Win a Print Copy of INTO THE WHIRLWIND
INTO THE WHIRLWIND
B.O.S.S., Inc. #2
Kat Martin
Released May 31st, 2016
Zebra
A bodyguard, a bounty
hunter, a private investigator, no one can handle the heat like the
men of BOSS, Inc.
Megan O’Brien is at her
wit’s end. Her three-year-old son has been kidnapped. No police,
says the ransom demand. Fearing for her son’s life, Meg has no
choice but to turn to her former bodyguard, Dirk Reynolds.
Dirk’s never forgiven
Meg for the way she left him after their brief affair. But with
bounty hunter Luke Brodie on his side, Dirk knows he’s got to help
Meg rescue her son.
The few clues they’ve
gathered send them spiraling into a murky world of big banking and
international crime. Meg may be way out of her depths, but she’s
seeing a side of Dirk she never suspected—one no woman could
possibly resist.
BUY NOW
Excerpt
“Ms. Megan, thank God
you’re home! It’s . . . it’s Charlie. I can’t find little
Charlie.”
Meg’s heart took a leap
as she stepped into the house, nearly colliding with her housekeeper,
Rose Wills.
“He probably woke up
and wandered off somewhere. He has to be here someplace.” But even
as she said the words, worry jolted through her. Telling herself not
to panic, Meg hurried toward the stairs.
“I put him down for a
nap an hour ago,” Rose said, hurrying along behind her. “When I
went back to check on him, he was gone.”
“You know how he likes
to hide. He’s just found a new place.” But fear had her pulse
kicking up, and her stomach started to churn. At the top of the
landing, she turned and ran down the hall to her three-year-old’s
bedroom, the housekeeper close behind her.
Charlie wasn’t in his
small white youth bed. “Charlie! Mama’s home. Charlie! Where are
you, sweetheart?” Meg ran to the closet and pulled open the door,
searched through the stuffed toys and games on the closet floor, but
found no sign of her son.
Her heart was hammering
now, her stomach balled into a fist. Meg told herself to stay calm.
There were dozens of places a little boy could hide in a two-story
house.
“Charlie! Charlie,
where are you, sweetie?”
Rose’s higher-pitched,
worried voice chimed in. “Charlie! Come out now. Your mommy wants
you.”
They searched upstairs,
but he was nowhere to be seen, went downstairs and searched the floor
below.
“God, Rose, where could
he be? You don’t think he went outside?”
“I always keep the
doors locked and the chain on. There’s no way he could have gotten
out.”
They checked all the
doors, but Rose was right. No way could her little boy have gotten
out of the house.
Meg ran back upstairs.
She returned to his room, walked over to the bed to see if the covers
still held a trace of warmth. Reaching down, she touched the soft
blue blanket with the sailboats on it, but none of Charlie’s heat
remained.
Instead, she spotted an
envelope protruding from the folds, her name in ink on the front.
“What did you find?”
Rose came up beside her.
“It’s a letter.”
Her hands shook as she tore the envelope open.
“I didn’t see it
before,” Rose said. “Oh, dear Lord.” She started to tremble,
her breasts heaving as the implication sank in. She was a big woman,
nearly as tall as Meg’s five-foot ten-inch frame. “What . . .
what does it say?”
Meg read the note and her
heart clutched, then turned to stone. “‘We have your son. He’ll
cost you ten million in cash. You’ve got three days or he’s . . .
he’s dead. No police.’“
Meg swayed on her feet.
She gripped the headboard, afraid she might faint. Dear God, my baby!
She turned, let Rose pull her into a hug, and her eyes welled with
tears. They clung to each other, both of them crying.
The housekeeper
straightened away. “We have to call the police. They’ll know what
to do. They’ll get Charlie back.”
Meg shook her head. “No
police. If we call them, they’ll kill him.”
Rose crossed herself.
“What are going to do, Ms. Meg?”
