Unshaken

1. Evie

Evie

I wasn’t sure what to expect when a beautiful billionaire and her silver fox of a navy SEAL husband knocked on my door asking me to climb into their helicopter. I was a shattered mess of a woman trying to build my life back together, one jagged piece at a time, and they threw me a lifeline.

“Someone else has experienced a similar trauma to yours, and she could really use your help. You’ll be safe. But we need to take you to her. You’re being watched. This is the only way.”

I just as easily could have been flown to the middle of the desert and delivered a bullet to the back of the head, but something about Brier Scofield-Wark and Barnes Wark told me I could trust them.

So now, after a shoot-out with some cops and my hunky bodyguard taking a bullet to the shoulder, we were on our way to Seattle for my deposition.

I glanced at Burke as we sat in his truck in the ferry line. “You sure you don’t want me to drive?”

His mouth ticked up on one side in that sexy smirk I noticed he did a lot. It always made my belly flutter in alarming ways.

“I’m fine,” he murmured. “It’s an automatic. Not like I need the stick shift.”

“No, but two hands are better than one.”

“And one hand is better than none.”

“Are you saying I am armless?” I teased.

“I’m saying …” he sighed, “just let me drive, Evie. Please.”

A thick muscle ticked in the corner of his angular jaw like he was clenching his molars.

Something was eating at him. I hadn’t known Burke for long.

Hell, I didn’t even know his last name. He introduced himself to me as “Burke” and that was what everyone called him.

Was it his last name? His first name? A nickname?

Did he always wear Birkenstocks and through the years it just got shortened to Burke?

Maybe his real name was Alfonso Julio Rodriguez but he just preferred the monosyllabic “Burke” which was more like a bark or a sound than anything.

It was dark out now; Wyatt had run down the hill not ten minutes ago, sweeping Vica into his arms and professing his love. Then he whisked her home for their happily ever after.

Burke was cheeky and teasing then. Now, he seemed more serious than ever. Something was eating away at my dark-eyed, chiseled bodyguard, and I needed to know what.

“What is Burke short for?” I asked, turning to face him.

He blinked and scrunched his brows like he legitimately didn’t understand the question. “Huh?”

“Is that your first name? Your last name? A nickname? An acronym?”

Still staring straight ahead, he focused on the license plate of the vehicle in front of us. “It’s my mother’s maiden name.”

“Oh!”

Well, now that just opened up an entirely fresh box of questions.

Why did he go by his mother’s maiden name? Also, what was his first name? What was his surname? Was he close to his mother? Was she still alive? Was he close to his family?

Yesterday, when we met and he helped me get settled into his cabin, he seemed like the most friendly, down-to-earth man I’d met in a really long time. He was chatty and open and made me feel so safe. Then, all hell broke loose. Vica got kidnapped, Burke got shot, and everything changed.

Now, he was quiet, broody, and barely able to look at me.

“D-did I do something to upset you?” I asked, squirming in my seat.

The ferry had finished unloading the vehicles, so now it was our turn to load. Tail lights lit up the queue of vehicles until the surrounding area glowed red.

He grunted and turned on the ignition of his truck. “No.”

“Because I feel like I have. Something between yesterday and now has caused you to change toward me. You were so … friendly yesterday. Then you got shot, and now … now you can’t even look at me.”

He pivoted abruptly, which I realized caused him pain because he winced but hid it quickly.

“You’re not out of the woods yet, Evie. We’re heading over to the danger zone.

You realize that, right? Going over to Seattle for your deposition is walking right into Wyndham Croft’s enormous, city-sized lair.

They haven’t caught him yet. So who knows what kind of goons he might have sent after you to keep you quiet. ”

Terror filled his dark eyes, and with his good hand, he reached up and scrubbed his hand through his short-cropped dark hair, then down over his tanned, stubbly face. The man was exhausted.

“I only have one good working arm and I’m supposed to protect you. I’m supposed to keep you safe. I’m just … I’m a little stressed right now, that’s all.”

