Harlequin Romantic Suspense April 2021 by Karen Whiddon (interesting books to read for teens TXT) 📕

every day. It’s my job to stay on top of events, especially any crime that affects Colton Protection.”

She nodded. “That makes sense. Still, it’s always reassuring to know someone’s reading my words.” A grin let him know that no matter how brilliant a journalist she was, no matter how much success the Grave Gulch Gazette achieved, Dominique was a humble soul at heart. Her compassion for her fellow citizens had been part of what attracted him to her when they’d met. She’d been researching how well recent parolees integrated back into their community and had fought to find decent employment for a woman she’d first reported on when the woman was still an inmate. He wasn’t surprised at all by her interest in another convict’s story.

“This story, Dominique. Charlie Hamm, the cartel. Fill me in on what you haven’t put in print yet. Do you have the kingpin’s name?”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath, sat her sore body up straight. “First, I don’t have any names. That’s one thing Charlie wouldn’t give me. Do you remember that I was interested in teaching creative writing and poetry to inmates at the county prison? I followed through with it after, um, we split, and have been volunteering there at night and on weekends ever since. I had Charlie Hamm as one of my students. As you said, he was convicted. But he always proclaimed his innocence. Charlie was different, Stanton. He explained to me that he was put in jail on drummed-up charges by a user he was trying to help. The drug kingpin’s honchos got to the witness and threatened him. They wanted Charlie out of the picture—he was making too much of a dent into their profits by referring users, and dealers who used, to the new public rehab that opened four years ago.”

“The one halfway between here and Detroit, with costs billed according to economic need?” His agency had protected a handful of clients right after they left rehab, to keep them safe from the cartel, whose spiderweb reach often drew the newly sober back into their addictions.

“Yes. It’s provided beds that Grave Gulch’s three centers often don’t have. At last count the rehab had processed over three thousand addicts. I don’t have the statistics about how many have remained sober, but that’s three thousand users who otherwise would never have received help. We simply don’t have the space to treat them all in our town.” The Grave Gulch community had risen to the occasion with public education and health resources. But it was never enough to stop the constant stream of vicious, drug-related crime.

“I thought the follow-up care was a problem, too.” One of his agents on staff had a sister who’d been free of heroin for two years. It had required a geographical relocation and thousands of dollars that their parents took out of their retirement funds.

“It is. Most addicts don’t want to do—or can’t afford to do—the necessary geographical move to get them away from their usual haunts. The dealers certainly don’t want to see their prime customers move away. Of course, they’ll find more willing users any way they can.” She took a sip of her latte. “This is very nice, thank you.”

He nodded, ignoring the warmth under his breastbone her gratitude stoked. He always had ridiculous overreactions to Dominique.

“Charlie wrote the most touching poetry while he was in my class. It turns out he left his first wife for his second, in between arrests. The prosecutor used his sudden divorce against him, saying he wasn’t to be trusted. He’d been picked up several times for various petty crimes but didn’t serve hard time until the dealing charge. Did you realize the only physical evidence against him was a fingerprint on an old suitcase? And the unreliable witness’s statement, of course. It was a false charge, in my opinion.”

“Which brings us to your obsession with bringing down both the entire drug ring and rooting out corruption in the Grave Gulch PD.”

“I don’t appreciate the way you said that, Stanton. Is it my passion? Probably. My purpose? Absolutely. When you say ‘obsession,’ it discounts my motives. I’m not trying to ‘bring down’ the entire GGPD. And no matter how it looks, I’m not gunning for your sister. Melissa’s always done her absolute best as chief. I understand the instinct to shut down discussion with the Gazette on a sensitive issue like Randall Bowe. But I’m not giving up on rooting out any bad cops or employees that are working there and have a history of corruption.” Her chin jutted and her eyes blazed, resentment enunciating her intent. Had her emotions stayed bottled up deep inside her, the way his bitter disappointment at her rejection was shoved into the moldy basement of his heart?

Crap.

They were back to it, then. “This is where we left off, isn’t it.” He didn’t pose it as a question, as they both knew the answer. Talk after talk, and eventually argument after argument, had led to this. The unscalable wall of discord between them. She never felt he accepted her for who she was. And Dominique had been right—he’d wanted her in a safer occupation, for certain. Since he worked a job that at times brought him face-to-face with his mortality, he had little room to judge Dominique’s vocation. But he had a right to care about his girlfriend at the time, the woman he’d thought he wanted to marry, didn’t he?

Not according to Dominique, who’d insisted the story always came first.

No matter, as he’d lost her anyway. And to heck with how much of his heart remained sore to this day.

“Stop it, Stanton. No more talk about what’s passed between us. That remains in the past. We’re—” she motioned between them “—over. If you expect me to allow you to follow me and give me your exceptional level of protection—” he didn’t miss that she acknowledged his need to provide only the best that he could offer “—then you’re going to