Paula Graves - Secret Assignment

Shannon put her arm around the older woman. “I don’t know Gideon very well, but if there’s one thing I’m pretty sure about, it’s that he’s a big, tough guy who knows how to take care of himself. They don’t call marines Devil Dogs for nothing, right?”

Lydia managed a smile. “My husband was appalled that Ford—our son—joined the Marine Corps. Edward was a soldier, through and through. Only the army was good enough for him.”

“One of my cousins was in the navy, and two of his younger brothers were marines. He thinks they’re lower than pig snot.” At Lydia’s surprised laugh, Shannon chuckled a little herself. “Not that he really thinks that—Sam and Luke are both the best, and J.D. knows it. But families are like that, I guess. Got to keep everyone in the right pecking order.”

“I wish we’d given Ford a brother or sister. Perhaps it would be easier—” Lydia stopped and shook her head. “I don’t suppose anything would make it easier.”

Shannon started to respond, but a faint scrape outside the door stopped her in mid-breath. She tugged Lydia behind her and pulled her GLOCK, edging her way forward.

There was no peephole in the front door, only a narrow pane of glass about five and a half feet above the ground, clearly placed there by a tall man, because she had to rise on tiptoes to see anything.

A large, shadowy figure climbed the last porch step and scooted out of sight, moving quickly and smoothly.

“Someone’s outside,” she whispered to Lydia.

“Is it Gideon?”

“I can’t tell,” she whispered back. “You need to find someplace to hide, Lydia.”

“My Remington and I will stay right here,” Lydia retorted. She cocked the rifle for emphasis, making Shannon grin in spite of the terror rising like bile in her throat.

A faint rattle of the door handle set her into motion. She slid sideways to flatten herself against the wall by the door.

Like all Cooper Security employees, including clerks and interns, Shannon had undergone rigorous self-defense and crisis management courses before she’d been allowed to work for the company. One of the things she’d been taught was how to disarm an armed intruder.

Considering how much her family babied her, Shannon had despaired of ever having reason to use that particular skill. But now that the opportunity was upon her, she was beginning to appreciate just what her family had been trying to protect her from.

Tension as thick as any she’d ever known. Rage at being forced to even think about drawing a weapon on a fellow human being. And the gnawing, sickening fear that she was going to have to pull the trigger and take someone’s life.

But she had no time to dwell on any of those emotions, for the front door creaked open and the large figure pushed inside, immediately swinging his gun arm in a sweeping motion.

Shannon caught his arm as it swung toward her, bringing it downward with a sharp pull while she kept her body safely out of range. She banged her knee hard against the back of the intruder’s knee, knocking him off balance. They both hit the floor in a tangle, the intruder landing atop her with a low groan, pinning her to the hard pine.

The intruder’s left hand found her weapon hand, anchoring it in place against the floor before she could bring up the GLOCK. His right hand swept up her body, pausing for a moment at the curve of her breast, his touch firm and shockingly intimate. She tried to bring her knee up between his legs, but the intruder trapped her leg between his knees, blocking her ploy. His hand fell away from her breast.

Suddenly, light filled the room, so bright she had to squint against the painful contraction of her pupils. She peered up at her captor, her body going from hot to cold to hot again in a span of seconds, making her shiver.

“You’re not much for staying put, are you?” Gideon asked, gazing back at her with amusement in his intensely blue eyes.

Chapter Five

“Are you certain you didn’t touch anything in the service room that might have repaired the connection to the foghorn?” Gideon asked from his lookout spot on the widow’s walk. Lydia had gone to her bedroom to rest, although he doubted she’d be able to sleep much after all the excitement of the evening. But Shannon had insisted on staying with him on watch from his perch atop Stafford House.

Despite the continuing danger and his lack of a foolproof plan to combat it, Gideon’s mind kept returning again and again to the feel of Shannon’s firm, softly rounded breast against his palm. He had never had quite so much trouble focusing on an imminent threat before. He didn’t like feeling out of control.

“I didn’t touch anything. I barely walked into the service room before I went out on the catwalk,” Shannon insisted. “I didn’t know what I was looking for, and I thought the connector might be on the outside, where the horns are.”

She stood at the opposite end of the front railing from him, her voice carrying lightly on the night breeze. She looked alert and businesslike, her GLOCK in its holster on her hip, the snap unfastened for easy retrieval. If she was tired from her earlier exertions, it didn’t show. Must be nice, he thought wearily, to be young.

“That must have been loud, having it go off right by you.”

“Scared the hell out of me,” she admitted with a sheepish grin. “And going out on that catwalk already had me on edge. Literally.”

He followed her troubled gaze to the lighthouse, not sure whether he should feel angry that she and his boss had ventured out into the night against his express orders or glad that she’d managed, however accidentally, to sound the alarm just in time.

“They knew the horn was a signal to Terrebonne Fire and Rescue,” he murmured. “They’ve done their homework.”

Shannon moved closer to him, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were cold. He clenched his fists on the balcony railing, quelling the urge to pull her close and warm her with the fire burning low in his own belly. “I’m sorry about earlier,” he said.

Her eyes flickered up to meet his. “In your house?”

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