Meg closed her eyes and
prayed for strength. Her dad was extremely wealthy. He loved his
grandson. Her father could get the ten million dollars they needed to
pay the ransom.
But her dad was also
extremely controlling. And he believed money was the solution to
everything. What if the kidnappers took the money and still killed
her baby?
She thought of Charlie’s
father, Jonathan Hollander, the man she had married to please her
dad. Yes, he was hand-some. She couldn’t deny she’d been
attracted to his dark good looks and charming smile. Her father
hadn’t been able to see past Jonathan’s impressive Harvard
education and his family’s lofty position in society.
Meg thought what a
no-good, lying cheat he had turned out to be.
She couldn’t go to
Jonathan.
Another man’s image
came to mind. Smart. Loyal to a fault. Strong. Tough. Reliable. The
one man she would trust with her precious son’s life.
“I know someone.”
Strength seeped through her as determination set in. “I know a man
who can bring Charlie home.”
Megan O’Brien parked at
the end of the gravel driveway and quietly got out of her white BMW
X1 compact SUV. Through the trees, she could hear the roar of a
chainsaw, hear hammers banging away, see two-by-fours of
golden-yellow pine going up to form the sides of the house under
construction.
The garage was already
finished, undoubtedly full of Dirk’s toys, including a Harley and a
custom Dodge Viper. In the summer, he kept a boat docked on the lake
below the house.
Though two other men were
hard at work, her gaze went straight to Dirk. Hammer in hand,
carpenter’s belt dangling low on his waist, he was shirtless,
though the January air was chill.
Hard muscle flexed across
his back and shoulders as he pounded in a nail with an ease that said
how many times he had done it. Long, sinewy muscles outlined by the
soft fabric of his jeans stretched and moved as he worked on his
house.
Meg’s gaze went over
the familiar dragon tattoo that wound over one shoulder and inched up
the side of his neck. The colored ink seemed right with the sexy,
short-cropped horseshoe mustache that framed his mouth and curved
down to his jaw, making him look like the hard, tough man he was.
Even her terrible fear
for her son couldn’t block the memories of how it had felt to lie
with him. Couldn’t lessen the yearning that burned through her body
just at the sight of him.
Meg had met Dirk Reynolds
five months before when she had been preparing for the La Belle
fashion show tour. Meg, one of their top models, worked for the chain
of expensive lingerie stores.
She glanced back at Dirk.
He and his friend, Ethan Brodie, did private investigation and
personal security for Brodie Operations Security Services, Inc., the
company that had been hired to protect the models after one of them
was murdered.
Dirk had been her
bodyguard, and though every instinct had warned her not to get
involved with him, the fierce attraction between them had been
impossible to resist.
Once the models returned
home, Meg had ended the affair. She and Dirk weren’t right for each
other. Dirk lived fast and hard. He rode a motorcycle, drove a car
that could go two hundred miles an hour. Dirk Reynolds was wild and
fierce, while she was a single mother with a son to raise.
She couldn’t have Dirk
Reynolds. She had a responsibility to her little boy. With a failed
marriage behind her, she couldn’t risk failing again.
But she had never gotten
over Dirk.
Meg steeled herself and
headed along the gravel driveway toward the house Dirk was rebuilding
after the fire that had nearly killed him five months ago. One thing
she knew, Dirk Reynolds was a hard man to kill.
Which was the reason she
had swallowed her pride and her heartache and come to him. She needed
him, trusted him as she never had any other man. Her little boy’s
life de-pended on gaining this man’s help. This man she had loved
and rejected.
She stepped out of the
foliage-covered driveway into the open area around the house he was
rebuilding. She had called his office looking for him. Nick Brodie,
one of the other PIs at BOSS Inc., had reluctantly told her where to
find him. Maybe it was the tears he heard in her voice when she had
said how important it was. That it was a matter of life or death.
With Dirk’s usual keen
senses, he turned, alert that some-one was there, though the buzz of
the saw had hid the sound of her footsteps.
