Shelter from the Storm (Finley Creek Book 2)

  Other Titles by

  Calle J. Brookes

  Paranormal

  DARDANOS, CO.

  The Blood King

  Awakening the Demon’s Queen

  The Healer’s Heart

  Once Wolf Bitten

  Live or Die

  The Seer’s Strength

  The Warrior’s Woman

  The Wolf’s Redemption

  A Warrior’s Quest

  The Wolf God & His Mate

  Out of the Darkness

  Warrior Blind

  The Witch

  Balance of the Worlds

  God of Nightmares

  DARDANOS, CO: THE ADRASTOS

  The Outcast

  The Forlorn

  The Beloved

  Romantic Suspense

  PAVAD: FBI Romantic Suspense

  Beginning

  Waiting

  Watching

  Wanting

  Second Chances

  Hunting

  Running

  Redeeming

  Revealing

  Stalking

  Burning

  Gathering

  FINLEY CREEK Mainstream Fiction

  Her Best Friend’s Keeper

  Shelter from the Storm

  Suspense/Thriller

  PAVAD: FBI CASE FILES

  PAVAD: FBI Case Files #0001

  “Knocked Out”

  PAVAD: FBI Case Files #0002

  “Knocked Down”

  PAVAD: FBI Case Files #0003

  “Knocked Around”

  Coming Soon

  The Healer’s Soul (Dardanos, Co.)

  Falling (PAVAD: FBI Romantic Suspense)

  The Price of Silence (Finley Creek)

  The Betrayed (Dardanos, Co: The Adrastos)

  CALLE J. BROOKES is first and foremost a fiction writer. She enjoys crafting paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She reads almost every genre except horror. She spends most of her time juggling family life and writing, while reminding herself that she can’t spend all of her time in the worlds found within books. Calle J. loves to be contacted by her readers via email and at www.CalleJBrookes.com.

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  SHELTER

  From THE

  STORM

  Calle J. Brookes

  Lost River Lit Publishing, L.L.C.

  Springs Valley, Indiana

  Est. 2011

  The Lost River Lit Publishing, L.L.C. name and imprint are the sole properties of independent publishers Calle J. Brookes and B.G. Lashbrooks. They cannot be reproduced or used in any manner; nor can any of their publications or designs be used without expressed written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, or locations, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Copyright © 2016 Calle J. Brookes

  Cover by Lost River Lit Publishing, L.L.C.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-940937-12-0

  SHELTER

  FROM THE

  STORM

  FINLEY CREEK

  BOOK 2

  What I am looking for

  is not out there,

  it is in me.

  -Helen Keller

  CHAPTER ONE.

  * * *

  THERE was a strange woman sitting in his car, demanding he take her home with him. Any other night and he might just have considered it.

  But not tonight. Not when his brother Elliot was counting on him to keep the woman Elliot loved safe.

  “Get out of my car.” Chance Marshall leaned over the redhead who had instilled herself in the passenger seat of his rented SUV. She didn’t back away.

  There was no way in hell he was taking this woman back to Texas with him tonight. He didn’t even know who she was. Not really.

  Just a vague family connection that she had claimed. If he did know her, it had been well over ten years since he’d seen her, hadn’t it? Why had she climbed into his car and refused to get out? What was he supposed to do with her?

  “No. And don’t curse at me. I don’t like it.” She leaned her carrot-red head back against the seat. “Get in the car, Chance. Or don’t you care that I found something that may help you? May help your brother?”

  Chance had never laid his hand on a woman before in his life—with a few notable exceptions while on the job with the Texas State Police and the Texas Rangers back in the early days of his career—but this woman left him no choice.

  He grabbed her arm with one hand, then slipped his other hand under her long skinny legs and gripped. He pulled.

  She got caught in the seatbelt. She hooked her arm around the headrest. He cursed again. Then again when she laughed. “I do not need this right now. Get out.”

  She smiled, then pushed the sunglasses up to rest on the top of her head, revealing pretty light brown eyes. “Tough. Gabby’s my best friend. One of my only friends, to be honest. If she’s in trouble, I’m going to be there.”

  Gabby was the woman his brother had feelings for, the woman his brother was going all ape-shit overprotective over. The woman some asshole had terrified. Threatened. The fact that this girl mentioned Gabby and the trouble the other woman was in told him that she probably was a genuine family connection. And a very loyal one, apparently. He admired the sentiment, but the stupidity…it was beyond foolish. “Don’t be a damned idiot. What are you going to do to protect her?”

  Light brown eyes bore right through him. “Whatever I have to. Gabby’s my best friend, Chance. And I love her.”

  For the life of him he thought the girl meant it. And she was a girl in a lot of ways. At first glance he’d thought she was younger than she actually was, but she was still a good decade younger than him. And innocent. Very naïve.

