Wild Heart (The Hearts of Sawyers Bend Book 6)

Chapter 1

Standing in the doorway of the gatehouse, my home on the estate, I drank my coffee, watching the mist curl around the Manor, rays of weak late winter sun gilding the roof. Heartstone Manor was three stories of warm, gray granite, designed a century ago to mimic the English country estate William Sawyer’s bride had left behind.

Dawn was my favorite time at Heartstone Manor. Winter or summer, the mornings were misty, the damp air clinging to the edges of the great stone house, the sun barely cresting the vast forest surrounding the Sawyer estate.

At times like this, Heartstone Manor didn’t feel like a real place. More like a movie set, where I wasn’t an actor, but an extra, watching the beautiful people live their lives. In the back of my mind, I expected a voice to yell Cut and a crew to melt out of the scenery. The guy who’d been holding the roses at the perfect angle to catch the light. The set dresser who’d arranged the ivy draped over the windowsill just so.

It never happened. As hard as it was to believe, Heartstone Manor was a real place with real people living inside. It was a home, its inhabitants mostly normal human beings, living mostly normal lives.

Maybe that was why it looked so much like a movie set—it was a place out of time, on the wrong continent. Now, the day barely begun, the sight of it should have filled me with peace.

Kind of. There was all that murder and mayhem. The reason I was here in the first place. Knowing everything that had happened there over the past year, the tranquil image didn’t fool me. There was danger everywhere, and it was my job to keep it at bay.

Finishing my last drop of coffee, I left the mug on the gatehouse steps and headed out, planning to loop around to the woods on the east side of the Manor, then past the cottage, crossing behind the pool house and formal gardens to the west side of the Manor and the forest there.

A year ago, Prentice Sawyer, the billionaire patriarch of the Sawyer family, had been found sitting at his desk, a bullet hole in his forehead. His son, Ford, the presumed heir to the Sawyer fortune, pled guilty to Prentice’s murder. No one had seen that coming.

In a second twist, Prentice’s will left everything to Griffen, the son he’d exiled fifteen years before, and the man I considered my brother in every way but blood. Unfortunately for Griffen, the everything Prentice had left him included the target on his father’s back. Griffen hadn’t been home long before someone tried to kill him, too.

Griffen and I had met during our first days in the army and been together through Ranger school, then later at Sinclair Security, where we joined another of our Ranger buddies in the private sector. When Prentice’s will forced Griffen back to the home he hated, with an unknown killer gunning for him, I’d been there.

I owed Griffen. While he’d stayed in the Rangers, I’d accepted an invitation to join a team that operated outside the normal boundaries. Off the books. In the dark. I’d been reeling from the loss of my parents in a freak accident, and a change of scenery felt like the only way to shake off my grief. How wrong I’d been.

I should have stayed with the Rangers, with Griffen and Evers Sinclair and work I was good at. I should have stayed in the light. Instead, I’d jumped ship for my new team and sank straight to dark depths I’d never imagined. Before that, I thought I had understood right and wrong, good and evil. I hadn’t understood how loyalty and lies could twist the world until up was down, and I was pulling the trigger on the innocent as easily as on the guilty.

By the time I dragged myself out of the dark, I was only half human. I knew I could never do enough good to atone for the crimes I committed under orders I should have questioned. I showed up one night on Evers Sinclair’s doorstep, and he let me in. Evers and his brothers gave me a job. Griffen gave me a place to live. They gave me time to find myself again. Without them, I would have slipped into the darkness completely. I owed them everything.

No one wanted Griffen to leave Sinclair Security for the wilds of western North Carolina. But even without the threat of murder, I would have come to Sawyers Bend. Griffen needed family at his back. Not the family that had exiled him all those years ago. His real family. His chosen family.

Putting a guy like me in charge of security was a little like bringing a rocket launcher to a knife fight, but I didn’t mind. I slept better here, surrounded by thousands of acres of forest. And I wasn’t going to let anyone touch Griffen or his family. Sometimes you needed the dark to protect the light.

