White Dawn: A Military Romantic Suspense Novel by Tracy Cooper-Posey Page A

trade news.”
    Nick raised his brow. “This really is a
flying visit, then.”
    “I’m here because your message said
urgent.”
    “I appreciate you dropping everything
for me. You’ll be glad you did, though.” Nick caught at his
shoulder. “Let’s find that seat.”
    They found three stools at a bar and
snagged them. Nick ordered scotch, neat, for all of them and pulled
out his phone while Joshua stretched kinks out, between them. “Make
it Johnny Walker Blue,” Josh said. “I’m buying. You can take the
bottle back with you to the hotel.”
    Nick raised his brow and looked at the
barman enquiringly.
    “We have Blue,” the barman confirmed.
“But for a bottle of that price, we would need payment up
front.”
    Joshua pulled out his wallet and dropped
a credit card on the bar. “There you go.”
    The barman nodded and went away to get
the boxed bottle and open it.
    “Expense account?” Nick asked.
    “Nope. I’m doing pretty well since I got
back to the States. This is a personal thank you. How’s
Minnie?”
    “Radiant,” Nick said, “and as overworked
as the rest of us.”
    “I think she’s thriving wonderfully,”
Olivia added. “She looks like a woman who has found her role in
life.”
    Joshua blew out his breath. “That’s good
to hear,” he said soberly.
    Nick had been paging through his phone.
Now he laid the phone in front of Joshua. “Recognize that?”
    Joshua picked up the phone and studied
it. Then he pulled glasses out of his breast pocket and put them on
and studied it more closely. “I’d say it was one of the test ingots
we smelted when the mine on The Big Rock was starting to roll, but
the seal on it is wrong.”
    “Good guess,” Nick said quietly. “That
photo is what made me yell for you to come here. I didn’t want to
risk sending it over a public phone network. It was a risk having
it sent up from Vistaria. Serrano has opened the mine up, Josh.
He’s going to use the silver to buy himself respectability.”
    Joshua was silent for a long moment,
absorbing the news. Then he blew out his cheeks. “Well, I knew the
bugger was crazy. I guess this just confirms it. He really thinks
he can get away with it?”
    “What’s to stop him?” Nick asked and
Olivia looked at him, startled. It seemed like an odd response for
someone so driven and determined as Nick Escobedo.
    “Well, you, of course,” Josh replied, as
if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
    “It’s your mine,” Nick pointed out.
    “We don’t have an army at our
disposal.”
    “And I don’t have any reserve capital to
fund mine,” Nick said flatly.
    Joshua started to laugh. The chuckle
began slow and soft, then evolved into a full hearted belly laugh
that had people turning their heads to see what was so funny. He
reached out for the glass of scotch the barman put in front of him
and lifted it up. “You sneaky son of a bitch,” he said finally and
sipped the scotch and sighed. Then he put the glass down. “I can’t
give it to you interest free. Not even for family. They’d skin me
alive.”
    “But you could give me a family
discount,” Nick said. “Think of how good you’ll look when you
retrieve the company’s expensive asset for them.”
    Joshua shook his head and looked at
Oliva. “I told Nick he should hit up international corporations for
a loan, months ago. Never thought he’d turn around and put the
squeeze on me.”
    Olivia smiled. “You have skin in the
game, Joshua. Nick really is giving you a chance to get your mine
back.”
    “Yeah, I know.” Joshua winked at her and
turned back to Nick. “How much do you need?”
    “Not nearly as much as you’ve already
sunk into the mine,” Nick told him. “Twenty million.”
    Joshua’s jaw dropped open. “ Twenty
million ?”
    “I have three Black Hawk helicopters I
want to buy, just to begin.”
    “I don’t know anything about military
transport, but I suspect even one of them is a lot more than twenty
million,” Josh