Sworn to Protect Read online

  I should probably get them to install one at Olive’s house. A little extra security would go a long way for me right now.

  3

  Jeremy

  Come on, Night. Last mile.” My feet dig into the sand as I enter the final stretch of my six-mile run.

  The midnight-black Cane Corso grunts, his blocky head bobbing as he puts on a burst of speed. Little devil always gets competitive on the last mile. At 110 pounds, Night is a blue-eyed mass of solid canine muscle. He wants to beat me every time. With a chuckle, I put on the burners, keeping up with him as we sprint along the beach. Doesn’t matter how bad my lungs burn, how tingly my leg muscle become, my dog will not beat me on a run. Ever.

  The early Monday morning surf brushes over my bare feet as they kick up clumps of packed sand, and I glance out over the horizon. The morning is dawning clear and bright, and knowing I have the whole day ahead of me to do what I want is invigorating.

  Ghost and I returned from Miami on Friday, and the general rule around the office is that we take the next workday off after a mission completion. So today is all mine, and I have plans to do some training exercises with Night, grocery shop, and head out on my boat.

  Perfect day off.

  I drop Night off at home and rinse off in the shower before setting off to the health foods market. The only one in Wilmington is about fifteen minutes away from my house in the downtown area, but it’s worth the drive. Cooking is what I love to do when I’m not training or sneaking around undercover, and buying the best farm-to-table ingredients has become kind of an obsession for me.

  On a Monday morning, just a week before the kids will be heading back to school, the market is packed with frazzled moms getting ready to prepare school lunches and meals for busy families. Not many dudes shopping in this store, but that’s okay with me.

  I scan each aisle, grabbing items from the shelves and bins and throwing them into my cart, checking them off my list as I go.

  White Asparagus, check.

  Lemons, check.

  Whole-grain hoagie rolls, check.

  My eyes drift to the long, bare legs of the woman beside me in the bread aisle. She bends over a bin, rummaging through it, searching for the bread she wants. Her denim cutoffs, already short enough for her ripe, round cheeks to peek out from underneath, calls me to attention. I swallow, a slow grin curling over my mouth.

  I’m about to open my mouth to speak to her when a Nerf football lands in my cart. Snapping my mouth shut, I grab the small yellow ball and study it. I search the aisle, and it clicks into place when a small boy jogs toward me, his face glowing with mischief and excitement.

  “Sorry, mister,” he says with a grin.

  Little monster isn’t sorry! I can’t hide my own grin as I grip the soft ball and raise my arm.

  “Catch,” I say before tossing the ball in his direction.

  It spirals in the air, arcing toward him, but it’s a little high. The kid jumps, reaching for it. He snatches it out of the air.

  “Nice!” I push my cart over to where the kid landed. “Good catch.”

  His dark hair falls into his eyes, eyes that are just as startling a shade of green as mine are, and he pats the ball with his other hand as he smiles up at me.

  Cute kid.

  “Dude!” he exclaims. “Do you play football? That was a perfect pass.”

  His eyes are alight as he sizes me up. He takes in my height and build, which come from constant training exercises at Night Eagle and the daily runs on the beach. There’s interest in the kid’s eyes, like he’s hoping I’ll tell him I play for the Carolina Panthers or something.

  “Played in high school a little bit, kid.” It’s partially true. I did play football in high school here in Wilmington, but it was more than just a little bit.

  I lived and breathed the sport. Thought pro ball would be the path my life would take me down until that fateful day during my senior year when everything changed. My whole life as I knew it became a lie, and the only thing I wanted to do when I graduated was leave it all behind. Joining the army did that for me, it gave me the escape I needed.

  The kid’s eyes light up. “Cool. You were lucky. My mom won’t let me play.”

  Staring down at him, I offer my most sympathetic smile. “I’m sure she’s just trying to look out for you.”

  Glancing around the store, I see that the kid’s still alone in the aisle. “So where is your mom?”

