Protected By Duval (San Antonio S.W.A.T. #3)

Chapter 1

“McCrae King!”

Duval pulled up his boxer briefs and turned his head toward the locker room door. “Yeah?”

“Your ‘sister’ is here to see you!”

The hustle and bustle around him quieted down and a few of the guys turned to look at him.

Rolling his eyes, he looked over at Blue, one of his S.W.A.T. teammates. “She’s my actual sister.”

Blue shrugged. “Does Douglas know you have a sister?”

Duval thought about the man who’d bellowed into the locker room was a jerk.

David Douglas, had a chip on his shoulder the size of a Buick. They’d both applied to join the Texas Rangers at the same time.

David was turned down the first time.

“He’s got small man syndrome going on. I don’t want him anywhere near my sister.”

Blue pulled on a tank top and looked at him with a curious light in his eyes. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

Duval nodded. “I don’t talk about family much.”

Blue thought over his words and nodded. “You really don’t talk about personal stuff.”

Duval smiled. “I don’t like to talk about anything.”

Kelly walked by and clapped a hand down on his shoulder. “We should have called you ‘Chatterbox’ instead of Duval.”

Duval was busy pulling on his clothes, but he heard Blue comment back to Kelly, whose team name was Fox.

“Chatterbox has too many syllables.”

Tucking his shirt into his slacks, Duval looked up and between this teammates.

He shook his head. “Got me there.”

Blue sighed. “I was just commenting.”

Duval sat down to pull his boots on. “That’s why I like you, Blue.”

Blue glared at him, but Duval didn’t worry much.

Blue was as even tempered as they come. His glare was more of a mild disapproval.

He hadn’t seen anything more than that from him, even when they’d had to wrestle a rather contentious drunk to the ground.

He wondered what it would take to get an honest to goodness glare from the other ranger.

Kelly cleared this throat and Duval looked up at him, raising a brow to ask him what that sound was for.

The look on Kelly’s face was telling.

He was telling him to be nice.

Duval was being nice…

Really.

People talked about women with ‘Resting Bitch Face,’ but Duval had been told, by every commanding and training officer, that he had ‘constant insubordinate face.’

It hadn’t served him well.

Ever.

It took a while before people were able to distinguish between his snark and humor and his pissant behavior.

Sometimes they just blended together.

It’s not like he had a lot of control over that.

He smiled imagining West’s face if he ever said that out loud in front of their S.W.A.T. leader.

West was constantly telling him to ‘watch his face.’

It was only his respect for the man that kept him from quipping out a reply like, ‘got a mirror?’

Yeah, he really did wallow in it sometimes, but most of the time, his no-nonsense expression kept suspects from doing stupid things.

Too many stupid things.

Even his hard facial expressions were failure proof.

He finished settling his trouser legs and his boots to rights and picked up his duffel. “Okay,” he gave his team a nod. “I’m headed out. See y’all on the next shift.”

He didn’t wait for goodbyes.

Or even a wave.

He just turned and walked out with as close to a smile as he got sitting on his lips.

His sister rarely came into the City of San Antonio unless something was really interesting.

He wanted to know what was important enough for her to brave the traffic in the city.

When he excited the locker room he saw Douglas standing too damn close to his sister.

And by too damn close, Duval meant within a mile of his little sis.

He pushed open the door to the briefing room and felt a smug twist pull at his lips when Douglas startled.

If he’d swung the door harder, Duval might have been able to pull a rather silly noise from the other man, but he didn’t want to scare his sister.

“McCrae!” Katie stood up and Douglas back pedaled into a chair and nearly took himself down to the ground.

His sister giggled and Douglas went from flustered to fuming, steam nearly pouring out of his ears, a moment later.

Duval kept moving, coming to a stop when he was toe to toe with the other ranger.

“W-what are you doing?” Douglas’ eyes moved from Katie to him and back again.

“Don’t look at my sister, Douglas.”

“I was just talking to-”

“My sister, Douglas. You’re bothering my sister.”

“Okay, big bro,” Katie reached out a hand and put it on his chest. “He gets it.”

Douglas took a step back and stood up straight using his hands to smooth over his shirt front.

“It’s a free country, Duval,” he snorted, “I can talk to your sister.” He swung out his hand and Duval considered knocking it down.

“She’s a big girl. If she didn’t want to talk to me, she could have told me to go away. ”

Air filled his lungs in a rush and again he was reminded of what his mother called ‘getting a full head of steam.’

