Damaged Goods (21 page)

The very next second, Kent fired and Mandy’s chest fluttered and bloomed a sickening red.

Brice landed on his ass with Terryn gripped by her underarms. It took a while for her flight or fight frenzy to register that she was safe. She continued to struggle and scream. Eventually, the reality and terror of the moment faded away and took her energy with it like air leaving a balloon and she wilted in his arms before turning to curl in his lap.

“I love you.” she gushed, emotions stark on her tear-ravaged face. “I was afraid I would never get to tell you that.” She swallowed with a gulp and a loud sniff. “I do, though. I love you so much, Brice.” Then she buried her face in his neck and bawled.

Kent kicked the knife from Mandy’s grasp before turning to check on Brian. Back-up was swarming within moments, but Brice stayed on the floor. He tightened his grip on Terryn and rocked as sobs wracked her whole body. With a soft curse, he buried his face in her hair and thanked God for the phone call that had sent him here in the nick of time.

“Hey.” Kent crouched down beside them and brought Brice back to the moment. “You okay?” Brice didn’t trust his voice so opted to nod instead. “The paramedics are taking Brian. She got a couple good ones in. He’s going to need surgery.”

Brice looked over to see that Mandy was not covered in a sheet, but was also being loaded onto a gurney.

Brice grunted and lay one more kiss on the top of Terryn’s head. “Red, I need you to let the paramedics check you over.” He set her back from him a little and looked into her tear-soaked face.

“It was Mandy.” Her bottom lip trembled and damn near broke his heart in two. “She tried to kill me and Brian dragged me over the counter.” They both looked to where Brian was being loaded into the ambulance and she said, “He saved me. He shoved me behind him and used a chair to keep her away from us.”

Brice and Kent shared a look and Brice realized that he was going to owe Brian a lifelong debt. “We need two crews. One to search here and another at Mandy’s.”

“Already on it,” Kent said as he stood to let the EMT take his place so the man could check Terryn for injury. “I’ll take Mandy’s if you want to take over here.”

Brice agreed and when the medic cleared Terryn from needing to go to the hospital, he wrapped her in his coat and tucked her into a booth. Once assured that she was taken care of, he faced the shop and the men and women that were assembled there.

“Officers,” he started, “she worked here forty plus hours a week and two of the attacks took place in the alley right out back.” He looked each man in the eye and finished with, “No one is leaving this building until we find the DNA needed to tie this case with a big fucking red bow.”

Chapter Twenty

Two weeks later

“Man. You gotta be kidding me, dude.”

Brian’s baffled complaint was met with laughter. Brice, Terryn and surprisingly Kent were there to help Brian home from the hospital. Terryn had made him smile and blush when she’d waltzed into his hospital room with a bouquet of roses and announced that, as her hero, she and the detectives were going to see him home in style. In style turned out to be a limo ride to Cade’s restaurant for a five-course meal followed by the three of them pitching in to help clean his place.

“Aw, c’mon, Bri,” Terryn laughed and stepped into the center of the once again pristine living room. “You didn’t really believe we’d make you clean up a mess like that on your first day home, did you?”

Terryn smiled as Brian slowly circled the room with jaw agape. “See, I thought it would mean more if the three of us did the cleaning ourselves.” She ignored Kent’s cough-covered “bullshit” and said, “But Officer Moneybags here pointed out that a neat freak like you would appreciate a professional job more.”

She wasn’t the least surprised or insulted when Brian nodded agreement and gave Brice a fist bump. “Good call.” Then he wandered to check out the rest of his place.

“So, I gotta ask,” Kent said as he picked up Brian’s black box of mementos. “I know you said Katie went with you to make the key so you could help her with the after-hours deep cleaning, but…did you really do it or was that just a line to get her to go out with you?” Kent’s expression made it clear which one it would have been had he been the one in that situation.

“Hey, I didn’t mind.” Brian looked more than a little embarrassed and also a little sad. “I like cleaning and I think I might have loved her.” He shrugged and took the box with his non-bandaged hand and added, “She wasn’t used to working two jobs, so the weekly deep clean was rough on her. I only did it for her twice before—well before, you know.”

