Criminal Promises
She’s been targeted
for murder. Is she the one in need of rescuing?
Seasoned, act-first-ask-questions-later
Detective BD Harte is assigned to protect Maggie Sullivan when
she’s targeted by an escaped serial killer he’d put away a year
earlier. Getting up close and personal with the sensuous widow he
felt an inappropriate temptation for threatens BD’s emotional
distance. Attraction quickly flares into an irresistible passion,
forcing him to wage a battle of self-control, while memories rip
open an old wound, awakening his longing for the life he almost
had…and still covets.
After one too many violent taunts shatter her
sense of security, single mother Maggie Sullivan invites Detective
Harte to conduct his all-night stakeouts from inside her home. When
her home is again broken into and she discovers Harte’s been
investigating her late husband, she struggles with her attraction
to him. But the comfort she finds in his arms, his understanding
and tenderness, and the passion he awakens triggers yearnings she’d
long ago given up on…and still desires.
Can two wounded hearts come together as one
in time… Or will the killer seeking a powerful key to nuclear
weaponry ensure they never have the chance?
eBooks are
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Published by Nikki
Duncan
Edited by Catherine
Wayne
Cover by Nikki Duncan
Criminal Promises
Copyright © 2012 by Nikki
Duncan
ISBN: 978-0-9852147-0-8
This book is a work of fiction.
The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the
writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to
be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead,
actual events, locale or organizations is entirely
coincidental.
All Rights Are Reserved. No part
of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without
written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in critical articles and reviews.
First electronic publication:
March 2012
Criminal
Promises
Nikki Duncan
To CIS, for your constant support.
To Scott Nova, for being
such an amazing cover model.
Bottles and diapers and…a raccoon?
“You rotten shit. Get
out…” Maggie Sullivan grunted as she swung the broom, chasing an
irritated raccoon through the kitchen.
Not that she expected it to listen, but the
destruction the overgrown rodent or mammal or whatever it was had
caused in the few hours she’d been gone had her cringing. She would
get her sister back for taking the kids and leaving. Even if Grace
hadn’t know about the hidden cretin.
The raccoon jumped on the
couch and scattered cushions before jumping to the coffee table and
back to the floor in a flurry of magazines. “Arrrggh.”
Maggie thought of herself
as a calm woman, but she teetered on violence. She’d spent the
morning in her office—was nowhere near finished with the website
she’d been contracted for—and had several more hours of work still
to do. Now was not the time for Jared to resume his childish
pranks.
She closed in on the
raccoon and lifted the broom to swat at it.
I feel like a rodeo clown chasing a bull out of the arena. At
least they don’t have to clean a mess afterward.
The raccoon spun around and ran under a
corner table, knocking her favorite decorative bowl to the carpeted
floor with a muffled thud and headed to the bedrooms. At least the
bedroom and office doors were closed. If Jared thought a raccoon
made a good pet… He had another think coming.
Maggie hustled down the hall, shooing her
furry nemesis. She just had to herd it to the door where hopefully
its survival instinct would have it running outside. Then she would
worry about setting things back in order.
Had she honestly been
thinking she missed Jared’s stunts? The kid watched too many
Crocodile Hunter
reruns.
Head down, Maggie followed
the beast around the corner into the entryway. “About time you get
there.”
“It’s a nice
neighborhood,” a deep-timbered masculine voice said from the
doorway. “But leaving your door open isn’t smart.”
Maggie screamed. Her heart slammed into her
ribs. She swung the broom up like a golf club to fend off the
intruder, smacked the raccoon in the rear. It squealed and slammed
into denim-clad legs.
A giant man crashed to the porch. The raccoon
skittered across the man and scurried to freedom. Maggie barely
managed to stop herself from spinning in a circle as her makeshift
weapon flew through the air, missing her target.
With the man already down, she raised the
broom again, ready to pop him. She’d slam the door and lock it, but
his tree-trunk legs lay across the threshold. Still, if he made a
wrong move…
She wouldn’t miss again. No one would
threaten her or her kids. Not if he wanted to keep walking.
“What is wrong with you?”
The man demanded with a slight rasp.
She didn’t bother answering as she braced
herself with a stronger stance and committed his appearance to
memory. Her gaze slid past his legs and over a strong, broad torso.
His wide, square jaw suited his broad mouth and full lips, which
sat in a harsh scowl. A bump hinting at a bad boy side marred his
strong nose. Close-set, cobalt eyes glared up from his prone
position. Light brown, wavy hair, still just a little too long,
brushed his collar.
Crap.
Chills of dread slithered along her spine. Those eyes—and the
rest of his oddly intriguing face—had haunted her dreams for nearly
a year.
Detective BD Harte.
