Guarding Cassie (Crimson Point Security #5)

Chapter One

––––––––

“W hat a great day,” Cassie said from behind the wheel as she emerged from the underground parking and turned onto the street in downtown Portland.

By a miracle of nature, the rain had held off all day, and the mellow early October afternoon sunshine painted the sides of the high rises a deep gold. The concert had been amazing, and she loved getting to spend time with her stepsister. “I’m really glad you came with me.”

“Me too,” Bristol said next to her in the passenger seat. “And hey, day’s not over yet.”

“I guess not, if you include the two-hour drive back to Crimson Point. Unless you want to stop anywhere before we leave the city? Another homeless camp you’d like to visit maybe?” she teased.

Bristol shot her a dirty look. “Ha-ha. I had my reasons for doing that, and everything turned out in the end, didn’t it?”

Cassie made a non-committal sound. Bristol was too nice, always saw the good in people. The harrowing situation she’d gone through a few weeks ago might have changed her world view slightly, but at her core she was still an eternal optimist.

As a realist, and maybe a jaded one at that, Cassie worried about her.

“What does that grunt mean?” Bristol shifted slightly in her seat to face her with an incredulous expression. “Oh, come on. You can’t seriously still be holding a grudge against TJ at this point.”

Couldn’t she? Cassie still couldn’t believe her big-hearted, gentle stepsister had gone on a crusade to track TJ down across this city all by herself while he’d been living on the streets.

It gave her hives just thinking about it.

Bristol had gone way above and beyond the call of duty to get him a job offer in Crimson Point, which he’d taken.

Not long after that, she had inadvertently blown his cover as an undercover DEA agent and wound up with a cartel hitman hunting them.

Bristol had been taken hostage and only been plucked from a burning boat offshore during a storm by the Coast Guard in the nick of time.

Hives.

“What’s he got to do to make you forgive him? He literally risked his life to try and save me.”

“I know.” That was his one redeeming quality in Cassie’s books.

“He’s growing on me, okay?” She was doing her best to be supportive, had reluctantly accepted that TJ was part of her life now—but only because Bristol was the happiest Cassie had ever seen her.

Cassie held a grudge when someone she loved was wronged.

“You make him sound like a fungus or something.”

“Hey, you’re the only sister I’ve ever had, and it’s gonna take me some time to trust him after everything that went down.” Things had moved so fast between him and Bristol.

Chronologically, Cassie might only be older by a few years, but she was a lifetime older in terms of experience.

Bristol was too sweet and trusting for her own good, and Cassie didn’t want to see her get her heart broken if TJ turned out to be an asshole.

So she would reserve judgment for a little while longer.

Bristol gave a reluctant grin. “I actually kinda love that you’re so hard-core about having my back.”

She shrugged. “Can’t help it. Just the way I’m wired.” Because she knew all too well what it was like when no one had your back.

And what it felt like when someone you trusted drove a knife into it.

“Anyway, how’s the whole roommate situation going?” she asked.

Moving in together was a major step, but TJ had moved into Bristol’s place recently, soon after they’d returned from their trip to Europe. Given their whirlwind relationship, it smacked suspiciously of love-bombing, but Cassie was keeping that red flag concern to herself. For now, anyway.

“Good. He’s been hanging out with Warwick lately. They’re watching a soccer game at our place right now that he recorded.”

“Newcastle, I’m guessing?” Where Warwick was from.

“I think so. Anyway, enough about me. What’s going on with you and Tristan? Any news?”

She blinked. Played dumb. “No. Well, we’ve got that new job coming up next week, so we’ll be working together again.” In a purely professional capacity. Being assigned as bodyguards for the boss’s besties was a big deal, and the job meant a lot to her.

“Ooh, yeah. Becca Sandoza and her stuntman husband, right?”

“Yep.”

“I guess it would be kinda tacky if I asked you to get an autograph for me?”

“Kinda tacky, yeah,” Cassie said dryly.

Bristol poked her in the shoulder. “Fine, but that’s not the kind of news I meant, and you know it.”

She lifted a shoulder. “We work together. That’s it.”

With the exception of the terrifying situation with Bristol, he didn’t know anything about her personal life, and she’d made a point of not asking anything about his.

