Claimed by Him Read online

  I know there are things in your past that you don’t want to share, and I respect your privacy. I haven’t gone snooping. I like to think that if we had more time together, you would have eventually trusted me with some of those secrets, and maybe you would have taken some advice. Since we didn’t have that time, I’ll ask for some leeway when it comes to telling you something that I wish I would have figured out when I was your age.

  Don’t be afraid to live the life you’ve always wanted.

  It doesn’t matter if that life is being single and running a private investigation firm, or getting married and being a stay-at-home mom. Go back to college or become an apprentice. Make friends or be a loner. Find a man, a woman, or both. The opportunities are endless.

  Don’t allow fear of your past, or of your future, keep you from reaching that potential.

  I swallowed hard, a painful lump in my throat.

  Now, for a few final things.

  Don’t let Wendy Mikelson weasel her way out of payments. She knows that she doesn’t get a frequent customer discount. If she has a problem paying the bill, remind her that she can always ask her son to tell her where he’s going at all times rather than having us follow him.

  Don’t take any cases from Hiram Whitehouse. He believes that aliens impregnate his chickens every few months. He’s harmless and I don’t like taking money from him for his flights of fancy so I just suggest he take any suspicious eggs to his vet. Orville knows all about the alien chickens and doesn’t mind turning them into omelets.

  When the bathroom sink gets plugged up, before you call a plumber, use the wrench in the tool box to take off the bottom pipe. It’ll save you sixty bucks even if it makes you curse.

  Go to at least one Rams game and mingle with the locals. Become a part of the community, even if you’re an introverted one.

  And, finally, I believe in you, kid. I’m just sorry I won’t be around to see everything you’re going to accomplish.

  Love, Adare

  I set the letter back on the desk and rubbed the backs of my hands across my cheeks. I’d always known that life wasn’t fair – when your father murdered your mother and two other people, and left you literally scarred for life, the world being unfair was sort of a given – but thinking about how my father was still alive while Adare was dead really drove the point home.

  I’d wanted to become an FBI agent to make a difference, to protect people the way I hadn’t been able to protect my mother. When I’d gotten kicked out of the academy for lying about changing my name and about my father’s murder conviction, I’d felt like I’d failed my mother. Becoming a PI hadn’t been part of the plan at all. Then the case Jalen had brought me ended up leading to the arrests of several human traffickers and the rescue of several teenage girls. That had made a difference.

  Maybe I could make my mother proud and do what Adare had asked of me and run Burkart Investigations. I’d probably still have to take cases like lost pets or following possibly cheating spouses, but I could find other cases too.

  In fact, I realized suddenly, I already knew someone who worked important cases with the FBI even though she wasn’t an agent. Jenna Archer. The victim of a childhood horrific enough to make my family look like the Bradys, Jenna was a computer genius and she’d helped FBI agent Raymond Matthews take down several human trafficking and child pornography rings. Oddly enough, Agent Matthews was Clay’s partner, both of them working out of the Denver office.

  All these pieces of my life had come together in a way that I’d never expected, never could have predicted. If I was someone who believed in destiny or fate, I might’ve thought that was what was happening here, but I’d seen too much shit to want to believe that there was some higher power or higher reason making things happen.

  I preferred to think that the accident that had turned my loving father into a murderous monster had been just that. A serious of circumstances and events, results of choices or of completely happenstance. Why would I want to believe that there had been a reason for my mother being brutally murdered? For Jenna being pimped out by her own mother? For my uncle being shot to death?

  I shook my head. Too many maudlin thoughts. I’d come here happier than I’d been since I was a kid, and I wanted that back.

  Work. That’s what I needed to focus on. Get back to the entire reason I’d come here to begin with. Keeping my promise to Adare.

  Even though we’d – I’d – been closed for two weeks, I did have a case to work on while I waited for others to come in.

  I’d met Jenna on a case. She’d hired me to find the half-brothers and sisters that her mother had given up or had taken from her. I’d gathered some information about them already, but between Adare’s hospitalization and death, and then my needing to go back to Indiana for my father’s new trial, things had been on hold. Now, it was time to pick them back up again.

  Fortunately, my white board was still against the far wall, turned around to prevent clients from seeing personal information, and everything I’d put on it before was still there.

  I walked across the office and turned the board so I could refresh my memory. At the top was Jenna’s mother. I’d listed all of the aliases I’d been able to find, including what I knew of which name Jenna’s mother used for the different births, and the approximate years each child was born. I still had a lot of blanks to fill, and I intended to work my ass off to give Jenna a chance to know siblings who might end up being a part of her life.

  I’d focus on the kids who were born after Helen Kingston’s arrest and induction into Witness Protection, mostly because that was the research I could do around here. In another one of those strange twists that I kept seeing, Helen had been sent from Florida to Cheyenne, Wyoming…where she ended up being far too close to Jenna. It was a fuck up of epic proportions on the part of the US Marshals; one that had almost gotten Jenna killed a few years ago.

  But, there was one positive to her having been that close. If – no, when – I found her siblings, they’d be close enough for them to have a relationship if they wanted it. The older ones would be more difficult to locate, but if there was a way to find them, I’d do it.

  I couldn’t change what Jenna had been through, but I could do this for her.

  End of preview. CLICK HERE to pre-order Played by Him now.

  Also by M. S. Parker

  His Obsession

  His Control

  His Hunger

  His Secret

  Sex Coach

  Big O’s (Sex Coach 2)

  Pleasure Island (Sex Coach 3)

  Rescued by the Woodsman

  The Billionaire’s Muse

  Bound

  One Night Only

  Damage Control

  Take Me, Sir

  Make Me Yours

  The Billionaire’s Sub

  The Billionaire’s Mistress

  Con Man Box Set

  HERO Box Set

  A Legal Affair Box Set

  The Client

  Indecent Encounter

  Dom X Box Set

  Unlawful Attraction Box Set

  Chasing Perfection Box Set

  Blindfold Box Set

  Club Prive Box Set

  The Pleasure Series Box Set

  Exotic Desires Box Set

  Casual Encounter Box Set

  Sinful Desires Box Set

  Twisted Affair Box Set

  Serving HIM Box Set

  Pure Lust Box Set

  About the Author

  M. S. Parker is a USA Today Bestselling author and the author of over fifty spicy romance series and novels.

  Living part-time in Las Vegas, part-time on Maui, she enjoys sitting by the pool with her laptop writing her next spicy romance.

  Growing up all she wanted to be was a dancer, actor and author. So far only the latter has come true but M. S. Parker hasn’t retired her dancing shoes just yet. She is still waiting for the call to appear on Dancing With The Stars.

  When M. S. isn't writ
ing, she can usually be found reading– oops, scratch that! She is always writing.

  For more information:

  www.msparker.com

  [email protected]

  Acknowledgments

  First, I would like to thank all of my readers. Without you, my books would not exist. I truly appreciate each and every one of you.

  A big THANK YOU goes out to all the Facebook fans, street team, beta readers, and advanced reviewers. You are a HUGE part of the success of all my series.

  Also thank you to my editor Lynette, my proofreader Nancy, and my wonderful cover designer, Sinisa. You make my ideas and writing look so good.