Mountain Blizzard
Her ex-husband becomes her bodyguard in USA TODAY bestseller Cassie Miles’s gripping new suspense novel
After his ex-wife witnesses a murder, FBI agent turned security specialist Sean Timmons steps in to be her bodyguard. One look at investigative reporter Emily Peterson and Sean is reminded why he fell in love with her years ago. But his beautiful, headstrong ex is being targeted by a crime lord—who Sean is determined to take down. Trapped in the Colorado mountains by a blizzard, the former Mr. and Mrs. Timmons rediscover each other with red-hot passion. But a cold-blooded killer is waiting to stop them from uncovering evidence—and ever saying “I do” again.
“You have plenty of reason to be worried,” Sean reminded Emily.
“Don’t make this into a worst-case scenario.” Emily continued to hold his hand, and he felt the tension in her grip.
“Seriously, Emily, you do need a bodyguard.”
“I agree, and the job is yours.”
He’d expected an argument but was glad that she’d decided to be rational. He glanced toward the dining room. The snowstorm raged outside the windows. “I could do with another bowl of chili.”
“Me, too.”
Before she hopped down the step to the floor, she went up on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the forehead. It was nothing special, the kind of small affection a wife might regularly bestow on her husband. The utter simplicity blew him away.
Before she could turn her back and skip off into the dining room, he caught her hand and gave a tug. She was in his arms. When her body pressed against his, they were joined together the way they were supposed to be.
Then he kissed her.
MOUNTAIN
BLIZZARD
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Cassie Miles
Cassie Miles, a USA TODAY bestselling author, lives in Colorado. After raising two daughters and cooking tons of macaroni and cheese for her family, Cassie is trying to be more adventurous in her culinary efforts. She’s discovered that almost anything tastes better with wine. When she’s not plotting Harlequin Intrigue books, Cassie likes to hang out at the Denver Botanical Gardens near her high-rise home.
Books by Cassie Miles
Harlequin Intrigue
Mountain Midwife
Sovereign Sheriff
Baby Battalion
Unforgettable
Midwife Cover
Mommy Midwife
Montana Midwife
Hostage Midwife
Mountain Heiress
Snowed In
Snow Blind
Mountain Retreat
Colorado Wildfire
Mountain Bodyguard
Mountain Shelter
Mountain Blizzard
Visit the Author Profile page at
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CAST OF CHARACTERS
Emily Peterson—The free-spirited poet turned investigative journalist has gotten in over her head.
Sean Timmons—Emily’s ex-husband was an undercover FBI agent while they were married. Now he’s her bodyguard.
“Bulldog” Barclay—A thug who works for Wynter.
Hazel Hopkins—Emily’s great-aunt lives near Aspen and hires Sean to protect her niece.
Greg Levine—The FBI agent based in San Francisco is trying to help. But which side?
Doris Liu—The adoptive mother of Roger Patrone raised the boy in Chinatown.
John Morelli—Working for Wynter, his position is midlevel management, but he’s only a thug.
Roger Patrone—Another Wynter employee, he lost his life trying to do the right thing.
Matt and Mason Steele—Brothers who are part of TST Security.
Jerome Strauss—The editor of a blog/newspaper who has gotten involved with the wrong people.
Dylan Timmons—Sean’s brother, and a computer genius who helped found TST Security.
James Wynter—The head of a crime syndicate based in San Francisco.
Frankie Wynter—The youngest son of James Wynter is a thug, a spoiled brat and a murderer.
Lianne Zhou—A survivor of human trafficking, she is a powerful figure in Chinatown.
Mikey Zhou—The snakehead smuggler has a soft spot in his heart for his sister, Lianne.
For Nafina, who will always be my screen saver and,
as always, to Rick.
Contents
Prologue
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
Excerpt from After the Dark by Cynthia Eden
Prologue
San Francisco
Mid-September
The double-deck luxury yacht rolled over a Pacific wave just outside San Francisco Bay as Emily Peterson wobbled down a nearly vertical staircase on her four-inch stilettos. Her short, tight, sparkly disguise gave her a new respect for the gaggle of party girls she’d hidden among to sneak on board. Somehow those ladies managed to walk on these stilts without falling and to keep their nipples covered in spite of ridiculously low-cut dresses.
Her plan for tonight was to locate James Wynter’s private computer and load the data onto a flash drive. She’d slipped away from the gala birthday party for one of Wynter Corporation’s top executives. The guests had been raucous as they guzzled champagne and admired their view of the Golden Gate Bridge against the night sky. Some had complained about having to surrender their cell phones, and Emily had agreed. It would have been useful to snap photos of high-ranking political types getting cozy with Wynter’s thugs.
Belowdecks, she went to the second door on the right. She’d been told this was James Wynter’s office. The polished brass knob turned easily in her hand. No need to pick the lock.
