Now, Lillian was a social worker assisting women who suffered abuse, neglect, and domestic violence, as well as a counselor for soldiers who needed help transitioning into civilian life after retirement. She was also a self-defense instructor and martial arts expert obsessed with teaching women to be empowered and to avoid becoming victims.
She walked to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and washed up. She thought about how she met Caden McCarthy, Texas Ranger and cousins with Lou Costello, who owned and operated the dojo and self-defense facility in Warriorville. One of the clients at the dojo, Amelia, was taking the self-defense classes because she had been in an abusive relationship. Amelia hadn’t told any of them about it, but instead insisted that she was taking the classes as precaution. Then one night, while Amelia was leaving the dojo, she stopped at the local coffee place for a coffee where Lillian had met her. They were talking and making plans to attend an art gallery event in town when Lillian walked with her outside. Out of nowhere, some big guy with a knife threatened Amelia. He slashed at Amelia’s belly as he tried to grab her, and Lillian stepped in to assist, using her military and martial arts training to kick the knife from the man’s hand and then subdue him until the police arrived, which was pretty quickly.
A few days later, Caden McCarthy contacted her because Amelia was missing and they feared she had been taken by her boyfriend or even killed. Tuned out that Amelia was so scared of her boyfriend’s threats that she went with him and was nearly killed, but the police managed to step in just in time. Amelia was afraid, and Lillian helped her to see that she didn’t need to stay in the abusive relationship and how there were ways to get protection and even a safe place to go where he couldn’t find her and she could get him out of her system.
After that incident, she became one of the go-to people to assist in any domestic situations with violent encounters or heated interventions. Caden or even the local Sheriff, Tatum Lantern, called her when there was a young woman in trouble or one running from abuse. Part of her social work job was getting calls to come help when needed. It all made her feel a bit more fulfilled and definitely like she was making a difference and helping as opposed to feeling like a victim never healed. She saw their survival through and helped to ensure these women had a future where they could depend on themselves, develop their self-worth, and even protect their children if they had any. It was beyond just the initial rescue situations she was used to. Here, in this town, working for a woman’s shelter and assisting police, she could make sure these women had a fighting chance long after they escaped and were free.
Unfortunately, in today’s society, there wasn’t much down time, and there always seemed to be someone in need of help. She supposed it was better than sitting around waiting for a flashback to hit her or to be stuck pondering over her life and two very close encounters with death. She fought hard to get through the trauma she experienced as a fifteen-year-old. She found satisfaction in every challenge she faced in the military, and fear was not an option when it was life or death. It was her response, her actions, her strategic operations and seeing them through that ultimately saved lives. She was empowered and came close to death too many times to fear it.
With this freedom and empowerment came a bit of loneliness. Relationship with men were few and far between and didn’t last long, because she didn’t want them to. She wasn’t getting any younger and moving from Dallas to Warriorville, where ménage relationships ran rampant, might not have been the best choice when trying to be so independent, but so far, she avoided intimacy. Mostly, because she had a hardened heart, didn’t trust easily, and always put her job first just like she did as a soldier.
As she got out of bed and began her morning routine, she had to admit there were some really good-looking men living in Warriorville. She avoided Mulligan’s Bar and Restaurant, one of the main hang outs in town, because she knew if she went there something would happen. Men just seemed to grab any single woman they set their eyes on, and then those women didn’t stand a chance once they were tag teamed.
She felt her body ache with need. It had been a while since she had sex, but it wouldn’t be smart to screw around in Warriorville or anywhere remotely close. No, she needed to work and work out, keep busy, and stay out of trouble. At least until this ache got really bad, she thought, and chuckled as she prepared to get dressed and make some breakfast.
Chapter 1
“Why are you in such a pissed off mood?” Simo Stray asked Colt Jaslow.
Colt didn’t respond verbally. He just gave his commander an annoyed expression as he stretched out his arm.
“Getting some aches and pains?” Jordo Brothers asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I’ll be happy when we finish this house up and have a bit of a break. My arm has been bothering me a lot lately,” Colt said and then took a sip of his coffee.
“Maybe it more so has something to do with how much you bench pressed yesterday and that little friendly competition of pull ups with Brian?” Simo said very calmly. Jordo chuckled just as Brian came into the room in uniform, getting ready to head to work as a deputy for the Warriorville Sheriff’s Department.
Colt gave Simo and Jordo a look, indicating they better stop the conversation, but Colt took that moment to reach across the table for a napkin, and he grunted. Brian placed his hand on the butt of his gun on his utility belt and smirked.
“How are you feeling, Colt?” Brian asked.
Colt reached for his coffee cup. “Good, and you?” he replied. Jordo laughed, and Brian walked by Colt and gave him a light slap on his shoulder.
