Rules of Engagement

“You’re telling me you bought my computer at an auction?”

“I hope this isn’t difficult for you,” she said gently.

“Difficult?”

“I don’t know…I mean…did Cole survive the war?”

He cleared his throat. “Live and in person.”

“So you’re…”

“Cole. What made you think I didn’t survive? And how did you know I was in the war?”

“I opened your letters.”

“You read them?”

“Well, I didn’t mean to—”

“Reading isn’t an involuntary response.”

Tess turned to face him directly. “No, but—”

“How much do you want for the computer?”

“Money?”

“Why else would you be here? You know my designs are on the hard drive.”

Shocked, Tess stared at him. “I thought if you hadn’t survived, your family would want these letters—in case you hadn’t sent them. I would’ve wanted my brother’s.” Not waiting for his reply, she left his office.

Jerk! She should’ve kept the damn computer. And here she thought she’d read the letters of the last sensitive man on the planet.

Dear Reader,

Some characters stun us with their capacity for change, some with their amazing ability to hang on to their beliefs despite the costs. I have never been the first one in line for change. It’s hard. And sometimes it’s scary. But then, it’s rare to find something glorious any other way.

This story is about family and how deeply those ties bind us all. Family is very important to me. I have a son serving in the Middle East, whom I worry about constantly, and parents who live across the country, who are an equal worry in a very different way. And I think how lucky I am to have them all.

Please join me in this journey of change, of ups and downs and, of course, of love.

Ever the romantic,

Bonnie K. Winn

Rules of Engagement

Bonnie K. Winn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For the brave men and women of our armed forces,

especially my son, Brian.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

RIFLE SHOTS BOOMED across the green-carpeted acres, their echo resounding over the silent crowd. The casings flew harmlessly toward the clouds, yet Tess Spencer felt each volley as though it tore through her heart.

As the twenty-one-gun salute continued, soldiers in crisp uniforms took their mark, shooting in unison, their somber faces reflecting the seriousness of this final honor.

Tess could barely contain herself as she stared at her twin brother’s coffin. He was too young, they were too young. Even though she’d seen David’s face one last time before the coffin was closed, his dark hair and blue eyes so like her own, she wanted to cry out that it was a mistake. David was coming back. He couldn’t, wouldn’t leave without her.

More tears splashed down her cheeks, wetting the collar of her black dress. Hearing her mother’s quiet sobs, Tess looked at her parents’ dark heads pressed together. Grief couldn’t define their agony. Tears couldn’t erase their pain.

Pain that had begun when the chaplain and another officer had rung the doorbell, then explained how David had died on the other side of the world.

An Army Reservist, he had willingly accepted the call to serve. Loyal to both country and family, David hadn’t questioned his duty. And he’d assured Tess he’d be home safe and soon. David never broke his promises.

The guns were suddenly silent. Then with great dignity, the soldiers lifted the flag draped over the coffin and folded it into the painfully familiar triangle.

Tess’s mother accepted the flag, clutching it close before bowing her head, her body shaking with sobs.

Fingers trembling, Tess reached out toward the coffin. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Oh, David. How did this happen?

Throat raw, eyes burning, Tess felt the start of more hot tears. Her world had tilted and she wasn’t sure it would ever be right again.

CHAPTER ONE

Six months later

COLE HARRINGTON gripped the file containing the latest software designs his engineering firm had produced. He’d expected twice as many. Scrapped or missing, he’d been told by his staff. Designs he’d sweated over before his extended deployment to Iraq.

He’d left Mark Cannon in charge of his company, a man he trusted. Or thought he trusted.

Some of his ideas had been good, too good to be scrapped. Had they been stolen? Or worse, secreted out by one of his own people?

Cole looked at his second in command. “I want to know what happened to my work.”

Mark scowled, his brown eyes dark with anger. “You think I don’t? Fredrickson says some of the designs you’re talking about could’ve been obsolete, that—”

Cole slammed the folder on his burl walnut desk, rattling the mariner’s clock on the corner and scattering the morning’s mail. “He heads the research and development team, not the company. I know my work was good.”

