The Alpha Bodyguards Books #1-3

Chapter Four

O ut of the corner of my eye, I saw his smile, and I didn’t know what to make of him. I was still in shock he’d come looking for me.

He was bossy and alpha, but he was also kind of sweet. Except he wasn’t trying to hit on me, at all, which made me wonder what he was doing. Why follow me, why find out I’d checked out of the motel, why ask me to dinner, why do any of it if he wasn’t going to try to get me into bed?

Not that I was questioning his lack of flirtation.

I knew what I looked like, and it purposely wasn’t good.

But he looked good. Way more than good. He was the type of man who turned heads. Not because he was model beautiful, or even traditionally handsome. He was over six feet of muscled ruggedness with a calm, reserved manner of speaking that made you want to get closer. And when he’d smiled just now, even though I didn’t see it in full, it made my stomach do something it hadn’t done in a long, long time.

“So Italian or burgers or option three?”

I wondered what option three was. I wasn’t dressed to go to a restaurant, but pasta sounded pretty damn good. Heck, any hot meal sounded good. I’d been living on peanut butter and bread.

He glanced at me. “You’re taking too long to answer.”

I was scanning the streets for any sign of Nathan, but I didn’t see him or a black Mustang. I’d taken a roundabout route to the motel from the bar, and the owner of the hotel had said no one had come asking for me. Nathan had bolted when he’d heard Dax call out to me at the bar, so maybe, despite his warning he’d be back, he really was gone .

I focused back on Garrett’s question. “Pasta, but for comparison’s sake, what was option three?” Maybe I could just have a meal with this Marine. One meal, one evening of escape, then I’d be on my way.

Garrett’s smile came back. “Takeout, my place, cold beers and a large-screen TV with the game on.”

That sounded like the most normal thing ever, but I didn’t know normal. “What game?” I’d never spent an evening with a guy watching sports. I didn’t even know what sport he was referring to.

“Baseball.” He grinned. “America’s favorite pastime.”

I almost had the urge to smile. “Sounds like it’s your favorite pastime.”

Low and masculine, he chuckled. “Definitely not my favorite.” He winked at me. “But it’ll do in a pinch.”

I felt the heat hit my cheeks at his insinuation, and I cleared my throat. “Who’s your favorite team?”

“Don’t have one,” he admitted.

“That seems kind of un-American.” I meant it as a joke, but the second the words left my mouth I realized how stupid I was. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” He served in the Marines. You couldn’t get much more patriotic. “I didn’t mean to insult you, or your… career.”

He nodded once as he pulled into the parking lot of a fancy-looking Italian restaurant. “No offense taken.”

I glanced down at my rumpled flannel shirt and my jeans with rips in the knees. “I’m not really dressed for this.” And my bike was in the back of his truck, where anyone walking by could just take it. Not that it was worth taking, I’d gotten it at a secondhand store, but it was all the transportation I had.

He cut the engine and looked at me with his golden-brown eyes. “Trust me?”

I thought about it. “You’ve probably been trained how to kill a man at least a dozen ways, you followed me to my hotel, found out I checked out, then you almost ran me over in the street.” I glanced at my hand, which was shockingly not hurting that bad. “Despite fixing my hand up with some fancy first aid, I really have no reason to trust you.” But as incomprehensible as it seemed, I trusted him… as much as I could trust anyone.

For a second, he didn’t respond.

Then a wry smile spread across his face as he leaned his head back in his seat and rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay, fair point.” He looked at me, and his expression turned deadly serious. “Straight up, no bullshit?”

My breath caught when he focused all his attention on me, but I managed to nod.

“I know someone pulled that shelf down at Dax’s and it wasn’t you. I know the black Mustang had stolen plates. Dax and I both know your name isn’t Brookelyn and you gave him a fake social when you started working for him.”

My heart rate slammed into overdrive, and I regretted my impulsive decision to get in his truck. No defense, I didn’t say a word.

“Personally?” He raised one eyebrow. “It’s not my bar. I don’t give a shit about the fake social security number. But what I do give a shit about is a woman who looks like she’s running scared.” He held my gaze. “That I can do something about.” He paused. “But you need to level with me.”

My heart racing, my hands suddenly sweating, I fought a full-blown panic attack. “I’m not running.” I’d already run. It didn’t work, and now I was sitting in a stranger’s truck.

“I have a friend who owns a personal security firm.”

So did Dax. He’d dropped enough hints about it when I first started working for him. Then a week later, a smiling, attractive Cuban guy had come into the bar, and Dax had introduced him as André Luna. He’d pointedly said he was the guy he’d told me about who specialized in personal protection.

I’d been so freaked out, I’d hightailed it back to the stockroom. I don’t even think I muttered an excuse. When I’d clocked out an hour later, the man was gone, and Dax never mentioned it again.

I wasn’t sure if Garrett was referring to the same guy, but it didn’t matter. No one could help me. “I don’t need personal protection.” Nothing could protect me from the past .

“Why’d you check out of the motel?”

The abrupt change in subject caught me off guard, and I paused before answering. “You’ve seen the place. It’s a dump.”

“Where were you heading?”

“I got an apartment,” I lied.

“Where?” he challenged.

I put some indignation in my tone. “That I’m not telling you.”

Inhaling deep then letting out a long exhale, he focused his gaze straight ahead. “Okay, truce.”

I didn’t say anything, because this wasn’t an argument. Not even close.

He looked back at me, and I saw how tired his eyes were. The kind of tired you didn’t get from lack of sleep, and the kind of tired that was too weary for his age. I didn’t know how old he was, but his eyes? They were decades older.

He tipped his chin toward the restaurant. “We go in and order takeout. Have a beer at the bar while we’re waiting, then we’ll go back to my place and share a meal while we watch the game. After? I’ll drive you home.” He frowned, then amended his plan. “Or any time you want to leave, I’ll take you. Deal?”

I waged a silent war with a dozen responses, but I kept coming back to one thing. One night of escape. One night to be normal. One night where I wasn’t who I was.

I made my decision.

“Where do you live?” Not that I cared where he lived, but I wanted to come up with a plausible apartment complex I could have him take me to after dinner. Preferably someplace nowhere near him, and someplace big enough that he’d have a hard time following me.

“Miami Beach.”

Miami Beach was expensive, especially for someone in the military. Not that I knew how much the Marines paid. “Sounds nice.”

“It was my parents’ place before it was mine,” he explained, as if defending himself.

“They don’t live there anymore? ”

“My dad’s dead, my mom’s in assisted living.”

“I’m sorry.”

He ignored my empty platitude and nodded toward the restaurant. “We doing this?”

I hesitated.

“I’m buying,” he added.

What was one meal? Especially one I didn’t have to pay for.

Against all my better judgment, I nodded.