Always Yours

253 Pages·2016·0.88 MB·English

by  Walker Shiloh

Always Yours
By Shiloh Walker

One man, one woman, one bizarre dream which would change both of
their lives forever…
When a traitor leaves Army Ranger Dylan Kline paralyzed for months,
he figures life is just about over. Once more, he’s nobody. Then a woman
from his past comes back into his life and shows him a new purpose. Of
course, if he had listened to her months earlier, he may not have been
injured in the first place.
Dreams have plagued Kirsten Everess for most of her life. But she
was always too late—they never came in time for her to stop anything.
Until the dream about Dylan. Too bad he didn’t listen to her.
Now the couple has another chance at love, but danger is near. Will
Dylan listen to Kirsten’s warnings this time?
This novel has been previously published, but has been revised and
expanded.
Warning, this title contains the following: explicit sex, graphic
language, and violence.
eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an
infringement on the copyright of this work.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the
writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any
resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely
coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
512 Forest Lake Drive
Warner Robins, Georgia 31093

Always Yours
Copyright © 2007 by Shiloh Walker
Cover by Scott Carpenter
ISBN: 1-59998-498-9
www.samhainpublishing.com

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews.

First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: May 2007
Always Yours

Shiloh Walker
Always Yours
Chapter One
September
If there was one thing about Max Delacourte that Kris would
change…it was his hair.
Something about hair that short on a man, well, she just didn’t like
it. Kris imagined, if he grew it out long enough, those wavy golden brown
tresses would curl over her fingers just so.
Leaning over the table, she smiled at him as he poured more wine
into her glass and teased, “So…am I going to be invited to spend the
night?”
She quirked a brow. “You’re leaving on a plane in three hours,
soldier. What good would it do?” she said.
“Well, then I could take a raincheck,” he answered with a grin.
“Where you flying off to this time?” she asked. She bit back a sigh
when he arched his straight brown brows at her. He never told her where
he went. He was never able to.
“Sorry—terminal nosiness,” she said glibly, lifting one shoulder. Kris
took her wineglass and sipped, licking a drop from her lip before she set
it down. “You military boys can never tell us civilians much of anything.”
He cocked his head, studying her. “You sound as if you’ve known a
couple of military boys,” he murmured.
She shrugged and said softly, “Only one. A friend’s brother.” She
pushed thoughts of him out of her head and focused on the man in front
of her. “So…can you tell me when you have to leave? How long you’ll be
gone?”
He laughed. “Damn, you’re nosy. Leaving next week. Flying down to
see my family before I head out. And no…I can’t say how long I’ll be
gone,” he responded.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
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Shiloh Walker
His response to that was to lean over and catch it with his own,
tangling his hand in her hair and kissing her hungrily. She sighed and
leaned into him, thoughts of that other military boy fading into the back
of her mind.

(cid:90)(cid:87)(cid:90)(cid:87)

Later that night, Kris lay in bed, her sheets tangled around her body,
soaked with sweat while her heart pounded in slow, torturous beats
within her chest. Outside her window, the lights of New York City
drowned out the stars overhead and the ever mad rush of life pulsed on.
Within her dream, she was as far away from the glam and glitz of
New York City and her nice little condo as she was likely to get. Kris
stood in the corners of a primitive hut made of sticks and mud bricks,
hay stuffed between the cracks. Man… People really live like this… It
wasn't the important thing to be dwelling on. She knew that. But it was
better than the alternative.
There was death in the air tonight.
Betrayal.
Evil of the worst kind. The kind that knew it was evil and just plain
didn't care. As she stood in the corner, her hands closed into fists so
tight, her nails biting painful little circles into her flesh, Kris could see
him moving through the hut. He wore army fatigues, some kind of heavy
combat gear. She couldn’t see a damn thing to distinguish him, but she
sensed he was a deadly bastard.
All she could see were his pale colorless eyes. Those eyes were
soulless.
His gaze passed over the corner she stood in and she shivered, feeling
her heart stop in her chest.
Who are you… What meaning do you have in my life? she wanted to
ask him.
But then she knew, because the man who passed in front of her this
time was one she knew. She knew him well, since he had been all of
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Always Yours
fifteen and she had been twenty-two and fresh out of college. An eager
beaver junior editor, she had a job she had bullied her way into, using all
her family’s connections and all her sass, then worked to prove that she
was more than her father’s daughter and that she could damn well
succeed on her own, away from him.
It was Dylan Kline, his face as familiar to her as her own, even under
the grime of his face paint, and the fine coat of sweat. His mouth twisted
with hate as he moved through her, towards the man who stood behind
them.
Kris felt a ghostly chill race through her and she turned, staring at
them, just in time to see somebody from outside the shack lift a gun. She
screamed out Dylan’s name.
But he wouldn't hear her. As the gun fired, Kris jerked out of her
dream with a scream and stumbled out of the bed, her eyes wide, her
hair damp with sweat, and her thin camisole clinging to her.
Nausea roiled in her belly and she fought to push the nasty dream
out of her head.
But it wasn’t going any place.
She knew why.
It wasn’t a dream. It was fact. Or at least, it would be. If she couldn’t
do something to stop it. She rubbed at her gritty eyes with hands that
shook. Her legs wobbled as she made her way out of her bedroom and
into her office. She had his phone number. Or at least an old one. She’d
get in touch with him. Kris didn’t care if she had to stay up the rest of
the night.
It took an hour and a half, and numerous phone calls.
But she had come to accept one simple fact—it didn’t matter if she
did stay up all night. She could call everybody from Fort Bragg to the
Pentagon, and it would be a waste of time. She was not family.
They were not going to get a fucking message to Dylan Kline for her,
no can do, sorry, ma’am.
Well, that was okay, Kris thought with a tight smile. She knew who
was family.
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Shiloh Walker

