Taken (Fearless Protectors #1)

Chapter One

Sawyer

Five Years Ago

The shop is quiet today. Hell, the whole town is. That’s what a rainy Wednesday afternoon in the mountains is like. No one is shopping for milk, no one needs the diner, and no one is looking for a new tattoo. In fact, most folks are holed up in their cabins with a warm fire they refuse to leave.

“I don’t know what I want.” Evie’s smile is contagious and warm with a hint of mischief. “Whatever you think.”

“I’m not choosing your tattoo. You’ll hate me for it in a week.”

Her lips curve into the perfect crescent as she twists her dark brown hair onto her shoulder. “I couldn’t hate you. I need something to remind me of you. What better way than letting you choose the design?” She glances down at my hand. “Or maybe I should get some playing cards like you. I like that ace of hearts. We can match!”

“Stop.” I twist back toward the tray of supplies I’ve lined carefully side by side. The tattoo gun, a few vials of ink, a fresh needle, alcohol, and gauze. I keep the tray like this between clients, so I’m always ready to work, but there’s no way in hell I’m drawing anything up for Evie. She’s not thinking straight. Hell, I’m not thinking straight. I haven’t thought straight since the day we met.

“No!” She holds out her delicate forearm with tears in her eyes, as though she wants me to work. “I don’t want to forget you.”

I shouldn’t fall for her tears. I should tell her to leave. We’ve been dancing this dance for two years now and it never gets any easier. In fact, it’s about to get a hell of a lot harder. That said, I reach out for her smooth arm, holding its weight in my palm. “Why are you leaving if you’re sad?” The question is unfair given the circumstances, but it needs to be asked.

She stares down at the ground, her legs dangling off the table, her hair hanging in front of her face. “You know I don’t have a choice.”

“You have a choice, Evie. It’s just a hard one. It’ll be painful, but won’t it be for the best in the long run?”

Her eyes roll to the side as she glares up at me. “You have nothing to lose, so of course the answer is easy for you.”

I laugh, though there’s anger in my throat. “Nothing to lose? Are you fucking kidding me? I’m about to lose everything, Evie. I don’t have a family to go back to. I don’t have a pile of money waiting. I don’t have a trip planned for the fall to see the fucking leaves. I have you. This. Whatever it is, we are.”

Her gaze draws up to mine as tears roll down her pink cheeks. “I’m sorry this is happening. I’m sorry I handled everything wrong, but I have to go.”

“You don’t have to do anything. You’re choosing to leave.”

Her arms cross over her chest. “Why are you making this so difficult? You see my tears, right? You know I’m in pain, too.”

“I know you’re letting your dad get in your head. Is this really what you want, Evie? A miserable life with some man you don’t love because you don’t want to disappoint your dad? Come on.”

She drags in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “My father shot the last man that messed with his daughter. I told you this when we met, Sawyer. Stop all this.” There’s exhaustion in her voice and I know I should stop making this whole thing worse.

I shrug and scratch my hand across my chin. “Let the man shoot at me. It’s worth it.”

“You don’t understand. My father would disown me and then kill you.”

“ Kill is probably a bit strong, don’t you think?”

Brown eyes wide and teary, she stares up at me. “I don’t know. He’s irrational. Right now, I have to do what he wants me to do, and he wants me to be with Leon.”

My fists clench at the sound of his name. “He’s not your type. He’s a fucking suit, Evie. You’re not that girl.”

She drags in a staggered breath. “Sawyer, you knew this was temporary. I told you that the day we met. You knew who my father was. You knew how this would end.”

A flash of the day we met comes back into view. She’d come by to sit with a friend who was getting a back piece done by a buddy of mine. I was shading an eagle wing on a client’s thigh. I should’ve focused on each feather, but instead, I was staring at Evie. The short pink skirt, her thick hips, the way her hair fell off her shoulder. The girl was a combination of perfection that I’d never seen before.

She laughed when I followed her out of the shop and asked for her number. “No, you don’t want to get messed up with me. Besides, aren’t you a little old to be talking to girls my age?”

“Damn. Old? Really?” I suppose I was a little old for her, but I hadn’t thought of it that way… until then.

“Yeah,” she grinned sweetly. “You’re like what… forty? You know I’m only twenty-five, right?”

I didn’t know that, but damn. Maybe something is wrong with me. “No, I didn’t. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She glances down at the sidewalk and fidgets with the tie on the front of her shirt. “You’d be making a mistake either way. My dad is arranging a marriage for me as we speak.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“They found a suitor for me. This Leon guy, I guess. He’s in Germany right now.” She shakes her head. “As soon as he gets out of college, we’ll be married.”

Millions of questions popped into my head, but I didn’t ask any of them. Instead, I kept staring at the way her breasts moved with each breath. I kept studying the way her lips parted as she spoke, the way she glanced up at me with curiosity and fire.

“So, you have no obligations currently, right?” My tone is low as I speak.

