The Alpha Bodyguards Books #1-3

Chapter Thirty-Six

I burst into tears, and he pulled me into his impossibly huge arms.

“Now you’re my knight in shining armor?” I fought a sob and lost. I hated him. I hated that he came for me only to tell me to fix my mess, then he swiped at my tears and tucked my hair behind my ear. I hated that he was here for two seconds and he knew all my dirty little secrets. And I hated that he saw me drowning. “Go. Home .” I wrenched out of his grasp.

He dropped his arms, but he didn’t step back. “Come with me.”

My hand flew to my mouth to stifle the sob and I didn’t have a choice.

I ran.

I ran out the barn door.

I ran across the dirt driveway.

And I ran past the house.

My legs pumping, my chest feeling like I was having a heart attack, my stomach threatening to heave, I kept running.

I ran past my mother coming out the screen door and calling my name in disgust. I ran from the mistake I’d made on Miami Morning , and I ran from the man whose heavy footsteps I heard gaining on me.

I ran from the truth.

He was right. I was drowning, and this wasn’t coming up for air. I didn’t belong here. I didn’t belong anywhere, but for one night almost two weeks ago, I felt like I did, and that hurt more than anything else. I wished I’d never gotten a taste of Falcon Gunther’s own special brand of attention.And I wished I’d never heard him call me sweetheart .

Bile rising in my throat, I kept running.

I ran all the way to apple orchard.

But when I got to the first row of trees, the nausea I’d been fighting all day became too much, and I bent and vomited. But I didn’t just vomit. Wave after wave convulsed my stomach, and I kept heaving until I was on my knees and nothing but bile was coming out.

My hair was swept back, and a strong hand landed on my back. “Easy. Take a breath.”

Heaving, fighting panic, I tried to suck in a breath and choked.

“Hey, hey, hey.” The hand holding my hair gently pulled till my head was upright. “In through your nose. Deep breath.”

Tears streamed down my face, but I managed to inhale.

“Good girl,” he murmured. “You’re okay.”

Oh my God, he was watching me vomit. “Why are you being nice?” My life hit a new low.

“You want me to be a dick?” He swept the rest of my hair out of the way.

“I’d trust it more.” I shoved at his hand.

Ignoring me swatting at him, he pulled me to my feet. “Jesus, woman.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Desperate for water, I wiped my mouth on my sleeve.

Making sure I was steady before he let go of me, he slowly dropped his hands. “It means I’m not a complete asshole.”

I snorted and immediately wished I hadn’t. Choking on the vile taste in my mouth, I spit on the ground like a fricking animal then moved the hell away from my own vomit.

Following me, Tank reached into the trees, casually plucked an apple, and rubbed it on his thigh before whipping out a switchblade from his pocket. Cutting the apple first in half, then one of the halves in quarters, he deftly cored and skinned it before holding the piece out to me. “Suck on this.”

The thought of putting anything in my mouth made my stomach turn, but I was desperate to get rid of the taste of puke, so I took the apple and ate a bite. The sun-warm slice tasted shockingly good.

“If you’re gonna eat it, chew slow,” he warned, popping a piece into his mouth in one bite.

Ignoring his advice, I ate the rest of my slice. It was the first thing that’d tasted good in days.

Coring and peeling the rest of the apple, he handed me another piece. “You always puke when you run?”

“No.” I bit into the second piece and wondered why I’d been here for a week and hadn’t been eating the apples.

“You got any other symptoms?” he asked casually. “Fever, upset stomach?”

“Are you a doctor now?” I walked down the row of trees that were planted before I was born.

He picked another apple. “Have you been throwing up before today?”

What the fuck? “You worried I’m too sick to fix your boss’s precious reputation?” Screw him. It was handled, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“No.” His knife sliced through the apple with practiced ease. “You late?”

I froze.

Then the nausea came back with a vengeance, and I clenched my jaw, taking shallow breaths through my nose. “Just because a woman throws up, you think she’s pregnant?” Forcing the last word out, I sucked in a deep breath and reached for deniability. I wasn’t pregnant. I couldn’t be pregnant. I was not pregnant .

“No. But a woman I had unprotected sex with who doesn’t show any signs of the flu, but starts heaving?” He looked me in the eye. “That I fucking think about.”

Fighting panic, fighting nausea, and fighting stupid tears that came at the drop of a hat the past week, I turned and aimed for the house. “I’m going home. ”

“You think that’s your home?”

“Screw you.”

“Answer my question,” he demanded, tossing the apple and pocketing his knife.

“It’s the only home I’ve got.” Because I’d stupidly never put down roots and bought myself a place.

“The other question.”

I stopped and spun. “Leave me alone. Leave the farm. Go home and stop pretending you give one shit about me other than to get what you came for. Which isn’t fucking happening, because I’m not calling Janette or anyone else. So leave .”

“ Jesus fucking Christ .” He lost the calm, detached composure to his tone.

“Are you blind?”

I threw my hands up. “Do I look blind?”

