Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good Man\Promises Under the Peach Tree\Husband by Choice (29 page)

Anna nodded, her expression earnest, the gray of her eyes soft. “Do you think they'd be interested in fostering for Angel's Haven? I could really use another group home for teenagers who don't fit well into the average foster home. If all goes well, some of the boys they have now could stay with them.”

He hadn't thought he could love her more, but he was wrong. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “I'm betting they'd love to do that. They really are good people, Anna.”

“I know they are.” A smile wobbled on her lips. “If they weren't, you wouldn't be such a good man.”

“Let's get married soon,” he said, urgency adding roughness to his voice. “Call me old-fashioned, but I've got a kid now. That makes sleepovers tough to have.”

His Anna smiled for real. “I agree. Although, it might be nice if you don't have broken ribs on our wedding night.”

“I heal fast,” he said huskily, and they just looked at each, the air charged.

Right now, he couldn't see her ghosts at all. Along with the lust, an unfamiliar emotion filled him: peace. He kind of thought she might be feeling the same.

His optimism was new, too. But he found he really believed that with a little luck, some work and a determination to keep their promises, they could hold on to this hard-won peace.

The curtain was swished aside and the radiation tech appeared, beaming at him. “You can get dressed now. We're all set.”

Yeah, Reid thought, shaking off any last disbelief, they were. He stood, kissed Anna and said, “Give me a minute. Doc said he'd get me in quick when we were done down here.” The last thing he said was the best: “Then we can go home.”

EPILOGUE

C
ALEB
WAS
THE
last person out of Reid's SUV, and he hung back momentarily when Anna and Reid walked ahead carrying food—a totally gigantic potato salad and a crock of baked beans. His job was to haul the cooler with drinks.

Anna's voice drifted back. “Oh, the Renners are already here.” She sounded pleased.

Had she been hit by the weirdness of them all being here at the Bear Creek Resort for a Labor Day potluck and reunion, or was it just him?

The front yard was swarming with people. Foster parents of the boys who had stayed in Angel Butte but no longer lived at the resort, some new boys Anna had sent to the Hales and, strangest of all, cops and their spouses. Caleb remembered the way he and the other guys had all sort of faded out of sight if anyone unexpected showed up here.
Especially
if a cop showed. And now look. He'd never seen big tables set up on the lawn, either, and the horseshoe pit was new.

He bet Roger and Paula still made their boys do chores, though.

It would be kind of cool seeing all the guys, though. Only a few wouldn't be here. Apollo's sister had taken him in, TJ had gone back to live with his mother now that his father was dead, and Isaac had left a week ago for college. He had been so close to eighteen, the judge had just sort of dragged her feet until his birthday came. Given his special circumstances—that was the way Anna described it—he'd been accepted to the University of Oregon even though his application was way late, but he'd told everyone he was going to apply to transfer to MIT for his sophomore year. Caleb bet he'd get in, too.

Diego and Trevor were in the same foster home. Their foster dad was a scary dude who could stand up to Diego's father and Trevor's uncle, both of whom Reid, at least, thought were still potential threats.

The one Caleb didn't get was TJ. Had he
wanted
to live with his mother? Caleb guessed he sort of loved his own mother still, but he knew he'd never be able to trust her. How could TJ feel any different about his? But nobody had said—maybe he hadn't had any choice. The judge might have decided that was best for him, no matter what he wanted. Parental rights—slam dunk. Even though Caleb felt sort of sorry for him, he was just as glad TJ wasn't here today. Yeah, he'd had bad shit happen to him, but that didn't mean he wasn't an asshole.

“Caleb?” It was Reid who had stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Aren't you coming?”

“Uh...yeah.” He got his feet moving.

Diego spotted him and jogged over. “Hey, dude.” He grabbed one side of the cooler and helped carry it to the shady spot in front of the porch where the food was being laid out on long plank tables. Caleb opened the cooler and they both took soft drinks. He almost bumped into Anna when he straightened.

She smiled at him and went on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”

He turned away, knowing his cheeks were hot. He wasn't used to being hugged and kissed. He wasn't the only one. Sometimes he could tell Reid was still startled when she went up and put her arms around him or kissed him in passing for no reason, but he obviously liked it. Caleb was getting so he didn't mind so much, but, jeez, in public?

Diego and Caleb walked toward the horseshoe pit, where a match between Colin McAllister—the sheriff of the whole county—and Sergeant Clay Renner was happening. The audience hooted when the sheriff's horseshoe clanged off the stake and slid several feet away. As he shook his head in disgust, Sergeant Renner grinned and wrapped his next throw around the stake, pretty as you please.