She shakes her head back and forth slightly, biting back a smirk. “Are you going to ask me out… because that’s kind of weird, right? We’ve got the age thing, and I’ve been promised to another man in,” she glanced down at her watch, “less than two years.”

“Well, looks like we have two years then. I’ll pick you up at eight.” I turned away toward the shop, my head full of inappropriate fantasies. Some sexual, others more domestic like making dinner together on a Friday night or spending the evening snuggled up on the couch. Maybe normal people think like this all the time, but I didn’t. I never bothered with dating, and I certainly never fantasized about a woman like this. I never saw the point, not when I took care of everything on my own.

“You don’t know where to pick me up from.” She smiled wide, showing off her perfectly white teeth. “I’ll meet you at the diner. We can decide then if this is weird or not.” Giggling, she turned away.

We had pie that night and every day after. Sometimes, we’d share a slice of apple. Other times, it was strawberry. No matter where we were or what we were doing, we always had a slice with us. Hell, we ate so much pie we started talking about opening our own shop.

I blow out a heavy breath. It was seven hundred and thirty-seven days of pie. Seven hundred and thirty-seven days of falling in love with a girl I knew I couldn’t have. Seven hundred and thirty-seven days of me being a complete fucking idiot.

The bell above the door draws our attention to the front of the shop where a tall man in jeans and a crisp, white button-down steps inside. My stomach tightens and my fists clench. I’ve only seen the guy in photos online, never in person. He looks like a fucking tool. The kind of guy you’d see giving stock updates on the news or greeting you at the bank.

His dark eyes fix on my girl . The woman I’ve grown to love. The woman that’s broken me down and exposed parts of me I didn’t know existed. The woman I’ve laughed with, cried with, and held. The woman I’ve spent two years protecting dreams with.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” He’s only just graduated college and came here a week ago. Since then, he and Evie have barely communicated. I don’t know what gives him the right to barge in here like he owns her.

Every internal alarm goes off at once. I’m going to hurt him.

Evie glances toward me, her gaze begging me to stop, but I’m too unhinged. I’ve never held a woman with so much regard, and never needed anything so badly.

Stepping forward, I stare toward the man, my hand resting on the butt of my pistol still tucked into my jeans. “Get out.”

Evie steps between us, her gaze lifted to mine. “Stop it.”

“What’s going on Evie?” The man stares at me as he speaks, a shit-eating grin on his face that I’m desperate to wipe off. “You know this guy?”

Know this guy? Yeah, she fucking knows me!

“I’m just getting a consultation on some ink.” She swallows hard and turns back toward the man she barely knows. The man I should fucking kill right here and now. “I was just leaving.”

I’m not sure why it bothers me so much that she doesn’t acknowledge me in front of this man her father chose for her, but it does. It infuriates me. I’ve been here. I know her, the real her. I’ve taken care of her.

He hooks his hand on her waist and glares toward me. “She doesn’t need any tattoos. I don’t like them. They’re dirty looking.”

Ya know, call tattoos dirty, whatever, but don’t fucking do it with your hand on my girl!

I fist his shirt into my hand and back his skinny frame against the wall. His big talk bullshit is muted as Evie tugs at my arm, begging me to stop.

“Leave him alone, Sawyer! Come on!”

I land one punch, then another.

His eye swells and turns red as blood drops from his nose.

Fuck!

Evie stares toward me with a narrowed expression I can only equate as fear. “What are you doing? Oh my God!” She rushes to the man’s side, holding him in her arms as though he’s the one she cares about. As though he’s the one that’s got her back.

“I’m protecting you!” I growl. “You don’t want him.”

“Protecting me?” Her eyes widen as she wipes blood away from the man's face. “You’re insane.”

“Tell him the truth.” I narrow my brows and stare at her. “The sooner we—”

“Stop!” Her hands shake and tears fall fast and heavy.

Shit.

“Just stop,” she squeaks.

Fuck.

“Princess,” I reach for her, but she steps away, her arm linked in the man that her father chose, as the scent of copper covers the lavender in her hair. “Just give me one minute, Evie. Just one.”

She drags in a staggered breath as she stares toward the man I’ve fucked up.

“Evie,” he barks, “get in the car. This guy’s a nutjob.”

Evie glances back toward me, her normally bright eyes dim with something dark and tired.

She mouths the words I’m sorry and steps out into the rainy Wednesday night linked into the arm of another man. A man she didn’t choose but was chosen for her. A man that doesn’t share the memories we’ve shared. A man that doesn’t have to be a secret. A man that looks like a slice of pie would be beneath him.

I stare at her, our bodies speaking words our lips can’t say, our hearts talking in a language no one else can understand. I never thought of myself as vulnerable. Never thought I was the kind of guy that could be haunted by a woman. But as Evie turns to walk out the door, my future flashes in front of me, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’ll be seeing a ghost everywhere I go.