Playing For Keeps (Montana Men) Read online

  PLAYING FOR KEEPS

  Montana Men 4

  Jaydyn Chelcee

  Erotic Romance

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Secret Cravings Publishing e-book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at [email protected]

  A Secret Cravings Publishing Book

  Erotic Romance

  Playing for Keeps

  Copyright © 2012 Jaydyn Chelcee

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61885-391-2

  First E-book Publication: November 2012

  Cover design by Dawne Dominique

  Edited by Colleen McSpirit

  Proofread by Ariana Gaynor

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Secret Cravings Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

  Dedication

  To all you ladies out there who love a sexy cowboy!

  The Cravings e-book Club

  The Cravings Paranormal e-book Club

  Have you heard about the newest idea in ebooks, the ebook club? Secret Cravings Publishing has started two ebook clubs and we invite you to become a member of either The Cravings e-book Club or the Cravings Paranormal e-book Club. Join now and get two books absolutely free!

  As a member, you will receive Taming The Cougar* by Sandy Sullivan and Hunting Jaguar** by D. McEntire FREE, just for joining!

  You’ll also receive 4 BRAND-NEW EBOOKS, specially selected by our Editorial Director, every month for a total price of only $9.99 for all 4. This comes out to barely $2.50 per book, much less than the retail price and you’ll be able to enjoy your books even before they hit Amazon or Barnes & Noble. We send your books before they are uploaded to the popular sales sites. One of several privileges of club membership.

  *Taming the Cougar, a western, erotic romance:

  Marla isn't looking for love or anything else from a man. Can Marla put aside her distrust of men for a younger man? Can Chris convince her he's not like other guys?

  *Hunting Jaguar, paranormal erotic romance:

  Rachel Hayes' father set out to prove the existence of the Miloni temple and the Jaguar people. Tumi is a descendant of the Miloni race and is sworn to protect their secret with his life. Will he be forced to uphold his vow at the cost of his heart and Rachel's life?

  As a member of the Cravings Club, you’ll receive 4 books in a variety of genres every month. We will try to match your books to your preferences, however, if you’re a major paranormal fan, I suggest you join the Cravings Paranormal Club. Everything is the same, 4 books every month for $9.99 except that 3 of your 4 books will be paranormal. The remaining book will be of a different genre.

  As a club member, you will also receive:

  · our monthly newsletter

  · sneak previews of new books

  · exclusive interviews with your favorite authors

  · special offers not available to the general public

  To join and tell us your favorite genres and heat levels plus which format works best for you, go to the Secret Cravings Publishing website (www.secretcravingspublishing.com) At the bottom of the page you’ll see a button for the club. You can sign up there and share your preferences for genre, format and heat level with us. You will be charged, automatically, through PayPal, only $9.99 every month. Your books will be shipped within 1 day after PayPal payment has cleared. You may cancel at any time by clicking on the “unsubscribe” button located on the Cravings Club tab at the bottom of our website and keep the FREE BOOKS as our gift.

  We hope our Secret Cravings books will delight you each and every month.

  Best wishes,

  Beth Walker

  PLAYING FOR KEEPS

  MONTANA MEN 4

  Jaydyn Chelcee

  Copyright © 2012

  Prologue

  There will be time to murder and create.

  ~T.S. Elliot

  Washington, D.C.

  February 16, Monday

  11:00 p.m.

  “Punch the button,” the brunette screamed, charging inside the elevator like the lead steer in a stampede. “Punch the button! Hurry!” She whirled to steal a look past the open door, her hands jittering nervously at her sides.

  Although Jayla Ross hadn’t seen the lady’s face, she heard the terror in her voice. Stunned, she stared at the back of the woman’s dark head. What on Earth? Puzzled, and a bit frightened by the unknown, Jayla looked around. She wondered how the hell the hysterical lady thought she could push the button when the woman stood smack in front of the panel. She started to nudge her to one side, but the oddest sounds outside the elevator gave her reason to hesitate. The faint pop-pop was unfamiliar, yet it sent a tingle of apprehension up her spine. The muffled sounds reminded her of a firecracker that fizzled, withholding the big bang, yet her blood chilled.

  The woman threw up her hands in a self-defensive gesture. “No,” she cried, but the word was as useless as her defense. A third pop! Not another sound escaped as the back of her head exploded like an over-ripe tomato. A mix of blood and brain matter sprayed the front of Jayla’s pale blue suit, face, and strands of her hair.

  For a moment, she stared blankly at the front of her outfit, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Everything inside her shut down—her breathing, her ability to think coherently. Faint whimpers of distress and horror surged in the back of her throat, but she wasn’t even sure they managed to escape.

