Loves Redemption, Kimberly Terry [beach read .TXT] 📗

LOVE’S REDEMPTION

Kimberly Kaye Terry

1

LOVE’S REDEMPTION

By

Kimberly Kaye Terry

© copyright December 2005, Kimberly Kaye Terry

Cover art by Kat Richards, © copyright December 2005

ISBN 1-58608-804-1

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Dedication:

This is dedicated to my daughter's Imani and Hannah and my husband Bill. Imani is in Heaven, and I'm blessed to have Hannah with me on earth.

Imani thank you for inspiring Mommy, and Hannah thank you for continually motivating me, as only a five year old can... Mommy loves you both.

Bill you're my rock. I could never write a fictional hero half as wonderful as you are.

PART I

PROLOGUE

Glasses perched on top of her head, Dr. Maya Richardson searched in vain for the file

she’d just had in her hand. It was one on those days where she didn’t know if she was coming or going she had so much work in front of her. Maybe the file had fallen off her crowded desk.

Lord knew she needed to come in early to clean and organize the pit she called an office.

“Sesute, there is something on the news I think you should see,” her assistant said from the doorway. Dalia knew Maya would never find the remote in time, so she came into the office and turned the TV on for her.

“Authorities believe two victims of the San Antonio Slayer have been found outside loop 410 near Huebner Road. The police have described the male as Caucasian, 5’8”, short blond hair, and brown eyes, and in his early 40s. The second victim is a Caucasian female, 5’10”, red hair, green eyes, with a long jagged scar running the length of her lower face. Anyone with

information on either of these two victims is asked to call the San Antonio Police department at…” the newscaster droned.

“Oh my God. Not Allison. Please don’t let it be Allison.” With trembling hands, Maya

picked up the phone and dialed the number displayed across her small television screen.

“San Antonio Police department, how may I direct your call?” the brusque, disembodied

voice of the department operator asked.

PART II

CHAPTER 1

She had the prettiest brown eyes Mark had ever seen. The minute his gaze wandered in

her direction, he couldn’t look away.

He bent to refill his water from the cooler, where he stood near the doorway directly in

front of Lieutenant Hernandez’s door. The woman sat waiting outside the office in one of the dingy chairs that lined the precinct wall.

Normally, he would have glanced at the small, huddled figure and looked away. He

would have done the same thing again had she not glanced in his direction at that same moment, and he felt poleaxed.

Transfixed, he stared at her.

Damn.

She was gorgeous. Large, light brown eyes, slightly tilted in the corners, drew his gaze

like a magnet. Her hair was tightly coiled into one long braid that nestled between her ample breasts. What drew his attention to her hair were the small curls that had escaped and, like musical notes, framed creamy, golden-brown skin.

But it was her mouth that caused the sharp clench he felt in his gut. She had a sinful

mouth. Lush and full, it grabbed his attention and made something more than his gut clench.

When their gazes collided, a flash sparked between them before the woman glanced away

and lightly tapped one small foot in a staccato beat on the old linoleum floor of the precinct.

Her face in profile drew his attention back to her mouth. Obviously lost in thought, she

pulled her bottom lip into her mouth with her top teeth and slowly let it pop back out. His overactive male libido had him wondering what else she’d be able to grip with the same

intensity.

“Hey Mark, check this out--Jean Luc here bet me that in his prime, Ali would have beat

Tyson any time, any place, any ring,” Jordan Phillips yelled out across the room.

“What?” Distracted and slightly flushed, Mark glanced across at his partner, reluctantly

dragging his gaze away from the woman.

“All I am saying is if both men were in their prime, fighting in the same generation, then

it would be no contest,” Detective LeDoux answered in his heavily accented English. “And

please, refer to me by my correct name. My name is Frances LeDoux, Detective Frances LeDoux if you do not mind, not Jean Luc.” With a huff, the short, bald detective turned back to his desk.

“Look, you two are always trying to get me in the middle of this dumb ass argument

when you both know Joe Louis would have beat the hell out of Ali and Tyson hands down,”

Mark answered, his mind on the woman.

“Man whatever.” Jordan laughed in his deep voice before he spun his large body around

in his chair to continue his harassment of LeDoux.

Glancing back in the direction of the lieutenant’s office, Mark uttered a low curse when

the unknown woman was no longer there. He brightened considerably when he realized she must have gone inside Lieutenant Hernandez’s office.

He figured now was as good a time as any to ask if forensics had turned in their report on

the latest murder victim in his investigation. Mark stood and stretched, and casually walked over to knock on the lieutenant’s door.

* * * *

Maya sat opposite Lieutenant Hernandez with her hands clasped tightly in her lap. After

calling the police department she’d sat in numbed silence denying the possibility that the

murdered woman the newscaster referred to could be her Allison.

The operator had taken her information, and then transferred her to the desk sergeant. She

had been told two uniformed officers would pick her up to bring her into the station. After giving them her address, she replaced the receiver with a listless hand.

Now, as she