A Fragile Balance: Sneak Peek II

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In my first novel, Desperate Measures, young military wife Abby Regatti gets caught up in a terrorist plot that's about to take place on the military base where her husband Nick is stationed and they live with their two small daughters. She is forced by her government to become a spy to help foil the plot. Her assigned government handler, Agent Ian Taylor, is charged with keeping her contained and helping her to do the bidding of his superiors in assignments that may never end if something drastic doesn't happen. Agent Taylor doesn't want that drastic thing to be Abby giving her life for a cause she didn't want and his desire to keep her safe is mounting, along with the feelings he doesn't want to have but can't seem to stop.

When the government discovers that the base commander's wife in Aviano, Italy, is having an affair with a man who may be a terrorist arms dealer, they seize the opportunity to use Abby to get close the the General's wife, uprooting her entire family to set in motion a dangerous game. Abby, who has grown quite fond of the General's wife, Nara, gets a frantic call from her in the middle of the night and Abby attempts to send Agent Taylor, who's not answering his damn phone. She's afraid Nara won't survive if she doesn't do something, so she races to the arms dealer's home where he is hosting a lavish party. She discovers Nara locked in a bedroom and attempts to free her, but both of the ladies are caught, taken out to a building on the grounds, tortured and nearly killed before Agent Taylor finally comes to the rescue. The excerpt below comes after both women are recovering in the base hospital.

A Fragile Balance

Agent Taylor stood outside her hospital room door knowing her husband was inside holding her while she slept and healed from the damage that had been done to her by the hands of a monster. That fact, alone, made him want to kick the shit out of something. He smiled instead, knowing he'd gutted the monster as easily as he would a fish and felt even less remorse. He walked towards the waiting room and restlessly paced, his mind so full it made his cells hum with the need for action. The girl. Goddammit, how had become so attached to that crazy cream puff who had confessed to him she'd not spilled even a single secret while they'd tortured her. Never in his life had he wanted to kiss a woman so much as he did then. He wanted to kiss that brave little creature he'd carried to safety until they both forgot their names.

"So," a lone male voice came to him from the shadows, "...why don't you tell me what really happened to my sister? I'm guessing you're the man who knows."

Agent Taylor looked up at the speaker and studied him carefully from head to toe. Abby's younger brother, Aiden, bore some of her features but mostly he had the air of cocky youth that permeated from him. Bet the nurses swarmed him like bees on a flower, Ian thought. "Why would you think I know anything, boy?" Agent Taylor replied, smirking. Aiden raised an eyebrow at the question.

"Because I'm not as dumb as people assume. You look like a man with a lot of secrets who has a thing for my sister. Is she in there because of you?" he asked low and dangerous, his posture changing over to a more lethal stance.

Agent Taylor laughed to cover up the surprise at just how dead on the mark the kid had been. "Ease up there, boy," he chuckled. The kid amused him and he couldn't help but smile genuinely. He cold have quietly killed the boy quicker than it would take for him to screech out a call for help, but he imagined Abby would be somewhat put out if he harmed her brother.

"Well?" Aiden waited for a response to his question.

"You should go see if your brother-in-law needs some relief from sentry duty, boy," was Agent Taylor's only response. He tried not to snarl it, but damned if it didn't come out that way anyway.

"No, I should get to the bottom of what's really going on here, and I will. You can count on that. See ya around campus, old man," Aiden replied cheerfully, then headed for Abby's room. Ian sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. Well, this kept getting more fun all the time! Now there would be two of them to babysit! Might as well give the powers that be a head's up now rather than later. His ass was already going to be reamed for the number of people he'd had to kill to get Abby and Nara safely away, although killing the head of the operation had been a pleasure. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and made the call.