Chapter One
F ucking exhausted, I walked into the bar. It wasn’t even fifteen hundred hours, but I didn’t give a shit. I needed a beer.
Dax, the brother of one of my Marine buddies, looked up. “Holy fuck.” He came out from behind the bar. “Garrett Collins.” He shook his head. “Shit, man. It’s good to see you.” He slapped me on the back as he one-arm hugged me, then he glanced at my civvies. “You home for good?”
“No.” I dropped to a stool. “Long story,” I lied. “You got a beer?”
“Yeah, of course.” He reached over the bar and grabbed two beers from the cooler. Opening them, he handed me one as he took the stool next to me. “Cheers.” He tipped his beer toward mine. “How long you home for?”
“Cheers,” I muttered as a brunette came out of the back hall.
Holding a pile of bar towels, wearing clothes two sizes too big, her hair was a fucking mess of curls. Her gaze cutting to Dax, then me, she faltered. Pulling her arms in close, she rasped out an apology. “Sorry. I didn’t know we were open yet.”
Scratchy, sleep rough, and sexy as fuck, her voice went straight to my dick.
Dax gentled his tone. “It’s okay, Brookelyn. This is my friend, Collins.”
Unable to look away, I stared at her deep blue eyes. “Hey.”
Skittish like a cornered animal, her stormy-eyed gaze locked on mine for a split second then darted to Dax. “I’ll finish up later.”
Dax held his beer up. “You want to join us? ”
Before he’d even finished asking the question, she was shaking her head. Her silky, almost black curls bounced around, and she tossed the towels on the cooler. “I gotta go.” She hightailed it back the way she came.
I stared after her, feeling like I’d just been sucker punched. “Where the hell did you find her?” Dax was forever taking in strays at the bar, but she was… different.
He shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.” Anything was better than talking about my shit.
He circled the bottom of his beer in a ring of condensation on the old wood bar. “Dumpster, out back.”
What the fuck? “You serious?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s homeless?” It would explain the clothes that didn’t fit.
Dax shrugged. “She says she isn’t, but who the fuck knows. She was pulling boxes out of the dumpster, and when I offered her a meal, she split. Next day she was back, just standing by the dumpster like she was waiting for me.”
“What’d you do?”
“Fed her.” Dax glanced down the hall. “Then gave her a job. She’s been here ever since. Shows up early, cleans shit up, restocks, then disappears before we open.” He glanced at me. “But it took me a week to get her to say five words to me, let alone not flinch if I came within three feet of her.” Dax rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “I thought at first it was me, or men in general. But she avoids everyone here, doesn’t matter if it’s male or female. And forget about getting within arm’s reach of her. She’s like a feral cat. She’ll skitter off quicker than you can blink.”
“Damn.” I took a long drag of my beer, then said more than I should. “She’s pretty.” Even in her baggy clothes I could tell she had curves that’d make a man weak.
“Don’t even think about it,” Dax warned, practically growling at me. “She doesn’t need your brand of trouble. ”
“I’m not trouble. I don’t fuck with women.” I was never around long enough.
“The only thing you do is fuck with them.” He leveled me with a look. “You pick them up, screw them for a week straight until they’re convinced they’re in love, then you redeploy and lose their number.”
Okay, so he wasn’t lying. I shrugged. “I’m not here a week this time.”
Shaking his head, Dax snorted, then his expression sobered. “So why are you home?”
I didn’t have time to answer. A loud crash came from the back.
Both of us were on our feet faster than you could blink as the sound of breaking glass echoed through the bar.
“Brookelyn!” Dax yelled. “You okay?”
Another crash and we were both running.
We rounded the corner, and at the end of the hall a wire shelving unit holding dozens of cases of empty beer bottles was tipped at a forty-five degree angle.
Desperately trying to shove the heavy shelf back up, the brunette stood under it as three more cases fell to the floor, one narrowly missing her head.
“Collins,” Dax snapped, reaching for the shelf.
“Right behind you.” I jumped over the mess of broken glass, caught the far end of the wire rack, and Dax and I shoved the heavy shelf back upright.
Her eyes wild, the brunette glanced toward the back door.
I followed her gaze just as the rear fire exit clicked shut.
“Shit, Brookelyn, you okay?” Dax shoved a case back on the shelf that was hanging half off in front of her head. “What the hell happened?”
“I, um….” Her gaze darted from the back door to the floor. “I’m sorry. I was putting a case up and the shelf tipped over.”
It didn’t tip. She was lying. The stabilizing brackets were ripped out of the wall. I threw Dax a look before going for the exit. “Stay with her.”
My bullshit meter off the chart, I pushed out the back door and scanned the alley. A black Mustang with tinted windows was peeling out of the lot. I made a mental note of the plate and went back inside.
Dax looked up from picking broken bottles off the floor and raised an eyebrow at me.
I shook my head once. “You should keep the back door locked, Dax.”
“Thought I did.” Dax glanced at the brunette. “You okay, Brookelyn?”
“Yeah, fine.” Keeping her gaze averted, she picked up a case and put it back on a lower shelf as the bell over the front door chimed.
