Lahat ng Kabanata ng Solid Gold (Unseen Enemy 8): Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

Doctor Francine Cabot watched as Mark disconnected the call on his cell. Her hands were full of clothes, and she set them down on her bed.“What is it, Mark?” she asked, her French-Canadian accent rolling the ‘r’ gently in the way that made him crazy. “What’s the matter?”“Not sure.” Mark looked around at the packing boxes with regret. “I’m sorry to leave you alone with all of this, sugar, but I gotta get to the safe house to meet Griff.”She waved off his apology with her hand. “It’s fine. I can drive the boxes over to your place and unpack things at that end –”With a scowl, he cut her off. “Nuh-uh, baby. No way you’re carrying all this stuff on your own.”Francine gave a laugh. “It’s just clothes and shoes this round, Mark. Nothing heavy.”“I don’t care. No carrying the boxes without me. You stay here tonight, take it easy. I’ll come back in the morning and we’ll keep moving you in then. We clear?”“Oui, mon loup,” she said, grinning at the wolfish growl in his voice that made his

Right. Back to basics. He was clearly in great shape, so he was a man who hit the gym, or the track, or the pool – or all three – on a regular basis. As a woman who hadn’t seen the inside of a gym since leaving her exclusive health club back in New York, Claire had nothing but admiration for people with that kind of iron discipline about their health.What else? She shot him a look, turned back to the window, lost in thought. Well… he was a man who helped others, and no doubt about that. She’d like to think that most men would stop if they saw a woman in trouble – but her recent life had shown her just how many people wandering around the earth were looking out for number one and for themselves only. The truth was that not every man would stop… and some men were the type that would demand something in return for having stopped. Money, almost for sure; sex, possibly. So the fact that Jack had rushed to her aid, asked for nothing, and continued to help her, made him one of the good guys

Two hours later, she and Jack left Mike’s house.So carefully, Mike had examined her face and neck, and declared her injuries pretty minor. He’d put ice on her swollen cheek and eye, looked at the bruising around her throat, checked her eyes and balance. He’d pronounced her shaken and in need of rest, but he saw nothing to worry about. He’d offered her a mild sedative, but Claire had politely refused.“I have some right here, Caitlin,” Mike had told her. “No need to give me your name or to go fill a prescription. You can just take them with you, OK? No problem for me.”“But… are they for pain? Or sleeping?”“Both,” Mike had said. “Just to relax you a bit, so you can unwind and get some rest. You really do need some, you know. You’ve had one hell of a shock.”“Uh.” She’d bitten her lip. “Well… then OK. Yes. Thank you.”Claire settled into the car beside Jack now, suddenly unbelievably tired, but determined not to give in to it quite yet. She’d looked weak and pathetic enough for one ni

Griff squinted over at the guy. He hadn’t had many dealing with the MC factions of Denver – that kind of stuff fell on Dallas directly, in the rare occurrences when it happened – and Griff was sure that he’d never laid eyes on this other man before. No chance of being recognized, he knew.But that wasn’t really the issue, in his view. No, the issue was that MC members were notoriously suspicious and they seemed to have built-in radars when it came to sniffing out cops, snitches, fakes, and anyone else who wasn’t what they claimed to be.A guy exactly like Griff, in other words.“Caitlin?” The man was down the steps and crossing the yard, flicking his cigarette into a snowbank as he stalked. “Where’s your car? Did you have an accident in the blizzard?”“Cole,” she said, and Griff didn’t miss the relief in her voice. “No. No accident.”“So who’s this guy?” Cole snapped. He was closer now and when Claire lifted her face a bit, he saw the bruising and swelling and he stopped dead in his t

The next morning, Hunter ‘Sully’ Sullivan entered the hospital room silently, then stood and looked at his wife as she slept in the chair next to their son’s bed. Cordelia was all curled up in a tight little ball, and Sully felt the exhaustion radiating off her, even as she slumbered deeply. He set down the two cups of coffee on the table next to the door and leaned back against the wall, his massive arms crossed as he stared at her some more. Even after four days of sleeping in that damn chair, and all the stress and worry over Sean, she was still the most beautiful and strongest woman that Sully had known in a long, long time. He’d been blessed with an astounding first wife – tragically murdered, along with their unborn son – and all he saw when he looked at Cordelia and Sean was a second chance to love, and to be loved in return. The fact that Sean was from Cordelia’s first marriage and not ‘really’ Sully’s son made exactly zero difference to any of them. Sean was his son, his in