Her First Knight - The Beginning: Storm Lake (Under-Cover Knights Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Description and Title Page

  Copyright

  Available now

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Veterans’ resources. How you can help.

  Booklist

  Contact Livia

  Her First Knight

  Under Cover Knights: The Beginning

  Is he a hero, or a pretender?

  “Take ‘em off, Tucker. Tucker. Tucker…”

  What had he been thinking? He considered himself a careful planner, the consummate decision maker. He’d worn many hats—inventor, Ranger, mentor, CEO. So how had he wound up on stage in nothing but his trousers and tie beside two cover models with a hundred women screaming for him to take it off. That’s the question his friends and family would be asking tomorrow, if they found out. That, and “Who’s Tucker?” He’d just have to make sure no one found out about his little side trip. A whim and a folly could turn into his worst nightmare.

  It had seemed like a recipe for harmless fun. Take one curious CEO on the way to his room who followed a gorgeous redhead onto the wrong floor. Add a hundred romance writers and readers attending a conference. Toss in some false assumptions, throw out a lifetime of good behavior and Ridge was up to his Special Forces tattoo in manure.

  If Molly and Belinda could see him now, they would be stunned, say he’d gone off the deep end. They’d be right.

  He should own up right now and stop this farce, exit while he still had his drawers, but that guaranteed revealing his faux pas. He decided to play along, call as little attention to himself as possible—while stripping off his clothes—and slip away unidentified when it was over. Before something went wrong…

  “I loved Luc from the first page… Livia Quinn’s contemporaries remind me of Jill Shalvis and Robyn Carr, stories with heart and heat.” Hard Days Knight

  Her First Knight

  Under-Cover Knights: The Beginning

  Book 2 (the prequel)

  A Storm Lake novel

  Livia Quinn

  Her First Knight by Livia Quinn

  © 2014 by Campbell Hill Publishing

  Cover Art by Tell-Tale Book Cover Designs

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either a figment of the author’s crazy imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author via email: [email protected]

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  Website: http://liviaquinn.com

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  JoinWWP.org To support our troops www.mission22.com

  Available now

  Blood Opal series

  Undone

  The Storm Lake Books

  Destiny Paramortals

  Storm Crazy

  Cry Me a River

  Eve of Chaos

  Under Cover Knights

  Hard Days Knight

  Her First Knight: The Beginning

  Coming in 2015

  Thunder Point, Storm Warning, bk 1

  Destiny Paramortals, Blame it on the Moon, bk 4

  Under-Cover Knights, Knight in Tarnished Armor, bk3

  Dedication

  For all of our soldiers and their families,

  past and present.

  For their commitment, service and sacrifice.

  May God Bless you all.

  Chapter One

  “Take ‘em off, Tucker. Tucker. Tucker…”

  What had he been thinking? He considered himself a careful planner, the consummate decision maker. He’d worn many hats—inventor, Ranger, mentor, CEO. So how had he wound up on stage in nothing but his trousers and tie beside two cover models with a hundred women screaming for him to take it off? That’s the question his friends and family would be asking tomorrow, if they heard about it. That, and “Who’s Tucker?” He’d just have to make sure no one found out about this little side trip. A whim and a folly could turn into his worst nightmare.

  It had seemed like a recipe for harmless fun. Take one curious CEO on the way to his room following a gorgeous redhead onto the wrong floor. Add a hundred romance writers and readers attending a conference on the second level of his hotel. Toss in some false assumptions, throw out a lifetime of good conduct and Ridge was up to his Special Forces tattoo in manure.

  Until a year ago, he’d have used the “S” word but now, with a clever, inquisitive four year old dying to catch him in “BB”—bad behavior—he’d cleaned up his act. If Molly and Belinda could see him now, they would be stunned, say he’d gone off the deep end. They’d be right.

  He should own up right now, stop this farce, exit stage left while he still had his drawers, but that guaranteed revealing his faux pas. He decided to play along, call as little attention to himself as possible—while stripping off his clothes—and slip away unidentified when it was over.

  The convention announcements were listed on the marquee in the hotel lobby when he went to the gym at 4 a.m. to work out but he’d paid little attention. After completing his weight training and a solitary hour-long jog on the treadmill, two men entered, nodded at Ridge and proceeded to put each other through their paces. By the time Ridge left at six to shower and change for his meetings, they were just hitting their stride.

