Protected by a Hero

by Susan Stoker, Cristin Harber, Cora Seton, Lynn Raye Harris, Kaylea Cross, Katie Reus, Tessa Layne

  Like the rest of them, he hadn’t a hope in hell of ever owning one himself.

  They’d discovered that commonality in the first week they’d worked together. None of them had been happy to land here at USSOCOM doing desk work. Especially when they quickly realized that work was bogus. JSOC had an arsenal of men and women working on inter-branch communication. Brian and the rest of the task force were redundant.

  Useless.

  Every morning they entered the office to find more manuals and printouts to look through. They’d been tasked with finding contradictions between them, as if the five elite warriors in the room were little better than copy editors. Brian would have taken on any other job if he could, but that was just it: none of them had a choice.

  That was something else they shared in common.

  The fact was, they were killing time on the way to being ushered out of the military gently but firmly by an apparatus that had made it all too clear that if they objected, things would get ugly, fast.

  Brian had to chuckle privately when he remembered the suspicious way they’d regarded each other when they’d all arrived at USSOCOM. He and Hunter were the only ones from the same military branch, and all five of them had secrets to hide. Still, it didn’t take long for them to realize the similarities in their situations. Each of them a highly trained officer in one of the special branches of the military.

  Each of them a fuck-up.

  “I don’t mind working,” Jack said. “If the General would give us some real work.”

  Brian knew what he meant. He’d always considered himself to be diligent in his duties, despite the mistake that had landed him here, but he’d spent more time staring at the photographs of the General’s ranch—and at Cass, if he was honest—than he’d spent finding discrepancies. There weren’t many to find. These publications had been thoroughly vetted by JSOC already.

  Several feet away from him, two large, poster-size frames hung on the wall. One was an aerial shot of the General’s ranch. The main house was set back from a two-lane country highway. Behind it stood another structure he figured had to be some kind of large garage. Some distance away was a cluster of buildings that had to be barns, stables, that sort of thing. All around them were large pastures, brushy thickets and pine forests. The second frame held a topographical map of the same area, structures, terrain, roads and trails marked out in detail. How many hours had he stared at those two hangings in the past month?

  Far too many. He had no doubt he could traverse the General’s ranch blindfolded.

  Cass’s photograph hung just below the topographical map. Just out of easy reach, although if he leaned forward he could slap a kiss onto her lips with his hand the way Logan had Lena’s.

  If only he could own a ranch like Two Willows, he thought for the thousandth time. If he had to leave the Navy SEALs, he could find contentment on a place like that. A wife like Cass Reed wouldn’t hurt, either.

  But neither of those scenarios was likely. He’d recently learned his brother, Grant, was walking the same path as their deadbeat father, who’d lost their ranch when Brian was young. Grant had racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debt and called Brian for help, afraid his wife, Marissa, would leave him if she found out. Brian, like the fool he was, had given his brother a substantial loan, knowing all the while he’d never see that money again. Now he was even further away from his dream of owning property. And Grant had likely gambled most of the money away again. The Lakes didn’t attract happiness.

  He’d wondered too many times what would happen when his time with the SEALs was up and he had to go back to civilian life.

  He wanted land. He wanted a ranch like the one his father had lost. He wanted horses. Cattle. Wide open spaces. A family—

  Brian cut off that chain of thoughts.

  No ranch for him. Not without another decade or more in the military. A real spread cost a bundle these days. Far more than he’d managed to put away so far—even before that loan to Grant. No wife, either, until he could give her a good life and keep her safe. Until he could prove to himself he wasn’t a fuck-up like his father or brother. Better for him to stay single. In the military.

  If only the military wanted him.

  “The General can’t get angry about me flirting with his daughter if he isn’t going to give me anything else to do,” Logan said.

  “Haven’t you worked it out yet?” Connor asked him. “They’ve put us on a shelf. They’re keeping us out of trouble until we’re gone. They don’t have anything for you to do.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.” Jack’s frustration was clear. “You’d think they’d get what they can from us. Send us somewhere we’d see some real action. Give us a chance to make it up to them.”

  “That’s what I can’t understand,” Logan said. “I’ve worked with men who’ve done far worse than what I did and been promoted—”

  “We’re here. No use complaining.”

  Hunter’s thick accent wrapped around them like a warm blanket, but his words were stern. Brian knew the man wasn’t any happier about being pulled from the action than the rest of them were.

  “Nothing makes sense anymore,” Logan went on. “I mean, look at this room. Are we fixing the communication problem between branches, or are we preparing to invade the General’s ranch? We’ve got maps, mug shots, dossiers…”

  Connor nearly spit out the coffee he’d just taken a sip of. “Shit, he’s right. I hadn’t thought about it like that.” He gestured to all the framed photos and prints on the walls. “Look at all the intel.”

  “Those aren’t dossiers,” Jack said scornfully.

