Department of Justice operative Miranda Tyler has her hands full. The maternally-challenged beauty has been drafted to hide the daughter of a witness in a high-profile, murder case. The assignment means returning to her Georgia hometown and seeking help from the high school heartthrob who betrayed her years before.
Tall, dark and sexy, Caleb Blackfox had always had his way with women. That was until Miranda walked in on him playing doctor with the homecoming queen and dumped him. Now, ten years later, Miranda walks back into his life and asks for his help. This time, determined to win back the girl who got away, Caleb is willing to do whatever it takes to make her stay
Chapter One
Rome, the center of the universe a thousand years ago in Italy, had a cousin in Georgia. No more like little sister, Miranda thought wirily, as she stepped out of the rental car. Since she’d left home, the city had almost doubled in population thanks to Atlanta’s increasing popularity. She’d only been home for less than three hours but already she could see the changes. There were new street signs, parks, shopping plazas, and traffic lights. She would have never thought that some day the town would boast a tourism industry. No matter the new additions, the things she loved about her hometown still remained the same. The slow pace, the family owned shops, the way people smiled, the fresh air, high hills, and abundant trees.
If you’d ask anyone who new her, they would say that Miranda could never live in a small town, but wouldn’t they be shocked at how easy it would be for her to give up Philadelphia’s fast pace and fall back into the relaxed southern lifestyle. If anyone had told her that she would be taking a leave of absence and returning home with a child in tow, she would have thought them insane. She didn’t avoid coming home, she dreaded it. Not because of family, but because of memories. Memories of the best and the worst times of her life. Memories of the man who’s put her over the moon with joy and then broken her heart into so many pieces she was still didn’t know if she had it all together.
She’d dated more than her share of highly prized Metro D.C. area’s eligible bachelors, and had even managed to be the recipient of two marriage proposals. Miranda’s brow creased at the thought of why she hadn’t said yes. The men were as close to her wish list for a mate as possible. Only when she’d sat up all night and finished a bottle of wine with her girlfriends, did she realize why she couldn’t accept their proposals. No matter how much she’d wanted to ignore it, the truth was that she’d never felt the passion, the connection, the soul deep commitment that had existed between her and Caleb Blackfox.
A rush of annoyance tore into her. After all these years, he still had a hold on her heart. He was the main reason she’d avoided coming home, but here she was, with three suitcases in the trunk of the rental car about to walk into Mercy Hospital. Miranda exhaled slowly, trying and partially succeeding in to calm the flutter in the pit of her stomach. Instead of thinking about the past, she concentrated on the present situation.
She’d needed a vacation, that wasn’t a problem. If she had woken up one morning and decided to cash in all of her paid time off, she wouldn’t have to set foot in the office for at least six months. While working for the U.S. Marshals Service for the past five years had been a boon for her career, it had left her with little personal time. And now even though she was officially on leave to take care of a family matter, she’d brought her work with her.
Opening up the back door, Miranda pulled out a shopping bag with a few things she’d purchased for Darren before leaving DC.
“Ms. Miranda.”
“Call me Mom or Mommy, Kelly,” Miranda corrected as she walked looked to the side of the vehicle. The door closed and an eleven year old girl stood neatly dressed in blue jeans, jacket, and tennis shoes and was clutching an oversized book bag.
Ebony black ponytails tied with red ribbons sprouted from both sides of her head. It had taken her over twenty minutes alone create the perfect part and another twenty minutes for Kelly to get dressed. Now the perfectly coordinated and little girl looked up at Miranda with solemn light brown eyes. Ryan’s eyes, Miranda remembered and wondered why she’d never noticed. Maybe it was the fact that the little girl more resembled the mother she’d never had the chance to meet.
Kelly sighed. “Mom, is your brother nice?”
Miranda reached down and took the little girls hand as she crossed the parking lot in the direction of the hospital’s main entrance. Was Darren nice? She briefly cataloged a list of her older brother’s personality traits and rapidly came to the conclusion that the nice would not be an adjective describe Darren Tyler. “Umm, he’s loyal, a little over-protective, and loves dogs,” she added. “As a matter of fact, I think he has one, so after we visit, we can stop by the house to make sure he’s alright.”
“What kind of dog?”
Miranda bit her lip as they waited to cross a small intersection. “Some kind of terrier I think.”
“Cool. Just as long as it’s not a really big dog. Did you know that Daddy said that when he comes back, he’s going to get me a puppy?”
Miranda nodded her head and looked both ways for the third time before crossing. She was cautious by nature, but ever since Kelly had come into her life, she’d gone to the extreme. When they’d stopped at various shopping malls on the drive down, she hadn’t let Kelly out of her sight even going so far as to stand guard outside of the dressing room. “I think he mentioned it before.”
The child smiled so widely that Miranda got a bird’s eye view the metal braces in her mouth.
“Good. That way I can remind him just incase he tries to get out of it.”
