Protecting His Sanctuary (GUARDIAN PEAK SECURITY #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

CADE

The lavender's coming in strong this year.

I crouch between the raised beds, running my fingers through the purple stalks, releasing that sharp herbal scent into the afternoon air.

September in these Nevada mountains means cooler mornings and perfect growing conditions for the late harvest. The calendula needs another week, maybe two, but the chamomile's ready for drying.

Bear lifts his massive head from where he's sprawled in a patch of sunlight, ears perked toward the tree line. His brother Moose keeps snoring, but Luna, my smallest rescue, trots over to press her nose against my palm.

"False alarm, girl." I scratch behind her ears. "Probably just a deer."

She doesn't look convinced, but she settles at my feet while I go back to work.

This is my life now. Herbs, dogs and silence. No screaming. No blood. No nineteen-year-old kids bleeding out while they call me Dad because I'm the last face they'll ever see.

I pull in a breath, hold it, let it go. My fingers find the soil. Cool. Solid. Real.

Better.

The greenhouse needs attention before the temperature drops tonight, but first I need to check the echinacea I've been propagating for the Whisper Vale clinic. Doc Morrison asked for a fresh batch, and I promised I'd have it ready by my volunteer shift next week.

My radio crackles from where it sits on the porch railing. "Cade, you copy?"

I dust off my hands and grab it. "Yeah, Mace. What's up?"

"Deck wants everyone at the lodge for dinner tonight. Seven sharp. Vivian's cooking."

"She know that yet?"

Mace's laugh comes through scratchy but warm. "She's five months pregnant and craving lasagna. Deck's not about to tell her no."

Fair enough. Vivian Cross has had our fearless leader wrapped around her finger for almost a year now.

Watching Deck go from grumpy, isolated commander to a man who smiles when his wife walks into a room has been something else.

First him, then Wolfe finding Sadie back in February.

The team's been placing bets on who's next.

"I'll bring the cornbread."

"Knew I could count on you. See you at seven."

The radio goes quiet and I clip it back to my belt. Bear's still staring at the tree line, a low rumble building in his chest.

"Hey." I rise to my full height, scanning the direction he's focused on. "What've you got?"

Nothing moves. The pines stand tall and silent, afternoon light filtering through their branches in golden shafts. A hawk circles overhead. The usual mountain sounds fill the quiet: wind through needles, the distant rush of the creek that borders my property.

But Bear doesn't spook at nothing.

I whistle low. All three dogs fall in behind me as I head toward the trees, my hand finding the hunting knife at my hip more out of habit than real concern. Probably just an animal. A bear, maybe, though they don't usually come this close to the cabin. Could be a mountain lion if one's gotten bold.

Twenty feet into the trees, I find it.

Not an animal.

A woman.

She's on the ground, curled against the base of an old pine like she just stopped moving and couldn't start again.

Light brown hair tangled with leaves and dirt.

Clothes that were probably nice once, now torn and filthy.

One shoe missing. And when my shadow falls across her, she flinches hard enough to slam her shoulder into the tree bark.

"Easy." I hold up both hands, showing her they're empty. "Easy. I'm not going to hurt you."

She looks up at me, and everything inside my chest seizes.

Brown eyes. Wide and terrified and ringed with the kind of bruising that doesn't come from a fall. Split lip, swollen and crusted with dried blood. A handprint, Jesus Christ, a clear handprint wrapped around her throat.

Ten years of combat medicine kicks in whether I want it to or not.

I'm cataloging injuries before I can stop myself.

The way she's holding her ribs says at least one is cracked, maybe two.

Her left wrist is swollen, possible fracture.

Dehydration evident in her chapped lips and sunken eyes. She's been out here a while.

"Please." Her voice comes out barely above a whisper, raw and ruined. "Please don't. I'll go. I didn't know this was someone's property. I'll go."

She tries to push herself up and can't. Her legs just shake and give out, and she lands hard on her hip with a sound that's half sob, half resignation.

Bear whines and looks at me. Luna's already crawling on her belly toward the woman, making herself small and unthreatening the way she does with scared things.