  “What do you call them then?” Logan pointed at the photo collages positioned around the room. Each of the General’s daughters had one—a collection of shots depicting her at various activities. Lena’s showed her herding cattle, riding horses, shooting pistols at targets, mucking out a stable. Sadie’s were mostly set in the ranch’s extensive gardens. Alice seemed to favor sewing. In several she held elaborate costumes out at arm’s length, but she was also to be seen reading, dancing and riding. Josephine, the youngest daughter, had an animal with her in every shot, from cats and dogs to chickens, cattle and horses.

  Brian had looked at all of them over the course of the month, but it was Cass’s that held his attention. Her collage showed a woman who worked hard keeping a home together for her family. Cass cooking at the stove, laughing while seated at the head of a table of friends and family, fixing the lock on a door, repairing the back porch, riding with her sisters, bent over paperwork at a desk, collecting eggs while a chicken looked on.

  “He’s right,” Brian said slowly. Staring at these photos, he’d learned a variety of facts about the ranch’s inhabitants and had built impressions of each of them in his mind. He knew the layout of the ranch, knew the network of roads and tracks that crisscrossed it, had a sense of the size of the cattle operation…

  “So, what—you think the General is going to send us on a mission to Montana? He’s just a family man,” Jack said scornfully.

  “A family man who never goes home,” Hunter said suddenly.

  The door burst open just as the rest of them jumped into the argument, and the General himself strode into the room. In the sudden silence, he waved them to the table before they could stand up. “Gather round, men. Sit down, sit down.” He took a position standing at the head of the large table and Brian and the others hurried to seat themselves around it. Brian wondered if the rest of them were worried that the General had overheard them.

  He sure was. He was working to stop the process that was kicking him out of the military. He wanted to stay—needed to. He hadn’t saved up near enough money to buy a ranch.

  The General paced while they watched. He seemed to be mulling something over, and must have come to a conclusion, because he turned and nodded once. “Guess what, boys? You’ve earned yourselves a mission. A special mission.” He caught the gaze of each man in turn, his hazel eyes glinting
with a mixture of triumph and contempt. “One that fits both the skills the United States military has endowed you with, and the blatant, reckless idiocy you’ve seen fit to display ever since.” He grinned his raffish, trademark grin. “Brace yourselves. Your future’s about to slap you upside the head.”

  Brian swallowed against a sudden sense of unease.

  “What’s that supposed to mean, sir?” Logan asked.

  “That means this mission is permanent. It’s a one-way ticket out of the military…without a stop in the stockade.”

  Several men shifted uncomfortably at this new reminder of the ties that linked them. They’d all made mistakes, but none of them had paid for them…

  Yet.

  Brian knew that was about to change, regardless of what the General said next. He didn’t like the sound of permanent. If he couldn’t figure out how to stay in the SEALs, he’d never reach his goal. He didn’t want to hire on to some civilian security corporation. That wasn’t his style at all.

  “Are you talking about a suicide mission, sir?” Jack joked, bringing Brian back to the present.

  The general’s eyes narrowed. “Not suicide, although seeing as none of you wanted to leave the military, maybe it’ll seem mighty close. Tell me, Lake, you got a girl?”

  “A girl, sir?” Brian sputtered. Why was the General interested in his love life all of a sudden?

  “A girl. A woman. Someone to keep you warm at night.”

  “No, sir.” Brian didn’t have any of those. Hadn’t gotten more than three dates into a relationship in years. He supposed a shrink would blame it on mommy issues. As in, he didn’t have one. After his father’s gambling had lost them their small ranch, they’d moved into a house in town. Late one Saturday night his mother had run to a convenience mart five blocks from home and walked into a robbery gone wrong. She got shot when the police intervened. His dad lost the two hundred bucks he’d bet on the Raiders. Tough night all around.

  “What exactly is this all about, sir?” Connor asked the General, leaning forward and setting his elbows on the table as if to better hear the answer.

  “You’ve heard about my contentious relationship with my daughters.” Nearly sixty, Reed still evinced the vigor of a much younger man, but several times in the past few weeks Brian had thought he’d glimpsed something behind his veneer of strength and determination. Something far harder to define. Disquiet, maybe.

  Regret.

  No one answered him. For the General to speak about his family—and mention a problem regarding his girls—was unprecedented.

  The General tapped his finger on the table, a gesture uncharacteristically indecisive. After a moment, he straightened. “Last November I installed a new overseer on my ranch. Name of Bob Finchley. Today I received notice that my girls ran him off. Which means my ranch—one of the largest in Montana—is being overseen by a passel of women and a bunch of hands I’ve never met. Hands whose reputations aren’t stellar. My girls do their best to keep me out of the loop, but something’s rotten in Denmark—this isn’t the usual case of them wanting to run the place themselves. Profits are way down. The hands Finchley hired are from out of town—no one can vouch for them. And there are rumblings in Chance Creek I haven’t heard before. Crime’s up. There’s more trouble than usual. I don’t know what’s going on, but I want to find out.”

  “Sir, what does this have to do with me?” Brian asked.

  “Keep a lid on it and you’ll find out,” the General snapped. He straightened. “I’m giving you your orders, all of you. You will infiltrate Two Willows, root out every last insurgent who’s wormed his way in there, secure the property, impose martial law and marry the natives. Do you understand me?”

