Claimed By The Ruthless Hitman (Blossom Ford Ruthless Protectors #3)

1. Jesse

Jesse

No woman has ever dominated my thoughts the way Elsie Palmer does. I can’t get her out of my mind.

It’s been two years since I first saw her, at Jackson’s Diner, and I still remember the exact shade of brown her eyes turned when she looked up from her notepad and smiled at me like I was worth smiling at.

I take the trail down from my cabin at a pace that should be punishing me into thinking about something else, the sun already scorching my back this early in the morning.

It doesn’t work. It never works. I’d spent a year and a half resisting her — that smile, those dark eyes, the vision of her even white teeth biting into my skin every time I let my guard down enough to imagine it.

Five months ago, she broke through anyway, and I should have known better than to let it happen.

I’d been in the mood that only comes around once a year, the mood that always finds me when March seventh creeps closer — the day my SEAL team died and I walked away the only one breathing.

Most years I hole up in my cabin with a crate of beer, or drive far enough out of Blossom Ford that nobody who knows my face sees me try to drown the day in whiskey instead.

That night I did neither. I got in the truck with no destination in mind, and I happened to be driving past the diner right as she was walking out after her shift.

I told myself I’d be satisfied just seeing her smile. Then I offered her a ride home, and she invited me up before I’d even put the truck in park. I followed her inside anyway, telling myself the whole climb up the stairs that I’d see her safely in and leave.

Instead, I got out just enough to tell her I could give her only one night before the door shut behind us and she was in my arms, mouth against mine like she’d been waiting as long as I had.

When she pulled back and told me she needed a shower after her shift, I carried her to the bathroom, got in with her, washed every inch of her slow enough that neither of us was in a hurry anymore, and made love to her right there under the water before I carried her to bed for another round.

That’s what I told her I could offer, and I meant it when I said it. I still believe it was the right call. A sweet and kind young woman like her deserves a sweet young man, not a cold killer like me. I just can’t figure out why believing it hasn’t made a single thing easier.

The one night was supposed to fix it — the ache I’ve had for her since the very first day I saw her behind that counter, two years ago.

Instead, it made everything worse. I wanted more.

I still want more, five months and a small ocean of silence later, and wanting it doesn’t change a single reason I had for walking away.

Colton, the team member I’m closest to, is waiting by my truck when I get back to my cabin, arms crossed, that look on his face that means he’s about to say something I won’t like.

“You look like hell.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m serious. You’ve had a face like a slapped ass all week.” He falls into step beside me as I head for the front door. “Freya asked if you’re sick.”

“I’m not sick.”

“Didn’t say you were. Said Freya, my woman who cares about you, asked.” He lets that sit for a second. “You’ve barely talked to us in weeks. And every time someone mentions the diner, you find somewhere else to be.”

I don’t answer. There’s nothing to say that won’t lead somewhere I’m not going with Colton, even though he might actually understand what it costs a man like me to want something he has no business wanting.

“Elsie hasn’t been in for her shift in three days,” he says like he’s just making conversation, like he doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing.

I stop walking.

I tell myself it’s nothing. People take days off. People get sick, get tired, need a break from being pleasant to strangers for eight hours at a stretch. It’s nothing.

“You good?” Colton asks.

“Fine.” I start walking again, faster now, but instead of entering my cabin I head for the dojo.

I’m not fine. I’ve known about Elsie missing work for about four seconds, and the knowing sits low and cold in my gut the rest of the way to the dojo, through a workout I don’t remember finishing, through a shower that does nothing to wash out the thought that’s taken root and won’t let go.

Something’s wrong.

I don’t know how I know. I’ve spent nineteen years learning to read the details other people miss — the half-second too long a man holds eye contact before he lies, the way a room changes when someone’s carrying more fear than they’re showing.

None of that training explains why a woman missing three shifts at a diner has my chest doing something I don’t have a name for and don’t want one.

I drive into town anyway.

Jackson’s Diner is half-full when I march in, the morning crowd starting to thin. Rosie’s behind the counter, and her sweet, weathered face does something complicated when she sees me — surprise, then something careful, like she’s deciding how much to say.

“Where’s Elsie?”

“She’s not working today.” Rosie wipes down a spot on the counter that doesn’t need wiping. “Or the rest of the week. Or—” She stops herself.

“Or what?”

“She quit, Jesse,” Rosie says quietly, watching my face like she’s expecting it to do something. “Two days ago. Said she’s leaving town.”

The words land somewhere behind my sternum and stay there.

“Leaving. When?”

“She didn’t say exactly. Soon, I think.” Rosie hesitates, then adds, gentler, “She didn’t look good the last few weeks. Kept having to sit down in the back. I figured she was just run-down, but—” She shakes her head. “You should probably just ask her yourself.”

I’m already turning for the door.

