’d applied for the rare opening. No fool could ever have accomplished what he had—taken a single design for a small jet and built it into one of the biggest privately held multinational operations in the world.

When she didn’t immediately answer his question, he straightened from the doorjamb and came toward her.

“What is it?”

“I…just some disturbing news,” she said, gesturing at the paper.

Josh Redstone grimaced. “That’s the template these days. Even if it’s good news, make it sound disturbing.” He glanced at the page she’d been looking at. His expression changed again. “But that really is disturbing.”

“He didn’t do it!”

The words burst from her, and she wanted to grab them back the instant they were spoken. This was not how she wanted her first day on her precious new job to go.

“I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I—”

She stopped as he waved a hand at her, clearly requesting silence, and continued to read the headline story. After a moment he looked up at her.

“You know him?”

She nodded, keeping her mouth shut, afraid of what else might come pouring out.

“Boyfriend?”

“No,” she said, startled. “Actually I haven’t seen him in a few years.”

Josh looked thoughtful, and Liana had the sudden feeling that this, of all she’d seen from him this morning, was the expression to be wary of if you were on the other side of a bargaining table from this man.

“But you don’t believe he did what they’re saying? That he’s a crooked cop?”

“I know he isn’t,” she said fervently. “He would no more take money from drug dealers than he would…” Her words trailed off as she was unable to think of an analogy bizarre enough.

“Sometimes,” Josh said slowly, “people hide facets of themselves.”

“Yes,” she said, conscious of the fact that she was debating with her new boss before she’d even sat down once in her new office chair. “But when you’re in a…life-threatening, life-changing situation, facades tend to fall away.”

She held her breath, waiting, wondering if it was going to turn out to be a good thing that she hadn’t completely unpacked yet, because that would make it easier to repack and get out of here after he fired her for insubordination.

“He’s the one?”

She blinked in puzzlement at the quiet question. Then she realized she was the one being stupid; did she really think Joshua Redstone hired just anybody off the street without researching them even more thoroughly than she had researched his company? He’d probably turned his much-vaunted security team loose on her history; she’d read how their checks were on par with any government agency’s. She just hadn’t realized that applied to everybody, even lowly assistants to department heads. But you didn’t build the kind of family Redstone, Incorporated was without thoroughly vetting the people you let in.

She felt a bit foolish. Of course they had checked her out completely, which meant Josh knew exactly who the man in the photograph was.

“Yes,” she said.

Josh smiled slightly, as if he was pleased that she left it at that, hadn’t launched into some long explanation. As if, she realized suddenly, he was glad she’d understood he already knew all about It.

It.

That’s what that day was in her life, a big, capitalized It. And her life was divided into two parts, before It and after. And the two segments bore little resemblance to each other. Not surprising, she supposed, given the enormity of what had happened.

She snapped back to the present to find her new boss watching her, and felt herself flush.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I don’t usually let it get to me.”

“You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t,” Josh said. “Nobody goes through something like that and comes out without at least some baggage.”

Her mouth twisted wryly. “And some of us come out with a cargo load.”

Josh chuckled, but the sound was rueful. “Yes. Some do.”

She saw the echo of an old, familiar pain in his eyes, remembered belatedly that this was a man with painful baggage of his own that he’d been carrying since the death of his beloved wife and, much earlier, the death of his brother, his last surviving blood relative.

She responded, aware of the irony, in the same way many had responded to her after It; she changed the subject abruptly.

“Everything’s fine here,” she said formally. “I have everything I could possibly need, and I’m looking forward to getting right to work. And thank you again for giving me this chance. It’s the best early Christmas present I could ever get.”

“Very politely said,” Josh answered, his mouth quirking in turn as he accepted her verbal swerve. “But you’ll find we don’t stand on ceremony much around here. We all work on the assumption that everyone here—even a new hire—is the best at what they do. Eliminates infighting.”

“I can’t wait,” she said eagerly, meaning it wholeheartedly.

“That’s more like it,” Josh said with a grin that she thought could light up a room much larger than this one. “Lilith will be along shortly, I’m sure. She’ll get you started on what she needs done first.”

Liana nodded. She’d had her final interview with Lilith Mercer, which had surprised her; she’d thought Josh would have the final say. But he’d told her before that last session that Lilith knew what she needed in an assistant better than he did, knew what kind of person she could best work with, so she would make the decision and he would back her. That was the way things worked at Redstone.

That simple statement from a man who’d built an empire had taken her from hoping she got the job to thinking she would be missing out on the chance of a lifetime if she didn’t get it. The position was entry level, not where she wanted to be or stay, but it was at Redstone, and few jobs opened there because once you got in you stayed.

“My door’s always open to family,” Josh said. “Remember that.”

Yes, she was very glad she’d gotten this job, Liana thought.

“Thank you,” she said, fervently this time.

He was almost out her office door before he turned back. He looked toward her desk once more, then at her. “I’ll have our security look into that. Maybe there’s something we can do.”

She was sure she was gaping at him, but was too stunned to restrain her reaction.

“I tend to agree with you,” Josh said easily. “From the report I read on what happened with you, he doesn’t seem the type.”

“No,” she finally managed to say. “He’s not.”

After Josh had gone, she sank down into the desk chair, feeling oddly wobbly. It didn’t matter that she’d spent a relatively short time with Logan Beck. Didn’t matter that she hadn’t even known his name until It was all over. What mattered was what he’d proven to her during those agonizingly long moments they’d been together.

He was the type of cop who literally laid his life on the line for the people he served.

The type of cop who would die to save a total stranger.

The type of cop who had nearly done just that, to save an innocent life.

Her life.

She looked down at the newspaper again, at the stark black and white photograph. It was hard to believe it was really him; the spit-and-polish young officer of eight years ago had vanished. The photograph showed a tall, lean man in a slightly disreputable-looking black leather jacket, his dark hair falling in a long sweep down to an unshaven jaw. That jaw, strong, unyielding, was the same. But the eyes were shadowed now, and she wondered what had happened since that day to destroy the light in them.

Eight years of being a cop, she told herself. That could do it to anyone.

Reluctantly she began to read the article. She scanned the accusations, that Beck had taken a bribe to back off from the very man he’d been sent undercover to investigate, made a sound of disgusted disbelief and skipped to the lower paragraphs. There she found mention of his actions that day in the bank, taking out the heavily armed, flak-jacketed robber. That had earned him the promotion to detective, and three years ago he had transferred into the narcotics division. Where others had failed, Logan had managed to infiltrate a bastion that had remained impervious to previous police efforts, the drug operation and extortion racket of a man who’d murdered the last officer who’d tried it.

And then he’d gone over to the other side? Been unable to resist the temptation of piles of easy cash?

The allegation rankled. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, and didn’t believe it.

She went about finishing her unpacking with a fierce energy the innocent boxes didn’t deserve. She didn’t have that much stuff, really, she’d only brought some personal files, reference material, photos and the framed news story of her father’s famous rescue. There was more at home, but until she knew exactly what she’d need here, there didn’t seem much point in lugging it all in. She doubted she’d have much use for some of it anyway, not as an assistant to a department head.

She was nearly done when her new boss appeared in her doorway.

