Protecting His Beautiful Lover (Southern Soldiers of Fortune Book 3)

by Leslie North

  Sirens wailed from the squad cars now circling the area and the crowd was yelling and screaming, but all Clint could focus on was the fact that this was all his fault. He’d allowed himself to get distracted by Tara and their conversation and he’d failed to spot the shooter in time.

  My fault. My failure.

  Again.

  2

  “Jesus, what a mess,” Levon said. It was two days after the rally and they were still going through the initial damage reports—though this time from the comfort of their office. “That all went downhill fast.”

  “No shit,” Noah confirmed, looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. “They were lucky no one was seriously hurt.”

  Lucky was right. Clint sat at his desk in the Southern Soldiers of Fortune offices and stared down at his empty desktop, doing his best not to cringe. Mess was right too, even if he felt bad enough as it was without having his buddies and coworkers rub his face in it. His world was spinning out of control after the chaos of the shooting and injury of his target.

  Dammit. This was all his fault.

  “Daddy, look!” Ashley called from where she was playing in the hall. Without a nanny to watch her, he’d had no choice but to bring his daughter in to work today. She pointed at the white Lego structure in front of her. “I made a wind turbine!”

  Where the hell she’d learned to do that, or even learned what a wind turbine was, he had no idea, but she was a smart kid. Way smarter than him and probably too smart for her own good at that age. To say he’d had his hands full the past few days trying to handle her and everything else on his own would be an understatement.

  “You figure out how that gunman got so close yet?” Levon called over to him, snapping Clint’s attention back to his job, where it should have been all the time. The fact he’d gotten distracted, again, only made him feel even worse.

  “Any update on Tara Crumb’s condition?” Noah asked, before Clint had a chance to answer the first question. He loved the guys like brothers. He and Noah had served together, started the business together—and while Levon had joined them later, beginning as just a new hire, he’d done so much for the business that he was practically a partner at this point, not to mention an amazing friend. He and Noah were closer to Clint than just about anyone else on the planet and working together to make the business successful had been a dream come true, but man. There were times, like now, when he’d like to tell them both to back the fuck off.

  He sighed and sat forward, resting his elbows on his desk and raking his hands through his hair before scowling down at the copy of the police report Noah had just slid onto his desk. “As far as I know, Tara Crumb is fine. It was just a flesh wound.” Thank God. “She was treated and released from the ER the same day.”

  Knowing that, however, didn’t make him feel any better about his failure.

  When there was no response from the guys, Clint darted a quick glance their way to find them both watching him with a mix of wariness and worry.

  Shit.

  He got it. If he was in their position, he’d be worried too. Hell, he was worried. Clint was usually the go-to guy in the office. The rock. He had a control complex, nerves of steel, and eyes that missed absolutely nothing. Usually.

  Right now, though, it felt like he was standing in quicksand trying to balance a bus on his head.

  It all came down to the fact that he’d screwed up. He should have been in place earlier at the rally. Should have been more aware. Should have had his attention directed to his surroundings, instead of drooling over his target. Basically, he should have had his shit together.

  Maybe that way, no one would have gotten hurt. And sure, there had been no serious injuries, but still. He should have been on his game.

  “You know what you need?” Levon said, squaring his shoulders like he was ready for a fight as he exchanged a look with Noah. Clint bit back a derisive snarl before it escaped. Barely.

  “Time off.” Noah stood and assumed a relaxed yet ready stance, like he was ready to confront an angry mob, which probably wasn’t far from the truth, considering Clint’s likely reaction to those two words. “I know you don’t want to hear it, bud, but you need to get yourself some work-life balance.”

  Clint started to say that what he really needed was for people to stay the fuck out of his business, but instead he just grunted and pretended to read the report in front of him, hoping the guys would let it go. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that would happen. Trying to deflect the topic of conversation away from himself, he said, “Sounds like you two have been listening to too many of Levon’s wife’s self-help videos for her students.”

