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For the First Time
Stephanie Doyle
There’s not a lot former CIA agent Mark Sharpe hasn’t done. Yet suddenly he’s in a world of firsts—first time being a father, first time being self-employed… and first time being attracted to his employee.Jo Jo Hatcher with her attitude, her tattoos and her investigative talents tempts him in ways he can’t explain. With each day she becomes more irresistible and he fights the urge to abandon his new conservative lifestyle! Then his teenage daughter is threatened. There’s only person he trusts to help him: Jo Jo.As they work to find the perpetrator, Mark imagines a future together that includes another first—family.
Being a father shouldn’t feel this risky!
There’s not a lot former CIA agent Mark Sharpe hasn’t done. Yet suddenly he’s in a world of firsts—first time being a father, first time being self-employed…and first time being attracted to his employee. JoJo Hatcher, with her attitude, her tattoos and her investigative talents, tempts him in ways he can’t explain. With each day she becomes more irresistible. How is he supposed to function in this messed-up situation?
Then his teenage daughter, Sophie, is threatened. There’s only one person he trusts to help him: JoJo. As they work to untangle the mystery, Mark imagines a future together that includes another first—family.
“I can walk right in front of you and you’ll never recognize me.”
Mark scoffed at JoJo’s boast. “JoJo, you do realize I was a CIA black-ops analyst in the field for years.”
“And years and years…” His daughter rolled her eyes.
Okay, maybe he wasn’t going to impress Sophie.
“Observation is what I do,” he continued as though Sophie hadn’t interrupted. “It’s how I survived. You can’t get past me. Especially not with the tattoos.”
JoJo held out her hand. “It’s a bet, then. I do this. I get the job. You win. You get to show off your observation skills to your daughter. The only thing you’re out is a half hour of your time.”
“We were going to go eat….”
“Are you kidding me? I’m not leaving,” Sophie said. “I want to see this.”
JoJo winked at Sophie and his daughter smiled back. Great, he thought. She’d known this woman for minutes and they had bonded more tightly than he had with his daughter in months.
Still, he’d play out this little wager. What did he have to lose? It wasn’t like JoJo would ever get past him.
Dear Reader,
This is my third story set in the Tyler Group world (One Final Step, October 2012, and An Act of Persuasion, March 2013) and while an author never plays favorites with her books, I have to say this was one of the most satisfying books I have ever written. I fell in love with Mark and Sophie, an absent father and his daughter, who reunited in An Act of Persuasion. When I thought about Mark’s story and giving him his happy-ever-after, I really couldn’t think about him alone.
It had to be Mark and Sophie and their happy-ever-after. That meant I needed the type of heroine I thought would suit them both. That’s when JoJo walked on to the scene.
She’s not exactly conventional and she comes with a lot of baggage. But somehow the three of them make this story work. So this isn’t a story about Mark and JoJo. This is a story about Mark and JoJo and Sophie and how together they become a family.
I love to hear from readers—the good, the bad and the ugly—so check out my website, www.stephaniedoyle.net (http://www.stephaniedoyle.net).
Happy reading!
Stephanie Doyle
For the First Time
Stephanie Doyle
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephanie Doyle, a dedicated romance reader, began to pen her own romantic adventures at age sixteen. She began submitting to Mills & Boon at age eighteen and by twenty-six her first book was published. Fifteen years later, she still loves what she does, as each book is a new adventure. She lives in South Jersey with her cat, Lex, and her two kittens, who have taken over everything. When she isn’t thinking about escaping to the beach, she’s working on her next idea.
For Wanda
Because when I said I could never, ever write Mills & Boon Superromance books, she said let’s not say ever.
Contents
Prologue (#ua18ca28b-5858-5667-b7a0-cf96cb774b2a)
Chapter One (#ubddff335-f3ed-5be0-9ead-c5fc5c4009fe)
Chapter Two (#udae20a6b-88e5-55ed-bf37-155343d7247a)
Chapter Three (#uc3997aed-9243-5e02-96b3-636ed75bba09)
Chapter Four (#uf2cee32a-f029-5dc6-b619-f9a304bbd881)
Chapter Five (#u477e50dc-ced8-56f2-b8f7-e9e5308b33ab)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE
“I NEED YOU to focus, Josephine.”
She was focusing. She was focusing very hard. She knew that the man in front of her was a police detective. He had brown hair with gray mixed in on the sides. He wore brown leather shoes and khaki pants that were fraying a little around the hem. His badge number was 79134.
She’d made herself memorize it—79134.
“Tell me again everything that you saw.”
Why? She’d said it all already. It wasn’t going to change.
