Deceived (30 page)

 

Luke rested his head in Sarah's lap, soaking in the beauty and serenity of the mountains and the soft murmur of the nearby river. For the first time in his life, he'd missed being home. And, more than anything, he'd missed being in Sarah's arms. It'd taken all his self-control not to throw her over his shoulder and carry her upstairs the moment he'd gotten home from Argentina.

But catching up with Sarah and Eli over dinner and hearing about school and the new tricks Eli had trained Chief to do and hanging out instead of trying to connect over teleconference made him realize just what it was like to have a family to come home to. And what he'd had all along with his stepfamily but had been too stubborn and afraid to accept.

For the first time in his life, Luke felt like he had the roots that he'd always lacked, the peaceful spirit that his mother had always wished for him. He had Sarah's love to thank for that. She'd seen something of value in him and had forced him to take a good, long look until he could see himself through her eyes.

So when he and Sarah were finally alone that night, he'd taken the opportunity to make up for the month they'd been apart.

Two weeks later, he still couldn't help grinning when he thought about what a homecoming he'd had. With a sigh, he closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the spring sun on his face as Sarah ran her fingers through his hair.

“Everything okay?” she said softly. “You're awfully quiet.”

He gently grasped her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the center of her palm before he sat up and turned to face her, his brow furrowed. “I just want to make sure you're certain, Sarah. I might really suck at this.”

She brushed a kiss against his lips. “I'm positive, Luke. And you'll be amazing. How could you not be?” She grinned, bringing out her dimples. “Besides, all of our things are being delivered tomorrow. Kinda late to change my mind now.”

He fidgeted, the question he wanted to ask burning like acid on his tongue, but he couldn't seem to spit it out. Christ—he'd just taken on one of the most notorious drug lords in South America in the midst of a brutal turf war. And yet he couldn't grow enough of a pair now to ask one simple question?

He cleared his throat, fidgeted some more. “If you ever do change your mind—”

She pressed her fingertips against his lips, shushing him. “I won't.” When he gave her a doubtful look, she added, “Luke,
I love you
. My God
. . .
I love you more than I ever thought I'd ever love anyone again. What I feel for you has shaken me to the core. I can't imagine being any happier than I am right now.”

“But you know what it was like when I had to be gone on and off throughout the winter,” he reminded her. “I hated being away from you and Eli.”

“We missed you too,” she assured him. “But we had Mel and Davis and Jim to keep us company. And Abe kept an eye on us for you.”

Abe Michaels had retired from the Alliance two years before and had been looking to settle out west in his golden years. Will Asher had recommended the man to Luke when he'd made his decision to come back to the ranch during his leave of absence. The guy had fit right in, becoming a good friend to Luke's family and another surrogate grandfather to Eli.

And he'd been someone Luke knew he could trust to look after the ranch and be there to protect Sarah and Eli while Luke was tending to the Alliance's business in Canada and then later during his mission in South America—especially with Jacob Stone still unaccounted for. The guy had vanished, gone underground. A man with his kind of wealth could be anywhere. Plotting anything. It was still unclear whether he'd really been the one pulling the strings or just a pawn in a much larger game.

Will Asher was convinced that the Illuminati were behind it, that they had not been destroyed as everyone believed. Luke had no idea if that was really the case or if his commander was just seeing what he wanted to see. Didn't matter. He'd have his commander's back, regardless of which assholes were making a power play. All that mattered to him was that Sarah and Eli were safe.

Eli's embedded memories had been carefully purged and a new successor named—and that information had been broadcast within the Alliance, guaranteeing that the word got out through whatever leak was still out there, ensuring he was no longer in danger.

But Luke still hadn't wanted to leave them for even a few days and had worried every single freaking minute he'd been away. There'd been some days he'd wanted to just say, “Fuck it,” and order the Alliance's jet to turn around.

“It'll get easier,” Sarah assured him.

He caressed her cheek. “It'll never be easy to leave you.”

She kissed him again, longer this time. “Well, I hope not,” she murmured against his lips before pulling back to grin up at him. “But it'll get easier to deal with being apart.”

His frown deepened. “But I don't want to miss a minute of this, Sarah.”

She placed her hand lightly upon his cheek, her gaze searching his. “What's really going on?”