Dax glanced at his watch. “We’re open. I need to get behind the bar.”
“Go.” I nodded at the mess. “We’ll handle this.”
With one last glance at his employee, Dax shook his head and went up front.
I waited until he was out of earshot. “Your boss is gone. You want to tell me what really happened?” I grabbed a case and tossed it on the shelf.
“There’s nothing to tell. The shelf fell.” She kicked a few broken bottles into a pile.
“Try again.” I gave her a sideways glance. “The brackets are ripped out of the wall. The shelf didn’t fall. It was pulled.” More like yanked.
“I didn’t do anything,” she snapped defensively. “I wouldn’t break the bottles. They can’t be returned to the distributor that way.” She reached for the bottles she’d kicked into a pile before I could stop her.
“ Shit .” She jerked her hand back.
I reached for her hand. “Let me see.”
She jerked away like I’d burned her. “I’m fine.”
For a heartbeat, I was immobilized. Up close, she was even prettier. In the light of the hallway, her eyes were a color of blue I’d never seen. She smelled like woman and spice and laundry, and her skin was so damn perfect and smooth, she could’ve been a magazine picture. But her hair—wild and loose and everywhere—it was fucking chaos.
The contradiction of her sucked me in and screwed with my head.
I didn’t know if she was eighteen or thirty. Her face was young, but her eyes were old. She could’ve been homeless or royalty. Her clothes were secondhand, but her beauty was mesmerizing. She was captivating—a gorgeous, beautiful, mind fuck of incongruity.
I’d never laid eyes on a woman I wanted more.
Pulling her arm in close, she repeated herself. “I’m fine.”
I forced myself to snap the fuck out of my blatant staring. She wasn’t fine, and she wasn’t only protecting her hand. “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her gaze dropped as she spoke, and she pulled up the corner of her flannel shirt, dabbing it against her palm.
“Come on.” I nodded toward the office. “First aid kit’s in Dax’s desk.”
“No it’s not.” She took a step back. “It’s in the stock room.”
“Not the real one, sweetheart.” I’d been in enough fights over the years to know exactly where Dax kept the full medical kit. Between his four brothers and assholes like me, he had enough supplies to stitch, staple, and disinfect most shit that happened in his bar.
“I’m fine. I don’t need help.” A drop of blood fell from her hand to the floor.
I told myself she was more trouble than she was worth. Lying, hiding shit, refusing help when her hand was bleeding. I should’ve walked away. Found a woman less complicated than this hot mess, taken her home and fucked her.
That’s what I needed to do.
But I was staring at haunted eyes, and my boots weren’t moving.
Hers, however, were.
She turned toward the stock room, and I threw down my one play.
“I saw the car.” Beautiful or not, she could be trouble for Dax.
She froze, but she didn’t turn around.
I said what I should’ve said five minutes ago. “We both know the prick in the black Mustang dumped the shelf. The only question is intent. Was he warning you, or trying to hurt you. Either way, I don’t give a fuck right now. I spent twenty-seven hours on five flights to get here, then I sat in a hospital for six hours. I just wanted a damn beer. But now I’m standing here wondering how much trouble you’re gonna be for my friend and what I should do about it.” If anything.
She turned to face me, and her expression had shut completely down. “No one was here but me.”
“Right. And I’m fucking Santa Claus.” Christ. “You have two choices. You can follow me into Dax’s office and let me fix up your hand, or you can stand right there while I make a phone call and have the plates run on that Mustang.” My friend André Luna, former Marine and combat brother who owned his own personal security firm, would be able to track the plates in seconds.
The brunette stared at her hand.
I stared at her.
The bell over the door in the bar dinged two more times, and the noise level from the front amped up.
I lost patience.
I pulled my cell out and dialed.
Luna answered on the first ring. “ Madre de dios . Collins, you son of a bitch. Are you home?”
“Yeah. And I need a favor.”
Luna chuckled. “Come work for me and you can have all the favors you want.”
“Wait,” the brunette said quietly.
I ignored her. “I still have a few more months.” I hadn’t been sure if I was going to reup before I came home, but five minutes into the hospital visit after I got off the plane, and I had my answer. “Then I’m out.”
“Well, amigo, you got a job waiting for you when you get back.”
“Copy that.” I’d take him up on it. Personal security would be better than a desk job any day of the week.
The brunette shrank in on herself and her voice got even quieter. “Please, hang up.”
“How long you home for?” Luna asked.
“Few days,” I clipped, staring at the brunette .
“You got time for a beer?” Luna chuckled. “Or you too busy with the chicas?”
“I’m asking you to let it go,” the brunette implored.
“The latter,” I told Luna. Just not how he thought. “Which leads me to the favor.” No way in hell was I dropping it now. Something was making this woman scared for her life, and I’d bet my pension it had everything to do with who drove off in that Mustang.
Luna sobered. “This doesn’t sound good.”
I doubted it was. “I need a license plate run.”
The brunette went white as fuck, then pivoted and walked into Dax’s office.