The drive takes six minutes. It feels longer.

Her building is a squat three-story walk-up a few blocks off Main, the kind of place with a dumpster around back and a buzzer system nobody bothers using because the front door doesn’t latch right. I park across the street, and I’m halfway to the entrance when I see her.

She’s at the side of the building in a thin white vest and jeans, hauling a black trash bag toward the dumpster, and even from here I can see she’s moving wrong — slow, careful, one hand braced against her lower back like she’s twice her age instead of twenty-four.

It’s already hot for ten in the morning, and there’s nobody else on the street.

Just her, alone, struggling with a bag of garbage, like it weighs more than she does.

She drops the bag two feet short of the dumpster and grips the edge of it instead, head down, shoulders curling in.

I’m across the street before I’ve decided to move.

“Elsie.”

She startles, straightens too fast, sways. I catch her by the shoulders before she has to find out what the pavement feels like.

“Jesse.” My name comes out breathless, her eyes wide and unfocused for a second before they clear on my face. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

“I’m not ill.” She tries to pull back. I don’t let her. Up close she’s pale in a way that has nothing to do with the early hour, dark circles under her eyes that weren’t there the last time I let myself really look at her, which was longer ago than I want to admit.

“You almost went down.”

“I stood up too fast. It happens.” She’s still trying to angle away from me, and it’s that — the way she’s angling, twisting her whole body like she’s got something to hide from me specifically — that makes me look down.

I see it before my brain fully processes what I’m seeing.

The vest she’s wearing does nothing to hide the curve of her stomach. Not the soft roundness of a big meal or bad posture. A bump. Unmistakable, and further along than a few months, from what little I know about these things.

Everything in me goes very still.

She sees where I’m looking, and her hand comes up instinctively, covering herself, which does nothing except confirm what I already know. She turns further away, as if distance now could undo the last four seconds.

I don’t say anything. I can’t, not yet — there’s a part of my brain still running the math, going back five months to a night I’ve replayed more times than I’d ever admit to anyone, and another part of me that’s already furious at myself for not seeing this sooner, for staying away long enough that she got to this point alone.

“Jesse—”

I pick her up.

She makes a sound of protest, hands fisting in my shirt, but she doesn’t fight me the way she would if she actually wanted down, and I carry her up the two flights to her apartment instead of arguing on a public street about something this size.

Her door’s unlocked. I kick it shut behind us with my heel and set her down on a couch that’s one of maybe three pieces of furniture left in the place.

The apartment’s half-empty. There’s a suitcase by the door, zipped and ready. A backpack beside it. Bare patches on the walls where pictures used to hang.

She really was leaving.

“Sit,” I tell her, unnecessary since she already is, and I get her a glass of water from the kitchen because I need somewhere to put my hands that isn’t around her shoulders, pulling her against me, which is what every instinct in me is currently screaming to do.

She drinks half of it and sets it down, both hands settling over her stomach in a small, unconscious gesture that guts me more than anything she could have said.

“How far along?”

“Five months.” Her voice is quiet. Steady, though. She’s not going to fall apart in front of me, and something about that — the sheer stubbornness of it — makes this worse, not better.

Five months.

I do the math again, slower this time, and it lands exactly where I already knew it would.

“It’s mine.”

She doesn’t answer right away, and that non-answer is an answer.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You made it clear all you wanted was one night.” She says it without heat, like a fact she settled a long time ago and has no interest in rehashing. “I wasn’t going to chase you down and make you responsible for something you never signed up for.”

I remember exactly how I made that clear. Telling her I wanted one night only and staying away from her afterward made her believe I wouldn’t want to take care of her and our baby. It’s my fault she’s pregnant and alone, packing to run.

“I’ll take responsibility for you and the baby.”

“I don’t need you to take responsibility for me.” Something sharpens in her voice for the first time. “I chose this. I chose to keep the baby, and I chose not to trap you into a life you never asked for.”

“You’re carrying my baby.” I keep my voice level, because the alternative right now is not level at all. “There’s no way I’ll let you go through the rest of this pregnancy and after, alone. That’s not up for discussion.”

“Everything’s up for discussion, Jesse. You don’t get to walk in here after five months of nothing and start making decisions about my life.”

She’s right, and it doesn’t change one single thing about what I’m going to do.

I take in the stubborn set of her jaw, the exhaustion she’s fighting to keep out of her voice, the life she’s carrying that’s half mine whether either of us planned for it; and something settles into place in my chest, cold and absolute in the way only a handful of things in my life ever have.

I’m not walking out that door without her.

She deserves better than me, but now that I’ve gotten her pregnant, I’m going to make sure our child has a mom and dad to care for him or her. Somehow, I’ll find a way to make sure the darkness in me doesn’t dim her bright smile.

“You’re not leaving Blossom Ford. And you’re not doing this alone.”