I always ended my rounds on the west side. Ever since I’d discovered her sleeping under the trees instead of safe inside the Manor. Late last night, I’d watched her as she’d snuck out again, stealing across the lawn in silence and disappearing into the dark woods. I’d bet she was still there, sleeping peacefully, under the illusion of a safety that didn’t exist.

I shouldn’t care. It was her life. Not my problem. I’d reported the situation to Griffen, and he’d told me to let her be. That should be enough.

But I found I couldn’t drop it. Couldn’t let it be.

It was March, for fuck’s sake. Too cold to sleep outside when she had a perfectly good bedroom in the Manor. I told myself for the millionth time that it wasn’t my problem.

I told myself that a lot where she was concerned. Not my problem. And she wasn’t.

I was going to check on her anyway. I couldn’t seem to help myself. Not when it came to her.

I headed to the woods on the east side of the Manor at a slow jog. As I found my rhythm, I texted the team watching the cameras from our base in the lower level of the Manor.

Anything to report?

No, boss. Quiet night.

Doing my rounds. I’ll stop by after.

Everything was quiet in the east side woods, the cameras and the perimeter system operating perfectly. As we did every day, I signaled in front of each camera, receiving an acknowledgment from the team at our base. Finished with the cameras, I moved into position and texted my team again.

Triggering zone one

I deliberately stepped through the almost invisible laser that created the first zone of the perimeter alarm.

Trigger received

I wasn’t expecting anything else. We had the woods wired every way we could. No one was getting anywhere near the Manor if I could help it. We’d had more than enough trouble with people who were allowed on the property. I didn’t need anyone sneaking up on us.

Between me, my team, and Griffen, we”d reverse-engineered every approach to the Manor. We had a strategy established for every conceivable scenario. Considering our combined backgrounds, that was a lot of scenarios. So far, no one had gotten in. Not since the beginning and that first attempt on Griffen.

We”d still had plenty of trouble. After we added the cameras and perimeter alarm, whoever was after the Sawyers shifted their attention to the Inn at Sawyers Bend. Sabotage. A knife attack meant for Griffen’s brother Royal. Then another murder: Vanessa, the fiancée Ford had stolen from Griffen, then married and divorced. She’d sworn she knew who Prentice’s real killer was. Maybe she had, but we’d never know. Whoever was behind all of this had gotten to Vanessa first.

Garden-variety theft had interrupted our string of murder and attempted murder: a cousin who thought room and board entitled him to walk off with Sawyer heirlooms. After we took care of the stealing, we swung back to murder, this time courtesy of Parker Sawyer’s now-deceased husband, convinced he could win back his mother’s love if he murdered Parker. Crazy bastard. Shooting him hadn’t been a hardship, especially after he almost killed Parker, her sister, and one of my best guys.

The last real excitement we’d had was when Savannah’s estranged mother-in-law had tried to kidnap her son, Nicky, just before Christmas. Savannah was the housekeeper of Heartstone Manor and practically kept the place running single-handedly. After a chase across half the state, her mother-in-law was in court-mandated psychiatric treatment, and Nicky was doing fine. I’d thought we might have an issue when Griffen got the headmaster of Nicky’s school fired for letting Nicky get kidnapped, but he’d left the state without causing any more trouble. Things had been quiet since.

Finished with the east side of the Manor, I followed the edge of the forest, skirting the back of Savannah’s cottage. The front door opened, and Finn Sawyer stepped out, stopping to lock the deadbolt behind him before heading to the Manor to start breakfast. He was running late.

Finn had taken me by surprise. At first, I thought he was using Savannah. In my world, staff and family didn’t mix. You never fuck the client. Griffen was the closest thing I had to a brother, but that didn’t make me a Sawyer. And Savannah might have grown up in Heartstone Manor, but that didn’t make Savannah a Sawyer either. No, Finn had done that when he’d married her on Valentine’s Day, just over a month ago, and the look on his face as she walked down the aisle finally convinced me he loved her.