It made sense since Douglas’ head was full of air.

Duval opened his mouth to tell the idiot a thing or two when Katie beat him to it.

“I already asked you to leave me alone.”

Douglas seemed to lose all of his bluster and when he tried to brace his hands on his hips one bumped into his gun belt and he reflexively pulled his arm up, making him look like the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. “I was just… I was being…”

“A jerk,” she nodded, her dark curls bouncy around her head. “I could see your expression change when you heard my brother’s name. You might think you’re smooth or… whatever-”

Duval smiled at the tone of her voice.

While Katie usually had their mother’s sweet as pie lilt to it, when she was taking Douglas down at the knees, she had more of his snarl and bite to it.

He was damn proud of her.

“But now that my brother is here, you need to back off.”

Douglas leaned back for a moment and then he moved back in, lifting his chin in defiance. “What? You think your brother’s going to… to what? Kick my ass for talking to you? This,” he jabbed a finger toward the ground, “this is the office of the Texas Rangers. He wouldn’t dare do it.”

Duval took a step forward.

Even though he was behind Katie at that moment she knew him and put her arm out to stop him from moving forward, but she also used her other hand to poke on Douglas’ chest. “I told you to leave me alone, in the nicest terms, I might add. After you ignored that I sat there, listening to you blather on because that was better than me drop kicking you into the wall.”

Douglas looked affronted.

Duval wondered how many people were getting an earful, but he didn’t have to look around to see. The bank of windows around the conference rooms worked like a mirror.

There had to be a dozen Rangers watching the unfolding scene and given the height and shape of the two men at the end of the line, Fox and Blue were there, too.

A laugh, if the sound could be called that, burst from Douglas’ lips.

“Please, Miss King.” Douglas shook his head. “I appreciate your warning, but I am a highly trained Texas Ranger. I don’t believe that you,” he reached out and touched a finger to her shoulder, “could put me into a wall.”

Duval felt Katie’s mood shift like a seismograph feeling the subtle movements of the earth under their feet.

One moment she was gazing at him as if he was a bug on the wall, but when he touched her with his finger, that was the proverbial last straw.

His dainty, his description and hers, little sister reached out and put her hand on his forearm, the put her thumb on a pressure point and depressed his skin until she found it.

He went from a smile to a pained grimace in what felt like a second.

“Ahh…”

“It’s not putting you into a wall, but it is direct pain compliance, Ranger Douglas.”

“Ahhh…”

Douglas made the decision to turn and look at him and Duval shook his head.

“What are you looking at me for?”

Douglas gestured at Katie’s hand on his arm and opened his mouth to speak.

Katie turned her wrist a fraction of an inch adding more pressure to the point she was holding and Douglas went down to one knee on the ground with a wuff of breath.

“Katie?”

Duval reached out his hand and touched her shoulder.

“I believe he gets the point.”

Katie leaned over and turned her head to look him in the face. “Do you, Ranger Douglas? Do you get the point?”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His cheeks and forehead were red and sweat was beading on his skin.

“Kate?”

His sister shifted and released his arm, standing up and stepping back.

Douglas didn’t recover quite as quickly as Katie did, but Duval suspected he was trying to school his features before lifting his face so others could see it.

“Duval, I thought you were done for the day.”

Duval turned to the side and looked at his boss, Major Weston Cooper.

“West. I was just leaving when I saw Ranger Douglas here,” he gestured at the man who was slowly rising to his feet, “with my sister.”

With a pained groan, Douglas got up to his feet, with his right hand rubbing at his left forearm. “I was trying to be hospitable.”

Katie turned to look at West and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. She turned the screen outward and Duval saw what West did.

The Voice Recorder App that was still recording.

As she turned her head and her hand toward Douglas and while his bright red skin blanched to a panicked white, she clicked it off.

“I recorded his helpful suggestions. While it likely doesn’t sink to the level of sexual harassment, I believe your commanding officer would take a dim view of repeated dating invitations when you’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I am not interested.”

“You would be correct, Miss King,”

West nodded and pulled out his phone. “Would you be willing to airdrop that recording to me and I’ll see that Major Jimenez reviews it.” West looked up into the corner of the room. “And the security footage in the room.”

Katie nodded and with a few swipes of her finger sent the audio file to West. “I can stay and write out a statement,” she began and Duval knew that West understood where she was going.