Excerpt of Lawman's Perfect Surrender by Jennifer Morey

After talking to the fire chief about final plans for this
week's Fourth of July celebration, Ford McCall tucked his
cell phone into its holster and looked with dread toward the
front doors of Samuel Grayson's lavish three-story community
center. Marble-trimmed, tinted windows and swooping gardens
full of color accented the stone monolith. This was
Inspiration Central at its finest, cloaked in danger and
deception. The whole town was infected with its cultish poison.
Ford sighed and ran his fingers through his windblown blond
hair, annoyed that he had to deal with another woman who'd
caught Grayson's fancy. The Chief of Police had assigned him
to question a "very special lady." She was special, all
right. Grayson always took an interest in anything that put
a ripple in his perfect town, and he used the police chief
to take care of the problem. Gemma Johnson had moved here
after divorcing her ex-husband, Jed, who hadn't taken her
leaving well and found and beat her. Now she was scared and
vulnerable.

She must be vulnerable. Otherwise, Ford would not have found
her here, attending one of Grayson's early-evening,
soul-perfecting seminars.

With the summer sun low in a clear blue sky, the doors to
the Cold Plains Community Center opened and a throng began
to emerge. He spotted her almost immediately. She wore white
cropped pants with a dark blue-and-white sleeveless blouse.
All he'd seen of her was a picture, but it was enough. She
walked slowly beside the taller Lacy Matthews, the owner of
the posh and trendy Cold Plains Coffee.

The two must have struck up a friendship, thanks to the seminars. Another bad sign for the newcomer. Lacy was well on her way to no return. Ford wouldn't be at all surprised if she already had a D for Devotee tattooed on her hip. Grayson liked to brand his truest followers that way. If Gemma wasn't careful, she'd be drawn into his secret tattoo parlor just like the others.

As the women drew closer, Ford couldn't help noticing Gemma
in a very different light from the one that brought him
here. Small-boned, almost fragile, she had a tiny waist,
slender hips and breasts a little larger than a handful.
Lean and sexy. Though her lower lip and nose were still
swollen and the cuts and bruises on her face were still
clearly visible, he could see she was a beautiful woman.
Silky dark hair waved gently as she moved and she had the
softest brown eyes he'd ever seen.

Putting a stop to his wandering fascination, he circled back
to his purpose here. His job was to question her about her
ex-husband and then find and arrest him, not ask her out on
a date.

The first of the attendees to leave the building passed.
Some greeted him warmly, others looked over in suspicion.
Why was Police Deputy Ford McCall dressed in uniform and
standing beside his flashy, department-issued Escalade, in
front of Samuel Grayson's community center? Was he waiting?
Who was he waiting for? Ford found it ironic that no one
batted an eye over the higher-ranking officers driving such
pricey vehicles. This was Cold Plains, the city where beauty
and prosperity thrived. It was only natural that city
officials suited the culture while they worked to keep the
town safe. If the Chief of Police, Bo Fargo, wanted to spend
that kind of money, who was Ford to complain? He was more
concerned with the unsolved murders and mysteriously
disappearing residents, all occurring in the time frame
Samuel Grayson had been here.

"Ms. Johnson?" he called when Lacy and Gemma were about to
pass.

Gemma stopped, and so did Lacy.

The seminar attendees who'd heard him paused with curiosity. An older woman ornamented with diamonds smiled her approval. The police are doing their job, he could almost hear her thinking. Gemma had obviously been accosted, therefore, justice needed to be done. Someone had to purge the town of the thug who'd done it. Clean out the trash, as it were. Grayson would love that. But his reasons were different than Ford's. Much different.

"Gemma Johnson?" he said to the woman's stunned face.

Stepping closer, he saw that he towered over her small frame
as she gazed up at him with those lovely, uncertain, flighty
eyes.

"Deputy McCall, Cold Plains Police. I'd like to talk
to you
about Jed Johnson. Is now a good time?"

After blanching slightly, she stammered, "O-oh…I—I…of
course."

Ford turned to Lacy. "Ms. Matthews."

Lacy bowed her head congenially. "Deputy McCall." Then she
turned to Gemma. "Stop by Cold Plains Coffee tomorrow
morning. I'll make you a vanilla latte and we can talk
more."

