Heath’s Reappearance (Dark Patriots #6)

Prologue

Rolling over, I looked at the woman sleeping beside me.

I took a minute to study her. God, she was beautiful, and not just on the outside.

Inside, Danae was even more gorgeous. She was kind, loving, generous, smart, and so much more.

I thanked God that we’d met that day at the clinic.

I’d never been so happy to be hurt and needing to see a doctor.

My work with the Dark Patriots was at times dangerous.

There was no way around it, but I loved it.

I found that my need for action was satisfied, as was my need for intellectual stimulation.

Yeah, some may look at me and think I was all laughs, took nothing seriously, and stepped out of line a lot.

I did do those things, but there was much more beneath the surface.

Some of those behaviors masked my past. One I didn’t talk about because, while it did shape me, I worked not to let it completely define me.

The only person who knew all my secrets, the one I could talk to, was Benedict.

Ben had been my best friend since we met in the Army when we were barely adults.

Two na?ve kids running from our pasts. He came from a fucked-up background of his own, and so did I.

We were loners who clicked and became best friends.

And after that, wherever he went, I followed, and vice versa.

When we decided to leave the Army, I did so a few months before he did.

We’d had enough of the bullshit and couldn’t hang on until retirement.

I’d begun paving the way for what we would do once we were both out.

I never thought I'd have the opportunity to work for a company like the Dark Patriots. They had a stellar reputation, which kept growing. When Ben’s sister, Cassia, became associated with them through her old man, Blade’s motorcycle club, it opened up an opportunity for Ben and me.

We jumped at it. Neither of us had any regrets.

It was due to our work with the Patriots that Ben had met the love of his life, Kensington. It was through an assignment that Beau, another Patriot and friend, met and married Keeley, and that her younger sister, Kensington, captivated Ben.

It was hard to believe sometimes that Beau and Keely had been together for two years.

Ben and Kensy have been together for over a year.

Even crazier was the fact that they were parents, too.

When they announced it at the Christmas party just over a year ago, we discovered that Kensy was due only two weeks after Keeley.

Beau and Keeley’s daughter, Layne, was born toward the end of June. When Kensy delivered her and Ben’s son, Brandon, two weeks later, Ben teased that he was celebrating the holiday the right way. He bragged that others could keep their damn fireworks. Brandon was born on the Fourth of July.

I was excited for my friends. They loved their wives and kids.

And even though I was the closest to Ben and Beau, I still had not only an employee relationship but also a friendship with the four owners of the Dark Patriots.

Undertaker, Gabe, Griffin, and Sean started the business after leaving the Navy as SEALs, and it flourished thanks to their hard work.

All of them were married and had children.

In fact, we joked that Kensy and Keeley triggered something with their pregnancies.

In October, three months after Brandon was born, Gabe’s wife, Gemma, gave birth to their second child, Gregory.

He joined big sister Greer. And then three months after Gregory, last month, in January, Hadley, Griffin’s wife, delivered their daughter, Thea.

She was adored by her parents and big brother, Travis.

With all these marriages and births, a single guy wondered.

What was his fate to be? I was never opposed to settling down if I met the right woman.

When people asked what my ideal woman would be like, I told them I’d know when I found her.

I was turning thirty-seven next month. I was ready to be a husband and father with the right woman.

And that woman was the one lying next to me, asleep.

Danae and I had ended up going for coffee after my visit to the urgent care clinic.

I had no idea when I was shown into the examination room and the medical assistant told me I’d be seen momentarily that the person who would examine me would turn out to be a beautiful woman, a physician assistant named Danae Seong.

Her looks immediately struck me, but it didn’t take long after we met for coffee for me to realize she was more than a pretty face and a sexy body.

Over the past four months, we’d grown inseparable.

When I wasn’t gone on an assignment or working in town, or she was at the clinic working, we were together.

We split our time between her place and mine.

Staring at her dark hair spread across the pillow, I knew it was time.

I was ready to commit, even if it might seem too soon by many people’s standards.