  Olive taught eleventh graders at one of the local high schools and had just recently won some award from her students for her caring attitude. Clint found the whole thing hard to imagine. Back when he’d been in school, you were grateful not to get an eraser upside the head from an angry nun.

  “Hey, don’t knock it,” Levon said, shaking his head. “I never went in for all that new-age crap either, but it really works.”

  Things had changed a lot for his buddies in the past few years. Both guys had steady relationships now and they both had kids. Clint had his daughter, sure, but the circumstances were way different. He had no ongoing relationship with his baby’s mother at all. He’d had to figure out parenting all on his own—and he still wasn’t sure he was getting it right. It was another area of his life where he never felt like enough.

  Sometimes, he wondered if he’d ever be enough, for anyone or anything.

  Noah loped over and propped his hip on the edge of Clint’s desk, jarring him out of his shame spiral. “He’s right, dude. You look like shit.”

  “Great. Thanks so much.” Clint gave his friend an annoyed stare and tossed the damned report down again, giving up any semblance of working as his inner turmoil boiled over. “You guys think you know it all, now that you’re settled down. But you don’t know shit. Not about me.”

  “Ohhhhh!” Ashley called from the hall. “You said a bad word, Daddy!”

  He winced. Yep. He had. He swallowed the long line of expletives battling to get out and instead clenched his jaw, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “Daddy’s sorry.”

  Levon snorted and Clint shot visual daggers at him. The guy straightened in his seat and cleared his throat and now Clint felt like even more of a loser asshole than he already had. Perfect.

  Dammit. Getting upset wasn’t helping this situation. His emotions were what had gotten him into trouble here in the first place. He took a deep breath to tamp down his frustrations and lowered his head. He knew he’d screwed up, but he’d just have to convince the guys that taking a step back wasn’t what he needed. He could handle this—the assignment, and Ashley, and everything else that life threw at him. He just needed to buckle down and work harder until things got back under control. It was his method for overcoming every obstacle, and it hadn’t failed him yet.

  Hoping to ease some of the tension curdling the air now because of his behavior, he tried to joke. “What I need is to win the nanny lottery.”

  The guys exchanged a look, then Noah said, “Actually, dude, I think this all started even before that nanny left.”

  Oh God. The nanny. The last thing he wanted to think about was interviewing people again.

  “He’s right.” Levon stood and walked over, arms crossed and tone lowered so Ashley wouldn’t overhear him. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but you got too much stress, man. That shit will give you a heart attack and put you in an early grave. We’re just concerned. That’s all.”

  “This job ain’t easy,” Noah said. “Believe me, I know. We’re not trying to pry, but we can see you’re struggling, and we want to help.”

  To help calm his inner turmoil and distract himself, he took out his gun from the drawer and began disassembling it for cleaning. For some weird reason, he liked cleaning guns. It relaxed him. Almost as much as his daily yoga practice. But
since he couldn’t really go full downward dog in here, he went for the alternative.

  “I’m fine,” he said, turning away from the guys and pulling out a cloth to start polishing. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “You’re not fine,” Noah said, pushing off the desk to stand shoulder to shoulder beside Levon, both their expressions uncharacteristically stern and serious. “And we are worried, whether you want us to be or not. That’s why we decided to put you on leave for a while.”

  “Excuse me?” Clint wheeled around, blinking in disbelief at his friends and nearly dropping the gun barrel he was working on in the process. “You what?”

  “Don’t take it personal, dude,” Levon said, raising his square jaw defiantly, his gaze daring Clint to come at him. He almost did, too; only shock and clenching his fists tight kept him standing where he was. “Most people enjoy taking a vacation.”

  Fuck. Except this wasn’t a vacation. This felt more like a punishment than party time. Dammit.

  “You can’t do that,” he protested, shooting Noah a death glare as he set his cloth and gun parts aside. “The business contract says so.” The contract was a relic from back when he and Noah first started the business. A lot had changed since then, and they’d never bothered to update it. But it was still official.

