AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t need a babysitter,” she ground out between her teeth.
“Too bad.” He grinned. “You want to sleep? We’ll sleep and then leave together.”
Her lips thinned, eyes narrowing as she shot him a look of promised retribution before turning and going to the bathroom. He was so damned stubborn, so bossy. The man was a freak when it came to demanding.
And sleeping with him was a very bad idea. And yet, she knew she would do just that.
She hurriedly brushed her teeth, removed her jeans and shirt, leaving her clad only in the boy shorts and tank top she wore beneath them. Something he’d seen her in plenty of times, she reminded herself. She changed the bandage on her leg at the unsightly dark stain of blood beneath it, and hoped a few hours’ sleep would help the healing process.
When she was finished, she left the bathroom, went straight to the bed, and climbed beneath the blankets. She didn’t even pause at the sight of him already propped against the pillow as he typed a message into his phone.
“No later than noon,” he warned her, turning his head to stare at her, his green eyes darker, the latent sensuality on his face causing her breathing to shorten once again.
“Fine. Turn out the light so I can sleep.” She felt like she was suddenly strangling on the heat and desire flooding her body.
She knew this was a very bad idea.
The light went out; the powerful body next to her was close enough that she could feel his warmth. That she didn’t feel so alone.
And she was tired.
So very tired.
FIVE
She was tough, she’d told Tracker before he’d left her in Somerset the day before. She didn’t need his help. She didn’t need protection.
When she’d risen from bed she’d ignored Duke, showered, changed the bandage on her leg again, and dressed in a pair of dun-colored mission pants, matching T-shirt, and the well-worn ankle boots she used while on a job.
She strapped the knife Chaya had given her so long ago to her thigh. The small Glock she carried was holstered and clipped in the small of her back and hidden by the loose fit of the T-shirt.
It didn’t take long to collect the few items that weren’t already stored in the duffel bag she carried while Duke showered. Within an hour after waking she picked up the bag and followed Duke from the room to the Jeep.
It was just another job.
She’d done this so many times she could handle it in her sleep, she told herself as Duke drove away from the hotel.
She would stay at the clients’ home, protect their daughter, and when the threat was taken care of, she’d go to another job.
That simple, that easy.
She stared out at the sun-drenched scenery as Duke drove through the town’s busy business center and into the more rural area leading to Natches Mackay’s lakeside home.
She fought the emotions roiling inside her. Years of anger, pain and betrayal, hopes, dreams, and nightmares.
“Momma was supposed to come get us.” She assured the little girl who lay so still and silent, her face and pretty dress covered with a heavy layer of dust and so much blood.
She patted Jenny’s face, sobbing, her own tears making it hard to see, the fear and the pain that Momma wasn’t coming clawing at her chest. “Momma was supposed to come. . . .”
“You okay?” Duke’s voice pulled her back from the destructive memory. “You’re too quiet.”
“I’m fine,” she forced herself to answer him, just as she forced herself to stay in the Jeep, to breathe, to keep from screaming out in rage.
Inside, the emotions threatened to break through the carefully built defenses she’d erected over the years. She’d gone to war since she was a child, fought, protected, been forced to kill, and never had she felt so off balance as she did now.
Never had she been so aware of the fact that she had spent far too little time doing anything other than going to war.
It had simply been her life. Kill or be killed. Protect or die. That was J.T. and Mara’s motto. Protect or die. It was the motto she’d been raised with right along with Tracker and Chance.
