The Men with the Golden Cuffs (Masters and Mercenaries #2)(101)

“That’s wonderful, Grace.” It was a lovely story. It just didn’t have anything to do with her.

“Why won’t you give them a chance?” Grace sat back, her hand on her round belly. “Tell me if I’m intruding.”

“You’re intruding.”

A slow smile slid across her face. “I might be now, but if you let yourself, we would be such good friends. So I’m going to claim pregnant-lady rights and plow through anyway. I’m going to say a few things because I love Adam and Jake and because I love you, too.”

Serena shook her head. “You don’t know me.”

“Oh, but I do. You’ve been a voice in my head for the last few years. It’s like that with some authors. When I was really lonely, I had your characters. And I learned a lot from them and the woman who wrote them.” Grace put her hand on the stack of books that represented Serena’s life work. “This woman is strong. This woman doesn’t let the past rob her of a future. This woman reaches out with both hands and grabs what she deserves. This woman knows how to love and how to fight. I pray for my friends that this woman isn’t a work of fiction.”

Serena stared at her books, her life’s passion. But what did her life mean if all her passion was spent on words? Her marriage had been a failure. Did that mean she should be alone for the rest of her life or simply exist in the moment because future hurts were too much to contemplate?

“Serena? Are you ready?” Jake stood in the doorway looking handsome in a dark suit and tie, the jacket of the suit in his hand. He had a leather shoulder holster on, his gun in plain sight, reminding her that she needed a bodyguard.

Was she ready? She probably wasn’t ready for any of this. She wasn’t ready to make a decision about anything.

“Baby?” Jake stared down at her. “You okay?”

She shook her head. He was asking if she was ready to go to the signing, and she was sitting here asking enormous life questions. Questions she still didn’t have a damn answer for, but Grace Taggart was making her think. She’d been obsessed with this signing for months and now all she could think was that it would be nice to get it over with because she had a lot of thinking to do.

“I’m ready.” She stood, her focus caught on the books. Was she just fiction? Or were those books her training wheels, her way of getting ready to do what it took to be truly strong, to take the risk to really love again? Her voice was steadier this time. “I’m ready.”

Jake took her hand and led her to the car.





Jake really wasn’t ready. He looked around the small store and realized he wasn’t ready to put her in harm’s way, and he damn sure wasn’t ready to let her go.

“So, this is where our illustrious author chooses to sign her books?” Detective Hernandez held up a vibrator in a box. “Well, we know what the books are about, at least.”

Jake had had just about enough of the detective. He turned to Detective Chitwood. “Maybe we don’t need Dallas PD here. This * obviously has a real problem with my client’s work.”

Chitwood motioned Jake over and kept his voice low. “Please, Mr. Dean, give him a little leeway. I’ll talk to him. He’s going through a bit of a rough patch at home. His wife seems to have found herself, so to speak. She started a new career, and she’s leaving him behind. And she loved romance novels. Not like Amber Rose’s, but Mike is lumping them all in together. I’m afraid he thinks his wife got unrealistic expectations of what to expect from books like that.”

“I don’t care about his marriage,” Jake said frankly. Yeah, he would give Hernandez another look. They hadn’t found anything, but Adam would have to look deeper. “I only care whether or not he does his job. And I got the feeling you didn’t approve of Serena’s career, either.”

Chitwood shook his head. “I don’t get it, but I don’t particularly care one way or the other. It doesn’t matter what she does for a living. She deserves to be able to make that living without fearing for her life. I took an oath, and I intend to honor it. My home life is hard right now, too, but I won’t let it affect my ability to protect her. Speaking of, I got the profile you sent over. Excellent work. Your profiler seems very capable.”

Eve had been the best the FBI had to offer until a case had taken a terrible turn. “So, you agree that this is someone she knows?”

“I’m not sure. I certainly think the perpetrator believes she’s committed a great wrong that touches the stalker’s life.” Chitwood frowned and stared at his feet for a moment. “I know what you think.”

Jake simply waited for Chitwood to prove he wasn’t as dumb as he’d first looked.

“You think it’s me or Mike. Given that the violent threats occurred after the police were called in, and given our response, I would logically put us both on a list of suspects. I think, after today, that we should recuse ourselves and let this whole case start over.”

Chitwood was saying all the right things. But that wouldn’t make Jake back off. “I think that would be a good idea.”

A little smile played on the detective’s lips. “Of course, it would be exactly the right play if I wanted to throw you off the scent. Feel free to have us followed, Mr. Dean. We are exactly what we come off as, a detective looking forward to retirement and…dear god, Mike, put that down.” He shook his head back toward the racks where Hernandez was studying an enormous anal plug. “A detective looking toward retirement and his idiot partner. That’s all you’ll find.”