“That’s the last thing he would ever do, baby cakes,” Miranda responded using Ryan’s pet name for his daughter. Mentally her mind hummed with an added task. Depending on the length of time, they stayed in the town she would have to find Kelly an orthodontist. Not to mention a pediatrician, a dentist, and an after-school tutor. Wherever the agency decides to place Ryan and Kelly after the trial, she would make sure that the little girl remained an ‘A’ student..
Her steps slowed as they moved toward the gently curving glass curtain wall that formed the lobby at the main entrance. Her mother had mentioned in passing during one of their weekend conversations the previous year that the new hospital was high tech and now she truly believed her. She would have expected the building in Washington, DC not in her hometown. But they had outdone themselves with a striking lobby of glass and brick, tall light fixtures that could have doubled as works of art, filled the lobby with a rainbow of soft colors from the sun’s rays.
As she walked through the second set of automatic doors the hospital doors, outwardly everything about Miranda stayed the same. Inwardly however, she shivered. Darren’s automobile accident brought home the fact that life was pretty fragile and with their parents out of the country volunteering in Africa, he was pretty much the only family she could depend on.
Miranda felt a tug on her hand and turned to look at Kelly with a raised brow. “Mir--,” she started then stopped. “Mommy, I don’t like hospitals.”
“Me, either,” she responded truthfully. Miranda’s heart went out to the child. Although she’d never experienced the death of a parent, she provided support for enough friends and collogues who had lost a loved one to know how badly it hurt. Kelly’s mother had died over a year ago, but neither the child nor her father had yet to heal. “I promise that we won’t stay long. I know you’re probably a little tired from the drive and I could use a shower. Do you think you can hang with me a little while longer?”
“No problem,” she nodded her head.
Miranda smiled with gratitude. At first when her boss and Ryan had come to her with the idea of bringing Kelly with her to Georgia, she’d been vehemently apposed to the plan. Now as she approached the front desk, she was truly grateful for the small hand she held. “Hello, we’re here to see Darren Tyler.”
“He’s in the ICU, miss. Visitors are limited to family only.” The voice was impatient and bored.
Narrowing her eyes, she looked down and across the woman’s shirt to locate her identification batch. “Mrs. Walters, we are his family,” Miranda said coldly. “I’m his little sister.”
The woman looked at Miranda closely and door a moment she thought she would have to pull out get driver’s license to prove who she was. Had the situation not been so urgent, she would have taken the receptionist to task for her rude behavior. After a moment, she lady on the other side of the desk, returned her gaze to the computer.
“He’s on the fifth floor. Room 403,” she said.
“Thank you,” she replied curtly before turning on her heel and stomping away with Kelly at her side. Swallowing Miranda moved toward the elevators. While waiting for the elevator and trying to calm herself down her mind focused on trivial things. She noticed that the furnishing were warm, natural tones are grouped in small clusters, more like an intimate hotel and completely devoid of any hint of a white, sterile environment often associated with hospitals.
“Are you going to be alright?”
She blinked and looked down into Kelly’s worried brown eyes. Here she was a grown woman being comforted by a child. It was almost funny if it wasn’t so humiliating. Forcing a smile to her face she shook her head. “Right as rain.”
They took the elevator up and it navigating from the many signs she soon found her brother’s room. Holding Kelly’s small in hers and the shopping bag in the other, she entered into the hospital room.
An hour later, life hadn’t gotten any better.
“Miranda Tyler doesn’t cry,” she muttered under her breath as she stepped through the glass doorway of her brother’s hospital room. No tears at funerals, sniffles while watching old black and white movies, or choked sobs after hearing the verdict in a murder case. None. She took another deep breath and gripped the two soda cans in her hands. The cold had almost numbed her fingers but she didn’t want to let them go. It was easier to concentrate on the uncomfortable pain in her fingertips then to think about how close her brother had come to death.
Swallowing back the sob stuck in her throat, she crossed the small room over to the coach, leaned down and tapped Kelly on the shoulder. It took the little girl a moment to glance up from her laptop and slip pulled back one of the earphones from her ear.
“I thought you could use something to drink,” she said holding up both of the soda cans.
Catching Kelly’s confused glance, Miranda shrugged. “I forgot to ask what kind you liked to drink, she I purchased the most popular choice among kids of your age group.”
Kelly shook her head and smiled up at Miranda. “You think way too much, Ms. Tyler.
Anything’s okay with me.”
Relieved, Miranda handed over one of the sodas opened the other one and took a drink. She should have corrected Kelly but she didn’t have the heart. In the past she’d always been one of the people instructing new arrivals on the process of getting into the witness protection agency. It was the administrative work she was most familiar with. She’d never had to get close; never witness someone losing their very identity. Nor did she think that she would ever be on assignment and have to be a participant in the act. The carbonated water stung her throat and made her eyes water. Almost like tears almost like she was crying. Wiping them away quickly, she turned back to the man lying still in the hospital bed.
“Is he going to be okay?” Kelly asked.
Miranda turned her attention away and pasted a small smile on her face and prayed she at least sounded more convincing than she felt. “The doctor said he’d be okay.”