For several long moments,
he just stared, watching as she walked toward him. He was six-two,
his body lean and sculpted. Wavy dark brown hair curled at the nape
of his neck. She forced herself to keep walking, even as his jaw
locked and a fierce scowl darkened his face.
Dirk grabbed a faded blue
work shirt and shrugged it on, covering most of his amazing chest. He
didn’t bother fastening the buttons, just strode toward her,
blocking her view of the house.
He stopped right in front
of her. “What are doing here, Meg?”
“I need to talk to you.
It’s . . . it’s urgent.”
“You’re trespassing.
What do you want?”
She swallowed, fought to
stay strong. He didn’t want her there. She had known he wouldn’t.
Known he thought of her only with contempt. She wished he would hold
her the way he used to when she was afraid. “I . . . I want to hire
you.”
The corner of his mouth
edged into a ruthless half smile. “What for? Stud service?”
She wanted to cry. She
wanted to beg his forgiveness. Tell him she had never forgotten him.
That she never would. She knew it wouldn’t matter to Dirk. Not
anymore.
All that mattered now was
saving her son.
She looked into those
hard hazel eyes and for the first time wondered if she’d been wrong
to think he would help her. Dear God, what would she do if Dirk
refused?
A sob wedged in her
throat. She fought desperately to hold on to her courage. “It’s
Charlie. He’s been kidnapped. They left a note. It says they’ll .
. . they’ll kill him if I go to the police.”
Something shifted in
those hard, condemning eyes. For a moment, the old Dirk appeared.
Concerned for her, determined to protect her at any cost, even his
life.
“I’ll take you down
to the office. Ethan’s out of town with Val. I’ll get Nick to
work with you. Or Luke. They’ll help you find your boy. They’ll
help you get him back.”
They were all private
investigators and they were the best. But they weren’t Dirk
Reynolds. Meg started shaking her head, couldn’t stop the tears
that leaked onto her cheeks. “It has to be you. I know in my heart
you can save Charlie. Only you.”
His jaw went iron hard.
“Jesus, Meg.”
“Please, Dirk. Please
help me.”
“Do you know what
you’re asking?”
She knew. There was a
time he had loved her. He had begged her to stay with him, give them
a chance. Meg had refused.
“He’s just a little
boy. I know you can save him. You won’t give up until you do.”
“Jesus.” He raked a
hand through his heavy dark hair. She remembered the exact silky feel
of the strands between her fingers.
“The note says they
want ten million dollars,” she said. “They’ll kill him if they
don’t get it.”
He took a deep breath,
released it slowly. “How much time did they give you?”
“Three days.”
“Ten million. That’s
a helluva lot of money.”
“My father can get it.”
His gaze remained on her
face. “But you don’t trust him to get your boy back. That’s
smart, Meg, because money doesn’t always work.”
She swiped at her tears
with the back of her hand. “Will you help me?”
His eyes went dark. “You
knew I would when you came here.”
“I prayed you would. I
wasn’t sure anymore.”
He gazed over her
shoulder through the trees, spotted her small white SUV. “You okay
to drive?”
“I’m all right.”
“I’ll follow you back
to your house.” His mouth barely curved. “I think I can remember
where it is.”
Meg turned away from him.
Three days. In three days Charlie would be safely returned. Dirk
would go on with his life and she would go on with hers.
Three days.
The pain didn’t matter.
Charlie was all that mattered. Meg had no other choice.
New York Times bestselling
author Kat Martin is a graduate of the University of California at
Santa Barbara where she majored in Anthropology and also studied
History. Currently residing in Missoula, Montana with her
Western-author husband, L. J. Martin, Kat has written sixty-five
Historical and Contemporary Romantic Suspense novels. More than
sixteen million copies of her books are in print and she has been
published in twenty foreign countries. Kat is currently at work on
her next Romantic Suspense.
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