  A twitch of concern pulls at me. I’m not really a “kid” guy because I haven’t been around them much. But I don’t want this one to end up on the evening news.

  The kid grins. “I’m here with a friend. Gotta go!”

  He lifts a hand in a wave, turns, and is gone, disappearing around the corner to another aisle, and I’m left by myself in the bread aisle.

  No cutoffs girl to keep me company, either.

  That’s a bummer.

  Pushing my cart through the store, I finish my grocery shopping and leave the health foods market.

  But as I’m loading up my Land Cruiser with grocery bags the full force of the meeting with that little boy, a complete stranger to me, barrels into me. A flashback of me, begging my grandfather as a little boy to come outside and play football with me. My grandfather, refusing every single time because he was too busy running an empire to play with the grandson he was saddled with. Me, wishing every single night that instead of being raised by my grandfather, I could have been raised by a dad who loved me, and wanted to play with me. Me wishing that my parents hadn’t died in a plane crash when I was only three years old.

  I haven’t thought about any of that for years. The discipline of the Rangers helped me learn to block it out, and the force of the swirling thoughts resurfacing now is almost enough to bring me to my knees.

  I sink into the driver’s seat of my car, staring blankly ahead of me.

  Damn. I haven’t thought about any of that in so long. Why now?

  I wish, more than anything at that moment, I had an answer to that question.

  I spend the rest of Monday afternoon out on my boat. Right behind my job and Night, the Havoc is my third love. I bought the twenty-two-foot Moomba when I retired from the army. The boat, just like the historical house I bought and renovated, fulfills an emptiness in me I’ve never been ready to address. So, for now, I let the adventure the boat brings fill me up.

  I bring Grisham with me, and we take turns driving the boat while the other wakeboards. Before I knew Grisham as well as I do now, I would have assumed the prosthetic foot he earned when his Humvee was bombed in Syria a few years ago would have limited him. But he never lets it slow him down. The dude is a natural in the water, and he’s still damn fast on land. When I finally come off the water for the last time, wet, limbs heavy with exertion, but grinning my face off, I grab my phone and check it. The boat floats gently in the ocean surf, the shade from the dock cover making my screen bright.

  I let out a chuckle when I read Ronin’s message, and Grisham glances at me as he’s loading his towel into a bag.

  “What?”

  I point to my phone. “It’s Swagger.” A wide grin spreads across my face. “Says there’s a new chick working the desk at the office. Says she’s fine.”

  “Oh, shit. You two gonna do this again?” He leans against the leather seat, crossing his arms across his chest. A cocky-ass grin spreads across his face.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I get ready to step off the boat, pointedly pretending I don’t know what he’s getting at.

  “Yeah…right. You’re coming from behind, though. I wonder if Ronin has proposed yet.” Grisham’s having a hard time keeping his laughter at bay, his eyes narrowing as he tries to keep a straight face.

  I hop to the dock, turning back to face him as I shake my head. “Don’t be jealous just because we’re still single and you’re about to be on lockdown.”

  Grisham groans, jumping down with his bag on his shoulder. “You two are idiots.”
/>
  I glance off into the distance. “Wonder if I can get him to send me a pic.”

  Grisham snorts, heading down the dock. “Sure. Ask him to. That way she’ll think of him as a perv, and the road is paved for you tomorrow when we get back to work.”

  My mouth forms a slow smile, admiring Grisham’s genius. “That idea is the best one you’ve ever had, Ghost.”

  His expression turns to disbelief. “I was kidding, you asshole!”

  Grabbing my towel and wrapping it around my shoulders, I grab the straps of my duffle and follow my teammate off the Havoc. “Still a damn good idea.”

  As we stroll to our cars, Grisham shoots me a glance. “Seriously, though. Not a good idea. Dare told me this girl knows Berkeley somehow. So she probably isn’t up for grabs. Not for you, anyway.”

  I raise an offended eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Grisham opens the door to his Jeep, throwing his stuff in before glancing back at me. “It means you like to love ’em and leave ’em, and she’s not the type. Plus we have to work with her.”

