New Release from the ABB: Brazen Protectors (Protect and Desire Book 4)

Brazen – Daring – in both their dedication to Love and Service.

Seven stories of men and women who have pledged their lives to help others. Their hearts are reserved – held in check and on pause – while working. When that certain someone comes into their lives, passions flare no matter where they are.

BRAZEN PROTECTORS: PROTECT AND DESIRE Volume 4 continues the Romantic Suspense Series with more engaging tales of heroes and heroines taking command in unlikely situations, these champions just as provocative as they are brave.

Stacy Eaton: Kayley, Loving a Young Series, Book 5 (NEW)
What will her family think when she brings home a younger man?USA Today Bestselling Author

Callie Bardot: The One-Thirty
Fighting fires is easy–it’s in Griffin’s blood. But yielding to intimacy is a fire that might prove too hot. USA Today & NY Times Bestselling Author

Rachelle Ayala: Hold My Love, Desiring Danger #5 (NEW)
Framed for the murder of a congressional aide, Kevin Colson aims out to take down the real killers—with a little help from loud-mouthed drama queen, Virgie Rivera. USA Today Bestselling Author

Patricia Rosemoor: Deception
Deception clashes with desire when an undercover bodyguard gets too close to the woman he’s sworn to protect. NY Times & USA Today Bestselling Author

Mimi Barbour: Special Agent Maximilian
Identical twins but different men – she loves both! NY Times & USA Today Bestselling Author

Taylor Lee: Line of Fire
Discover how challenging elections can be when sex and violence are in the mix. USA Today Bestselling Author

Susanne Matthews: Secrets and Lies
Graduating from school is easy, getting out alive may be a whole lot harder. International Bestselling Author

Here’s a peek at Secrets and Lies:

El Paso, Texas

May 1

“How could you do it, Kyle?” Emily Jacobson Shepherd, her cheeks burning, fought to maintain some semblance of her dignity, but it was a losing battle. “How could you lie to me? I know you’re my boss, but damn it, I thought you were my friend. I needed to know the truth. I had a right to honesty, not secrets and lies.”

She sat on one of the hard wooden chairs across from Kyle Kavanagh’s desk, fervently wishing she’d opted to stand, although by now that too would’ve been decidedly uncomfortable. She’d run the gamut of emotions these past eighteen months, but nothing matched her current fury.

“Be reasonable, Emily. I didn’t know for sure until they recovered those bodies in Mexico. Like you, I believed he’d died in that blast.” He ran his hand through his sparse ginger hair. “Contradictory information started trickling in about a year ago, but it was just speculation. Not even my source inside the cartel was positive. It could’ve been nothing more than a copycat, a wanna-be distributor in the organization, trying to capitalize on the Chef’s reputation. At the time, I wasn’t sure you would be able to come back, let alone want to. I figured it was better to let sleeping dogs lie. You didn’t need to know about conflicting rumors, not when you were in such pain. I assumed that if you continued to think he was dead, you would be able to heal and move on.”

“Assumed? Nothing good has ever come from assumptions,” she scoffed. “There are some things you can’t forget, and moving on? Well, that’s another matter. You didn’t have the right to decide what I needed or didn’t need. It was my life he ruined. I demand justice. I deserve it.”

“Justice? Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Of course it is. I’m a DEA agent. It’s what I do—what I need.”

The Chef was alive! She tried to get her head around it, still too stunned to appreciate what those four words implied. The bastard wasn’t one of the unidentified corpses they’d found in the warehouse.

Kyle had suspected the truth for almost a year, and yet he’d let her go on believing her enemy was gone. Knowing that monster was still out there, praying on the innocent and luckless, would’ve helped her get back on her feet sooner. Instead, she’d wallowed in months of self-pity, regretting the losses she’d suffered, and feeling cheated because her nemesis would never pay for the crimes he’d committed. Death in that explosion would’ve been the easy way out.

She wanted justice, but she also wanted him to suffer, like she had, like she still did. Not a day went by that didn’t bring the pain and loss back to the forefront. Not a night went by when she didn’t cry herself to sleep in her big empty bed in the mausoleum that was her home.

The Chef had forfeited his men the way a chess player sacrificed his pawns. Those poor buggers probably hadn’t realized they were the equivalent of the guys in the red shirts on Star Trek. Alex had loved the sci-fi series and always joked that the extras in the red shirts should get danger pay since they were sure to die within the first few minutes of the episode—that was unless of course they were engineers. Like the Enterprise’s Montgomery Scott, the Chef always managed to make it out in one piece. Despite his age and educational background, Alex had been superstitious and had refused to wear red shirts, citing the precedent, and yet wearing a blue shirt hadn’t saved him or the others who’d walked into the trap with him.

By some miracle, she’d survived, but look at the price she’d paid.

“This is my case, has always been my case, and now that I’m back, I should be the one to follow through on it.”

She was so angry with the agent-in-charge of the El Paso Division of the DEA that she was shaking and gripped her hands together to hide it. How dare he presume she could ever go on not knowing the truth?

A slip of the tongue from a visiting agent and friend had changed everything and given her a reason to live once more. Badgering her doctor, she’d convinced him to let her return to full duties. The days and nights of feeling sorry for herself were over. Her life had purpose again, and that goal was to put the Chef out of business once and for all.

“Despite what you’ve heard, we don’t know exactly where he is, but we know where he’s been. We’ve got someone on the inside now, and our informant says he’s on the move. I’ll see what I can do about getting you reassigned to the case, but Emily, it isn’t up to me alone. The brass has to sign off on this, and given the situation, I’m not sure they will.”

Kyle was vacillating, passing the buck as it were, and she didn’t like it one damn bit. He owed her.

“Then you need to convince them I’m the best person for the job. I’m not an idiot, Kyle,” she argued, frustration giving her voice an unnecessary edge. “I’m a frigging bionic woman now. People with artificial limbs like mine return to their regular jobs every day. Soldiers go back into the field, and it’s time I did, too. It’s taken me more than a year to accept what happened to me, and I’ll be damned if I let him steal any more of my life. I’m either a DEA agent returned to full duty, or I’m not, and you’ll have my resignation on your desk as fast as I can print and sign it. But one thing is certain, I will find him even if I have to do it on my own and spend every last cent I have tracking him down.”

“Don’t be stupid. Going after him without the resources of this office to back you up would be suicide. You’re smarter than that. You’ve gone through hell to get where you are today. Why would you chance throwing it all away?” he asked, calling her bluff.

She shrugged and smiled. “Because I have nothing left to lose. Suicide or not, he’s mine, and I’ll see he pays for what he did to me and to Alex. You’ve always said any of the undercover operations we handle can turn deadly in the blink of an eye. While I never really believed that before, I do now. I was there the last time we almost had the Chef, remember? I have the internal and external scars to prove it.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I do. I’m asking to finish the job that got my husband and my son killed and left me like this.”

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