If You Fall (Brimstone 1)

I looked at the photos of Lewis. Tall, strong, heroic. Going into the most dangerous places and saving lives. These letters had been meant for him but somehow got mixed up with my gear after the accident.

Now, at least I had a name.

After reading her letters, I knew one thing for certain. No matter how busy I was trying to save my company from bankruptcy, no matter how long it took, I’d find her and return her letters.

Given that her husband lost his life saving mine, it was the least I could do.

CHAPTER TWO

Miranda

I knew the first moment I laid eyes on him that he was trouble.

The door to the bar opened, emitting a bright swath of light into the otherwise dim interior. A man stood in the doorway, framed by the light. Tall and strong, his shoulders were wide, his hips narrow. He clutched a motorcycle helmet under his arm.

A biker.

When I caught a look at his face, I felt a stab of desire. Despite the rugged exterior, he was beautiful. Dirty blond hair below his collar, blue blue eyes, and a neatly trimmed beard on a jaw so square you could practically cut yourself on it.

He reminded me of a bad boy biker, or maybe a Viking warlord looking for his next conquest. Dressed in some faded well-worn jeans, a white turtleneck despite the warm weather, and a black leather jacket, he was something to look at.

I’d spent the previous year in Topsail Beach and with the exception of tourist season, there weren’t many new faces – especially none as gorgeous as his. To keep myself amused, my best friend Leah and I spent a lot of time imagining who the strangers were, concocting fabulous identities for them to pass the time. For Mr. Viking God, I imagined that, instead of a biker, he was a secret agent, maybe an assassin, newly in town looking for his target. Or a Calvin Klein model on location, having spent the day doing an underwear shoot.

I knew one thing for certain: any woman who laid eyes on him would fantasize about him that night while her man pounded into her. Any man who saw him would imagine bashing in his handsome face, just to take out the unfair competition.

Now, as the daughter of a career FBI Special Agent, I knew that spies and assassins weren't the way they were portrayed in movies and novels, but it was fun to imagine. Spies looked like anyone else. That was their goal. Blend. Fade. Become invisible.

This stranger could never blend, no matter how scruffy his jaw or faded his jeans.

He was just too pretty.

When his eyes came to rest squarely on me where I stood behind the bar, a bottle of bar lime in one hand and tequila in the other, a shiver raced down my spine. I stood there, arms poised in mid pour, and gaped.

In that moment, he reminded me so much of Dan, I had to blink twice. It wasn’t that he looked like Dan. Dan had slightly darker hair, had been clean shaven and was leaner. It was the way the man held himself so tightly in control. Despite the wild exterior, his eyes were assessing. He had that ‘ready to wreak havoc’ look about him that Dan developed during several hellish tours of duty in Iraq and then time in Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan during the last year before his death.

This man had that same sense of stiff-backed power held in check that Dan had. There was also just a hint of sadness in him. I couldn't tell you where I saw it, but it was there. Maybe in the way he held his mouth, his full lips pressed a bit too firmly together. A bit too much pain in his gray-blue eyes, which were the color of stormy seas.

Gramps always said that if you turned a man into a killer, there would be consequences. If you gave him wide-open terms of engagement, his kills would haunt him the rest of his days no matter how justified they were. At least, that's what Gramps told me when Dan returned on leave once and I felt as if I didn’t recognize him.

War changed men.

Gramps said it was the crucible that tested a man’s character. Only the true psychopaths could get away with being a killer with no effects on their souls.

Dan had been a Navy Hospital Corpsman attached to a Marine Special Operations Forces team, losing his life somewhere in Afghanistan. All we were told was that he died when his team went in on a routine training mission. Dan’s chopper went down in a dust storm. Because of the classified nature of the mission, there wasn’t much publicity. Just a solemn service in Arlington attended by a few of his closest buddies and the families of the fallen.

Our family seemed destined to experience tragedy. My father died in the line of duty. Then Dan died just three months after we were married. Mom was a total mess, and spent her days medicated, lost in an OxyContin haze with her new husband up in New Hampshire.

It was just me and Gramps left who were somewhat functional. Gramps was retired from the NYPD and living in Queens, running The Harp and Keg, the bar I worked at during the school year. He complained ever so softly about my year-long absence while I spent time living with Dan’s family in Topsail Beach, North Carolina, trying to start my life again as a young widow. Trying to find out what happened and why Dan died. It proved futile so Dan’s father Scott and mother Jeanne gave up and accepted that it was the usual mayhem that was Afghanistan.

One day, I hoped to understand what made people into killers. If I couldn’t save my father or my beloved Dan, then maybe someone else.

The man standing in the doorway with the biker helmet had that same ready for action sense about him that Dan had, with that same assessing gaze, his eyes narrowed as if he was constantly looking for threats.

He walked straight to the bar with an expression that made me panic. Like the day the sedan drove up the driveway to the house, two uniformed military men walking to the front door to tell us the news, their hats in their hands.

“Holy crap,” Leah said. My best friend from college, Leah had been my support for the past year while I recovered and learned to live my life again after Dan’s death. She’d come down from Manhattan to stay in Topsail Beach after Dan died, taking a job at the restaurant so we could support each other.

She gawked at the man, unabashed desire on her face.