I didn’t care. My Patriot friends had been far hastier than I had, except Ben.

He had to wait for Kensy to heal enough to be in a relationship, but still.

He knew right away that she was the woman for him.

I was determined this weekend to ask everyone out to dinner at an upscale restaurant.

When they all arrived, Danae would be with me, and I’d introduce her to my friends, who were my chosen family, too.

I had been greedy, keeping her all to myself.

I was afraid at first to jinx it. Then, over time, I wanted all her attention and time.

But that phase was over. I wanted everyone important to me to know about her.

After introductions and giving her a chance to get to know them, I’d move on to popping the question. I’d give it a month, not a day more.

Danae hadn’t introduced me to her family either.

When I asked about them, she said she only had her mother and that they weren’t close.

I didn’t push for why, just as she didn’t push for why I had no family.

I knew sooner or later we needed to talk about my past and whatever was in hers.

I wasn’t afraid to let her all the way in. She was the only woman for me.

Desire surfaced in me as I stared at her.

I knew exactly how I wanted to wake her up.

My hand was on the duvet cover when my cell phone went off.

I wanted to swear, but I cut it off. Letting go, I rolled over swiftly to answer before it woke her up.

I knew the ringtone. It was work. I wasn’t due to go in today.

It was Saturday, but sometimes I had to work on weekends.

The same was true of Danae’s work. It was another thing we had in common and understood.

Past lovers hadn’t. I picked it up as I got out of bed.

“Hello,” I said softly as I left the bedroom.

“Hey, sorry to wake you on your day off. But we’ve got a case that can’t wait until Monday. I need you to meet us at headquarters. I’m sorry, Heath,” Sean stated.

For once, I felt frustrated because of my job. I wanted to say no, but I knew I couldn’t. It had to be important or time-sensitive for Sean to ask me to come in.

“Who all is coming in?” I asked.

“All four of us, Beau, Ben, and you,” he replied.

“What time?” I asked.

“In an hour. I know that’s quick, but we can’t wait.”

“I get it, Sean. I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, man, see you soon.”

The line went dead. Walking back into the bedroom, I found Danae sitting up in bed. She gave me a sweet, knowing smile.

“It was work, and you have to go,” she said without anger in her tone.

“Yeah, it was Sean. A case that can’t wait to be discussed on Monday. I’ll go in, find out what it’s about, and then get back to you as soon as I can,” I promised. I sat on the edge of the bed next to her.

“Heath, you do what you have to. I’ll go home and get some of my weekend chores done. That way, later, we can spend uninterrupted time together.”

“Good idea. I’ll call you when I’m done and come over.”

“I like that idea,” she said, smiling.

She leaned toward me, and our lips met. It was passionate and tinged with something else. When we broke it off, I caressed her cheek.

“You know me. I’ll be in contact as soon as I can,” I vowed.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Rising from the bed, I started to get ready. The clock was ticking. The sooner I got there, the sooner I could get back to her.

???

I was seated in the conference room on the top floor of Dark Patriot headquarters, HQ, where all the founders had their offices.

Everyone liked to call it the Lair of the Dragons.

This room could be turned into a SCIF, a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, for anything deemed top-secret or too risky for others to learn.

When it happened, the windows and doors were sealed, and no electronic devices would work outside the computer in the room.

As I waited for the rest to join me, Ben, and Beau, whom I had already greeted and got the same puzzled expression I had, I looked around the room.

It’s weird not to see Justin here with us.

He’d chosen to go back to work for the Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA, five months ago.

We hated to see him go but wished him well.

He kept in contact, and whenever we could swing it, we’d meet for dinner or hang out at one of our houses, watching football or whatever struck our fancy.

He told us the decision was a hard one. He loved working for the Patriots, but he loved the work he did at the DEA more.

With the retirement of one of the upper guys, it would remove the bullshit he had to deal with before.

It was that guy’s bullshit that led Justin to leave in the first place.

And the DEA had been after him ever since to return.

He went back to an advanced position and a nice pay raise. He appeared to be happy.