Storm Front

An SSI Novella

Monette Michaels

Published 2013

Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © Published 2013, Monette Michaels. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Liquid Silver Books

http://LSbooks.com

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

Less than one week after Earl Blackhawk helped Risto Smith and Callie Meyers fight off a Colombian drug lord in Osprey’s Point, Michigan, he travels to Idaho to act as Risto’s best man at his marriage to Callie. There he meets Callie’s friend, Tessa Andrews. When he’d asked Callie to find him a woman just like her, he’d been teasing … sort of. But Callie had taken him seriously and he was glad she had.

Tessa comes to Idaho with a problem dogging her heels. A cyberstalker has resurrected a past she thought deeply buried. A past any man, a man such as Earl, would take one look at and run the other way.

But then, Tessa has never met a man like Earl. He’s more than attracted to Tessa, feels instantly protective of her, and nothing and no one will harm her while he’s around.

Tessa doesn’t believe she deserves a happy ever after, and when Earl and some others see the damaging images her cyberstalker sends her, she runs into the teeth of a storm front and deadly peril.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my beta-readers and critique partners for taking their valuable time to read and comment on this manuscript. I couldn’t have done this without you—Cherise, Ezra, Valy, Debbie, Shannon, and KaLyn.

I also want to thank my fabulous and very busy cover artist, April Martinez, for another fantastic cover.

Most of all, I want to thank the loyal fans and readers who have made it a joy for me to write these books. There would be no SSI series without you—I would have stopped after Eye if you all hadn’t demanded more. I hope Storm Front meets your expectations. Enjoy your gift.

Monday, December 5th, 6:00 a.m. (MST), Sanctuary, Idaho.

Earl Blackhawk leaned against the doorway leading from the Lodge’s great room into the kitchen and enjoyed the view.

Tessa Andrews stood at the center island, doing prep work for breakfast. Her thermal, long-sleeved shirt clung lovingly to her full, and if he wasn’t mistaken, braless breasts. Like Callie Meyers, now Smith as of yesterday, Tessa had been a super-model, recognized by only her first name. Her skin-tight jeans displayed the heart-shaped ass that had been featured in his and probably a lot of other men’s sexual fantasies over the years. Her long, dark hair was pulled up into a ponytail; let loose he’d bet the hair reached her butt.

Tessa leaned over the chopping board and the quick knife action set her breasts to jiggling. He stifled a groan and adjusted his cock into a more comfortable position. He’d been in one stage of erection or another since Tessa’s arrival on Saturday morning for Callie and Risto’s Sunday afternoon wedding.

When Callie had introduced them, it had been all he could do not to stammer and blush like a thirteen-year-old. Earl had fallen a little bit in love and a lot in lust with Tessa because of a perfume ad she’d done with Callie years ago. Whoever had crafted that promotion knew what made men tick.

Tessa was night to Callie’s day. Dark to Callie’s light. Sultry, Eurasian heritage to Callie’s sweet, All-American sensuality. The ad campaign had made the women instant super-models. Both had been discovered by the world-famous photographer Evan—Callie in the Chicago diner where she worked as a waitress to support her twin brothers and herself while she attended college, and Tessa on the streets of Chicago where she’d lived after escaping some sort of abusive home situation.

“Are you going to stand there and stare at me all morning,” Tessa’s low, sexy voice tinged with amusement resonated in the empty kitchen, “or, are you going to tell me what you want?”

What he wanted was her, but she wasn’t ready to hear that—yet. He’d never believed in love at first sight before, but it had happened to Risto with Callie, Ren with Keely, and now, it seemed it had happened to him.

Call it fate, karma, kismet, or destiny—or even Callie’s obvious attempt at match-making—he and Tessa were meant to be. He believed it with everything in him. Now, he needed to convince Tessa to believe in it—to believe in him.

Tessa turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder. Her almond-shaped eyes, the color of aged whiskey, held curiosity—and exhaustion.

“Did you even go to bed last night?” Earl asked before he could stop himself.

When he’d turned in, she’d been sitting in the great room with Callie’s brothers watching the
Rocky Horror Picture Show
, along with Loren and Paul Walsh, Keely Walsh-Maddox’s twin brothers. The five had sung along with the musical numbers and seemed to have been having a good time.

Tessa scowled and turned her attention back to chopping onions. “Yes, I went to bed, Mr. None-Of-Your-Business. I couldn’t sleep. I have a deadline on my book, so I worked on line edits.” She shrugged. “Besides, I don’t sleep much.”

She was lying.

Editing might have been what she’d done when she couldn’t get to sleep, but the book deadline wasn’t the cause of her insomnia.

Something else was.

Callie had confided her concerns about her friend at the same time she’d fed him background on Tessa. “I’m worried about her, Earl. Someone’s bothering her, but she won’t give me details. For her to mention it at all, means it’s bad news. Take care of her for me, please.”

Callie hadn’t needed to beg. He’d already determined he’d look Tessa up when they both got back to the Midwest. He’d decided he would need to ease into a relationship with the beautiful Tessa. He was more than ready to settle down and get some of what his best friend Risto had found with Callie: a loving wife and a baby on the way.

But Callie’s words had chilled him to the core and then made him see red. Nothing and no one were allowed to scare Tessa. He wouldn’t allow it. As far as he was concerned, Tessa was his responsibility now—whether she liked it or not.

One thing he knew—if he were in her bed, he’d make sure she slept. The thought of lulling Tessa to sleep with lots of sex and then holding her all night, cuddled against his naked body, made him smile and his cock twitch.

“Earth to Earl. What do you want?”