His spicy scent reminded
her of the cloves she sometimes cooked with and fully clothed he
put half-naked romance cover models to shame. That hard body would
be a masterpiece uncovered.
Whoa! So not
the time for fantasies.
“I realize we didn’t meet
on good terms before, but I didn’t expect to be attacked,” he said
as he pushed himself to his elbows.
Her pounding heart plummeted. She stumbled
back, vividly recalling the other times she’d seen the man
currently sprawled at her feet. In dreams, he’d sprawled naked on
her bed. In person, he avoided her. Or he had at the courthouse
when she’d attended the closing day of trial and tried to thank him
for helping her, to thank him for ensuring her husband’s killer
went to prison.
Her stomach dropped like a
lead balloon. The broom slipped from her grip, landing on his chest
and making him flinch. “Who’s dead?”
“Sorry?” Harte’s brows
pleated as he flicked her makeshift weapon aside.
Sorry.
Maggie’s shaking hand covered her mouth. He’d said that just
before shattering her world.
Sorry, Mrs.
Sullivan. There’s been an accident. Your husband, Mike, didn’t make
it.
“Why are you here? Who
have I lost now?” She released a shaky breath. The kids were at the
water park with Grace. Safe. She couldn’t lose them.
“No one I’m aware of.”
Detective Harte jumped to his feet in a lithe move.
“Then why are you here?”
Relief wiggled her knees and threatened to take her to the ground
beside him. She contracted her muscles refusing to be weak.
She
would
control
herself this time.
“We need to talk.” His
hard, unreadable eyes regarded her as he pointed behind him. “What
the hell was that?”
Startled, either by his move or the shivers
his voice sent down her spine, she raised her gaze. He towered over
her by at least six inches. Lean and ropey, he was harnessed
power.
She bit her bottom lip to
suppress a nervous giggle. How crazy was it to find his irritation
sexy? Or to have her mind jump to the sexy image of him in a prone
position naked in her bed? “My son Jared’s latest attempt at a pet.
Is my family safe?”
“As far as I know, yes.
Why don’t you get the kid a fish?”
“They keep dying.” His
presence scared her, but she remembered tenderness. The way he’d
held her. And he’d gotten right to the point of delivering the bad
news. He was alert and edgy, but not as foreboding as last time. He
wouldn’t be talking about fish if something had happened to her
family. She sagged against the wall as her mind settled.
“Suicide,” Harte muttered.
“Smart fish.”
“What are you doing here,
Detective Harte?” As soon as the words left her mouth, his slightly
cynical smirk slid away to a flat, blank look. Her throat
tightened, her stomach jittered, her heart hammered.
“I need to ask you some
questions, Mrs. Sullivan.”
“About…?”
Something that’s going to screw up my life
again.
Harte stood on the
threshold and looked over her shoulder into the living room,
clicking his tongue. “Raccoon do all that?”
“Yes.” Maggie looked over
her shoulder at the havoc. She twitched and turned away. The image
wouldn’t budge from her mind. “What questions?”
Harte leaned back and
looked briefly down the street, clearly wanting to be somewhere,
anywhere else. “Can I come in?”
Get to the point
already!
“Sure.” She led the way into the
living room, which resembled a hurricane’s path, and motioned him
toward a chair. She straightened the scattered pillows on the sofa
and sat. Five minutes. He could have five minutes before the mess
made her skin itch with the need to clean it.
“There’s been a death in
the park down the street. Would you mind looking at a photo for
me?”
Murder.
Homicide detectives didn’t go door to door for a natural
death or an accident. She braced herself for the possibility of
seeing someone she knew, cared for. She already knew the feeling of
tragedy. While hoping she wouldn’t know the victim, she felt
horrible for anyone who did. “Okay.”
He reached into his jacket
and pulled out a photo. “Do you know this woman?”
It was a headshot. Closed eyes. Colorless
skin.
“No. She looks like me.”
Her skin crawled. Hadn’t she dealt with enough death? And this had
been close. Too close.
“Not really.” He cleared
his throat.
The once beautiful woman
was lifeless. Her pain and horror-filled eyes stared straight at
the camera. A purplish discoloration marred her left cheek. “Who is
she?”
“We believe her last name
is Dane. We’re hoping someone in the area might know
more.”
“Sorry. I don’t know her.”
Maggie’s throat ached with sadness and remembered grief. The
woman’s family would soon face the helplessness and devastation of
loss. The unanswerable question
why
would taunt them.
Time dulled the gripping pain, but it never
seemed to go away. Even the shared grief and support of her own
family hadn’t eased Maggie’s agony. Her relief had come when
Detective Harte had held her and offered condolences. His words had
been the same he likely offered to anyone else, and though he’d
seemed to intimately understand what she’d face, as if he’d faced
similar loss, she’d gotten the impression he didn’t make a habit of
comforting family members left behind.