Facing the Fire Read online

  Facing the Fire

  Preorder

  Calle J. Brookes

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Clint Gunderson hadn’t wanted it to end like this—but this…

  This was the expected outcome.

  Live by the gun—die by the gun.

  It was about damned time.

  And he was tired of living by the gun.

  That it was at an end felt more than just surreal—it felt damned impossible. Far too many months of his life had gone to this case.

  The worst case of his career.

  It had cost him more than any other case ever had. Tonight, it had almost cost him his closest friend, too.

  He couldn’t live like this anymore.

  Now it was over.

  Finally.

  Clint was finished.

  He never wanted to work law enforcement again.

  He never would.

  He’d made that vow as he’d watched his truck burn to ashes more than five months earlier—after the sonofabitch who now lay dead at his feet had placed C4 beneath his backseat.

  The backseat where his infant daughter normally rode. It had been luck that had had his baby at home that day.

  Never would someone he loved be targeted because of what Clint did ever again. He’d made that vow and meant it.

  Clint was a man of his word.

  He looked at the man standing next to him. His supervisor appeared mean and hard and ready to chew through nails—as an appetizer. To be followed up with a main course of razor blades and glass.

  Rexford Weatherby was just as dangerous as he looked.

  Rex was one of the only close friends Clint had ever had. These past six months or so had just made that even clearer.

  At times, the only one he’d been able to trust at all had been Rex.

  Clint didn’t take that lightly.

  It had come too damned close for Rex with this one, too. Clint had pulled him out of the way of a bullet at the very last moment. It hadn’t been in time—but it had kept Rex alive.

  “I can handle the rest of the details,” Clint said, hoping the man would take the hint. Knowing he wouldn’t.

  Rex nodded. The man looked completely out of place in the meth lab where their suspect had been hiding. Rex’s dark three-piece suit stood out amongst the filth. As did the dark stain growing on the man’s shoulder. “Thought this was never going to end. But we got every damned lackey and mule and runner out there now. It’s finished.”

  Clint hadn’t looked that close at Rex in the heat of the moment. He did now. And cursed.

  “You need to get that taken care of. Now.” Ambulances were on their way. Backup had arrived fifteen minutes ago. Clint could handle things from here.

  Clint knew better than to even say more than that. The man wasn’t stupid. He’d get medical care when he was damned well ready. Nothing Clint said would change that.

  Rex was damned stubborn at times.

  “You leaving town soon, I take it? Do I need to stop by and grab the dog until you get back?”

  “I’m leaving as soon as possible. Taking Kody to Dusty Talley to board him for a few days. My…family…is out there. Somewhere. I’ve waited long enough to find them.”

  His baby girl was out there without him. His Violet. She was almost fifteen months now.

  His world.

  He had no idea where she was. Had no idea if she was safe, happy…alive. He had no clue where she was or whether she needed him right this very moment.

  That knowledge had eaten at him every single night she had been gone.

  Worry for her hit him hard.

  He hadn’t let himself focus on what he was missing. Not for almost six months now.

  He hadn’t been able to, or it would have destroyed him. He had had to make things safe for them all again. Violet and…

  Maggie.

  A sweet, beautiful woman with red hair and big blue eyes. Who had once looked at him like he mattered.

  He missed them. More than he would have ever thought possible.

  His own stupid fault.

  The two people he loved most in this world were out there where he couldn’t get to them.

  So they would be safe from his damned job.

  His job had cost him more than five months of his daughter’s life and the time with Maggie when he could have been convincing her of how he felt about her.

  Convincing her that what they’d had together was real. And not the stupid lies he’d told her back then to protect himself.

  She had to hate him now, for what he’d caused.

  He hated himself for that, too.

  “I’m going to go find my family,” he said, as the sound of sirens split the cold mid-March air. “And bring them home. Where they belong.”

  1

  Home was calling her real hard tonight.

  Maggie Tyler couldn’t answer. She couldn’t even decide whether she wanted to go home, either.

  Someone knocked on her suite door. She hefted Violet up and put the toddler on her hip, ignoring the twinge in her back at the movement.

