Edge Midnight

by Jenkins Beverly

• ISBN13: 9780060540661
• ISBN10: 0060540664
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-05-03
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

Blackboard bestselling author Beverly Jenkins launches her first contemporary romantic suspense with this exciting sizzler. Sparks fly when Mykal Chandler, the head of a covert government agency, fights to protect the woman he has fallen in love with. Sarita Grayson is desperate. That's the only explanation for her late night rendezvous with a bag of stolen diamonds. But then a handsome stranger stands between her and a clean getaway. In the struggle for freedom, she accidentally shoots him.Mykal Chandler, head of a covert government agency NIA, can't believe he's been shot. He's shocked, he's furious, but he's also attracted to this sassy woman. Unfortunately, Sarita has stumbled unto a smuggling plot and he'll need to protect her, even if he has to kidnap her to do it. But Sarita isn't one to go quietly into the night...

Excerpts

The Edge of Midnight

Chapter One

Detroit, Michigan
October 2003

Shivering with cold, thirty-three-year-oldSarita Grayson walked over to the worn peacoat hanging on a nail behind her desk andput it on. Even though it was only mid-October, thetemperature inside her office in the old warehousefelt like below freezing. During the day, if the sun wasout, being inside the drafty old eyesore wasn't toobad, but once evening rolled around, the temperaturedropped like a stone, and cold ruled. The building'sancient heating system was kept running with ducttape, hairpins, and prayer. It was two-faced, however,and would cut off at a moment's notice, so Sarita andher staff didn't like turning it on until the weatheroutside made it absolutely necessary.

She blew on her hands to keep them warm, thendug through the mountain of papers atop her lop-sideddesk looking for the notice from the city. Shepicked it up and read it again for maybe the fiftieth time since it had arrived in the mail three days earlier.The words had not changed. Block red letters,three inches high screamed eviction proceedingsacross the top like a tabloid headline. The day it arrivedthe shock had paralyzed her. Even now, herhands shook a bit. She and her people had been usingthis abandoned warehouse for many years,working hard to transform the abandoned hulkingstructure into the hub of the struggling communitysurrounding it. The space offered the children a safeenvironment in which to learn and play and gavethe senior citizens a place where they could meetand stay connected to life and the neighborhood.

But now, because the city wanted to auction offthe property, they were being threatened witheviction.

The building had originally housed a food distributioncompany. After the owners moved the operationto the suburbs back in the early eighties, it satempty, attracting gang graffiti, rats, and crackheads.One summer night in 1990, the local Baptist churchdown the street caught fire and burned to theground. Having no place for the congregation toworship, Pastor Otis Washington and the elders approachedthe city about moving into the vacantbuilding temporarily until money could be raisedfor a new church. The city gave its permission onthe condition that if the building were sold, thechurch would move its services and neighborhoodprograms elsewhere. Washington and the congregationagreed. The new church was built, but the out-reachprograms dedicated to kids, seniors, andunwed mothers remained housed in the old warehouse.Because of all the neighborhood crack and crime, neither the city nor the congregation envisionedanyone's buying the place.

Obviously, times had changed; the city received abid for the property two weeks ago. Sarita hadtaken over the running of the William LambertCommunity Center after Pastor Washington's deathin 1998, and if she could come up with the money tomatch the seventeen-thousand-dollar offer, then sheand her people could stay -- if not, they were on thestreet. How in the world the city expected her tocome up with that much cash, and in six days noless, was beyond her.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight ofSilas Devine sticking his gray head in the doorway.After the death of Sarita's grandmother and great-uncles,Silas had become the elder in her life. She loved him dearly.

"Afternoon, General," he said to her.

It was his pet name for her, and she gave him asmile. "Afternoon, Silas. How are you?"

"I'm okay. Any luck?"

She knew he was talking about the seventeen-thousand-dollar dilemma. She shook her head. "Sofar, nothing."

Silas was her right-hand man. He looked after theplumbing, mowed the grass, helped out with drivingthe homebound seniors wherever they neededto go; anything Sarita needed, Silas did. He was alsothe only person she'd told about the eviction notice.

"Something will come up," he said confidently."This place is too important to shut down. You'llsee."

Sarita agreed with him on the Lambert Center'simportance to the neighborhood, but wasn't sure the city officials who'd sent the eviction notice feltthe same way. "How's the van this morning?"

Their donated van was fifteen years old and on itslast legs. It needed a new engine, muffler, andstruts, and the floor was almost rusted through; but,somehow, Silas kept it running.

"It woke up in a pretty good mood," he told her."Started right up."

They shared a grin, and Silas added, "I'm on myway to take Mrs. Black over to the train station soshe can get to Chicago for her brother's funeral."

"Okay. I'll see you when you get back."

He nodded, then studied her silently for a moment,before saying, "Don't give up. Somewhere upin heaven, Pastor Washington and that grandmammaof yours are all pulling strings. We'll getthrough this, I know we will."

She shook her head in agreement, but in reality,didn't share his optimism.

After his departure, Sarita got up from her cluttereddesk and walked over to look out of her small,wire-screened window. The center's uncertain futurefilled her with a sense of helplessness that wastotally out of character. In the years she'd been incharge, she'd always, always been able to effectsome change in a seemingly unsolvable situation -- able to do a fast shuffle here, call in a favor there tokeep the ship afloat, but this time she wasn't so sure.School had let out about an hour ago, and out of heroffice window she could see the children playingdown below on the cracked, broken pavement ofthe building's parking lot ...

The Edge of Midnight. Copyright © by Beverly Jenkins. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from The Edge of Midnight by Beverly Jenkins
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