Page 22 of Acting on Instinct
Kira’s memories floated her back to their first days. She’d interacted with Ty briefly when he saved Princess Beatrice from getting run over by a car. Bea was her best friend, London’s King Charles spaniel that Kira had been dog-sitting.
When Ty brought Bea safely back to Kira’s arms, they didn’t exchange names. They didn’t have a conversation. Still, Kira thought she’d sensed a connection with the man.
She wanted to believe that.
Kira’s doctorate focused on 19th-century romance novels. And she could hope for those lyrical scenarios to play out in her own life.
Why not?
The dashing hero, the clever heroine, a meeting of the minds, and then the bodies.
If people could imagine it on paper, there was no reason to think that it didn’t exist somewhere in the world.
Why not for her?
The next morning, Kira had woken up with a plan fully formed. If she went to the same coffee shop at the same time and sat in the same seat as before, maybe Beatrice’s protector might show up, looking for them. “And wouldn’t it be a shame if I wasn’t there waiting?” she’d asked herself.
So she had dressed for the occasion.
And the guy didn’t show up.
In her disappointment, Kira had taken Beatrice on her normal walk, just following her normal patterns, and that was when the norm shattered.
She was thinking of Ty when she felt strange. Tinnitus rang in her ears. She looked around and saw nothing that should attract her attention. She’d felt—“watched” wasn’t a big enough word. “Stalked” got her a little closer to the right description.
Kira had tried to push the sensation away, thinking it was disappointment over not seeing that guy, possibly love at first sight. If not love, it was certainly lust.
And she wondered if she’d ever see him again or if she’d missed her great opportunity.
But then came her red flag signals. Along with the tinnitus, there was that obnoxious buzzing at the tip of her nose.
Turning, Kira saw a rottweiler racing into her path, growling at Princess Beatrice.
Horrified, Kira snatched Bea up into her arms.
But the rottweiler’s prey drive had throttled up as he closed the distance.
Out of the mist came Ty and Rory, leaping the fence like the heroes they were.
Back in the beginning, Kira had written in her journal that in the park when Ty and Rory leaped into the fray, she’d felt peaceful and cared for. The look in Ty’s eyes—that intense alpha protection that shifted away to leave warmth and gentleness, gentlemanliness—it was something out of one of her beloved novels.
It was perfect.
It was a scene a writer would conjure on a page.
This scene was, in fact, written, not by an author but by her dear friend Lula LaRoe.
As Kira would eventually discover, Lula, the great manipulator, also went by the moniker Johnna White when she wore her CIA hat.
And Kira had been Lula’s unwitting asset all along.
Ty and Rory, as it turned out, were under Lula’s command. But in this dog attack scenario, Ty didn’t know that they had been set up. He was acting out of courage and protection. Which was exactly what Lula wanted to happen.
Lula needed for Ty and Kira to fall in love.
And they did.
Oh, boy, did they.
