Mac's Angels: Surrender the Shadow

Book 3: Mac's Angels

by Sandra Chastain

Genres: Women's Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Fan favorite Sandra Chastain enthralls in this classic romance of secrets and suspense.
 
Some people call him the Shadow—an ex–special forces soldier with a gift for setting wrongs to right without leaving a trace. But to Erica Fallon, the Shadow has always been just Conner: the first man she ever let herself love and the one man she will never get over. She’s tried to move on with her life, abandoning her passion for art and taking a prestigious position at the State Department. But she’s never forgotten Conner . . . or had the chance to explain how everything went horribly wrong.
 
It’s a moment burned on Conner Preston’s mind forever. He doesn’t need the scars to remind him of the pain of losing his brother—his best man—and being betrayed by his bride on the same day. Now Erica’s life is in danger, and the Shadow—Conner—is the only one who can be trusted to protect her. But keeping his heart safe from the woman who once smashed it into pieces will not be easy. Keeping her alive will be even harder.
 
Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from these Loveswept titles: Tempting a Devil, The Story Guy, and Friday Night Alibi.

Release date: August 12, 2013

Publisher: Loveswept

Print pages: 224

Sample

ONE
 
Conner Preston felt a burst of white-hot anger slice down his spine. He welcomed the sensation. It told him he was alive and reminded him that danger was just ahead. This time the danger was a murderer. And he’d been waiting ten years to confront her.
 
Following Mac’s instructions, Conner left his rental car in the parking area at the base of Tennessee’s renowned Lookout Mountain and bought a ticket on the famous Incline Railroad. His destination was only a block from the station at the top.
 
The train was empty. People who lived in the village used the winding, foggy road on the back side of the mountain, and there were no sightseers on the last trip of the day to the battlefield park hidden at the top.
 
As the train jerked to a start and inched upward, Conner fastened his attention on the wooded area along the tracks. The lighted car made him an open target on the slow, steep climb. He didn’t like being exposed. Anyone could be waiting out there and not be seen. His sense of danger heightened.
 
Finally, the car reached the end of the line. Conner stepped off and watched as several women, maids, he guessed from their conversations, boarded the train for the ride down.
 
From the observation platform, Conner took one last look at the valley below. A cloud slowly moved between him and the rising sliver of the December moon. It cast an opaque web of black over the twinkling Christmas lights of the sprawling city of Chattanooga and the Blue Ridge Mountains beyond.
 
Conner buttoned his overcoat and walked out of the empty station into an early evening mist so thick that it muffled the sound of the tram returning to the bottom of the mountain.
 
Behind him, the lights went out. The darkness was ideal. It fed the smoldering anger that had followed him across the Atlantic to confront the woman responsible for his brother’s death.
 
His fury intensified. The fog swirled around the streetlights, turning their glow into faint smears of luminescence. Exaggerated shadows of trees and buildings reached from the sides of the streets to conceal his presence—perfect for a man who spent most of his life in hiding—a man called Shadow.
 
As he looked around, streaks of light and dark seemed to lift, then swoop to gather their tattered wisps. He felt as if he stood in some kind of unnatural cold, wet smoke. Taking a quick glance down the murky street, he wondered if Mac could possibly be right. Could she be here, in this strange, surrealistic community perched in the clouds?
Erica needed help and Mac had sent Conner. If Mac’s request was intended to soften Conner’s hatred toward her, it hadn’t. He had listened when Mac said it was time he faced the truth about the past, whatever it was. But Conner wasn’t buying any plea to forgive and forget. Wisely, Mac hadn’t made one. He’d simply asked Conner to come.
 
What bothered him was why. Mac knew how Conner felt about Erica, the constant anger that fueled his daredevil missions. He’d rescued Peace Corps advisers, nuns, sick and wounded children who needed medical attention, but this ambassador was a nobody, a state department official without a post. If the world learned he’d been shot, they probably wouldn’t even recognize his name.
 
How Erica had come to be his administrative assistant, Conner couldn’t imagine. She’d been an artist when they met, determined to make her mark on the world. Erica was like a whirlwind that had scooped up a brash young soldier and carried him to places he’d never dreamed of. In her own way she’d been as much a risk-taker as he.
 
Now Mac had taken the wounded ambassador to safety at the Shangrila medical compound and asked Conner to protect Erica. For his own reasons as much as Mac’s, Conner agreed.
 
Only Mac knew what had happened ten years ago in Berlin, though Conner was no longer sure either of them knew everything.
 
The German newspapers had reported the murder of Bart Preston, the bright young American architectural student attending the Technical University of Berlin. Little mention was made of the other American, a soldier, who was badly wounded. It was considered just another assault on the military by some left-wing group seeking publicity to support their claim that outsiders were behind the move to tear down the Berlin Wall.
 
Only a few insiders knew that the two victims were brothers, or that the site of the attack was a little historic church whose minister had been engaged to perform a wedding. And the press didn’t know there was a third American who was missing from the scene—Erica Fallon—Conner’s future bride.
 
Erica was supposed to meet Conner and Bart at the church. Instead, it was two masked gunmen who’d tied up the minister, ransacked the chapel, and waited inside. Afterward, Bart was dead. Conner, with gunshots in both legs, was stabilized and flown to a military hospital in the states. The army would handle the investigation. The army would find Erica and tell her what happened. The army would keep Conner informed.
 
According to Mac, it wasn’t until later that the military investigator learned the reason for Erica’s absence—a change of heart about the wedding and an early morning flight to Paris.
 
In a few moments Conner had lost his brother, the woman he loved, his military career, and for a time, his will to live. But Mac had stepped in and refused to let him quit Mac recognized the potential for Conner’s unique experience and convinced him that he could use his military skills to set up his own business.
 
Conner never heard from Erica. Mac said she’d stayed in Paris. By the time he was ready to leave Shangrila, Paradox, Inc. was a reality and he had realized that there was no room in his life for a permanent personal relationship. He’d sworn he’d never see Erica Fallon again. He didn’t dare. He hoped instead that life would be her punishment, as it was his.
 
Conner Preston operated his import-export business with sophistication and flair. But his undercover services, for those who could afford them, were carried out by a man known only as Shadow.
 
For ten years Conner searched quietly for the mastermind behind Bart’s assassination. At the same time he rescued or found lost people, places, and objects—everything from the ordinary to the bizarre, from the legal to the not so legal. He’d been incredibly successful because he had nothing to lose. His life had ended in the chapel, watching his brother die. Now he belonged to Mac and those who needed him most.
 
This time it was personal. Conner’s official objective was to protect Erica. Shadow’s mission was to finally confront the woman he would forever hold responsible for Bart’s death and expose the evil in her heart.
 
If Erica Fallon had ever had a heart.