  I brush him off. “All the assistants the boss has hired have been temporary. He can’t trust anyone since the incident with Kyle, and…”

  I trail off when Grisham’s eyes darken and his face turns scarlet. It doesn’t matter that almost a year has gone by since his now the psycho assistant who used to work at Night Eagle attacked his fiancée. The dude is in prison now, but the thought of him sends Grisham into a rage.

  “Don’t mention his name to me, Brains.”

  I hold up both hands in surrender. “Yeah, man. I’m sorry. What I meant to say was…assistants are always from a temp agency. This one won’t be any different.”

  Grisham’s face returns to its normal color. “Yeah. Maybe. All I know is that Dare says she’s a friend. So you know what that means.”

  Sighing heavily, I open the door to the Land Cruiser. “Yeah. It means I can’t touch her. But…at least Swagger can’t, either.”

  The next morning I drive past the brick, nondescript building where Night Eagle is housed, pull into the lot at the end of the block, and get out of my car. Arriving at the same time that I am, Ronin calls out to me.

  “Man, today is gonna suck for you. I beat you to meeting the new girl yesterday, who’s hot, and I definitely won her over.”

  Grinding to a halt, I face him. “Bullshit.”

  His grin falters for just a second, and that’s all the time it takes for me to turn around and saunter toward the office.

  When I pull the door open, the black-haired girl behind the desk in the lobby has her head down, studying something in a manila folder.

  But her hair…so black it’s almost blue. Long, thick, and flowing down around her shoulders. The first thought that flies through my head is the rules. I don’t surround myself with raven-haired women. They fuck with my head.

  And those shoulders…exposed to me because of her sleeveless shirt, I can see that they’re slim and delicately curved, like the tantalizing line of her neck.

  “Fuck me,” I mutter. That hair, that slim, lithe frame…

  So similar.

  “Hey, Rayne.” Ronin’s blown in the door behind me, and he greets the woman sitting at the desk by name.

  A name that punches awareness through my system hard enough to make my knees buckle. With one hand, I grab onto the doorframe to hold myself up.

  And then she glances up, a smile on her face that evaporates when she locks eyes with me.

  No.

  Eyes the color of the sky just before morning, the darkest, and truest blue. Eyes that, once they lock on me, widen with recognition and…what? Disbelief? Definitely that. But there’s also a note of longing, and then they narrow with what can only be contempt.

  She pushes up from her desk, sending the folder with papers in it flying, and takes two quick steps backward. She bumps into the wall behind her, her body jerking to a stop.

  It’s a body that hasn’t changed much in the nine years since I’ve seen it. She’s still tall, long, and lean. But the changes that have occurred, they’re sending my own body into overdrive faster than my mind can catch up to what’s happening. Lush, shapely hips flow outward at her waist, making the tight black skirt she’s wearing look as if it’s painted on. There’s a hot flush forming on her cheeks, flowing down to her chest, turning her olive skin dusky. My eyes follow the flush of color, falling into the valley between her perfectly swollen tits.

  It’s exactly the same as the girl I last saw when I was eighteen. Only now…holy hell. The girl I knew is a woman. The most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.

  I’m frozen in the doorway, Ronin giving me a shove so he can get around me. Standing beside me, he glances from Rayne, to me, and back again.

  Her mouth opens and closes twice before she finds her voice. “Jeremy.”

  I take a step forward, and then another one, stopping when every visible muscle in her body tenses at my approach.

  “So, you two know each other?” Ronin sounds amused.

  This can’t be happening. I don’t want to see her right now…I can’t handle it. She’s not supposed to be here.

  I’m. Not. Prepared. For. This.

  But my body isn’t responding the way my brain is. I can’t force my feet to walk away from the woman who haunts my dreams. Nor can I turn my eyes from the face of the person I once loved.

  My heart rate kicks up, pounding like it’s fighting to break free from my chest. My stomach twists like I’m gonna be sick, the taste of the breakfast I cooked this morning coming back up my throat in a sour bile. My whole body breaks into a sweat, the same way it did when I ran six miles on the beach this morning.

