Defending Serenty Read Online Free PDF

and clean up.
    The phone rings while I’m setting the dryer.
Turning, I see the wireless unit hanging on the wall. I shouldn’t
answer it. Who would call this late except work or Monroe? My eyes
narrow. The hell with her reputation.
    “Hello?”
    I grin at the string of inventive cussing
that meets my ear.
    “What the fuck, Trace? Haven’t you had enough
trouble in your life?”
    I laugh. “I’m not having a lot of trouble
right now, baby brother.”
    “Shit.”
    I laugh again.
    “What’s up, Walker?” I squint at the oven
clock. “Why are you calling here at three twenty in the
morning?”
    He sighs. “Let me talk to Lynn. There’s
something going on out on the river again.”
    “She isn’t here. Old lady Baker called her
out about noise on her dock, so we walked over to have a look. Got
drenched, came back here, she changed and went back out.”
    I wait out the silence from the other
end.
    “She’s out there by herself?” Walker finally
asks.
    What the fuck?
    “Is there a reason she shouldn’t be? Are we
babysitting cops now?” I ask sarcastically.
    Again my brother hesitates, and when Walker
answers fear snakes up my spine.
    “Maybe,” Walker answers slowly.
    Blinking into the darkness, I rub my hand
over my face. Need to take a razor to the stubble later. I snort.
The things you thought about when worry came into play. I haven’t
worried about anybody but myself or my brother since...no, I’m not
going there.
    “What’s going on, Walker?”
    “She’s not sure.” I can hear the shrug in my
brother’s voice. “My bet would be smugglers. The Gulf isn’t far
downstream and Madison is a small town. Not much police
activity.”
    Smugglers. Just great. Probably drug
dealers.
    “You don’t know?”
    “That’s not our thing, man.”
    He’s right. Neither of us were ever into
drugs. We’ve watched them destroy too many people. Hunter also
refuses to work with anyone who deals or uses. If it is drug
smugglers she’s in a world of trouble and it’s not my people so I
can’t help her. Can she handle it? Walker reads my mind.
    “She was a detective in Birmingham before she
came back here. A narc. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.”
    I smile. Walker is trying to reassure me. How
have we ended up so wrapped up in the life of a cop when I haven’t
even been around? The cop who’d landed me in prison, no less. It’s
too damned weird. Of course, I had to go straight after her when I
got out. Predictable. I blink. Yes, I’d done the expected thing.
And what else would people anticipate from me? Maybe I can help
her. Find the local action, and how grateful would she be? Hunter
would have my ass for getting involved with drug running, but it
didn’t have to go that far. I just want information.
    With the rain still driving into the roof, I
sense more than hear a movement in the back yard. Saying goodbye to
my brother, I assure him I’ll watch my back but I refuse to make
any promises about Serenity. I’m sitting facing the door when she
comes in, shaking off rain. She looks over at me and scowls.
    “Still here, huh?”
    She hangs the poncho on a hook by the door
and sits down at the table. I sense her withdrawal, and where
before it would have pissed me off, now I consider it a challenge.
Her expression is closed as she bends to pull off her boots.
    “Clothes not dry yet?”
    “Nope,” I answer, leaning back in the chair.
She tenses even more at my casual I-belong-in-this-kitchen pose. Her eyes narrow.
    “Don’t get too comfortable,” she says.
    A slow smile spreads across my face.
    “Do you ever wonder where you’d be if that
night hadn’t happened? If Billy Thompson hadn’t died?”
    I hit pay dirt. She pales. Standing, I round
the table and pull her hard against me.
    “I’ve had ten years to wonder,” I whisper.
“And the only answer I’ve ever come up with is inside you.”
    She takes a deep breath and her chest rises.
I can’t help a look down her shirt. She is a