Page 2 of The Secrets She Keeps

“Age will settle that right out of her. Pity. Major Crimes is doing great things. It is a credit to the TSP.”

Yet this woman fought every request the Major Crimes division made. Gunnar wasn’t a fool—it wasn’t just because she had to be cautious with the budget. This woman didn’t like the men of Major Crimes. Not one bit. And she was attackingthemwith everything in her arsenal lately.

She didn’t give a damn that it negatively affected the TSP. She was a pit viper. No denying that.

The music ended. It had been some of the longest five minutes of his life. He bowed slightly, in a way he knew the ladies at these kinds of things liked, and stepped back. “I’m afraid my date for the evening is beckoning me, Commander Hamler. It has been a pleasure.”

He was such a liar. Gunnar didn’t give a damn.

Powell was doing no such thing—and Rhonda Hamler the viperknewit. Gunnar wasn’t a fool.

“It is always a pleasure to visit with one of the men who serve under me,” she told him. He knew the woman, old enough to be his mother, liked what shesawwhen she looked at him.

Gunnar had been told before he was an attractive man.

But talk about making a man’s skin crawl. A man would have to be seriously delusional to ever get near that woman’s bed.

“It was my honor. But I am all Powell’s tonight.” And every night going forward. But he kept that part to himself. Ms. Powell Melissa Barratt, Esq., was proving a bit difficult in regard to those plans. “She’s just playing hard to get. But…we’re in love. She’ll catch on eventually.”

“Enjoy yourselves. Time flies—and then one finds oneself alone. But then again, I believe you know that.”

It was a not-so-subtle dig, a reminder of the wife he had lost and buried years ago. And very nastily done. She liked what he looked like, but neither of them were fools.

Neither of them liked each other one bit.

Commander in Chief of the TSP Rhonda Hamler was a first-class bitch. Gunnar despised her and always had.

But she was a problem for another day.

Tonight, he had his woman to catch.

Gunnar stepped off the dance floor and searched the crowd. For a small woman with long dark brown hair and a dress cut far too low for his blood pressure.

Powell had to be around there somewhere.

He just needed to find her. Again.

She was fast when she wanted to be.

He would always look for one Powell Melissa Barratt, after all.

2

The womannext to her was the most annoying creature Powell had ever met. Normally, Powell tolerated her well enough. Most of the woman’s catty bitchiness was caused by cluelessness and ignorance rather than mean-spiritedness, but sometimes?—

It was just a bit too much.

“Brianna, I have a lot on my mind tonight. Do you have anything important to say tonight? I put up with the petty grievances of the HOA during my time as president. It’syourturn now. But a bunch of kids’ bikes in their own front yard are not a big deal. The dozen potholes on Tucker Avenue, however, big issue.”

“It’s not just that they left them out there. It’s that they have a clear disregard for the rules. Rules that were voted in for everyone years ago. Why should one family be so exempt? Because they are related to the governor? Well, how is that right?”

On and on and on.

Brianna Claireson, president of the Hughes Heights HOA, had a major problem withoneparticular family. One. They wereall Brianna talked about. A family that had really done nothing to her that Powell could find at all.

Powell had checked—the first time Brianna had complained about them.

Brianna had been going on about them for months. To Powell. Whenever she caught Powell. Every single time she caught Powell. It was driving Powell insane. “Brianna, find a way to handle it yourself.”

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