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  Copyright © 2014 by Julie Ann Walker

  Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover art by Craig White

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  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—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

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  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  An Excerpt from Hell or High Water

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To my big sister, Dana.

  When I was younger, I thought being known as “Little Dana” was a curse. I wanted people to see me not as your mini-me, but as myself. Now I realize being “Little Dana” was a blessing. It gave me big shoes to fill and made me always strive to be better, do better, and reach higher. That drive has served me well in life. Thank you for that!

  All great things are simple, and can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

  —Winston Churchill

  Prologue

  Georgetown Campus

  Washington, DC

  Eight years ago…

  “Hey, little neña. Where are you going in such a hurry, eh?”

  Abigail Thompson’s heart took flight at the sound of Carlos’s smooth baritone calling from directly behind her. She spun around, bracing herself for the impact of his laser-black eyes and that oh-so-tempting dimple in his left cheek. But the stupid sidewalk chose that moment to go all wonky, like the floor of a fun house. And instead of the graceful pirouette she’d planned, she ended up tripping over her own two feet. Down fell her books, her purse, and her enrollment papers as she lurched sideways toward the curb.

  “Son of a biscuit!” she yelled as her ankle rolled over the lip of the sucker. But no matter how she pinwheeled her arms like a cartoon character, there was no stopping her momentum.

  Honk! A car horn blared. Errrrrttt! A set of brakes squealed. Her entire body flashed hot and cold in the early autumn air, the hair on her head standing stick-straight as she squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the bone-breaking blow. But she was saved from becoming a hood ornament by the grace of God—Hallelujah! Amen!—and Carlos’s quick reflexes. He snagged her wrist in a firm grip, deftly yanking her out of oncoming traffic and into his arms.

  And speaking of the grace of God…

  Heaven, that’s what she was now in. With her face pressed against his solid chest and the heady smell of soap and…man filling her nose, that was the only way to describe it.

  Well, if she was splitting hairs, nirvana, paradise, or wonderland probably worked, too.

  Your body is a wonderland… When John Mayer penned those words, he had to be talking about Carlos, right? Because the dude was flat-out ssssmokin’! Adonis come to life. Er…Carlos, that is. Not John Mayer. Though, in all fairness, Johnny Boy was sort of cute, too. But she digressed. Because it didn’t really matter which term she used—heaven, nirvana, paradise, or wonderland—since it all came down to the simple fact that from one second to the next, her distress was replaced with desire, her terror with tension. Sexual tension.

  And it was delicious!

  Unfortunately, it lasted for all of about two seconds. Gah! Because Carlos gripped her shoulders to hold her at arm’s length—much to the lament of her rapacious nineteen-year-old libido.

  And, yes, she fully realized how irrational it was to be cursing the fact that she’d only been given two seconds to revel in his arms when she should be thanking her lucky stars she hadn’t ended up as roadkill. But there you go. Because the man had been making her think and act irrationally since the first moment she laid eyes on him, standing there on the sidewalk by the South Gatehouse. He’d had his arm looped through Rosa’s, his twin sister and Abby’s new—at the time—premed academic advisor, and pow! His swarthy, exotic beauty had hit her like…well, like that sedan had nearly hit her.

  That had been a year ago. And since then, she’d come to love Rosa like family. As for Carlos? Well, she wouldn’t say she loved him like family, but she certainly felt something for him. Something her Bio 101 textbook had called a biological imperative, i.e., the overwhelming and intrinsic compulsion to mate. Or, in layman’s terms, the need to Get. It. On.

  “Jesús Cristo!” he cursed now, dragging her away from her heated thoughts. “Are you okay, chamaca?”

  Okay? Well, a few seconds ago, snuggled against him, she’d been better than okay. She’d been great! But now he’d gone and called her chamaca—which Rosa said was slang for “little girl”—driving home for the bazillionth time that he viewed her less in terms of a willing bed partner and more in terms of a pesky kid sister. So now it was safe to say she was pretty far from okay.

  “I’m fine,” she lied, bending to grab her dropped belongings, slapping her hand down on the sheaf of enrollment papers when they caught the wind and threatened to blow into the street. “Thanks for that save, by the way. A bad case of road rash would have seriously put a damper on my day.”

  “Not a problem.” He squatted next to her, helping her stack her books. She couldn’t help but notice how tan his hands were compared to hers. Just imagine how we might look together naked, his warm brown skin contrasting against my paleness? Her knees weakened at the thought. And gah again! “Especially considering I was the one who startled you into tripping.”

