Accidental Shield (Marriage Mistake, #6)

by Nicole Snow

“Think you’re trying too hard. Just relax, woman. You took a big damn blow to the head, and it must’ve rattled something loose. Your shit’s not gone. It’s just not together.”

“They tried killing her, Flint. I saw it.” He opens the fridge and takes out an egg carton. “And I saw Cornaro men scouring the shore for her body this morning.”

The Cornaro Outfit has been a leader in high crimes and smuggling ops across the Pacific for decades. Now led by Joel Cornaro, the syndicate has taken over legitimate businesses on all eight major islands, especially anything that makes it easier for them to haul illicit cargo around the South Pacific.

“It was her own brother. The face clicked for me this morning when I did some heavy searching on her family.”

Just frigging great. Another adjustment, having to share my bed with a mini cheetah and a girl who just might make me hard enough to hit a home run.

lie, this might be the toughest job I’ve ever taken on. And that’s saying a fuck of a lot, considering the Cornaro Outfit made me wish I was dead once upon a time. I’m not sure what worries me more as I stand under the waterfall showerhead, temperature set to glacial. Is it the re-match with Cornaro guns making me freak? Or is it Valerie Gerard’s sweet looks that could end me in a puff of flame and testosterone?

My heart races so breakneck fast I feel it in my temples. I’m totally petrified. But I have to get far, far away before it’s too late. I’m in a boat, scrambling as I push on the throttle. The little skiff jerks across the water, skimming the waves in bumpy zig-zags that make my stomach churn. Somewhere around my feet, the cat cries, just as scared as I am. We’re not far from shore, close to safety, but we’re not there yet. I have to haul butt. Faster! There’s something rattling around behind me then, and suddenly—oh God, it’s in the ship!—I know we won’t make it. I barely have a second to reach down, scoop up my furry baby, and take a leap of faith into the ocean chop. There’s already bright orange flames spreading across the sea the second I come up for air. It’s everywhere, debris splintering and burning and smoking like we’re not even surrounded by the roaring Pacific. More like Hell’s own Lake of Fire. The waves chase them back rapidly, though. So much water. Currents rushing by faster than I thought, invisible fingers slapping me across the face, trying to tear the poor soaked animal from my arms. No! I scream the cat’s name. Then I’m just...sinking. It’s not like the movies. In currents like these, you don’t just slide under. You’re pulled down, fast and hard, and the worst part is, I’m not even crying for myself. I’m crying for my lost cat, who doesn’t stand a chance in this maelstrom of salt and slapping waves. It can’t go down like this. I have to find her, save h...

“Don’t care what it was, Val. It’s not here and I am. If you dreamed up Old Scratch himself, I’ll kick his ass right back down to hell. Nothing’s gonna hurt you here, babe. Not through me.”

When all this shit’s finally over, I’m gonna need a priest and a bartender to help get my morals sorted again.

Once I’m in the kitchen, I pull some steaks out, prep a marinade, and start texting old contacts, everyone who used to be part of my old Damysus Security crew. Plenty of men I know who, like Cash and I, live regular lives now, but they owe me a few favors. They’re willing to jump back into their old professions and send help. Gotta admit, there’s a certain thrill contacting these guys. It’s like getting the old band back together. Their responses are swift and positive. They don’t ask for details, just who, when, and where.

Val smiles then. All soft, sure, heart-shaped pink lips and eyes like mellow gold. She reaches up and flicks a loose strand of that silky dark hair back behind her ear, and suddenly I think I’ve found the real danger here. It was always hiding in plain sight. A man could fall in love with that shit. When a woman’s this beautiful and lost and fragile, a flick of her hair can bring a dude to his knees far swifter than any barking gun.

Flint hadn’t bullied sweetness and sensitivity into his son. He’d taught him. Planted morals and watered them with fatherly kindness. Now, he’s reaping tons of respect.

It’s often said we don’t always remember the good people say and do. But there’s no forgetting how they make us feel.

This man is my amnesia. The good kind. My cure for everything wrong. And I can’t even help falling way too hard, too fast, and too beautifully for those sea glass blue eyes that glow like torchlit paths to my future.

Val’s changed my fucking life. Changed the way I think. Reached down inside me and altered the makeup of my soul. I’ve been fighting it tooth and nail, pretending it’s not there, but there’s no denying it. She’s in my head first thing when I wake up and before I drift off to sleep. She made me feel again. Living with Val was so easy, so real, right from the start—even when she was a walking amnesia case. She’s in my marrow, my beating heart, my depths. This shimmering bright spark I never knew I was missing until it was there, lighting my fire, and I don’t want it fading again. She can’t be missing. I want her. I love her.

“Here’s the scoop—it’s a luxury yacht with all the amenities,” he says. “Four decks, one hundred and eighty feet, six state rooms, two with balconies. Shit cost him forty million two years ago.” I’m not surprised Cash knows all that about the mothership. He’s a bloodhound for details. He probably had the ship’s schematics on hand long before tonight. If I wasn’t still trying like hell to forget our botched rescue, I’d have known it, too. I told myself forgetting was the best way to get over Bali. Cash, he never tried to get over it, not for a day since we returned. He was dead set on getting even. That poor lady died in his arms. He’d tried harder than all of us to save her. The rest of us just had weapons to fight for her. But Cash tried to save her medically, watched her bleed out all over him. For him, that was worse than a total failure where we lost several good men. That’s also why I’ve carried my burden. I wanted to relieve some of his, but that hadn’t happened. Whether I’d shouldered the moral weight of her death or not, he still has his own guilt to carry, this boulder of pain bigger than the load the gods dumped on Atlas. I couldn’t change that for him. Not then. Now, I can. After tonight, none of us are bearing more burdens because Val is coming out of this alive. Joel Cornaro will never see another sunrise.