“Cole, you’ve only been back a month. And you’ve been playing catch-up most of that time. We only found out yesterday the product was gone. How do you know Frederickson’s not right? Maybe it was outdated. You were gone a lot longer than you thought you’d be.”

“But I didn’t expect the company to be run into the ground!”

Mark stiffened. “This isn’t the first takeover attempt by Alton Tool.”

“It’s the first one that might succeed,” Dan Nelson, the chief financial officer, warned. “We lost out to them on the last three major bids. We’re in deep on research and development with nothing to offset the expense.”

Towering over them, Cole looked from one to the other. “We can’t let Alton get this bid. It’s time to deal with them.” Alton Tool had tried everything to get rid of Harrington Engineering, including poaching software designers and the failed takeover. It wasn’t a stretch to believe Alton had taken the next step in corporate piracy.

Cole glanced at Nate Rogers, head of security, who wore his military experience like a badge of honor. “I don’t want a single paper to get past the exits.”

“You got it.”

“Any luck finding my laptop, Nate?”

The other man shook his head, his face ruddy beneath white-blond hair.

Cole cursed beneath his breath. The laptop had traveled around the world with him, surviving sandstorms and bullets. And on it he’d saved a copy of his work, including the missing designs. He’d brought it to the office with him when he returned and he wasn’t sure just when it disappeared, but he couldn’t find it. Dozens of people roamed the halls and he rarely kept his own door locked.

He wished he’d left the computer at his house, even his parents’ home. It had been crazy since he’d come back from deployment. Readjusting to civilian life, taking back the reins to his business, finding out the trouble it was in.

“Nate, get a second man looking for the laptop. We find it, we have the designs.”

“Right.”

There was one notable person missing in the room—Jim Fredrickson. Cole knew the other men had noted the fact, but he wanted to talk to Jim alone.

“Okay, guys, that’s it for now.”

As they shuffled out, his gaze flicked to each in turn. Nate Rogers. They’d served together in Bosnia. During a skirmish the tall, rangy man had pushed Cole out of the way, taking some incoming shrapnel in his leg. It had busted up his knee, causing a permanent disability, ending Nate’s promising Army career. Cole had sought him out when he’d started up his engineering plant, offering him a premium salary to head his security division.

Mark Cannon. They’d worked together for years, developing both a friendship and deep level of trust. Enough that he’d felt secure when the call to serve in Iraq had come.

Dan Nelson was the newest face on his team but also the oldest. He’d worked for the competition. But he was talented, accomplished and had never given Cole a reason to distrust him. And he was, at most, the numbers man. Not someone who ever touched the creative. Or shouldn’t, anyway.

And the missing man, Jim Fredrickson. He and Cole had worked side by side as budding software designers. Logically Jim had the easiest access, but Cole couldn’t believe his old friend would betray him. They went back too far. But there were plenty of young designers Cole knew little about in Jim’s department, since they tended to come and go frequently. Each one hoped to be the next Bill Gates. Cole had wanted to keep his company small, run it with a hands-on mom-and-pop sense of caring, but the reality of business success was growth. He employed more than two hundred people. He knew a lot of them, but not all.

Cole phoned for Jim to come up. As he waited, he stared out the huge picture window at his plant, which made processing equipment for companies that produced everything from candy to plastics to electronics. His was a hybrid business. One that had to be constantly evolving, thus the importance of the cutting-edge software designs. There was potential for enormous profit. And it enticed corporate raiders like triple-layered, chocolate-decadence cake wooed sugar junkies.

Cole had been protecting his firm since the day he’d opened the doors five years earlier. But its condition had never been this dire. His deployment had lasted nearly a year. And in that time his profitable firm had nearly gone bankrupt.

Bankrupt! Because of the lost bids to Alton Tool. He could still hardly believe it. Although he’d stayed in touch by e-mail, he’d left the firm’s management to Mark. He couldn’t second-guess it from a combat zone.