“Your sister-in-law's cool,” Diego said.

“I guess I'm lucky,” Caleb said awkwardly. “But I like your foster parents, too.” He spent quite a bit of time at the Panneks', since he and Diego had stayed friends. That meant Trevor was mostly around, too, but that was okay.

He hadn't seen the other guys since school let out in June, and not that much of some of them even then. Jose and Palmer had been freshmen, so they hadn't been in any of Caleb's classes. Damon, Caleb mostly avoided.

He wandered over now, too, though, looking...less tense, maybe, than Caleb mostly remembered him. Maybe near-death experiences had changed both of them.

“You didn't go out for football,” he said to Caleb, who shook his head. He knew practice had started a couple of weeks ago.

“I might have, except it overlaps basketball. That's my sport.”

Diego wasn't big enough to play either sport. He'd said he had wrestled his freshman year at his old high school, though, and he thought he'd try out for the team in Angel Butte. He was strong and wiry, if short. Since wrestling had different weight classes, he might be good.

“So Reid married the social worker.” Damon wasn't watching the horseshoe contest; he had his eyes on Anna. “I can see it. She's kind of hot.”

Once in a while, Caleb noticed she was, too, but that was really too weird for him, so he didn't dwell. Anyway, he had sort of, almost a girlfriend now. They hadn't called it that, but he'd hung out a lot with Hannah this summer. She was kind of shy still, so although he'd kissed her he hadn't pushed for sex yet. One thing he liked about her was that she lived in a foster home. She hadn't exactly said why she couldn't stay with her own parents, but Caleb figured she'd tell him eventually. He just hoped it wasn't anything really terrible. And especially not something sexual terrible. Because, man, he
really
wanted to have sex, and it would be a serious bummer to find out she
really
didn't.

And he knew that was selfish even to think.

Just a few weeks ago, he'd been helping Reid build a small deck on the back of the house he and Anna had bought, and when they paused to drink some lemonade, Reid had asked about Hannah.

One corner of his mouth had quirked up in an I-can't-believe-I'm-saying-this way, before he said it anyway. “This is a safe-sex talk.”

“Anna put you up to it.”

He'd laughed in a comfortable way. “Yeah, but I'd have worked my way around to it on my own.”

“I know about condoms.”

“Yeah, but do you have any? Do you carry one, in case an, er, opportunity arises?”

Knowing his face was blazing, Caleb had mumbled, “Uh...yeah. I've started to.” Like a few days before.

“Good. You don't have to answer this, but have you used one yet?”

“You want me to
talk
about it?”

“Strictly optional.” Reid set down his glass and reached for the hammer again. “Here, can you hold this?”

They were working on a railing now.

“It's... I haven't asked,” Caleb heard himself confess. “She's said things that make me afraid—”

Reid had turned a sharp look on him. “That she's been molested?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don't know, but—” He sucked in a big breath. “What if she has?” Wow. Anna probably
knew.
That hadn't occurred to him before. If he asked, would she tell him—

Not a chance.

Lines formed on his brother's face. “If she has...then you're either really patient, or you call her a friend and move on.”

“I feel like such a creep,” Caleb had confessed miserably. “Even thinking that's, like, a deal breaker. You know?”

“I do know.” Reid had gripped his shoulder hard for a minute. Under Anna's influence, he was getting better at the touching thing. “But you're a kid. Give yourself a break. If it turns out Hannah needs fixing, the job may be more than you can take on. You are still a kid, you know.”

Caleb had been thinking about that ever since. He wasn't so sure he'd ever exactly been a “kid.” More weirdness: he felt more like one now than he could ever remember. Not having to freak if he got into trouble at school, living with his brother, who had claimed to be too damaged to take him in, but was now changing, too... Sometimes Caleb woke up in the morning and lay there wondering why he wasn't all tied up in knots and dreading getting up. And then he'd remember. Life was good.

Day after tomorrow, he would start his junior year in high school. And...he really liked Hannah. If it turned out he had to be patient for her sake, he thought he could do it. Reid would have waited for Anna if he'd had to. Anything big brother could do, he could do. That was Caleb's resolve.

Followed by Roger, Reid had just sauntered over to slap Colin McAllister's back in mock sympathy. Still grinning, he spotted Caleb. His eyebrows rose.

“What do you say, Caleb? Think you can take me on?”

Caleb studied him suspiciously “Have you ever played before?”

“Never thrown a horseshoe in my life.”

“Then you're on.” How hard could it be? He felt a belated burst of caution. “If we can take some practice throws first,” he tacked on.

Reid slung a casual arm over his shoulder and squeezed. “Deal.”