“Good morning, Liana.”

The trim blond woman looked very different today, clad in khaki pants and a cheery red sweater. Her movements were quick and lithe, belying the faintest touches of silver at her temples. Liana had no idea how old her new boss was, and had realized early on in that lengthy interview that it didn’t matter; Lilith Mercer had the energy and drive of any twenty-something.

“Mrs. Mercer. Good morning.”

She forced herself to smile. While she’d spoken several times on the telephone to the new head of Redstone’s Research and Development department, she’d only met her in person three times, twice during the long interview process, and again two weeks ago when the woman had called and invited her to dinner, where she had made the official job offer. She’d liked the woman’s brisk, no-nonsense approach, and knew that Josh had to have a lot of faith in her to get the department back on its feet after her predecessor had been caught trying to sell out Redstone.

“We’re going to be working very closely together, so I think you should call me Lilith,” the woman said with a smile. Liana smiled back; it was impossible not to respond to the warmth in the woman’s eyes. “We’re not much for formality around here.”

Liana glanced down at her own business suit, and couldn’t stop a wry smile from curving her mouth. “Does that mean I can retire this?”

The woman smiled. “You may,” she said. “Unless you’re more comfortable in it.”

“Panty hose? I think not,” Liana said. Lilith laughed; it was a warm, welcoming sound.

“You’ll find that what matters around here is the quality of your work, not your attire,” Lilith said. “You have your access card and identification?”

“Yes,” Liana said.

“Any trouble getting in this morning?”

“No.” It was true. She’d been greeted by name, as if she’d been here for years. Another testament to the efficiency of Redstone.

“Have you met anyone else yet?”

“Besides Josh?” she asked, wonder still tingeing her voice.

Lilith smiled. “Yes, besides Josh.”

“No,” she said. “I truly just arrived.”

“Well, then, come with me.”

The next few minutes were a blur of faces and names, although Liana knew there weren’t really that many. It was just that she was distracted. That photograph from the newspaper was haunting her—not a good way to approach her first day on the job she’d wanted more than any other in her life.

“—and Ian, this is Liana Kiley. She’s going to be helping me with the cleanup.”

Liana snapped back to the present when she realized she was face-to-face with Ian Gamble. In her extensive research before applying to Redstone, she’d studied the somewhat eccentric inventor’s reputation, looked at the incredible list of things he’d developed, been hardly able to believe that everything from a revolutionary prosthetic foot to a bomb detector had come from this single, fertile, brilliant mind. And this was the man JetCal, her former employer, had stolen from, this was the man who had imagined and produced what they’d wanted to take credit for.

Now that she was face-to-face with him, she was more than a little stunned. Vivid green eyes assessed her through wire-rimmed glasses that did little to mask the lively intelligence behind those eyes. His sandy hair was a bit long, the glossy strands flopping forward to his brows in that stubborn way thick hair had.

“Ian can help you if you have any technical questions about R & D,” Lilith was saying. “If you need to know if something someone else is doing bears too close a resemblance to our work to be coincidental, he’s your go-to guy.”

She’d expected a more professorial type. But then, this was the man married to the woman from Redstone Security who’d conducted her background investigation, including contacting her family; she’d heard from her little brother that the most spectacular blonde on the planet had been to the house to interview them. He’d waxed eloquent about the serious hotness of Samantha Gamble, and knowing the amazing reputation of Redstone Security, Liana imagined it took a bit more than a stereotypical lab worker to keep up with a woman like that.

Not that anyone she’d met at Redstone so far could ever be called stereotypical. She’d never been in a place that crackled with as much energy, intelligence and enthusiasm as Redstone Headquarters. It had surpassed every expectation she’d had when she’d applied for this job, and she knew she was going to love it here.

If, she amended silently, she didn’t manage to be among the rarities, a Redstone employee who got fired on her first day for not paying attention.

Hastily she scrambled to catch up. Ian Gamble smiled at her sympathetically. He really was attractive, she thought, in a boyish, bookish kind of way.

“It’s a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?” Ian said.

Gratefully she nodded. “It is. Coming to work here is so important to me, I’m afraid now that I’m here I’m a little scattered.”

“We’ll cure you of that,” Lilith said briskly but not unkindly. “Come along.”

Ordering herself to focus, Liana followed.

Merry freaking Christmas, Logan Beck thought.

He was, without a doubt, screwed.

He rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t believe that after twelve years as a cop he was sitting here on the wrong side of an interview table, in a room improbably festooned with some worse-for-wear tinsel garland and with a window smeared with that spray-on snow that looked like dried cottage cheese.

Nearly a year of round-the-clock work, walking that hideously fine line, living with the scum of the city, knowing he could be discovered and executed at any moment, all of it for nothing. His cover was blown, all the progress he’d made in the investigation wasted.

But the worst part was that, if he’d been on the other side, looking at the parade of evidence Internal Affairs was trotting out, he’d suspect him, too. And he didn’t know how to deal with that.

“—explain that deposit into your bank account?”

“I told you I can’t,” Logan said wearily. “I only know I didn’t put it there.”

“Look, Beck, everybody knows it’s hard. You work with slime like that, see them rolling in cash, while you’re risking your life for next to nothing…”

Logan looked up then. George Harkin had been, if not a friend, at least not an enemy, once. They’d gone through the police academy together and had worked in the patrol division at the same time. Harkin had transferred to IA shortly after Logan had gotten the promotion to detectives.

“You think I did this, don’t you?” He couldn’t quite believe it even as he said the words.

“I think anybody can succumb to temptation, given the right circumstances.”

There was a note of superiority in his tone that made Logan flinch inwardly. Harkin had congratulated him on the promotion to detectives eight years ago, but the words had been tinged with an edge that had made Logan wonder if they were genuine. Now he had the sinking feeling he’d been right.

“I swear, George, I didn’t. Why would I?”

Harkin shrugged, as if motive was the least significant part of this equation and not his concern. Logan had always known Harkin was ambitious, had his eyes on a steady climb in the department. Apparently if that climb included jettisoning friends and the truth, so be it.

“Think about it,” he said, hoping to find some trace of the man who had once been his friend in the man sitting in ominous silence across the table from him. “Don’t you wonder how all this evidence just sort of fell into your lap? A string of anonymous tips about a cop working undercover? You know that’s suspect right there.”

“Yet everything the caller gave us proved out. Including the money.”

“For God’s sake, do you really think if I took the money I’d be stupid enough to just dump it in a bank account anybody could check up on?”

“I don’t know, Logan. Maybe you are that stupid. Or maybe you’ve been dipping into the product, and it’s fried your brain.”

Shock slammed through Logan, and he leaped to his feet. The chair he’d been in hit the floor with a crash.

“You think I’m using? It’s not enough you believe I’m on the take, now you think I’m a junkie, a crackhead?”

“You had access, your actions became questionable…it makes sense.”

Logan swore, low and harsh, and his fists clenched. “I don’t believe this. I don’t believe you.”

Harkin lifted a brow, his expression showing that same trace of superiority his voice had earlier. “Can’t believe you’re not the big hero anymore? You’d better believe it, Beck. You’re already buried, you just don’t know it yet. Cops like you give the rest of us a bad name.”