He heard a knock. “Jim. Come in. Shut the door.”

“Calling me on the carpet, boss?”

Cole took the chair angled next to Jim’s. “The missing designs, Jim.”

“They aren’t missing. I told you. They’re old, so they must’ve been—”

“Scrapped. I know. How well do you know the people in your department?”

Jim shrugged. “I work with them. They’re an efficient team.”

“No one stands out as overly eager? Anyone working more overtime than you’d expect them to?”

He frowned, thinking. “No one stands out. You remember how it was when we first began. They’ve got lots of energy and ideas.”

Cole nodded. His own surplus energy and creativity had strayed far from the typical, leading him to develop this business. “We’re tightening security. That begins with your department. You’ll have to keep watch. It’d be easy enough to slip out a CD or a flash point disk loaded with the designs.”

Jim scratched his forehead. “Maybe you ought to hire a guard to sit in our department.”

“That would boost creativity.” Cole ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, already growing out of the military cut. “Good thing I have a copy of the designs on my laptop. Except I can’t seem to find that, either. Just do what you can, Jim.”

“Sure.” His friend stood. “And don’t worry so much. This will work itself out. You’ve got the golden touch.”

“Yeah.” Golden.

THE MAIN AUCTION ROOM buzzed with hushed voices and the rustle of people. The auction had begun, but browsers continued to walk the narrow aisles. Everything from antique sideboards to elk antlers crowded the large room.

Tess and her cousin, Sandy, eyed the new lot the auctioneer was describing, a two-drawer wooden file cabinet and desk. “I need a small file cabinet for home,” Tess mused. “But I don’t have room for the desk.”

“If you get it for a good price, I’ll go in with you. The little writing desk Grandma gave me is pretty but I can’t fit all my computer stuff on it.”

“Okay.” Tess was an experienced buyer for furnishings of the Spencer restaurants. The opening bid was low, then two bidders jumped in, vying for the lot. Tess held back until it was down to what seemed to be the last bid. But just as she held up her numbered card, the bidder who’d dropped out reentered the match. Tess lowered her hand.

Sandy immediately jabbed her arm. Hard.

“Fine,” Tess muttered, putting her number back in view. “Geez, it’s office furniture, not diamonds.”

“Sorry,” Sandy replied without remorse, tucking her short blond hair behind her ears. “But it’s a great desk. I’d have paid that much without the file cabinet.”

Accepting Tess’s as the final bid, the auctioneer hit the podium with his gavel and she turned her eye to an early nineteenth-century oil painting next on the block that would be perfect in Spencers’ Galveston restaurant. Winning the bid at a reasonable price, she leaned over to whisper. “Is that enough for you?”

Sandy grinned. “I’m happy with my haul.”

Making their way back to the service counter, Tess appreciated Sandy’s upbeat companionship. Sandy and Tess were the same age, thirty, and they’d grown up together, more like sisters than cousins. Tess didn’t have any sisters of her own. She and David were the only children in her family. Tess swallowed against the swelling in her throat. Each day since he’d died had been a roller coaster. She could be on a relatively even keel when the smallest thing triggered a rash of memories capable of flattening her.

She couldn’t count the times she’d turned to the phone, or walked into his office and for the briefest moment believed her brother would be there. Then the instant remembering, the sudden, fierce pain. Their lives had been so intertwined before his deployment that she’d seen him every day.

As they waited in line, Tess caught Sandy’s concerned gaze. “What?”

“How are your parents coping with the restaurant?” Thomas and Judith, Tess’s parents, continued to run the original downtown venue, considered the top spot to be seen in Houston.

“They say it keeps them busy. But they’re trying to do too much.”

Sandy was skeptical. “Unlike you?”

When David’s reserve unit had been called up, Tess had taken over the second Houston location David had captained. “I’m just doing my part.”

“Overseeing all three locations? You’re working yourself to death.”

Tess grimaced.

Instinctively Sandy grasped her arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think before I spoke.”

“It’s okay.”

