Tempting the Devil

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PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF PATRICIA POTTER

“Patricia Potter is a master storyteller, a powerful weaver of romantic tales.” —Mary Jo Putney,
New York Times
–bestselling author

“One of the romance genre's finest talents.” —
Romantic Times

“Patricia Potter will thrill lovers of the suspense genre as well as those who enjoy a good romance.” —
Booklist

“Potter proves herself a gifted writer as artisan, creating a rich fabric of strong characters whose wit and intellect will enthrall even as their adventures entertain.” —
BookPage

“When a historical romance [gets] the Potter treatment, the story line is pure action and excitement, and the characters are wonderful.” —
BookBrowse

“Potter has an expert ability to invest in fully realized characters and a strong sense of place without losing momentum in the details, making this novel a pure pleasure.” —
Publishers Weekly
, starred review of
Beloved Warrior

“[Potter] proves that she's adept at penning both enthralling historicals and captivating contemporary novels.” —
Booklist
, starred review of
Dancing with a Rogue

Tempting the Devil

Patricia Potter

With many, many thanks to my editor, Christine Zika, for her invaluable input as well as infinite patience

author's note

Although the seed of
Tempting the Devil
was suggested by an actual event, the characters and events in the book are completely fictional, the result of the author's “what if?” mechanism.

prologue

J
UST OUTSIDE
A
TLANTA

Fear rushed through Jesse Carroll as he felt the barrel of a gun pressing into his back.

Why the hell had he agreed to Zack's invitation to sneak a few minutes off to smoke a cigarette and maybe take a swallow of that good 'shine Zack usually carried?

The rough, almost overgrown road was just off their beats, a piece of private property being held for future development. Even the entrance was difficult to see.

Zack had known the old man who'd owned it until his death two years ago. It was then purchased by a holding company. An old shack on the property still stood, but a heavy chain had been added across the entrance to block any traffic from entering.

The property was outside Zack's rounds, but he drove by every day on his way to the office, and tonight the chain was gone. He'd called Jesse on his cell and suggested he and his rookie meet him and take a look around. Jesse knew it was merely an excuse to meet. Zack always carried that 'shine Jesse liked, and he didn't like drinking alone. Like Zack, Jesse would have been alone if Kell, a rookie officer, hadn't been training with him.

Meeting like this wasn't in the training manual.

But it often got lonely and boring in this part of the county where little happened except for the occasional speeder. So on especially dull nights, Zack and Jesse sometimes met in a secluded place, shared stories, took a sip or two.

Why hadn't he said no? Instead, he'd sworn Kell to silence and driven down the road to the remnants of a cabin. He'd looked for Zack's headlights. Instead he saw the silhouette of a darkened blue-and-white squad car. Then another car behind it.

He stopped the car, took out his weapon and stepped out. Lights from the squad car flashed on, blinded him. At the same moment, something hard and small and round pressed into his back.

Jesse's heart pounded. A shadowy figure pushed Zack forward. His figure blocked the blinding light. One handcuff dangled from his wrist.

“What the hell …?” He stopped, then started again. “This is one hell of a joke, Zack.” He peered frantically into the darkness. “Who's out there? This ain't funny.”

The figure seized his left wrist and hooked him to Zack. Still another man took his handcuffs from his belt and hooked his right one to Kell's left hand. It was done so quickly, so professionally, he knew it must be a cop. Had to be.

A joke. Had to be one. Probably aimed at Kell, the rookie.

He kept telling himself that. The only other explanation was too awful to consider.

So far he'd been the only one to speak. Kell remained silent, but Jesse felt the trainee's tension. Smelled the fear.

He blinked against the glare of the flashlight. He turned to avoid it and saw one man who stood alone.
Lou Belize
. He froze. God, he was a dead man.

A deer in headlights. That's exactly how he felt. And the truck was coming right at him! Did Kell realize they were up to their eyebrows in shit?

Fear exploded in him.

