Jennifer Morey - Front Page Affair

“This isn’t about being taken seriously. This is about losing Trevor. Anytime you hear someone is being victimized, you take leaps without thinking. It’s what made you have the harebrained idea of becoming an international news reporter.”

Braden looked from one to the other. “Who is Trevor?”

“Her fiancé. He—”

“Lincoln,” Arizona stopped him. It was too personal.

Braden studied her a moment and didn’t press for details. “I won’t let you exploit my sister for a news story.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that there was no doubt he meant it. “It’s going to get in the news anyway. Why not let me break it? Besides, I could help you. Publicity will put pressure on police to work hard to find her.”

“I don’t need that kind of help. This is a private family matter.”

“You heard the man. You aren’t going,” Lincoln said.

Now she was getting mad. “Why do you always think whatever I do is a bandage for what happened?”

“Because everything you’ve done since then has been exactly that.”

She had to find a way to convince him he was wrong. “Define everything.”

“You’ve gone overboard in the last few years,” Lincoln said. “If you aren’t saving puppies or volunteering to help natural disaster victims, you’re jumping out of planes every week. Slow down.”

“I don’t jump out of airplanes every week.”

“You know what I’m saying, A.”

She loved it when he called her A. It had begun when she was in school and received the one and only A in twelfth grade. That’s when she’d aspired to go to college. That one A, and her brother making her feel so good about it.

“I need a good story,” she said simply, pleading.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come.” Braden turned to leave and then froze.

Arizona looked to see what had stopped him. A white BMW was parked across the street. A man sat inside.

“Who is that?” her brother asked.

With all three of them staring, the man in the BMW drove into the street and disappeared under the canopy of trees down the road.

Braden swore.

The rough sound captivated Arizona. So did his edgy profile. The translucence of his eyes radiated strength. So did his straight, proportioned nose, for some unknown reason to her. A mouth worth exploring. She didn’t understand the potency of her response to him.

Who are you? she nearly asked.

He turned to her, caught what must be her rapturous look, and the tension along his brow tightened. “Do you really jump out of planes?”

“Occasionally.” She was still drowning in his sex appeal.

His eyes scanned all over her face, nothing showing as to what he thought of her favorite sport. “Then go do that instead of a story on my sister.”

While the affront doused the heat simmering in her, he glanced up the street once more.

Lincoln noticed. “Are you being followed?”

“I shouldn’t have come.” He started to walk away.

“Wait.”

Reluctantly, he faced them again. Arizona began to feel contrite. He’d come for help from Lincoln, and she had interfered.

She sighed her exasperation. “All right. I’m leaving.”

Kissing her brother’s cheek, she said to Braden, “Nice to meet you.”

He just watched her, surprise emerging into his nearly unreadable eyes. He hadn’t expected her to back down. Well, she lived with aggressive reporters all the time. While she intended to do a serious story, she couldn’t inflict the same torture on Braden and his sister. She’d just have to find another opportunity.

Making her way down the narrow driveway, she started for her car. The street in this old neighborhood wasn’t wide, leaving little room for cars to pass. The houses were big and close together, with mature trees towering above. All part of the charm.

At the driver’s door, she looked over the hood at Braden and Lincoln, both in an involved conversation. She had to force herself not to go back and insist on Braden allowing her to join him. She could help him. Even if she didn’t do a story, she could help him find his sister. It killed her that she wouldn’t be able to. Not doing anything filled her with that familiar helplessness. She hated that feeling. And she’d do anything to make it go away. Usually that meant being proactive. But she couldn’t now. Braden—and her brother—wouldn’t let her.

She hoped they found Braden’s sister. Maybe there was a way she could help from here in the States. She’d do something. She had to. She couldn’t back off and do nothing. Not when there was a woman who’d disappeared in the Caribbean. It was too much like her fiancé’s situation to ignore. She didn’t know Braden’s sister, but that didn’t matter. Trevor was gone forever because she’d done nothing to help him. If she could help Braden, in any way, she would.

Hearing a car approach, she waited for it to pass before opening her door. When it didn’t, she looked back to see that the white BMW they’d seen earlier had stopped in the middle of the road and a man was coming toward her. Large and muscular, he wore a black, long-sleeved shirt with black jeans and boots.

She began to back away but she wasn’t fast enough. He pounced on her, grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the BMW.

“Let go of me!” She struggled, her resistance hurting her arm where he held her roughly. He opened the passenger’s door of the BMW.

He was taking her.

She put her foot against the doorframe to keep him from shoving her inside, screaming.

Where was her brother?

Just then, the stranger’s grip vanished and she fell to the pavement. As she bumped her head on the rear fender of her car, she heard gunfire. Scrambling to her feet, she took cover behind her car and searched for her brother and Braden. The stranger was firing at both men. Braden had ducked behind the tree in Lincoln’s front yard. Lincoln lay on the ground, gripping his knee in agony.

The man backed toward her, gun aimed toward the front yard. Arizona moved to the other side of her car as Braden crawled to Lincoln and dragged him to the cover of the tree.

Arizona froze as the man aimed his gun at her. He grabbed her arm again, methodical and sure. Terrifying. Fleetingly, she wondered if this was how Trevor had felt when he’d been taken.

She stumbled as the man yanked her back against his chest and forced her with him around the rear of her car. He put his gun to her head just as Braden emerged from the cover of her car. Somehow he’d made it from the tree to there. She strained to see Lincoln. He must have seated himself up behind the tree.

Something whizzed by her ear, disturbing her hair. She realized it was Braden’s foot when the gun went flying. The man released her to face his opponent. Arizona stumbled with the abruptness of it and landed near the curb on her hands, yelping with the hard, rough contact.

Hurrying to her feet, she saw swinging legs and blocking hands as the two men fought between the vehicles. The gun was on the road behind her car. She started for it as Braden delivered a well-planted kick and the stranger fell closer to it than her.

The man took the gun and rolled to aim it at Braden.

Seeing Braden lunge for cover on the other side of her car, Arizona crawled along the sidewalk as the spray of loud gunfire erupted.

The next thing she heard was the squeal of tires and the revving of a fast engine. Climbing to her feet, she braced herself by the front fender of her car. Braden rose from where he’d crouched in the front as the BMW disappeared down the street.

Lincoln.

“Lincoln!” She ran for her brother, who still held his shot and bleeding knee, leaning against the tree.

Braden was already calling for help.