True Colors Part 1

TRUE COLORS.

by Joyce Lamb.

For Lisa Kiplinger, who works behind the scenes to make me a better writer, a better person and a better friend.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Thanks to:.

a My awesome critique partners: Joan Goodman, Diane Amos, Linda Cutillo, Maggie Hoye, Susan Vaughan and Lina Gardiner. You guys are the BEST! You're pretty awesome writers, too.

a Ruth Chamberlain, Lisa Hitt, Charlene Gunnells, Chantelle Mansfield and Karen Feldman McCracken, for reading and re-reading and still being so enthusiastic.

a Danielle, Michael, Nikole and Zach, for keeping me young and sorta, kinda hip. I think.

a Glenn and Di, for providing me with a bed-and-breakfast away from home.

a Julie Snider, for creating the best bookmarks ever, and always in record time.

a Rebecca Chastain, for saving my b.u.t.t so many times, as great copy editors do.

a Grace Morgan, for your absolute wonderfulness as a literary agent.

a Wendy McCurdy and Katherine Pelz, for all your hard work on my behalf.

a And Mom, as always, for everything.

CHAPTER ONE.

Alex Trudeau spotted the flashing lights of a police cruiser and pulled onto the shoulder of the beach road. She'd heard the call for emergency vehicles over the scanner when she'd been only a mile away. Hopping out of her dark red Jeep Liberty SUV, she dragged her camera equipment out and then took off at a jog toward the scene of the accident.

The heat of the Florida sun baked the asphalt under her feet, but she barely noticed as she ran, dodging the drivers and pa.s.sengers who'd pulled over and gotten out of their cars to gawk. As she neared the mangled wreckage of a silver minivan upside down in the ditch, she started snapping shots even as her stomach clenched. Could anyone have survived an accident so violent that it shattered the windshield and caved in the roof?

Her heart skipped, and she lowered the camera, watching in awe as Lake Avalon police detective John Logan delivered a hysterical woman from the wreckage to bystanders who ran up to help. With blood pouring from a gash at her temple, the woman screamed, "Get my baby! Get my baby!"

Alex's journalistic instincts snapped back into gear when Logan, tan and muscular in his khaki police uniform, turned back toward the van that had started to smoke. Big, black clouds, the kind that looked like a precursor to a fiery explosion, billowed upward. She could tell by his determined stance that he was going back for the driver's baby.

Where the h.e.l.l were the fire trucks? At least firefighters were experts at this kind of thing. Yet, she'd known John Logan for two years, considered him a good friend, and he wasn't the kind of man to stand around and wait for someone else to show up and do what he could do right now.

"Her back tire blew," a bystander said. "I saw it explode just before the van flipped."

Alex listened only vaguely, her heart pounding as Logan plunged into the billowing smoke.

The driver continued to scream, "My baby girl! My baby girl!"

Alex counted the seconds as she waited for Logan to reappear. Sirens sounded in the distance, but they seemed so far away, her focus having narrowed down to the spot where she'd last seen Logan. She should have been taking more pictures of the chaotic rescue scene, but fear for him had constricted her chest muscles so much she could barely breathe.

Come on, Logan, where are you?

This can't end in tragedy, she thought. Logan was too good, too kind. She accepted that bad things happened to good people. Not this time, she prayed. Please.

And then he stumbled out of the smoke, a small child of maybe two or three years old cradled in his arms.

Alex released the breath she'd held and brought the camera up to take the picture, already knowing it would make headlines. There was nothing newspaper readers loved more than a ragged hero streaked with blood, carrying a crying, soot-smudged child away from wreckage that looked like no one should have survived. Especially a hero as good-looking as John Logan, his eyes even more blue in a face blackened by smoke. The child looked tiny and helpless in his large, muscled arms.

Logan delivered the bawling little girl to her mother, his eyes streaming from the smoke. Sweat made his short, dark brown hair spike. He was filthy, yet he'd never looked more gut-wrenchingly handsome. Then, surprising Alex, he walked over to her, his teeth flashing white in his streaked face.