Logan consciously relaxed his hands. He gave up battling the chill he’d been fighting since Harkin and his cohorts had shown up at his undercover apartment. He let it envelop him, cooling his anger. When he spoke, his voice was flat, emotionless.

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not yet,” Harkin admitted, obviously grudgingly.

“Then get the hell out of my way,” Logan said, and pushed past him toward the door.

“Don’t even think about running, Beck.”

He turned on his heel to look back at the man. A sour taste rose in his throat. “Why not? Then you could just shoot me and be done with it. Maybe in the back.”

“Just doing my job,” Harkin said, and the smirk that crossed his face then told Logan he’d fallen for the bait, done exactly what the man had wanted.

Logan spun back around and continued out the door. He resisted, with no small effort, the urge to slam it shut behind him. Instead he closed it quietly, walked quickly around the corner to the elevators, jammed the call button, then slumped against the wall, feeling utterly exhausted. He shoved a hand through his tangled hair, the length reminding him yet again of what he’d lost in the last seventy-two hours. His case, nearly a year of his life, quite probably his job and possibly even his freedom. His fingers pushed down on his scalp, wishing he could ease the sensation of the top of his head wanting to blow off.

The elevator door slid open, and he was grateful to see it was empty. He’d had enough of the sideways looks, the glances rife with either suspicion or pity, coming from people he’d once considered his family, the ones he’d thought had his back, as he would have had theirs, no questions asked.

He stepped into the elevator, let the door slide shut after him, but didn’t reach for the control panel. He told himself he was panicking, but he couldn’t quite stop the thought that his career as a cop, the one thing he’d aspired to his entire life, was over. He’d never really wanted anything else. His view of the job had changed, he’d learned it wasn’t quite the pillar of justice and fairness he’d imagined as a kid, but it was still the only thing he wanted to do. He’d dedicated his life to it, at the cost of almost everything else. He’d done his best, had been proud of his accomplishments but never given up the drive to do better, do more, help more of the good people, put more bad guys away.

And now it was he who was likely going to be put away.

He suppressed a shudder and wondered what the current life expectancy was of a cop who went to prison. But at least in prison, he’d know who to trust—nobody. And he couldn’t help thinking that that might be easier than finding out he couldn’t trust those he’d thought he could count on. He was on his own, and sinking fast.

Chapter 2

When they finished the tour of R & D, and with a promise of a complete tour of Redstone Headquarters later, Lilith asked Liana to join her in her office.

“We have a big job,” the woman said as she leaned against the edge of her desk and gestured Liana into a chair. “Stan Chilton left a lot of chaos behind him, after we caught him selling out Ian’s work. Ian himself is only now getting back to where he’d been when Chilton tried to destroy everything he’d done.”

“How certain are you that you’ve isolated the damage?”

“Fairly,” Lilith said. “But we’ll also need to check the project data that wasn’t tampered with anyway. After we’ve finished the more urgent tracking.”

Liana thought for a moment. “Do we know that the explosive-sensing material is the only thing Chilton sold?”

Lilith smiled, Liana guessed at her use of the word “we.” And she realized that Josh’s reaction to her concern about Logan Beck had cemented her perception of Redstone as indeed a family, and she already felt like a member.

“That’s one of the things we need to confirm,” Lilith said. “I’ve done the preliminary checking of our files, and haven’t found any sign yet. But this department is nothing if not prolific, so there’s a lot to track.”

Which was why she was here, Liana knew. “What access do I have?”

“Just about anything. You’ll likely want to go beyond traditional channels. And if you need something…more under the radar, Redstone Security has some interesting capabilities.”

Liana smothered a smile at her tone. “I imagine they do,” she said neutrally. “I assume our search needs to cover any entity in the world with the capability of completing any of the work that might have been stolen?”

“Yes.”

Her mind was already racing ahead, planning, figuring out how she would find those entities and track their actions, looking for any sudden leaps in progress, or heretofore unknown projects paralleling Redstone’s research, using Redstone’s massive resources to access information.

“You have an idea?” Lilith said quietly.

Liana nodded, still focused on her thoughts. “I assume you have IT people in house who could write me a program?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I’ll need one to monitor Web site changes.”

“You think something would show up publicly?”

“I think when you need to dig, you start at the surface,” Liana said absently, then realized she had sounded a bit less than deferential to her new boss. Her gaze shot to the woman’s face. “I’m sorry, that sounded rude. I—”

Lilith quickly waved her into silence. “It sounded like you’re off and running. That’s why we hired you, so don’t apologize.”

Liana smiled. “Thank you.”

“First, though, I understand you have another concern. Something about that police officer who’s being investigated?”

She blinked. How on earth had Lilith found out so quickly? She’d only told Josh, and that had been barely an hour ago.

“I…yes, I am concerned,” she admitted. “Because I know it can’t be true.”

“He’s the officer from your situation with the armed robber, isn’t he? I remember seeing the reports about that when it happened.”

Liana wasn’t surprised; the robbery had been headline news for days, as had the heroics of the police officer who had saved her life and nearly died in the process.

“Yes,” she said. Then, feeling more explanation was required, added, “I owe him my life.”

“Is it possible that’s coloring your perceptions?”

She couldn’t fault the question. “Normally I’d say that was possible,” she admitted honestly. “But the time I spent with him was under the kind of conditions where…you tend to tell the truth.”

“As hostages, you mean?”

“And after. When he was in the hospital.” She looked up then, meeting the woman’s gaze levelly. “When he thought he was going to die.”

Lilith looked surprised then. “I see. I didn’t realize.”

Whether she meant she hadn’t known Logan had expected to die, or that Liana had been with him in the hospital, Liana didn’t know. But clearly her words had had an effect, because Lilith nodded slowly.

“And you’re certain he can’t be complicit in this?”

“Absolutely certain.”

After a moment, her new boss nodded. “I imagine Security will be contacting you to ask some questions, then.”

“Just like that?” Liana asked, more than a little boggled by all this.

“You’re Redstone now,” Lilith said simply. “If we can help, we will. In fact,” she added as she glanced through her office window, “here comes help now.”

Liana turned, saw a tall, leggy woman striding their way. Her hair was that incredible shade of platinum blond one usually saw only in young children, and Liana saw that it was quite long, given that she had it up at the back of her head and secured with a clip that let a few strands escape to drape down to her shoulders.

The blonde tapped quietly on the office door, and at Lilith Mercer’s call, stuck her head in.

“Hello, Sam,” Lilith said.

“Hi, Lil.”

“Come on in.”

She had, Liana realized, the most amazingly bright blue eyes. Like Logan Beck’s had been, she thought suddenly, that day so long ago.

“You must be Liana,” the blonde said, with a smile so engaging Liana couldn’t help but return it and take the hand the woman held out to her. “Welcome to Redstone. I’m Samantha Gamble, Redstone Security.”

Liana blinked. She automatically glanced at the woman’s left hand, saw the simple gold band that matched the one she’d seen on Ian Gamble’s finger.