  “No. The contract says I can’t vote you out. You’re part of the team and you always will be. But I can vote to put you on leave when necessary.” Noah stepped forward. “It’s for your own good. Get out of here. Spend time with your kid. Relax. Get your head back in order, then come back ready to kick ass again, dude.”

  Clint opened his mouth to argue, but Noah didn’t give him a chance. “The chairman of the board for Go Green Energy wants you fired.”

  All the air evaporated from Clint’s lungs, leaving him breathless and lightheaded. “He what?”

  Noah cursed and shook his head, looking away. “I didn’t want to tell you, man, but that’s why I made the decision I did. The chairman’s making a stink about what happened at that rally, and smoothing things over means we need you to lie low for a little while.” He stepped up beside Levon. “Listen. You’re indispensable around here. Always will be. Hell, you handle most of the administrative stuff, so I’m not even sure how we’ll find half the stuff we need around here without you, but we need to make it look like the business is taking the complaint seriously, yeah?”

  “So, go and take this time off, dude,” Levon said, giving him a half-hearted smile. “I know it’s not what you want, but maybe it’s for the best.”

  Right. Well, then. The last thing Clint wanted was to put SSoF in jeopardy. So yeah. It wasn’t what he’d planned or what he’d wanted, but it looked like he had some unexpected R&R coming his way. With a curt nod, he shoved away from his desk and stood, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair then calling over to Ashley, “Pack it up, kiddo. We’re going home.”

  3

  Tara Crumb fixed herself a mug of coffee at the kitchenette in her office at Go Green Energy, then took a seat back at her desk. Turning on her computer to check her emails, she tried to distract herself from the infernal itching in her left arm. She knew that meant that the week-old bullet wound was healing, but it didn’t make it any more fun.

  She snorted and kept scrolling on her screen. Bullet wound? More like a glorified cut, really. That sounded better in her head. Far more accurate, far less terrifying—which would make it far easier to come in to her workplace and do her job every day. It was distracting trying to concentrate on work when she kept thinking of a sniper lining up another shot. Not that violence at peaceful rallies was anything new. Hell, since the beginning of time, wherever there were activists, there were people who were deeply committed to shutting them up. But this was a whole different level.

  Of course, it didn’t help that since the attack at the rally, she’d kept replaying those moments in her head. The loud bang of the gunfire, the high-pitched whiz of the bullets passing her. The weird thump against her arm when she’d been struck. Funny, but she’d always imagined this huge rush of pain after getting shot, but it hadn’t been like that. Not at first, anyway. She’d honestly thought she’d just hit her arm on a rock or something when she’d fallen. The EMTs had told her later that it was probably the shock kicking in. It had felt like a scrape, a pinch, nothing more. They said that her brain had blocked out the pain to focus on the fight or flight syndrome. It hadn’t been until she’d gotten to the ER that the throbbing and real pain had started. And that had just been a flesh wound. She couldn’t imagine what getting seriously shot would be like.

  Tara shivered and tried to focus on other things. Like how strange it was that she couldn’t remember any initial agony from her wound, but she sure as heck remembered other things just fine. Things like the brush of the grass against her cheek once Clint had pushed her to the ground and covered her body with his. Things like the warmth of his muscled chest pressed to her back, the soft tickle of his breath against the nape of her neck, the firm, comforting press of his hand as he’d held her in place. Things like the clean, fresh scent of soap and sandalwood from his skin or the faint hint of dark stubble beneath the skin of his jaw, or how soft his lips had looked and how close they had been to hers. Close enough that if she’d turned her head a little more and risen up, she could have touched her mouth to his and found out for herself just how much…

  “How are you doing today, Tara?” her assistant, Judy, asked, sticking her head in through the open office door. “Feeling better?”

