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  The odds say he’ll never return from the next mission. She has an insider’s knowledge of the risks he takes. Chances are, there won’t be any happily-ever-afters for them.

  Laura and Jake Taylor have good reason to doubt they’ll live a long, happy life together. He’s a Special Ops soldier; she’s a former Special Ops intelligence officer. Their marriage began as a practical arrangement: he needed to keep his young son out of the clutches of an unstable ex-wife. Laura knows better than to fall in love with her husband. Jake agrees.

  But when the dangers of his world engulf Laura, both find themselves fighting for their lives as well as for their marriage.

  Praise for Shades of Gray

  “Complications here go beyond the usual hurdles and make the romance more touching for being hard won. And if the main action—Laura and Jake must combat terrorists amassing anthrax in the Florida Everglades—seems far-fetched, just read The New York Times.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “You want intrigue, danger, and romance? Ms. Hinze proves she can supply them!”

  —Romantic Times

  “Hinze slides into the major leagues with this novel. Shades of Gray has it all: adventure, romance, intrigue, and danger. Impossible to put down.”

  —Under the Covers

  “Vicki Hinze’s new book, Shades of Gray, is a wonderful combination of romance, family drama, and out-and-out thriller. Her characters are wonderful and vivid, the plot engrossing, and the setting is utterly fascinating. A terrific read.”

  —Anne Stuart, bestselling author

  “A roller coaster ride of suspense and terror. Hinze may just have initiated a new genre. A page turner from beginning to end.”

  —Site101

  “A high-tech, romantic thriller. Suspense at its best! This book accurately delves into the world of Special Ops and the men and women who lay their lives on the line for our country anytime, anywhere. If you like Tom Clancy, Nelson DeMille, or Tami Hoag, you’ll love Hinze’s Shades of Gray.”

  —Lorna Tedder, author of Access

  “Shades is very fast-paced, filled with the kind of intrigue and plot twists that make for a great action movie . . .a great read if you’re a fan of Clancy-type novels and movies. A perfect combination of the two [intrigue and romance].”

  —The Middlesex News (MA)

  “Hinze explodes onto the scene as an author of top-notch military romantic fiction. Fans of Anne Stuart, Tami Hoag, and Iris Johansen will be thrilled to discover the talent of Vicki Hinze. Fasten your seatbelt for a wild and wonderful ride.”

  —Romance and Women’s Fiction Exchange

  “A Roller Coaster Read! Shades of Gray has it all—breathtaking suspense, heartstopping romance, and fabulous characters. Hinze is a master at crafting a book you simply cannot put down! Watch for this book to hit the NYT Bestseller List and for Hinze to join the superstars.”

  —Delia Parr, Author of Sunrise

  Top Pick Award, Romantic Times

  Reviewer’s Choice Award Nominee

  Best Contemporary Suspense Novel of the Year, Romantic Times

  Other Vicki Hinze Titles

  From Bell Bridge Books

  Military Romances—

  Shades of Gray

  Coming in 2012

  Acts of Honor,

  All Due Respect

  Metaphysical Romantic Suspense—

  Coming in 2013

  Festival

  Maybe This Time.

  The Seascape Trilogy—

  Beyond The Misty Shore

  Beside A Dreamswept Sea

  Upon A Mystic Tide

  Shades of Gray

  by

  Vicki Hinze

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-156-2

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-162-3

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 1998 by Vicki Hinze

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  A mass market edition of this book was published by St. Martins in 1998

  We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

  Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

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  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo credits:

  Sniper rifle (manipulated) © Meirion | Dreamstime.com

  Woman (manipulated) © Jose Antonio Sánchez Reyes | Dreamstime.com

  :Egs:01:

  One

  The banging on the apartment door threatened to knock it off its hinges.

  Laura Taylor sat straight up in bed, her heart in her throat. She tossed back the covers, bumping the novel she’d fallen asleep reading to the floor. Fear clawed at her stomach.

  Bury it, Taylor. She recalled the drill by rote. Bury it. Intruders seldom knock.

  But that didn’t mean whoever was pounding on her door in the dead of night was friendly, and in her position assuming that it did could be lethal. Amateur intruders seldom knock, but at times professionals do. It could be a diversionary tactic.

  Someone could already be inside.

  Slinging on a robe, she grabbed the canister of pepper spray she kept in the drawer beside her bed, resenting that break-ins happened even in military communities like Fairhope, California. But they did happen. One had happened, to her.

  She crossed her bedroom, her every nerve on alert. The hammering at the door mirrored the jackhammering of her heart, and her throat turned ash-dry. Hugging her back to the wall, she slid against its gritty surface and inched down the narrow hallway, broadening her focus, scanning for any shift or movement in the darkness, seeking sensations of any cool August night air drafting in through broken glass, an open window or door.