This was Ian’s wife? Lord, her brother had been right. And at first glance the combination seemed incomprehensible. But something in the woman’s eyes, some quick, clever intensity, brought to mind the crackling intelligence she’d sensed in the young inventor, and suddenly it didn’t seem so strange after all.

“Nice to meet you,” Liana said hastily, hoping the woman hadn’t noticed her moment of shocked recognition. Or perhaps she was so used to it she didn’t pay attention to people’s reactions anymore.

“I’m told you have something that you’d like us to look into.”

“I…” She didn’t know what to say. Her mouth twisted wryly. “Things move fast around here.”

Samantha laughed. “Yes, they tend to.”

“IT won’t have your setup complete for another hour or so,” Lilith said. “Why don’t you and Sam talk, and I’ll page you when they’re done and you can actually start work.”

Still not quite able to believe what was happening, Liana followed the stunning blonde out of Lilith’s office. Once outside in the lab area, she saw Samantha’s head turn. Liana looked in the same direction, saw the floppy-haired inventor she’d just met. There was the barest hesitation as their gazes locked, and Liana’s eyes widened at the nearly palpable connection between them across the big room. Then Ian winked, one corner of his mouth lifting in an endearing smile. Samantha grinned back at him, then resumed her brisk stride.

After a moment during which she could only think, “Wow!” Liana followed. If she’d had any lingering doubt about the marriage between the eccentric inventor and the daring security operative, it was gone now.

They walked in silence until they reached the end of the hall and the huge bay window that looked out on the courtyard. The building that was Redstone, Incorporated’s main headquarters was built around a cool, green garden with a big pond and waterfall. On her tour of the building she’d been told that in the heat of a California summer it was a preferred spot for all the employees.

“This is Ian’s favorite place when he needs to get out of the lab,” Samantha said as she gestured Liana into one of the comfortable chairs in a windowed alcove that looked out over the courtyard.

“I can see why,” Liana said as she sat down. If you looked down at the garden, you could almost imagine yourself on some tropical island.

Samantha studied her for a moment before saying simply, “Tell me what you need.”

“I…I’m not sure. I just found out this morning that…a friend is in trouble.”

The blonde nodded. “I read the newspaper article after Josh called.”

Liana’s eyes widened. “He called you? Himself?”

Samantha grinned. “Welcome to Redstone,” she repeated. “You’re family now, and Josh takes his family very seriously.”

“I’ve always heard that, but…”

“And you’re a special case,” Samantha added.

Liana blinked. “I am?”

Samantha nodded. “He knows perfectly well this job is a step down for you, that you were running your own department nearly the size of our R & D at JetCal.”

“I wanted to work for Redstone.”

“We know. And you were willing to take a job some would say was beneath you to do it.”

“I don’t plan to stay an assistant forever.”

Samantha smiled. “If you did, you wouldn’t be here.” She gave Liana a thoughtful, assessing look. “Josh also knows why you left JetCal.”

She’d made no secret of the fact that she’d parted ways with her previous employer over the business practices she’d found beyond distasteful. Including and especially the theft from Redstone. “I couldn’t work for a company that thought methods like that were justified,” she said.

“Exactly.” Then, briskly, “So, tell me about Logan Beck.”

“He…saved my life.”

“I know. And almost died doing it. So you understandably feel a debt.”

“It’s more than that. He just couldn’t have done this.”

“It would be hard to believe your hero could have feet of clay.”

Liana drew herself up. She might be new here, she might be more than a fool to clash with one of Redstone’s vaunted security team, but she simply couldn’t let that stand.

“Not hard. Impossible.”

“You said yourself you haven’t seen him in eight years,” Samantha said gently. “And you didn’t know him for long.”

“But under the most intense of circumstances,” Liana said. “We talked for hours when he was in the hospital. When there was a chance he would die. When he knew that. I don’t believe he hid who he was, not then.”

Samantha was silent for a long moment. Then, at last, she nodded. “Good enough. We’ll get started.”

Liana was startled at the turnaround. “What?”

“Not me, I don’t think,” Samantha said thoughtfully. “I’m afraid I might stand out a bit too much in the circles Beck’s been running in. But I know just the right person.”

They really were going to help, Liana thought numbly. The famous Redstone Security team, the group she’d heard such incredible stories about, was going to help. She’d been here a grand total of two hours and Redstone was already behind her. It was a feeling she knew she’d never forget.

“Someone will keep you posted,” Samantha said, getting to her feet. Slowly Liana followed suit.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Thank you is always good,” Samantha said with a grin.

“Yes. Thank you.”

The tall blonde laughed then. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? I was one of Josh’s lowliest, most distant employees, at the Redstone Resort in Sitka. When I needed to make a change, the man himself flew all the way up there to talk me out of quitting and gave me the chance at this job.”

Liana shook her head. “I don’t know what to say to that, either,” she said wryly.

“It’s more like being adopted than getting a job,” Samantha said with another laugh. “Think of it as another perk of working for Redstone.”

Liana slowly made her way back to her new office, marveling at what had just happened. And it wasn’t until she was back there and sitting at her newly hooked up workstation that she thought to question whether Logan Beck was going to welcome what she’d done.

As he left the station after his second day of blistering interrogation, too aware of the glances of the cops he passed on the way to his car, there was only one thing Logan Beck was certain of: he wasn’t about to stay out of this as ordered. Damned if he was going to sit on his ass while those IA pogues decided his future—or if he was going to have one. He had too much at stake to sit on the sidelines.

There had been a time when he might have, when he might have trusted he’d be cleared simply because he was innocent. But that time, and that naive optimism, had died long ago. And even if he did still trust the system he was part of, he wasn’t sure anything could overcome the single biggest problem he had.

Somebody wanted him taken down.

Angrily he popped the clutch as he pulled out onto the street, and the bark of the tires on asphalt made him rein in the sporty BMW they’d given him as part of his cover. They’d likely be repossessing that soon, he thought, and he’d be on foot, since he’d sold his battered SUV when he’d gone under. But in the meantime, manually slamming through the gears gave him a certain satisfaction.

He drove with much more concentration than the task required midday on a Wednesday, trying to keep his mind out of what had already become a deep and seemingly endless rut. He couldn’t go back to the tiny apartment he’d been using—not yet. They were no doubt still combing over it for proof he’d turned.

Won’t find any, he told himself, but his gut was screaming that wasn’t necessarily true. After all, there was that bank deposit he’d have sworn didn’t exist, either. Whoever was setting him up was doing a thorough job of it, and the possibility that something had been planted in that apartment wasn’t at all unlikely.

He turned the car toward the beach, needing someplace to just think. Things had happened so fast he wasn’t sure where to even start trying to unravel it all.

That his cover had been compromised was the first, most logical conclusion. But that answer fell apart quickly; if Marcos had discovered he was a cop, wouldn’t he have just killed him on the spot? Of course, that didn’t mean that he simply hadn’t had time before IA had come knocking on Logan’s door. And it didn’t mean that Marcos wasn’t looking to kill him now that he knew he’d been played by a cop.

No sooner had the thought formed than the thing that had been niggling at the edge of his consciousness finally penetrated completely.

He was being followed.