Hooked to the other two men, he couldn't run, though that was exactly what he wanted to do. Kell muttered something, but Jesse couldn't make out the words. Zack slumped, and now Jesse saw the blood on his face, the way his free hand clutched his stomach. Someone had worked him over.

Belize came up to him. “This pig said you just happened to come here.”

Jesse nodded, afraid his voice might reflect the stark terror he now felt.

“No one told you about this place?”

Jesse tried to think.
Hold out and play for more time
. But Zack's expression revealed he'd already told everything. “We were just going to have a drink,” he said, hating the tremor he heard in his voice.

“A cop? Isn't that illegal?” Belize sneered.

Jesse didn't answer.

Belize stepped back behind the light.

Jesse was only too aware of the revolver still pressed against his back. He closed his eyes and thought of Sarah, and little James. Jesse and James. It had been Sarah's little joke when she crawled over him on those nights they made love.

If he hadn't fought with her tonight, he never would have agreed to meet Zack for a quick bite of moonshine. Every bar would be closed on his way home, and a sip or two would relax him. Same old fight. She wanted him to quit and get a safe job. She couldn't understand why he loved being a cop, how he enjoyed the comaraderie he shared with others of the breed.

“Do it!” Lou Belize ordered.

He frantically looked around for help. Shadows. They were all shadows. Then he saw a figure he knew instantly. He couldn't see the man's face but he didn't have to.

A mistake. It had to be a mistake
.

He started to call out, but the sound was interrupted by the blast of a gunshot. Kell's weight dragged him down.

“Sarah,” he whispered.

He never heard the second shot, as the bullet tore into his skull.

chapter one

She'd never seen a dead man before.

Much less three.

Robin Stuart turned away from the bodies of the three dead police officers. She had what she needed for her news story. Three men in uniform, their faces drained of life. A bullet in the back of each head. Little blood.

They'd seemed more like wax figures than men who had been alive just hours ago.

Yet she knew they had been, and her heart ached for them, and for their families.

Not professional. But it had happened before, this witnessing of tragedy and the resulting feelings she tried to mask. Today she knew she'd not mastered that particular skill. She'd often wondered how war correspondents learned to live with the death they observed daily.

At first she'd fervently wished she could. In her first months at the
Atlanta Observer
, a chartered plane carrying more than a hundred prominent Atlantans had crashed in Europe, and she had been called, along with other staffers, to write obituaries for an Extra. Several family members she'd contacted had not yet learned about the crash, and she'd had to break the news.

That had been her worst day as a reporter.

This was a close second. She couldn't stop thinking about the families waiting for the three to return home. Two were young—around her age—and the third was probably in his forties. She fought to keep tears at bay. She would never live that down among the other reporters.

Yet mixed with that was the adrenaline from knowing this was going to be a huge story.

The heat of an Atlanta summer bore down. She felt perspiration trickling down her blouse as clumps of law enforcement officers huddled together some space from the bodies, as if distancing themselves from the dead. A bright yellow ribbon isolated the bodies from the living.

But she couldn't avert her eyes. It wasn't like writing about a county budget, or a squabble on the county commission or even the occasional trial she covered.

She scribbled several observations in her notebook. Other reporters stood quietly rather than being their usual raucous and competitive selves. One was a police reporter for the opposition daily, and then there were several from local papers. The television media hadn't arrived yet, but they wouldn't be far behind.

Ordinarily, a crime story of this magnitude would have gone to the paper's police reporter or one of the veteran general assignment reporters, but she'd been covering this county and an adjoining one for six months and had been sitting in the sheriff's office when he received the call.

Trying to ignore the heavy brace on her left leg, she limped over to Meredith County Sheriff Will Sammons.

He was talking to another officer, but stopped when she approached. “Do you have the names of the victims?” she asked.

He frowned. “That's up to the county police to give out,” he said. “I 'spect they'll wait till the families are notified.”

“I won't print them until they are.”

He sighed. “Can't do it, missy.”

She hated the “missy,” but he'd insisted on calling her that since she'd first met him. Since he'd turned out to be a good source on county politics and news, she'd never considered it important enough to object.