By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Dale Mayer

Welcome to Harrison’s Heart, book 7 in Heroes for Hire, reconnecting readers with the unforgettable men from SEALs of Honor in a new series of action-packed, page turning romantic suspense that fans have come to expect from USA TODAY Bestselling author Dale Mayer.

When a call for help comes from Ice’s father, Harrison steps up. A senator has been shot, his wife beaten and his kids are in the wind. It’s up to Harrison to find the answers everyone is looking for.

Including finding the senator’s ex-military and pissed at the world daughter. Only she doesn’t want anything to do with him.

Zoe is on a mission. There’s no room in her world for heroes – especially not Harrison. But he won’t take no for an answer. Only Zoe has angered the wrong people, and they won’t stop until they put an end to her meddling or better yet – to her.

With so much going on, Harrison struggles to pull the pieces together – before their world is completely blown apart – permanently.

A Senator’s been shot, his wife severely beaten and in Ice’s father’s hospital, their adult children are no where to be found, yet both were at dinner around the time of the shooting.

This time it’s Harrison who’s assigned, He’s got a bit of cabin fever with all the couples around him. His job is to find the daughter Zoe and see what she might know.

He doesn’t have that much trouble finding her, but their exchange is interesting and fun when he catches up to her.

This is a favorite scene.

She didn’t recognize the man at all. But that didn’t mean much. He could be hired muscle. She also didn’t know if he was connected to either her father’s shooting or her mother’s beating.

As he watched her coming toward him, he straightened and shifted back farther. But his eyes were those of a predator.

She was no man’s prey.

She looked at the hot coffee in her hand. She really wanted to enjoy it, not waste it by having to throw it at him. She glanced around for other options. She wasn’t very good on that whole idea of ignoring things in life. She already had evidence of that. She lowered the bag with the sandwiches along her far side. As she walked closer, she slipped the bag over her wrist and lifted the lid off the coffee. She could almost hear Benji on the other side of the street saying, “Don’t do it, girlie. Don’t do it.”

She walked up to the stranger and said, “Making sure you aren’t here to cause trouble.”

He stepped back and raised his hands. “Whoa, crazy lady. I’m not doing anything.”

She smiled. “Yeah, you better believe it. Get the hell out of here and don’t come back. You’ve got three seconds to move, or you’ll have this boiling hot coffee all over you.”

Instead of taking off, he got ugly and stepped forward. “I don’t take orders from you.”

She didn’t give him three seconds before before the hot coffee went fully in his face. As he screamed, she turned and walked past, deliberately giving him her back. That added to the insult of being bested by a woman. She tossed the empty cup in another trash bin and strolled on, as if not giving a damn.

At the church up ahead, she sat on the steps, pulled out one of her sandwiches and proceeded to take a bite. She could see him rubbing his face and swearing. She was a good fifty yards away. But she’d made him. Benji had too. And how interesting was that? Blind and yet, he could still spot trouble. She owed him one.

Something she couldn’t afford to let happen again. Assholes like this guy … well, the world was a better place without them. As she munched away at her sandwich, a stranger walked up and sat beside her. He had two cups of coffee in his hands. He held one out.

She stared at it and then at him. No alarm bells went off. Not yet anyway. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll throw that at you?”

“If you really feel you should. However, as I mean you no harm, why would you?”

She glared at him. But dammit, she wanted that coffee. She took it, popped off the top and realized it was black—the way she liked it. “Who the hell are you?”

“The name’s Harrison. I work for Legendary Security.”

She froze. “Isn’t that Levi’s company?”

Startled, he turned to face her, his huge blue eyes staring at her.

Eyes completely at odds with the rest of him.

He shook his head. “How do you know Levi’s group?”

“Don’t know them. Heard of them.”

He nodded once. “Levi’s done well.”

She curled her lip. “So they say. Doesn’t mean I believe everything I hear.”

“Good thing.” He took the lid off his cup. It was black too.

She set hers between her legs and proceeded to finish her sandwich. She glanced at the man she’d attacked. He remained against the wall, glaring at her. Why was he still here? He had to be waiting for somebody. No other reason for him to stay put at this point. The game was up. She glanced around to see who might have come to his aid, realizing it could easily be the man beside her. “You with him?”

