Last Man Standing: The Taylor Clan by Julie Miller

Author:Julie Miller [Miller, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction, Contemporary, General, Romantic Suspense Fiction, Kansas City (Mo.), Suspense, Undercover Operations
ISBN: 9780373227792
Google: EHwpRqK87D4C
Amazon: 0373227795
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2004-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

THE SHATTERING OF GLASS woke Sid Taylor from a sound sleep. The fact that he’d actually dozed off in the recliner in front of the television surprised him as much as did the invasive sound from downstairs. A rain delay had lengthened the ball game long past his normal bedtime. But that wasn’t the surprise.

He’d done more dozing than sleeping lately, ever since his wife had been mugged in the grocery store parking lot. He’d gotten by on catnaps, watching over her with the same vigilance with which she’d protected him during his recovery from bypass surgery two years ago.

But he’d been so deeply out of it just now, he hadn’t even seen the end score. Some protector.

Shaking off the groggy effects of his unnatural sleep, he sat upright, grabbed the remote and turned off the post-game show.

Muffled voices and the trample of footsteps warned him that someone had broken into his butcher shop, located on the first floor beneath the renovated condo where he and Martha lived.

Then, silence.

Alarm shot through him. In better shape in his sixties than he’d been in his fifties, Sid ran to the front door and checked the dead bolt and knob lock.

Secure.

Thank God. He breathed a little easier and went to the gun cabinet to unlock one of his hunting rifles. A shuffling noise from across the darkened room diverted his attention to the tall woman in the bedroom doorway.

“Sid, what’s wrong? It’s three in the morning.” She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “This headache woke me up.”

His healing heart thumped hard in his chest. Silhouetted as she was by the light from the bedside lamp, Martha Taylor wore an expression that was a shadowy mask as she shoved silver bangs from her eyes. But those eyes he knew to be blue would be wide with concern.

He’d married her forty-two years ago when he had nothing. Now he owned a whole building and his own business in the heart of K.C.’s City Market District. Together, they’d raised seven good children. They were working on spoiling grandkids now. But the need to take care of what was his was as powerful this night as it had been all those years before, when he’d scraped and saved just to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.

“Call 9-1-1, Martha.” He’d never been about big romantic gestures and tender reassurances. He did what needed to be done. “We’ve got a break-in downstairs.”

He felt pride as she hurried to the phone and made the call without questions or hysteria. Sid opened a box of shells and put two into the rifle. A vehicle door slammed outside. Tires squealed against the pavement. Husband and wife met at the window in time to see twin red taillights disappearing around the corner into the night.

“Could you make out the license?” Martha asked.

Sid shook his head, already moving toward the door. “It had to be a truck or SUV, though, judging by the height of those taillights.

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