Matt—The Callahan Brothers (Brazos Bend Book 2) by Emily March Read Free Book Online Page B

sexiest piece of photography since the beach scene in From Here to Eternity . Helen bought a print and had it blown up into a poster for my birthday gift. I have it hanging in my workroom. Right next to the Man with the Golden Gun poster. You know the one. The one where Bond holds his gun like this?”
    She lifted the gun from the console and held it up beside her face like in the movie advertisement. “It’s Double-Oh-Seven and Double-Oh-Yeah right beside each other on my wall. Karma, I tell you. Kismet.”
    He let out a growl and reached for the gun at the same time Torie went to set it down.
    She wasn’t certain how it happened. Bad luck. Bad karma. Truly awful kismet.
    The gun fired. Blood splattered. Torie’s heart all but stopped.
    Matt Callahan, savior and spy, stared down at the wound on his leg, his mouth gaping in shock. “Holy crap, you shot me!”
    They were the last words he spoke to her before the medics arrived and carted him off.
    ***
    Six months later, Torie returned to her California studio after an extended trip following the latest Hollywood couple on a do-gooders’ trip through India. She unlocked her front door, stepped inside, and immediately knew something was wrong. Someone had been in her studio. Within seconds, she discovered that she’d been robbed.
    The thief left behind all of her valuable cameras and equipment. All that was missing was a poster from her wall.

Chapter Four
    Eighteen months later
    Ivars Ćurkovićwas dead. One week ago today, the effing sonofabitch died in his effing sleep in a five-effing-star hotel in effing Paris.
    Matt had learned the news two days ago upon returning to Langley following a weeklong trip to Pakistan on a mission he almost couldn’t complete because his effing leg gave out halfway up an effing mountain.
    People liked to say that life wasn’t fair, but that simply didn’t go far enough. Sometimes, life was a Chuck Norris kick in the balls.
    Hearing that John’s killer had died such an easy death—one that Matt had absolutely no part in making happen—had been just that kick. Ever since the agency had pinned his brother’s death on Ćurković, he’d lived to take revenge on the warlord. He spent at least part of every day trying to track the bastard down. He’d made more trips into the rugged mountains of Eastern Europe and the hellholes of the subcontinent looking for his enemy than he could bear to remember. Most of the time, his efforts had proved fruitless, but on a handful of occasions, the trail had turned warm. Once he’d come within half an hour of catching the slippery killer. Still, he’d stayed hot on his trail with high expectations of finally running him to ground until he’d   done a father a favor and run afoul of That Damned Woman. He never came close to Ćurkovićafter that. Now he’d run out of chances.
    Ivars Ćurkovićwas dead.
    And Matt’s opportunity to assuage his guilt for his own part in his brother’s death had died with him.
    So what did he do now? What purpose did he have in life? How was he going to live with himself from here on out?
    They were questions he desperately needed answers for, and he’d come home hoping to find them. As he spied the carved wood sign that marked the turnoff to his land, his mouth lifted in a weary smile. Everything else in his life might have gone to hell, but at least this was good. He had a place to come to now. For the first time in a very long time, he had a home, a place where someone he cared about waited for him.
    Even if that someone was a crusty old barnacle, a former sailor with a porcupine attitude and a priceless nose.
    Matt slowed his F150 pickup and took a right onto the gravel road, seeking the peace that descended upon him whenever he made this particular turn. Sure enough, his muscles relaxed, and the invisible band around his chest loosened. This was one of the few places in the world where he could let down his guard. He appreciated that. A man would be a fool to