"You got here fast," he said.

A thrill raced through her that he'd noticed her among all the bystanders. Maybe that meant something. "I heard the call on the scanner."

"Does this mean you're back at work at the paper?"

She managed to prevent her smile from faltering at the reminder that she'd technically died three months ago. A man gunning for her sister had shot Alex by mistake. Three zaps from defibrillator paddles in the ER had revived her.

"Been back for a while," she said. "Guess we just haven't run into each other."

His grin widened. "I find that unacceptable."

She felt the heat in his starburst blue eyes. He made her nervous. In a good way. A very good way. Before the shooting, she'd thought they were gearing up for their first kiss. After the shooting, he'd visited her in the hospital and had dropped by her house a couple of times after her release, armed with the makings for hot fudge sundaes and DVDs of old, quirky dog-themed movies like Best in Show and Beethoven. That he'd known her well enough to cater to her love of sugary treats and animals had thrilled her. She'd thought, This is the man of my dreams. But then he'd pulled back, and she'd thought maybe he'd lost interest. She had to admit she was pretty pathetic after taking a bullet to the chest. No doubt, her inability to carry on a conversation, or watch an entire movie, without drifting to sleep had been a huge turnoff.

But she was better now, and here John Logan stood, grinning at her after saving a helpless child from certain death. Things were looking up.

"What're you doing for dinner tomorrow?" he asked.

Now we're talking. "I've been craving some of that tasty grilled shrimp they serve at Antonio's Beach Grill. You?"

"What a coincidence. I've been craving that, too. Shall we make it a date?"

A big, dumb smile spread through her entire body, more intense than anything she'd felt in a long time. In fact, ever since the shooting, she'd felt different. She figured death did that to people, made them more aware of the people around them. Made them feel emotions-compa.s.sion, pleasure, pain, antic.i.p.ation-on a deeper level. Or maybe her senses just seemed sharper, like a head that felt lighter, and better than before, once a blinding headache faded. Whatever the cause, she thought she might have a serious crush on this man.

She nodded. "It's a date."

He thrust out a hand. "Shake on it?"

She laughed, low and breathless. Could the man get any more appealing?

The instant their fingers touched, everything around her made a dizzying shift . . .

I'm choking on smoke, eyes tearing as I fumble a door open and lurch inside the van, drawn by the cries of a small child. I'm not losing this one. Not this time.

Where is she? Can't see a d.a.m.n thing.

"It's okay, it's okay. I'm coming. Talk to me, kid, talk to me."

The inside of the van is hot, too hot. Just give me time . . . and then something warm and soft brushes my fingertips.

I close my fingers around a soft, pudgy leg, trying to be gentle even as the need to hurry, hurry clenches in my gut. I use the leg to guide me to a car seat. Strapped in, the seat and the kid. Glimpse of pink flowers on a white T-shirt. A little girl. Small and helpless and counting on me.

This child's not dying, d.a.m.n it.

"Just hang on. I won't let you down."

I can't see, can't find the mechanism that releases the straps. And I smell hot metal, burning plastic and rubber, hear a weird, ominous crackle. Flames? Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus.

Still no straps, hands frantic as they move over the screaming, squirming kid, searching, searching. Finally, there it is. The latch. Jesus, the metal's hot.

Everything is so hot, making the sweat pour into my eyes, stinging along with the smoke. Two more seconds and the latch is free, the girl all but sliding out of the seat into my arms.

I crawl backward, out of the death trap, into humid, smoke-choked air. My lungs ache, burn, my throat raw.

But I've got the girl, this sweet, warm, wriggly child, in my arms, and nothing else matters. This time, I saved the- An explosion shook the world.

Logan scrambled to Alex's side and leaned over her, not caring that the van had burst into a ball of fire. The concussion had knocked them both to the ground and sent bystanders screaming and running. He had no idea why Alex had gone catatonic when he'd taken her hand, and no amount of calling her name had snapped her out of it.

