I swiveled on my heels slowly, knowing before I made a full rotation who I was going to see standing there. Sure enough, the stranger was only a few feet away, and the intensity of his attractiveness from a distance had nothing on the magnetic pull of all that was him up close and personal.
His velvety stare beat against my ribs like a xylophone. From so close, I could see his eyes weren’t just brown, they were also speckled with flecks of gold, and the edge of his irises were rimmed with a dark green ring. They were showstopper eyes, and at that very moment, they had rendered me completely speechless.
“For the love of God,” Monica whisper-yelled, “say something already.”
All I could come up with was, “Uh . . .”
The man grinned, revealing two rows of straight, pearly white teeth and, Holy Weeping Angel Babies, a set of devastating dimples. “I’m Trent,” the handsome stranger stated.
I blinked slowly. “Chey—” I started before my brain finally reengaged and I caught myself. My eyes bugged out as I clamped my mouth shut so fast my back teeth clacked together painfully. His eyes might have made me mute, but those damn dimples apparently made me flat-out stupid. That grin stretched into a full-blown smile, deepening those divots in his cheeks, and dear Lord, he just kept getting better.
“Ouch!” I cried when Monica reached across the counter to pinch the skin on the back of my bicep. Whipping around, I shot her my deadliest killing look as I rubbed at the stinging flesh.
“Excuse my friend,” Monica butted in. “Sometimes her brain disconnects.”
“Not a problem,” the guy said with a chuckle. “At least you’re willing to admit you’re shy, right?”
“This is Sawyer,” Monica continued on my behalf.
“Sawyer,” he said, like he was testing my name on his tongue. “Nice to meet you. So, are you a local?”
“Um . . . I-I need to go,” I blurted, grabbing my coffee and taking two quick steps back. “Nice to meet you too,” I muttered as I turned on my heel and speed-walked toward the exit. “Enjoy Whitecap. See you.”
One last glance over my shoulder showed Monica staring after me like I’d just lost my damn mind. She wouldn’t have been too far off the mark. I’d already made one infinitely idiotic error in nearly spouting out my real name. I couldn’t risk another brain fart.
Humor danced in the stranger—Trent’s—eyes as his gaze tracked me. “Yeah. See you around,” was the last thing I heard from him before the door shut behind me.
“God, I really hope not,” I whispered to myself as I scurried around the corner of the building and out of sight of the large windows.
Luna had been right that I was pretty damn good at reading people, and something about that man set my radar pinging in all directions. My gut was telling me he was all kinds of dangerous. Just maybe not in the way I’d expect.
Chapter Three
Trent
I put my rental truck in park and let it idle, waiting about a block down from the building where the GPS said “Sawyer Darcy” was.
Letting out a sigh, I grabbed my phone from the cupholder in the center console and scrolled through my contacts until I got to my boss’s name.
He answered after the first ring. “Sheppard.”
Lincoln Sheppard, or Linc as all his men knew him, was the owner of Alpha Omega, a private investigation and securities firm based out of Hope Valley, Virginia. He’d started the place when he got out of the Corps years back, and when business started to grow and he needed to bring on more people, he hired ex-military guys like me who were struggling with the return to civilian life and needed a job that let us use the skills we’d developed and honed from years of serving our country.
It wasn’t a very big operation, and the town we were based out of was small as hell—though not quite as small as this place—but the reputation we had as being the best in the business had us taking jobs all over the country, so desired we got to pick and choose the kind of jobs we worked, referring the rest to other outfits in the business because we didn’t have the time.
Even still, despite the fact we were all swimming in work, when Dalton, another member of our team, came to us, asking for help, none of us had hesitated to throw our hat into the ring. Dalton was a brother in a way that was stronger than blood for me, making his fiancée, Charlotte, family, so when we got word she wanted to find her long lost sister, worried that she might be in trouble, that became our highest priority. Everything else was placed on the back burner. It wasn’t about money or making a name for ourselves. It was about family helping family.
Linc let his guys loose, providing us with anything we needed to help aid in our search. However, even with all our skills combined, tracking down Cheyanne Knightly had proven to be harder than expected. It was as if the woman had disappeared off the face of the earth.
Days turned into weeks that inevitably turned into months. Each lead took us to a dead end. I’d followed one trail after another, the most recent sending me all the way across the country to some tiny dot on the map in the middle of nowhere Oregon called Whitecap.
“It’s me,” I said into the phone, my eyes pinned to the building some ways down from where I was parked.
“Hey. Any news?”
“Made contact yesterday,” I informed my boss before giving him the information we’d all been hoping for. “She’s going by the name Sawyer Darcy, but it’s her.”
Silence echoed through the line for several seconds before he asked, “How sure are you about this?”
“Not a doubt in my mind, man.” I’d set myself up at the coffee shop in the hopes my target would do like most people and swing in for an afternoon pick-me-up. I didn’t have to wait long, and as soon as I caught my first glimpse of her from across the room, the shock had been instant. “I know Dalton said they were fraternal twins, but swear to Christ, I thought it was Charlotte at first.”
Not to mention the fact that she slipped when I introduced myself, nearly giving me her real name instead of the alias she’d been living under for years. The fear that flooded her expression as soon as she caught herself was palpable, causing the air around us to grow thick and swampy with tension. She nearly ran out of there like her ass was on fire. It was only because of her friend temporarily distracting her that I was able to sneak the tracking device into her purse without her noticing before she took off.
“Jesus Christ,” he grunted. “I can’t believe we finally found her. You call Dalt with the news yet?”
I felt a tingling sensation crawl across my skin as I read the words on the sign that stretched across the top of the small cottage that, along with most of the other houses on this street, had clearly been converted into a business. “Not yet. Wanted to check in with you first because we may have a problem.”
Sure enough, as soon as the words came out of my mouth, the door to a converted house pushed open and the woman now known as Sawyer stepped out, an adorable little girl with dirty blonde pigtails resting on her hip.
“What’s wrong?” Linc asked, pulling my focus off of them.
“She’s got a kid, brother. Two or three years old from the looks of it, so it’s not a long shot to think that Knightly prick is the father.”