Operation Alpha

A new Cutter’s Code hero meets his match!

After a series of his ex-girlfriends die mysteriously, tracker and tech expert Liam Burnett vows to steer clear of romantic entanglements. But when he’s assigned to work with Ria Connelly, unwanted feelings ambush Liam. And though he warns Ria that he’s not looking for anything serious, the outwardly cheery bachelor can’t help but fall for the beautiful teacher...

With Cutter, the uncannily brilliant dog, the two collaborate to help a troubled student. Their discoveries of scandalous secrets provoke extreme danger. Only when a killer threatens Ria does Liam finally rethink his reluctance to care—­he must protect her at all costs. Could she be the one who breaks the girlfriend “jinx”?

“So, Liam, you really were the problem child.”

“That I was.”

“Your parents must be relieved.”

“They are. And I’m sorry I gave them so much trouble. They’re good, good people. It wasn’t their fault. Sometimes if you’re good at something, it can get you in trouble. You follow the path because it’s easy for you, and sometimes you’re in over your head before you realize it.”

He understood then that he’d been sitting here sharing his life story with her easily, without even thinking about it. How had Ria managed that? She’d given him one tiny bit of her own history, and suddenly he was pouring his own out by the bucket? When what he’d meant to do was get that distance between them?

“I’m surprised that Dylan didn’t pour his soul out to you on request,” he said with a grimace.

“I can have that effect,” she said with a laugh. “It’s my honest face.”

Yeah, your face is honest. Among other things. Like beautiful. Fascinating.

Trouble.

* * *

Be sure to check out the rest of the books in this miniseries.

Cutter’s Code: A clever and mysterious canine helps a group of secret operatives crack the case.

* * *

Dear Reader,

When you’ve been through some battles of your own, you tend to be more aware of how dealing with adversity works. In my case, it made me very aware of the truth of the old saying “Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”

This was brought home to me once more in the writing of Operation Alpha. Because Liam Burnett, that laid-back, ever-cheerful Texas guy, had always seemed just that to me. It wasn’t until I got into his story that I found, somewhat to my surprise, that there was a great deal I didn’t know about him. That nobody knew about him. And it took the persistence of a good, loving woman and a certain very, very determined dog to get him to face the past he hid behind that carefree facade.

Happy reading!

Justine

Operation Alpha

Justine Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JUSTINE DAVIS lives on Puget Sound in Washington State, watching big ships and the occasional submarine go by and sharing the neighborhood with assorted wildlife, including a pair of bald eagles, deer, a bear or two and a tailless raccoon. In the few hours when she’s not planning, plotting or writing her next book, her favorite things are photography, knitting her way through a huge yarn stash and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course.

Connect with Justine at her website, justinedavis.com, at Twitter.com/justine_d_davis, or on Facebook at Facebook.com/justinedaredavis.

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

The biggest love sometimes comes in the smallest packages...

Dexter was a Chihuahua, black with a little white on his neck. He came to us from a puppy mill, although we didn’t know that until later. Despite that start in life, he was such a loving dog in so many ways. He was always giving hugs and kisses. He particularly loved being on his dad’s lap. There is a big picture of him sleeping on his dad’s lap in our living room. When we would watch TV in the dining room, he would want up and then put his head on the table and fall asleep until Dad moved. Many times we stayed there watching TV until late so we wouldn’t disturb him. If he was left in the car even for a few minutes, and whoever was in the car with him told him that Mom or Dad was coming, he would whine so loud you could hear him before you got there.

We were blessed with Dexter’s light in our lives for twelve years. When the end came, we wrapped him in the baby blanket I made him to lay him to rest. There is a marker and a heart made of stones in the backyard, with wildflowers planted around it so every summer Dexter has wildflowers, and a solar cross so he always has light.

We miss him still, and he will never be forgotten.

Peggy, Tim and DeeDee

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Extract

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

“Hi, Mr. Foxworth.”

Quinn Foxworth looked at the blonde, sweet-faced teenager standing in the doorway of the Foxworth northwest headquarters. She wasn’t alone, but he focused on her because she looked familiar. He couldn’t quite place her; yet she obviously knew him.

Before he could speak, his dog, Cutter, trotted around the far corner of the building. Foxworth tracker Liam Burnett was at his heels, giving a playful swipe at the dog’s plumed tail. Liam had volunteered for fetch duty this afternoon, and while summer might have ended, it was still warm enough that he’d worked up a sweat. Cutter, however, showed no sign he’d even had a workout.