Gemma's smile was big, tripping Ford up with its dazzling
warmth. "I'd love that."

She'd fallen so easily into Lacy's magnetic
personality. Or
was it the smile itself that had grabbed him? Yes. It was
the smile. Beautiful. Guileless. Full of innocent delight.
Wide, white and toothy. It lit up her face and wiped away
all the vulnerability and fear.

Lacy walked away.

Given Ford's suspicion of Lacy's affiliation with Grayson,
he didn't trust Gemma's friendship with her. Lacy had her
priorities, and they centered around Grayson.

That smile transfixed him all over again, now softening as
she regarded him. The way it made him feel reminded him too
much of the past, back when initial sparks led to heartache.
He briefly glanced away, only to catch another seminar
attendee eyeing them speculatively.

"Would you like to go somewhere to talk?" he asked her.

"Oh…" She glanced across the street to a brick diner
with a
bright green sign that said Fleur de Sel's. It was
immaculately clean and modern.

"All right. Yes."

He offered his arm to her and she looped hers through it,
leaning a little of her weight against him. She'd be sore
for a while but she'd recover. He helped her across the
street and they entered the French diner beneath several
curious gazes. It was getting late in the evening so there
were a few tables open. Unfortunately, most of the patrons
had come from the community center.

After Ford asked for a booth along the front windows, the
hostess led them there. He wanted something relatively
private. Sitting across from Gemma, he pulled out a pen and
a little notebook.

"Have you ever been here before?" she asked.

Realizing she was referring to the restaurant, he answered,

"No."

"It's very good. I like to find the best, and this is
definitely one of those."

He didn't really care about that. But he suspected she was
only nervous. "Why don't we start with what
happened?" She'd
have to face it sometime.

Her eyes lowered to the table. "How did you find out? I
didn't call the cops."

A waitress appeared, interrupting them.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

"No. Lacy and I had dinner before the seminar." She looked
up at the waitress. "Just water for me." And then to Ford
she said, "They do have a chocolate croissant here that
stands apart from all others. You should try it for
breakfast some time. It's really good. The best."

"Everything is in this town," he quipped, only half
kidding,
then to the waitress, "Just black coffee for me."

The tall and slender, beautifully groomed woman in a green
apron embroidered with a Fleur de Sel logo snapped her order
book shut and turned away.

Gemma's nervousness eased and she smiled at his sarcasm. He
grinned back at her and offered no explanation.

Relaxing even more, she settled back against the bench seat
and studied him as though trying to figure him out on her
own. Her gaze fell down over his chest, spending more time
on his badge before rising again. Her light brown eyes
sparkled with health and vitality, and the same fascination
that had overcome him. None of the frailty he'd sensed when
he'd first announced he wanted to talk to her about Jed
remained. The change in her was magnificent. And she was so
beautiful he couldn't stop staring at her. The more he
stared, the more he wanted to make Jed pay for marking her
with cuts and bruises.

Suddenly aware of the heat that had risen out of nowhere, he
reeled it in. The quicksilver reaction came without welcome.
She'd struck him right away, at first sight. That was
unusual. When a woman caught his eye, he normally had time
to assimilate whether he wanted to pursue her. With Gemma,
it slam-dunked him, thrust him right in the middle of an
unexpected attraction.

Not understanding why she did that to him, he tapped his pen
on the notebook. "The Chief of Police told me to come get
your statement."

As he'd hoped, her demeanor cooled.

"That's how I know your ex-husband came after you," he
answered her previous question. He didn't tell her that
Doctor Rafe Black had also spoken to him, voicing his
concern over Grayson's interest in her after he'd treated
her at the hospital.

"Ah." She nodded and averted her gaze.

"Would you mind telling me exactly what happened?"

She glanced at him and then down at the table again, the
vulnerability he'd noticed before returning. He could
understand how this would be hard for her.

"Did he break into your home?" he helped her out.

She lifted her eyes. "No. I—I left the back door open.
I know I should have locked all my doors, but I'd been
feeling so safe here. He walked right in."

Lots of people felt safe and secure here…at first. He could
tell she felt like a fool for that and hoped it had shown
her not to trust her impression of Cold Plains as an idyllic
town. It was, but not with Samuel Grayson in it.

"You were surprised to see him?" he asked.