On some level he’d been aware of the dark-blue sedan for a couple of miles now. The driver was good, very good, and if not for the brilliant sun—this was December in Southern California, after all—that seemed to make the metallic paint on the sedan flash, he might not have noticed just one more ordinary dark car several back in the line of traffic.

Of course, he was headed toward the beach. Maybe he was just paranoid.

He yanked the wheel of the BMW and dived right around the next corner. He slowed, waiting, his eyes on the road behind him. And after a moment, slowly, the blue sedan came around the corner. Definitely a tail.

What the hell did IA expect him to do? Head for the bank and pull out that money, maybe make a run for it?

“Probably,” he muttered under his breath.

He waited for a break in traffic in the outside lane. A main cross street was coming up, so he figured several cars would be making a right turn there and would leave him a gap. When it happened just as he’d hoped, he quickly switched lanes and slowed, downshifting to avoid the warning glare of brake lights.

The blue sedan had nowhere to go, and by shifting the rearview mirror, he got a good look at the driver.

It was a total stranger.

He knew everybody attached to IA. He knew most of the cops at the entire department by sight. This guy wasn’t any of them. He also knew most of Marcos’s men, and while this man looked as if he could be Hispanic, he didn’t look the sort.

Even more wary now, he thought quickly. He didn’t think the guy could be sure he’d been seen; Logan hadn’t looked directly at him, just used the mirror. And if he turned right up ahead at the next street, it might seem like he’d just changed lanes to prepare for the turn.

He made that turn, then went right again into the first parking lot he came to, in front of a medical building.

He parked the car in a visible spot near the doors. He didn’t dwell on the risks of what he was doing. They’d taken his duty weapon when they’d officially suspended him yesterday, so all he had was his personal two-inch backup. He hadn’t taken it into the station, for fear they’d take it, too, but instead had left it in the hidden compartment in the side door panel. The car had been confiscated in a drug bust up north, and had come with that and other interesting nonstandard accessories.

He quickly got the small revolver out and strapped on the ankle holster. He checked the narrow sheath sewn onto the back of it, where the slim, razor-sharp blade he carried was secured; that little precaution had saved a life once, when he’d used it to cut through the seat belt of a burning car and pulled the occupant to safety. He unsnapped the safety strap that held the pistol in place; if he needed it, he’d need it in a hurry.

When the driver of the blue sedan had had time to spot him, he got out and headed into the medical building.

He paused in front of the directory as if reading it, trusting his peripheral vision to let him know whether the tail took the bait.

He did. The blue sedan cruised slowly through the parking lot. Logan turned then, briskly, as if he’d found what he was looking for in the directory. He headed toward the back of the building, guessing the tail would find a place to park and wait where he could watch the BMW.

Unless he decided to follow him in.

Fine, Logan thought. Bring it on. I feel like punching somebody about now.

His thoughts were bitter, but he couldn’t stop them. His world was crashing down around him, and so fast he was going to be lucky not to be crushed underneath the rubble.

He waited for a few minutes, out of sight from the front doors, but no one came in. Impatient, he looked around, spotted a side exit and headed that way. The door was, thankfully, glass, and he checked the row of cars parked along that side of the building for the blue sedan. It wasn’t there, so he stepped outside and headed toward the front of the building. He’d nearly cleared the corner when a sliver of blue caught his eye from the parking lot of the convenience store next door. And there, parked mostly hidden behind a big Dumpster, was the blue sedan.

Good job, Logan thought again. If I hadn’t been already looking for him, I never would have seen him.

Logan used the Dumpster as cover and edged across the narrow strip of pavement between the medical building and the slightly higher parking lot next door. The sedan was parked heading out, so he could slide into a tailing position as soon as the BMW was on the move again. For a moment Logan thought about doing just that and leading his follower to a more private place for a confrontation, but decided quickly he didn’t have the patience to spare for a cat-and-mouse game just now. He kept going.

The sedan was empty.

He’d been outmaneuvered.

Chapter 3

Logan swore under his breath at his own stupidity. Then he sensed rather than saw a movement to his right, and crouched and spun in the same motion.

The man who was standing there, giving him a rather rueful smile, held both hands up in front of his chest, indicating he had no weapon.

“Detective Beck, I underestimated you,” the man said. “Sorry.”

Logan studied the man assessingly. Just slightly shorter than his own six feet, Logan estimated. And despite the total lack of accent, he was still guessing Hispanic from the dark eyes and golden-brown skin tones.

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name’s Tony Alvera.”

He’d wanted considerably more than just a name, but he sensed the man knew that.

“IA recruiting from outside now?” he asked.

“I’m not a cop.”

Logan frowned. “Marcos hiring a higher class of thug now?”

The man laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment. But no, I don’t work for him, either.”

So he was working for somebody, Logan thought.

“And,” the man went on in a tone that matched the first ruefulness of his expression, “if the man I do work for ever finds out how easily you burned me, I may not be working for him much longer, either.”

“Who,” Logan said carefully, “is your boss?”

“Name’s Draven. John Draven.”

Logan frowned at the unfamiliar name.

“Yeah, not many on the outside have heard of him. He likes it that way.”

“Outside of what? Or where?”

“You might have heard of his boss, though,” Alvera said. “Most people have.”

“Look I don’t have time for games. Who the hell sent you to tail me?”

“Joshua Redstone.”

Logan Beck was not often astonished, but he was now. He knew he was gaping at Alvera, but he was stunned.

“Joshua Redstone?” He said the famous name incredulously. “The gazillionaire of Redstone Aviation?”

“The same,” Alvera confirmed. “And Redstone Resorts, Redstone Technologies and Development, and a few other assorted divisions of the empire.”

“Why? What have I got to do with Redstone?”

“Nothing,” Alvera admitted. “It’s more the other way around.”

Completely baffled now, Logan shook his head as if that would somehow make this all make sense.

“What,” he said slowly, carefully, “are you talking about?”

“I’m Redstone Security.”

Logan straightened up sharply. Usually, to the police, the mention of private security resulted in either visions of retired cops who were more often than not well past their prime or who had left the job ignominiously, or wannabes who couldn’t cut it as real cops. Neither engendered much respect.

But Redstone Security was a different story. Anybody who ever dealt with them, be it local law enforcement, the feds, military, or any other agency, universally came away respecting the efficiency and capabilities of the team Josh Redstone had built. Their reputation preceded them in most quarters, and they were, in fact, the envy of many for their freedom to do what needed to be done without jumping through the myriad hoops traditional authorities had to deal with.

But they weren’t glory hounds, either, Logan knew. More than once they’d succeeded where police had failed but they never made an issue of it. When they came across criminal activity in the course of one of their own operations, they handed what they had over to the cops and let them take the credit while they went about the business of protecting Redstone. In that, they’d earned the respect and admiration of law enforcement wherever Redstone operated, an area that covered a large portion of the globe.

And they should have nothing to do with this, he thought, even more suspicious now.

“You have some proof of that?” he asked.

The man nodded. Again he held up his right hand, palm forward, as indication of no malicious intent.

“ID,” he explained as he reached back with his left hand and pulled a canvas wallet out of his back pocket. He flipped it open and handed it over.