  What the hell was she thinking getting in a strange man’s car this way? Didn’t she have any more self-preservation than this? “What’s your name? Why did you track me down?”

  “You don’t remember me. That’s ok. I’m Brynna. I was just a little girl when we knew each other. My father and mother were good friends with your parents. But you were a teenager when I was there the most. And then…after you moved out, I was there quite a bit. We didn’t see you very much. Which was ok, because I know you never liked me. I never really liked you, either.”

  He vaguely recalled a bunch of redheaded girls in his parents’ home. Had she been one of them? “Why are you really here?”

  She stared at him for a moment out of those disconcerting eyes. This girl-woman had eyes that could twist a man’s gut into real knots, didn’t she? “I’ve found something, I think. And Gabby said you were nearby.”

  “So why are you in St. Louis?” How the hell had this creature found him? He’d always paid cash for everything, and there wasn’t anyone other than his brother that he’d told where he’d be. And even that was just an occasional occurrence. He wasn’t exactly the type that was easily tethered.

  “My sister is here, with PAVAD. Have you heard of it? I tracked your cell phone to find you, after Gabby told me you were up here when we were chatting online earlier today.”

  Of course he had heard of the FBI’s PAVAD division. He had contacts in every federal agency in the country—contacts he’d deliberately cultivated in his work—and he’d heard quite a bit about the relatively new FBI unit that was supposedly unstoppable.

  He’d used this trip to speak to a St. Louis field agent
who’d worked the murder of Chance’s family ten years earlier. Chance had been called to St. Louis speak to a grand jury about a previous kidnapping case he’d worked as a private investigator.

  Ten years ago he’d been assigned to the same team as Art Kendall. Chance had wanted to get the guy’s impressions about that day.

  He wasn’t so sure he trusted the reports the Texas State Police had given him.

  And Chance would be following every lead, no matter how long it took. “Aren’t I just the lucky one?”

  He’d met with the field agent after the man’s shift had ended, which was why Chance was in the FBI parking garage at nearly eight at night. The parking garage shared with PAVAD. Had the girl been waiting for him all this time? In a dark garage, alone? With little defenses?

  Damn it, the girl-woman needed a keeper.

  She blinked up at him; in the dim light of the interior lamp her skin glowed and her eyes were remarkable. What was it with those eyes of hers? They were gorgeous, but made him feel like a damned slug. “I don’t really understand sarcasm. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. Why are you lucky?”

  Was she for real?

  “Never mind. Other than Gabby’s friend, who are you exactly? What do you know about my brother?”

  “I have something that is extremely pertinent to the murder investigation that I know you are still working. But I need to speak with my bosses before I can share it. But I didn’t want to wait to talk to Benny. I wanted to talk to the chief of my TSP post. Your brother. Elliot. What I found is going to be hard on Gabby. I was chatting with her to check on her and she said you were up here, too. I don’t drive. You are going back there. It was logical that we ride together. So I found you myself.” She grinned at him, revealing dimples and a beautiful smile complete with a tiny gap between her front teeth.

  “So you came up this way to show me?”

  “No. Not exactly. I was here anyway, I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law, who both work with PAVAD. I need to get back to Texas tonight. And I need to check on her. On Gabby. She tends to freak out over scary stuff like this. Since it’s about your family it made the most sense that I find you and you drive me home. See. Logical. Logical.”

  “Let me get this straight...Gabby’s with my brother. I know that part. But you aren’t capable of finding your own way home? How exactly is that working out for you?”

  “I have found my way home. You. I don’t drive. I never learned. We have a common purpose. You want to catch the bastards who killed your family. So do I.”

  Why did the word bastard coming from her lips sound so wrong? Because of the sweet doll-like appearance? The obvious innocence on her face? Chance pushed those thoughts away. This girl was bound to give a decent man fits. An honorable one. He wasn’t the least bit decent, and he was for damned sure not honorable. He didn’t have the time to screw around with this girl. Woman. Girl-woman, that’s what he would call her—it suited her better.

  But he doubted he was getting her out of his car any time soon.

  “Of course I want to find the killers.”

  “So do I. So does Gabby. And your brother, too. Shouldn’t we work together on that? I’m very good at what I do, you know? Some of my work is now being used by the FBI. By the FBI. It’s cutting edge, or so they say. You drive me home; I’ll work in the car. I share what I have, you do the same. An I-show-you mine, you-show-me-yours kind of thing. Except with clothes on.”

  Seriously? This girl-woman was just asking for trouble someday, wasn’t she?

  “Who controls you? You have a family out there? One of your sisters? Parents? Handlers?” Someone had to. There was no way this creature had been released on the unsuspecting world completely on her own, right?

  She stared at him for a moment. “I don’t think I understand you. I live with my father, if that’s what you’re asking. My mother died five years ago. Five. He’s home now. He and your dad were partners twenty years ago, you know?”