“You never learn, man. Just face it, I will always be able to do more pull ups than you.”
“Fuck you,” Colt said, and Brian laughed.
“And you still can’t take defeat humbly.” Brian added as he grabbed the orange juice from the fridge.
Simo changed the subject before it turned into another argument and challenge amongst the team. “You got in late last night,” Simo said to Brian.
“Yeah, a few of the guys met at Mulligan’s. I told you guys to meet me. You missed out on a fun night,” he said and took a sip of his juice.
“Don’t need to hear about the women hitting on you or how you got laid,” Colt snapped at him.
Simo saw Brian’s facial expression change to annoyance. “First of all, I don’t go fucking around and definitely not around here. Maybe if you got out more you wouldn’t be such a crab ass.”
“If I want to go get a piece of ass, I will find one out of this town. God knows you look at a woman and suddenly it’s commitment and guardianship,” Colt said.
“Yeah, who the fuck wants that?” Jordo said sarcastically. Simo knew that the guys had been getting antsy as friends were settling down, and the town gave off a more family type of vibe. None of them met any women they all felt attracted to for one, and secondly, they didn’t go out to even give meeting one an opportunity. When they were in need of a woman’s company, they left town, and it was working out fine. Except for the last six months. None of them were bothering to leave. They were all over forty, and women they met were either too young and inexperienced in life to maintain an interest of conversation, or too loose to be more than just a screw.
“Don’t start the whole dating thing again. There isn’t anyone around these parts that could come close to making all of us have an interest. All we do is work construction and work out in the dojo, which is becoming annoying with all the broads hanging out in there trying to land a soldier,” Colt added.
“You choose to hang out here. Mulligan’s is a pretty cool place. There are people who come from surrounding towns, not just Warriorville, so you never know who you might meet,” Brian said, and then placed his glass into the sink.
“Don’t go getting all local deputy on us and start selling the local pick-up bar.”
Brian chuckled. “Damn, man, either you need to get laid, or you need some new hobby to get rid of that anger and disgust. Maybe switch do
jos like we discussed last week. Try Lou’s place. It’s in that barn on the outskirts of town.”
“I just might do that.”
“Yeah, sure,” Brian said, and then he said goodbye.
“Have a good and safe day,” Simo told him.
“You too,” he said and headed out.
“So, when do you want to go check out the dojo?” Jordo asked Colt.
“There’s a class at 10:00 a.m. I called Lou to ask some questions.”
Jordo looked at his watch. “Let’s do it.”
Simo nodded. “I’m in for trying something new. Should we text Lou and let him know?”
“He said just come by. I talked to him yesterday. I didn’t confirm, because I wanted to see how my arm felt.”
“If you need a few more days to recover—”
“Screw you, Jordo. Don’t start your crap. Brian beat you in pull ups, too.”
“Several years ago, so I know not to challenge him with that. Now, when it comes to back squatting, I got all you fuckers beat,” Jordo said and lifted out his leg in the shorts he wore and showed off his thick, defined muscles. The man was a beast in the gym, and he did have them beat as far as leg size and muscle. Not by a lot, but enough to add some competition in the gym for max weightlifting.
“And I got you all beat with bench pressing,” Colt added.
“Great, now that will be the next challenge when we’re all in the gym tomorrow,” Simo said, and they laughed.
They were a family, not by blood but by experiences in the military and being a team. No one knew him like these men, and he knew them better than any family member. They worked in sync, and the one thing that would ultimately bring them together and complete them would be to find a woman they all could love and provide for. He really felt that was why his men were antsy and feeling out of sorts. It was hard to watch other military teams find happiness with one woman and look and feel fulfilled. Simo spoke to lots of his friends who got involved in these relationships. It seemed like a rare thing, yet there were many of those relationships all around them. But if they didn’t get out there and start exposing themselves to meeting other people and women, then they could wind up completely alone. He didn’t want that. Not for his men, who sacrificed so much in life that it could be amazing if they found a woman who understood, accepted them, scars and all, and could love them. That would be a fucking miracle.
Deputy Brian Vega was the first officer on the scene of a pretty bad accident. As he approached, he saw the smoke and the large box truck with the front scrunched up like an accordion, half on top of a black beat-up van. Two other vehicles, smaller cars, were damaged and stuck hood-first in ditches on the side of the road. Those people sustained some injuries and needed assistance. Once he helped them, his next concern was for the drivers of the box truck and the van. From here, it didn’t look good at all. As more sirens blared and other police vehicles joined in the rescue along with fire trucks and paramedics, Brian was already on the other side of the van. The driver wasn’t moving, nor was the passenger, who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and currently laid half through the windshield and on the hood of the van. It was a horrific sight as he called to back up and everyone began to pitch in. He moved out of the way as paramedics confirmed the death of both driver and passenger, and Deputy Marcus Sperr called out that the driver of the truck was dead.
