Read the First Chapter
Mickey Salvatore’s bodyguard has pitch-black eyes. I’ve heard of people with no soul behind their gaze, but I’ve never been so close to someone who oozes emptiness.
From a face that’s basically a stone with a five o’clock shadow, the man watches me. His meaty fist holds open the door of the car that Mickey arranged for me.
I slide behind the wheel of the twenty-five year old Honda with an unlit pizza delivery sign on top. It has undoubtedly seen many better days. The interior reeks of mildew and cigarette smoke mixed vaguely with garlic. Paper rubble, and god knows what else, covers the passenger floorboard.
With a grunt, the man passes me the heavy black duffel bag.
I feel Mickey’s eyes on me. My biggest dating mistake ever has his butt planted safely behind the blacked-out bullet proof glass of his limo.
The slithering jerk is too scared to get out. Which highlights the fact that I should be scared too.
The man slaps the roof, making me jump. “Drive out of here and don’t look back.”
“Don’t worry. The last thing I ever want to do is see Mickey again.”
The car starts with a turn of the key. At least, it has that going for it.
Why Mickey gave me thirty-two million dollars in cash and one junker of a car with an odometer that reads 371,435 miles, I have no clue. He probably had his thug steal it as an afterthought.
I just pray the pizza delivery guy isn’t stuffed in the trunk.
But beggars can’t be choosers. The thing’s running and all that matters at the moment is that I’m going one way and Mickey and his pissed off business associate are hopefully going in the opposite direction.
“You’re lucky he gives a shit and is giving you a fresh start.”
“Really?” My lip curls up as I glare up at his rock face.
“Your new passport is in the duffel. Give me your ID.”
I glance at the bag crammed in the passenger seat. The passport and birth certificate are in there. Safely zipped up. I watched like a hawk when Mickey shoved them in.
He’s already fooled me once. And he better believe it’s not happening again.
God. What was I thinking, getting involved with a man like him? More flash than a camera. All wine and dine and penthouses and expensive cars. Mickey Salvatore is a lawyer to the uber rich. Too bad I fell for his seduction because he was exactly what I always figured a man like him would be.
Wrong for me.
My stomach threatens to eject my lunch just thinking about falling for slick words and a body honed by Miami’s most sought after personal trainer. After six months, he wore thin… really thin. And I got back to reality. But it was too late. I was caught in the crossfire and didn’t even know it.
I lift my clutch purse to fish out my license because the woman on that ID isn’t going to exist anymore.
I’ve got my fingers on my license when he snatches the whole bag from me. “You won’t need anything in there.”
“My phone—”
He leans down, those soulless eyes sparking with annoyance. “You don’t seem to get the picture. You keep anything from your past life, and Hector Silva will find you. And that’s the last thing you want. Hector loves hurting pretty women, and if it means getting back at Mickey, all the better.”
My mouth snaps shut as I stifle a gasp. I recoil backward across the car seat. The reality of the danger I’m in is growing by the second.
A creepy grin tips up one corner of the man’s hard mouth. “Smart woman. Now get the fuck out of here and forget everything you ever knew and everyone you ever knew. Maybe you’ll live then.”
An invisible hand must be around my throat because I’m suddenly choking. I try to swallow, but my mouth is too dry.
The man chuckles darkly as I fight the falling sensation in the pit of my gut. Chills break out over my whole body.
I stare in disbelief as he turns and walks away into the shadows, his boots echoing on the pavement. Ten seconds later, the gigantic limo pulls away, tires barking on the pavement.
I’m alone in the humid night. The parking lot is empty. Eerily black. As if all the lights have been knocked out just for this meeting.
The darkness matches the inside of my heart. Everything I worked so hard for is gone. The cold, lonely emptiness I’ve fought my whole life expands until it nearly consumes me.
Mickey was never the man I really dreamed of, the kind of man who’d want a family like I had hoped to one day have. Or the kind of man who’d love me unconditionally. I foolishly let my guard down and allowed him close. And this is what I get. A life left in tattered ruins.