He pointed toward the house. “Do you see your brother or your father coming to your rescue?” Veins popped on his neck. “They didn’t even fucking ask if you were okay. I could be a goddamn serial killer for all they know, and they left you to fend for yourself!” Every word came out louder than the last.

I glanced at the house, and when I saw them all sitting at the kitchen table through the window, shit sank in my stomach. All of them eating, not one of them checking outside. I looked back at Tank, ready to tell him he was wrong, but it was pointless.

Following my glance, he saw exactly what I saw.

Gutted, I stood there.

He dropped his hands from his hips and lowered his voice. “Come on, babe. Get your shit. Come with me. You don’t belong here.”

That was the problem. I didn’t belong anywhere. Seven days with the three strangers who were my only family, and not one of them had asked me why I was here. Not even my mom. Especially not my mom.

No one asked me anything because they didn’t want me here.

They didn’t care that I’d paid off the mortgage on the farm, or bought the adjoining parcel and rolled it into their land. No one thanked me for the extra equipment I’d bought. No one had even talked to me except to bark orders, ask what I was going to handle that day, or tell me to come to supper.

Tell me to wash up .

Like I was dirty.

Like I’d always been dirty.

And suddenly, I saw it for what it was.

I represented all of their mistakes.

My brother’s sickness, my mother’s resentment, and my father’s anger at a situation he was trapped in.

Tank studied me like he knew my thoughts. “You got a better offer?”

“Stop it,” I barely whispered.

“Stop what? Pointing out the obvious?” He stepped closer. “We both know you don’t want to be here.”

“You don’t know me,” I argued.

“I know plenty.”

“Bullshit.” No one knew me.

“You really wanna test me like that?” The six-and-a-half-foot unwavering beast of a man didn’t wait for an answer. “You been gone so long from this place, those people in there either don’t give a shit about you anymore, or they never did. You were running from the bullshit fame because you were drowning in a life where you had no control. You wanted to make decisions for yourself, but all you accomplished was winding up right back in the passenger seat. Don’t fucking bullshit me about wanting to be here. The woman who sat buck ass naked on my counter and spread her legs in front of my food isn’t a woman who wants to take shit lying down.”

I blinked.

He wasn’t finished.

“I don’t know what your goddamn favorite color is, or what the hell you eat besides vegan shit and apples, but five seconds after finding you, I knew the only thing holding you here was an old horse. ”

“She’s not old.” She was middle-aged.

“Get a new horse.” Except he didn’t just mean get a new horse, he meant get a new life.

Mad, sad, angry, hurt, I reached for the only defense I had left. “Fuck you. Don’t pretend like you give a shit about what I want or what I do. You’re only here because you want me to make a statement and save your friend’s reputation.”

“Jesus fuck,” he growled.

I turned to go inside.

“Goddamn it, woman. Wait .”

I paused, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. I would burst into tears, because him standing here, telling it like he saw it, was the closest thing to a friend I’d ever had. “What?”

He stepped in front of me, and his expression was one hundred percent alpha, but I also saw the dark circles under his eyes. “I’ve got a hotel in the next town over. I’ve been looking for your sweet ass for ten goddamn days, and I’m fucking hungry and tired.” He dropped his voice. “ Come. With me.”

My chest tightened and my core pulsed.

Desperate longing filled every inch of my soul as he stared at me with his gorgeous green-brown eyes, and I realized something.

I had nothing left to lose.

He already owned my heart. He’d come for me. Did it matter why? Being with him, even if it was only to ride back to Miami and figure out what I was going to do next—that’d be a thousand times better than staying here.

And I would be with him.

At least temporarily.

I sighed like it was a difficult decision, then the real me, the woman who wasn’t a complete pushover, she came out after hiding for seven days. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Go get your shit, woman.”

I crossed my arms. “And then what? ”

As if he knew me, as if he knew every pathetic thought in my head, he gave me his own brand of honesty. “Then we eat some food, you get your vomiting ass horizontal, and we reassess in the morning.”

A thread of doubt surfaced. A minute ago he’d told me to come with him. I assumed back to Florida. But now he was telling me we’d reassess in the morning? “You said—”

“Stop.” He cupped my cheek. “I know what I said.”

I threw out the other problem I’d avoided so far. “People will recognize me.” I’d been safe here because I was isolated, but out there in the world, all I’d have between me and being recognized was a six-and-a-half-foot, dominant, trigger-happy bodyguard.

“Trust me.” This time, half his mouth tipped up. “I’m a professional.”

“Magnolia!” my father bellowed from the porch. “Get in here. Your mother’s food is getting cold.”

Tank’s smile dropped and his nostrils flared, but he didn’t say anything and he didn’t take his eyes off mine.

I exhaled and moved out of his grasp, stepping toward the house.

“ Audrina .” Half in warning, half in question, he said my name short and fast.

“I’m going to brush my teeth.” I hoped like hell I wasn’t making the second-worst decision of my life. “Then I’m getting my backpack.”