Page 3 of Lone Star Showdown

But no such luck.

The car crept along at a “granny driving to church” pace and then came to a stop in front of his house. He took out a Glock from one of the vanity drawers. Like security monitors, he had weapons stashed all around the house just in case one of those somebodies hellbent on revenge paid him a visit.

He kept his gaze fixed to the car, waiting, watching. Then, waiting some more. Finally, after what seemed to be enough time for him to have showered and taken a long nap, the driver’s door opened.

And she stepped out.

Five five. Brown hair, brown eyes. Which made her sound average. She wasn’t. There wasn’t anything average about her.

Rachel Franklin. Childhood friend. Breaker of hearts.

Well, breaker of his heart anyway, and to be honest, it was more of a mutual breaking. Neither one of them had gotten what they’d wanted or needed from their relationship that’d started in their teens and moseyed into an on again, off again arrangement for the next decade or so. That had led to an enough of this parting of the ways, which had indeed been like a solid kick to the balls.

Seeing Rachel now felt like another kick. Because she wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t in some kind of trouble.

Once she was actually out of the car, she didn’t dawdle as she had when she’d parked. Firing glances all around her—yeah, she was in trouble, all right—she hurried to his door and gave a couple of frantic knocks.

Jericho shoved the Glock in the back of his jeans, did a voice command to put the pause button on the alarm, and he went to the door to open it.

And there she was.

Yep, there was the kick all right, and he wondered if he would always have that reaction to her. Probably.

They were each other’s blessings and curses. Blessings when they’d been trying to survive childhoods from hell at the Stronghold compound. Curses when they had indeed survived but had needed to go their own separate ways.

Stronghold.

Now, that was a memory of some serious crap that always got mixed up with memories of Rachel. Impossible to separate them since Rachel and he had both been raised in the commune, surrounded by adults who either a) thought the world was soon coming to a nasty end or b) were survivalists, living off the land and such.

To add some spice to the mix, there were c) those who just liked to play soldier and keep things stirred up so that no one slept well at night. Jesus wasn’t the driving force behind the Stronghold compound. Fear and paranoia were.

And in the messy environment, he’d found Rachel.

Then had lost her.

But that was the past. He just hoped everything he’d once felt for her stayed out of his present way of thinking and feeling.

“Jericho,” she said. Not a murmur. And she met him eye to eye. That was Rachel. Even when in trouble, she managed to look as if she could hold her own. The thing was, she usually could, so that meant the trouble she was in was big.

“Rachel,” he answered back.

That was it. The start of their conversation came to a grinding halt. Not his eyeballs though. Or any other part of his body other than his mouth. The rest of him noticed every inch of her.

The years looked good on her, something he probably shouldn’t say aloud anyway. She’d been a beautiful teenager and young woman, but now that she was thirty-six, she was stunning. Flat-out stunning.

Yeah, no part of him was going to forget that.

“It’s been a while,” she finally said. “Five years.”

“And six months,” he added, quickly doing the math.

“And thirteen days.” She could obviously do some fast tallying, too.

It was probably easy for both of them to recall the date since they’d run into each other when he had been on leave from the Air Force. He’d been an OSI agent in those days. Office of Special Investigation, which was the military equivalent of the FBI. Combined with the survivalist training he’d learned when growing up, it had given him a darn good skillset that the military had tapped into often.

During that leave, he’d gone to a party at a friend’s place in San Antonio, and Rachel had been there. For about three hours, it’d been like old times. Talking, catching up. Drinking. Yeah, alcohol had been involved.

And they’d ended up in bed.

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