“Are you ready?” the young cashier asked as the customer in front of them departed.

After paying and arranging to have the desk delivered, Tess picked up the painting. One of the porters loaded the file cabinet on a dolly and walked with them to load it into Tess’s Lexus SUV. As the heavy-set man lifted the cabinet into the rear of the wagon, it rattled.

Sandy leaned closer. “I wonder what that is?”

The porter opened the top drawer and reached inside, pulling out a portable computer.

“The owner must have forgotten it was inside,” Tess said.

“Doesn’t matter,” the man replied. “Rules of the auction. It’s yours now.”

Tess frowned. “That doesn’t seem quite right.”

He shrugged. “The seller knows the rules when he consigns the lot.”

“It is a business lot,” Sandy pointed out. “It’s not as though the computer belonged to some poor widow. The company probably had so much excess stuff they just didn’t bother to catalog it.”

“Yeah. You’re right. And it is pretty beaten up. Okay.” Tess put the computer in the front seat and then reached for a blanket to wrap the painting.

“I’ll head home,” Sandy began. “Unless you…”

“You don’t have to babysit.”

“That’s what family’s for, so you don’t have to be alone unless you want to be.”

Tess hugged her petite cousin, then stepped back. “Thanks. I’m okay.”

“You’re not, but I won’t argue.” Sandy hesitated, her blue eyes clouding. “We all miss David, you know.”

Seeing Sandy’s mouth tremble, Tess reminded herself that they all shared the loss. “I know. It helps.”

Tess read the guilt in her cousin’s face. Sandy still had her sisters and brother.

She’d never noticed the small size of her family, always surrounded as she was by numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. Not until David was gone. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

Sandy nodded as she unlocked the door to her sleek Eclipse, parked next to the Lexus.

After their vehicles were started, they honked, an old habit, each making sure the other wasn’t stranded by a possible dead battery or mechanical failure.

Tess took the long way home, driving the quiet, curving lanes of Memorial Drive, which divided the huge park of the same name. Even though darkness was falling, she could appreciate the miles of untouched green that wound through the most beautiful portion of Houston’s west side.

Calm by the time she reached her town house, Tess parked in the garage. As she opened the car door, the dome light illuminated the laptop. She scooped it up along with her purse.

Molly, her Norwich terrier, barked out a quick, happy welcome. Hector, David’s more reserved Scottish terrier, patiently waited his turn as she petted them both. Scotties, known to be one-master dogs, were often standoffish with anyone else. But she’d known Hector since David had brought him home as a puppy, and he willingly accepted her affection. Although he continued to behave as if he expected David to return. Even now he looked at the doorway to see if his master would step in behind her.

“I wish he’d come home, too,” she murmured, scratching Hector’s upright ears.

He cocked his head, his dark eyes set in an even darker face, fixed on her.

“Better you don’t know what I’m saying.”

Molly wriggled her smaller red-tan body in between Hector and Tess.

Tess hugged the dog, then set her down. “Don’t be jealous. I love you both.”

They trotted beside her as she entered the kitchen, dumping her purse and the laptop on the counter. “How about a carrot, guys?”

This was a word they both recognized and loved. Setting Molly down, Tess fished in the vegetable drawer of the fridge for the package of baby carrots. She gave them each one and they peeled out in separate directions to enjoy the treat. Tess uncapped a bottle of ginseng-in-fused tea, then glanced at the computer.

After flipping open the cover, she plugged in the unit, browsing through the directory. Within a few minutes, she saw that the hard drive hadn’t been cleaned by the previous owner.

Designs, Schematics, Financials. Nothing there that interested her. Pausing at a subdirectory entitled “Letters,” Tess frowned. What kind of letters? Dull, boring business ones, no doubt.

Pulling up a stool, Tess settled at the bar, scrolling through until one file caught her attention. Deceptively simple, it was entitled “Home.” Letters home.

Instantly she thought of David, the last words from him.

And she clicked on the file. A letter appeared on the screen, full-blown.

