Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
“There was a woman,” I say finally. “Marketing. PR. Came up to do some campaign for the Jubilee. Fell into my sleigh, broke a runner, got snowed in at the cabin for a couple nights.”
“Rom-com setup,” he says. “I approve.”
I ignore that. “We talked. A lot. She got me to…open up. About things I haven’t talked about in a long time.”
“Like Iraq.”
“Yeah.”
There’s a long pause on the line.
“Well, damn,” he says quietly. “That’s new.”
“Yeah,” I say again.
“What’s her name?” he asks.
“Ivy.”
He lets it sit there, like he’s tasting the shape of it. “And?”
“And we…started something,” I say. My throat feels tight. “Then she got the promotion she’s been busting her ass for—Creative Director, big campaigns, more hours. Job’s based in Saint Pierce. She wanted to try to make it work between there and here.”
“And you told her no,” he says, like he already knows.
“I told her I couldn’t do long distance,” I say. “That I didn’t want to hold her back. That I wanted my quiet. My mountain.”
“And?” he prompts.
“And she called me a coward,” I finish.
There’s a small sound on his end that might be a laugh, might be a muttered Jesus Christ.
“Is she wrong?” he asks.
The fire pops. The cabin shifts. My chest hurts.
“I don’t know how to be that guy,” I say. “The one who…drives down every weekend. Who lives half his life stretched between mountain and city. I barely figured out how to sleep up here. I don’t know how to sleep anywhere else.”
“You bare your ass in a Humvee in the middle of a firefight, but committing to a woman is what scares you?” Ruin says. “You realize how that sounds, right?”
“This isn’t about commitment,” I snap, then stop, because maybe it is. “It’s about…knowing what I can carry.”
“That’s some poetic bullshit, brother,” he says. “Here’s a thought: maybe you can carry more than you think. You just haven’t tried anything heavier than your own guilt in a long time.”
I scrub a hand over my face. “Why are you calling, Ruin?”
“Because I miss you, for one,” he says. “And because I didn’t crawl my way out of my own hole just to watch you dig yours deeper. And because I have news.”
I snort. “Let me guess. You and your bike finally got officially married.”
“Ha ha,” he says dryly. “Her name’s Dakota, and I’m about two minutes away from that, actually.”
I sit up a little. “You…met someone?”
“Yep,” he says, and there’s a softness under the bravado I rarely hear from him. “Met her on a job down near Austin. She’s stubborn as hell, tougher than most of the guys I served with, and thinks my scars are ‘textured.’ Whatever that means. I’m in so deep it’s embarrassing.”
I can’t help it. I smile. “She know you used to sleep with your hand on the wall so you didn’t bolt awake swinging?”
“She’s been on the receiving end of that once,” he says. “Didn’t flinch. Just put her hand over my chest and told me she was there. I stopped waking up like that after a while.”
Something twists in my chest. Ivy’s hand. Her weight against me. The way my breathing calmed.
“She sounds… good,” I say quietly.
“She is,” he says simply. “Point being, if you’d asked me three years ago if I’d be living in Texas, running private security with a woman I’m stupid in love with, I’d have laughed in your face and gone back to changing oil at that shitty garage. But here we are.”
“Private security?” I echo.
“Yeah,” he says, and I can hear the pride in it. “Firm started by a guy who runs teams out of Saint Pierce. Offices in a few cities now. We handle everything from high-end bodyguard work to corporate threat assessment. It’s…a lot. But it’s good. Feels like the kind of work we were built for. Protective. Controlled. Not… aimless.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “And you called to brag.”
“I called,” he says, “because the main office is still based in Saint Pierce.”
The words hit like cold air.
“Saint Pierce,” I repeat.
“City with a small town attached,” he reminds me. “Good coffee. Weird number of hot ex-military dudes.” I can hear his grin. “And at least one PR girl you’re currently being an idiot about.”
My pulse jumps.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“I’m saying they’re looking to expand the close protection roster,” he says. “Need someone good with logistics and people who don’t scare easily. Minimal travel if you want it. Mostly regional. I told my boss, Dean Maddox, I knew a guy who handled horses and tourists in blizzards without losing his shit. He said, ‘Get me his file.’”
“I don’t have a file,” I say automatically.
“You have a DD-214 and a brain,” Ruin counters. “And a brother who’s willing to put in a good word. You want in, I can make the call. You’d have to come down. Interview. See the place. Meet the team.”