Finn disappeared into the side door of the Manor. I circled around behind the pool house and the barren gardens to check the cameras and perimeter alarm on the south side of the Manor. Everything was functioning normally.

It made my skin itchy. We hadn’t had a stretch of quiet this long since I’d been here. Three months since Nicky had been kidnapped, and other than two weddings, life had been calm.

Okay, not exactly calm. We”d gotten word that Ford had survived an assassination attempt in prison. But that could just be Ford pissing people off. I’d gotten the impression that while he was better liked than Prentice had been, he wasn’t everyone”s favorite Sawyer. Ford’s lawyer was convinced his siblings poking into Prentice’s murder had made Ford a target. Maybe. Either way, I was convinced that whatever was causing trouble for Ford would spill over onto the rest of his family. If not today, then eventually.

I wouldn’t—couldn’t—let the quiet make me soft. If I’d learned anything in my former career, it was patience. How to stay sharp through hours, days, and months of monotony. Never lose your edge. Never let the boredom blur your focus. That was how people got killed. I’d lost enough. I wasn’t going to lose anyone else.

The west side of the Manor was as quiet as the rest, the woods as still as they ever were. I went through the routine with the cameras and perimeter alarm. All operating as usual.

I didn’t see her on my rounds. She knew where the cameras were. I didn’t like that she’d chosen to build her nest where we couldn’t see her. Couldn’t keep her safe. The whole thing made me a little crazy.

It shouldn’t. Quinn Sawyer was part of the job. A client. She was nothing to me. In the year since we’d met, we’d had fewer than a handful of conversations. She was Griffen’s sister. Another reason I owed her my best.

My best was ice cold. Detached. Clinical.

Not annoyed, frustrated, and ready to bite her head off.

I’d seen her the night before. I’d been walking the perimeter, as I did on the nights my dreams chased away sleep. Quinn had crept out the side door of the Manor not long after eleven, a backpack slung over her shoulder. I didn”t know why she snuck out to sleep in the woods. It was a bizarre thing to do, especially for an heiress with a castle to sleep in. But she did it, almost every night, regardless of the weather.

The first time I saw her gliding across the dark grass, lit only by the moon, I hadn’t stopped her. I’d followed.

She”d disappeared into the trees at the edge of the woods, and I”d almost lost her. She was alert, her head turning at the slightest sound, as surefooted as if it was full daylight. I had to be careful and quiet, two things I was very good at. Still, I almost missed her hiding spot.

I’d watched from the cover of a rhododendron bush as Quinn pulled a camping hammock from her backpack. She gave it a brisk shake before hooking it between two straps already secured to the trees. An insulated under-quilt came next, followed by a sleeping bag that looked like it was rated for subzero temperatures and a rainfly to keep her dry from the damp that would come in the night.

She had the whole thing set up in less than three minutes. She climbed in. I heard the whirr of the zipper on her sleeping bag, the rustle of fabric as she got comfortable, and that was it. Snug as a bug in a rug, as my mom used to say.

I”d been mystified. I still was. We’d never spoken about it. I hadn’t spoken to Quinn about much of anything. She was family. I was security. The distinction was important with everyone but Griffen. My job was to keep them safe, not be friends with them, but Quinn was something different.

Quinn was?—

I didn”t know. All these months later, I was still trying to figure out what it was about Quinn Sawyer.

She didn”t sleep in the woods every night, but she was there more than she wasn’t. In the coldest bite of winter. In the heat of August. Didn”t matter. On the nights when I couldn’t sleep, I walked the grounds and checked on Quinn. There had been times, too many of them, when I”d sat at the base of a nearby oak and dozed, my ear cocked for anything that might come too close to the sleeping Quinn.

Nothing ever did. The animals moved past her as if she was neither threat nor prey. To them, she was a part of the forest. I’d seen deer cropping at the undergrowth feet away from her hammock. Fox playing in the clearing. She was like Snow White without the creepy dwarves. I understood the woods and loved the wild. It was part of why I’d been so willing to come here. But I knew the wild wasn’t forgiving. And Quinn was defenseless.