Mickey’s tail lights disappear into the night. The street is totally vacant. I somehow feel both relieved and terrified.
Glancing at the bag on the passenger seat makes me want to hurl. It might hold thirty-two million dollars, but I have nothing. Literally nothing. Including my name.
Slipping the car into gear, I ease out onto the road as hot, angry tears start to slide down my face for the third time today.
Twelve Months Later - Eden, Utah.
The sun is already in prime form. The heavy cotton of my fire department t-shirt is clinging to my back, drenched. My arms sting like a mother because every inch of exposed skin is covered in scratches. And it’s not even seven in the morning.
This is exactly not how I planned to start my day.
A wriggling bundle of fur and long legs tries to break free of my hold. “Oh no, you don’t. You’re only going one place. Back inside the fence.”
It’s hot as hell for this time of the morning. I need a second shower. And a new t-shirt, thanks to cow fur, dust, and a hundred rips from the angry thorn bush I decided to shove my way through.
If only this was all that would happen today, I’d be set.
But that’s not the case. As I round the curve in the road on my walk back to my truck I blink. Try to reconcile what’s in front of me.
Nope, I haven’t seen this before. It hits me like a flash, I’m in for a real doozy of a day.
A moving truck towing a car trailer is stuck in the ditch. The whole mess is tilted at an angle that tells me one thing—it’s not getting out of there under its own power.
And… here’s the next kicker. It’s stuck because I left my truck in the middle of the road.
“See what you did?” I say to the butterscotch colored calf. “If I didn’t need to chase your ass down the road, I wouldn’t have been in the way.”
A bead of sweat drips down my temple and right into my eye. Stings like a SOB. Muttering, I continue on toward the opening in the fence.
What I hear next draws me to a stop—a humor-laced feminine voice. “Do you always talk to cows?”
The furry little calf twitches its long ears, turning them toward the voice behind me. I spin around and find my third surprise for the day.
Well, I’ll be damned.
She’s not from around here. Because I sure as hell would remember her. I suppress my grin. “You always stand around in the middle of the road in your bra?”
The leggy brunette in yoga tights with a riot of dark brown curls crosses her arms harder over her sizable chest. “As a matter of fact, I don’t. Why are you carrying that… cow?”
“She got out of the fence.”
The shirtless goddess nods at the calf. “Shouldn’t you have a lasso or something?”
“I didn’t need one.”
She takes a few steps closer. Her golden brown eyes fixed on my arms. I happily think she’s admiring my guns, until she flatly says, “You’re bleeding.”
“Just scratches. This little devil decided we needed to go running through the thicket.” I turn toward the moving truck. “I take it that’s yours.”
Her voice has a slight accent. Maybe Spanish. It’s beautiful whatever it is, like her. “Technically, I leased it. So, yes. Momentarily, it is mine.”
I let my grin spread. “And you’re driving it topless?”
She huffs and her breasts press up and together.
Lord help me, they are glorious. I couldn’t not look even if the price was my left nut.
“No. I wasn’t driving it topless.”
Forcing my eyes to hers and off the creamy latte color of her cleavage, I meet her enchanting gaze. “I think there’s a story here.”
She frowns. Just a small downturn of dark red lips that would never need lipstick. “You think? So, Mr. Cowboy or Cow Man or whatever you are. Can you bust out the window or something?”
I laugh. Loudly. “Now, this is not how I thought I’d start my day. Sure, I can take care of a window, but the rental company’s going to charge the hell out of you.”
She shrugs. And I’m still here. It’s not a weird dream. I’m standing on the side of a road, covered in dust and scratches, carrying a wayward calf, staring at the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.
Yeah. This one is going down in the books.
“I’m not concerned with money,” she says.
I laugh more. Shit like this never happens in Eden. Well, maybe it does, but not to me.
She cocks her right hip out to the side. “So glad you’re amused.”
Smiling. Staring more, at the risk of her realizing I’m eating her up with my eyes, I say, “Wouldn't you be?”
Her long-lashed gaze meets mine for a second, then a smile threatens her compressed lips. “Probably.”