  She stumbled over her shoes. Banged her hip against the edge of the kitchen bar. Pain shot through her side, and she swallowed a curse because she always left her damn shoes there, and she knew it. Allowing herself to get careless, her skills to get rusty, was a good way to wake up dead.

  Steadying herself, she moved on through, skirted around the wicker-and-glass dinette into the adjoining living room, then on to the front door. It was at times like this one, and during the break-in, when she felt most grateful she’d had survival school training during her active duty days as Captain Laura Taylor, Air Force Intelligence Officer and Communications Research Specialist. Despite the sweat trickling down between her breasts and the fine hairs on her nape standing on end, whoever tried coming in wouldn’t find a docile woman waiting to become a victim. She had the Air Force to thank for that, even as she acknowledged her covert work for it could have prompted this midnight visit.

  “Laura?” A man called out and rapped again against the wood. “Laura, it’s me—Jake.”

  “Jake.” Relief washed through Laura, and then evaporated.

>   She and Jake Logan had been friends for a decade, but the only time he ever had come over in the middle of the night had been when his ex-wife, Madeline, had done something god-awful—usually to their son, Timmy.

  One kind of fear replaced another and squeezed at her chest. Laura twisted the cold dead bolt, heard it click, and then opened the door. “What’s wrong?”

  Bitterness seeping from his every pore, Jake slumped against the frame, looking like six-foot-two of defeated thirty-four-year-old man, his jet-black hair wind-tossed, his strong face all angles and planes, outraged and ravaged. “She’s suing me for custody of Timmy.”

  Madeline. Again. Laura nearly cried. Jake had tried everything to make his marriage to Madeline work, but she’d opted to continue downing Scotch. He’d spent years trying to get her sober, but finally she’d committed the unpardonable sin: endangering their son, Timmy. And after that, the craziest in a long string of her crazy stunts, he’d issued her an ultimatum: dry out in a rehab center, or he’d sue for divorce. She’d opted to drink. Now she’d dried out—for the moment. Unfortunately, her dry spells never lasted long—and she was suing him for custody of Timmy.

  The injustice stung. Deeply. It wasn’t fair or right. Madeline had dragged Timmy through enough hell. More than enough. And God knew Jake had been tried by her fire twice as often as his son. When would their aggravation with this woman end?

  Laura opened the door wider and motioned him inside. “Have you talked to your lawyer?” Gregory Radon was a great attorney. Surely he could put a quick stop to this insanity.

  “I’ve talked to him. And then I tried to find Madeline.” Jake came in. As tense as strung wire, he paced between the sofa and wicker dinette table, dragging his hand through the black hair at his temple. “No luck. She’s pulled a disappearing act.”

  It was probably a good thing for them both that she had, and that he hadn’t found her. Laura clicked on a lamp, set the canister of pepper spray on the coffee table, then relaxed back in a chair beside the sofa and waited for him to vent enough so that they could talk this through. She hated seeing him upset. Not only because she literally owed him her life and they’d been best friends for years, but because she loved Timmy as much as Jake loved his son.

  “The upshot is that Lady Justice isn’t just blind,” he said, stopping at the edge of the light pooling on the mint-green carpet. “She needs a reality check.”

  A prick of irritation at that remark slithered up Laura’s back. But she knew this wasn’t Jake talking so much as his anger and frustration, and so she let the comments slide, and straightened a sprawled stack of magazines on the coffee table. Modern Family looked comfortable there, beside Popular Science.

  “Because my job is risky, and I’m away a lot, I provide a ‘less than stable growth environment’ for my son. In other words, it’s a toss-up,” he muttered, a warranted amount of anger riddling his tone. “My odds of retaining custody of Timmy are about equal to Madeline’s odds of getting custody of him.”

  Shock, stark and deep, surged through Laura. “But she’s a drunk,” she said, too surprised to pause and state that bald truth diplomatically.

  “Sad commentary, isn’t it?” Jake looked down at her, letting her see his weariness of fighting Madeline in his eyes. “I’m a Special Operations officer in the United States Air Force, and, because I risk my neck so often for my country, I’ve got the same odds as an alcoholic of keeping custody of my son.”

  It was a sad commentary. An infuriating one, too. “So what did Radon say you can do about it?” If Jake said “Nothing,” she swore she’d spit nails.

  He rapped the back of a chair in his pacing, then stopped in front of her. “According to the good attorney, I could ‘greatly enhance’ my odds of winning a custody battle by getting married.”

  “Oh, God.” Anything but that. Anything but that.

  “My feelings exactly.” Jake nodded. “He says a wife would be there when I can’t be, giving Timmy ‘a higher probability’ of having a more stable home life with me.” Jake let out a grunt that clearly depicted his thoughts on that recommendation.

  After the hellish years he had spent married to Madeline, that suggestion and comment had to sting. Sting? Hell, it had to scorch. They’d had any and everything but peace and stability.

