The Player

by Rhonda Nelson

  It was that simple…and that complicated.

  For the time being, they were each three days and three favors away from freedom—a brand-new life devoid of mistakes and if-onlys—and God knows they all needed it. Especially Jamie, who seemed to be taking it the hardest. An image of Danny’s crooked grin suddenly rose in his mind, causing a barbed-wire of tension to tighten around his chest.

  They all needed it, all right. They needed it badly.

  1

  * * *

  Atlanta

  Three months later…

  “IT’S HAPPENED,” Jamie Flanagan announced grimly. He snagged a chair from a nearby table, whirled it around and straddled it with a dejected whoosh of air that effectively caught his best friends’ combined attention.

  In the process of licking the hot wing sauce from his fingertips, Guy looked up. “Dammit, we both warned you about this. Which one is pregnant? Christy? Liz? Monica?”

  “My money’s on Monica,” Payne said easily. “She was clingy.”

  “Had to change the security code to the building because of her, remember?”

  Payne nodded, absently taking a pull from his beer. “She was a pain in the ass, I remember that.”

  Guy shot Jamie a pleading look. “It isn’t her, is it, Flanagan? Say it isn’t her. She’s, er…She’s not mother material.”

  Equally annoyed and horrified, Jamie swore hotly. He should have known they’d leap to the wrong damned conclusion. Considering they’d both been riding his ass about his “serial” dating, it only stood to reason that they’d immediately suspect a woman problem.

  “Nobody’s pregnant, dammit,” he snapped. “How many times do I have to tell you bastards that I’m careful?” He exhaled loudly. “I know how to apply a friggin’ rubber, for chrissakes. It’s Garrett. He’s calling in my favor.”

  Guy blinked. “Oh.”

  Payne stilled and his ice-blue gaze sharpened. “What does he want?”

  Jamie let out another long breath, uttered a short disbelieving laugh and shook his head. “He wants me to go to Maine for a week to guard his granddaughter.”

  “Guard his granddaughter?” Payne repeated. “Guard her from what?”

  That had been the first question he’d asked as well, and the answer he’d gotten had been irritatingly ambiguous. Not that he hadn’t taken and followed orders on less information. He’d been trained to obey, to trust in the authority of his superiors, and yet something about this felt…off. He’d tried to chalk it up to his new civilian mentality, but he suspected that this gut hunch had more to do with intuition than new programming.

  “Garrett says there’s evidence that a personal enemy of his might be targeting her.”

  Guy frowned. “Personal enemy?”

  “What sort of personal enemy?” Payne asked. “I mean, I don’t doubt that he’s got one—a man doesn’t get to his level without pissing people off. Still…” he added skeptically.

  Jamie couldn’t help scowling. “That’s just it. He wouldn’t say. Evidently he’s got someone in place through the weekend, but needs me to step in on Monday.”

  “We’ll have to rearrange some things,” Payne said, predictably jumping into logistics mode. “Guy and I will have to split your cases.”

  “It’s piss-poor timing, that’s for sure,” Jamie said, signaling the waitress for a beer. A midtown staple, Samuel’s Pub had quickly become their traditional beer and sandwich haunt. Good Irish whiskey, good prices, Braves decor. What more could a guy want? Jamie muttered a hot oath. “Hell, some notice would have been nice.”

  Guy rocked back in his chair and grinned. “But that would be completely out of character for Garrett.”

  Too true, Jamie knew, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d be leaving his friends and partners in the lurch three months out of the gate in their new business venture. Thanks in part to all three of them, Ranger Security had taken off better than any one of them could have expected. Jamie inwardly grinned. Turns out hi-tech personal and professional security was in high demand—and quite lucrative.

  Thanks to Payne’s investment capital—though he seemed to resent his impressive portfolio at times, Payne had “come from money” as Jamie’s grandmother used to say—they’d secured top-of-the-line equipment and a prized office building in downtown Atlanta. The lower level housed the offices and the other two floors had been converted into apartments. Since he and Guy had no aversion to sharing space, they’d taken the second floor and Payne had moved into the loft, or the Tower, as they’d come to call it.

  Since Payne had taken on so much of the financial burden, it only seemed fair that he have a place to himself. Not that Jamie and Guy weren’t paying their way, but their money had come from a sizable mortgage whereas Payne had merely “transferred funds.” Regardless, provided business continued to grow, he and Guy should be operating in the black within a few years, and in his opinion, that was pretty damned good.

  “So the granddaughter is in Maine,” Guy remarked. “What does she do?”

  Ah, Jamie thought, inwardly wincing. Here came the fun part. He passed a hand over his face and braced himself for sarcasm. “She, er…She runs a de-stressing camp for burned out execs—Unwind, it’s called—and well, Garrett’s, uh…” He conjured a pained smile. “He’s already arranged for my ‘stay.’”

  A disbelieving chuckle erupted from Guy’s throat. “A de-stressing camp? He’s sending you—Captain Orgasm—to a de-stressing camp?”