The instant the dog caught sight—or scent—of the newcomers, his head came up and he broke into a run. He came to a halt at the girl’s feet, sat politely and gave her a tongue-lolling, old-friend sort of greeting. The girl tilted her head to look at him, smiling widely. His tail began to wag happily, again as if this were a long-lost friend.

And suddenly Quinn knew.

“Emily?” he asked, startled.

She turned her gaze back to him. “I didn’t think you’d recognize me.”

“It took a moment. It’s been—”

“Six years. I know.” She reached up and touched the locket that was on a gold chain around her neck. “I still wear it every day.”

Quinn smiled. “Good,” he said quietly to the girl—young woman now—who had been the inspiration for starting the Foxworth Foundation. They had kept in touch by phone and email, but he hadn’t seen her in person since the day Emily Parker and her adoptive parents had come to once more thank him for recovering the precious piece of jewelry that had been all she had from her dead mother. The change in her from age ten to sixteen was astonishing.

Liam had caught up with the dog now, and Emily turned and politely gestured the other person with her forward. “This is Ms. Connelly. She teaches at my school.”

Quinn had only a moment to take in the petite brunette, but he was used to making quick assessments. Dressed in tan jeans and a loose white shirt that had a shine to it, she didn’t look that much older than Emily. But he’d learned not to judge age just by looks; Liam looked years younger than he was. He was also smart and tough, and he had become someone Quinn would trust with his life.

“Ria, please,” the woman said, holding out a hand. Quinn shook it. She had a steady grip, but her hand felt delicate in his.

“Liam Burnett, our tracker and resident tech guy,” he said with a nod in the direction of the man who was quickly yanking his T-shirt back over his head. After, Quinn noted, a moment of stock-still staring at the woman who had arrived with Emily. He had recovered quickly, but Quinn was certain he’d seen it.

“Hi,” Liam said with a nod to them both, “I’d shake hands, but I’ve been throwing his grubby baseball.”

The woman laughed. And Liam seemed to stop breathing. “Not a tennis ball?” she asked.

“He likes those,” Quinn explained, “but he loves the baseball. It’s heavier, goes farther. And it was a gift from my wife’s brother.”

“Doesn’t it hurt his teeth?” Emily asked.

“He knows the difference, knows not to try and catch this one in midair.”

Emily smiled at the dog. “So he’s smart and beautiful.”

“He’s Cutter,” Quinn said simply. “Although judging by his greeting, I’m not sure he needs to be introduced to you. He’s acting like he’s known you all along.”

“I thought he was just friendly,” Emily said, sounding pleased as she stroked the dog’s head. Cutter leaned into her as if she were long-lost family.

“He’s not like that with complete strangers, at least not right away. It’s almost like he knows.”

“Knows?” Emily asked.

“How important you are to us.”

The girl blushed.

“You’re the locket girl,” Liam said suddenly.

Emily looked surprised. “You know about me?”

“We all do,” Liam said with a warm smile. “You’re still Quinn’s favorite case. He says you’re why they made Foxworth official.”

“But you’ve done so many things, big things, much more important than finding my locket,” she said.

“No,” Quinn said gently. “Nothing’s been more important than that. Bigger maybe, louder, but not more important.”

Emily glanced at her teacher. Ria Connelly smiled, and nodded. “As advertised,” she said.

Quinn lifted a brow. “I’ve been telling her about Foxworth,” Emily said. “I think she thought I was exaggerating.”

And why, Quinn wondered, would she be telling one of her teachers about us?

In the moment he thought it, Cutter shifted. He moved over to Ria and glanced up at her, wagging his tail. Clearly both of their visitors were more than accepted—they were welcome. Already. The woman smiled and immediately bent to him, quickly finding that spot behind his right ear that he loved having scratched. The dog blissfully tilted his head into her fingers, but after a moment, as if at some unseen signal the animal suddenly eyed both women intently. And then he turned and, in front of both of them, sat facing Quinn.

And gave him The Look.

Well, well.

“Come in,” Quinn said. “Hayley will want to meet you.”

The girl smiled even wider. “I want to meet her, too. I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the wedding.”

“We understood. A chance to go to Australia doesn’t come along every day.”

“No. Oh, and my folks said to say hello.”

“How are they?”

“They’re good.” Emily looked at him steadily for a moment before adding, “And I love them very much. I’m very lucky to have them, that they chose me.”

Quinn felt the last bit of concern he’d always carried about that fade away. The Hardings were wonderful people, but he’d always worried if the devastated child who had lost first her father, and then the mother she had been so close to, would be able to really adjust. It was a credit to them that she’d gone from withdrawn child to an obviously bright, outgoing teenager.