He took a deep breath and forced it out on a controlled sigh. Then he cupped her cheek, his gaze holding hers. “I love you. I never thought I'd say that to anyone. I sure as hell never thought anyone would say that to me. But I want to spend the rest of my life telling you how much you mean to me. I want . . .”

Her voice was barely above a whisper when she prompted, “What do you want?”

His thumb smoothed over her skin. “I want to sleep with you in my arms every night and wake up next to you every morning. I want to spend every day of the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you've made me.” He pressed his forehead to hers for a moment before finally adding, “I want to marry you, Sarah.”

He heard her quiet gasp and pulled back enough to see that her eyes were wide with surprise. They widened even more when he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the velvet box that had been delivered to his Chicago address and forwarded to the post office box he kept in town so that Sarah wouldn't discover what he was up to.

He opened the box, but then cursed under his breath. “Hang on,” he said, shifting positions. “I should be on one knee, right? Hell, I'm a Templar for chrissake—you'd think I'd have this chivalry thing down.” Now on one knee before her, he blew out a bracing breath. “Sarah, will you—”

“Yes,” she interrupted. “Definitely yes.” She threw her arms around his neck, knocking him off-balance and sending them tumbling onto the blanket they'd spread out for their afternoon alone, their laughter ending when he claimed her lips in a tender kiss.

When the kiss finally ended, he cradled her in the crook of his arm, peering down at her, unsure what he'd done to deserve the love of such a woman. “Should we head back to the house and tell Eli?”

“Not just yet,” she said, a seductive smile gracing the lips he couldn't seem to get enough of.

He'd learned early on just what that kind of smile meant. “You know,” he drawled, his voice rough as a wave of desire made him shudder, “when you smile at me that way, you make it very difficult to keep my hands to myself.”

Sarah slipped her arms around his neck, her smile growing as she pulled him down to her. “That's the idea. . . .”

Read on for an excerpt from the next
Dark Alliance novel
by Kate SeRine,

CONCEALED
,

coming in April 2017.

Jack Grayson took a sip of his beer and covertly adjusted the earpiece he wore, trying to ignore the bead of sweat trickling down his back. A childhood spent in London had hardly prepared him for tropical climates.

He spared a glance toward the third-story window of the building across the street and saw a glint of light, reassuring himself that Luke Rogan, the Alliance's deadliest sniper and one of the few men he knew he could trust unequivocally, was still in place in case they needed cover.

“Where the hell is Ralston?” Luke murmured over the com, his deep voice gruffer than usual. “This op's been pissing me off from the start.”

Jack could relate. He'd spent the last eight months gathering intel on the man who'd been hired to take out Luke and the woman who was now Luke's fiancée, in the hopes that the trail would lead them to Jacob Stone—the traitorous son of a bitch who'd been behind it all. Without Stone, the Alliance lacked the proof that the Illuminati had not been eliminated as they'd thought and were in fact growing in strength, preparing to make their next move.

The trail had taken Jack from Luke and Sarah's home in Wyoming to a rogue assassin's villa in Cuba to a drug runner's warehouse in Miami and now to this shitty hotel in Mexico City, where someone working on Jacob's behalf had made contact with the local drug cartel, presumably setting up a deal to help fund Stone's operations now that he'd been burned by every reputable organization in the United States.

Unfortunately, Jack had no idea where the hell Stone himself had holed up when his bid to steal the Templar treasure was thwarted. But as soon as Stone's lackey returned, Jack sure as hell intended to find out.

He took another sip of his beer, surreptitiously taking in his surroundings at a glance. The slowly whirling ceiling fans attached to the vine-covered pergola did little more than stir up the oppressive, moist air that hung about the incongruously heavy European tables packed in among the potted palm trees and suffocating heat of the hotel's outdoor café.

Most of the other patrons were obviously tourists, laughing and talking too loudly as their margaritas took effect. To his experienced eye, the only one who didn't seem to fit was a lone man tucked in the corner who looked like he was heading out on safari, his khaki pants and cotton shirt a little too
turista
to be legitimate. He was also trying far too hard to blend in with the crowd, standing out more conspicuously for the effort and setting off Jack's finely tuned internal shit-storm alarm.

“Look alive, ladies and gentlemen,” Jack announced, experiencing a familiar heaviness in the air that was independent of the intense tropical heat as his muscles tensed, preparing for action. “Looks like we have company. Three o'clock. Safari hat.”