My mouth dropped open halfway through his diatribe and stayed like that.

He drummed the fingers of his right hand on the steering wheel, the other hand resting against his broad chest as his left arm was in a sling.

I reached for his right hand and laced my fingers through his, giving them a squeeze.

His gaze met mine. Even though it was too dark to see the color of his eyes, I’d already memorized it.

Blue-gray with copper flecks around the irises.

Beautiful and unique. “I promise to do whatever you say. You tell me to stay in the hotel and not open it for even room service, and I will listen. You tell me to get down, or army crawl five miles on my belly over broken glass to safety, I will. I trust you, Burke.” I offered him a reassuring half-smile, but that only seemed to ease his unsettledness a fraction.

The car ahead of us pulled forward, which meant we were loading. Burke put the truck in drive and followed the sedan ahead, nodding at the ferry employee in the visibility vest who was directing us like we were landing a plane.

Once we were packed in like cordwood, the ferry pulled away from the dock, the slight vibration of the engine and gentle hum of the motor as we crossed in the dark, more soothing than I would have expected.

“Gabrielle is meeting us there, right?” I asked, desperate for some kind of conversation.

Gabrielle was my lawyer. She was also Vica’s lawyer and co-owner of the winery on San Camanez Island, where Burke lived and worked.

Although she no longer practiced law, she maintained her license and apparently still continued to take the odd case, usually ones involving women escaping abusive relationships, seeking justice for assault and holding their assaulter accountable. That was her speciality.

Burke nodded and grunted.

I wished like hell I could hold his hand again.

It was big, warm, and so reassuring. I was already scared about the deposition and having to relive the horrible night Track Croft raped me, but now that we might not be safe, and someone could try to shut me up before I gave my deposition, my stomach was in knots.

“So … where did you grow up? Do you have any siblings?”

His chest heaved on a sudden, gusty exhale, and he gripped the steering wheel tight, even though we had nowhere to go.

I was trying so hard with this man, but dammit, he was starting to piss me off.

I growled and pivoted to face him again.

“I’m scared too, Burke. I have to relive the most traumatic, violating moment of my life—on camera.

And now you go and tell me there might be men with guns and machetes waiting to turn me into Swiss cheese or ceviche on the mainland, so I’m extra scared.

I get that you’re scared, but I’m scared too, and you ignoring me and being all cold and distant isn’t helping.

It’s making it worse.” I crossed my arms over my chest, and because I’d already ditched my shoes, I pulled my knees up and placed my feet on the seat in an attempt to make myself as small as possible.

I did this a lot when I was a kid and my step-father had too much to drink.

He was always looking for a punching bag, and when my mom wasn’t around, I was the next best option.

So in order to keep myself from getting too injured, I curled up into a little ball like an armadillo, protecting all my vital organs, tucked my head, and just took the beatings until he got tired.

Burke’s chest heaved again, and his shoulders rounded.

He also released the death grip on the steering wheel before he turned to me, his eyes sad.

The cab of the truck was dark, save for the overhead lights on the ferry, but I could tell he was sad—or at least regretful.

The shadows cast across his face by the lights did all kind of sexy things, though.

New angles and his cheekbones popped more than ever.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, his tone exhausted.

“You’re right. I’m not being fair. I’m not considering how you’re feeling.

” His half-hearted smile eased some of the tension wound like wire around my insides.

“I grew up in Texas, not far from the Mexican border. My father was Mexican. My mother is half-black, half-white. My dad passed when I was seventeen—he wasn’t a very nice person, though.

I have three younger half-sisters. Their dad is a much nicer man, but he never adopted me as my father threw a giant fit over the idea of me carrying another man’s name.

I didn’t want anything to do with my own dad, so when I turned eighteen and joined the military, I changed my surname to my mother’s maiden name—Burke. ”

A bigger smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. “Do you have a first name?”

His smile grew. “I do.”

That made me laugh. He was being deliberately evasive now. “Care to share?”