He smiled at both women—for the ten-year-old he remembered had certainly become that—as he gestured them inside. Cutter and his ball-thrower followed, and Quinn noted with interest that Liam’s gaze was once more on the woman accompanying the teenager.

“Hayley’s got lemonade out on the patio. Let’s join her.” Quinn put a gentle hand on Emily’s shoulder as he added, “And then you can tell us what you need us for.”

The girl looked up at him, clearly startled that he’d guessed this wasn’t just a social call. “I’ll explain later,” he said as Cutter escorted the women inside.

Quinn held back a moment. “Might want to work on that nonexistent poker face of yours,” he whispered to Liam.

Liam grimaced. Quinn grinned.

“Don’t blame you,” he said. And he didn’t. Ria Connelly had the same kind of attractiveness Hayley did, the quiet kind that wasn’t glamorous or flashy but lasted forever.

But he also knew—because Hayley often pointed it out—that Liam was rather determinedly uninvolved, watching with amusement as first Quinn, then fellow Foxworth colleague Teague Johnson, followed by their friend Detective Brett Dunbar and finally Hayley’s long-lost brother Walker had joined the ranks of the attached, thanks in large part to the uncannily clever and apparently matchmaking Cutter. And that didn’t even include the couples he’d brought together on their cases.

Quinn had even overheard him warning the dog once. Don’t you be turning those eyes on me, hound. I’ve tried that, and it always ends badly.

Quinn knew the bare bones of Liam’s story, what could be gleaned from dry, emotionless reports of facts and what he’d had to know before taking him on at Foxworth but not much more. Someday he was going to get all of it out of the guy, Quinn thought as he shut the door behind them. Or more likely Hayley would; she had them all confiding in her. Well, except Rafe, but he didn’t confide in anyone.

In the meantime, it was clear Emily had a problem she thought they could solve. Or perhaps it was Ria. Or both, he thought, remembering how the dog had sat in front of both of them. Cutter hadn’t been wrong yet. Which he was going to have to explain yet again, he thought as he led them out to the patio to join his wife.

Life with a dog who kept forgetting he was just a dog was very interesting.

Chapter 2

Cleaned up and cooled down now, Liam Burnett stood in the bathroom and stared at his own rueful expression in the mirror. He ran a hand over his hair. He’d been letting it grow out a bit from his usual buzz cut. He hated haircuts and usually just did it himself, short enough he didn’t have to worry about it for a while. But now he laughingly admitted it was fun, because he went to Teague’s fiancée Laney’s dog grooming shop and she did it with her variable-length clippers, shorter on the sides, a little longer on top. He liked her, and it was fun telling people he got his hair cut at a dog groomer’s.

Teague had gotten really lucky, he thought. Laney was the real deal. And good for him. The frequent sparring partner who helped Liam stay sharp was a good guy. The ex-marine with the easy grin deserved to be happy. Former marine, Liam corrected. Both Teague and Rafe had sternly told him there was no such thing as an ex-marine.

And what do you deserve, exactly?

He answered his own question. Not that.

He thought of the group out on the patio. The girl with the locket, who had started Quinn Foxworth on the path that had led him to the Foxworth Foundation. It was the story they had each heard when they’d joined up, to illustrate that it wasn’t the size of the case that determined what they took on, or the importance of the person. To Foxworth, helping a ten-year-old girl devastated by the loss of a single memento was just as important as taking down a crooked politician.

And then there was the woman. He didn’t remember ever having a teacher who looked like her. That sleek swing of dark hair that gleamed in the sun, those eyes the color of today’s sky, that petite, nicely curved figure...nope, nothing like that in his memory banks. Of course, if he’d paid more attention in school he might have noticed if one had been there. Not to mention he never would have started down that road to—

He caught himself before going down that snake hole. Barely, because he’d gotten out of the habit. His life now was good, so good he rarely thought of those days anymore, the days before Quinn had yanked him off a bad path. Had given him a final choice.

“And saved your sorry ass,” he muttered to the reflection in the mirror.

And that, he thought, was enough self-absorption for the week. He wasn’t sure what had set him off now. Maybe it was the girl, Emily. Maybe he was just hoping she wasn’t in trouble. But she’d seemed happy enough. Maybe the problem wasn’t hers.

The teacher? Had Emily brought her because she was the one with the problem Foxworth could fix?

He found he liked that idea even less. Which in turn unsettled him even more. She was a complete stranger; why would it bother him to think she had a problem that would need Foxworth? He was always glad to help people in trouble, he loved what they did, but this was a different sort of feeling, and he didn’t like it.

