Bishop's Pawn Read online

  Copyright © 2017 by Suzanne Halliday

  Bishop’s Pawn

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This book is meant for mature readers who are 18+.

  It contains explicit language, and graphic sexual content.

  Edited by Gemma Rowlands

  Book Cover Design by Sommer Stein of Perfect Pear

  Cover Photo by Sara Eirew

  Formatting By Champagne Formats

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  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

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Semper Fi

  The plane whisking him from Arizona to New York City reached cruising altitude before Roman glanced up from the report in his lap. He had little more than eight hours to decide the best way to explain what he’d learned to his employer, along with a reasonable plan for how to go forward. And damn but this thing had more twists and turns than he or his boss, Liam Ashforth, expected.

  Turning his head, he gazed out the window. All he saw was miles of empty blue sky and puffs of white clouds. The five-hour flight with nothing else to do except think was going to serve him well if he had any hope of doing what Liam expected, which was to show up prepared with a plan and be ready for pretty much anything, because that’s what his life was like now.

  A slow smile crept onto his face. Ready for anything. Yep. Perfectly summed up the whirlwind that Rhiann Wilde brought to Liam Ashforth’s previously starchy, uptight world.

  Liam was easy to like. They had more in common than anyone realized. Loss, regret and resolve are powerful forces. He understood what drove Liam, and in their time together the two became friends. Their relationship might look like the classic bodyguard and client arrangement, but Roman was essentially being paid an ass-load of money to be Liam’s guy friend and Jiminy Cricket with the occasional dodging-a-bullet thing thrown in for shits and grins.

  And then, of course, there’s Rhiann. His smile grew bigger when he thought about the vivacious young woman who turned Liam’s life upside down without lifting a finger. Love has a way of making a man do strange things. Like trade in his tailored suit for jeans and a button down shirt—even if it was only for one day each week.

  On paper, Liam and Rhiann were mismatched sentences in search of a paragraph. She smoothed his sharp edges, and he gave her someone to focus her energy on. A quick snorting chuckle rose from his chest. The two were the poster kids for couples yin and yang.

  He was happy for them. Really, really happy. Being around their joy almost renewed his severely damaged faith and hope. Almost.

  But none of that was about him. Not really. As Liam’s friend and an unabashed admirer of Rhiann’s, it was up to him to put as much positive energy into the ether around them as possible. They deserved a break.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  His head rolled on the seat back, and he looked at the first-class attendant. She was a very neat and efficient looking woman with a happy smile. He wondered what it was like to do her job. It couldn’t be easy. Not dealing with the public when most people behaved like belligerent assholes.

  “Would you like a beverage?”

  “Yes, thank you,” he replied. “Coffee, black.” Offering a business-like smile, he mentally dismissed her without a second look.

  This was new. Having zero interest in any of the women crossing his path. He wasn’t sure why and wasn’t planning on picking it apart…it just was.

  Gathering up the papers and files on his lap, he made a neat stack and slid it into the briefcase bag on the seat next to him. Two thoughts were front and center in his mind.

  First was the oddity of reverting to older forms of exchanging sensitive information. With being hacked as commonplace these days as the weather was unpredictable, there were times when not leaving a digital trail was essential. This classified situation with Liam’s sister was one.

  The second was the extra seat he reserved for the single reason that he didn’t want to engage in perfunctory human-to-human contact with a stranger. Luckily, Liam didn’t give a flying fuck what was on his expense report. He was awesome that way, and truly didn’t care how much of his max-millions Roman spent, or on what. If he wanted to drop a wad of cash on lap dances and hotel room porn, Liam would just snicker and sign off.

  Coffee in hand he went back to analyzing his current assignment of tracking down Liam’s half-sister. Discovering he had a younger sibling had shaken the man’s world.

  He hadn’t seen Liam or Rhiann in over a month. After hanging around Pennsylvania and New York following the summer arrival of Rhiann’s newborn niece, they took off to London for a planned business trip that, Roman was thrilled to learn, included the two making their relationship official. Rhiann sent him a barrage of comical selfies from Liam’s over-the-top formal proposal. Roman especially approved of the thoughtfulness and attention to detail, things that didn’t surprise him about Liam. Not where his lady was concerned.

  As he expected of his boss, the guy went right past taking it to an eleven and brought enough damn cowbell to send the dial off the charts. Knowing she was a writer at heart, he’d taken full advantage of being across the pond and found a charming bed and breakfast in the English countryside near Stratford-Upon-Avon. The fact that they weren’t in a five-star hotel was a huge concession, but because it’s Liam Ashforth after all, the man booked the entire B&B for the duration of their stay and turned it into a romantic’s fantasy nirvana.

  The happy couple were arriving in New York City a few hours after him, and he honestly couldn’t wait to see them. They’d been through a lot, the three of them, not the least of which was Rhiann very nearly getting killed by Liam’s crazy ex-business partner. No joke. They were all lucky to be alive.