Terryn stepped close and looked in at Brian’s keepsakes of Katie. “Oh, these were her favorites.” She lifted one of the earrings up to admire. “She used to let me borrow them sometimes.” Her smile was wistful as she laid it back down and ran a light finger over the picture in there. “I remember this day. Amber was wearing Katie’s earrings, my blouse and a pair of Angie’s boots. We teased her about the fact that she’d be walking around naked if it weren’t for us.”

With a sigh, she laid her head on his shoulder and whispered, “It’s a nice box, Brian. It’s nice that Katie was loved. I think she might’ve loved you too.”

“So,” Brice asked, “Why the other coffee shop girl?” Terryn knew that the question was a loose string that had bugged Brice for the last two weeks. She was surprised he hadn’t asked it days ago.

“Oh.” If anything, Brian got even redder. “You guys already think I’m too soft—this is really gonna set you off.” He took a deep breath and confessed, “I don’t have good medical from work.” When he chanced a glance at Brice, Brice made a keep it coming gesture. “No mental health coverage or grievance counseling. Janet at the other coffee place is taking a psychology course at the community college and she agreed to talk to me. It helped to talk about her and what happened. It was deep, though. So deep I was trashed and couldn’t face going to work the next day.”

Kent slapped a comforting hand on his shoulder and Terryn looked at Brice with raised brows.

“Yes, Red.” He answered her look with hands held up in front of him. “I’m satisfied. I’ll stop.” Then he wrapped his arms around her and told her, “It’s over.”

And it was. Mandy would not be saving the taxpayers any money. She was going to trial. Brice had assured Terryn that the ADA assigned to the case was ruthless in court. Brice  wasn’t worried that Mandy would ever get out of a cell, so neither was she. Although the search of the Surf-N-Slurp hadn’t turned up much, Mandy’s apartment had turned up blood evidence as well as a cracked and blood-encrusted bat.

“You ready to go?” Brice asked with his lips against her ear. Chills raised goose bumps up and down her arms. She nodded and she and Brice said their goodbyes and headed out. “We’ve got the limo to ourselves. Kent is catching a cab back to the hospital to visit Angie.” Angie was awake and expected to make a full recovery. It was going to be a long, hard road for her and she’d need some restorative surgery within the next couple of months. The miracle was that there appeared to be no brain damage. Angie was as she always had been and had already charmed all her doctors and nurses.

Brice handed her into the back of the car and as soon as the door closed they were on the way.

“So where are we going in such lavish style?” Terryn snuggled her arms around him and tucked her head under his chin.

“Terryn,” Brice said in that voice he used when he was in Dom mode. “Do you remember when you asked me to help you know how to be my sub?” After her whispered “Yeah,” he said, “You wanted me to help you find the right balance so you’d know when to submit and how to do that without losing yourself.”

She liked the sound of where this might be going and nodded with a, “Hmm-hmm.”

“This is your first lesson.” From out of nowhere, a small black box appeared under her nose. “We’re headed to the airport. Then on to Vegas. Cade and Trevor are bringing Riley and meeting us there. And I took the liberty of calling your parents and arranging for them to meet us there as well.”

She sat up and her fingers were shaking when he opened that small box to reveal a delicate antique setting surrounding a perfect square-cut diamond. “This was my grandmother’s and since my father was the oldest, it went to my mother and now…” He removed it from the case and slipped it on her finger, where it fit like it was made to be there. “It goes to you.”

She looked up at his face through a sheen of tears. “Terryn. I love you. I haven’t said that to a woman who wasn’t a relative since the third grade.” When she laughed, he said in an undertone, “Pamela Sommersmith. Another redhead, but alas, she never returned my affections.”

His expression grew serious again and his hands clasped hers, “I am not a man given to rash decisions. I plan out every detail and possible outcome. It’s part of what makes me a good cop. But from the second I set eyes on you, everything changed. I want you for more than my sub. I want you for my wife and my partner and the mother of my children.”

