Unmasking Kelsey (Hagen) - Softcover

Hooper, Kay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553590707 ISBN 13: 9780553590708

Publisher: Bantam, 2012

Synopsis

All is not as it seems as a daring undercover agent and an unconventional southern belle mix business with pleasure in this classic story of romance and suspense from New York Times bestselling author Kay Hooper.
 
Kelsey has come to the idyllic southern town of Pinnacle to investigate a shady company called Meditron, which has a ruthless way of getting what it wants—or so claims the desperate caller who contacts the FBI. The locals won’t talk about Meditron. But Kelsey is an expert interrogator, prepared to use his seductive charms to his every advantage. He just hadn’t counted on falling for the beautiful witness at the center of his investigation.
 
Elizabeth Conner is too proud to ask for any sort of assistance. She never needed help raising her three willful younger sisters. But now her family is in serious trouble, and Elizabeth’s stubborn independence is a deadly liability. And then Kelsey sweeps her up—and into his arms—like a force of nature, promising to protect Elizabeth and her sisters from a relentless enemy. Elizabeth never imagined letting any man get too close, let alone one who can’t even disclose his full name. But daring to trust this tempting stranger is a danger she must embrace.

About this title

About the Author:

Kay Hooper, who has more than thirteen million copies of her books in print worldwide, has won numerous awards and high praise for her novels. She lives in North Carolina.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

One
“Move it or lose it, buddy!”

If Kelsey had obeyed his common sense, he would have moved it. However, as the command woke him up quite abruptly from a sound, exhausted sleep, and as he was feeling a bit irascible because of it, he chose to force the issue. So, in his best Bogart imitation, he growled, “Scram!”

The wisdom of that response was instantly in doubt when he felt the cold hardness of a gun barrel against his neck.

In a matter-of-fact voice that was musical and yet held all the softness of an angry drill sergeant’s, the woman said, “Any last words? A cigarette and a blindfold, maybe?”

Sitting very still, Kelsey chose to respond to the steely voice rather than the flippant words. “Uh— can we back up a little? I don’t know who you are, but—”

“That makes us even, doesn’t it? All I know is that this piece of junk is parked on my land and you’re in it. I get jumpy when strangers park on my land.”

Kelsey wanted badly to turn his head and look at the woman, but didn’t dare. “Look, I’m harm- less,” he insisted in his most bland and unthreatening voice. “I drove all night and I was tired, so I just pulled off the road to sleep. I didn’t know this was private land.”

“Now you do. Move it out.”

“Did anybody ever tell you that you have a wonderfully light conversational touch?”

“I said beat it!”

She had her hand through the window in back, he realized, so opening his door suddenly wouldn’t throw off her balance. Then he caught a sudden glimpse of her hand in the rearview mirror, and he almost laughed. Instead, he reached over his shoulder abruptly and took her “gun” away from her. It was an empty soft drink bottle, and he stared at it in disgust.

Of all the childish tricks to be taken in by! Muttering to himself, Kelsey tossed the bottle

through the window, then opened his door and got out of the car. He fully intended to pour his wrath all over her, but when he turned and got his first look at his attacker, wrath was the last thing on his mind.

She stood confronting him, stiff and angry, magnificent green eyes blazing with temper. Her incredibly pale silver hair was piled atop her head in what he vaguely recognized as a chignon, with tendrils escaping to frame her face. And Kelsey had never seen such a stunningly beautiful woman in all his life.

No one—man or woman—would ever call her merely “pretty.” She had the rarest kind of beauty, the beauty of bone structure and coloring that would remain with her all the days of her life. Her eyes were large and almond-shaped, fringed with long dark lashes, and their color was so vivid a green, they were almost iridescent. Her every feature was finely sculpted, and each blended so that her face was quite simply perfect.

“Close your mouth!” she snapped.

He did, then opened it again to laugh. “Damn, but you’re lovely!” he said. And he was intrigued to note that not even a scowl could make her face less than beautiful.

She put her hands on her hips, continuing to glare. “Am I going to have to call the cops to get you off my land?” she demanded.

Kelsey was trying to ignore the effect she was having on his senses, which was rather like trying to ignore a tornado while standing just under the funnel. “Um, you just might,” he confessed, feel- ing somewhat dazed. And in the back of his mind, behind all the rational, logical reasons why he just couldn’t, not now, a little voice was groaning, Oh,

hell, what lousy timing!

She blinked, and humor shone briefly in her eyes before temper rose up again. She turned her head and whistled sharply between her teeth.

Her teeth were lovely too, he noticed. And the jeans and T-shirt she wore did absolutely nothing to hide the fact that nature had been as wonder- fully generous below her neck as above. Kelsey decided he was dreaming. He decided he didn’t want to wake up. Then he became aware that something was growling near his left hip, and he tore his gaze from her to look down.

He woke up. In a hurry.