  When her name grinds out of my mouth, it sounds like I’ve been swallowing razor blades.

  “Rayne?”

  4

  Rayne

  Oh God.

  My name has never sounded like that. Not since…since him.

  Jeremy Teague stands before me, looking so much like the boy I used to know. With several significant changes.

  He’s always been tall enough to fit me underneath the crook of his arm, for my head to fall against his chest when we were snugged up on the couch. And now that height is all filled out with…muscle. Lots and lots of muscle. Big, broad shoulders. Brawny biceps with scrolling tattoos swirling around the sinewy muscles. Sexy-as-sin, corded forearms that look as if he could pick me up and toss me over his shoulder on a whim.

  The boy I left had his golden-brown hair cut in an almost-buzz. But this man standing before me has his long locks pulled up into the sexiest man-bun I’ve ever seen.

  I’m not even the kind of woman who likes man-buns!

  And I’m for damn sure that underneath that tight gray T-shirt, there’s drool-worthy, washboard abs and rock-hard pecs just waiting to be stroked.

  Closing my eyes, I curse, “Damn it straight to hell.”

  When I open them again, Jeremy Teague is still standing there, now staring at me with a wide-eyed, shocked look. Ronin, who I met yesterday, stands beside him, watching the both of us with an amused grin.

  Ronin is super handsome. Really, all the Night Eagle guys are.

  But standing beside Jeremy now, Ronin’s chocolate brown hair curls and stunning green eyes don’t hold a candle to Jeremy.

  Where Ronin’s eyes are clear, bright green, Jeremy’s carry depth of color like I’ve never seen. I remember staring into those eyes over and over again. They’re jade with golden and chocolate flecks swimming throughout, and they change color with his mood.

  Right now, they’re the darkest hunter.

  I turn accusing eyes on Ronin, because there’s nowhere else for my anger to go right now. I don’t dare meet Jeremy’s gaze. I might never be able to climb back out again.

  “When you guys told me I’d meet ‘Jeremy’ today, I didn’t know you were talking about Jeremy Teague.”

  Truthfully, the first name jarred me down to my soul. But what are the odds?
I didn’t even allow myself to consider…

  Unless…Olive! Could she have known that Jeremy worked here? Of course she could have. She told me she’s been around all of the Night Eagle guys before during group hangouts.

  Ronin places both hands in the air, like he’s protecting himself from the raw venom in my tone. “Hey. How were we supposed to know you two—?” He glances at Jeremy. “What is the deal with you? Did you guys date or something?”

  This is too much. A harsh laugh barks out of my mouth before I can stop it, and then I’m snatching my phone off my desk and storming for the door.

  The door currently blocked by one big ol’ Jeremy Teague.

  He guesses my intended target and jumps out of my way. I brush past them both and enter the code that opens the solid metal Night Eagle door. Then I’m out into the burning Wilmington sunshine, and sucking in gulps of fresh, salty air.

  The first thing I do when I’m across the street and facing the boardwalk is collapse onto a sidewalk bench, placing my head between my knees. The buzzing in my ears turns to a roar, and I don’t recognize the sounds coming from me. Heaving, gasping sobs wrack my body.

  Dammit! Shit! Fuck!

  Why didn’t I prepare myself for this? I knew damn well that returning to my hometown meant returning to the place where Jeremy used to live. But I never thought, after all these years, I’d just run into him this way. I thought I’d have plenty of time to prepare myself for a potential meeting.

  I’m not on Facebook or any other social media sites. When I left town all those years ago, I never looked back. I changed my name, taking my grandmother’s maiden name as soon as I settled in with her. In Phoenix, I was known as Rayne Matheson. Other than my sister, I kept in touch with no one, not even my parents. They retired in the mountains of Asheville, so I knew I wouldn’t have any unwanted reunions with the family who basically abandoned me so many years ago.