He brought their clasped hands to his lips and kissed her finger just above the ring. “Marry me, sub. That’s an order.”

Her chin quivered as love blossomed in her heart and everything that she’d been afraid to hope for since he first put cuffs on her exploded like fireworks in her soul.

Quick? Yes.

Crazy? Yes.

Was she brave enough to take this big of a gamble?

“Yes!” she yelled with a whoop and launched herself at him.

About the Author

Lainey lives in beautiful Washington State with her beloved daughter and a house full of pets. Writing is her passion and a dream that she never dared to believe could come to pass.

With the success of her first novel,
A Table for Three
, Lainey’s dream became a reality. Every day she wakes up, she feels humbled and grateful for the people who helped make this possible and the readers who’ve been so amazingly supportive.

You can email Lainey at
[email protected]
.

Visit her website for upcoming works as well as blog posts and other tidbits at
www.laineyreese.com
.

Look for these titles by Lainey Reese

Now Available:

Snowfall

New York

A Table for Three

Who knew snow could be so hot?

Snowfall

© 2012 Lainey Reese

All summer long, campground manager and wilderness guide Ashley Turner dreams of the snowfall that will bring her the peace and quiet she craves. This year, though, her Cascade Mountain solitude has been threatened by too many close encounters with the local wildlife.

A huge, unusually aggressive cougar is stalking the area near her cabin, and something has to be done before someone gets hurt. But share her secluded retreat with a wildlife biologist? Though he’s the perfect picture of Native American hunkiness, that’s where she draws the line.

When Dr. Jake Eagle Feather shows up on her doorstep, he’s prepared to call her shotgun-waving bluff. Until he can study and stop the cougar’s strange behavior, she and everyone else in these snowbound mountains are in danger.

As if on cue, the cougar attacks, forcing Ashley to reluctantly give in to the inevitable. Close quarters intensify the pull of attraction between them. Even as their resistance melts in a whirlwind of sweet, hot desire, a predator is waiting out the storm for the next chance to stalk its prey…

Warning: This book contains graphic language and love scenes hot enough to melt the polar ice caps.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Snowfall:

 “After yesterday you’ve got to know we need to be here.” Jake motioned with his fork. “That cougar was huge. And fearless. Way out of character and proportion. We have got to find out why they are so big up here and what is it about this mountain that makes them go against their natural instincts.”

“I know,” Ashley said as she forked up a bite without meeting his gaze. “I never disagreed with the need to study them. I only didn’t want you here while you did it. This is my home, and I like my solitude. The winters are the only time I get for myself. The rest of the year I’m swarmed with tourists and campers needing a million things a million times a day.” She slapped Poncho’s arm when she caught him trying to sneak food to one of the dogs, then continued.

“Well, that’s over now. You’re here and even if I wanted you gone, the storm we have coming would keep you here anyway. So, what’s the plan? Are we splitting up? If we each have two dogs we will be pretty safe. You guys saw for yourselves, my guys wouldn’t let us get hurt.” She reached down, gave a loving tug on Ethel’s ears and looked expectantly at the men.

“Poncho and I are going out as a team. You are staying the hell away from those woods. You’re right about the dogs though, after yesterday I don’t want you even in the yard without at least two of them with you. Not even on the porch, you hear me?”

Poncho gave an agreeing grunt and tried to sneak another bite to the dogs.

“Poncho.” Ashley slugged him this time, hard enough that he yelped. “You make my dogs into beggars and you
will
wake up to me standing over you with a sledgehammer.” Then she shoved from the table and took her dishes to the sink. “I didn’t want you here. But now that you are in my home, I’m not going to sit all day while you two are out there in those woods.

It’ll make me crazy, waiting all day not knowing if you’re hurt and need help.” She turned and leaned against the counter with her arms folded under her breasts and a determined gleam in her eye.

“Not gonna happen, Slim,” Jake said, following her example and bringing his dishes up to the sink. “It’s dangerous. We’re trained for this, we’re prepared and we know what to expect. You are just going to do whatever it is you usually do all winter and not worry about us.”