  After grabbing a cup of coffee and a protein drink in the Health Bar on the ground floor, he left the hotel and walked to the closest Metro stop for his fifteen minute ride to the Pentagon. The meetings hadn’t gone as expected, which meant he’d have to stay until the terms could be negotiated to his satisfaction. Then the hearings he’d come to town for had run into a snag—Congresswoman Erica Vork.

  Distracted, he’d returned to the hotel and, followed a curvy redhead off the elevator and down the wide carpeted corridor. He trailed after her as she wound her way through crowds of people. Some gathered in small groups in the middle of the hallway, others streamed out of rooms, animated and excited, conferring on their schedules or making plans for dinner.

  He heard “swag room” and “head shot”, a phrase that ju
mped out at him from the Army. He glanced around, still following the stunning redhead but now he found himself smack in the middle of a floor full of women. Not a man in sight.

  He stopped and a group of women nearby turned as one and smiled at him; a couple waved, openly admiring him. He felt the urge to look down and see if he’d left his fly open. More meeting rooms emptied, sending swarms of women into the halls. How could he have missed the fact that he’d landed not on a regular floor where the rooms were located but on one of the conference levels?

  In front of him was a long registration desk, behind which five women sat handing out bags and badges, next to a table full of colorfully wrapped baskets. Across from the desk, a sign next to an open door read, “Get your swag on!” with their open hours listed as 8-8. There were vertical banners as high as the ceiling in the corridors, all picturing a sexy man and a beautiful woman in an embrace, and one or more novels with the name of the author running up the side.

  Suddenly, as if they’d heard a silent call he wasn’t privy to, the hall emptied, the crowd moving to the concourse on the other side of the stairs. While they were occupied, he wandered into the room marked, “Get your swag on”. A woman who was gathering her purse and jacket, greeted him and told him to grab whatever he wanted, she was headed over to “catch the show” across the hall. She asked him to pull the door closed behind him when he left and hurried off.

  There were eight or nine tables set up in an H shape, each covered from end to end in colorful displays. Tall table posters angled toward the entrance like circus barkers crying, “Here, pick me!” There were piles of pens, lacy fans; tiny candles in mesh bags, magnets, buttons, bookmarks, coasters, and plastic jiggers.

  He was drawn to one poster, with a likeness of the lovely redhead he’d followed from the elevator. A Scottish castle stood on an isle with a lush green field in the background. Dressed in a frilly green gown, the woman was draped over the arm of a seriously muscled dude in a kilt, who looked like he was about to carry her across the water to the castle.

  It read, Seduction of a Highland Warrior by Fiona McGuin, an author he’d never heard of, which wasn’t surprising since he didn’t have time to read fiction, and certainly not romantic fiction.

  The author must be popular. Her “swag” was top of the line in comparison to some of the other items offered. There was even a basket that said, “From Liam to you (while supplies last).” In it, Ridge was surprised to see a pile of plaid jock straps. He shook his head in wonder. In the next basket were some lacy red garters, like the one on the redheaded lass’ slender thigh.

  Alone and more than a bit confused, Ridge gazed around the room. He looked at his hand. Somehow the scrap of lace had wound its way around his fingers. He picked up a post card sized picture of the book cover and slipped it and the garter into his coat pocket. Then he walked out, pulling the door behind him.

  He’d intended to make his way to the elevators while the crowd was otherwise occupied but instead he drifted toward the other hallway, wondering what all the cheering was about. The registration desk had been abandoned; the swag room, even the other rooms, vacated. All activity, it seemed, centered in the large conference hall on the other concourse.

  Ridge felt like he was back in the Army, furtively tracking toward the room where he heard alternating bouts of laughter and then clapping. A woman with a deep smoky voice called out, “Her Lady Rogue by Claranne Braxton.”

  He heard two or three feminine voices shout, “I’ve got it,” and the discouraged grumble of another, “Shoot, I got all losers.”

  The smoky voice again called out, “Billionaire Sex Toy.” Ridge’s eyebrows rose, and three voices sang out, “Got him,” and one cried, “Bingo!”

  Ridge walked up behind two women hanging on the open door watching the action. He was taller than anyone there and when he turned his head toward the stage, he relied solely on experience and training to keep from gawking.

  The two men he’d shared the workout room with that morning stood on the stage, neither of them fully dressed. One was in bare feet but still had his slacks and belt on along with a t-shirt and dress shirt.

  “Eric,” said smoky voice whom Ridge could see was a lushly built young woman in a black dress. She sat at a table near the stage, held up a chip and read, “Please remove your tie.” Eric muffed for the crowd, twisting his hips and undoing the tie like one of the Chipper… whatever those male strippers were called. He dragged it out as the women hooted. Moving the tie back and forth, he thrust his hips up; then slowly pulling the strip of silk out of the shirt collar, he swung it twice like a lasso and let it fly out over the heads of the women seated in front of him.