So, I kept watch.

My feet brought me toward her clearing, a path I knew better than any other on the estate. It was early, the sun barely cresting the mountains. This time of year, Quinn’s guide business was mostly closed down. She wouldn’t be up with the dawn, preparing to guide kayakers down the river or hikers into the mountains. Like the wild creature she was, she’d be curled in her nest, fast asleep.

It was a few minutes’ walk before I saw the dark arc of her hammock against the slowly growing light. No rainfly. Mist wound around the base of the trees.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

I froze and watched. Another shape resolved, moving behind her hammock, a dark blur in the foggy trees.

My hand went to the weapon at my hip as I crouched and moved faster, closing the distance between me and the sleeping Quinn. The shape in the woods moved at a steady pace, splitting into three shapes, one hulking, the other two far smaller, all three dark blobs in the trees.

Goddamned mist. As pretty as it was, it fucked my visibility. I was too close to call the base and see if they had anything on the cameras. Man or beast, it would hear me at this range.

I reached the hammock. Risking a second to glance inside, I caught the barest glimpse of dark hair, the curve of a pale cheek, the rest hidden by the sleeping bag. Still asleep. Good. I didn’t have time for explanations.

The dark shapes in the trees drew steadily closer. Moving in front of the hammock, I raised my weapon as they came into focus. A sow and two cubs. Black bears. The female was large for her breed. I’d guess close to two hundred pounds. The cubs were tiny in comparison, which made mama bear very, very dangerous.

In mid-March, this might be the cubs’ first foray outside their den. I’d seen bears in these mountains before. Everyone who lived here spotted a bear eventually, and I spent a lot of time in the woods. The black bears here weren’t aggressive. If you gave them space, they’d give it back as long as you were smart about food and didn’t get close to a mama with her newborn cubs.

I’d just broken rule number two.

Fuck.I’d never seen a bear so close to Quinn’s hiding place. And this one kept coming. Ambling, not charging, but way too close. Why?

Quinn wouldn’t have food. My heart jerked at the thought. Surely, she”d know better. Of course, she did. She ran a guide service, for fuck’s sake. The online reviews of her business were glowing. That wouldn’t happen if she was getting tourists mauled because she didn’t know how to handle living in bear country.

The sow ambled a few feet closer, finally turning her head to study me. I wasn’t fooled. Her sharp nose had already picked me up. The cubs passed her, circling around to wander behind me, far too close to Quinn. The sow wagged her head, lurching forward. On instinct, my gun arm came up, aimed at the sow. At this range, I could get a headshot, but I put odds on the bear’s thick skull deflecting the bullet. Especially if she charged.

I didn’t love the idea of killing a mama bear either, but I would if I had to.

“What the hell are you doing?” a voice behind me hissed. The bear’s gaze shifted to my left. I couldn’t risk turning and taking my eyes off the sow.

“Be quiet,” I hissed back. My gut turned to ice as the sow looked past me at Quinn’s hammock. Fuck.

I shot a quick look back, my heart thundering in my chest. Quinn was sitting up, her cheeks pink and puffy with sleep, dark silky hair sliding all over the place, her blue eyes bright and alert as they fixed on the mama bear.

“Get fucking down, Quinn.”

“No,” she murmured. “I don’t have anything she wants.” In the quiet morning air, her soft voice was musical. Mesmerizing.

The sow seemed to agree. She watched Quinn, her gaze only straying to check on her cubs rolling in the scrub beneath the hammock.

“I don’t have any food, mama. You’re just curious, aren’t you?” she asked the bear. “Just taking your babies out for a stroll.”

“Quinn,” I growled. “Shut the fuck up and get down.”

“Hawk,” she said, the soothing music gone from her voice. “Put that gun away and scare her off. Don’t tell me you don’t know how to scare off a curious bear.”