“Do you believe them?”
She flashed back to the meeting she’d had with Darren’s treating physician. Physically her brother was slated to make a full recovery. Mentally, they couldn’t completely rule out the possible long term effects of the concussion. “Darren doesn’t have a choice. He’s going to come out of this.”
“Just like my dad, right?” Kelly asked.
Miranda nodded and a smile tickled at her lips as she thought of Ryan. She’d known from the moment she’d first stepped into the room with the Federal Marshall that nothing would keep that man from what was his. That sentiment was doubled where his family was concerned.
“Oh, yes. If you’ll just bear with me for another hour, we’ll go back to the hotel, grab some room service, and you can get some sleep.”
Taking two steps forward, Miranda wished she could call her parents but there was nothing they could do because they were so far away. She calculated it would take at least a week for them to make arrangements to get return from Ghana. Not to mention, teaching in the stable African country had given her parents a new lease on life and a second wind to a stagnate marriage.
She looked down into a face so like her father’s and sniffed as her heartbeat stuttered. Same wide forehead, stubborn jaw, and thick head of hair. Her larger than life, personal hero older brother was hooked up to a machine and had his leg in traction. That dose of reality almost brought Miranda to her knees. She reached out and clutched the bed’s side railing for balance as she repeated another mantra.
“Miranda Tyler does not panic,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t, little sister,” a raspy voice replied.
She blinked and looked down into Darren’s bloodshot brown eyes. “You’re awake!”
He grimaced and his tongue moved over his cracked lips. “Thirsty.”
Quickly, Miranda moved to the bedside table, poured a glass of water and held it to his lips. Darren took a couple of sips and sat back.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like someone to a baseball bat and beat me like a piņata. He grimaced and took a few deep breathes. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?” Miranda asked as she took his hand and gently squeezed.
“I remember driving home from the office and thinking about what I was going to eat while watching the Georgia beat the hell out of Auburn. After that, everything gets fuzzy; I recall a woman screaming and an ambulance. That’s all I know before waking up and seeing you talking to yourself.”
“That was approximately forty-eight hours ago.”
His eyebrows shot up and then he winced. “What!”
“Yes,” Miranda nodded. “You’ve been unconscious for the past two days, big brother. Guess you should have driven a little more carefully.”
His brow furrowed and Miranda could see his mind kick into the next gear. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. How the hell could I have driven more carefully? That damn Lincoln hit me.”
Miranda smiled widely. A real smile. A smile that reached down to the tips of her toes. Just hearing Darren curse let her know things were looking up. Plus there was the bonus of the indication that his memory of the accident was returning.
“If you’d been on top of your game, you would have been able to dodge the seventy-two year old man who accidentally swerved into your lane as he was reaching for his cell phone.”
“Yeah, right,” he replied. “What are you doing here? Who called you?”
“Uncle Ron called me before he had to go out of town.”
“Miranda, you need to get on that phone of yours and book a ticket back to D.C., I’m fine.”
Miranda leaned forward and narrowed her eyes at her older brother, he closest friend, and the one man other than her father that she’d never in her life doubted. From what she’d read in the newspaper and gleaned from the accident reports. If he hadn’t been driving his small sports car instead of his SUV, he wouldn’t have been alive. “You have a concussions, two fractured ribs, sprained wrist, and fracture in your right ankle and a broken leg.”
“So. I can still take care of myself. You have a life and a job that you need to get back to.”
She pursed her lips. “You know damn well that my life is my job. But that’s irrelevant. Let me put the situation in simple terms: you had a car accident; I had vacation. Perfect match. Now suck it up and deal with it. For the first time in our lives, this little sister is going to take care of her older brother.”
“Miranda…”
She cut him off. “If it makes you feel better, I had leave D.C. anyway.”
“Guy problems?”
She shook her head. No.”
“Are you in danger?” he asked.
Miranda shook her head. “No, we just needed to get away for a little while.”
As a project specialist within the Justice Department, she worked directly for the Witness Protection Agency. Her job was to assist in the relocation and protection of those within the system. Miranda worked behind the scenes to manage logistics and work through the internal bureaucracy, and make sure agents in the field had every possible resource to perform their abilities, but she’d never gotten involved.
Until now.
“We? Who the hell is we?”
“Me,” Kelly’s high pitched voice came out clearly over the hum of the hospital monitoring equipment.
Darren turned his head and aimed a penetrating stare at Kelly. Miranda could see the wheels turning in her brother’s head and her stomach dropped a little. This was the moment she hadn’t been waiting for. The second that she would have to do something that went against her very fiber.
“Miranda, who is she?” Darren asked the question without turning his attention from the girl on the two-seat sofa.
She turned her head to look into Kelly’s and caught the flicker of amusement in Kelly’s somber brown eyes. Good Lord, Miranda thought, the girl deserves an Academy Award.
Miranda drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Darren, meet Kelly.” She paused before dropping the bomb. “My daughter.”