Sheriff McAllister chuckled evilly. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

On his opening toss once they officially began, Caleb threw a ringer.

First time he'd ever done anything
better
than his big brother.

“Well, damn.” Reid's grin held a challenge, but something else, too. Pride.

Sometimes seeing that expression choked Caleb up.

But not so much he didn't laugh when Reid threw a clanger—and then his own next throw hooked the stake again, spun and clanked down right on top of his last horseshoe. He pumped a fist. “Man, I'm good.”

And, damn, he really was.

* * *
* *

Look for the next book by Janice Kay Johnson!

Coming in November 2014 from

Harlequin Superromance.

Keep reading for an excerpt from WINNING RUBY HEART by Jennifer Lohmann

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CHAPTER ONE

T
HE
WOMAN
IN
the neon green baseball hat looked familiar to Micah Blackwell. There was a loose-limbed smoothness to the way she milled among the other racers at the starting line that tapped at a memory in his brain. He drummed his fingers against the side of his wheelchair, waiting for her to turn her head and let the little bit of sun prying its way through the cloud cover onto her face. He wanted to see her eyes.

The woman, bib number 86, caught him staring at her. She twitched as if to dart off in another direction and then seemed to calm herself. The brim of her cap threw her entire face and neck into shadow when she turned her head from his gaze, and Micah saw the lips of the man next to her moving, apparently in response to number 86's question. The movement of her head was smooth as she looked around, but the bounce of her pigtails on her shoulders exposed her nervous energy, as did the way she shook out the muscles in her arms and legs. Even the shaking seemed familiar.

Micah was so focused on the ripples of muscles in her sleek, powerful thighs that he almost missed her skittish look over her shoulder and the way she tried to ease through the other runners out of his sight. With only a hundred people in this race, the crowd wasn't so big that he couldn't follow the green bounce of the hat.

“Amir,” Micah called to his photographer without taking his eyes off the woman. “There's a runner in the crowd—bib number 86. I want you to make sure you get video of her.”

Amir's thin face emerged from behind his camera. Sports was a world of big—big men, big egos, big cameras—and Amir always seemed lost among the oversize swagger. But big men often forgot that small men could be a threat, and before they knew it, Napoleon was their emperor. Amir could stand there with the gargantuan camera on his shoulder while the men who Micah interviewed forgot the camera even existed. Which made Amir one of the best photogs in the business. And he was Micah's photog. Two physical misfits working their asses off amidst a world of Achilles' and Hercules'.

“I thought we were covering Currito.” The problem with having the best photog in the business was that Amir knew he was the best and so he felt comfortable arguing. The National Sports Network had sent them here to cover Currito, a Mexican-American runner who had seemingly come out of nowhere to finish in the elite pack at Western States and then gave a colorful interview about painting and mystic visions to the local sports guys. Despite Micah's multipart series on ultramarathoners being only in the planning stages, when Currito had told them he was running a race within driving distance of the NSN campus, they'd signed out a production van and driven to Iowa.

Neither Currito nor Amir nor bib number 86 knew it, but the ultra series now had its new star—and it wasn't Currito. Luck favored the watchful, and Micah had been watching. “We are, but I've got a feeling about that runner. There's something about her....” His jaw tightened as his brain nearly spit out the memory and then yanked it back before a name came to him. “Get Currito, too, but...” The drizzle was obscuring more than his view of the runners.

Amir looked as if he was going to argue again, but Micah raised an eyebrow. “Okay.” Shrugging with one shoulder while the heavy news camera was balanced on the other nearly toppled the small man.

Micah caught a low flick of green through the legs of the runners, then followed the arc of the throw back through the crowds, which parted in time for him to see a head of unremarkable brown hair parted into pigtails. Runner 86 lifted her chin in a self-confident, defiant gesture as the gun went off.

“Aah...” The memory exploded into Micah's conscious with a golden flash. “Ruby Heart, I've got you now.”

The drumming of his fingers against his chair quickened along with his heart rate as Ruby ran past him, her stride shorter than he remembered from watching the Olympics five years ago. She seemed to be trying to disappear into the crowd, instead of bursting out of it. Noting the angle of her knee as she kicked behind her with each step, Micah wondered if he was right about her identity. The stride didn't look quite right. But the comparative power of Currito as the star of the ultra series balanced against disgraced Olympian Ruby Heart running again was worth the risk. Rumor had it an anchor position at NSN was about to open up, and Micah wanted it.

“Amir, I need to do some research at the hotel, so it'll just be you and King.”
Micah cocked his head toward the other reporter from NSN who had made the trip out of curiosity to watch, quote, “pain freaks run.”

“What?” The one eye of Amir's that Micah could see was wide with horror.