Tessa scooped the perfectly diced onions into a small bowl and then pulled a green pepper over and began to dice it when her cell phone lying on the island rang. She startled and nicked her finger. “Dammit.”

Sucking on her finger, she threw a frightened look at the phone and didn’t answer it. The look of fear was gone in a split second. If he hadn’t been observing her so closely, he would have missed it.

He’d seen the same expression before. Put on alert by Callie, he’d kept a close eye on Tessa the whole weekend. Six times on Saturday and four on Sunday, and now this time—and who knew how many times when he hadn’t been around?—when her cell phone rang, she’d startled and fear crossed her beautiful face. Then she’d check her smart phone with trembling fingers and whatever she read or heard would leach all the color out of her face.

By the third call on Saturday, he’d barely resisted the urge to snatch the phone out of her hand and demand what was wrong.

Today, somehow, he’d get his hands on her phone. Once he checked the messages and found out who or what had caused the look of abject fear on her face, he then could set about taking care of the problem.

Tessa moved to the sink and stuck her bleeding digit under running water. The phone finally stopped ringing.

Speaking over her shoulder, her voice strained, she said, “You never answered my question—did you want something? Breakfast won’t be ready for another forty-five minutes or so.”

Yeah, he wanted answers, but she wasn’t ready to confide in him—yet.

Swearing under his breath as Tessa’s finger continued to bleed, Earl straightened and stalked into the room. He skirted the island and stopped next to her. He pulled her bleeding finger from under the frigid water. “Jesus Christ, Tessa.” He grabbed a paper towel.

“What do you want, Earl?” She sighed with just a hint of exasperation and a lot of exhaustion and tried to pull her finger away from his grasp.

“I don’t want anything.”
Liar
. He wanted to take her upstairs and make love to her all day so she wouldn’t hurt herself and so she’d get some much-needed sleep. Sex was a great stress relief.

But instead, he wrapped the paper towel around the cut and raised her arm above the level of her heart. “Hold that there and keep the pressure on. I’ll get the First Aid kit.”

He waited until Tess’s gaze met his, and she nodded. Satisfied she’d follow his instructions, he strode to the pantry, pulled the kit from the wall, and took it back to the kitchen island.

“Come here and sit.” He pulled out a stool at the island and waited.

Her eyes sparked fiery gold. She heaved a loud sigh, but complied. “You’re a very bossy man, Earl Blackhawk. Does that come from owning most of Osprey’s Point, Michigan, or because you were a hot-shot Army Special Forces guy?”

Sometime over the past two days, Tessa had gotten an earful about him from someone. He’d place money on Cupid Callie being the source. Bless her little match-making heart.

“No, being bossy, as you call it, came naturally and led to those other things.” He laid out the supplies he’d need and then took her hand gently into his. Her fingers were long and graceful; her hands, small compared to his. “Now, let’s see how much damage we have here.”

As he unwrapped the blood-soaked paper towel, Tessa hissed as some of it stuck to the gaping wound. Her finger still bled rather freely when it should’ve begun to slow.

Worried about the poor coagulation, he frowned. “Do you have some sort of blood problem? You should’ve started to clot by now.”

“No-o-o. I’m perfectly healthy.” A look of confusion crossed her exotic face.

Damn.
He wanted to howl or hit something. He hated seeing her upset, tired, hurt, bleeding. He wanted her laughing and enjoying life or, better yet, dreamy-eyed and satiated after he’d given her a few orgasms.

“Are you taking any medications? Even over-the-counter ones?” After cleaning the cut, he placed a gauze pad over the wound and applied more pressure, while keeping the finger elevated above her heart.

“Um, aspirin.” Her expression lightened somewhat, and she let out a sigh of relief. “That has to be it. I never thought…”

“Why are you taking so much aspirin?” Because it would take more than a casual intake to compromise her coagulation factor. She was too young to be on a preventive dose for heart disease. He lowered her hand, removed the gauze. He grunted his satisfaction. “It’s slowing down.”

Earl looked up and resisted the urge to release her hand so he could soothe away the crease marring her forehead. “Tessa, sweetheart…” she gasped and looked at him with something akin to shock in her oh-so-expressive eyes, “…answer me. Why are you taking so much aspirin?”

Tessa shook her head and muttered something he couldn’t quite make out, then said, “Not that it’s any of your business, but, um … I’ve been tired, achy … have killer headaches … ouch, dammit, that hurt.” She glared and tried to pull her hand away. “Why are you pulling my skin like that?”

He held on. “Stop fidgeting. I need to make sure I line up the edges properly so the scar that forms isn’t all jagged.”

“Like my finger is some damn jigsaw puzzle,” she grumbled, but stopped fighting his hold.

He quickly and efficiently applied the steri-strips, covered the area with antibiotic cream, and proceeded to wrap the wound with gauze and then a self-sticking wrap.

“There,” he placed her hand gently onto the island countertop, “it might not look like much, but it’ll do the job.”

“It looks fine.” She drew back her hand. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He packed away the first aid supplies and then cleaned off the counter with an antiseptic wipe. “Don’t get the bandage wet.”

He was highly aware Tessa’s gaze followed him in his tasks. He could almost feel her irritation at his “bossiness.” He grinned. At least when she was pissed off at him, the sadness was gone from her eyes and replaced by fiery golden glints.

As he walked to the trash can to get rid of the wipe he’d used to clean the island, she stepped in front of him. He managed to stop in time to avoid treading on her feet shod in what looked to be Hello Kitty slippers. The top of her head came to just below his nose. Her hair smelled like flowers and vanilla and made his mouth water. He wondered if she smelled like that all over, and once again the thought of taking her upstairs and stripping her naked zoomed to the forefront of his mind.