Justine Davis - Always a Hero

Always A Hero

Justine Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Title Page Always A Hero Justine Davis www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author About the Author JUSTINE DAVIS lives on Puget Sound in Washington. Her interests outside of writing are sailing, doing needlework, horseback riding and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course. Justine says that years ago, during her career in law enforcement, a young man she worked with encouraged her to try for a promotion to a position that was at the time occupied only by men. “I succeeded, became wrapped up in my new job, and that man moved away, never, I thought, to be heard from again. Ten years later he appeared out of the woods of Washington state, saying he’d never forgotten me and would I please marry him. With that history, how could I write anything but romance?”

Dedication To all of those who, in whatever kind of uniform, stand between us and the dark side.

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

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Copyright

JUSTINE DAVISlives on Puget Sound in Washington. Her interests outside of writing are sailing, doing needlework, horseback riding and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course.

Justine says that years ago, during her career in law enforcement, a young man she worked with encouraged her to try for a promotion to a position that was at the time occupied only by men. “I succeeded, became wrapped up in my new job, and that man moved away, never, I thought, to be heard from again. Ten years later he appeared out of the woods of Washington state, saying he’d never forgotten me and would I please marry him. With that history, how could I write anything but romance?”

To all of those who, in whatever kind of uniform,

stand between us and the dark side.

“I hate you! I hate this place. I want to go home.”

“I know. Just do it.”

Jordan Price threw down the rake, scattering the leaves he’d just gathered. His father chose not to point out that he’d just guaranteed himself more time spent in the task he loathed.

“I’m never going to be such a jerk to my kids.”

Wyatt Blake smothered a sigh, but managed to keep his tone reasonable; he remembered thinking much worse thoughts about his own father. And at younger than thirteen, too.

So that’s how you want you and Jordan to be? Like you and your father?

He fought down his gut reaction and spoke calmly.

“If you don’t learn to finish what you start, your kids won’t listen to you anyway. If you can even find a woman who’d have them with a man who doesn’t keep his word.”

Yeah, right. You’re such an expert on keeping promises.

“I don’t know why Mom married you anyway.”

“It’s a mystery. Finish.”

The grumbling continued, with a couple of words muttered under the boy’s breath that Wyatt decided not to hear. He had enough on his plate at the moment, trying to keep the kid out of serious trouble, without expending energy on his language. If he didn’t straighten around soon, a few obscenities would be the least of his problems.

Later, when after another battle Jordan had gone to bed, Wyatt went through his nightly ritual at the computer that sat in the corner of the den. Jordan wasn’t allowed to have it in his room, another bone of contention. But tonight something disrupted the usual process; a message alert window popped up. One he had hoped he’d never see.

He went still. Maybe it was a mistake, a computer glitch. They were prone to that, one-time, inexplicable weirdness.

For a long moment he did nothing, postponing the inevitable. A measure of how far he’d come, he supposed, that he didn’t dive in instantly.

Finally, knowing he had no choice, he began the digging process that would take him to the program buried deep within the computer’s file structure. There was no convenient icon for this one, no listing on the menus, no easy way to get there. And once he was there, the encryption was so deep it would take him five minutes to work his way through all the levels.

Assuming he could remember the damned process, let alone the multiple passwords.

In the end it took him six minutes and change. But at last the screen opened. The message was short. Far too short to have the effect it did.

Old acquaintance asking for you. Afraid I gave him wrong directions, but maybe he’ll find you anyway. Was a friendly when you knew him, but keep your eyes open.

He stared at the unsigned message. He didn’t need a signature, there was only one person who knew how to contact him this way. Who knew how to contact him at all. When he’d left that world he’d literally cashed out, cutting all ties. The man who’d sent him this email had spent a great deal of time convincing him to agree to this one thin thread of connection.

The message was innocuous enough on the surface, but he knew better. It was a warning as surely as if it were a fire alarm.

He’d spent most of his adult life knowing his past could catch up with him someday. That past held too many grim memories for him to relish the idea, but that didn’t change the possibility. He’d always looked upon it as a cost of doing business, his business at least.

But now there was Jordan, and that changed everything.

Knowing there was nothing more to be gained by staring at this unexpected jab from the past, he quickly typed one word that would serve as both acknowledgment and thanks, and sent it. Then he deleted the message, reset the encryption and exited. The small but sophisticated program would erase its own tracks as it went, and go back into hiding.

He had a little time, thanks to the misdirection, but he’d have to redouble his watchfulness. In the meantime, with that ability to compartmentalize that had worked so well for him back in those days, he returned to his original task.

When the social networking site was loaded, Wyatt called up the usual page and without a qualm entered the password Jordan didn’t know he knew. Then he hit the next link in the process.

My father has to be the most boring guy on the planet.

The first post since he’d last checked glowed at him.

Wyatt didn’t wince, even inwardly, at the damning—at least in a thirteen-year-old’s view—indictment. In fact, he felt a certain satisfaction. Boredom, he’d often thought, was highly underrated.

He went on reading, scrolling through the entries from where he’d left off last week. Jordan, of course, had no idea he knew the page existed. The boy had never asked if he could do it, had just set it up on his own shortly after they’d moved in. Perhaps he’d known if he’d asked the answer would be no. Better to beg forgiveness later and all that.

And that thought did make him wince. Hadn’t he lived by that credo himself, often enough?

And now Wyatt was glad he’d done it, and was using it against him. At least, that’s what Jordan would think. He went back to reading. He noticed the new friends added, made a note of a meet-up Jordan had been invited to next Saturday night. Invited several times by several people Wyatt already had been wary of after checking their respective pages. He didn’t like the sound of it, so he’d have to make sure his son was otherwise occupied.