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He’d worked long and hard, and this downtime was due him. People knew better than to bother him when he could almost taste the grit in his teeth and feel the desert air whistling through his hair.
It was going to be him, his bike, his trusty dog and the unforgiving outback of the desert.
Which was just how he liked it.
His eyes slid over a shelf of framed photographs and knick-knacks collected from a lifetime of experiences. Landed on the only picture he had kept from high school, back when he hadn’t been half as tough or rugged as he was now.
The two teens in the picture were skinny things, all arms and legs with glasses and unfortunate zits that were the cause of many a beating from the jocks that’d had their run of the school.
After a prettymiserable childhood being bullied and living under the roof with a drunk for a father, and a drug addict for a mom, when Kane Turner suddenly grew two feet — seemingly each way — he’d fled to the marines as soon as was feasibly possible.
Disciplined, driven, and relieved to be getting out of his crummy home situation, he advanced up the ranks quickly due to formidable physical skills and an almost sixth sense for danger.
Didn’t matter if he was in the sketchier parts of downtown or conducting a dawn patrol in Afghanistan, Kane always knew moments before contact with a hostile was initiated. It was this uncanny ability that had kept him alive throughout each of his tours when so many of his brothers had fallen by the wayside.
Despite being so good at his job, he never enjoyed it.
It was in his blood to protect and serve, but he didn’t like fighting people, didn’t like hurting them, however misguided they were. Still, he would have stayed a marine if it wasn’t for the devastating loss that occurred in Operation Condor.
It was supposed to have been a routine expedition.
A simple patrol in a small town in the middle of nowhere where only a handful of people lived. They were to show their faces, let the locals see that the US controlled the region when an IED went off as they neared.
The car ahead had flipped over, though luckily, Kane had felt that tingle in the back of his neck, that flutter in his stomach that had warned him something was amiss.
Slowing down his vehicle as he scouted the area, he had been far enough back that the bomb only did surface damage. The wounds he sustained would leave a few wicked scars, though they were nothing compared to the devastation his marine brothers faced.
Suffering through weeks of agony, their injuries finally proved too great as a number of them died one after the other. Those who clung to survival did so by a thread: tormented by PTSD, they only made it through the day by medicating themselves with whatever was available.
And those were the lucky ones.
Unable to work or return to normal civilian life, a few became homeless, sleeping on the streets before vanishing off the face of the earth completely.
Kane hadn’t wanted that for himself.
He hadn’t survived his childhood to let that be the end of his story. He knew he had to quit before his number came up.
After he returned to civilian life, Kane flitted around from city to city, working various manual jobs from construction to bartender to a stint as an Uber driver, until his high school buddy Wilson had called, offering to employ him.
The class nerd, Wilson had gone on to make a major success of himself and now ran one of the most sought-after VIP security services. Having heard that Kane was struggling, he wanted to help the one person who hadn’t made his life a misery at school.
The money was decent, and it was fun to mix with the Hollywood elite whowere as eccentric, as out of control as a person would expect. From well-organized “sleepovers” featuring some of the country’s best-known faces to basement S&M dungeons, Kane had seen it all.
Despite some of the crazy things he’d witnessed and how he could likely fund the rest of his life if he would only pen a book detailing the madness he’d been privy to, Kane was a consummate professional and would never betray his employer’s trust.
This kind of integrity was a quality often missing in LA, and so he found his services in constant demand, particularly when the employer happened to be a bored and lonely housewife.
Many fell for his brooding good looks, while others simplyloved the challenge.
Kane frequently found himself in uncomfortable situations where he would catch his clientwalking around in nothing more than a thong and a smile.
He never took advantage of the moment.
The women who threw themselves at him? He never found them attractive. He didn’t like their too-tight facial features so often caused by surgery, or thevoluminous breasts that never moved. The fake tans made him think of overcooked frankfurters on a grill. In fact, he hated fakeness in general,which was why, although he was seen as a catch, he still hadn’t foundThe One.
Not that he believed in that kind of thing.
Having seen what a loveless marriage could do to two people, he had sworn off the idea. This was justas well, as none of his previous relationships had been at all successful with an average lifespan of only a few months — if that.