He chuckled. “Hell, no. If it had been me, you’d never see me coming.”

“Is that why you approached me here? So while my attention was on him, you could sneak up on the other side?”

He shook his head. “Levi doesn’t hire fools. Has no time for failures.”

“Well, we agree on something,” she muttered.

“What the hell is Zoe Branson doing on the streets and using a blind man as an alarm system?”

She stiffened. She didn’t know who the hell this Harrison was, but that he knew her name had her already contemplating her options. She could run straight across the street, disappear in the alley on the far side. But he looked fit and quite possibly could outrun her.

She could throw the hot coffee in his face and bolt, but she figured he’d probably run after her and catch her before she was gone. She could pull a few martial arts tactics, jump the railing and bolt, but she suspected he had a few of his own. She stared at the last bite of sandwich left in her hand. It tasted like sawdust now. Deciding she needed the energy anyway, she finished it, chewing long and hard, then looked at the sandwich still in her bag. “Who the hell are you really?”

“I’m really Harrison. And I really work for Legendary Security.”

“How did you track me down, and why the hell do you give a damn?”

“Not sure I do. I get paid either way.”

His tone was aloof, but humor threaded through it. She took umbrage at the latter. She had had nothing to laugh at in so long …

“Besides, I didn’t have much problem finding you. It’s what I do, and I’m damn good at it.”

She was prepared to blast him again when he turned, piercing her with those blue eyes and said, “And I’m here really for your mother’s sake.”

That shut her up. God she’d been panicked to find out about her mother’s condition. How could this man know? And could she believe him? “How is she?”

“In and out of consciousness. I understand the damage is severe but not life-threatening.”

“I don’t even know where she is,” she whispered, pain in her tone. She had to watch out for those kinds of emotion. The last thing she wanted was for anybody to know her mom was her weakness.

He held out his hand, palm up. “I can take you to see her if you want.”

She stared at that hand and wondered at herself. She was contemplating placing her hand in his. But that would signify trust. That was like holding out an olive branch and having somebody accept it. Everything was symbolic about this. He was asking a lot of her. The stranger seemed to know so much about her, and she knew nothing of him.

With childlike movements, she put her hands on the step and sat on them. He laughed out loud. And she knew he understood exactly what she’d done and why.

But he left his hand where it was and said, “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Hell, no.” She shook her head. “I’m no fool.”

“You’re not, but you are in trouble.”

“Am not.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and in a singsong voice, he matched her words with “Am too.”

She sagged in place. “I can’t go. Someone might follow me there and hurt her. Nobody can know where I am.”

“I didn’t say anybody would know where you were going. I offered to take you to see your mom.”

“And then what?”

“I can return you to these church steps if that’s what you want.”

“Like I trust you.”

His smile, when it came, was slow and sweet. “You should trust somebody. You can’t be alone for the rest of your life.”

“Can too,” she snapped, right back into that childish voice.

He chuckled. “You could try. But it’s not who you are. A lot of anger is inside you. Maybe even hatred. Not too sure what happened to make you who you are today, but the woman from a few years ago, she wasn’t about being alone. She wasn’t about forging her own path, kicking tires along the way.
Mayer, Dale. Heroes for Hire: Books 7-9 (pp. 24-28). Valley Publishing Ltd.. Kindle Edition.

Now a lot of people want to talk to Zoe, but she’s having difficulty understanding she’s in danger. Her brother is also missing but they don’t get along so it’s anyone’s guess.

I love Trish (Zoe’s Mom), she and Richard at one time had been an item, but she went for the money and power instead of the surgeon. I really hope these two will get together.

Harrison sticks to Zoe like glue and does manage to get her to stay at Richard’s at least until they figure everything out.

Plenty of twists and turns, suspense and family drama as Harrison and Zoe slowly become more than just friendly.

I am already starting the next book in this series, I can’t seem to stop myself.

5 Contented Purrs for Dale!

Dale Mayer

Dale Mayer is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her Psychic Visions and Family Blood Ties series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Second Chances, SKIN), her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life and Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy series).

She honors the stories that come to her – and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and cross multiple genres!

To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.