  Payne coughed to hide his own smile. “To guard his granddaughter, no less. Talk about sending the fox in to guard the henhouse.” He snorted. “Garrett must have lost his mind.”

  “Oh, no,” Jamie corrected. “He’s as crafty as ever. He issued a curt guard-her-but-no-funny-business order and promised to—” Jamie pretended to search for the exact phrase, though he remembered the ghastly threat verbatim. “Ah, yes. ‘Cut my dick off with a dull axe and force-feed it to me’ if I so much as looked at her with anything more than friendly interest.”

  Payne grinned. “So your reputation precedes you, then.”

  Jamie winced. “He might have mentioned Colonel Jessup’s daughter.”

  And honestly, there had been no need. After that horrid debacle, Jamie hadn’t needed any additional threats to stay away from daughters—or any relative, for that matter—belonging to superior officers. And it really wouldn’t be hard. There were plenty of other available women around.

  Neesa Jessup had seduced him, not the other way around, and yet when Date Three had rolled around and he’d attempted to break things off, she’d gone to her father and cried foul. It had been a huge ugly mess and, given his particular reputation, no one was readily inclined to believe him. Guy, Payne and Danny had, of course, but they’d been on a short list. Needless to say, since then he’d been a lot more…selective.

  Payne took another mouthful of beer and swallowed. “So I take it you’re going in undercover?”

  Jamie nodded. “That’s the plan.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Guy said, his shrewd gaze speculative. “How are you supposed to guard her if you don’t know where the threat is coming from?”

  Precisely, Jamie thought, still smelling a rat. “He told me he’d give me an update once I’m in place, but the gist of the order was to stick to her like glue.”

  Guy scowled. “And that’s not going to look suspicious?”

  Jamie shrugged. Just thinking about it made his head hurt. “Hell if I know,” he muttered tiredly. It sounded odd, but not altogether difficult, so that was a plus, right? In all honesty, it would be a relief to simply be done with it. This favor was his last niggling tie to a life he’d left behind. Had to leave behind to preserve his own sanity.

  Even as early as last year, if anyone had told him that he’d wanted to be anything other than a United States Army Ranger, he would never have believed it. The military had given him purpose, manned him up and given him an outlet for what he now recognized as disappointment tow
ard an absentee father.

  Thanks to a hardworking mother and a hotheaded Irish grandmother who weren’t averse to boxing his ears when the need arose—an unexpected smile curled his lips, remembering—Jamie had been a lot better off than a lot of the boys he knew whose fathers had been around.

  Like Guy, Jamie thought, covertly shooting a look at his friend. Guy’s old man had been a royal bastard, a hard-assed proponent of the “spare the rod, spoil the child” mentality. Unfortunately that had been the extent of his religious tendencies. He’d been a mean-spirited drunk who, on more than one occasion, had sent his son to the Emergency Room. Guy hadn’t heard from the man since he was in his late teens. Frankly, Jamie had toyed with the idea of looking the old man up and thrashing the shit out of him. Someone needed to, at any rate.

  Jamie’s gaze slid to Payne. Payne’s father had been at home while Payne was growing up, but from the little things that his friend had shared over the years, he might as well have not been. Payne’s father had always had one eye on the door and the other on another woman. His parents had apparently stayed married for Payne’s benefit, but Jamie suspected Payne would have had a lot more respect for both of them if they’d merely divorced and done away with the infidelities.

  They finally ended the marriage when Payne graduated from high school and since then, Payne’s father had systematically married and divorced women who were craftily garnering another portion of his inheritance. He needed to be thrashed as well, Jamie decided, but for different reasons.

  Quite frankly, all three of them had been raised in unconventional households and the older Jamie got, the more he suspected that no one’s family was normal. Normal was as real as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

  Normal didn’t exist.

  And after Danny’s death, he wasn’t so sure that the ideas of right and just weren’t myths also. If they existed, if they were true, then why hadn’t Danny walked away from that ill-fated mission with the rest of them?

  Being in the military, death was a distinct possibility. One didn’t enlist without knowing—without believing—in the greater good and being willing to die for that cause. Jamie, Guy, Payne, Danny—they’d all felt the same way.

  Being a Ranger was more than a career. It had been a labor of love. Brave men had essentially committed treason when they’d formed this country. Thomas Jefferson had been in his early thirties when he’d penned the Declaration of Independence. That still amazed him, Jamie thought. So young and yet so wise. A vastly different world and set of values from where they were today. But that was a whole other issue.

  At any rate, their very freedom was based on bravery, on loyalty and on a belief in a cause that so many, quite frankly, didn’t appreciate and took for granted. There were thousands of men in marked and unmarked graves all over the globe who’d boldly gone to war and sacrificed their lives for this country. Jamie would gladly give his own…and yet living with the grief of a fallen friend somehow seemed more difficult than dying himself.