“Got him in my sights,” Luke confirmed.

“Don't take a shot unless I give the word, even if he moves in on Ralston,” Jack ordered calmly. “Let's just see how Dr. Livingstone here plays into our little drama, shall we?”

“Dr.
who?
”

At the sound of Ian Cooper's Texas drawl over the com, Jack glanced toward where the man lounged on a bench across from the café, pretending to read the local newspaper. The former U.S. Marshal was one of their own, having been recruited to the Alliance several years earlier. He'd proven to be a tremendous asset in the field and a shrewd negotiator in the boardroom when acting for their front company, Temple Knight & Associates. But there were days he seemed seriously damned young. Of course, the older Jack got, the younger and younger
all
the new recruits seemed . . .

“
Livingstone
,” Jack said. “The nineteenth-century explorer who went missing in Africa? ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?'” When he was met by only silence, Jack added, “You've seriously never heard of him?”

“Sorry, brother, not ringing any bells,” Ian told him.

“So, Jack, you think this ‘Livingstone' guy's cartel?” Luke interrupted.

Jack's gaze flicked toward the subject of their conversation, taking another look. “If so, he's not local. Regardless, we're clearly not the only ones who'd like to chat with Ralston. Ian, can you get a facial rec on our friend?”

Ian casually rose from the bench and strolled into the café with his cell phone to his ear. He lingered near the bar as if waiting for a seat and pulled his phone away from his ear, fiddling with it as if texting but Jack knew he was snapping a photo of the man in the safari hat to send back to their tech team at headquarters. “Sending it through now,” Ian murmured. “Standby.”

“Watch your back,” Jack murmured, scanning the patrons in the café once again. There were some new faces among the crowd—and they didn't look like they were there to tie one on. “Two spooks three o'clock.”

“Copy that,” Ian affirmed.

Jack allowed his gaze to casually drift back toward the hotel. “Maddie? What's your twenty? Do you need backup?”

Maddie Blake, the only female member of the team, heaved a sigh over the com. “I'm in position. And, no, I don't need any backup, Jack.”

“Is there a problem?” he asked, slightly taken aback by her obvious offense at his question.

“Yeah, there's a problem,” she snapped. “I may be new to the Alliance, but I'm a big girl, Jack. I don't need you to babysit me.”

Her no-nonsense attitude was one of the things that had first drawn him to her all those years ago, and he'd fallen in love with her before he'd even realized it. Unfortunately, he'd had to walk away from her without a word of explanation, thinking he'd been protecting her when really he'd been too much of a fucking coward to explain the truth. And now he was paying for that with the daily torture of having her within arms' length since she'd joined the Alliance and yet forever out of his reach.

He ran a hand through his hair and took a moment to consider his response. The last damned thing he wanted to do was hash out their issues in front of the others. There was damned little that was private in the Alliance, but what he'd once shared with Maddie was too precious to him to open it up for discussion. “I'm not babysitting, Maddie. I'm just ensuring that a member of my team is safe.”

There was a long, tense pause over the com, neither of the others apparently wanting to be the first to break the silence. Finally, there was a quiet cough and Ian asked, “So, how's the uniform workin' out? Anyone give you a second glance?”

Maddie grunted. “Only because the shirt is about two sizes too small. One false move and the girls are gonna burst out. And these shorts are ridiculous.”

“Sorry 'bout that,” Ian admitted. “Didn't get much notice you'd be joining us on this little excursion. I had to guess at your size. But I'm happy to gather that intel first-hand next time, Maddie, if you're up for it.”

“Lock that shit down, Cooper,” Luke growled, “and show some fucking respect.”

But Maddie just scoffed at Ian's insinuation. “Gee, I don't know, Ian . . . from what I hear from the other guys, your hand is probably otherwise engaged . . .”

Ian chuckled. “Ah, honey, don't you listen to their jaw jackin'. They're just jealous that they're all hat and no horse . . .”

“Stay on task,” Jack cut in, his British accent, normally just a hint of what it had once been after so many years of living in the U.S., growing thicker in his irritation.

The thought of Maddie being with another man made him want to put his fist through a wall. But as Maddie had reminded him not too long ago, he'd given up the right to an opinion where she was concerned. He'd been the one who'd walked away all those years ago.