He swore mildly, then shoved the door closed with his hip. An unopened birthday card from his folks lay on the counter next to the registration renewal form for his Ford Expedition, both of which required his attention.
Chase picked up the colorful envelope, opened the card from his foster mother and read the handwritten note. A grin tugged his lips at the humor behind the birthday sentiment lamenting his thirtieth birthday. It’d be just like his mom to mark the day with humor instead of one of those sappy cards that made hormonal women cry and grown men shift uncomfortably. He was once again reminded of how lucky he’d been when Leo and Susan Mitchell came into his life. Yet, despite his good fortune of being raised in a loving, caring home, Chase had spent most of his life trying to prove something to someone. According to the Bureau shrink, the chip on his shoulder existed because his entrance into the world was highlighted by an addiction to his birth mother’s drug of choice. Consciously he understood he was good enough. The problem was good enough wasn’t always sufficient. For Chase, he always had to be better.
He dropped the card back on the counter and returned to the small dining area, twisting off the beer cap on his way. The Romine case was nothing short of a guaranteed failure. He knew he had only one option, to pull off what agents for the past thirty months could not—apprehend Special Agent Jared Romine, wanted for the murder of a fellow agent and the top aid to Senator Martin Phipps.
With a sigh of disgust, he dropped into the chair beside the oak table. As much as he would have liked to, he really couldn’t argue with Pelham. Not this time. He’d created a reputation for himself, and now he had to live with the consequences. It was common knowledge Chase Bracken didn’t play well with others. He took risks, calculated risks in his opinion, but still risks the Bureau had warned him about time and again. After his last assignment, Pelham had called him a cowboy. Funny how the superior officer seemed to conveniently forget Chase had the highest success rate in the New York office. At least until the Gleason case.
Psych had cleared him. So had I.A. Chase didn’t see a problem. In fact, in his opinion so long as he got the job done, there shouldn’t be a problem. Was it his fault things weren’t wrapped up all nice and tidy? He wasn’t the one who shot at innocent bystanders, even if Pelham did blame him for firing first at the perp in a less than perfect scenario. Usually by the time Chase wrapped up a case, there were fewer criminals roaming the street and the Gleason case was no exception. Because additional body bags had been involved this time didn’t mean he was getting careless or losing his edge…just that he was doing his job.
Psych and Internal Affairs had agreed with him, and that was all the confirmation he needed to continue onward under the status quo. Bend-the-Rules Bracken would still get the job done…his way.
He set his beer aside and flipped the lid off one of the boxes, pulling out the most recent file with the name Destiny Romine, M.D., printed across the tab. According to the surveillance reports, the good lady doctor was the only link to her brother.
From the first initial contact, no one had ever been able to trip her up. If she knew her brother’s location, she wasn’t talking.
A slow grin eased across Chase’s mouth. He always knew how to make them talk.
He opened the first file and spread the surveillance photographs over the table. Something deep in his gut twisted at the forlorn expression captured in Dr. Romine’s eyes in several of the FBI photographs. Still, even the hint of sadness surrounding her failed to detract from her natural beauty. Her driver’s license photo said she was a green-eyed, five-foot-seven brunette. The Bureau photographs depicted a rich cascade of sable hair that hung halfway down her slender back. The photographer managed to capture Dr. Romine right at a moment when she appeared to be staring directly into the camera. Her eyes, an intriguing shade of green mixed with pale gold, momentarily held him spellbound.
He shoved the glossy color photograph of the subject back into the file. For the next forty-eight hours, Destiny Romine, M.D., was the least of his problems. He had a series of meetings scheduled with various Bureau officials regarding his new assignment. There was one way to catch Romine, and Chase was positive that meant getting close to Baby Sister. And in order to do that, he needed to come up with a damned convincing cover.
He opened the file and looked at the photo again. She didn’t look like the sister of a murdering FBI agent. She did look like a woman with secrets.
Secrets that Bend-the-Rules Bracken had every intention of learning, using whatever means at his disposal.
Three Weeks Later
DEE RELUCTANTLY FORCED herself out from under the downy softness of the comforter she hadn’t bothered to remove from her double bed before climbing between the silky, cool sheets. She’d barely managed to keep her eyes open long enough to shower before dropping into a dead sleep.
It had better be good, she thought, tossing back the comforter as the doorbell chimed a second time.
She slipped into her robe. It couldn’t be an emergency, or else her phone would have been ringing instead of her doorbell. Especially following the difficult breach delivery of Cole Harbor, South Carolina’s newest resident. She’d placed the baby boy into the exhausted arms of his parents only three hours ago and if some complication had arose, Lucille, the clinic’s nurse, would have called her. The birth had been long and difficult, and Dee had very nearly had to perform an emergency cesarean section right there in cranky old Doc Claymore’s clinic. However, by using a few techniques shouted at her by her crabby nemesis, she’d managed to turn the baby enough to perform a vaginal birth.
The bell rang again by the time she reached the living room of her small triplex apartment. “I’m coming,” she grumbled, managing to avoid the rented sofa and cocktail table without jamming her bare foot as she so often did.
She had no idea who could be standing on her doorstep so blasted early on a Monday morning, but she suspected it was nothing life threatening. Since Doc Claymore’s semiretirement, she was the only physician on-call for the quaint seaside town nestled between Georgetown and Charleston on the Carolina coast. The ringing doorbell rather than a frantic phone call from George, Cole Harbor’s answer to law enforcement, or Ed the ambulance driver, meant a fishhook was more than likely the reason for her interrupted, and desperately needed, slumber.
She tied the sash on her pale blue cotton robe. Cole Harbor was probably one of the safest places she’d ever lived, but that didn’t stop her from latching her door or having a peephole installed. Crime wasn’t her concern. No, it was the alleged good guys that had her worried.
She peered through the lens in the center of the door to determine the identification of the visitor. She wasn’t sure what or whom she thought she’d find on the other side of her door, but the last thing she expected was the gorgeous sight awaiting her.
Even through the distortion of the peephole, she had no trouble classifying the man standing on her doorstep as more handsome than sin. Tall and powerfully built, he had wavy hair blacker than midnight that was a fraction too long for a label like clean-cut. The soft sea breeze teased the rebel strands brushing the collar of a navy polo shirt he wore tucked into a pair of blue jeans. Jeans she was positive would be faded to a well-worn white in all the right, interesting places. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, and before she could stop herself from being silly, she had the fleeting hope they were blue. She’d always had a weak spot for dark hair and blue eyes, especially when they came in a package as athletically fit and so well put together as the gloriously handsome stranger ringing her bell.
The last vestiges of sleep were nudged aside by the return of her customary common sense. The gorgeous male specimen was probably her new upstairs neighbor. She’d recalled seeing a moving van two days ago, but although she’d been too busy at the clinic all day Friday, she recalled hearing Netta and a couple of the younger, single Cole Harbor residents speculating on the social, and marital, availability of the Cougars’ new football coach.
Still,