Angel: A Linear Tactical Romantic Suspense Standalone Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Janie Crouch

  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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locals is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Deranged Doctor Design.

  A Calamity Jane Publishing Book

  ANGEL: LINEAR TACTICAL

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Janie Crouch

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Most people would call Jordan Reiss a fool for standing out in her front yard in the middle of a storm.

  Actually, fool would probably be the nicest thing anyone in Oak Creek, Wyoming, had called her in nearly a decade. Why waste their energy on a word as benign as fool when they had much more creative options to describe someone from the Reiss family? Thief. Liar. Con artist.

  Murderer.

  And those choices were only if the name-callers wanted to stick with the truth.

  She’d actually been found guilty of vehicular homicide, so it wasn’t premeditated murder.

  But no matter what it was called, it wasn’t ever going to bring back the mother and toddler she’d killed when she’d fallen asleep behind the wheel.

  If fool was the worst thing someone in this town called her, she would take it. It was her choice to stand in the rain, a choice she hadn’t had for the past six years.

  Life inside the Wyoming Women’s Center hadn’t been too traumatic overall. Not like something out of an MA-rated TV show. She hadn’t had to buy protection with cigarettes or become somebody’s bitch.

  But all Jordan’s choices had been taken away from her there. Since three months before her eighteenth birthday, she’d been told when to get up, when to go to bed, when to eat, when to go to the bathroom, and definitely when she was or was not allowed outside.

  For six years of her life, other people had made choices for her.

  But not today. And not for the seventy-seven days since she’d been out.

  There wasn’t anything special about today except for the fact that she was choosing to stand in the rain like an idiot. She was letting the rain wash over her. Maybe, if she was lucky, it would wash away a little of the past.

  She lowered her head and held out her arms, breathing in the smell of the wet earth. This land had always brought her strength. Jordan’s mother’s family had lived here in Teton County for five generations. Each daughter had had only one daughter, and the house had been passed down to her.

  She wished any of her family were still alive for her to talk to now, to lean on and borrow support. But she only had one family member left, one she had no interest in talking to, even if anyone—particularly law enforcement—knew where her father was.

  He’d lit out eight years ago, taking everything of any value with him, including most of the town’s retirement funds. He’d left a lot of people in dire straits.

  No, she didn’t want to talk to him.

  Suddenly, standing outside in the rain took more energy than she had available. So instead, she just lay down on the grass.

  “I miss you, Mama.” Rain dripped into her mouth as she whispered the words, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to lie here, to revel in the fact that she was allowed to lie here if she wanted.

  How would her mother feel if she could see Jordan now? Alone, pretty much the enemy of the entire town, an ex-con. Not the dream any mother had for her little girl.

  Jordan should leave this place. The people of Oak Creek hated her, and with good reason. Combine her sins with the sins of her father, and it wasn’t hard to understand why most of them would contribute to a run-Jordan-out-of-town Kickstarter.

  But where would she go? She couldn’t leave the state of Wyoming for at least another year and a half because of her parole limitations.

  Not to mention the only reason she had a roof over her head at all was because this one was paid for free and clear, since it had never been in her father’s name.

  Plus, she had a job. She’d never thought she’d be able to find one in Oak Creek, but the owner of the new bakery had agreed to give her a chance. Probably because the owner, Violet Collingwood, had just moved to Oak Creek and wasn’t well versed in the town’s tradition of hating the Reiss family.

  Or maybe it was because Violet had recently lived through a rather traumatic abduction and wasn’t making completely logical decisions.

  Either way, Jordan would take the job and be grateful for it. She would show up every day and never give Violet a moment’s reason to regret hiring her. Every cent she made would go toward The Plan.

  As the rain began to pick up into a true storm, she decided to move to the steps on her porch so she could watch. She loved storms. Wyoming was wild, fierce, unpredictable. She’d dreamed about being all those things as she was growing up.

  Now, she would settle for just being free.

  She watched the storm as it raged, distantly worried that the wind might blow down a couple of trees in the acres of forestland that surrounded her property. As long as a tree didn’t blow into the house, it wouldn’t really matter. The forest could certainly afford to lose a couple. And at the very least, the violent storm would wash away the animal feces that had somehow ended up coating the walls of her house yesterday.

  What better way to communicate that you thought someone was a piece of shit than by taking some and smearing it everywhere?

