Delores Fossen - Reining in Justice

Reed felt that punch again.

The one he darn sure shouldn’t be feeling right about now.

Not with them so close and her mouth just a few inches from his.

A part of him—definitely not his brain—reminded him that a kiss wouldn’t be such a bad thing right now. Their nerves were raw and frayed. Emotions, sky-high. And a kiss might be the ticket to settling them both down.

It was a bad lie, of course.

But the majority of Reed’s body just went along with it, and he lowered his head and kissed Addison.

If he thought he’d gotten an avalanche of memories before, that was nothing compared to what he got now. This wasn’t one of those little pecks of reassurance. The heat went bone-deep, and it silenced any part of him that was trying to stay logical and keep away from her.

There was nothing logical about this.

Reining in Justice

Delores Fossen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DELORES FOSSEN, a USA TODAY bestselling author, has sold over fifty novels with millions of copies of her books in print worldwide. She’s received the Booksellers’ Best Award and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, and was a finalist for a prestigious RITA ®Award. You can contact the author through her webpage at www.dfossen.net.

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Contents

Cover

Introduction Reed felt that punch again. The one he darn sure shouldn’t be feeling right about now. Not with them so close and her mouth just a few inches from his. A part of him—definitely not his brain—reminded him that a kiss wouldn’t be such a bad thing right now. Their nerves were raw and frayed. Emotions, sky-high. And a kiss might be the ticket to settling them both down. It was a bad lie, of course. But the majority of Reed’s body just went along with it, and he lowered his head and kissed Addison. If he thought he’d gotten an avalanche of memories before, that was nothing compared to what he got now. This wasn’t one of those little pecks of reassurance. The heat went bone-deep, and it silenced any part of him that was trying to stay logical and keep away from her. There was nothing logical about this.

Title Page Reining in Justice Delores Fossen www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author DELORES FOSSEN , a USA TODAY bestselling author, has sold over fifty novels with millions of copies of her books in print worldwide. She’s received the Booksellers’ Best Award and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, and was a finalist for a prestigious RITA ® Award. You can contact the author through her webpage at www.dfossen.net .

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

There was blood on the porch.

That kicked up Deputy Reed Caldwell’s pulse a significant notch. He’d already drawn his Colt .45, but he called for backup because this wasn’t looking good.

He walked to the end of the porch, his breath mixing with the early morning air and causing a filmy haze around him. Reed peered into the window of the dining room and saw that the table and chairs had been toppled over. There’d been some kind of struggle.

Mercy. What was going on?

No sign of any intruders or the owner—his ex-wife, Addison.

But Reed was pretty sure she was inside somewhere. Alive. Or at least she had been a few minutes earlier when she’d made a frantic nine-one-one call to the Sweetwater Springs Sheriff’s Office. Reed had intercepted the call because he’d been on his way home after pulling a night shift and was driving right by her place.

“Someone’s trying to break in.”

That was the only thing Addison had managed to say before the line went dead. There was no bad weather to cause a dead phone line. No maintenance that he’d heard about. Just the frantic one-line message.

Reed hadn’t been sure what to expect when he arrived at the small country house Addison had recently inherited, but he’d parked by her mailbox, twenty yards or so from the house so that the sound of his truck engine wouldn’t alert anyone. Even with the extra precaution, Reed had figured this would turn out to be a false alarm. Or else he’d find Addison cowering inside while some would-be burglars were making their escape.

But he definitely hadn’t expected blood. Or the toppled furniture.

Maneuvering around the drops of blood, he turned the doorknob. It was unlocked. And he eased open the front door. Reed wasn’t a blood expert, but there were more drops in the foyer, and it looked like high-velocity spatter as if someone had been hit hard.

It didn’t take him long to see that more stuff had been knocked down in the entry. A small table. The landline phone that’d been ripped from the wall.

Most noticeable, though—an empty infant car seat.

Since Addison had recently adopted a baby, the seat wasn’t unexpected, but it put a knot in Reed’s gut to see it tossed on its side like that.

Where was the baby?

And where the heck was Addison?

If it was her blood, then she’d clearly been hurt. Maybe hurt badly enough that she couldn’t even call out to him.

That didn’t help the knot in his stomach.

His backup wouldn’t be there for at least fifteen minutes, but Reed didn’t want to waste any more time in case she was bleeding out. Listening, he quietly stepped inside, pivoted, checking every visible corner of the house. No one was in his line of sight, but he heard some movement in the adjacent living room. He peered around the edge of the wall, and his heart walloped against his chest.

Addison .

There was blood on her forehead and smeared in the side of her light brown hair. Her eyes were wide, and there was a large swatch of silver duct tape covering her mouth. The same tape had been used to tie her hands and feet, but despite the restraints, she was frantically trying to crawl toward him.

Still keeping watch around them, Reed hurried to her and eased back the tape from her mouth.

“They’re upstairs,” she whispered, the words rushing out with her breath. She tried to crawl again while fighting to get her hands and ankles free.

“Who’s up there?” Reed asked, looking in that direction.

“I think they’re kidnappers.”

Hell. Sweetwater Springs wasn’t a perfect town, but he hadn’t expected kidnappers to break into someone’s house.

“Get me out of this,” Addison insisted, still fighting the tape.

Reed pulled out his pocketknife, sliced through the layers, but the moment that Addison was free, she sprang to her feet. Or rather she tried. She stumbled and probably would have fallen if Reed hadn’t caught onto her. She smacked right against him and into his arms.

Despite the nightmare of the moment, that gave him a jolt of memories. Of when they’d been married and she’d been in his arms for a totally different reason. However, Reed shoved those memories aside and instead focused on trying to hold back an injured woman who was hell-bent on barreling up the stairs where she could be killed.