Playing For Keeps (Montana Men) by Jaydyn Chelcee

than necessary. Usually, it was
Sam waiting on her. Why couldn’t this one time be like all the others and Sam
already here, tapping her toes and anxious to be on her way?
    “I don’t know, Miss Ross, at least an hour. Maybe two. As
you know, Miss Rivers is attending the first lady’s dinner party at the White
House at Mrs. Westcott’s specific request. She can’t simply leave. I’m sorry.”
    “Yes, I know,” Jayla replied as patiently as she could
manage. It wasn’t the secretary’s fault she’d witnessed firsthand exactly where the first lady was and what had happened to
her. “I just thought…hoped…she might have left there early.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    She clenched her fists to keep from punching the wall. She
didn’t have an hour or two. She didn’t have any other option, either. Sam would
be here when she got here. Jayla prayed it was quicker than within an hour. Did
Sam know Molly had left the White House?
    “All right. All right. I’m in the elevator,” Jayla stated.
“I’ll be there in a sec.”
    “You know the suite number?”
    “Six-zero-one.”
    “Come on in.”
    Jayla flipped the top down on the phone and dropped it in
her bag.
    CIA. Her
new best friend ― or her worst enemy? She didn’t know. Did she have an
alternative? Not today. Much as she hated to drag Sam into this mess, she
needed help. She had to trust in her friend’s ability to keep them all safe.
There was simply no one else to turn to, at least no one else she trusted.
After giving it some thought, she figured Sam and her department would end up
in the thick of it anyway.
    Jayla accepted she was in hot water, and no matter the
risk to Sam, this was bigger than the two of them or the one of her. She
despised the fact she had to pu ll her friend into this, but she
couldn’t do this alone. It was way over her head. Certainly she had no evasive
skills. The only survival skill she possessed was she knew how to shoot a gun — thanks to Kane. However, that didn’t
mean she’d get the chance to shoot first.
    The other thing she was good at wasn’t going to save her.
    She needed Sam’s help. At least she knew she could trust
her friend. It was all the others, the powers above Sam she didn’t trust.
    How in the world had she managed to get enmeshed in s uch
intrigue? Murder. Lies. Videos. Sex? Oh yeah, in D.C. — everything revolved around lies and
sex. She was in it up to her neck, all of it. Her universe was about to erupt
around her head in a shower of the worst kind of hell.
    The elevator stopped and the doors slapped open with a
soft whoosh .
    “Hello, baby.”
    Jayla’s breath caught in her throat. “Kane,” she choked.
“How — ”
    “Does it matter?” he asked in that sexy, gravelly tone
she’d once loved, but had learned to hate. “You’re here. I’m here. And I have
the gun. That’s what matters to me.”
    Numb, she couldn’t believe her sorry ass luck. “It’s the
only thing that’s ever mattered to you,” she said faintly.
    “You didn’t really think you’d escape me…did you?” H e
leveled the deadly gun with the silencer at her and squeezed the trigger.

 
 
 
    Chapter Five

 
 
    To die is nothing, but it is terrible not to
live.
    ~Victor Hugo

 
 
    Rimrock, Montana
    Blackstone Ranch
    February 16, Monday

    Nine hours before the assassination…

    Standing
beside Lacey at her son’s graveside, Rafe McCord eyed his sweet wife of two
days, and wondered how he’d been lucky enough to win her love. Lucky that she
was a strong woman and survived the terrible ordeal the serial killer, Smitt
Davis, put her through.
    Even
though she hadn’t shared all the details with him, Rafe knew enough to know
Lacey had suffered unspeakable horrors at the butcher’s hands. He might not
have felt the physical pain his wife had endured, but she’d lost not only her
little boy, Joseph, but lost their baby as well. His child . A baby he’d desperately wanted with her.
    His
heart grabbed.