  Her mind locked like the steel jaws of a bear trap. That didn’t stop the victim from toppling against her. She slid against her, limp as a rag doll, leaving a wider smear of blood down the front of the Jackie Kennedy-era jacket Jayla had purchased to wear to the Vintage Party she’d attended earlier in the evening.

  Automatically Jayla caught the woman. The elbow length white gloves clinging to her forearms turned crimson at the fingertips. The woman was taller, and outweighed her by at least twenty pounds—and she was dead weight. Jayla’s legs buckled like straw. Unable to support her, she lowered the woman to the floor as gently as she could, then hunkered down beside her.

  Jayla’s mouth worked, but for the life of her, she couldn’t force a single word past her numb lips. She thought the strange wailing noise w
as coming from her, but she wasn’t sure. The urgent need clawing at her numb mind demanded she get up and run, but she was frozen to the spot. In that single, endless moment, she felt as if she’d been sucked inside a black hole. Her mind voiced questions at the rate of warp-speed, running the words together in her head. What had just happened—what had she witnessed—why wasn’t she screaming—running—breathing?

  A woman had been shot down right in front of her eyes, and she just sat here like a zombie. Dazed, Jayla stared at the splatters of crimson dotting her gloved hands. Oh, God. This was bad. Feeling shocky, she lifted her arms to eye the bloodstains on them. Her mind felt blank, comprehension murky as a dark pool, yet she knew that wasn’t true.

  At the moment, her brain was the only thing functioning half-way normal. It was her body that refused to cooperate. She stared at the blood pooling on the elevator floor. Blobs of crimson speckled the dead woman’s face. It slowly dawned on Jayla the lady was wearing a dark wig. Why the absurdity of it had such an impact or was suddenly of vital importance, she didn’t know, but the urgent need to shove the damn thing aside overwhelmed her. At the same time a silent alarm clanged a warning—don’t touch her.

  Jayla released a tense breath. She had a bad feeling. Ignoring the warning, she pushed the edge of the dark hairpiece out of the way. She widened her eyes and stared at the strands of platinum-blonde hair beneath the expensive extension. Her heart leapt into her throat. “Oh, shit!”

  Punch the button! The dead woman’s words screamed in her head, but Jayla’s muscles quivered like jelly and refused to cooperate. Now, thinking was beyond her capability. Wide-eyed, she gaped at the dark strands of the wig, then the lighter threads of hair underneath it. Fighting to draw in air, those final, hysterical words blurted in terror, burned a hole in her mind.

  Punch the button!

  Jayla stared at the woman whose pale blue eyes looked back—dull, fixed, and lifeless as a doll’s. A perfectly round hole, not much bigger than a centimeter, dotted the space between her eyes. It silently exposed the obvious truth of the matter. The much bigger cavity in the back of her head, well—no mistake there, the woman was dead. Dead-dead-dead!

  Then the awful trembling, the panic—half the lady’s skull was missing. Jayla feared she wore most of the parts of it. “God, please.” The words sprang from the back of her dry throat in a soft keening sound. Strangled words that slipped past her lips as she shoved the wig farther to one side and prayed the slain woman wasn’t who she knew in her heart to be.

  Jayla scrambled clumsily to her feet. Her heart pounded. Her palms felt sweaty inside the gloves. She stared at her gloved hands. Sweaty—or were they moist from the blood soaking through the soft material? “Oh, dear Lord.” Her stomach churned like a stormy sea. “Don’t be sick. Don’t be sick.” From the corner of her eye, she caught a distorted image on the brass panel—saw the blurry outline of the barrel of a gun. “Oh, God. Oh, God,” she whispered.

  Terrified the shooter might hear her raspy breathing and softly uttered words, she clamped a shaky hand over her mouth. Jayla looked around, frantic. No escape. She was the proverbial fish in a barrel. Why was he still here? Why hadn’t he fled like a nice killer?

  Then the ludicrous thought—why should he run? He was the one with the weapon. The question was why hadn’t she run? Too late now. Jayla stumbled, but caught herself against the side of the innermost wall. Raw, greasy nausea bubbled in her stomach. Sure as hell, she was going to upchuck.

  Punch the button! Punch it, now! Get out of here. Escape. Run. Run fast. Run far. How?

  There was only one way out. And the person with the gun waited, patient as a spider in its web for her to dare an attempt to escape. Jayla stood there, plastered against the corner, her mind screaming a denial of what she’d just witnessed.

  Why wasn’t the door closing? It was taking forever to slide inside its little slot. She jabbed and re-jabbed the parking level button. No response. The door was caught half-way and refused to budge an inch closer to its hatch.

  Gasping, she saw one of the dead woman’s legs blocking the gap. Jayla’s heart sank as she realized what she had to do if she wanted a chance to survive. Damn! Her hands shook worse than someone with palsy. Bracing herself with a deep, fortifying breath, she bent down and gripped the poor departed soul beneath her shoulders and dragged the body the rest of the way in.