  Agitated, she shifted on her chair and swept her auburn hair back from her face. Her thoughts raced. Jake married again? And Madeline gaining custody of Timmy? Just the thought of either soured Laura’s stomach.

  She couldn’t let this happen. Not to Jake or to Timmy. She knew how much pain it would cause them, especially Timmy. How could she not know? She had grown up as an only child in New Orleans without much of a family. Her parents had loved each other to distraction; so much so, they’d had little love left over for their daughter. Laura had never belonged. She had been alone, an outsider, and she had never forgotten how much that had hurt. She’d sworn to herself that one day, she would have children of her own, and things would be different. But thanks to a ruptured ovarian cyst and a non-functioning ovary, she’d had to watch that dream die. Then Timmy had been born, and from the moment she had first seen him, just minutes after his birth, she had considered him her surrogate son.

  No, she couldn’t let this happen. Not to him. The anger and guilt of not preventing it from happening would eat her alive. Resolve hardened in her chest. She’d be damned before she would risk Timmy being raised by a neglectful alcoholic who loved Scotch more than her son. He would not feel like an outsider.

  As a resolution occurred to Laura, she said it aloud, having no idea what kind of reaction to expect. “You could marry me.”

  Jake stared at her for a long moment, his soft gray eyes shining with gratitude, then hardening with determination. He plopped down on the sofa and buried his face in his hands. A minute elapsed, then two. Finally, he leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. “You’ve been the best friend a man could ask for, but you’ve done so much for us already. I can’t ask you to marry me, too.”

  “You didn’t ask.” Laura shifted over to sit across from him in her favorite chair. The beige velour snagged her silk robe, exposing her thigh. She tugged it closed, then smoothed it over her kneecap. “I offered.”

  Thinking it over, he vacillated between the pros and cons, his expression shifting half a dozen times. “No.” He sighed, as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, rolled the copy of Popular Science into a tube, and then smacked it against his open palm. “No, you can’t.”

  The more Laura considered it, the more sense it made. And the more reasonable it seemed. “Why not?”

  “Why not?” His tone turned incredulous.

  “Yes. Why not?” Laura narrowed her gaze in warning. “We know what kind of antics Madeline’s capable of, Jake. We’ve got to do whatever it takes to protect him from her.”

  “I have to do whatever it takes,” he corrected, dropping the magazine back onto the coffee table. It landed with a firm thunk. “Look, I’m grateful for everything you do for Timmy and me. Trying to figure out how to deal with him most of the time . . . well, I’d always be floundering without you, and I know it.”

  “Then doesn’t it make sense that we do this?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” he insisted, forking both hands through his hair. “It’s exactly why we shouldn’t.” Jake leaned back and put on his most serious I-mean-it look. “When Madeline got pregnant and her father insisted she abort, you helped me to accept what I had to do for Timmy’s sake. You helped me through that nightmare of a marriage, and the even worse divorce.”

  “Of course. Friends do that kind of thing for friends, Jake.”

  “You’ve done more, and we both know it. You’ve always helped me with Timmy. Hell, you’ve been more of a mother to him than Madeline ever thought about being. But I can’t have you marrying me for him, Laura. I
won’t. Even for a best friend, that’s just . . . too much.”

  “Do I have any choice in the matter?” It was her life. And it should damn well be her decision. The man would protect her to death, if she let him.

  “Don’t get your hackles up.” Jake let his gaze roll toward the ceiling, then focused back on her. “I just think that you deserve a life with a man you know is going to be there for you when you need him. I work missions with survival odds between two and ten percent. That’s not going to change.”

  She resisted a compelling urge to sigh and just announce that they were going to do this, and to tack on an “and that’s final.” But it was too soon. Jake had to vent and discuss this some more to see the big picture and draw the same conclusion she had seen and drawn. “I was in Special Ops. I know what goes on there.”

  “Then I shouldn’t have to remind you that when one mission is over, there’s another one waiting in the wings.”

  Did he think she had forgotten? How could she forget a job that had determined her whole lifestyle? A job drilled into her until she lived, breathed, and ate it? How could anyone? No one forgot it. Ever. “Listen, all of this is just smoke. And smoke doesn’t change facts. You need a wife.”

  “The last thing I need is a wife.” He grunted, slicing his hand down the thigh of his black slacks. “Even a damn divorce hasn’t given me peace from the one I had.”

  How could Laura dispute that truth? “You need a mother for Timmy,” she rephrased. “I can be that, if I’m your wife.”

  “And what do you get?” he asked, then answered himself. “Nothing.”

  “I get a son.” Only she knew how much that would mean to her.

  Jake’s broad shoulders slumped, telling her he had more than an inkling of the importance of that to her, and his voice softened. “I can’t be a husband again, Laura. I won’t.” He rubbed at his forehead, clearly irritated and unsure of what to do with all his frustration. “Don’t you understand? We’d have no future.”