Stalked

He saw a woman walking down the long lane, headed for the road.

It had to be Hope. Right height, right weight. Same sexy walk. But her hair was short and dark.

He slipped on his jacket and followed, gun in hand.

She stopped when she reached the road. He considered approaching. He should, really. But he knew that if he did, she’d simply lie about what had driven her to leave her warm bed at midnight.

And he’d be no closer to figuring out what made this woman tick.

So he stayed quiet, hidden by the trees. And in less than five minutes, an old car came along. Hope slid in and shut the door. The car drove away, leaving Mack McCann, who rarely got surprised by anything, standing at the side of the road with his mouth hanging open.

Stalked

Beverly Long

www.millsandboon.co.uk

As a child, BEVERLY LONG used to take a flashlight to bed so that she could hide under the covers and read. Once a teenager, more often than not, the books she chose were romance novels. Now she gets to keep the light on as long as she wants, and there’s always a romance novel on her nightstand. With both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in business and more than twenty years of experience as a human resources director, she now enjoys the opportunity to write her own stories. She considers her books to be a great success if they compel the reader to stay up way past their bedtime.

Beverly loves to hear from readers. Visit www.beverlylong.com, or like her at www.facebook.com/beverlylong.romance.

For my mother, who told the very best stories about Colorado.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Mack McCann wiped the sweat out of his eyes and reached for his cold beer. He’d been sanding boards in the unusually warm spring sun for what seemed like hours. But he was making progress. The McCann cabin, blown to smithereens seven months prior, would stand again.

It had to be ready for Chandler and Ethan’s late June wedding. His sister had insisted that she wanted to be married at Crow Hollow. Ethan hadn’t wanted to wait, but he’d agreed because he basically wanted to give the stars and the moon to Chandler.

It was pretty damn amazing that his sister had fallen in love with one of his best friends. He and Ethan Moore, along with Brody Donovan, had spent their formative years at the McCann and Donovan cabins. The three boys had spent summers traipsing around the forests and the lakes set high in the Colorado Rockies, not ever realizing that theirs was a friendship that would span the globe over the next twenty years.

Ethan had enlisted in the army and flew helicopters. Brody had gone to college, then to medical school, then surprised them all when he’d enlisted in the air force. And Mack, well, he’d done exactly what he’d hoped to do since he’d been about seven.

He’d become a spy.

Sort of.

Naval intelligence. He’d worked in more countries than he could remember, and in some of the best and worst conditions known to man. Silk sheets and lavish meals in Qatar, and dirt floors and beans in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

He’d dined with presidents and princesses. He’d squatted alongside peasants washing their clothes in muddy rivers. His playground was anywhere there was information to be gained.

He’d been working 24/7 for the last sixteen years, and quite frankly, he was tired. And he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that there should be something more. So he’d made the decision to leave.

Of course, he’d cop to having a few moments of doubt over the past months while he waited for his discharge papers to be processed. But once he had fresh mountain air in his lungs, he’d known that coming home was the right decision.

He’d secured a new position as director of security for Matrice Biomedics. The job would keep him in Colorado, close to family. He’d delayed his start date until June 15th, almost six weeks away. Until then, he had few worries. His biggest one at the present time was what to have for lunch.

Fifteen minutes later, Mack was on his second sandwich when he heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Had his father decided to come early? He wasn’t expected until the end of the week. When the car rounded the final bend in the road, Mack shook his head in disbelief.

Bingham Trovell, the man who’d been his commanding officer for a good portion of his career, had his arm hanging out the window, waving like a fool. Mack waited until the car had stopped before approaching. “Has hell frozen over, sir? I can’t imagine anything else that would get you on land.”

Bing opened his car door and shifted two hundred and fifty pounds of black muscle out of the car. At fifty, he could probably still work circles around men half his age. He’d retired just three years earlier to a little boat and started calling the Mississippi home.