Logan studied the displayed ID card. It looked legitimate, with the gray and red Redstone colors and the stylized graphic of the prototype Hawk I jet in the upper left corner. The name on the card read “Tony Alvera,” as he’d said, but there was no indication of a job title or position, just the name and the Redstone address and contact numbers.

“So if I call Redstone personnel, they’ll cheerfully confirm you work there?”

“No.” His gaze shot back to the man’s face. Alvera shrugged. “Security keeps a low profile. Our work is often in-house, so we work out of a different location, and our files are kept separately.”

“So I should just believe you?”

“Your choice.”

He studied the man for a moment. The dark eyes held his gaze levelly, no dodging, no skittishness, just a calm, open response to his suspicions. After the men he’d been dealing with lately, it was a pleasant change. And also told him it was unlikely this man was one of them.

“What,” Logan said carefully, slowly, “does Redstone Security have to do with me?”

“Not us per se,” Alvera said. “The order came from the top, Josh himself.”

“I’ve never even met him,” Logan said. Meeting one of the five richest men in the world wasn’t something he was likely to have forgotten.

“But one of Redstone’s people has met you. And asked us to…look into your situation.”

Logan frowned. “I don’t know anyone at Redstone.”

“You do now. Liana Kiley.”

Logan blinked; of all the names he might ever have expected, that hadn’t been one of them. “What?”

“You do know her, right?”

An image instantly formed in his mind, as if it had been yesterday instead of years ago, of the blue-eyed redhead with a faint tracing of freckles across her nose. A sweet, pretty, girl-next-door type who’d been caught up in an ugly situation, she’d been justifiably terrified, and yet had managed to keep her cool enough to help him end it.

Liana?

He’d never forgotten her. How could he, after what had happened? Not only had they shared that adrenaline-pumping experience, but she had also, amazingly, spent hours with him during those long, pain-filled days in the hospital. His memories of that time were a little hazy, and consisted mainly of hospital personnel subjecting him to various indignities, doctors looking suitably grim, a parade of cops looking even more grim, the knowledge he was likely going to die…and Liana.

Oh, yes, he’d thought of her often. In fact, more than ever since he’d been undercover on this assignment. More than once he’d barely stopped himself from tracking her down, just to see how she was doing. There had been such an innocence about her, something he hadn’t seen much of since he’d gone under. He supposed that was the reason she’d been on his mind so much.

“Back then, she was working for JetCal,” he said slowly.

“She quit. After they got caught funding industrial spying. On Redstone.”

He drew back slightly. “And now she works for Redstone?”

The man nodded. “As of a couple of days ago, yes.”

In spite of himself Logan’s mouth quirked into a wry smile. “Now that sounds like her.”

An echoing smile flitted across Alvera’s face. “I’ve only met her once so far, but I’d have to agree.”

That “so far” irked him, and Logan tensed before he realized it. Then he wondered what the hell that was about. He had no reason to feel territorial about a woman he hadn’t seen in eight years, since the day one month after he’d finally gotten out of the hospital, when she’d presented the Medal of Valor to him at the request of the department. It was good PR, the citizen whose life he’d saved doing the honors, and the fact that she was impossibly cute and sweet only made it more so.

For all the good it’s doing me now, he thought, that medal might as well be a paperweight.

“What does she have to do with this?” It came out abruptly, but he felt like he had to say something. Fast.

“She thinks you’re innocent. In fact, she insists that you are.”

He blinked. “What?”

“She saw the news reports. They upset her. Josh doesn’t like his people upset.”

Something the man had said a moment ago finally registered. “Even someone who’s only been there a couple of days?”

“Family is family. If you’re Redstone, you’re Redstone,” the man said simply. “Josh asked what was wrong, she told him, and here I am.”

“To do what?”

Alvera shrugged. “Help, if I can.”

“And what the hell can you do? The department’s already all over this.”

“I can,” the man said quietly, “start with the presumption you didn’t do it, not by trying to prove that you did.”

The simple answer knocked the wind out of Logan as surely as a solid fist to the gut. That trust, that faith was what he should have been able to count on from the place he’d given twelve years of his heart, life and blood to. Yet when the time had come, they’d turned on him, so quickly he’d still been reeling in shock when some news photographer had grabbed the shot that had been splashed across the local rag.

“Why?” he asked, barely aware that his voice was hoarse. “Redstone’s got no stake in this.”

“We believe in our own. One of them believes in you. It’s not tricky, really.”

Logan shook his head, as if that would help him make sense of all of this.

“I haven’t seen her in eight years,” he said, feeling a bit numb.

Alvera studied him for a moment. “Then perhaps you should,” he said finally. “You know where Redstone is?”

Logan’s mouth quirked. “Every cop in Southern California knows where Redstone is. Josh Redstone does more to support his local police than anybody in the state.”

Alvera grinned. “That he does. In more ways than you even know. I’ll meet you there, at the front entrance.”

The man got back in his car, assuming, Logan noted, that he would follow. And rightfully so, he added to himself somewhat ruefully. Because with barely a few seconds’ thought, he walked back to the parked BMW and did just that.

Hearing the sound of someone approaching her office, Liana expected it was Lilith. She’d sent her boss an e-mail asking for some printed reports she needed to take her computer searching to the next level, and it would be very like Lilith—and everyone at Redstone, she was discovering—to hand-carry them herself rather than delegating a gofer to do it. In fact, Liana wasn’t sure Redstone even had gofers; people were expected to follow through on all phases of their work, and they did it, happily.

When it registered that there were two sets of footsteps, and that neither sounded like Lilith’s light-footed stride, she looked up.

She hadn’t expected to see Tony Alvera again this soon. The Redstone Security agent had come by to introduce himself just hours after she’d had her meeting with Samantha Gamble. He’d explained with a charming grin that it hadn’t been a great leap for Security head John Draven to decide that he’d fit into the world Logan Beck had been frequenting better than the blond, blue-eyed Sam would.

There had been something about that grin and the warmth in his dark eyes that had overcome her natural reticence with strangers and allowed her to tease him back.

“I don’t know,” she’d said, studying his golden skin and the small, rakish patch of beard beneath his lower lip. “You’re a little clean-cut, aren’t you?”

He’d laughed, and she wondered how many women fell at his feet anytime he did.

“I wasn’t always,” he’d told her. “And I’ve got scars to prove it. Josh plucked me off the street when I was a sixteen-year-old gangster, headed for nothing but prison, a lethal injection, or dying in the gutter. The day I tried to rip him off was the best day of my life.”

Liana remembered her amazement at his story, that he indeed had tried to rob at knifepoint one of the richest men in the world, and that man had, instead of surrendering, offered him the chance of a lifetime.

“I don’t know what he saw in me,” Alvera had said, his tone becoming solemn, “but he saved my life.”

Now, as Alvera stood in her office doorway with a smile on his exotically handsome face, Liana wondered how many others at Redstone felt the same way.

“I brought somebody to see you,” Alvera said. “He’s a little confused, I think.”

He stepped aside then. Although she’d already guessed, Liana’s breath still caught in her throat when she saw the man behind him.

Slowly, she got to her feet.