Pulse racing, she entered. The desk lamp was off, but moonlight through the porthole was enough to let her see the open laptop. In a matter of minutes, she could transfer Wynter’s data to her flash drive, and she’d finally have the evidence she needed for her human trafficking article.
Before she reached the desk, she heard angry voices in the corridor. She backed away from the desk and ducked into a closet with a louvered door. Desperately, she prayed for them to pass by the office and go to a different room.
No such luck.
The office door crashed open. One of the men fell into the office on his hands and knees while others laughed. Another guy turned on the lamp. Light spread across the desktop and spilled onto the floor.
Her pulse thundered in her ears, but Emily stayed utterly silent. She dared not make a sound. If Wynter’s men found her, she was terrified of what they’d do.
Carefully, she stepped out of her red stilettos and went into a crouch. Through the slats in
the door, she could see the shoes and legs of four men. The man who had fallen kept apologizing again and again, begging the others to believe him.
She recognized the voice of one of his tormentors: Frankie Wynter, the youngest son of James Wynter. Though she couldn’t exactly tell what was going on, she thought Frankie was pushing the man who was so very sorry while the others laughed.
There was a clunk as the man who was being pushed flopped into the swivel chair behind the desk. From this angle, she saw only the back sides of the three men. One of them rocked back on his heel, cracked his knuckles and then lunged forward. She heard the slap, flesh against flesh.
They hit him again. What could she do? How could she stop them? She hated being silent while someone else suffered. Each blow made her cringe. If her ex-husband had been here, he could have made a difference, would have done the right thing. But she was on her own and utterly without backup. Should she speak up? Did she dare?
The beating stopped.
“Shut up,” Frankie roared at the man in the chair. “Crying like a little girl, you make me sick.”
“Let me talk. Please. I need to see the kids.”
“Don’t beg.”
Emily saw the gleam of silver as Frankie drew his gun. Terror gripped her heart. The other two men flanked him. They murmured something about waiting for his father.
Frankie opened the center drawer on the desk and took out a silencer. “I can do what needs to be done.”
“But your father—”
“He’s always telling me to step up.” He finished attaching the silencer to his handgun. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
He fired point-blank, then fired again.
When Frankie stepped away, she saw the dead man in the chair. His suit jacket was thrown open. The front of his shirt was slick with blood.
Emily pinched her lips closed to keep from crying out. She should have done something. A man was dead, and she hadn’t reached out, hadn’t helped him.
“We’re already out at sea,” Frankie said. “International waters. A good place to dump a body.”
“I’ll get something to carry him in.”
He glanced toward the closet...
Chapter One
Colorado
Six weeks later
He’d been down this road before. Though Sean Timmons was pretty sure that he’d never actually been to Hazelwood Ranch, there was something familiar about the long, snow-packed drive bordered on either side by wood fences. He parked his cherry-red Jeep Wrangler between a snow-covered pickup truck and a snowy white lump that was the size of a four-door sedan. Peering through his windshield, he saw a large two-story house with a wraparound porch. It looked like somebody had tried to shovel his or her way out, but the wind and new snow had all but erased the path leading to the front door.
Weather forecasters had been gleefully predicting the first blizzard of the Colorado ski season, and it looked like they were right for a change. Sean was glad he wouldn’t have to make the drive back to Denver tonight. He hadn’t formally accepted this assignment, but he didn’t see why he wouldn’t.
Hazel Hopkins from Hazelwood Ranch had called his office at TST Security yesterday and said she needed a bodyguard for at least a week, possibly longer. He wouldn’t be protecting Hazel but a “friend” of hers. She was vague about the threat, but he gathered that her “friend” had offended someone with a story she’d written. The situation didn’t seem too dangerous. Panic words, such as narcotics, crime lord and homicidal ax murderer, had been absent from her conversation.
Hazel had refused to give her “friend’s” name, which wasn’t all that unusual. The wealthy folk who lived near Aspen were often cagey about their identities. That was okay with him. The money transfer for Hazel’s retainer had cleared, and that was really all Sean needed to know. Still, he’d been curious enough to look up Hazelwood Ranch on the internet, where he’d learned that the ranch was a small operation with only twenty-five to fifty head of cattle. Hazel, the owner, was a small but healthy-looking woman with short silver hair. No clues about the identity of her “friend.” If he had to guess, he’d say that the person he’d be guarding was an aging movie star who’d written one of those tell-all books and was now regretting her candor.
Soon enough he’d know the truth. He zipped his parka, slapped on a knit cap and put on heavy-duty gloves. It wasn’t far to the front porch, but the snow was already higher than his ankles. Fat, wet flakes swirled around him as he left his Jeep and slogged along the remnants of a pathway to the front door.
On the porch, the Adirondack chairs and a hanging swing were covered with giant scoops of drifted snow. He stomped his boots and punched the bell under the porch lamp. Hazel Hopkins opened the door and ushered him into a warmly lighted foyer with a sweeping wrought-iron staircase and a matching chandelier with lights that glimmered like candles.
