“Stonewall Courson?”
Surprise lit Detective Ingram’s eyes and then she smiled. “Yes. How did you know?”
Randi chuckled. “I don’t need psychic powers to figure that out. I saw your reaction at the cabin when you saw him race into the burning cabin to help save his friend.”
Detective Ingram ran a few fingers through her hair, and Randi found the gesture telling. “Due to both our jobs, we’ve only had time to talk on the phone, text and meet to grab a few beers. We have our first official date this weekend.”
“Good for you and thanks for the invite, but I’ll bow out. I need to get back to the hotel and start packing if I want to be on the road first thing in the morning to avoid any rush-hour traffic.”
“Okay, I understand. It was nice meeting you, Dr. Fuller, and you’ve made a believer out of me regarding a number of things,” Detective Ingram said sincerely. “If you ever visit Charlottesville again, please look me up.”
A huge smile touched Randi’s lips. “I will, but only on one condition.”
“And what condition is that?”
“That, from here on out, I’m Randi and you’re Joy.”
“Okay, Randi. That’s a deal.”
*
If you enjoyed Striker and Margo’s story, don’t miss the next book in the PROTECTORS series, featuring Quasar and Randi, SEIZED BY SEDUCTION
Coming soon from New York Times bestselling author Brenda Jackson and HQN Books!
SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM
HARLEQUIN? DESIRE
Desperate to escape her sheltered life, Hayley Thompson quits her job as church secretary to become personal assistant to bad-tempered, reclusive, way-too-sexy Jonathan Bear. But his kiss is more temptation than she bargained for!
Read on for a sneak peek of SEDUCE ME, COWBOY, the latest in New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates’s COPPER RIDGE series!
If you loved Forged in Desire by New York Times bestselling author Brenda Jackson, then don’t miss the next explosive tale in the Protectors series!
Seized by Seduction
One glance is all it takes...
From the moment his eyes meet hers across the crime-scene tape, ex-con turned bodyguard Quasar Patterson knows he has to see mysterious Dr. Randi Fuller again. She’s a renowned psychic investigator who can foresee danger for others, but not for herself. That makes Quasar doubly determined to watch over her—the closer, the better—as she’s drawn into a dangerous gang rivalry.
Both her psychic gift and their blinding chemistry tell Randi that she and Quasar are fated to be entwined. Even as they surrender to the heat between them, there’s no guarantee of a happily-ever-after now that an enemy has her in his sights. And claiming a future will take more than his strength and skill. If he can’t risk the heart he’s always held in check, they’ll both lose for good...
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Locked in Temptation
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Seduce Me, Cowboy
by Maisey Yates
One
Hayley Thompson was a good girl. In all the ways that phrase applied. The kind of girl every mother wished her son would bring home for Sunday dinner.
Of course, the mothers of Copper Ridge were much more enthusiastic about Hayley than their sons were, but that had never been a problem. She had never really tried dating, anyway. Dates were the least of her problems.
She was more worried about the constant feeling that she was under a microscope. That she was a trained seal, sitting behind the desk in the church office exactly as one might expect from a small-town pastor’s daughter—who also happened to be the church secretary.
And what did she have to show for being so good? Absolutely nothing.
Meanwhile, her older brother had gone out into the world and done whatever he wanted. He’d broken every rule. Run away from home. Gotten married, gotten divorced. Come back home and opened a bar in the same town where his father preached sermons. All while Hayley had stayed and behaved herself. Done everything that was expected of her.
Ace was the prodigal son. He hadn’t just received forgiveness for his transgressions. He’d been rewarded. He had so many things well-behaved Hayley wanted and didn’t have.
He’d found love again in his wife, Sierra. They had children. The doting attention of Hayley’s parents—a side effect of being the first to supply grandchildren, she felt—while Hayley had...
Well, nothing.
Nothing but a future as a very well-behaved spinster.
That was why she was here now. Clutching a newspaper in her hand until it was wrinkled tight. She hadn’t even known people still put ads in the paper for job listings, but while she’d been sitting in The Grind yesterday on Copper Ridge’s main street, watching people go by and feeling a strange sense of being untethered, she’d grabbed the local paper.
That had led her to the job listings. And seeing as she was unemployed for the first time since she was sixteen years old, she’d read them.
Every single one of them had been submitted by people she knew. Businesses she’d grown up patronizing, or businesses owned by people she knew from her dad’s congregation. And if she got a job somewhere like that, she might as well have stayed on at the church.
Except for one listing. Assistant to Jonathan Bear, owner of Gray Bear Construction. The job was for him personally, but would also entail clerical work for his company and some work around his home.
She didn’t know anything about the company. She’d never had a house built, after all. Neither had her mother and father. And she’d never heard his name before, and was reasonably sure she’d never seen him at church.
She wanted that distance.
Familiar, nagging guilt gnawed at the edges of her heart. Her parents were good people. They loved her very much. And she loved them. But she felt like a beloved goldfish. With people watching her every move and tapping on the glass. Plus, the bowl was restricting, when she was well aware there was an entire ocean out there.
Step one in her plan for independence had been to acquire her own apartment. Cassie Caldwell, owner of The Grind, and her husband, Jake, had moved out of the space above the coffee shop a while ago. Happily, it had been vacant and ready to rent, and Hayley had taken advantage of that. So, with the money she’d saved up, she’d moved into that place. And then, after hoarding a few months’ worth of rent, she had finally worked up the courage to quit.
Her father had been... She wouldn’t go so far as to say he’d been disappointed. John Thompson never had a harsh word for anyone. He was all kind eyes and deep conviction. The type of goodness Hayley could only marvel at, that made her feel as though she could never quite measure up.
But she could tell her father had been confused. And she hadn’t been able to explain herself, not fully. Because she didn’t want either of her parents to know that ultimately, this little journey of independence would lead straight out of Copper Ridge.
She had to get out of the fishbowl. She needed people to stop tapping on her glass.
Virtue wasn’t its own reward. For years she’d believed it would be. But then...suddenly, watching Ace at the dinner table at her parents’ house, with his family, she’d realized the strange knot in her stomach wasn’t anger over his abandonment, over the way he’d embarrassed their parents with his behavior.
It was envy.