(cid:90)(cid:87)(cid:90)(cid:87)

Dylan was having sweet dreams.
Very sweet dreams.
There had been one time…only once, but it had been close enough for
him to pretend there was something in Kris’s eyes beside aloofness.
That one time had fueled his dreams for years and tonight wasn’t
much different. He was dreaming about her again. It had been a picnic,
Labor Day weekend, at Nikki’s cabin, when it started pouring down rain
and they were caught under the trees by the lake, waiting for the rain to
let up. Either that or make a dash for it.
Her eyes had met his and lingered…just for a minute. They were both
wet from the rain, and he had been studying the front of her T-shirt. “I
didn’t know rich girls wore T-shirts,” he drawled.
“Well, I gave the maid a few days off and I haven’t done laundry,
slick,” she said, lifting a brow at him before returning her gaze back to
the rain and sighing, a movement that made that miraculous chest rise
and fall, drawing his attention to her hard, pebbled little nipples.
“Gasp…you know the ‘L’ word?”
“Bite me,” she said, rolling her eyes.
He surprised her when he crossed the grass and asked softly, “Can I?
Where?”
Her lids flickered and he watched as her tongue slid out, wetting her
lips. “It’s a saying, babe. You know, a sarcastic one, basically telling you
to—”
The rest of her words were muffled against his mouth as he lowered
his head and pressed his lips against her petal-soft mouth, very curious
to see how she would taste. Damn, he’d been dying for a taste for years.
The heat and the sun and a couple of beers, watching her all day was
enough to weaken his resolve.
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Always Yours
And that was where the dream differed from reality. In his bed, Dylan
rolled onto his back, his hand resting on his belly, while in his dream,
his hands came in and framed her face, holding her still. In reality, her
lips had parted under his for a second, one sweet, brief second…and
then the moment had been ruined as thunder cracked and the wind
started to whip around them.
But in his dream…he backed her up against the tree and he never
even questioned how it somehow became a bed. Or how her jean shorts
and damp shirt were replaced by black silk. Clichéd, maybe, but there
was something about a long, slim woman wearing black silk.
Just as he was peeling the black silk off of her, her lips parted—
ringing erupted from them.
His eyes flew open on a vicious curse and Dylan jackknifed out of
bed, wide-awake and hornier than hell. He grabbed the pager and stared
at the unknown number. Unknown, no emergency code, so he tossed the
pager down and rolled over, going back to sleep.
It had actually been a pretty sweet dream, almost—it almost felt real.
One day, he’d love to have that kiss followed by something more than his
dreams.

(cid:90)(cid:87)(cid:90)(cid:87)

Kris was pulling her hair by sunrise. He hadn’t called back. She
didn’t give a flying fuck if he didn’t know the number. Did he have the
decency to actually have a voicemail option?
Of course not.
The urgency in her gut grew—she had to talk him. Soon. Reaching for
the phone, she called Nikki again and prayed she wouldn’t get her head
ripped off.

(cid:90)(cid:87)(cid:90)(cid:87)

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Dylan growled into the phone this time as Nikki said in lieu of
greeting, “You know, the reason you carry a pager, is so when somebody
pages you, you can call them back.”
“No, really?”
“Smart ass,” she said. “Somebody called you this morning. She’s
waiting for you to call her back. I’d appreciate it if you’d call her so she’d
leave me alone.”
“I don’t return calls I don’t know,” he said dryly. “My big sister told
me never to talk to strangers.”
“It’s not a stranger. It’s Kris Everett,” Nikki said shortly. “She sounds
pretty…urgent. Call her. Got the number?”
“Why in the hell does she want to call me? I’m not one of her hotshot
writers. I’m tired. I want to go back to sleep.” He wouldn’t, though. No
matter how tired he was. Just thinking about Kris was enough to clear
the fog of sleep from his brain.
“I don’t know what she wants,” Nikki said. Her tone was sharp and
annoyed and starting to rise as she repeated, “Do you have the number?”
Dylan rolled his eyes. “Yes, mother. I have the number. Now can I go
back to sleep?”
“Not until after you call her.” Her voice softened. “Take care of
yourself, little brother.”
Dylan grunted into the phone before dropping it back into the cradle.
He’d call Kris later. Sleep wasn’t going to come any time soon, but he
couldn’t talk to Kris so close on the heels of the dream he’d had.
The phone rang again and he grabbed it. “What?” he demanded,
exasperated.
“Call her,” Nikki repeated. Then the line went dead.
“Brat,” he muttered. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and started to
put the phone down again. But if he did, his sister would just call again.
How she’d know that he hadn’t called Kris, Dylan wasn’t sure. But she’d
know.
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