Claiming Sarah (Ace Security #5)(9)

Cole smiled at Felicity. They’d met five years ago when they’d literally bounced off each other while running in the park. They’d clicked immediately. Neither had ever felt anything romantic toward the other, but they’d decided to go into business together. It had been the best decision he’d ever made.

“Thanks. But I’m not sure you should call that preacher who married you and Ryder and Blake and Alexis just yet. I don’t even know Sarah.”

“But you like her,” Felicity insisted.

Cole opened his mouth to deny it, but knew he couldn’t. “Maybe. There’s just something about her.”

“Be careful,” Felicity warned. “If she has a stalker, someone who thinks she should be his, you could be in danger if he thinks you guys are dating. The last thing I want is for you to get caught in the middle of her situation. Believe me, I know better than anyone how horrible it is for someone I love to be in danger because of my shit.”

“It wasn’t your shit,” Cole told her. “It was Joseph Waters who kidnapped Grace’s baby.”

“Because he was trying to get to me,” Felicity said softly.

Cole stepped toward Felicity and took her head in his hands, forcing her to look up at him. “It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.”

She hesitated, but finally nodded.

“And I’ll be careful,” Cole continued after dropping his hands and stepping back. “Besides, this might be nothing more than an admirer taking things too far, and once he realizes that Sarah really doesn’t return his affections, he’ll back off.”

“I hope so, for both your sakes.”

“Me too.”

“So . . . do I get to meet her?” Felicity asked with a grin.

Cole rolled his eyes. “That depends.”

“On?”

“If you’re going to behave or not.”

She laughed. “I’ll be good. Promise. Can I at least call Grace and tell her the scoop?”

“What scoop?”

“That you met a girl, and we should start planning your wedding for next year sometime.”

Cole reached for Felicity, but she leaped out of his way, laughing.

“Kidding!” she called out as she disappeared through his office door. “Sort of. See you after my aerobics class!”

Still chuckling, Cole went back to his desk and sat. As usual, there were papers everywhere. He glanced around his office and mentally winced. The shelf along one wall was stuffed with books, and the love seat against the other wall still had a bunch of crap on it. He really needed to clean his space. It was never high on his list of things to worry about . . . but ever since Sarah had been there the week before, he’d become more and more aware of what a pigsty his office was.

Deciding that there was no time like the present to do what he could to make it look nicer, Cole stood once more.

He wasn’t going to admit that he was cleaning because Sarah was supposed to come to their first lesson tonight. Nope, that wasn’t why he was suddenly going out of his way to organize things. Not at all.



Sarah walked quickly down the sidewalk to the gym. She couldn’t decide if she was walking so fast because she was nervous to be out in the open, or because of the man who was waiting for her at Rock Hard Gym.

She’d spent the last week chastising herself for thinking about Cole so much. But that hadn’t stopped her from looking him up on the internet. She couldn’t find much about him, because there seemed to be thousands of men named Cole Johnson, but when she’d paired his name with the name of the gym, she was able to pull up some general information.

He and Felicity Jones, now Sinclair, had opened Rock Hard Gym five or so years ago. They were known for throwing “black light” parties, where people would come dressed in white and spend the evening dancing and socializing, their clothes glowing under ultraviolet lights.

She found out he was thirty-one, only a year older than she was. He had a brother who lived in Washington State, and his parents lived in Arizona. That was all she’d been able to discover. Of course, digging for information about Cole led her to reading about his friend Felicity and her husband, Ryder, and the drama that had taken place in the not-so-distant past. That led her down a rabbit hole, and she’d spent way too much time reading about all the Anderson brothers and their wives.

To say she was intimidated was an understatement.

Her situation wasn’t anything like what those women had been through. She should’ve probably called Cole and apologized and told him she had changed her mind and didn’t need self-defense lessons, after all.

But she didn’t.

He was so out of her league. He owned his own business and had a ton of good friends, and she was . . . just Sarah. Nobody special. An orphan with no close friends.

Besides, he probably thought she was overreacting anyway, just like the cops and most of her coworkers.

Earlier that day, Justine, one of Sarah’s coworkers, had told her she should milk Owen’s infatuation for all it was worth—insinuating she should use him to get more expensive gifts. But even if she weren’t creeped out by his attention, that wasn’t her. She didn’t need “stuff” from someone she cared about; she just needed their love and affection.

Shaking her head, Sarah took a deep breath and opened the door to the gym—