Warmth filled his eyes. “I was a junior. My dad named me after himself. But I also changed that name. I was born Juan William Ortiz Jr. I am now John William Burke. No junior. No hint of my father. William was after my mother’s dad—my grandad—who was a great man.”

“Why are you so weird about your name? John is a fine name. It’s strong. It’s classic.”

“It’s boring.”

“Then why didn’t you change it to something less boring? You had the opportunity to be anything. You could have chosen a name like Ferrari Jinglepot Burke.”

The bark of his deep, booming laugh made me jump, but also giggle. “That sounds like a Christmas elf.”

I chuckled. “Maybe. But you had the chance to name yourself something unique. And you didn’t. Why?”

He shrugged. “I just wanted to be called Burke. I always introduced myself to people as Burke. From the day I turned eighteen and changed my names, that’s what people have called me. A first name felt unnecessary. John is a fine name.”

Him repeating my words back to me did something funny in my chest. My smile now hurt my face. “How many people know your first name?”

“Not many. Obviously, my employers, my family. But nobody else. There’s no need.”

“So you’re like Cher, or Prince? One name.”

“One name is all you need.”

“I suppose it is.”

“What about you, Evie Sanchez? What is Evie short for, if it’s short for anything?”

I appreciated his willingness to talk. It was doing a swell job distracting me from my otherwise spiraling thoughts of impending doom. “Evelyn,” I said. “Evelyn Rosa Sanchez.”

He squinted at me for a moment. “The Sanchez isn’t Mexican though, is it?”

That made my lip twitch. “No. My parents were both Portuguese.”

“Were?” His thick, dark brows hiked.

“They’re both dead. My dad died when I was five—heart attack—and my mother passed away a few years ago.

She hit her head falling off a ladder hanging up Christmas lights, but after significant brain surgery, she never came out of her coma.

” My thoughts began to drift in a very dark direction that I didn’t like.

I shrugged and forced a smile. “Once she ditched my stepfather when I twelve, we had a wonderful relationship, though.”

“Stepfather?” His expression grew dark, and his voice gritty. “What did he do?”

I shook my head to dismiss the twisted direction this conversation took. “Never mind. He’s out of the picture. Bruises heal. It’s all good. No lasting scars.” None that were visible, anyway.

“Is he dead?” Burke asked.

I shrugged again. “I don’t know. He went to jail after they got divorced, then I stopped caring about where he was. That was in Utah, anyway.”

Burke’s nostrils flared, and he clenched his jaw, making that muscle tick again. “What was his name?”

“Burke, you are not going to go hunt down my stepfather and gut him like a fish.”

“Why not?”

“Um, because.”

“What was his name, Evie?” I wasn’t sure how it was even possible, but his rumble grew deeper and grittier prompting a pleasant flutter to form in my belly.

The sight of the ferry terminal on the mainland came into view. We’d be docking soon. “How far to the hotel from here?”

“Don’t change the subject. What was his name, Evelyn?”

While I didn’t normally like my full name being used, when Burke growled it like a bear, my nipples pebbled in my bra. I wasn’t so hypnotized, though, that I was going to give in and tell him.

“I don’t know you well enough to let you intimidate me like this, John William Burke. You can’t use that deep, sexy rumble and expect me to drop to my knees, submit and tell you all my deep dark secrets.”

His jaw went slack, but his eyes darkened even more. The heat that burned in his gaze had a sudden warmth racing up my neck and into my face. I knew I’d have sweat marks under my pits beneath my sweater too.

The slight bump of the ferry knocking the bumpers severed the intensity of our eye contact, and we both faced forward, staring blankly at the silhouette sticker family on the back window of the minivan front of us.

“We’re ten minutes,” Burke said, clearing his throat.

“Huh?”

“From the hotel.”

“Oh.”

He nodded, but kept his gaze focused ahead.

Now, all I could picture, no matter how hard I tried otherwise, was me on my knees, submitting to Burke and telling him all my deep, dark secrets.

I was beginning to think this trip with this man was more dangerous than either of us realized.