  Dismayed, she watched the door slide toward its slot as if in reverse warp speed—slooow—slow as molasses in winter. “Hurry, damn it…hurry!”

  A shadow. Closer. Too close. Dark. Frightening. Deadly.

  What the hell was the shooter doing?

  Smashed between the body and the wall, she watched the elevator door. Her veins felt as if icy sludge had been transfused inside them turning every bone, muscle and tissue to slush. The killer. He stepped into sight. There he stood, plain as day. He stared back at her through the eye sockets of a black wool mask that covered his face. Patiently reloading the 9mm he held, he jacked the clip in place, then pointed the lethal weapon at her.

  The silencer attached to it looked deadly. The terrifying black hole on the business end of the barrel raised goose bumps on her flesh. Cold chills swept down her spine and formed an icy puddle at the small of her back. She was dead, dead as the woman on the floor at her feet. Jayla braced herself.

  Death—would it be painful or over in a second? Please, let it be over in a second.

  He hesitated.

  She saw his finger flex, then relax on the trigger. He pointed the gun up, his eyes cold and deadly. “What are you doing here?” he asked, and stepped back.

  The doors swished shut. The elevator shot down as if it had suddenly found fourth gear. It jetted to ground level, snatching the air from Jayla’s frozen lungs like a detonated atom bomb. She felt as if she was on one of those insane carnival rides where the bottom drops away and the rider held in place by nothing but the centrifugal force of the spinning wheel.

  Her heart pumped madly. Her pulse pounded. The very core of her brain felt pulverized, as if it’d been struck by a bullet. He hadn’t taken the shot! He could have, should have, but he hadn’t. Why?

  Jayla tried desperately to think what she needed to do to get out of the mess she’d stumbled into, but her mind was still gripped by the horror of what she’d witnessed. Think. Think.

  Once she’d moved the body, he’d halted the door with his hip, but he hadn’t taken the shot because he’d been surprised to see her. Yes. She’d seen the shock in his eyes—the recognition. She knew him, too, in the Biblical sense of the word. Only one person had those wintry gray eyes, that cold voice.

  And she’d just witnessed him murder Molly Westcott, the First Lady of the United States.

  Chapter One

  More important than talent, strength, or knowledge is the ability to laugh at yourself and enjoy the pursuit of your dreams.

  ~Amy Grant

  McLean, Virginia

  CIA Headquarters

  February 16, Monday

  Seven hours before the assassination…

  Duel Remington pushed open the door to Special Agent Mac Bradshaw’s office and quietly stepped inside. He hadn’t seen his ex-partner and friend in over a year, and today was Mac’s last day on the job. Duel decided this was probably his only opportunity to wish the older man well with his retirement.

  Although they hadn’t worked as a team in over five years, when they had, and the bullets started flying, he and Mac had covered each other’s sixes on many assignments together. If they hadn’t, one or both of them would have died, or been captured behind enemy lines.

  Early on, they’d been dubbed the Montana Duo, even though Mac was from Utah. But as one of the agents said, ‘Don’t expect me to remember any state west of New York,’ so no one bothered to keep his and Mac’s home states separate in their minds. Because they were both from the West, they’d been lumped together as one, and the moniker, Montana Duo, stuck.

  Angie Hillcrest, Mac’s
long time secretary, had her back to him when Duel entered the spacious office of his former associate. In one hand, she held a sheaf of papers and the other was busy flipping through files he knew held some pretty dicey information.

  With a soft snip, the door closed behind him.

  Looking over her shoulder, Angie’s slender face lit up. “Oh, my goodness, Desperado, it’s so good to see you back. You’ve been away much too long.” Angie shoved the bundle of papers in the drawer, shut it and turned the lock. The little silver key vanished inside the pleated depths of the pocket in her pale pink suit jacket. She hurried to him, arms wide for a bear hug.

  Petite, silver haired, thin as a rail, and wearing over-sized glasses, she greeted him with a buzzed kiss to his cheek. She leaned away, running a motherly eye over his face. “You look like crap! You’ve lost weight. Don’t they feed you at that ranch of yours out there in the wilderness? When did you last eat? Sleep? How’s your brother? Have you heard anything about Dianna? We’ve kept our ears tuned to CNN.”

  Duel forced a smile and hugged the sixtyish lady back. He ignored the numerous personal questions she’d rattled off at him like a drill sergeant concerning his eating habits, and concentrated on answering the ones about his family instead. “Jace is recovering with Kaycee’s help.”

  “Kaycee? That’s his new wife?”

  “Yes.” Duel nodded and released her. “We haven’t heard from Dianna. And CNN is a nightmare with all the speculation about where the plane might have gone down and whether she and Kaycee’s brother survived the impact or not. It’s tough waiting for word. Is Mac still around?”