“Do it, JoJo. Tell him again.” Her father paced in the living room, stopping every once in a while at the chair where her mom sat so he could put his hand on her shoulder. It only made her mom cry harder.
“We were at the mall.”
“The strip mall on Springfield,” her mother interjected. “It’s where I dropped them off. They were supposed to go shopping, then call me to pick them up. They were supposed to stay there.”
The detective nodded, and turned to JoJo. “But you decided to leave the mall instead.”
“We wanted to see a movie. Two boys from our class were supposed to meet us there.” JoJo winced at the sound of her father hissing. “It wasn’t like a date or anything, Dad. They were just friends.”
JoJo and Julia were only fourteen. They had already been told by their parents over and over that they weren’t allowed to date until sixteen. Which was so stupid. All the freshman girls in high school already had boyfriends. They were, like, the only single girls in the class.
“Don’t worry about that,” the detective said. “Focus on what happened. You left the mall.”
“The theater was just up the street a few blocks. The movie was at three forty-five.” She remembered that stupid detail.
Three forty-five p.m. Why only that one?
“She was walking too slow. She always walked so slow. Then she stopped because her shoelace came undone.”
JoJo could see it clearly. She was nearly half a block ahead. Julia bent down on one knee tying her shoe as if they had all the time in the world. Which, of course, they didn’t because it was already three-forty. What if the movie had started when they got there? What if they couldn’t find Peter and Jake? Then the whole point of doing this would be for nothing.
JoJo shouted to her to hurry. But Julia flipped her the bird instead. It actually made JoJo smile.
“Then a car pulled up along the side of the road. It was silver. A minivan. The kind where the side door slides over.”
“Can you tell me the make? Was it a Toyota or a Ford?”
JoJo shook her head. She only knew the makes of cars she liked. MINI Coopers and Volkswagen bugs because they were cool. She knew the Subaru her mother drove and the Toyota her dad had driven for years. But they weren’t minivans. It didn’t help. Nothing she knew was helping.
“Then what happened?”
“The side door opened and this guy jumped out. It happened so fast. He just grabbed her from behind. Then she was screaming and he put her in the van.”
The tears that had been falling since she had watched her twin sister be dragged into that van came faster, but they wouldn’t help, either. She had to pull it together so she could tell the detective everything. It was the only way they would find her. Just like she’d told the people at the theater, and the first police officers who arrived at the scene and then her parents.
“He wore jeans. His hair was dark. I think he had a hoodie on, but I can’t be sure.”
“How could you tell what his hair color was if he was wearing a hoodie?”
“It wasn’t on his head. The hood was down. It was gray. I’m sure it was gray. You know, like a workout sweatshirt.” She just remembered that, which meant maybe there were other things she would remember. Something important that would bring Julia back.
“Then the van sped away. It made a U-turn in the middle of the street and was gone.”
“Did you see the driver?”
JoJo closed her eyes. “It was just a guy. I couldn’t really see. A shape behind the wheel, that’s it.”
“But you know that the person who grabbed your sister wasn’t driving the van.”
“Yes. It happened too fast. He grabbed her and the door was sliding closed and the car was moving.”
“Okay, Josephine...or can I call you JoJo?”
She shrugged. Whatever. She hated to be called Josephine. Julia sometimes did it to piss her off.
“I need you to really think. When the car drove away did you see the license plate?”
Everyone wanted to know that. They kept pushing her over and over again to think about it, visualize what the numbers and letters might have looked like. If she could just remember those numbers, then they could find Julia and everything would be all right.
Only she couldn’t.
“Think, JoJo!” her father shouted as he moved between her and the detective. “This is important. You have to think about what you saw and tell them the license. It’s her only hope.”
She lifted her face to her father. “I can’t remember. I didn’t see it. I don’t think... Maybe it didn’t have a front plate. It was fast and I was running to get her.”
“That’s not good enough!” he roared. “This is your sister’s life! Now think!” The blow to the side of her head knocked her off the couch.
“Jonathan!”
“No,” he barked at her mother. “She has to do this. You have to do this!”
“Sir, I know what you’re going through right now. But this isn’t the answer,” the detective said, purposefully keeping his voice even and steady.
JoJo lifted herself onto the couch with a ringing in her head. That was the first time her father had ever hit her. It was so weird.
“Tell them the license plate numbers. Tell them. If you can’t do this, it’s your fault what happens to her. Do you hear me?”
Her fault? Of course it was her fault. She’d wanted to go to the movies. She had a crush on Peter. Julia knew it, too. It was probably why she was being slow. She knew it would make JoJo crazy and Julia lived to make JoJo crazy.
It was what twins did.