“He'd probably leap at the chance to have input into the story.”

His cameraman choked. “Sure. And when I use the camera to beat him to death for his input, I'll make sure NSN sends the bill for a new camera to you. And I'll expect you to post bail.”

“Okay,” Micah said with a shrug and a smile. King was not a popular figure with the support staff at the network, but Amir would get the footage Micah asked for, King's interference aside.

“Why can't...” Amir stopped. Micah finished the question in his head.
Why can't you send King back to the hotel in your car to do the research so I'm not stuck in the production van with him?
One of the great conveniences of a hand-driven car was that no one could borrow it. “King's gonna want to know why we're waiting to film that woman after Currito runs by.”

“If I'm right, you won't have to wait long.” Listening to Kingston “Call Me King” Ripley howl with pain when he realized that one of the biggest sporting news stories of the year had run right past him and
he'd
missed it would feel almost as good as the ratings Micah knew were coming his way—as well as that anchor position.

“King won't like it,” Amir said. But this argument flopped on the dirt, sucked in a few last gasps of air and then stilled like the dead fish it was.

“King will like it
too
much.” The man would think he had a chance to take over this story, and he didn't even have the foresight to know what the real story was. “Look, King is loud, obnoxious and he can't withstand a direct charge. Ignore his bluster and any advice he gives you and stick to getting the footage I want. Half Currito, half that woman. Good shots of the face. I don't want anyone to doubt who she is when I'm done.” Micah thought for a minute, then added, “And try to make it look as if you're not focusing on her. I don't want to spook her.”

“Who is she?”

“And give you a name for King to weasel out of you? Hell no.” If rumors about the upcoming anchor opening were true, King would be fighting Micah to the death for it, and getting an interview with Ruby Heart would be equivalent to securing the nuclear arsenal. “Get the shots—I'll confirm the name afterward.” The rough, wet dirt stalled his exit, but Amir knew better than to offer help. Micah wheeled himself over the rocks and sticks in the trail to his car and drove off.

Back at the hotel, he connected to the wireless and started digging. Most of the pictures he found were of Ruby as the world had known her—sharp points of her short platinum hair aimed directly at her painted red lips, looking more like a younger, edgier version of Marilyn Monroe than an athlete. But buried on her college's website was a team photo from her freshman year. There, Ruby Heart looked like the girl next door. Her hair was still short, but it lacked the snap of her Olympic haircut and was the same mousy brown he'd seen today. The eyes clinched it. Without the heavy makeup, there was nothing to hide those doe eyes gracing the face of the girl who would become America's Darling two years after this photo was taken. Even in the picture of her during his interview, after her cheating had been revealed to the world, her brown eyes had dominated her face, giving her an aura of innocence.

“You understand what I'm going through, right?” she had asked him after the camera stopped rolling on that memorable interview.
“We both had our passions taken from us.” Her voice had sounded so young, adding to the blameless look she'd had on her face and almost making him agree with her. As if their careers had ended the same way. “It wasn't fair.” He'd added
whiny
to the list of her defects. When he'd told her that her entire athletic career hadn't been fair to her competitors, she'd jumped back as if he'd swung a fist at her.

Micah pulled himself away from the memory, found the list of participants in today's run and looked for the name. According to the website, no Ruby Heart had registered, but there was a Diana Heart. A Wikipedia page didn't offer Ruby's full name, only a short summary of the girl's soaring rise to greatness and her crashing fall. Icarus, with his wax wings climbing higher and higher toward the sun until the lies he'd woven into the wings melted from the heat. Only Ruby had been the genuine flying article and she'd strapped wax wings onto her back anyway.

Her stupidity left a foul taste in his mouth the bitter coffee couldn't overpower.

The current Wikipedia photo was Ruby at her apex, with the American flag raised high over her head in a stadium of adoring fans. No amount of makeup could hide the pure joy overtaking the exhaustion on her face. The other photo on the page was a still from his interview of her—Ruby's blond hair looking limp and fake, her eyes hurt and confused. Micah wondered how often the pictures were swapped out as the remaining few who cared—both fans and detractors—battled it out in cyberspace. Someone had cared enough about her to note that her suspension for doping was over.

While he didn't recall the specifics of her complicated settlement, after she'd provided enough information to close several clinics, her lifetime ban had been converted into a suspension from all non-Olympic sports. Micah had a vague memory of the prep material he'd gotten for that interview, which had included Ruby's full name and the fact that she went by her middle name.

Pitiful, really, to have disappeared from the American psyche so completely that all it took was a set of pigtails and different first name for people in your own sport not to recognize you.

Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Lohmann