Laura And The Lawman

Shelley Cooper

Литагент HarperCollins EUR

Police officer Laura Langley's objective was clear: pose as art appraiser Ruby O'Toole and infiltrate suspected drug kingpin Joseph Merrill's organization. Yet thoughts of another man consumed her day and night. Joseph's mysterious employee Michael Corsi had a sensual stare that made Laura forget her purpose, his magnetism threatening her guarded heart. With the undercover investigation at stake, Laura had to resist the desire Michael awakened in her.Because she knew how deadly falling for a man who might be on the wrong side of the law could be. Then she discovered that she wasn't the only one masquerading. But with their covers nearly blown, would their passion survive another night?

“You’re so beautiful.” Michael spoke as if he were in the midst of a revelation.

Laura’s breath caught, and something deep inside her unfurled and went all soft and malleable. A pulse of pleasure, pure and unadulterated, the strength of which she hadn’t experienced in years, radiated slowly outward from her center. It left her feeling hot and definitely bothered as they both continued to stand there awkwardly, neither seeming to know what to do or say.

Don’t, Laura wanted to cry. Don’t look at me that way. Because if you do, I won’t be able to…

To what? Do her job? Handle it? Resist him? Walk away?

Laura and the Lawman

Shelley Cooper

SHELLEY COOPER

first experienced the power of words when she was in the eighth grade and wrote a paragraph about the circus for a class assignment. Her teacher returned it with an A and seven pluses scrawled across the top of the paper, along with a note thanking her for rekindling so vividly some cherished childhood memories. Since Shelley had never been to the circus and had relied solely on her imagination to compose the paragraph, the teacher’s remarks were a revelation. Since then, Shelley has relied on her imagination to help her sell dozens of short stories and to write her first novel, Major Dad, a 1997 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart finalist in Best Long Contemporary, as well as many more. She hopes her books will be as moving to her readers as her circus paragraph was to that long-ago English teacher.

To my grandmother, Martha Belle Varner, for the Easter egg hunts, sleepovers, countless games of canasta and, most important, the laughter.

And in loving memory of Leonard Varner, who had muscles to rival Popeye’s, could ride a bike backward and always praised me by saying, “You done good, kid.”

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Prologue

The two men met in the parking lot of a busy truck stop located off of Interstate 80 in western Pennsylvania. It was nearing midnight, and they had each traveled in excess of sixty miles to make the assignation.

Together they entered a brightly lit diner and sat down in a small booth in the rear. From that vantage point they could keep an eye on all comings and goings.

As the sole liaison between undercover cops and the department they all served, the men were used to meeting in out-of-the-way places. Places where they were unlikely to be seen by those they didn’t want to see them, and even less likely to be overheard.

Neither spoke until two frosty mugs of root beer, along with two huge plates of food, each loaded with enough fat and cholesterol to guarantee a heart attack, had been placed on the table.

“When’s he going in?” Erik Hitchcock asked after taking a hearty swallow of his drink.

“Two weeks,” Gregory Phelps replied, spearing his sixteen-ounce Delmonico steak with a knife and fork. “Have you told her yet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Word came down they don’t want her to know. They think it’ll be safer for them both. If she doesn’t know, she won’t make a mistake.”

Erik paused