As Tess began to read, she found she couldn’t pull herself away.

The days are still full 24/7. I’m so wiped out by night that my cot actually looks good. It’d be like sleeping on a saggy lawn chair if I could feel anything by that point. I come to in the morning and then the day’s gone before I can blink. But the weeks and the months, they crawl.

I lost another man today. Specialist Dixon. Michael Dixon. Twenty-two years old, had a girlfriend in Louisiana. He was quiet, but you always knew you could count on him. I wish I’d gotten to know him better, but sometimes that just makes it worse. My unit’s feeling the loss. You have to keep on, put it out of your mind, but when it’s quiet, you remember. And I think about his parents, the woman he planned to marry. How they’ll go on, too.

Tess’s breath shortened.

Tell Mom that the First Lady visited the main camp. No fashion updates, though. She was wearing camouflage fatigues. Reporters ate it up. Beats showing what’s really going on over here.

It was simply signed “Cole”

Shaken, Tess sat back. This soldier reported a slice of military service unlike anything her brother ever sent. David’s letters had been cheerful, mostly full of newsy chatter.

Unexpectedly connected to the author of the letters, Tess opened a second file. This letter was also disturbingly real, expressing the soldier’s feelings about the military engagement and the people in the country where he was serving.

Unable to stop, Tess read his anguish for home and family, the liberty he was fighting for, the loss he experienced for the men under his command who’d been killed or wounded.

David had apparently been shielding her from how bad it actually was, which was so much like him. These letters were a window into that world. David’s last reality.

And Tess absorbed each detail. This soldier was a person of deep convictions and loyalty. So much so, she was compelled to read the next letter…and the one after that. Time forgotten, Tess continued reading and reacting. And building a link to a stranger who might not have survived the place she now read about.

BY DAWN, Tess’s shoulders and back were stiff from crouching over the laptop all night. She forced her eyes, gritty from lack of sleep, to focus until she’d read the final letter. It was as though she’d met Captain Cole Harrington, had spent the night talking with him about his deepest thoughts.

Closing the lid on the computer, she was bereft that there were no more letters. In the space of an evening she knew more about this stranger than she did her closest friends.

And there was the undeniable connection to David.

Her brother had also been a man of ideas and passion. Absurdly, she felt cheated. They had shared everything. David should have shared the final chapter in his life, too. Had he been frightened? Had he experienced any premonition of his own fate?

Tess pushed past the growing lump in her throat as she traced the edges of the computer. She felt terrible about keeping it. The rules of the auction house may have said it was hers, but it belonged to this soldier. The letters were so revealing, she couldn’t imagine the owner wishing them to be read.

She bit down on her bottom lip as the worst possibility pushed to the front of her thoughts. If he hadn’t survived, perhaps the laptop had been discarded.

Tess made an instant decision. She would find the owner, or at least his family. They should have his computer.

Tess knew that trying to get any sleep now was pointless. So she brewed some fresh coffee, then took the dogs for their morning walk. After showering and dressing she packed up the laptop and drove to the restaurant. Settled at her desk, she phoned the auction house. According to their records, the lot she’d purchased had come from Harrington Engineering. Harrington. Captain Cole Harrington.

Was he a husband, son…brother?

Tess picked up a phone book. All morning she’d been preoccupied by his fate. Now she felt a personal stake in the outcome.

Harrington Engineering was listed, but she paused as she reached for the phone. This wasn’t the sort of thing you talked about over the telephone.

She scribbled down the address. It was midweek, traffic was light and Tess made the trip quickly. Too quickly.

She’d rehearsed what she would say during the drive, but now, parked in a visitor’s spot at the front of the parking lot, she still wasn’t sure.

CHAPTER TWO

NOW THAT HIS TEAM was searching for the designs, Cole felt marginally better. But they had to show up soon or the bid to Landry Industries would be closed. He’d begun work on the bid when Landry was still debating the new lines, before they’d secured their financing. Now that Landry had gone public, they had deep wells of cash. And Cole wanted some of it to bail out Harrington.