It was disguised as a dog, but from the sound it was making, Kelsey deduced that it was either a grizzly bear or a Tasmanian devil. Its fangs looked perfectly capable of devouring a whole steer, a redwood tree trunk, or Kelsey’s leg—which was what was closest at the moment.

Careful to keep his voice mild, Kelsey asked, “What the hell is that?”

“My dog. His name is Lobo. That means wolf. Lobo doesn’t like strangers either. Now, unless you can show me a badge—state or federal—and a warrant, along with a gun big enough to frighten

Lobo, you’d better clear out.”

“Right.” He edged carefully back into his car and shut the door with absolute quiet, but then hesitated. Looking at the face he knew he’d never forget if he lived to be a hundred, he said quietly, “At least tell me your name.”

She stood with one hand on the bristling ruff of her dog and stared at him for a long moment. “Elizabeth Conner,” she said, and seemed surprised that she’d said it.

“Thank you. My name’s Kelsey,” he told her, and then started his car and drove away.
The town was named Pinnacle, and it had never lived up to its christening. A sleepy little village with a city limit that was about a mile long and half as wide, it was tucked away in the country- side like a trail forgotten by time. The nearest interstate highway was ten miles away, the nearest city of any size a hundred, and if it was on any state map, it boasted only a pinprick with which to mark its location.

But as Kelsey drove his battered Ford slowly through two caution lights on Main Street, he de- cided that Pinnacle had, somewhere, an ace up its sleeve. He had spent nearly two hours driving all around Pinnacle before venturing in, and from that had concluded that the town would be a stagnating, dying one.

There appeared to be few income-producing resources in the rural county. Scant acres of usable, productive farmland, no river or stream of any size, nothing to attract tourists, one lone industrial plant called Meditron operating about five miles from town, and if a company or private individual was cutting timber, it was well-hidden.

So Kelsey had expected a dying town, one being slowly choked to death by its own limitations. He expected to see few young people, no new businesses or construction, and signs of decay every- where.

He was wrong on all counts.
The downtown area boasted several establishments of considerable size, all in excellent repair and, judging by traffic along the busy sidewalks on a weekday, flourishing nicely. At a rough estimate the population on the streets today had a median age of thirty and an income way above average, leaving folks with a lot of money to spend on themselves. Most of the cars on the picturesque street were late models, and there wasn’t a weed, a broken-down building, or crooked street sign anywhere to be seen.

“Damn,” Kelsey murmured. He continued down the main street and out of the downtown area, looking left and right to study some fine old homes and tasteful new ones, a compact little shopping center doing brisk business, an obviously new high school, and other signs of a healthy economy.

A county sheriff’s patrol car cruised past in the other lane, and Kelsey looked in the rearview mirror and watched as it pulled into a parking lot, backed out again, and fell in behind his own car. “Double damn,” he muttered. It could have been coincidental, of course, but he doubted it. Kelsey didn’t have a great deal of faith in coincidence. And he remembered, then, that Elizabeth Conner had ordered him off her land unless he could produce a badge—“state or federal.” So, didn’t the beautiful, bristly lady trust the local police? Now, that was interesting.

That was interesting as hell.

Kelsey found a small, neat motel about two miles from the city limits and pulled in there, nearly rammed head-on by a flashy sports car that was exiting at the same moment. Hanging his head out the window, he roared a few choice expletives, saw a faintly apologetic salute from the other driver, and parked his car with half his attention on that task and half on the patrol car that had departed, siren wailing, after the sports car.

He grinned a little, then got out of his car and went to acquire a room for himself. The result was a room, no more and no less; it was neat and clean and impersonal, and he barely glanced at the bland colors and sturdy furniture before dumping his bag and busying himself in showering and shaving.

He hardly looked at the face in the steamed mirror while he shaved automatically, but thought instead about everything he had seen and the conclusions he had reached. And he told himself that Elizabeth Conner figured prominently in those thoughts only because she looked like a good place to start. That was all, of course.

Sure it was.

Kelsey changed into clean clothes, faintly amused at himself for even thinking to check the shine of his shoes before leaving his room. He re- turned to his car, chose a less public road to leave the small town, and made only one stop before finding his way back to the place he had parked for sleep that morning. He took the precaution of parking his car out of sight behind a thicket of brambles, then moved cautiously up the dirt road, which led to a sprawling farmhouse in the distance. He was automatically taking stock as he went, noting that all the acreage on one side of the dirt drive was given over to a flourishing orchard; peaches, he guessed uncertainly, since he wasn’t familiar with the spring blossoms covering the short, gnarled trees planted in neat rows. On the other side of the drive was pastureland surrounded by a barbed wire fence; there was an elusively bare look to that land, as if little time or money had been spent in cultivating the thick stand of grass there. From that evidence, he concluded the pasture was not a money-making proposition, but merely used for the three or four horses he could see in the distance near a tumble- down barn.