His identical twin Gavin and older brother Decker also worked for Crimson Point Security, and their sister Marley lived in the area too.

All were former Marines. Professionals. Come to think of it, the only really personal thing she’d learned about Tristan was that he seemed to have a bit of a hangup about food sometimes.

“I’m well aware that you work together, but I’m not blind. I saw the sparks between you two even without my glasses when I stepped off that Coast Guard cutter.”

“Sparks?” She made it sound like she’d never heard the term before.

“Big ones.”

“No. We’re just friends.”

She had zero time or emotional bandwidth for a relationship.

She had the world’s worst taste in men and didn’t trust herself not to pick another toxic one.

Her life in Crimson Point had allowed her the chance to start over, reinvent herself.

Be the best version of herself and leave all that ugliness and pain behind her.

Zero chance she would risk screwing that up.

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.” She was enjoying her single era. Might never date again.

“It was nice of him to get you the concert tickets.”

“Yeah.” She still couldn’t believe he’d remembered her mentioning it, let alone going to the trouble of getting her two.

He’d told her a friend had comped them, but she wasn’t sure she believed him.

Wouldn’t put it past him to have bought them himself to give to her. “Sure seems like he’s a nice guy.”

Bristol laughed. “You say that with such suspicion.”

“Well, no one’s perfect, are they? There has to be something wrong with him.” Some fatal flaw she hadn’t seen yet. Because what she knew of him so far was too good to be true. Based on personal experience, that made her wary.

“Oh my God, you’re such a cynic.”

“Yeah. Being a cop will do that to you.”

Bristol sighed and leaned her head back. “Understandable. But not everybody’s going to let you down.”

“I know you wouldn’t.”

“And neither would your mom or my dad.”

“Them too.”

Bristol shot her a sideways glance. “What happened in Vegas, anyway? You’ve never really told me.”

Tension coiled inside her like an invisible rope.

She didn’t talk about it. Didn’t even like remembering any of it.

Her former self embarrassed her. She didn’t want anyone to know what had happened.

What she’d willingly put up with for way too damned long.

Not Bristol. Not even her own mother. “I was burned out, and finally realized I needed to leave a bad situation.”

Bristol reached over to squeeze her shoulder. “I’m glad you did, because it brought you here, and now we get to hang out all the time.”

Not as much since TJ had entered the picture, but as long as Bristol was truly happy, Cassie was glad for her. “Me too. Turn up the tunes, will you? This is my favorite part of the drive.” She merged onto the highway heading west toward the coast.

“Okay, super personal conversation over. Got it.” Bristol turned up the music.

“What if we stopped at that pie place on the way back?”

Bristol laughed. “You read my mind.”

“That’s because you’ve turned me into an addict.”

“Had to. I didn’t want to be the only one. Let’s do it.”

The manic pace of city life disappeared behind them and gave way to rolling hills covered in farmland and vineyards drenched in rich autumn colors of gold, crimson, and orange. All the residual tension eased from her muscles within minutes.

She loved this. The freedom of cruising along a winding, scenic road with her favorite person riding shotgun.

Driving had always been an escape and one of the greatest pleasures in her life, both personally and professionally after all the advanced tactical courses she had excelled in.

After obtaining her license as soon as humanly possible once she’d turned sixteen, she’d bought a little beater with the money she’d saved up from babysitting and part-time jobs over the years.

It had given her a badly needed taste of autonomy, allowing her to escape her house and the toxic environment with her mom’s endless succession of disastrous boyfriends.

It still seemed hard to believe that her mother had met and fallen in love with Bristol’s dad seven years ago.

Absolutely incredible that she had settled in a happy, stable relationship, with the added bonus that Cassie had wound up with Bristol out of the deal.

If for some reason their parents ever broke up, she was keeping Bristol.

“Wanna come in for a bit when you drop me off?” Bristol asked her as they neared the townhouse complex on a hill with a view of the ocean.

“Nah, I’m gonna just head home.”

“Come on, we barely ever do anything social together.”

“Excuse me? Did we or did we not just spend over two hours with five-thousand strangers at the concert? And did I or did I not go to that book club event with you?”

“You loved that,” Bristol accused. “You said Beckett and Sierra’s house is—and I quote—‘magical.’”