"You're not going anywhere." I crouch down, making myself smaller, less threatening. "My name's Cade. I have a cabin about a hundred yards that direction. You're safe here."

She doesn't believe me. I can see it in every rigid line of her body, in the way her hands curl into fists against the pine needles. In the way she's tracking my movements like I'm a predator and she's calculating her escape.

Someone made her this afraid. Someone who should have protected her did this to her instead.

I've seen it before. Too many times. In villages overseas where men thought they owned their wives. In base hospitals where soldiers had to report domestic abuse from partners back home. The patterns are always the same.

The violence is always the same.

"I'm a medic," I say, keeping my voice low and even. "Former Army. I can help with those injuries if you'll let me. No pressure. Your call."

Her gaze drops to Luna, who's now close enough to rest her chin on the woman's uninjured ankle. Something in her expression cracks. Just a little. Just enough.

"I don't..." She swallows hard. "I don't have anywhere to go."

"You do now."

The words come out fiercer than I intended. She flinches again, and I force myself to dial it back. Slow. Steady. Non threatening.

"Sorry. What I mean is, you can stay at my cabin until you figure out your next move. No strings. No expectations. Just a roof and some medical attention."

"Why?" The suspicion in her voice is knife sharp. "You don't know me."

"Don't have to know you to see you need help." I gesture at the dogs. "These three are all rescues. Found them in situations not too different from yours. Seemed wrong to walk away from them. Seems wrong to walk away from you."

She stares at me for a long moment. Then her gaze moves to Luna, still pressed trustingly against her leg, and her expression softens.

"Okay." It's barely audible. "Okay."

I nod and rise slowly to my feet. "Can you walk?"

She tries again. Gets about halfway up before her legs buckle.

"Right." I move closer, telegraphing every motion. "I'm going to pick you up now. That okay?"

A beat. Two. Then a tiny nod.

I slide one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, lifting her as gently as I know how. She weighs nothing. Feels like holding air and bird bones. When was the last time she ate?

She makes a small, pained sound when I settle her against my chest, and I adjust my grip to take pressure off her ribs.

"Sorry."

"It's fine." She's stiff as a board in my arms, every muscle locked tight. "I'm fine."

She's not fine. She's about as far from fine as a person can get. But I don't argue, just start walking back toward the cabin with three dogs trailing behind us.

She doesn't speak again until we're almost at the tree line. Then, so quiet I almost miss it: "Natalie."

"What?"

"My name." She's staring straight ahead, not looking at me. "It's Natalie."

Natalie. I file it away alongside all the injuries I need to treat and all the questions I'm not going to ask until she's ready to answer them.

"Good to meet you, Natalie. Sorry about the circumstances."

Her laugh is hollow and cracked. "You and me both."

The cabin comes into view and she tenses all over again. I feel it happen, the way she braces for something bad. Like she's expecting the trap to spring now that she's let her guard down.

"Just the cabin," I tell her. "Dogs you already met. Nobody else."

"You live alone?"

"Yeah."

Another long silence. Then: "Me too. Now."

There's a story there. A bad one. But it'll keep until she's got food in her stomach and bandages on her wounds and a locked door between her and whatever monster put that handprint on her throat.

I carry her up the porch steps, shoulder through the front door, and bring her into the warmth of my home.

Natalie sits on my couch with a mug of chamomile tea cradled in her hands, watching me set out medical supplies on the coffee table like she's waiting for me to reveal the catch.

I've been moving slow. Explaining everything before I do it. Keeping my voice soft and my hands where she can see them. All the things you do with a wild animal that's been hurt, all the things you do with a person who's learned that hands mean pain.

"I need to check your ribs." I crouch in front of her, keeping plenty of space between us. "Going to have to lift your shirt. I can get you something else to wear while I do it, something that opens in the front so you have more control. Or we can wait. Your call."

She considers this. I watch her weigh her options, factor in her level of pain, calculate whether she trusts me enough.

"Now's fine." She sets down the tea. "Let's just get it over with."

I grab a soft flannel from my bedroom, one that buttons up the front, and hand it to her. "Want me to turn around while you change?"

"Please."