  “No. That wasn’t your fault. I’m just clumsy,” she assured him, leaving off whenever you’re around from the end of the sentence.

  “Hmm. Are you sure it’s not all that sangria you guzzled last night at the drama club’s little fiesta? Hangovers can be a bitch.”

  “You were there?” She found that hard to believe. Not only had it been mostly underclassmen at the party, but it also seemed impossible she could have missed him. When Carlos Soto entered a room—or, in the case of last night’s party, an abandoned warehous
e—everyone knew. He just had a way, a…presence about him that seemed to command attention.

  Case in point: When she glanced up to discover that damned irresistible dimple of his winking at her, every cell in her body came to a hard stop like her father’s old English setter did when he spotted a squirrel. And like that dog, she was pretty sure her whole body was now quivering.

  Does he even know he’s doing it?

  Probably not, she decided, which made it worse.

  “I just stopped by for a second to pick up a friend who found himself in need of a designated driver,” he explained. “And who was also in need of a voice of sanity to keep him from going home with a philosophy major who was far too young for him.”

  “Too young for him? Let me guess,” she groused, standing and slinging her purse strap over her shoulder. “This philosophy major was what? Eighteen? Nineteen? Last I heard, that’s past the age of consent.”

  Carlos mirrored her movement, rising in one graceful motion that was the polar opposite of her near face-plant into the grille of the Buick. He held on to her books, tucking them under his arm, causing his brown suede jacket to bunch up and reveal his trim waist. What she wouldn’t give to turn back the clock a couple of minutes so she could take the opportunity to wrap her arms around that waist. “She was twenty, and… Don’t you roll your eyes at me,” he grumped when she did exactly that. “That’s too young to be carousing around with a guy who’s my age.”

  “Yes, because twenty-five is positively ancient.” She wrinkled her nose. “I see daily doses of prune juice and Bengay in your immediate future, you poor thing.”

  He made a face at her.

  She made one right back.

  “And to get back to the point,” she said, “I don’t have a hangover.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I prefer to think of it as wine flu.”

  He barked out a laugh, and she would swear she felt the sound low in her belly. When the cool breeze tousled the hair near his temple, she hastily reached out to take her books from him. Not only was she already running late for her meeting, but she also needed something to fill her hands lest she find them burrowing themselves through his sleek, black locks.

  “Which reminds me.” He glanced toward one of the three Secret Service agents who had melded back into the landscape the instant it became clear she wasn’t in danger of falling into the street. “What’s the matter with your security detail? Don’t they know better than to let you drink? You’re underage. Do I need to have a talk with them?”

  Oh, geez. It was bad enough she hadn’t had a single moment of privacy since her father made public his bid for his party’s nomination to be the next president of the United States. But it was worse still that everyone was highly aware of the presence of the requisite Secret Service agents who came part and parcel with her being the next prospective first daughter—the next likely first daughter if all the political pundits and talking heads were to be believed. It made most people act funny around her, like they were afraid they were ten seconds away from taking a bullet to the brain or something. Or in the case of Carlos—the big, beautiful buttmunch—it made him constantly try to enlist the agents into curtailing what she considered perfectly normal college-girl activities.

  “You’ll be glad to know”—she grudgingly informed him as they turned to continue up the sidewalk. From the corner of her eye, she saw her security detail fall into step with them—“that Agent Mitchell already gave me some donkey barbecue over the two measly glasses of sangria I drank. He informed me, in that gruff tone of his that’s far too much like my father’s, that I need to be more careful than the average university student. That I have to consider how my actions could impact the upcoming election. Which means, no. There’s absolutely no need for you to have a talk with them. But thanks for offering all the same.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She shot him an exasperated glance. “I take it you missed the sarcasm in my tone.”

  “Oh, I caught it. I just chose to ignore it,” he admitted as a young woman, one Abby was almost certain had been in her calculus class last spring, brushed by them. The brown-haired Barbie eyed Carlos with what Abby suspected was supposed to be a covert look of longing. But the blushing and giggling Barbie did when he glanced her way completely ruined her ruse. Abby rolled her eyes and made a gagging sound.

  Carlos nudged her with his elbow.

  She rammed her shoulder into his arm in retaliation.

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “You stop it,” she countered.

  With a wide grin making his already handsome face just that much more…well, handsome…he tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “So, uh, what exactly is donkey barbecue anyway?”

