The Alpha Bodyguards Books #1-3

Chapter Nineteen

M y heart stopped .

All the air left my lungs and my arms instinctually tightened protectively around my son.

The crowd around us faded to nothing and I stared.

I stared at him.

The man I thought I’d never see again. Not the man. The Marine.

The Marine I’d taken from, used and stolen more than his truck. The Marine who’d made me feel safer in his arms than I’d ever felt in my life. The Marine who’d stared down at me like I was the only thing in the whole damn world important to him as he’d entered me. The Marine I dreamed about.

Garrett Collins.

The father of my son strode angrily toward me. Bigger, harder, his face so much more angular than I remembered, he was more muscular and more beautiful than in my dreams. But his expression right now was more terrifying than the nightmare I lived every day. Staring at the man I saw every time I looked into my son’s eyes, my whole world tilted.

“Mama.” Maverick squirmed in my arms.

Anxiety shot through my veins as reality rushed at me faster than the pavement on a ten-story drop. “Sh, sh, baby.”

“Down,” he demanded.

Inches taller than six feet, his arms almost as big as my thighs, Garrett stopped in front of me. Anger coming off him like the waves of heat rolling off the Miami midday sidewalks, he glared at me .

“How old?” he demanded, his voice more sandpaper and less sex than I remembered.

A hundred responses flew through my mind. Everything I wanted to say. Everything I wanted to give him. Everything I wanted from him. Meet your son, Maverick. I’m so sorry I stole from you. I had no way to contact you. I couldn’t put you in danger. Every night after the sun goes down, when I’m alone in my thoughts, I think of you. I miss how you held me. I miss how you touched me. I miss how you made me feel real. I’m so, so sorry.

But I couldn’t say any of it.

I only had one response that was safe.

“I’m sorry.” I swallowed past the sudden boulder in my throat. “Do I know you?”

Leaning forward, his eyes glued to mine, Garrett didn’t so much as glance at his son. “Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t you dare pretend you don’t know who the hell I am. We both know what I’m looking at.”

“Mama?” Maverick asked, looking between me and Garrett.

My heart broke into a million pieces. “Sh, sh, it’s okay,” I lied, rubbing my son’s back. Nothing was okay.

A blond man, as handsome as he was austere, stepped up next to Garrett. “Problem?” His gaze fixed on Maverick.

“No,” Garrett bit out, dismissing him. “See you back at the office.”

Maverick tucked his head against my chest and quietly whispered, “Mama, go home.”

“Soon, baby.” I kissed my son’s hair, which was an exact match to the shade of black-brown as the man standing in front of me. Not knowing where to look, I glanced at the insignia on Garrett’s black polo shirt that stretched across his huge chest. Luna and Associates. “Excuse me.” I moved to step around the two men who had more muscle between them than five linebackers.

As if anticipating my move, Garrett stepped in front of me. “I asked you a question.”

“Collins,” the blond man said, short and fast, glancing at me .

Garrett’s jaw ticked. “I said I would see you back at the office, Sawyer.”

The man Garrett called Sawyer glanced at me and Maverick. A heartbeat that felt like a lifetime passed before he finally looked back at Garrett. “Client’s on the move. We need to go.”

“ You need to go,” Garrett corrected, raising his voice a notch in warning.

With a single nod, Sawyer turned.

The other parents and kids in the group, who’d ignored us for the most part up until this point, started to glance toward us as Sawyer walked away.

I didn’t care what any of the school moms thought. I avoided all of them. I had to. I didn’t have any friends at Maverick’s preschool, but that didn’t mean I wanted to draw attention to myself or Maverick by standing in the middle of the sidewalk in downtown Miami on a Tuesday morning.

But what I wanted didn’t matter when the director of the preschool walked up beside me and smiled at Garrett.

Putting one hand on Maverick’s shoulder, she held her other hand out to Garrett. “I’m Mrs. Oberlin.” Her smile amped up. “I didn’t know Maverick’s father was coming on the preschool field trip today.”

If anger had a physical form outside the body, it would have been a thousand storm clouds and they would have been fighting for purchase around Garrett.

I jumped to correct the director’s assumption before Garrett said anything. “He’s not—”

“I’m not staying.” Garrett interrupted me, shaking her hand. “I’m working today, but which preschool did you say it was, Mrs. Oberlin?” A smile I didn’t know he was capable of transformed his face.

Mrs. Oberlin’s smile dropped. “I’m sorry. I think….” A kid ran in front of us toward the street. Mrs. Oberlin glanced at Garrett then gave me a look that said she was sorry. “My apologies, I have to run.” She dashed after the kid who’d already been captured by one of the chaperones .

Garrett’s smile disappeared as fast as it’d appeared. “I’m not imagining it, Brookelyn. He’s my spitting image.”

“I’m sorry, my name isn’t Brookelyn, and I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My arms started to shake with the weight of my lies. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, we need to leave.”

“How old?” he asked again as I took a step.

My next step faltered, and I stumbled. With Maverick in my arms, my center of gravity was in front of me, and I couldn’t stop the momentum.

I started to fall.

Impossibly huge hands grasped my shoulders, and as if the two of us weighed nothing, Garrett caught us in his arms.

I gasped, and Maverick looked up at his biological father.

In a million years, I never would’ve thought I’d see what I saw next, but I also never should’ve underestimated the man who’d given me the best thing in my life.

Maverick’s and Garrett’s eyes met and it was as if the earth shifted.

The lines between Garrett’s eyebrows smoothed out, the tightness in his jaw disappeared, and the hard edge to his expression dropped in a nanosecond.

His voice turned quiet, and he looked at Maverick as a father looks at his son. “Hey, little man.”

“Hi,” Maverick whispered before shoving his thumb in his mouth.

The corner of Garrett’s mouth twitched. “You taking good care of your mama?”

Maverick’s thumb popped out, his shoulders straightened and he sat up in my arms. “I care good,” he said proudly.

Garrett held his fist up, knuckles first. “Good man. Always take care of your mama.”

Maverick stared at his hand.

“You know how to fist bump?” Garrett asked patiently.

Maverick shook his head.

I wanted to cry.

“Let me show you.” Garrett reached for his hand, and I flinched .

Maverick tucked his head back against my chest and his thumb went back into his mouth. “Go home now,” he mumbled.

“We’re going, baby.” The light changed and the crowd of kids and parents started to move forward. I wanted to move with them, but a giant, muscled Marine was holding my upper arm and standing in my direct line of escape.

His eyes cut to mine, and for a split second, a devastated looked clouded his expression before he quickly masked it. He dropped his voice and his hold on me. “Brookelyn.”

“I’m sorry.” I stepped back. Knowing it was pointless to keep up the charade, knowing I was doing everything wrong for my son, I still couldn’t bring myself to be selfless. A better person would have handed her son over to the one man who could protect him, but I wasn’t a better person.

I was weak.

And Maverick was my only joy.

“W-we have to go,” I stuttered.

“Wait.”

His single word, issued as a command, snapped my spine taut like a rubber band.

I shouldn’t have paused. Pausing was as good as admission, and I couldn’t afford that. Not for me, not for Maverick.

But I was weak. “What?” I stupidly asked.

His mask slipped again and his eyes burned with an emotion I could only begin to grasp, as if the very sight of me both pained and angered him beyond words.

“Why?” he demanded.

Why did I steal from him? Why did I get pregnant? Why didn’t I look for him? I didn’t know what exactly he was asking, some of it, all of it? It didn’t matter. I didn’t have an answer. I couldn’t have an answer.

I needed to survive, and survival only had one play.

With my son in my arms, I turned and ran.