  What Oak Creek’s residents lacked in imagination they certainly made up for in tenacity. Once or twice a week since she’d gotten out, without fail, she’d come home to a fouled house.

  But no matter what they did to make things uncomfortable for her, she couldn’t leave. Not just because she didn’t have any other options, but because this was home. She’d been away for six years, and she never wanted to be away again.

  She had a job. That was the most important thing, and it would enable her to stay in this house. On this land.

  Maybe the job required her to stay hidden in the back kitchen so as not to rub her presence in anyone’s face. She didn’t care. She didn’t mind hard work, and she didn’t even mind staying out of sight.

  She’d long since stopped hoping the people here would ever accept her again. But she could sit on her porch and be happy. That was more than enough.

  The storm eventually began to ea
se, and she stiffened as a car came barreling up her long driveway. More often than not, a car at that speed meant nothing but trouble. Especially a car she didn’t recognize.

  When she did finally recognize the driver, she didn’t relax.

  Gabriel Collingwood, her new boss’s brother.

  The rest of the storm dissipated, and the sun peeked through the clouds just as he parked in front of her house. He stepped out of the car; rays of light shone down on him, making him look like the archangel he shared a name with.

  “Seriously?” Jordan whispered up to God.

  She wasn’t sure if she was talking about the light haloing those wide shoulders in his dark blue T-shirt, biceps stretching the sleeves, or the fact that he was here when they had just met—and fought—a few hours ago.

  “Lost, Collingwood?” she asked, not getting up.

  He leaned back against the car with the ease of a man comfortable with his own body. He knew his own strength.

  Undoubtedly, he knew his own good looks too. Dark hair cut military short, a rugged face with a slightly crooked nose, and lips full enough that they would look feminine on any other man.

  On Gabriel they just looked kissable.

  And, whoa, that was not where her thoughts needed to be.

  “What are you doing with my sister?” those lips asked now.

  She forced her gaze away from his mouth. “You mean besides working for her?”

  He studied her, green eyes taking in everything but giving away nothing. “Violet is a good, kind person. I don’t know how much she’s told you, but she’s been through a lot—”

  “Violet told me about her kidnapping. And like I said back at the bakery, she knows what she’s doing and what she wants. She’s smart and capable of making her own decisions.”

  His granite jaw got tighter, if that was even possible. It already looked like it had been chiseled out of stone. “And as I mentioned at the bakery, I’ve known my sister a lot longer than you have.”

  Jordan looked up at him and tapped a finger against her lips. “Was that before or after you called me a tart?”

  She had to give him credit. He at least had the good grace to look sheepish. As sheepish as someone six foot three and two-hundred-plus pounds of pure muscle could look.

  “I love Violet.” Jordan started to cut him off again, but he held a hand up to stop her. “And I’m fully aware that she’s not only an adult, but a brilliant one. She wants this bakery, and although I don’t understand it, I’m not going to begrudge her the joy it obviously brings her.”

  “Good.” They’d almost come to blows over this a few hours ago. She was glad he was at least seeing reason.

  He crossed his arms over that massive chest. “But I’m also aware that my sister went through a life-altering trauma just a few weeks ago. Whether she wants to admit it or not, that makes her emotionally vulnerable right now. So, I’ll ask you again, what are you doing with my sister?”

  Jordan forced herself not to wince. She shouldn’t be surprised he was suspicious of her. Instead, she stretched her own long legs out in front of her on the steps, crossing them at the ankle, leaning her weight back on her palms. She batted her eyes up at him.

  “Well sir, I can assure you that my intentions are strictly honorable. I want to date Violet, but as soon as she will have me, I will make an honest woman out of her. We’ll get married and hopefully within a few years make beautiful babies together.”

  He was trying his damnedest to swallow a smile. “You’re a smart ass.”

  Evidently only around him. She’d never talked like this to anyone else. Granted, she rarely talked to anyone else at all. Definitely not long enough to release any snark.

  She shook her head. “I’m not doing anything with your sister except showing up for a job I’m very grateful to have. As you so quickly pointed out to her, past happenings have not exactly endeared me to this town.”

  As he pushed off the car and took a few steps toward her, Jordan leapt to her feet. It was one thing to face that hulking strength sitting down when he was ten feet away, quite another to do it when he was this close.

  And why did her traitorous body get a little heated at him moving closer? This man held nothing but contempt for her. That, she was used to. But she’d never been turned on by someone despite it.

