Affair of Honor by Stephanie James Read Free Book Online Page A

come this far.”
    She sensed Ryder taking a long breath as if to steady himself. “Can I take it that I’m not in for a long lecture on the evils of my rough-and-ready past?”
    “It’s not my place to lecture you, Ryder.”
    “Please don’t be condescending,” he warned very quietly.
    Brenna thought about that. Was she being condescending? “How did the Gardners find you when they, uh, needed someone to get their son out of that prison?” she surprised herself by asking.
    “I was an officer in the Marines. Served in Southeast Asia and later in…other places. When I left the service to start writing full time, it occasionally became convenient to pick up a little extra money. I kept in touch with some friends I’d made in the service. There’s a kind of network out there, Brenna, and when people like the Gardners start looking for help, it can be found. Getting in and out of awkward places is something I happen to be good at,” he added with a disparaging shrug.
    “And perhaps something you like doing?” Brenna smiled perceptively.
    “Not anymore. I’m satisfied with the writing these days,” he told her in a tone that once again dared her to contradict.
    Brenna’s smile widened as she drank in the crisp mountain air through her open window. She felt good tonight. It was good to be driving around the lake with a man who was totally different from any she had known. It was as if she were someone else this evening, and she wanted the illusion to continue for a time.
    “Does that mean I am out tonight with a successful author of sleazy men’s fiction rather than an ex-soldier-of fortune?” she teased lightly.
    He flickered her a quick, almost uncertain glance. “Yes.”
    “Good. Talk to me of storytelling, Ryder Sterne. Or is it Justin Murdock?” she corrected, thinking of his pseudonym.
    “Would you mind a personal question?”
    “Not at all, not at all,” she assured him happily.
    “How many of those margaritas did you have tonight?”
    “I’m not drunk,” she declared, aware that she sounded vaguely defensive about it. But she wasn’t, not really. She was just feeling temporarily free and vitally aware of the man beside her. She’d never been aware of Damon in quite this way. Why was that? she wondered silently.
    “Then why don’t we try our hand at cards tonight, lady?” Ryder suggested. “I’ll stop at one of the casinos and we can see if your philosophy does you any good when it goes against luck, one on one.”
    “That sounds…different. Yes, I think I’d like that.”
    Brenna didn’t hear the dreaminess in her voice but she felt it in her mind. A wonderful sense of being in another reality. As if she had somehow stepped into a different plane of existence just for this evening.
    As for Ryder, she had the impression that some burden had been lifted from him. He sounded happier suddenly; more than willing to forget the discussion of his past and devote himself to the remainder of the evening.
    “I feel lucky tonight,” he told her as he parked the Ferrari in one of the lots of a luxurious, highrise casino-hotel in the south-shore town of Stateline. “Luckier than I have for a long time.” He helped her gallantly out of the car and took her arm as they walked toward the brilliantly lit casino. “What do you call luck in your world, lady?”
    Brenna’s lips curved invitingly. “Well, there is something known as the probability theory. Otherwise called chance.”
    “Close enough,” he proclaimed as they stepped through the casino doors.
    Before them lay the glitter, the excitement, and the pleasure-bent crowds of a big Nevada casino. The chandeliers, well-dressed croupiers, and scantily clad cocktail waitresses all combined with the tinkling of slot machines and the spin of a wheel of fortune to add to Brenna’s glow of unreality. There was an overstated aura of luxury that seemed to swallow one up and form a world of its own. It suited Brenna’s unusual mood