AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She should have known better. The moment she learned Grant was in law enforcement, she should have run. But Grant had been a detective with the Atlanta Police Department at the time, and Joe had been an agent in the DEA. They might have known each other, but it had never occurred to her that they had been as close as they were. And Grant had kept the secret until only days before their wedding.
She should have broken off the engagement the day she learned Grant and Joe not only knew each other, but were supposedly best friends. And she would have, except Grant had pleaded with her, swore he loved her, and the wedding had been only days away.
Grant had claimed he had known about her and Joe, and hadn’t told her who he was because he had been terrified of losing her. That much would have been the truth, considering how easily he had used her, how he had intended to use her.
She had loved Grant. Or she had thought she did. Within months she had learned that the man she loved didn’t exist. Grant had married her because he believed Joe cared for her. She had been a trophy, something to torment Joe with, and nothing more.
She had tried to leave him. Three months after their marriage began, she had walked out, only to learn the true nature of the man she called her husband and the information he had gathered to ensure she never divorced him. Information that would destroy her father.
And now here she was, still fighting to escape the hell of a marriage that had been doomed from the start. Older, wiser, and more certain than ever that Joe Merino would end up breaking her heart, if Grant’s deceptions didn’t end up getting her killed first.
Where would he have hidden the information Joe needed so desperately? Information that would seal the government’s case against the remaining Fuentes family? Hell, did he even have the proof his journal had stated he had? Everything else in that damned book had been a lie.
Oh, he had really managed to mess her life up completely. The journal claimed she knew the location of the proof he had taken a
gainst the Fuentes family: Pictures and videodiscs of Santiago and Jose Fuentes along with Roberto Manuelo, the cartel general who had been killed the night Grant had tried to kidnap a female DEA agent, and had coordinated the drugging and rapes of over a dozen women in the past two years. The location of the lab where the drug was created and even the identities of several influential political figures involved with Fuentes.
In the past week, Maggie had learned exactly why the police department was so eager to drop any charges they could bring against her in return for the information they were looking for.
So why couldn’t the bastard Grant have just written it in his journal with all the lies he had written against her? He could have included some truth in it, just for a change of pace.
She pushed her fingers through her hair, the circles in her mind exhausting her. There were no answers, and the cold suspicion in Joe’s eyes was killing her. He had changed since Grant’s death. Since he had been forced to kill Grant, rather. There was an edge of unrelenting ice in his expression, in his eyes, that hadn’t been there before. Amusement had always lurked in the chocolate brown gaze, sensuality; playfulness had always curved his lips.
Even when they had argued, when she had walked out on the relationship they had, there had been regret, sadness, softness. There was none of that now. This wasn’t the man she had given her heart to.
So why was he protecting her? Why did he give a damn? Those were questions he had refused to answer since their arrival at the cabin, questions that garnered no more than a cold silence.
At this rate, she was going to have frostbite before the month was out.
“You’re a sitting target out here.”
Maggie flinched at the sound of his voice from the doorway. The dark sensuality of the tone couldn’t be hidden, no matter how coldly furious he might be. It throbbed just beneath the ice and sent heat curling through her system.
She hated that. She hated the response to him, unwilling and unwanted, that she had learned she had no hope of controlling.
She stared into the forest, watching the mist rise like a veil of dreams above the treetops to meet the heat of the rising sun.
“If the Fuentes family knew where I was, then they would have already struck.” She shrugged her shoulders, wishing she had worn a bra beneath the loose T-shirt she had slept in.
Her nipples were hardening, her breasts were swelling, and this was no time for it. She could feel the steadily rising sense of expectation building within her. She had spent a week with Joe, alone, and the tension was only growing worse by the day.
“You aren’t showing much faith in my protective abilities,” he grunted.
“Of course I am.” She kept staring into the forest; she wasn’t about to watch him. Watching him only aroused her further. “I’m sitting here watching the dew meet the sunrise, in plain view. See, I trust you to know I’m well hidden.”
“You make about as much sense now as you ever did.” His voice turned surly. “Come inside, I have coffee ready.”
Yeah, she had smelled it for the past half-hour, tempting, strong, teasing her senses. Rather like Joe did.
This was not going to work.
“You’re sitting out here pouting,” he accused, when she didn’t move to follow him.
“I don’t pout, Joe,” she reminded him. “I think.”
“You think too much then,” he growled. “Now get your butt in the house. Maybe the coffee will even out your temper.”
She clenched her teeth. She was not going to argue with him. Arguing with him was a pointless exercise. It was like beating her head against a wall. She only ended up hurting herself.