  “Fine, thanks,” Tara said automatically, flashing the woman her brightest polite smile and shoving her inappropriate thoughts about kissing Clint aside. She had no business thinking about his lips. Not now, not ever. She had way too much else on her plate at the moment. Hands clasped on her desk, she raised her chin for Judy to enter. “And you?”

  “Good,” Judy said, walking in and plopping down in the empty chair in front of Tara’s desk. Tara liked the woman. She was funny and smart, if a bit of a gossip. Good old Judy always had the scoop on everyone in the place. The last thing Tara wanted was for her situation to become watercooler fodder, but Judy seemed to have other ideas as she narrowed her gaze on Tara. She’d hired the woman on as her administrative assistant after letting the old one go shortly after taking over the position. It wasn’t that John Berger hadn’t been good at his job. Tara had just wanted to start fresh, that was all. She’d heard he'd moved on to another position with a different environmentalist group, so it had all worked out in the end for everyone. “I wondered if the legal situation was getting to you.”

  Tara frowned, blinking. “You mean the legislation we’re trying to get passed? No. It’s fine. We’re getting a lot of public support, and the legislators seem to be getting on board. I’m hoping we’ll get it taken care of soon—maybe even before the board finishes its search for a permanent E.D. Onward and upward, right?”

  “Hmm. Right, I suppose. Sometimes I forget that you’re just E.D. on a temporary basis.” Judy leaned forward a bit and dropped her tone to a near-whisper. “Between you and me, the things I’ve heard about the last director’s murder sound shady as hell. No leads and no suspects, according to the cops? C’mon. Someone had to have seen something, right? Steinman was shot in broad daylight on a busy street.” Judy shrugged and sat back again, crossing her arms. “I don’t know. Maybe it was another activist group, wanting to take him out so their group could get credit for pushing through the bill. I mean, everyone knows the environmental leagues are rampant with competition.” She chuckled. “Everyone calls us tree huggers, but this shit gets ruthless sometimes.”

  Ruthless, yes, but murderous? Tara knew that Judy liked her conspiracy theories, but this seemed to go a little too far. “Hmm,” she said noncommittally, then clasped her mug with both hands, taking a moment to really ponder the idea. She didn’t like to think about someone purposely trying to do her in just because she wanted to make the world a better place, but she knew it happened. Gr
owing up with a mother in politics, Tara knew better than most what kind of crazies were out there. She’d never let it stop her, but the awareness was always there in the background, same as the lingering feeling that no matter what she accomplished in her life, she’d never be as important as the cause she worked for. That was another lesson she’d learned, courtesy of her mother. People were secondary to ideals. She shrugged and sipped her coffee. “Honestly, I haven’t had too much time to pay attention to the news. I’ve been too busy trying to push this legislation through.”

  “Well, I’m not an expert, of course.” Of course. Judy gave her a conspiratorial smile. Yeah, right. “But everyone says that the old E.D. was the face of this company when he was here. Always doing rallies and photo ops. When he was killed, the board needed someone to fill the position quickly and boom. You were promoted. Maybe whoever attacked the rally didn’t want you to become the new face of our cause.”

  “Maybe, but I’m only temporary,” Tara added, resisting the urge to scratch her stupid arm again. It was just the stress, that was all, making her feel like her skin was two sizes too small. Or maybe that was the niggling fear that Judy was right. “No one cares about me. I’m just here until the board settles on a permanent replacement. The legislation is what’s important.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Judy stood and smoothed a hand down the front of her gray skirt, sounding thoroughly unconvinced. “Well, anyway. You’ve inherited a nice, cushy position with this one. Wouldn’t mind having it myself, someday,” she said, heading for the door. “Good talking to you.”

  Tara stared after the woman a moment once she’d left, then shook her head. Man, seemed like everyone had an angle around here. Same as when her mother had been mayor of their small town. She’d won on a platform of equality and fortitude. Her mom had had the last one in spades. She hadn’t let a child hold her back from her ambitions and she’d taught her daughter the same. Never let your personal life get in the way of your professional obligations, no matter how painful or lonely that might be.