I let out an annoyed grunt, my gaze moving back to the sow. She was right; I did know how to scare off a bear. I’d done it before when I’d run into a brown bear while fishing in Montana. Sliding my gun back into its holster, I waved my arms to make myself look as big as I could.

“Get out of here! Go! Get the fuck away!” Ignoring my instincts to run, to shoot her, to do anything but get closer, I stepped forward and roared louder. “Get the fuck out of here! Go! Go! Go! Get lost!”

The bear turned, backing up a hesitant step before her eyes shifted to the right. Her cubs had wandered to the far side of the hammock, no longer cut off from their mother. With an ursine shrug, the sow ambled away, collecting her cubs and disappearing slowly into what remained of dawn’s mist.

“Were you going to shoot her in the eye with that thing?” Quinn asked, sounding amused and not the least bit scared. “Is your aim that good?”

“Yes,” I grunted, too annoyed to bother lying. At that range, I could have shot her in the eye. Unless she’d charged.

Quinn sat cross-legged in her hammock, her long underwear rumpled, her eyes sparkling.

“Why aren’t you scared?” I demanded, my gut still churning at how close she’d come to being a bear snack.

Quinn shrugged. “She didn’t want to hurt me. She was just out for a morning walk with her cubs.”

“Quinn, there was a fucking oversized sow less than ten feet from you. Her cubs were playing right underneath you. Do you not understand how dangerous that was? You”re wrapped up in that hammock like a fucking human burrito. It’s still winter. They”re hungry. How can you be so reckless?”

She shrugged again, sending my heart rate through the roof. I was going to kill her. Or have a stroke.

“Quinn,” I tried again. “It”s not safe to sleep out here.”

She shook her head. “I”m safer out here than I am in the Manor.”

“It”s safer than it used to be,” I said, knowing she had a point. There’d been a murder and more than a few attempted murders inside the Manor. Animal attacks? Zero. “There were bear cubs right under your hammock,” I reminded her.

“I know.” She grinned, lighting up the forest. “Isn’t it cool?”

“No!” I shouted back. I heard myself and snapped my mouth shut.

It was only Quinn who did this to me. Quinn with her pixie body and her bright eyes. She looked delicate. Fragile. The first time I saw her, I wanted to protect her. Ironic, because of all the people living in Heartstone Manor, Griffen aside, Quinn needed protection the least.

She knew the woods like the back of her hand. She was fit and strong. She could hike for hours. She knew how to shoot. She knew how to use a knife. The knife was for fileting the fish she caught, not combat, but it was wickedly sharp, and she held it like it had been made for her. I’d seen all of this with my own eyes.

I knew Quinn wasn’t weak. She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t careless. And here I was, roaring at her like she was the bear I was trying to scare off.

Fuck.

She made things misfire in my brain.

That bear in Montana? I’d faced him down with icy calm, waving my arms and yelling just as I had with the mama bear. The one in Montana had been bigger, a male brown bear who’d wanted our trout for his dinner. I hadn’t bothered with my weapon, charging at him when he’d come for us, as calm as when I’d been making coffee that morning in camp.

With Quinn in the picture, all that icy calm had burned away. She fucked with my head. I’d seen the bear, seen Quinn sleeping, and let fear take the driver’s seat.

When was the last time that had happened?

I knew the answer. The last time I’d let fear make my decisions, I’d fallen into the darkness. I’d destroyed too much. More than I could live with.

I had to hold on to the ice. The control.

I had to stay far away from Quinn Sawyer.

I was here to keep her safe. To keep her alive. Letting her get any further under my skin would only put her in danger. I couldn’t allow that.

Quinn Sawyer wasn’t for me. I wasn’t the kind of man who could have a woman like her. The things I’d done could never be redeemed. Ever.

I wouldn’t lose another woman I cared about. Not again. And not this one.

Without another word, I walked away, ignoring Quinn’s grunt of annoyance. Good. If she was annoyed, she’d stay away from me. I didn’t need the temptation.

If I did nothing else in my life, I was going to keep Quinn Sawyer safe.

Especially from me.