  The tie dropped into a crowd of upraised hands and after a short tug of war and a lot of laughter and bawdy good-natured cheering, the victor squealed. With a satisfied grin, she looped it around her neck and raised her thumb up above her head.

  The woman on the stage said, “All right, get your cards ready! The first one is my book, Seal Team Alpha. Seven books later another scream went up, “Bingo!”

  The bingo MC said, “Okay, since we’re short a cover model, we’ll have to do things a little different. Huey…”

  “Wait! Sally,” one of the women at the door pointed at Ridge, “he’s here.” She grabbed Ridge’s arm and pushed him into the room. “Go on, you have some catching up to do.” Before he could figure out what they were talking about, they shoved him toward the stage.

  “You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m not—” They couldn’t hear him over the cheering and laughter.

  “Tucker, Tucker, Tucker.” Who knew what the rabid spectators might do if he tried to escape? Looking back, he knew he hadn’t had the heart to resist. The women were having a blast and up to that point, it seemed like good, clean fun, nothing he’d get arrested for.

  The delight on the faces of the women made his pulse jump. Fun. God, when was the last time he’d done something just for the fun of doing it? For the kick.

  One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile without his permission and the more they hooted and called to him, the wider it got until he figured, why the hel—heck not? No one knew him here. It was just harmless entertainment. A hundred women calling his name—or the AWOL Tucker’s name—and begging him to “take something off”.

  He reached down, unbuckled his belt and very slowly slid it out of the loops.

  Chapter Two

  The other guys, Eric and Huey, grinned at him and egged the women on. Ridge twirled the belt over his head and channeled his inner Channing Tatum. He hated to lose his best leather belt but…oh, well…” He tossed it out into a flurry of waving hands amid cries of, “Over here,” and “Throw it to me!” The screams reached the highest pitch as the belt sailed through the air toward the back of the crowd. The women scrambled like bridesmaids at a wedding for that all-important bouquet.

  One woman—he realized it was the redhead from the elevator, and the poster—reached a hand out, half-heartedly, it seemed to him. The belt stopped when it contacted her hand and wrapped around her wrist like a coiled snake, claiming its new owner. She winked at him and pulled it to her chest. He pictured the beauty being pounced on by the crazed throng tearing it away from her with their teeth. Jesus, they were fighting over his belt. Amazing.

  Reality reasserted itself and he took in the panorama of the giant room. While the others congratulated the young cover model, he finally realized the full scope of what was going on. He’d stumbled into a romance convention. The crowd in the room comprised of authors, their readers, and fans of the cover models. And he’d just become an impersonator on stage in a Strip Bingo contest.

  On the table, where the buxom coordinator sat, were the prizes—books. The cover models were participating in an activity he would have thought demeaning, showing off their great physiques as a way of creating rapport with the authors so they would what—pay them to pose for their book covers?

  He glanced down at the player cards on the tab
le in front of the stage. The bingo grid was made up of twenty book covers, which were picked by “Sally” from a bowl on her table, until a player got a string of four in any direction and bingo-ed. The prize was the winner’s choice of books from the stack, and the honor of selecting the next model to lose an article of clothing; that came from the labeled chips in the giant brandy snifter. His opportunity to analyze the game had ended. “Tucker, you’re up.”

  He looked down, assessing how many items he had to lose. Four by his count—shirt, tie, his last sock, and his trousers. “Please remove…drumrollll…” she called in a singsong voice and the women obliged, pounding on the tables, “…your shirt. But leave the tie on, please.”

  Leave the tie. Kinky, he thought. He slipped the cufflinks off and started unbuttoning the expensive shirt.

  Good thing he was in shape.

  Buffy’s fingers ran over the warm leather of the cover model’s belt. She hadn’t intended to try to catch the twisting black missile. Her hand had just automatically reached for it and it curled around her wrist, eliminating the chance that anyone could tug it away. She wasn’t here to steal the prizes away from the authors and readers. She was an industry professional, and really should toss the damn belt back into the fray, but she couldn’t make herself do it.

  Tucker intrigued her. She’d watched him since his first appearance in the doorway. Tall, broad shouldered, and dressed in a black suit, white shirt and multi-colored tie, he had an elegant powerful persona. Now, his straight white teeth separated in a sexy grin as he shrugged the white shirt off.