Blurb:
Sometimes finding what you want is the
easy part.
Caleb is a bionic soldier with little-to-no memory
of his past. He’s traded pieces of himself for some very highly classified,
high-tech hardware, but he’s not always sure how he feels about that bargain.
Could be he’s lost far more than he’s gained. He’s not even sure the choice had
been his to make. He’s seeking the truth. About himself. About his past. About
those missing memories.
Aldo’s an undercover cop who just might have the
answers to Caleb’s questions. But Aldo’s already lost one love too many. The
same truth that could set Caleb free could also send him running—as far from
Aldo as he can get. That’s an unacceptable risk. Because if it turns out
Caleb’s the man Aldo thinks he is, how can he even think about letting him get
away from him a second time?
Then there’s Sally, she’s an ER physician who used
to be married to Aldo’s late partner, Davis. Although she does her best to hide
it, Sally’s not really coping very well with widowhood. She’s used to
compartmentalizing her emotions, staying calm in an emergency, burying herself
in her work, but it’s getting harder every day to find a good enough reason to
keep getting up. She cares deeply about both Caleb and Aldo, and she knows they
both care about her—one as a lover, the other as a friend—but she needs
something more. If the truth about the men’s shared past comes to light, she
could lose them both. Along with her last, best reason to continue living.
This holiday season, chance will bring these three
together and give them an opportunity to help one another find what they each
want most. But every gift comes with a price. And keeping what they’ve found
once they’ve found it? Yeah, that’s gonna be the hard part all right.
Excerpt:
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Aldo’s arm tightened instinctively around her. He was startled by the blast of anger, by the raspy growl that emerged from his throat. “Are you saying some sonofabitch got ticked off and walked out on you because you wouldn’t sleep with him? Who is he? Tell me where to find him and I’ll fucking kill him.”
“Aldo.” Sally
turned her head to glint up at him. “Would you stop it? You would not.”
The words were
matter of fact, but Aldo wasn’t certain if that was confidence he heard in her
voice, or a hint of challenge, either way, it pissed him off. He arched one
brow. “Oh, no?”
“No. I know you.
And I wouldn’t want you to anyway.
That’s not what happened, okay? It just… It didn’t work out, that’s all.
No harm, no foul.”
“You don’t even
know what that means, do you?” He hated that plaintive tone in her voice. She
sounded like a lost little girl when she used it. And she clearly didn’t
know him anywhere near as well as she
thought she did. He wasn’t always the nice guy she imagined him to be. Davis
hadn’t been either, for that matter. He doubted anyone was. She was still too
naïve, too innocent. And he’d be damned if he was going to be the one to change
that. She was the only good thing in his life. And their friendship was still
the only relationship he had yet to fuck up. It was damn sure gonna stay that
way, if he had anything to say about it. Still, it made him mad. “What the fuck
is wrong with this guy?” he groused. “He couldn’t cut you some slack, give you
a little time? Doesn’t he realize how much you’ve been through lately?”
Sally sighed. “Of
course he doesn’t. How would he know?”
“You didn’t tell
him? How come? I thought you said you’d known him for a while?”
“A few weeks—yeah.
And, of course I didn’t tell him? How would that go? What was I gonna say? ‘I
know you think you want me but what you don’t understand is I’m a pathetic
little widow who can’t figure out what she wants’?”
“Stop that. You’re
not pathetic.”
“Oh, babe.” She
shook her head. “I am, you know. I’m not blind. My life is running away without
me and I can’t seem to stop it and…half the time, I don’t even care. I’m tired
of fighting it, tired of feeling lost. If that’s not pathetic…”
“It hasn’t been
that long,” Aldo pointed out, a little desperately. “You have to give yourself
time. Maybe you’re the one who needs
to cut yourself some slack?”
Sally chuckled
weakly. “So says the man who, just last week, told me—yet again—that it was
time for me to move on.”
“Yeah, well…” he
broke off, sighing. “Sometimes I don’t always think things through before I
speak. You know that.”
“Or before you
act.”
“Yeah. That too.”
Davis had made the point frequently, had given Aldo hell on a regular basis for
his hot-headed, impulsive ways. He’d always claimed Aldo would get himself
killed one day, if he didn’t change. And yet, it was Davis who was gone too
soon.
“I miss him.”
Aldo nodded. Eyes
closing for a moment as a wave of pain crashed over him. “I know, honey. I do
too.”
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