  How would he go about telling Liam all that he’d discovered? Having the Justice Agency and particularly Cameron Justice involved in the data gathering gave him an unusually thorough picture of what was going on. Cam was a tracking savant. He could find anybody, anywhere. But the bonus of uncovering the mother’s background filled in a lot of blanks.

  Roman detested Adam Ward almost as much as Liam did. It rankled the shit out of him how big a cold-blooded motherfucker the man was. He’d done Carolyn Ashforth dirty and in a particularly sleazy way. Using an employee, a secretary, as a sexual plaything and then kicking her to the curb after knocking her up was in his mind a heinous and despicable way to behave.

  Learning the dick had a second bastard offspring by yet another secretary turned his stomach.

  Kelly Anne James.

  The attendant sauntered by and took away the empty coffee cup. She approached with an expectant look—a signal he read loud and clear. Wi
th an impatient sigh, he barely managed to be civil when she asked if he needed anything else.

  Was trolling the first class cabin hoping to catch a guy a thing? He spent the fraction of a second considering the difficulty scale he’d face getting into her pants and just as quickly nixed the idea. Blowing off sexual steam with a bit of Jane Doe strangely held zero appeal. Avoiding eye contact made her dismissal easy. He was relieved when she left him alone and he could return to his thoughts.

  Staring blindly out the window, he worked out a plan worthy of Liam’s consideration. It might be a bit unorthodox but so the fuck what. This whole situation was irregular and fraught with problems.

  Liam would see the advantages to Roman’s plan. It kept the number of people who knew anything to a minimum and put not just eyes on the subject but feet on the ground.

  He was less worried about a young twenty-something holed up in a rural community a hundred miles off anyone’s beaten path than he was about keeping the whole matter quiet. If things went as planned, he’d target Kelly Anne James, get every single scintilla of information about her that he could, and then hand it over to Liam.

  He was feeling pent up and overly restless so dicking around with a twenty-three-year-old country girl one second more than was necessary just wasn’t going to happen.

  Maybe when this is over, he thought, I’ll think about taking some time off. Plan an actual vacation. Someplace on the water where he could find some frickin’ Zen and reset.

  Seeing the whole pack of Justice Brothers married and with growing families shook him up more than he wanted to admit. Once upon a very long time ago that had been him.

  But that was then, and this is now, and in his current reality, shit like marriage, kids, and a happy home life were things meant for other guys. He’d had his shot and enjoyed the sweetness until evil swept it all away.

  He was content with his predictable life where a smooth brandy, a good cigar, a stack of philosophy books and Rachmaninoff on the sound system was enough.

  “You motherfucker,” she grumbled through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw. Applying all of her body weight, Kelly dug one foot into the dirt as a brace and put the other on the crooked bumper of her ancient but still road-worthy truck named Blue Bandit. A violent push-pull yank on the wrench finally got results even if she ended up losing her balance and dropping like a stone onto her ass with a thud.

  Yelping because a rock digging into her butt triggered a sharp stinging pain, she rolled to her knees and struggled back on her feet.

  “Kiss my bruised ass, Bandit,” she snickered in triumph with a slap on the hood of the quirky blue vehicle. Tossing the wrench into her toolbox, she flinched slightly as the loud bang of metal hitting metal rang out.

  Swiping her hands down jean covered thighs, she sidled up to the open truck window, reached inside the cab and grabbed her thermos bottle for a quick slug of sweetened coffee. She hated the bitter brew and ended up dumping way too much sugar into the vile necessity. Some days it seemed that without copious quantities of caffeine, she’d be screwed. Shuddering after another healthy swallow from the thermos, she gave the metal canister’s lid a last turn and put it back on the truck’s seat.

  Overhead, the sky was an ominous gray, signaling another shit-tacular weather system was moving in. She could feel the deep furrows on her forehead when a frown settled. Mother Nature was at the top of her enemies list because nothing messed with her composure more than pretty much anything that made her already hard life even more difficult.

  Just past twenty-three, Kelly Anne James knew more about life’s cruel bitch side than most.

  Lugging the old, rusty toolbox across the yard to the tool shed, she kicked with a rough-sounding grunt and opened the door. Her nose was instantly assailed with the musty smell of the small, cramped building.

  Half the crap shoved into the shed was stuff from another era left there by her mother’s family and forgotten. Just like the twenty-five acres she called home that decades ago had been a small farm tucked away in the woods and rolling mountains of Oklahoma.

  “Forgotten should be my middle name,” she groused faintly.

  Hurrying away from the dilapidated shed, she made straight for the steps of the porch she proudly rebuilt. When the original wood rotted away, she’d made a project of tearing down the old structure and replacing it with simple planks. It might not be perfect, but it was functional and safe – good enough in her book.

  The minute she stepped through the door her senses filled with the sights, scents and sounds of the little home she inherited when her mother passed. It wasn’t much, but it was hers.