He looks so different, she thought, the change in him even more apparent in person than it had been in the photograph, his once-vivid blue eyes seeming not just shadowed but haunted.

“Logan.” She was barely aware of saying it until she heard it herself, just above a whisper.

Alvera said something about leaving them to it and left. Neither of them watched him go.

Logan Beck took three steps toward her, stopping in front of her desk. He stared at her, and she found it oddly difficult to breathe. It seemed forever before he at last spoke. And when he did, his voice was harsh and matched that haunted look in his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“All of a sudden I’ve got Redstone Security on my tail. Alvera said you put them up to it. Why?”

“I’m trying to help,” she said.

He gave a low, humorless chuckle. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t waste your time.”

Liana studied him for a long, silent moment. Had he truly given up? Or was he just still in shock over what had happened to him, and hadn’t yet begun to fight back? She had to believe the latter; the Logan Beck she’d met that day would never give up so easily.

“It’s my time to waste,” she said firmly.

He looked startled. She supposed he was; she’d changed a bit since that day in the bank.

“Liana,” he said, at last using the name she hadn’t been certain he even remembered, “there’s nothing you can do.”

“Maybe there’s nothing I can do myself. But Redstone is a different story.”

“I know their rep,” he acknowledged. “But there’s no reason for them to get involved.”

“Apparently I’m reason enough,” she said.

His eyes narrowed. “Alvera said you just started working here a couple of days ago.”

“Yes. Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Not a great way to start a new career, dragging your new employer into a corruption investigation of a crooked cop.”

“You’re not a crooked cop.”

He drew back slightly, staring at her. “You sound awfully certain.”

“I am.”

“Liana—”

“I know you didn’t do it, Logan. You couldn’t.”

He made a low sound that was almost a groan. “Don’t, Liana. Don’t waste your time, don’t risk your new career.”

“Are you saying you don’t need any help? That you trust—what is it?—Internal Affairs? You trust them to clear you?”

He laughed, this time harshly. “Hardly.”

“Then let me help.”

She saw a muscle along his jaw jump, then set. “Don’t,” he said, his voice cold now. “Don’t even try.”

Liana stared at him. What had happened to the hero she remembered, the man who had shown a courage she’d only seen once before in her life? How had he ended up so beaten, so broken? She hoped his wife—what had his fiancée’s name been?—was keeping a close eye on him.

“It’s my decision,” she said.

He stared at her. She saw something flicker in his eyes for the first time, some tiny glimmer of light. Hope? she wondered.

For the first time since the startling realization that Redstone truly meant to help him, Liana was certain he needed that help.

Chapter 4

“Who’d have thought it?” Logan murmured almost under his breath.

“Thought what?” Liana asked, finally coming out from behind the desk. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a light green sweater that hugged her curves without being blatant, just as he would have expected. Part of that girl-next-door thing, he thought, along with the sweet smile and the big blue eyes.

“I should have known,” he said hastily, veering off a path he didn’t want to travel. “The woman who did what you did that day in the bank isn’t one to shy away from a losing fight.”

She frowned. “You’re the one who took that crazy guy out.”

“I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t put yourself in his line of fire and rolled that chair at him.”

He knew he’d never forget that moment. They’d been huddled in a corner, him pulling his off-duty weapon from its ankle holster, assessing the situation and looking for a way out, her exhibiting an odd combination of fear and anger. One bank customer was already dead, and he’d known there would be more bodies if he didn’t do something. The thought that one of them might be this beautiful, innocent, girl-next-door type was more than he could take.

When he’d whispered to her to stay down, that he was a cop and he was going to try for the suspect, she’d turned those big blue eyes on him with a level gaze that had surprised him.

“Would a distraction help?” she’d asked.

He’d tried to keep her from doing it, but she wasn’t having any of that. The suspect had fired again, this time wounding a teller, and he’d known he had no choice. He quickly edged to the corner of the counter, then nodded at her. A split second later she’d scrambled forward to shove a heavy office chair out into the suspect’s path, drawing his attention and his fire; the back of the chair was shredded by high-velocity rounds. In that instant Logan had stood and taken his one chance to down the shooter in the bulletproof vest, a shot to the head.

“You were the only one there who had the nerve to do something. They should have given you that medal.”

“I stayed mostly behind the counter,” she said, her tone pointed. “You’re the one who stood up and gave him a shot at you to get him before he killed anybody else.”

“And if I’d done it better, I wouldn’t have ended up in the hospital for three weeks.”

“That’s not what your lieutenant said,” she retorted. “He said your shot was perfect. It was just bad luck that the robber was able to keep firing as he went down.”

Logan winced inwardly even now, eight years later, remembering the wild spray of bullets from the automatic weapon as the killer collapsed on the bank floor. He hadn’t even realized he’d been hit until Liana had reacted, going pale and leaping toward him. He’d been startled when she’d touched him, only understanding when she shouted at someone to call for paramedics and he saw blood flowing over her fingers. His own blood.

“I thought you were dying,” she said softly, as if her thoughts had followed the same track as his. Maybe they had; you didn’t go through something like that without having the events seared deep into your memory.

“If you hadn’t slowed down the bleeding, I might have,” he said, voicing the gut-level knowledge he’d carried since that day.

“I wish I could have done more.”

“You did more than anyone.” It flashed through his mind then, the moments after he’d realized he was going down, the moments when he had thought just what she had, that he was dying. He remembered her holding him, whispering encouragement, telling him help was coming as his blood soaked her summer dress. “You stayed with me.”

Her expression changed, as if she was surprised he found that even worth remarking on. As if there had been nothing else she could possibly have done. For her, perhaps there hadn’t been.

“I remember you talking to me,” he said. “When everything started fading away, I could still hear you.”

He regretted the too-telling admission the moment the words were out. But then she gave him a soft smile that warmed him ridiculously and made him forget everything else.

“I didn’t even know your name. That was the strangest thing, all I could think of was that I didn’t even know your name.”

He heard the catch in her voice, as if she were feeling an echo of the emotions of that long-ago day. Another memory sliced through his mind then, of looking up at her as he lay on the bank’s cold tile floor, feeling everything slipping away. She’d been crying. For him, a stranger, tears had been streaming from those blue eyes.

He tried to shake off the image, but it clung stubbornly. The effort made his voice gruff again.

“We never got around to that.”

“No, we didn’t.”

They had chatted, though, in the surface way two people in line did when things were moving slowly. He remembered thinking that he’d always preferred blondes, like Lisa—the name barely stung anymore now—but a redhead like this would make any man look twice. She wasn’t flashy, or blatant, but had the quiet kind of beauty that lasted.

It had only been afterward, when he’d been flat on his back in the hospital wondering why he was still alive, that they had really talked.

“How’s your father?” she asked.

Startled, he said more bluntly than he should have, “Dead.”

She paled, then pink color rose in her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he said quickly, “I am. I didn’t mean to say it like that. You just caught me off guard.”

As quickly as that she accepted the apology with a nod. “What happened?”

“Cancer. Pancreatic. Five years ago. He was diagnosed and then gone in six weeks.”

“Logan, I am so sorry. He seemed like a nice man, when I met him at the hospital.”

