Protecting His Witness (Red Stone Security Series) (17 page)

Hell, she had a lot to celebrate now. As she stood up, someone knocked on the bedroom door. “Come in,” she said automatically.

Jordan froze when Vincent’s mom walked in. So far Jordan had been able to make polite conversation with the petite woman, but she’d avoided being alone with her or Zoe. Maybe that made her a chicken but she didn’t care.

Swallowing hard, she smiled. “I just had to take a call but I’m heading back out there in case you need privacy.” Maybe she just wanted to use Vincent’s bathroom or something.

Tanice Hansen gave her an assessing stare, her dark eyes unreadable. Vincent was right, his mom was a little scary. She was a beautiful woman, with flawless skin that made her appear decades younger than she had to be. And she was impossible to read. “I like the changes you’ve made around the place. It actually looks like someone lives here now.”

Jordan hadn’t been expecting that. Of course, she didn’t know what she was expecting from Tanice. “Thank you.” So far she’d only made a few small changes, but Vincent had been living like a caveman and she was adding feminine touches. Lord, the man hadn’t even had a wine opener. Thankfully he’d told her she could do whatever she wanted.

Tanice stepped farther into the room, looking around, again with that assessing eye. Lord, what was she thinking?

Jordan tried to think of something polite to say but felt like a deer in headlights.

His mother continued though. “When Vincent told me he was moving in with a woman after only a week I was stunned. But then he told me he’d known you back in California. He didn’t want to tell me everything, but eventually the whole story came out about why you left him and what happened in Key West. I don’t know why that boy thinks he can keep secrets from me,” she murmured, almost to herself.

“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say. Jordan had broken Vincent’s heart seven years ago then put the woman’s son in mortal danger a week ago. If she was a mom, she probably wouldn’t be a fan of someone like herself.

Taking her completely by surprise, tears spilled down Tanice’s face as she stepped closer until they were only inches apart. Jordan wasn’t very tall but Tanice was even shorter. “I know we haven’t had a chance to talk alone yet, but I just wanted to say thank you.”

Jordan blinked, unsure what she meant. And she hated that the other woman was crying. She wanted to reach out and comfort her, but didn’t know if she should. “For what?”

“For not taking my son away. He didn’t say it, but he would have gone with you seven years ago. And it would have killed all of us.” Her voice cracked on the last word and she pulled Jordan into a tight hug.

The strength behind the woman’s grip surprised her but she hugged her back, relieved beyond belief by the woman’s acceptance of her.

“I know you don’t have family, so consider us yours now,” she said softly.

Jordan fought her own tears, swiping at the traitorous wetness as it threatened to spill over. Since she didn’t trust her voice, she only nodded.

As Tanice started to pull back, Zoe walked in, an almost mirror image of her mother. She saw them hugging and gave Jordan an almost sheepish smile. “I was hoping I’d catch you alone. A simple apology probably isn’t enough, but I’m sorry I called you a bitch. Mom told me what you did and—”

“You called her that? With a mouth like that it’s no wonder you don’t have a husband yet.” Tanice shook her head as she stepped back from Jordan, all her focus now solely on her daughter.

Jordan took the free moment to swipe away the rest of her tears.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “Mom! Do we have to do this now? I’m just trying to apologize.”

Before Jordan could respond Vincent strode in. For a moment he looked panicked as he looked between all three women.

His mom started steering Zoe out as she said, “We’ll leave you two alone but we’ll see you outside in a few minutes.”

“Did they ambush you?” Vincent asked hesitantly as he shut the door behind them.

Smiling, Jordan shook her head. “No, I think your mom likes me.”

At that, he grinned and closed the distance between them. “Yeah, she might have mentioned something about hurting me if I ever hurt you. For what it’s worth, I don’t care what my family or anyone thinks of you. I love you, Jordan.”

Those words meant more than he could know. She’d been without family for so long and while she didn’t need a huge one, she did need him. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing that.” She wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, ready to pull him down for a kiss when he dropped to one knee. “What are you doing?” she whispered, her voice ragged as he pulled a small blue box from his pocket.

For a moment she could see the nervousness in his gaze as he popped it open. Her mouth fell open as she stared at the solitaire diamond. She didn’t know much about diamonds but it was big and sparkly and there was no mistaking what this was.

“Marry me.” His voice was just as ragged as hers had been.

With tears streaming down her face she fell to her knees in front of him and wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight grip. “Yes.”

She only let him pull back so he could slip the ring onto her left hand ring finger. Staring at it, a burst of elation took flight inside her, wonderful and still surreal. She knew it would take a while to get used to not feeling like she had to constantly look over her shoulder. And more importantly, she wanted to embrace just being happy and stop feeling like it was going to be ripped away from her at any moment. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“You’re beautiful and now everyone knows you’re mine.” His voice had taken on that possessive quality that made her insides melt and she knew that if they didn’t have a houseful of guests, she’d be flat on her back in the next few seconds. But she kind of liked the anticipation. After so many years without him, she could wait another couple hours.

Thank you for reading
Protecting His Witness
. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please consider leaving a review at one of your favorite online retailers. It’s a great way to help other readers discover new books!

If you liked
Protecting His Witness
and would like to read more, turn the page for a sneak peek of some of my other books.

Sneak Peek

First Surrender

Copyright © 2013 Katie Reus

Sierra took a subtle sniff of her upper arm as she rode the elevator up to the fiftieth floor of the new Serafina hotel and casino—owned by billionaire Wyatt Christiansen. As head chef at Cloud 9, one of the restaurants at the Serafina, she sometimes smelled like food at the end of a long shift even though she’d changed clothes. Okay, she always smelled like food. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but she’d cooked a lot of seafood today. She didn’t scent anything too strong but was sure her friend Hayden would tell her when she saw him. At least she’d changed out of her work clothes and chef’s coat so she was comfortable in jeans and a fitted T-shirt.

