He gave her another rude gesture, added some choice words.
“Still not interested,” she said dryly.“Though I appreciate the offer.”
He grabbed her wrist and squeezed—anger calling the shots now instead of training.She’d been waiting for this.Counting on that temper.
“You think you’re so tough?”he growled.
Her voice stayed calm even as her heart kicked up.“You’re going to want to let go.Right now.”
“I got news for you.You’re going to help us whether you want to or not.Otherwise you and this shack are going to belong to the government by the time we’re done.”
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she said, voice dropping to a whisper.“You’re going to let go of my wrist.Or I’m going to make you wish you had.”
She brought her free hand up fast—the back of her wrist connecting with his chin hard enough to snap his teeth together.His head jerked back.She grabbed his hair and slammed his face against the counter before he could process what had happened.
Then she leaned close, spoke directly into his ear.“You and whatever you think you stand for can walk straight back to your commanding officer and tell him this: I don’t respond to threats.I don’t respond to intimidation.And I sure as hell don’t respond to rookie cops who think they can push me around in my own shop.”
She saw the black Bronco screech into her parking lot—Sheriff O’Hara, right on time.Blaze O’Hara was the real deal.He’d back her play even if it meant going against another cop.She had connections of her own.She’d earned them the hard way.
The buzzer rang insistently.She let go of Barnes’s hair, watched him stumble back looking dazed and angry.She hit the switch to release the door locks.
The door opened.Boots on hardwood.And then the atmosphere changed—charged like lightning about to strike.Heat flooded through her, followed immediately by chills.Her pulse quickened.Her breath caught.
It had always been this way with him.
Zeke McBride looked better than she remembered, which was saying something.He’d always been devastating.Now he was harder, more dangerous, like life had filed off the softer edges and left only steel.His hair was still military short, but now there was silver threading through the dark—more at the temples, giving him a distinguished edge that would’ve been unfair on anyone else.The scruff on his jaw was new, full beard territory, also shot through with silver.
His eyes were dark forest green with flecks of gold, framed by lashes that had no business on a man.Those eyes never missed anything.One eyebrow had a scar bisecting it—new since she’d seen him last.Three years ago.Three years, two months, and however many days since she’d walked away.
He was several inches over six feet, built like someone who spent more time in the gym than sleeping.Black shirt stretched tight across his chest and biceps—both tattooed with ink she’d traced with her fingers more times than she could count.Jeans.Steel-toed boots.One hundred percent dangerous.
If she wasn’t still so furious at him, she might have walked straight into his arms and pretended the last three years hadn’t carved a canyon between them.
He’d always loved undercover work—lived for it.The ultimate battle of good versus evil, the adrenaline rush, playing in the gray spaces where right and wrong blurred together.He’d been addicted to it.To the danger, the lies, the high of bringing down bad guys while living among them.
Memories hit her like physical blows—love and fear and chaos.Arguments that shook walls.His face when she’d woken up in the hospital after taking a bullet meant for him.The look in his eyes when she’d told him she was done—done with the job, done with watching him destroy himself, done with being collateral damage in his war.
He hadn’t been willing to choose.So she’d chosen for both of them.
“Well, great,” she said, her voice flat.
“It’s good to see you too, Mia.”
ChapterTwo
Zeke McBride was a gambling man.As any self-respecting, second-generation Irish American should be.He’d dealt his own hand—maybe from the bottom of the deck, but sometimes a man had to stack the odds when the stakes were high.And when it came to Mia, the stakes were as high as they got.
He’d used agency resources, his men, and made sure their mission territory included Laurel Valley, Idaho.He was the commanding officer of a DEA taskforce, and no one questioned the orders he gave.They’d been stuck in the middle of nowhere for the last three years, building covers and gaining trust within different drug-running communities.They were the good guys, but sometimes the lines blurred.They were a law unto themselves, forgotten by their brothers in blue who clocked in with regular shift work—unless someone got killed.
It was Zeke’s job to make sure the men remembered that there was a law and not to blur it too much.And it was his job to make sure everyone under his watch stayed alive.
His men would laugh like fools if they knew part of the reason for this mission was because of a woman.They’d call him lovesick and any other names they could think of as they rolled their eyes.And then he’d have to knock some heads together just out of principle.Which was why his men were never going to find out.
Sometimes situations were so complicated and pasts so entwined that it was hard to know where to begin separating the threads.And honestly, this was the only thing he could come up with.
But he hadn’t been prepared for the jolt that hit him square in the chest the second he saw her again.She’d occupied his dreams for the last three years.He’d tried dating other women—Mia was the one who’d left him after all—but he found himself searching for women that reminded him of her.The only problem was Mia had always been unique.There was no one like her.
Her appearance had changed, but by the steely look in her eyes, her temper had stayed very much the same.That temper had been making his pulse race since the moment he’d met her.She could no longer pass for the role of the high school kid she’d played when she’d worked undercover.She was all woman, and a slow scan of her body did nothing to help relieve the tightening pressure in his chest.