Nice wasn’t a word he’d have used often about his old man—they’d butted heads too often—but he knew Charles Beck could be charming when he chose to be. And he’d apparently chosen to be to Liana Kiley.

“He…liked you, too,” he said after a moment.

And that, he thought, was the understatement of the century. He’d never forget his father coming into his hospital room after meeting her and saying, “Now there’s a woman!” And he’d continued with comments like that, suggesting any man who didn’t snap up a woman like Liana was a fool, until Logan had finally told him to shut up about it, and her.

He’d written it off to his father’s dislike of Lisa—he’d said from the beginning that she was all show and no staying power, and had, maddeningly, been proven right—and been even more determined to make his relationship with Lisa work. For all the good it had done him.

“It’s just as well,” he muttered. “At least he’s not here to see his only son go down in flames.”

“He wouldn’t believe it, either,” she said firmly. “He was so proud of you.”

He smothered a snort of disbelief. “Proud? Not hardly. He gave up on that the day I told him I was going to be a cop instead of stick around and run the family construction business.”

“Logan, he was proud of you. He told me so.”

He blinked. “What?”

“He told me that he’d been horribly disappointed at the time, but that he had to admire you for standing up to him and going after what you wanted.”

“He…told you that?”

“He did.” She reached out then, put a hand gently on his arm. “And that he’d come to be very, very proud of you. He was afraid you were going to die before he had a chance to tell you.” She frowned then. “In fact, he did tell you. I heard him talking to you as I left the room.”

“I don’t remember.”

“It was only the third day. You were pretty out of it.”

And you were still there, he thought, while my supposed fiancée couldn’t be bothered. Not once did she set foot in that hospital room.

He quashed the thought; Lisa’s desertion was old news. She’d passed it off, the few times she’d called him, as a pathological hatred of hospitals. He’d let it go, telling himself he understood. But he’d seen the looks in the eyes of his fellow cops, when they realized the woman he’d been living with and was set to marry hadn’t even visited him when his survival was in doubt.

“How’s your mother?” he asked hastily, feeling a bit ridiculous talking about such things but needing to get his mind out of the old rut. “And your little brother?”

“Not so little anymore,” she said with a smile. “He’s a freshman in college now.”

He remembered the antsy boy at the awards ceremony. He’d guessed he was about ten or eleven, and apparently he’d been right. He’d commented then on the age gap between them, and Liana had laughed and called him their parents’ excuse for teasing her unmercifully; it had taken them fifteen years to recover from her enough to try again, they’d always told her.

“Mom’s doing as well as she can, I think,” Liana answered his first query then. “She’s on her annual Christmas trek to visit my aunt in Iowa. Mostly she leads a quiet life, her garden, her friends, and she works part-time at the library. She still misses my father horribly.” She gave a sad little smile and lowered her eyes. “You don’t lose a hero and go on easily.”

He knew she wasn’t exaggerating about the hero part. Her father, James Kiley, had indeed been just that, a hero hailed across the country some twenty years ago when he’d risked his life and suffered burns that scarred him for the rest of his days pulling survivors out of the inferno of a plane crash.

“You lost him, too,” he said softly, something in that sad smile reaching a part of him he’d thought numbed for good.

She looked up at him then, and he saw the shimmer of unshed tears. “Yes,” she said. “And he left me forever wondering about the nature of such men, who would die for people they don’t even know.”

She didn’t add, “Like you,” but he heard it as clearly as if she had. And it hit him then, hard.

So that’s what this is all about. She’s got a bad case of hero-worship, because of what happened that day.

The realization that there was a simple, concrete, understandable reason for why she wanted to help him made him relax a little. This, at least, was more comfortable than the tangle of confused feelings he’d been wrestling with since Tony Alvera had unexpectedly dropped her name back into his conscious thoughts.

What wasn’t so comfortable was the small, niggling sense of disappointment he felt.

Liana didn’t know quite what to think. She’d assumed her visceral reaction to seeing his photograph in the paper was simply shock at the accusations against him. Whenever she’d thought of him—and that had been all too often—she’d assumed the rush of feeling that flooded her had been gratitude. Spiked, she had supposed, with a healthy dose of the admiration she always felt for anyone who had committed the kind of heroics he had, but nothing more complicated than that.

But now she wasn’t sure. He hardly cut a heroic figure now; he looked tired, edgy and beaten down. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, and with hair now down almost to his shoulders he looked like a biker in that leather jacket, or perhaps a bad-boy rock star the morning after a wild night. Hardly her type. And yet she couldn’t help wondering about the way her pulse leaped, and how the air in the room had seemed thinner from the moment he’d walked in.

“Liana,” he said, and she took a quick breath at the sound of her name in his voice. “Look, I appreciate the thought, but there’s really nothing you can do.”

“Me, maybe not. But don’t underestimate Redstone. I did a lot of homework before I took this job. You wouldn’t believe some of the things Redstone Security has accomplished, the criminal cases they’ve cracked while working on their own cases.”

“I’ve heard,” he admitted. “It’s why they get more cooperation from cops than any other private security firm you could name. But this is different.”

“Why?”

“This is pure drugs and money. Somebody with resources or sources is gunning for me, and it’s going to take heavy police work to get out from under.”

She studied him for a moment. “And who’s doing that work? From the sound of that article, the department is already convinced of your guilt.”

A grimace flickered across his face, and she knew she’d struck home.

He feels betrayed, she thought.

She doubted someone who hadn’t been part of that kind of brotherhood could ever really understand what it was like. She’d watched, during those days in the hospital after he’d been shot, and marveled at the constant changing of the guard; there had been at least one cop there every minute of every day. She’d commented on it to one of them, a gray-haired veteran who had smiled wearily when she’d brought him a cup of bad hospital coffee.

“We bleed blue,” he’d said quietly. “No matter who or where or how, when one of us is hurt, we all are.”

Her voice was soft, gentle when she said, “I would have thought, after what I saw in the hospital, that they’d be lining up behind you to help.”

The harsh laugh he gave held more than a touch of bitterness. “You’d think,” he muttered.

“There must be some who don’t believe you’re guilty.”

“Probably. But nobody wants to get close to a dirty cop. It might rub off.” He rubbed his eyes. “To be fair, some did believe in me, in the beginning. But there’s so much evidence now, even I’d doubt me if I didn’t know.”

“Don’t you have…a partner or something?”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “We’re a small department. We pretty much run solo. My bad luck. If I had a partner to back me up, they’d know I didn’t do it.”

“And the cops investigating you think you did.”

He lowered his head and rubbed his eyes, and she wondered if he’d had any sleep at all since this had all come down. “Seems that way.”

“Then you need help. All you can get.”

His head came up. One corner of his mouth quirked in what appeared to be bemusement. “You’re determined, aren’t you?”

“I’m not the scared weakling I was eight years ago,” she said.

“You may have been scared,” he said softly, “but you weren’t weak. You acted, which was more than anybody else in there did.”

“So let me again. Maybe Redstone can help, and they won’t hurt.”

“I’m not sure even the all-powerful Redstone can help,” he said, sounding suddenly exhausted.

A voice from the doorway cut across the room like a low rumble of thunder.

“Don’t count on that.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.