  As the faint sound of classical music coming from the back of the house and the familiar smell of wood smoke settled around her like a warm hug she pulled on the neck of a hoodie acquired for two dollars in a thrift store and lifted it over her head. Quickly hanging it on a stubby wooden peg, she rubbed her hands together briskly and hurried to the fireplace.

  While whisking stray ash off the brick hearth, she listened for telltale sounds from the bedroom at the nearest end of the hallway. Hearing nothing, she tended to the fire, scooping paddles full of glowing red and gold embers into a pile before adding a layer of wood chunks topped with a hefty log.

  It was almost lunch, time to pay attention to mundane domestic chores such as the bread dough rising in two large stoneware bowls placed in a warming niche set into the red bricks next to the chimney. Say what you will about the rigors of rural living, but she rather liked the practical little touches from another century that gave her world its quirky definition.

  Snatching an apron she’d made from a remnant of sturdy fabric, Kelly tied it behind her neck and wound the long ties around her waist twice, securing them with a firm tug.

  Shoving a biscuit slathered with honey and drizzled with hot sauce down her throat, she injected some speed to her chores. With luck, she just might be able to get the bread ready for the oven before Matty woke up from his mid-morning snooze.

  Without thinking, the steps she’d performed twice a week since she could remember played out. Living in the middle of nowhere at the intersection of Forgotten and Ignored, luxuries like fancy grocery stores and home delivery were unheard of. On her more and more frequent trips into Fairley, a real city about sixty miles away, sometimes she’d splurge on a loaf of bread from the shiny, overstocked grocery store. The convenience was cool, but she wasn’t overly fond of the bland, tasteless product.

  “I’ll make my own bread thank you very much,” she muttered into the silence, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

  Cracking open the oven door she peered inside at the thermometer hanging on the middle rack. Perfect. Just as she slid the last loaf onto the rack, a small voice called out. “Kiki?”

  “I’m in the kitchen, Matty,” she answered. “Making lunch. Go potty and then come here.”

  “Okay.”

  She smiled. Matthew James had to be the coolest almost-four-year-old on the entire planet. Not only was he self-regulating and capable, the kid had an old soul quality that meshed well with her in-the-moment, getting-shit-done approach to living.

  They were an awesome team.

  At the stove, she lifted the lid on a pot of meatballs in bubbling sauce, scooped out two and put them in a dish to cool. It was lunch, and her rule that milk was always on the menu for the midday meal meant she needed Matty’s favorite cup. Finding it in the rack with the other breakfast dishes she’d yet to put away, Kelly retrieved the blue plastic cup with the green dinosaur tail for the handle and placed it on the kitchen table.

  Matty loved the stupid cup. They found it last year at a flea market and paid a whopping nickel to bring it home. It was the dinosaur that sealed the deal. From the time he was old enough to be interested in something, the kid was a full-on junior paleontologist.

  “Is it gonna snow?” he asked after turning up two inches behind her butt. She was used to the soundless way he moved but it still startled her.

&
nbsp; “Soon, I think. Winter is almost here.” Stooping, she kissed him on the nose. “Did you wash?”

  Proudly grinning, he nodded eagerly and did a hand flip display and then cupped both hands near his nose. He made one of those noisy exaggerated kid inhales and delightfully exclaimed, “Strawberry soap, Kiki!”

  Ruffling his dirty blonde hair, she snickered softly and drawled, “You’re welcome.”

  Smelly soap was another of Matty’s favorite things. There was something about getting clean with a delicious smelling simple luxury that took some of the ache out of their hard-scrabble life in rural Oklahoma. Smelly soap, however, wasn’t easy to come by or cost efficient. But then a snippet of random information she picked up during a friendly chat with the woman behind the counter at her favorite thrift store changed how she approached trying to solve the problem. For a two-dollar investment, she picked up three large bottles of no-brand strawberry shampoo and one of those pump soap things that turns water and soap into foam. Matty thought they were living high on the hog now with their fancy fruit foam. The bonus was that she ended up with enough shampoo to mix up a year’s worth and still have enough left over for countless hair washes.

  “Okay, Mr. James. Grab the milk and plant your bottom on the bench while I get lunch. You want s’ghetti noodles or elbows with your meatballs?”

  “S’ghetti, Kiki! And can I have bacon too?”

  She cracked up laughing and slapped her hands to her waist. “Eww. Bacon spaghetti and meatballs? Yuk.”

  “But I like Sam’s bacon. He says he smokes it with magic powder.”

  Joining him at the table, she pushed a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs close and gestured at the napkin. “Manners, young man.”

  “Aw,” he grumbled while slapping a cotton square onto his lap. “No bacon?”

  “Matthew James,” she teased with laughter. “You are becoming a ravenous carnivore.”

  “I know both words,” he proudly crowed. “The Megaraptor is a carnivore.”