I turn. Listen to the careful sounds of her moving, the sharp intake of breath when she hits a sore spot, the quiet rustle of fabric. When she says "okay," I turn back to find her drowning in my flannel, her ruined shirt in a ball on the floor.

The bruising on her torso is worse than I expected. Deep purple and sickly yellow spreading across her ribs and stomach. Defensive wounds on her forearms. And there, right over her heart, another handprint. Darker than the one on her throat.

My vision goes red at the edges.

I breathe through it. In through the nose, out through the mouth. My fingers find the seam of my jeans, press down until I feel the solid reality of my own thigh beneath my palm. Not now. She needs a medic, not a man about to lose his mind over what someone did to her.

"Okay." My voice comes out steady. Calm. A minor miracle. "I'm going to touch your ribs now. Tell me if anything hurts more than the rest."

I work carefully. Methodically. Checking each rib, watching her face for signs of increased pain. Two cracked on the left side, one bruised on the right. Her wrist is sprained, not broken, which is good news at least.

"You need a hospital," I tell her when I'm done. "I can treat most of this here, but you should get X rays to make sure I haven't missed anything internal."

The fear that flashes across her face tells me everything I need to know about why she won't be going to any hospital.

"He'll find me." She says it like stating a fact. Like announcing the sun rises in the east. "Hospitals have records. He has people."

"He?"

She doesn't answer. Just stares at me with those bruised eyes, and I see the moment she decides she's already said too much.

"Okay." I sit back on my heels. "No hospital. I've got enough supplies here to handle most things. But if you start having trouble breathing or you develop any new symptoms, you have to tell me. Deal?"

"Deal."

I clean her wounds while she sits motionless, barely even wincing when the antiseptic hits her split lip. She's had practice at this. At staying quiet while someone touches her injuries. At making herself small and still so she doesn't provoke anything worse.

The thought makes me want to put my fist through a wall.

"Where have you been staying?" I ask as I wrap her wrist in an ace bandage. "Before you ended up on my property."

"Motels. Different one each night." Her voice is flat. Empty. "I have some cash. Enough for a few more weeks if I'm careful. Then..." She trails off. Shrugs with her uninjured shoulder.

Then nothing. That's what she's not saying. Then she's out of options.

"How long have you been running?"

"Three months."

Three months of motel rooms and looking over her shoulder and sleeping with one eye open. Three months of those bruises being fresh, which means they've been refreshed somewhere along the line. He caught up to her. Recently.

"The new injuries." I keep my voice neutral. "How long ago?"

She doesn't answer for a long moment. Then: "Four days. I got away. Stole his car and drove until I couldn't anymore, then just started walking." A ghost of something like dark humor crosses her face. "The car's probably in a ditch about thirty miles from here. I'm not a great mountain driver."

Four days. Walking through these mountains with cracked ribs and a sprained wrist and no food. It's a miracle she's still breathing.

"You're tough," I say.

She blinks at me like no one's ever said that to her before. "I'm terrified."

"Those two things aren't mutually exclusive."

I finish with her wrist and start packing up the supplies. Luna's claimed the spot next to Natalie on the couch, pressed against her hip, and I notice Natalie's good hand has found its way to the dog's fur.

"You should eat something. Then sleep." I stand, putting some distance between us. "Guest room's at the end of the hall. Lock works from the inside."

"You have a guest room?"

"Came with the cabin. Never used it till now."

She looks at me. Really looks, like she's searching for something in my face. I don't know what she finds, but after a moment, she nods.

"Thank you." It sounds like it costs her something to say. "For everything. I know you didn't have to."

"Yeah, well." I shrug, suddenly uncomfortable under the weight of her gratitude. "Try to get some rest. We can figure out next steps tomorrow."

I escape to the kitchen to heat up soup, my hands only shaking a little as I pull ingredients from the cupboard.

Natalie Pierce. Battered, bruised, and running from a man who put his hands around her throat.

Every instinct I've spent three years trying to bury is roaring back to life. The part of me that protects. The part that fixes. The part that couldn't stand by while someone was hurting.

I thought I'd retired that man. Thought I'd locked him away in a box marked "too many losses" and thrown away the key.

Looks like I was wrong.