  Moving around while being the size of a whale was a whole lot difficult, and a whole lot awkward. Violet was getting bigger and bigger every day, as well. It was becoming a little difficult to maneuver her all the time.

  Maggie had to pee again, too. No surprise, she always had to pee now.

  But first, the door. Whoever was out there could hold Violet while Maggie took care of more pressing business. Like waddling to the bathroom. For the three hundredth time in the past hour.

  If she ha
d to hide herself away, at least she was hidden in a place that had multiple staff members who could help.

  Not exactly how she’d imagined this whole pregnancy thing going, but it could be worse.

  She was seven and a half months along now. But looked closer to ten.

  Clint Masterson made big babies. His baby number two had permanently settled on Maggie’s bladder. Where he liked to do tae kwan do. Plus gymnastics.

  "I didn't want to disturb you," Mel said, once Maggie opened the door. Mel had been her savior these past five months. Without her and Mel’s cousin-by-marriage, Brandt, Maggie would have fallen to pieces months ago. “But there is someone at the gates looking for you. Demanding to be let in. Not going away. Once I got a good look at him, I figured you’d want to know. This man…long, tall, and cowboy gorgeous. Looks like he belongs on a western romance novel cover somewhere—and can give any woman the shivers. The good kind of shivers. He could almost give my husband a run for his money. Says he’s here for his woman and his baby and we’d better give them to him now. Was rather insistent on that. Since you’re the only one with a baby here right now…Process of elimination.”

  There were very few possibilities.

  Maggie's mouth suddenly went dry. He was here.

  "Should I have security let him in?” Melody Beck Barratt’s husband was one of the richest men in the US. They were currently at his property in Finley Creek—well guarded behind his stone gates. If she said no, no one would ever be able to get in to her. But…that was just delaying the inevitable. Clint had come for his daughter. He wouldn’t stop until he got her. “Or do you want me to chase him off?”

  Maggie and Violet were safe here. They had protected her and the baby—when they had not had to.

  She would never be able to repay them for that. But…there had always been an end in sight. She’d just somehow thought there would be more planning to it than this. She’d thought there’d be a phone call, and her uncle Phil—a good friend of Mel’s family—would come get her, she’d meet Clint at the airport and return Violet to him.

  As simple as that.

  Then she’d head back to her brothers’ ranch, where she’d stay until she gave birth. With five more than overprotective brothers hovering over her, watching every move she made.

  Or, she’d fly home and introduce Clint to his son. She’d had nightmares that the baby would be born before Clint found her again, and she’d have to pick the name herself. To take that away from him, too.

  Before she went home with her brothers. Back to the 8x10 room she’d spent most of her life in. At least until she could find a place of her own.

  Maggie had never had that. A place that was just hers. A place she could decorate, could put her mark on. The way she would want it. Maggie had never had that.

  She wanted that now. So much.

  "It's Clint, isn't it? He’s finally here."

  He had been bound to find her sooner or later.

  Well, he had been bound to find Violet.

  Clint Gunderson wouldn’t have ever bothered looking for Maggie. Except for one thing—she’d basically abducted his daughter.

  He was in for a nasty shock when he got a good look at Maggie. He’d come for one baby—surprise!

  Clint was getting two.

  She’d never had a chance to tell him about his son, that she was pregnant.

  He would hate her forever when he realized what had happened after that one night they’d slept together.

  It had just been one night.

  Her she was—the punch line of a very bad made-for-TV melodrama.

  “I knew he’d find Violet eventually.”

  “You’re sure it’s just for her he’s here?” Mel asked. “The first words he said to the guard were ‘I’ve come for my woman. My family.’ But the ‘my woman’ was pretty clear. Heard it on the security replay myself. That is one determined man out there.”

  "He means Violet. She’s the only blood family he has left.”

  “He said woman, Mag, not baby. There aren’t a whole lot of possibilities here.”

  “I’m not Clint’s woman. I never have been. He’s…into women like Miranda. Not women like me.” Maggie was just a simple ranch girl who’d never gone to college, would never be anything like Clint’s ex. She was some big-wig with the biggest, best branch of the FBI possible. Miranda Talley was the type of woman men wanted, loved.