  “Beck. You are one of Kevin Beck’s daughters.” That made things perfectly clear. He’d met Kevin Beck on many occasions, and had liked and respected the man. Beck had been a little younger than his dad, and had four or five kids, all a little younger than Sara and Slade. And all girls, he thought. All red-haired pretty girls who gave everyone who knew them fits. This was one of them, then. He tried to recall if any had had hair quite that carroty. There had been one. And he hadn’t liked her when he’d been a teenager, had he? Something about her had annoyed the hell out of him back then. “Your dad should have whipped your ass years ago. You don’t get into strange men’s cars. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

  She looked at him like he was the idiot. “You’re not strange. Well, not unknown strange, I mean. You may do weird things that I don’t know about, though. I guess you could be strange that way. I’ve known your family my entire life. Known you. Known you. You poured pancake batter on my head when I was six. Which was really mean. And your brother is with my best friend right now. See? I do know you.”

  “Still. You don’t know me now. I could kill you, beat you, rob you, rape you, assault you right now, and then dump you along a dark road somewhere. Or bury you. Where you’ll never be found. Have you thought about that?” He leaned down in the open passenger door. Because the girl was for damned sure not getting out. And now that he knew who she was, he couldn’t just kick her to the curb and let whatever happened to her happen, could he?

  Kevin Beck had been his sister’s godfather. His parents had reciprocated with the Beck brat closest in age to his sister…the one with…the carroty red hair. This girl. Damn it.

  That meant something to Chance. It had to.

  Like it or not, he was stuck with her for a while, wasn’t he? At least until he delivered her to her father, along with a clear lecture to her and a reprimand for the older man for letting her out of his sight long enough for her to get into trouble.

  He got close enough that he could see the faint flecks of gold in those peculiar brown eyes of hers. She didn’t so much as flinch away, though he knew having him in her personal space like that had to bother her. Hell, it would bother him. But this one was an extremely cool little customer. “What do you say about that?”

  “I’d say I’ve already texted my sister Mel and told her where I was and who I was with.” She smiled at him like she’d won something. “And Jarrod. I texted him, too. He gets a little freaked out if he doesn’t know where I’m at or what I am doing. Especially this late at night.”

  “Who’s Jarrod?” Boyfriend, possibly? She was a damned beautiful—if irritating—girl-woman. There had to be a guy involved somewhere.

  “Jarrod’s with the TSP. Detective Foster.” Chance remembered him; he’d met Foster hanging around Gabby. For some reason he couldn’t see this girl-woman with Foster, though. The other guy was too hard, too cynical to be with a girl-woman like this. “In your brother’s post. He’s a detective. And a friend. But…shouldn’t you get in and start driving? We have a long night ahead of us. And I think it’s going to storm some more.”

  “It’s not going to storm.”

  “Oh, I think it will.”

  * * *

  IT stormed. Chance should have known it would. It didn’t seem to bother his companion, who’d slipped earbuds in delicate little ears.

  Something about Brynna Beck bothered the hell out of him. Made him a bit snarly. And if she was the Beck he was remembering, always had. Whenever she’d been around, she’d grate on his nerves to the point he’d want to scream.

  It was the way she looked at him, the way she talked. She used to repeat everything anyone ever said in a monotone, like a voice recorder. She didn’t seem to do that now. It had driven him nuts. As had the way everything normal had seemed to bother her as a kid. He tried to recall the last time he’d seen her—had she been at the funerals? He didn’t remember. No surprise—he’d buried four members of his immediate family that day.

  He looked at her—she had t
o be around twenty-three or twenty-four. A little younger than his sister Sara would have been. Kevin Beck had brought his family to Chance’s college graduation, hadn’t he? That was the last time he remembered seeing the Beck family, when he’d been twenty-two.

  So this girl would have been about twelve then. He vaguely recalled a thin little girl hiding behind sunglasses and headphones. She’d told him congratulations, then followed her older sister to the duck pond nearby. He hadn’t given her another thought since then.

  This was that girl.

  He looked at the sunglasses on her head. The headphones in her ears. Some things hadn’t changed, had they?

  She shifted and he was just able to make out the full-grown female curves in the dim glow from her laptop.

  Well, some things had changed over the last ten years, hadn’t they?

  She thrummed. Practically vibrated in the passenger seat of the rental. Her bag was at her feet and her fingers typed at the speed of a freight train. She’d occasionally hum, little sounds of concentration that seriously pissed him off. Made him wonder when else she would hum. What else would please her enough to have her making that sound.

  Did that damned Foster make her do that?

  She’s promised to show him hers. He was manfully keeping his thoughts on the professional, rather than the other areas of his body that idea, that image, flooded. Trying to, anyway.

  This was his parents’ goddaughter. That they’d been dead ten years mattered little to his body.

  Kevin Beck’s annoying little daughter. Hell. He’d never had a thing for younger women before. He wasn’t about to start now.