He caught himself looking in the mirror again. His mirror gazing was usually limited to making sure nothing was grossly wrong, like dirt on his nose or pizza sauce on his cheek. Yet he stood there wondering how he had appeared to her, all grubby and sweaty from playing with Cutter.

All right, that’s it. Now you’ve gone over the edge. Get the heck out of here.

As he donned clean clothes from his locker on the back wall of the bathroom, he pondered. Maybe he should just go about his business. Maybe Quinn wouldn’t need or want him on this one, he reasoned. Emily was special to his boss, being the first case and all. He’d probably want to handle whatever this was himself.

Besides, Liam had other things to do. Some stuff to send to Ty. He and the tech guy at Foxworth headquarters in St. Louis had been working on improving the in-house tracking system, installed on all the Foxworth vehicles. And he hadn’t been to the shooting range in a while; he needed to do that, too. He’d never had to actually use the handgun Quinn insisted he be proficient with, but it had been close a couple of times and he wanted to be sure he was up to speed. Even though he was much more at home with rifles, he’d turned out to be a decent shot with the Colt. But that didn’t mean he didn’t need to practice. And he’d promised Rafe he’d do an electronics check on the backup generator while Rafe was off in Alaska on that sabotage case. So he could do that, and then he could...he could...

His list of reasons to avoid joining the group on the patio sputtered to a halt. He was trying to decide where to start when a low woof outside the bathroom door startled him. He hastily yanked on his boots—custom-made back home, his one splurge when he’d accepted the job here—and opened the door. Cutter stood there, waiting.

“What’s up, hound?”

The dog turned and trotted a few steps toward the patio, stopped and looked back over his shoulder. The customary “follow me” canine body language. Cutter’s vocabulary was much larger than most dogs, and given that Liam’s folks raised them he had some basis for that observation. But this one was pretty standard to most dogs. What wasn’t standard was how impossibly inventive the animal was when it came to getting his point across.

And how impossibly stubborn he was when it came to getting people to do what he wanted.

“Boss didn’t ask for me,” Liam pointed out, even though he knew resisting was useless if the dog’s mind was set. And the look Cutter gave him then was the canine equivalent of “Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?”

Maybe Quinn had sent the dog for him, to hurry him up, Liam thought.

He had a sudden vision of taking this guy home to meet his parents’ rather rambunctious pack of mostly tracking hounds and hunting dogs. Cutter would have them organized and herding longhorns, whether they were bred for it or not.

The image gave him the laugh he needed and, feeling silly over his uncharacteristic burst of self-contemplation, he followed Cutter who, as he’d expected, headed straight for the patio where the others were gathered.

* * *

Ria Connelly was glad she had a glass of Hayley Foxworth’s delicious lemonade—no powdered mix here—to focus on when the Foxworths’ dog came back. Because he had with him the other Foxworth...agent? Operative? Whatever they called themselves. The one she’d met outside. Liam. Who had obviously been playing with said dog quite cheerfully. Part of his job? Maybe, but judging by the way he’d been laughing as they came around the building, it was a part he enjoyed.

Of course, Cutter was a very beautiful dog, with a lot of personality. She’d seen that even in the short time she’d been here. She liked the way his head and shoulders were black but the color shifted to a reddish brown over the rest of his body, liked the thick, soft fur and most of all the amber-flecked dark eyes, so wise and knowing.

And she wasn’t usually fanciful about dogs, but this one seemed different to her. If he was a person she would have said he had an old soul. So maybe that applied to dogs, too.

As for his ball-throwing partner...

She told herself it wasn’t that delightful grin or hair in that style she liked—short but a bit longer on top, where it looked like you could muss it any which way and it would still look intentional...

And thoughts of messing with his hair led down roads she had no business going. He didn’t look that much older than some of her students. But, then, that was often said about her, too.

Besides, it wasn’t that at all. It was simply that she liked that he’d been so happy over a simple thing like playing with a dog. Her world seemed to be overflowing with teenage angst these days, and seeing somebody so pleased with such a simple thing was like an antidote. And it had nothing to do with the leanly muscled body or the chest—and abs—that had been on display before he’d pulled his shirt back on. Hastily enough that she found the seeming self-consciousness rather charming until she remembered this was, after all, his place of work.

When Quinn gestured to him to take a seat, he headed for one of the empty ones near his boss. The dog got in his way, though, and they seemed to try to dodge each other for a moment before he finally ended up sitting down in the chair closest to her. He gave the dog a look she couldn’t define, except to say it was as wary as if the animal had suddenly morphed into a wolf.