Sheriff Tatum Lantern joined Brian as they tried pulling open the back doors to the van. With the firefighters’ assistance and a Halligan tool, they were able to pry it open. The smell of fuel, smoke, burnt rubber, and then suddenly death encased them all. Brian blinked his eyes, for a moment thinking he was having a flashback of some sort as multiple bodies appeared in the van. Four, five, no, six women were in the back, mouths taped closed, their bodies bloody.
“What the fuck?” Sheriff Tatum Lantern said, and they climbed up into the van to see if any of the women were alive.
“Nothing. Shit,” Brian said and felt his heart racing.
“Nothing here, either. Jesus, she’s a baby,” Deputy Oliver Fey said as he stared down at the face of a woman who looked no older than sixteen.
“I got one. I got one,” Sheriff Lantern called out.
“Oh God. Paramedics, now,” Brian yelled to the opening, and they got out of the way and let paramedics tend to the one woman who had a weak pulse and a head injury that looked pretty bad.
They gathered around the scene, state police arriving, along with Caden McCarthy, a Texas Ranger who lived in Warriorville.
“What do you think, Caden?” the sheriff asked a while later as the paramedics took away those they could save and the coroner arrived on scene.
“I can tell you this much—this situation, the van, women tied up like that and making their way along the highway through rural towns like ours, is an MO for human trafficking.”
“Around here? Never before. We haven’t had anyone stupid enough to even come close to here, because the military residents alone.”
“Could be any reason for this, Tatum. They took the wrong turn, or they got spooked on the highway, or they were looking to add to the van,” Caden said, and Brian felt both sick and pissed off.
“Let’s make sure we do a thorough investigation. This is crazy shit. Shit, I haven’t seen since my military days,” Brian said to them.
“You’re not kidding. Once this gets out, we’ll have Feds involved. You know that, Tatum, right?” Caden asked.
“Yeah, I know, but at least we have friends who are involved with the government, as well, if needed,” Tatum said, and Brian thought of his own team, his brothers in arms who currently still did work for the government through intel, communications, and computers.
Brian looked back at that van, the images making him both sick and angry just thinking about those poor women. He hoped that the drivers of the van could be identified and could lead them to an arrest, but more likely they were just delivery men, kept out of the loop and paid to strictly transport and nothing more. The idea of this in their town affected him in so many ways. His mind instantly went back to one of their last missions before retiring, when he and his team found not only weapons, but women imprisoned, raped, and killed simply to occupy soldiers’ time and nothing more.
A terrible feeling filled his gut.
Colt, Simo, and Jordo pulled into the parking lot of Lou’s dojo. It looked like a big old barn, and not just anyone could join this club. Colt was grateful for that, because the last thing he wanted was to be working out and have women drooling as they stood by watching and waiting for him to flirt with them. They didn’t take training seriously, and that bothered him. He was quiet and serious. The things he experienced in the military affected him for the rest of his life, and he just couldn’t engage in conversation with just anyone. At least not a woman who didn’t remotely understand the violence and its effect, or who solely focused on some fantasy she created in her mind of fucking a soldier. They’d seen all kinds.
Just as he thought that and they got out of the truck, he spotted a woman standing by a black Mustang talking to two guys. They were all drinking water, looking like they finished a class. At first, he was annoyed and thought maybe Lou did let women come work out and train here, maybe do a self-defense class or something, but then he recognized Meteo, Lou’s cousin, and Cord, another guy from their team. They were serious badass martial arts dudes.
Then his eyes went to the woman’s body. It was hard not to stare and take in the sight of her. She wore short, tight spandex pants that hugged a shapely ass. It looked firm, muscular if her defined thighs were any indication. Her back was toward them, her brown hair in a ponytail, a black t-back tank top showing off her defined, muscular back muscles. She didn’t have an ounce of fat on her.
As they headed to the door, which was nowhere near her, both Meteo and Cord gave them a wave hello. The brunette turned, and holy Jesus, she was absolutely gorgeous. The top she wore wasn’t like what most women wore to go to the gym, it didn’t expose
the deep cleavage she would definitely have considering she was big up top. The shirt clung tight to her belly, revealed just a little bit of skin and what looked to be super defined abs. The logo on the front had an American flag in the center, and he could read “warrior fundraiser suicide prevention.” He was hoping for an introduction, but just as quickly as he thought it, she was saying goodbye and getting into her cool black Mustang as Meteo and Cord headed toward them, shaking their hands and welcoming them.
Their Soldier Girl Page 2