  He stopped a couple of feet from her. “If you take advantage of my sister, you’ll answer to me.”

  Her hands flew to her hips of their own accord, her eyes narrowing. “Like I said, she gave me a job I was pretty desperate for. I have no intention of stealing pastry cream bags or whatever it is you’re worried about. I’ll somehow resist the temptation.”

  Another smile pulled at the corner of his mouth—like he had the perfect comeback but wasn’t allowing himself to say it—before he tightened his lips and erased it.

  Fierce and serious once again.

  “You’ll excuse me if I find the wisdom of Violet hiring you a little questionable.”

  She swallowed hard and looked away. The words were nothing short of the truth. Hiring her was pretty unorthodox for any business owner, much less someone whose life had been through an upheaval like Violet’s.

  He was just echoing what everyone else thought about Jordan. She’d long since accepted that as standard, so why did the opinion of a man she’d known less than a day hurt?

  “What I did can never be fixed. Believe me, I’m well aware of that.” Her voice was soft. She could never talk about what she’d done without choking up. “But it’s never going to happen again, and it won’t ever affect Violet.”

  He gave a short nod. “Actually, I was referring to your father and what happened with him.”

  “I’m sorry if my father stole any money from your family.” The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. She’d been saying them so long they were automatic. But Gabe and Violet weren’t even from Oak Creek; her father couldn’t have stolen from them.

  There actually seemed to be compassion in those green eyes. “That’s SOP for you, isn’t it?”

  “SOP?”

  “Standard operating procedure. For you to apologize for what your dad did.”

  She shrugged. “For all the good it does. It won’t get anybody’s money back, but somebody should say sorry.” Michael Reiss certainly hadn’t.

  Gabriel took a step closer, putting them within arm’s reach. Jordan didn’t know exactly what she was expecting, but him reaching out and tucking a wet strand of hair behind her ear wasn’t it. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “You look even younger with your hair all wet and no makeup on.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not really much of a makeup kind of girl.”

  He took another step forward, so close she could almost breathe in his scent.

  And evidently, he could breathe in hers. “You smell like rain.” His voice was gruff, but his fingers were tender as they trailed behind her ear before his hand dropped to his side.

  “I was standing in the rain.” She should move away, crack some joke, do something to break this tension between them. But she didn’t want to.

  God, how long had it been since she’d been close to someone like this? How long since anyone had touched her out of more than necessity?

  Most people never gave a second thought to all the casual touches in their lives. A hug, a nudge of the shoulder. Besides guards patting her down in prison or guys groping her at the bar she’d worked at when she’d first gotten out, no one had really touched her in years.

  She’d learned to live without it, and she certainly didn’t need it.

  Yet when he took a half step closer, she didn’t move away.

  He was staring at her lips, his fingers once again reaching up to play with a wet tendril of her long, brown hair. She was standing on the first step, and he was down on the ground, so they were almost eye to eye.

  She wanted the touch of this man. When he trailed his fingers across her cheek, s
he couldn’t help but lean into it. Even though she shouldn’t.

  “Were you standing in the rain on purpose?” he murmured.

  “Yeah.” She didn’t recognize the husky pitch of her voice. “A fool in the rain—just like the Zeppelin song. Idiotic, right?”

  But he wasn’t looking at her like he thought she was idiotic. He was looking at her like he was envisioning her standing in the grass, face tilted toward the crying sky, before he’d arrived.

  And that he liked the thought of it.

  He inched forward, giving her plenty of time to back away. Too much time—her brain screamed at her that this was a bad idea.

  She didn’t care.

  The kiss wasn’t hesitant. His lips were full, but they were also firm and commanding. His hands threaded into her hair and tilted her head to the angle he wanted. His lips nibbled at hers, his tongue licking at the seam between her lips.

  “Open,” he murmured against her. “Open for me, Rainfall. I’ve got to taste you.”

  She did.

  If she thought she’d been kissed before, it was nothing compared to what he did once he had full access to her mouth.

  His lips plundered hers, stealing her breath, stealing her thoughts. All she could do was feel.

  She had no idea a kiss could be like this. Her hands fell to his wide shoulders, clutching him to her. She wanted to stay here and kiss him forever. She wanted him to take her inside or, hell, take her right here on the steps and do something about this ache he’d started in her body.

  She wanted him.

  But he was pulling back. She took a little comfort that he was at least breathing as hard as she was.