  “It means ass chewing. Duh.” She would have teased him about being an old coot who no longer kept up with youthful slang, but that would do nothing to forward her campaign of making him realize their six-year age difference was really nothing in the grand scheme of things.

  Again he barked out a laugh, one that reverberated somewhere in the vicinity of her womb. “The things that come out of your mouth…”

  Yep, that’s me. Silly little Abby. Always good for a chuckle.

  “So where are we headed?” he asked, shortening his steps to match hers. A breeze blew the smell of the changing seasons at them, and there was the promise of turning leaves and long rainy days in the air.

  “Well, I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I’m meeting Rosa at the coffee shop around the corner.” Motioning with her chin to the batch of papers now sandwiched between two textbooks, she continued. “She’s going to help me with enrollment for next spring. Tell me which courses to take, which professors to avoid, yada, yada. I need to pick her brain now, before you two begin your next round of clinical rotations and I don’t see you for weeks on end. And speaking of rotations, Rosa said she’s looking forward to spending some time in pediatrics. Are you still leaning toward general surgery?”

  “Sí.” He nodded. “It’s the most fun.”

  “Fun?”

  “Sure.” He nodded again.

  She sighed. Sometimes getting the man to expound on a subject was like pulling teeth. “Fun it what way?” she prodded.

  “Fun in that I like the challenge of never knowing what’s coming through the doors of the emergency room or what operation I’ll be required to perform next. Every day is an adventure in GS.”

  “Ah.” She nodded. “I guess that makes sense. You know, given that you’re you.”

  He turned to look at her, one dark brow quirked. “Now what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that between you and Rosa, you’re definitely the thrill-seeker and she’s definitely the staid, responsible one.”

  And if he handled a scalpel the way he handled that motorcycle he roared around campus on—with deft precision and quick, confident assurance—it was a safe bet he’d quickly make a name for himself as one of the country’s most sought-after surgeons. “I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment,” he said. “And speaking of my staid and responsible twin sister, I wonder why she didn’t tell me she was meeting you?” Another young woman came toward them then. But unlike the previous girl, this one made no bones about the fact that she was extremely interested in fixing herself a big, heaping helping of Puerto Rican man-meat. The only way the blue-eyed tart could have been more obvious was if she unbuttoned her blouse and flashed Carlos her tatas. And when the big idiot had the audacity to hit the woman with the full force of his dimple, resulting in said tart sending him a saucy wink as she brushed by them, Abby decided this was what it was like to want to murder someone.

  But the question was, did she want to execute Carlos or Miss Obvious?

  “I suspect she didn’t tell you because you’re not her keeper,” she informed him haughtily while shuffling her books to one arm so she could wave her hand in front of her face. She coughed dramatically.

  “What’s
that? What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s hard to breathe, what with all the hussy and nitwit floating around in the air.”

  He jerked his chin from side to side, cracking the vertebrae in his neck while his black eyes glittered with amused affront. “And I’m assuming I’m the nitwit here?”

  “It’s dealer’s choice,” she told him as they rounded the corner and the neon sign hanging above the coffee shop came into view.

  “For such a little thing, you sure know how to bust a guy’s b—”

  BOOOMMM!

  The whole world exploded…

  Or at least that’s what it felt like, the thundering roar so immense that total global destruction seemed the only natural result. But it was obvious the planet remained intact when Abby found herself kissing concrete. She’d gone from standing on the sidewalk to pancaked flat on the ground with her books smashed beneath her arms in a nanosecond.

  “Wha—?” she managed, her ears ringing. The frightened screams and blaring car alarms all around her seemed muffled and distant by comparison.

  She turned her head to lay her cheek against the rough coolness of the walkway, trying to determine if anything was broken. Fortunately, nothing hurt save for a small sting on the inside of her bottom lip where she’d apparently taken a chunk out of the thing on her way to the ground. But she’d just go ahead and file that under The Least of My Worries, because in the next instant, she saw Agent Mitchell barreling toward her, yelling something into the tiny radio transmitter he kept attached to his cuff. And the stark terror on his face said it all…

  Whatever had happened, it was bad. Really bad. Her heart took off like it was running a race and someone fired the starting pistol. Her lungs expelled the last bit of air inside them until she was woozy from lack of oxygen.

  “Stay down! Stay down!” Agent Mitchell commanded as he knelt beside her head. His voice came to her as if from a great distance. “Don’t move, Soto. Stay right where you are,” he continued as the black sneakers of the remaining two agents came into view, their voices weirdly echoey as they barked orders to the other people on the sidewalk.