This time when he said her name, though, she blinked open brown eyes that reminded him of dark chocolate.

"What happened?" she asked, clearly disoriented.

"You tell me."

She shook her head, then squinted as though the movement made her dizzy. "It's too weird."

"What?"

"For a minute there, it was like I knew exactly what you went through trying to get that baby out of the van. Like I was there . . . or like I was . . ." She trailed off, her expression puzzled.

"Like you were what?"

"Like I was you."

Before he could respond, she sat up. He helped her, not sure she should even be sitting up, and brushed at ashes that floated down onto the shoulder of her emerald green polo. Her shoulder-length, reddish brown hair had curled further in the Florida humidity, sticking to the perspiration dampening her skin. He smoothed it back from the side of her face as he searched her eyes for lucidity. d.a.m.n it, they'd just had a breakthrough. He'd finally asked her out on an actual date. Defying death could boost a man's confidence. But his heart had lodged in his throat all over again, just like it had after she'd gotten shot.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

"I don't know." She coughed and looked around, dark eyes widening at the chaos. "What the h.e.l.l?"

"Van exploded." He slipped a hand under her elbow to steady her when she took it upon herself to get to her feet. "Maybe you should-"

She was already up, swaying toward him at the same time that she grabbed at the camera dangling from her neck. She looked it over as carefully as a mother checking a child for injury. Then, apparently satisfied, she stepped to the side, trying to peer around him for a look at the burning wreckage. "I need to get-"

"Alex-"

She lifted the camera, heading straight for the inferno.

Logan sighed and let her go. That was Alex, after all. Give her a camera and breaking news, and she became utterly focused on her job. Part of being a photojournalist, he supposed. And he guessed that focus meant she was okay.

He kept an eye on her, though, watched as she snapped photo after photo from every angle possible as firefighters sprayed down the van and paramedics tended to the little girl and her mother.

Alex Trudeau at work was something to behold. She wasn't a glamour puss in the least and had to keep shoving her hair out of her face as the wind picked up. After a while, she hastily secured it with a band she dug out of a pocket. The ponytail-securing pose knocked him right in the gut. With her toned arms up, quick fingers at work in the thick, unruly curls, her shirt clung to palm-sized b.r.e.a.s.t.s, emphasizing her flat stomach and the subtle flare of hips in khaki slacks.

Freckles dotted her nose and cheeks, and her chin sported the most adorable, subtle cleft. She was captivating as h.e.l.l, he thought for the thousandth time since he'd met her two years ago. As he watched, she threw her head back and laughed at something one of the firefighters called out to her, and she was so stunningly beautiful that Logan's world shifted under his feet.

He wanted her. Yearned for her. But he'd taken a step back after the shooting for fear of rushing her. Or taking advantage. Or myriad other ways he would have been a jerk if he'd made a move on her at such a vulnerable time.

She wasn't vulnerable anymore, though, and his pulse ratcheted up a notch at the possibilities.

As long as she never had to know what gave him nightmares.

CHAPTER TWO.

Butch McGee wiped the b.l.o.o.d.y knife against the thigh of his new Levi's as he flipped open his cell phone. Who was calling him at five in the f.u.c.king morning? He didn't like the interruption in the adrenaline rush of watching the light die out of the eyes of his latest conquest, so when he spoke, his voice had an edge. "Yeah."

"I've found him."

He grinned as he heard the familiar voice. They didn't get to talk nearly enough. "Found who?"

"John Logan. His picture's in f.u.c.king USA Today."

Butch dropped his Bowie hunting knife next to the bound body on the bed as the thought of finally, finally getting revenge chased all annoyance from his brain. "Where is he?"

"He's a cop in Florida."

"No s.h.i.t? Where in Florida?"

"Lake Avalon. Podunk town between Naples and Fort Myers."

A mere hour-and-a-half airplane ride from Atlanta. Butch could be in Lake Avalon in a matter of hours. "You got any information on him? Like where he lives?"

"Nope. I'll have to leave the detective work up to you."