He’d started work at the Serafina the same time she had. It had officially opened a year ago. She’d been brought over from one of Christiansen’s other hotels to work here and Hayden had been hired after retiring from the Navy. Christiansen’s wife Iris ran all the security at the hotel, but Hayden was directly under her as her second-in-command. Sierra didn’t know how they handled the stress of security at such a mammoth hotel. She’d go cross-eyed trying to watch all those cameras at once. But, they had a good team with minimum problems.

As the elevator dinged, announcing her arrival to the security floor, damn butterflies took flight in her stomach. It always happened when she was about to see Hayden and she hated it. When she’d first met him, she thought he was a big jerk. A big, scary jerk. Okay, a sexy-as-hell jerk with tattooed sleeves covering both his arms. His tats added to that whole tall, dark and intimidating thing he had going on. As a former SEAL, Hayden certainly had the training for his current profession. But she’d come to learn that he was one of the sweetest men she’d ever known. For the last year they’d hung out constantly as friends and Thursday nights they had a standing ritual of dinner, drinks and sometimes she coerced him into going dancing with her and her friends. Usually he just stood guard by one of their tables and growled at any males who got too close. Which made her adore him even more.

God, she really was a masochist. Hayden was never going to be interested in her romantically but that didn’t stop her from wanting him more and more every day. Hayden could have any woman he wanted and she knew she didn’t fit the mold of his type. It was her freaking curse in life. Growing up and in college she had a lot of male friends because of her ‘friendly’ personality but she never dated any of them. One of her college friends had told her that she was way too ‘the girl next door type’, the type of girl you brought home to your mother—which was freaking annoying. She wanted to be the type of girl who got a man’s pulse pounding out of control. The kind who got him so hot and bothered that he couldn’t think straight. But not just any man. Only Hayden.

Her flat sandals snapped softly against the marble as she entered the security floor. A giant glass wall greeted her. Behind it she could see desks, and too many television screens to count. Some huge, some small, focused on dealers’ hands, patrons, the various bars and pretty much anywhere legal a camera could go. The array of them still astounded her. Stopping at one of the glass doors, she placed her hand on the biometric scanner. Once it scanned her palm, the door immediately opened with a whoosh. She had no business up here but about eight months ago Hayden had programmed her into the system so she wouldn’t have to bug him every Thursday. Sometimes she got off earlier than him and preferred to wait in the security room as opposed to the bar in her restaurant. She was there enough during the week; she didn’t want to hang out in her off time too.

Stepping inside she was inundated with noise and frantic chatter. Men and women were talking into their headsets, some clearly worried. There was normally a fast pace up here but today it seemed different.

Glancing around, Sierra didn’t see Hayden anywhere but assumed he was in his office. Before she’d taken two steps in that direction, Marty, one of the tech guys, jumped up from his desk when he saw her. “Hey, honey. What are you doing up here?”

She normally didn’t like nicknames but Marty called every female honey. She smiled. “Just stopping by to see if Hayden could sneak away early.”

Marty’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh…he’s not here. He said something about a date.”

A date? The word was like a punch to her gut. For a moment she was totally stunned, but she wasn’t going to show it in front of anyone, especially not a coworker. This place was worse than a middle school when it came to gossip. So she pasted on a smile. “Oh, right. He mentioned that, I totally forgot.”

Marty started to respond but Iris Christiansen strode through the glass doorway looking fierce in black pants, a crisp white button down shirt and a sleek, clearly custom-made black jacket. Everything about the other woman was, well, fierce. She was gorgeous but also a little scary, especially since Sierra knew the former Marine was always well-armed. The tall woman gave Marty one look and he scampered away.

Luckily she gave Sierra a bright smile. “What’s up, Sierra? You got a problem at the restaurant?”

Still struggling to find her voice, she shook her head. “No problem, just leaving. See you tomorrow.” Sierra tried to hurry away, but Iris followed her to the elevators.

“What’s going on? You don’t look okay.”

Sierra swallowed hard. Lord, was she that transparent? “Just had a long day. Busy, you know?”
Gah, why wouldn’t the elevator hurry up?

Iris raised a dark eyebrow. “Do I need to kick his ass?”

Staring at her, Sierra frowned. “What? Who?”

“Hayden. What’s he done now?”

The mention of his name made Sierra’s stomach flip-flop. It also pissed her off. If he’d had a date he could have had the decency to tell her. Shrugging jerkily, she breathed out a sigh of relief when the elevator stopped and dinged. “Hayden hasn’t done anything.” And she wondered why Iris would assume this had anything to do with the man. It wasn’t like they were dating.

Iris didn’t respond, but her lips pulled into a thin line as the doors shut behind Sierra. Once she was alone, Sierra didn’t bother to keep up a happy face. Hayden hadn’t mentioned dating anyone in the past year, though she knew the man had to be dating. He was walking, talking sex appeal. Absently she rubbed the center of her chest. So, he was dating. No big deal. Right? Ugh, yeah right. Swallowing back the traitorous tears threatening to overwhelm her, she hurried into the below ground parking garage. Normally Hayden or someone else walked her to her vehicle but she didn’t want to bother asking anyone else. Not when she felt like crying. No way was she embarrassing herself and becoming a source of casino gossip.

Picking up her pace, her sandals slapped quickly across the concrete. As she reached the second row of cars, a tiny scream escaped her lips as a man wearing a mask jumped out from behind her Jeep. The guy was huge, maybe six feet tall, and when she saw the flash of metal—a knife!—in his hands, her chest constricted as a hundred horrible scenarios raced through her mind. Knowing she’d only get one chance she let out a blood-curdling scream at the top of her lungs as she backtracked and started running in the other direction.