  Brian stilled. So did all the others. He opened his mouth to speak. Closed it again.

  “Sir—what did you just say?” Connor’s slow-spoken question caused the General’s frown to deepen. Two Willows was the name of the General’s ranch. Which meant—if Brian wasn’t mistaken—the natives were his daughters.

  He swallowed in a suddenly dry throat and willed himself not to turn and look at Cass’s photograph. The man had lost his marbles. Possibly overnight. Up until now Reed hadn’t demonstrated any kind of mental illness, but this wasn’t normal behavior, any way you sliced it.

  “You heard me.” The General didn’t budge. Just stared back at them. Was he enjoying this?

  Logan rolled his eyes. “With all due respect, General, it’s the twenty-first century—you can’t order people to marry.”

  “Like hell I can’t.” The General fixed him with a look as sharp as flint. “But not you. Not yet. Lake, you’re up first. You’ll marry Cass.”

  “Why do I have to go first… sir?” he added belatedly. He hadn’t meant to say any of that out loud. It had slipped out while he struggled to get a hold of his emotions. He hadn’t expected to ever get the chance to be in the same place as Cass Reed, let alone have the General order him to marry her. It was one thing to lust over a photograph. Another thing altogether to be presented with a woman and ordered to get hitched.

  “Because I said so. You’re always eager to scout ahead, right?”

  That was a direct hit. Brian had landed in the shithouse for an over-eager move on his last mission in the Middle East. Patience not being his particular virtue, he’d decided, after cooling his heels for ten days with the rest of his team waiting for conditions to be right, to get a look at the situation from a different viewpoint. It was a good move, in that he’d spotted their target and taken him out with one clean shot, but the rest of the mission had been a disaster. Brian and his men had to call in an airstrike to escape, and an unlucky hit took out a nearby market square. It was empty at the time, but that didn’t stop the international watchdogs from howling about civilian targets.

  Brian rubbed his jaw with his hand. “How the hell am I supposed to make your daughter marry me, sir?” None of this could be real. He’d never asked a more ridiculous question in his life.

  The General gave him a long, knowing look before he flipped open a file on the table, and Brian wondered again if the man knew far more about what had gone on in this room over the last few weeks than he’d been letting on. “I’m giving you a cover story. My house needs work. While you’re fixing it, you can get the lay of the land and see what’s what. Get rid of the ranch hands who are still under Finchley’s sway. Woo my daughter. The Navy spent a hell of a lot of money training you, Lake. You’ll figure it out. The others will follow.”

  Shifts in body position and the scraping of chair legs over the linoleum floor belied the general’s assurance.

  “I don’t know about everyone else, but I think I’ll sit this square dance out, sir,” Connor drawled.

  “Oh, really? How about I re-open the investigation into the shitstorm you made out of your last mission? Is that what you want, O’Riley?”

  The room went absolutely silent. All of them were waiting for the results of investigations into their conduct. If Connor’s had been suspended, did that mean…?

  “That’s what I thought,” the General said. “And yes—for the moment, all investigations have been suspended. I can change that with a single phone call.”

  Reed sighed gustily. Brian sat tense with the possibility that the investigation—and charges—he’d dreaded for months might disappear. He’d do about anything to make that happen.

  “Now listen up,” the General went on, each word as harsh as sandpaper over steel. Brian held very still. It was clear the man had reached his limit. “You all don’t quite seem to be getting the picture, so let’s try this one more time. Each and every one of you is sitting in this room because you’ve fucked things up in such a major way the US military wants you to go crawl under a rug and disappear. They’ve handed the problem to me. So I’m holding up a rug, and you’re damned well going to crawl under it.” He looked them each in the eye in turn. “I’m not asking you to a square dance, ladies. I’m giving you a mission. A final mission. One that
will end with the termination of any relationship between you and the US military. But that termination will be honorable. At least on paper. You will take it. You will go to Montana. You will get my ranch in hand. You will marry my daughters. Do you understand me?”

  Brian wasn’t sure he understood any of this, but that didn’t matter, did it? Despite everything, he’d do what the General said if it meant crawling out from under the hell of the investigation into his actions. He’d never meant to do anything to blacken the eye of the United States Navy. If this whole episode could disappear, he’d be one happy man.

  But marriage—that was different. Like the General said—it was permanent. Was that fair to a woman like Cass? After all, his father had good as killed his mother, and Grant was about to ruin his wife’s life. What if he fucked up like that and took Cass, the sweet woman he only knew from photographs, down with him?

  What choice did he have but to give it a shot, though? And who better to try it with than Cass Reed?

  If the General wasn’t pulling his leg in some massive practical joke, that was.

  But the General didn’t look like he was joking. And if Brian was honest, Cass’s photograph had tempted him since the day he walked in here. The collage that depicted her interests resonated with him as if she’d been handpicked for him.

  Clarity crashed over Brian, and he sucked in a breath. It was the other way around, wasn’t it? Brian had been handpicked for Cass.

  By the General.

  Months ago.

  Had the others realized that?

  It looked like they were beginning to. He saw their surreptitious glances at the General’s daughters’ photos hung around the room.