Free StrategicLust by Elizabeth Lapthorne

single most important task of his entire
life. With a horrendous gagging motion, he determined he was indeed going to be
ill. He sent a quick prayer to the Goddess for mercy, hoping he would pass out
before he could live through the indignity.
    Josh worried in a faint flash of insight that his head would
hit the dash and he would wake up with a cracker of a headache. It was his
final thought before he lost consciousness.

Chapter Four
     
    “It’s been two hours, Aubury,” Kate repeated for the third
time. She winced slightly at the whining quality in her tone but continued to
speak regardless. “Are you positive you gave Joshua the correct
antidote? Maybe we should—”
    “If you question my methods one more time, Kate,” Aubury
replied calmly, “I swear to all that’s holy I will throw you out into the back
yard and you can wait there instead of hovering over your charge like a
ministering angel. How many years have you known me?”
    Kate hunched her shoulders, suitably chastised. She could
feel her face flushing in embarrassment and turned her head to stare at Josh’s
still-unconscious form instead of meeting her old friend’s gaze.
    “Pretty much my whole life,” Kate mumbled only partially
coherently. A warm, soft hand rested on her shoulder and Kate turned to meet
the gray gaze of the man who was practically her grandfather.
    Mostly bald with only a small circle of closely buzzed gray-white
hair, Aubury Mavern made up for the lack on his head with a thick, bushy beard
he kept long but well-maintained. The gray in his beard had been losing the
fight to the white for the last year or so.
    Tall and solidly built, if Aubury didn’t have his cane it
would be impossible to think this bear of a man could have anything remotely
close to a weakness. Despite outward appearances, an old wound to his leg had
worsened with age and Aubury now regularly used a sturdy cane, which he
loathed.
    Kate hung her head and accepted the one-armed hug from the
Healer. Aubury had been friends with her parents. He’d stepped in to help to train
and raise her in her mid-teens when her parents had been killed in the field.
Partners in the Enforcers, they had lived large and fast, Kate always something
of a mystery to them with her quieter ways and more reflective spirit.
    Aubury had helped her to understand her magic, that of
Guarding and protecting those less able. It had been almost instinctive to
bring Joshua here when he had passed out from the drug the blonde witch had
injected him with. Aubury, thankfully, had recognized the effects of the nerve
toxin and administered an antidote.
    Joshua hadn’t woken yet and Kate was beginning to worry.
    “This isn’t a regular job, Kate, is it?” Aubury asked, as
clued-in as ever. Kate flushed slightly defensively.
    “Of course it is,” she insisted firmly. “Joshua has a
contract out on his life and Hayden—you remember Hayden Foxworth, the Special
Operative agent?—hired me to…”
    Kate let her words drain away into silence as Aubury smiled
gently at her, his gray eyes filled with understanding and just a hint of
laughter. Kate huffed and swallowed hard before starting again. She had only
just begun to stop lying to herself—there was no point in lying to the only
real member of family she felt she had remaining.
    “He’s witty, deadly charming and sexy. I’ve never had so
much trouble balancing my focus between keeping a client happy and occupied and
assessing the risks and dangers. He’s… I’m… No, this isn’t a regular job,” Kate
admitted. “You can’t tell, what with him being unconscious and all, but Joshua
Delamere is a complete playboy and ladies’ man. He’s probably had more partners
than I’ve had dates in my entire life, and is a walking heartbreak waiting to
happen.”
    “And?” Aubury prompted gently. Kate wasn’t sure whether she
smiled or grimaced. Likely her look fell somewhere in between and ended up
being a slight smirk.
    “And he has a kind