“Glad you made it, Sean.” Her voice was husky. When he looked down into her lively turquoise eyes, he suspected that a lot of wild living had gone into creating her raspy tone. Though she wore jeans on the bottom, her top was kimono-style with a fire-breathing dragon embroidered on each shoulder. He had the impression that he’d met her before.
She stuck out her tiny hand. “I’m Hazel Hopkins.”
Compared with hers, his hand looked as big as a grizzly bear’s paw. Sean was six feet, three inches tall, and this little woman made him feel like a hulking giant.
“Hang your jacket on the rack and take off your wet boots,” she said. “You’re running late. It’s almost dark.”
“The snow slowed me down.”
“I was worried.”
Parallel lines creased her forehead, and he noticed that she glanced surreptitiously toward a shotgun in the corner of the entryway. Gently he asked, “Have there been threats?”
“I had a more practical concern. I was worried that you wouldn’t be able to find the ranch and you couldn’t reach us by phone. Something’s wrong with my landline, and the blizzard is disrupting the cell phone signal.”
He sat on a bench by the door to take off his wet boots.
Without pausing for breath, she continued. “You know how they always say that the weather doesn’t affect your service on the cell phone or the Wi-Fi? Well, I’m here to tell you that’s a lie, a bold-faced lie. Every time we have a serious snowstorm, I have a problem.”
The heels on her pixie-size boots clicked on the terra-cotta floor between area rugs as she darted toward him, grabbed his boots and carried them to a drying mat under the coat hooks. She braced her fists on her hips and stared at him. “You’re exactly how I remembered.”
Aha, they had met before. He stood and adjusted the tail of his beige suede shirt to hide the holster he wore on his hip. “This may sound strange...” he said. “Have I ever been here?”
“I don’t think so. But Hazelwood Ranch is the backdrop for many, many photos. The kids came here often.”
Her explanation raised more questions. Backdrop for what? What kids? Why would he have seen the photos? “Maybe you could remind me—”
She reached up to pat his cheek. “I’m glad that you’re still clean-shaven. I don’t like the scruffy beard trend. I’ll bet you picked up your grooming habits in the FBI.”
“Plus, my mom was a good teacher.”
“Not according to the photo on your TST Security website,” she said. “Your brother, Dylan, has a ponytail.”
“He’s kind of a wild card. His specialties are electronics and cybersecurity.”
“And your specialty is working with law enforcement and figuring out the crimes. I believe your third partner, Mason Steele, is what you boys call the ‘muscle’ in the group.”
“I guess you checked me out.”
“I have, indeed.”
He took a long
look at her, hoping to jog his brain. His mind was blank. Nothing came through. His gaze focused on her necklace, a long string of etched silver, black onyx and turquoise beads. He knew that necklace...and the matching bracelet coiled around her wrist.
Shaking his head, he inhaled deeply. A particular aroma came to him. The scent of roasted peppers, onions, chili and cinnamon mingled with honey and fresh corn bread. He couldn’t explain this odor, but his lungs had been craving it. Nothing else was nearly as sweet or as spicy delicious. Nothing else would satisfy this newly awakened appetite.
His eyelids closed as a high-definition picture appeared in his mind. He saw a woman—young, fresh and beautiful. A blue jersey shift outlined her slender curves, and she’d covered the front with a ruffled white apron. Her long, sleek brown hair cascaded down her back, almost to her waist. She held a wooden spoon toward him, offering a taste of her homemade chili.
He had always wanted more than a taste. He wanted everything with her, the whole enchilada. But he couldn’t have her. Their time was over.
He gazed down into her eyes...her turquoise eyes!
“You remember,” Hazel said, “the wedding.”
That Saturday in June, six and a half years ago, was a blur of color and taste and music and silence. His eyelids snapped open. “I recall the divorce a whole lot better.”
These were dangerous memories, warning bells. He should run, get the hell out of there. Instead, he followed his nose down a shadowy hallway. Stiff-legged, he marched through the dining room into the bright, warm kitchen where the aroma of chili was thick.
Two pans of golden corn bread rested near the sink on the large center island with a dark marble countertop. She stood at the stove with her back toward him, stirring a heavy cast-iron pot. She wore jeans that outlined her long legs and tight, round bottom. On top, she had on a striped sweater. Over her shoulder, she said, “Hazel, did I hear the doorbell?”
The small, silver-haired woman beside him growled a warning. “You should turn around slowly, dear.”
Sean gripped the edge of the marble countertop, unsure of how he was going to feel when he faced her. Every single day since their divorce five years ago—after only a year and a half of marriage—he had imagined her. Sometimes he remembered the sweet warmth of her body beside him in their bed. Other times he saw her from afar and reveled in coming closer and closer. Usually, he imagined her naked with her dark chestnut hair spilling across her olive skin.