Kelsey was still a good hundred yards away from the sprawling white house when he was con- fronted by the growling, clearly hostile Tasmanian devil disguised as a dog. Promptly, he sat down in the middle of the dusty drive, reached into the paper bag he carried, produced a large soup bone, and began talking to Lobo.
“Yes, but who was he?”

Elizabeth brushed a strand of silvery hair from her hot brow and frowned at her younger sister. “I didn’t ask, Ami. Just some man who pulled off the road to sleep. Now, would you please stop waving that knife around and use it on the potatoes?”

Ami, who at fourteen was coping with the physical uproar of adolescent hormones and who was glumly convinced she was the ugliest creature since the proverbial duckling, looked at the older sister who had virtually raised her and felt de- pressed. Not that any woman, she thought vaguely, wouldn’t be depressed when she looked at Beth.

Wielding her knife efficiently, Ami sent sidelong glances at her beautiful sister and thought disjointedly that Beth shouldn’t be stuck way out here in the middle of nowhere. She should be a model, or actress . . . or . . . or a queen. There should be a gallant prince for her, one who wouldn’t mind baby sisters with a lot of growing left to do before they could leave the nest. A prince with broad shoulders and a laugh in his eyes, one who could carry Beth’s burdens and take away that awful strained look in her eyes.

A prince who would punch Blaine Mallory in the nose.

“Ami.”

“Hmmm?” Dwelling on the lovely vision, Ami blinked and saw her sister holding up a potato denuded of much more than its skin. “Oh, I’m sorry, Beth, I just—”

“I know.” Elizabeth smoothed her sister’s long pale hair and smiled a little. “Daydreaming. But could you keep your mind on this until we get supper finished, sweetie?”

“Okay.” Ami was intensely grateful that Beth never made fun of her daydreaming, or her constant bouts with awkwardness as she tried to ad- just to the added inches that had come upon her with startling suddenness. And Beth never got mad at her for blurting out whatever popped into her head, like when she had asked Blaine Mallory why he smiled with his teeth but never his eyes.

If she had to have a gorgeous sister, at least she was glad it was Beth. Now, Meg, on the other hand—

“I see the chickens are going to get a lot more potato than skin again, half-pint. Where does your mind go?”

Ami bristled instantly. “It was your turn to do this, Meg, but you had to parade those shorts of yours in town hoping Jeff Mallory would see!”

“That’s enough,” Elizabeth said mildly before Meg could voice the retort hovering hotly on her lips. “Here, Meg, take this and set the table, please.” She handed her younger sister a handful of silverware, meeting the mutinous blue-green eyes steadily until Meg turned away with a flounce.

Under her breath, Ami muttered, “The whole town’s talking about her, Beth.”

Elizabeth sent her a small smile, but said nothing. Still, Ami could see the increased worry in her sister’s eyes when they rested on Meg, and it infuriated her. What was wrong with Meg, adding to Beth’s troubles like she did? She seemed hellbent to prove she was as beautiful as her sister, and it just wouldn’t happen. Not that Meg wasn’t pretty, Ami decided with reluctant fairness. She was. She had the pale hair of all the sisters, and her blue-green eyes would be lovely if only they weren’t so sulky, and her face was delicate. Her figure was good too, except that she insisted on dressing it scantily in shorts, tops, and jeans that were indecently tight.

She was sixteen, and certainly old enough to know how dangerous her games were. She flitted from one boy to another, reckless, dissatisfied with them after a short while. She wore too much makeup and swore too much, and she both drank and smoked when she was out of Beth’s sight. She thought Beth didn’t know. Idiot, Ami decided irritably. Of course Beth knew.

“Are the potatoes ready, sweetie?”

Ami handed over the peeled and sliced vegetables, and she felt absolutely wild for a moment. They were increasingly common, these violent emotions; she often burst into tears when some- thing upset her, astonished by her own lack of control. It would get better in time, Beth had told her gently. When her mind and emotions caught up with her maturing body, it would get better.

But for now, she made an incoherent sound and then said intensely, “I have to go outside, Beth! I can’t stand it when Meg acts like this! I just can’t!” “All right, honey.” Beth smiled at her, under- standing. “But don’t go far. Supper in half an

hour.”

Ami nodded, rushing out the back door as if some demon pursued her, and managing to make it around the corner of the house before she burst into tears. She swiped at the wetness angrily as she stalked toward the driveway, feeling so frustrated and worried that she didn’t know where to turn. She couldn’t tell Beth about part of it, be- cause her sister would only worry more if she knew that Ami had overheard a few conversations she shouldn’t have and had guessed what was going on; Beth, as always, was trying to shield her younger sisters, and had accepted the burden onto her own shoulders.

And it just wasn’t right, dammit! “Hello.”
Ami nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked up—a long way up—and felt her breath catch on a last sob. Heavens, but the man was big! He reminded her of a soldier she had seen once, large and powerful but with a way of moving and even a way of standing that made you forget he was huge. And he had a lean ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0553590707
• ISBN 13: 9780553590708
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 288