  There was no way frumpy Maggie Tyler would have ever been able to compete with Miranda. The other woman was tall, vivacious, gorgeous, smart, successful—and genuinely kind. More than that, Clint opened up with Miranda far more than he ever had Maggie.

  Clint trusted Miranda. Let her get close to him in ways he would never have let Maggie. She’d had five months to figure out what that meant for her.

  She would always come in second to Miranda with Clint. Well, she’d come in third—his late wife Amy and ex-girlfriend Miranda were far ahead of Maggie, nothing more than his housekeeper, in his heart.

  They always would be.

  She’d finally come to terms with that.

  Clint had lost his first wife to a fast cancer that she had chosen not to fight so that Violet would have a safer chance at surviving the birth. She had been a casual friend of Maggie’s for years, one of those women who were genuinely nice and kind.

  Shortly after, he’d lost his only brother.

  Maggie hadn’t fallen for Clint until after she’d seen how his brother’s death had affected him.

  Maggie had fallen for him even more as time had passed. She’d built dreams she shouldn’t have about the broody, mysterious loner who watched her with heat in his eyes.

  She’d let him in.

  The stupidest mistake of her life.

  Her free hand brushed against the spot where Clint Gunderson’s son rested beneath her heart.

  The stupidest—and the best—mistake of her life.

  Her free hand brushed against the spot where Clint Gunderson’s son rested beneath her heart.

  She would never regret the baby she carried. No matter what happened with his father. “Can you take her? I really have to…”

  “I’ll hold her. Go.” Mel slipped into the room and settled on the couch. She always sat down to hold Violet. She was careful not to drop the baby.

  Mel wasn’t as strong physically as she liked people to think.

  Maggie had seen through that pretty quickly.

  Sometimes, someone needed to make Mel take a break. If Mel wouldn’t listen, Maggie had no problem going to Houghton and tattling.

  A .38 caliber bullet too near Mel’s spine had partially paralyzed the former police detective, who was now married to the extremely sexy, extremely wealthy Houghton Barratt.

  Maggie had made it a part of her job to make certain Mel didn’t overdo it, either.

  She liked her life here in Finley Creek County, Texas. Mostly.

  It wasn’t Masterson.

  But Maggie had been able to find a part of herself here—standing on her own two feet as much as she could behind guarded walls—that she doubted she’d ever have been able to find in Masterson, surrounded by overly protective dominant men everywhere she turned.

  Tyler men were worse than stone walls for hemming a woman in at times.

  In Texas, Maggie had figured out who Maggie is.

  She just didn’t know what that meant for her future.

  Because she knew one thing to the bottom of her toes.

  Clint Gunderson wasn’t about to let his son stay in Finley Creek.

  Once he learned the baby even existed.

  Maggie walked with Mel to the elevators after freshening up in the bathroom of her suite. The two had spoken about how Maggie felt concerning Clint dozens of times. There wasn’t much left to say now.

  Maggie still hadn’t fully figured out just how she did feel about him.

  Eight months ago, if someone had asked her if she was in love with Clint Gunderson she would have not hesitated to say yes.

>   She hadn’t known Clint well enough to love him. It had taken her a while to understand that. She’d loved the idea of him, loved how much he loved his daughter, loved how kind he had been to her, but she hadn’t loved him.

  Not the way she had thought.

  He was the second man she had slept with. It had only been the one night. They had used birth control.

  The baby never should have happened.

  But he had. That was what she and Clint would have to focus on.

  Going forward.

  Maggie would move on with her life. She’d felt like she had been in stasis for five months.

  That ended now. It was time to go home.

  To start really living.

  Violet rested her head on Maggie’s shoulder, patting one small hand against Maggie’s protruding belly.

  It was almost time for her nap.

  There was a nursery on the first floor. Violet could sleep there—while Maggie dealt with the child’s father.

  She just hoped she was ready.

  Now or never.

  She walked with Mel to the family room on the first floor. A man stood there by the fireplace, staring out the expansive window that overlooked the back garden. He turned, a tall, broad-shouldered, dark haired man who had once been the center of her world. And he hadn’t even known it.