  Something had changed that night. Not just for him, but for Guy and Payne as well. Rationally they’d all known the risks. But knowing it and dealing with it had turned out to be two completely different things. Did Jamie still believe in his country? In his service? In the merit of even that particular mission?

  Yes, to all of the above.

  He just didn’t believe he could watch another friend die.

  Danny, a brother to him in every way that counted, had taken his last breath in Jamie’s arms. He’d watched the spark fade from Dan’s eyes, felt his life slip away like a shadow…and Jamie had felt a part of himself die on that sandy, blood-soaked hill as well.

  The familiar weight of grief filled his chest, forcing him to release a small breath. Whatever Garrett wanted him to do had to be easier than that, by God. It had to be.

  “Look at it this way,” Guy finally said in a blatant attempt to lighten the moment when the silence had stretched beyond the comfortable, a still too often occurrence. He shrugged. “She could be ugly.”

  Payne nodded, smiling encouragingly. “It’d definitely be easier for you to guard an ugly woman, Flanagan. Less temptation.” He selected a celery stick. “What’s her name?”

  Smiling in spite of himself, Jamie rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Audrey Kincaid.”

  “Pretty name,” Guy remarked thoughtfully. “But that doesn’t mean anything,” he added magnanimously, the smart-ass.

  “Right,” Payne said. “She could still be ugly.”

  Not even with the luck of the Irish, Jamie thought, but it didn’t matter. She could look like a friggin’ supermodel and he wasn’t going to touch her with a ten-foot pole.

  Actually, he had a grim suspicion who the granddaughter might be and he knew for a fact that not only wasn’t she ugly, but in fact, she was drop-dead instant-hard-on gorgeous. The Colonel only had two pictures of family in his office—one Jamie knew for a fact was Garrett’s wife because he’d met her several times.

  The other was of a young blue-eyed beauty about the right age with long curly black hair. It was a candid shot of her and an enormous brindled English Mastiff. Considering the dog wasn’t lunging for her throat, but sitting docilely by her side, Jamie could only assume the animal was hers.

  His lips quirked. Quite frankly, if that was who he was being sent to protect, he imagined the dog could do a better job of it than he could. Furthermore, he hoped like hell it wasn’t her, because for reasons he’d never really understood, he’d always been drawn to that picture, of the woman in it specifically. Every time he’d visited Garrett’s office he found himself staring at it—at her. There was an inherent kindness in her eyes, a softness about her that he found particularly compelling. That trait combined with the obvious intelligence and just a hint of mischief made her face the most interestingly beautiful one he’d ever seen.

  No doubt guarding her would be absolute torture, particularly given Garrett’s orders. Jamie felt a grin tease his lips. He was pretty attached to his penis, thank you very much, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Garrett wouldn’t make good on his threat if Jamie put so much as a toe out of line.

  Furthermore, if he botched this favor, he’d just end up owing Garrett another one and moving on would be that much further away. Jamie tipped his tumbler back, felt the smooth amber taste slide down his throat.

  And there wasn’t a woman alive who could make him risk that.

  2

  * * *

  CELL PHONE SHOULDERED to her ear, Audrey Kincaid stood at the cashier’s stand of her local grocery store, absently pulled a tampon out of her purse and tried to write a check with it.

  The thin, pimply-faced teenager behind the register sniggered. “Er…That’s not going to work, ma’am.”

  Mortified, Audrey closed her eyes and, blushing furiously, awkwardly shoved her hand back into her bag in search of a pen. Ordinarily she thought it was incredibly rude of people to use their cell phones while in the checkout and, had she been talking to anyone but her grandfather, she would have cut the call short, or merely asked the person to call back.

  But one didn’t do that with her grandfather.

  The Colonel didn’t abide interruptions.

  He was accustomed to being listened to and the idea that she—or any one else for that matter—might not be interested in what he had to say was unthinkable. A military man through and through, he was a surly, autocratic, occasionally ill-tempered pain in the ass who thought that an untucked shirttail was an abomination and rap music a crime against nature. His vehicles were American made, his lawn an immaculate work of art where the grass didn’t dare offend him by growing out of sync, and his home office an inner sanctum of dark wood, Old Spice and the scent of cherry cigar smoke.

  Though he was the unquestioned leader of their family, most of the members of their clan could only tolerate him in small doses, her mother included. But for whatever reason, he and Audrey had always shared a special bond. For all of his grit and grump
, from the time she’d been just a little girl she’d loved listening to his stories. While the other grandchildren had gravitated to their grandmother’s sewing room and kitchen, Audrey had preferred playing chess in the Colonel’s office and coaxing orchids and other finicky flowers in his greenhouse.

  Was now a bad time to talk? Definitely. She was standing in the checkout, feeling the murderous eye of a harried mother behind her, trying to write a damned check with a tampon, for pity’s sake…but she had no intention of letting him know that. She had neither the nerve nor the disrespect to pull it off.

  “I need a favor, Audie,” her grandfather said, using the nickname he’d given her shortly after she was born.

  Audrey handed the cashier a check, accepted her receipt and one-handedly wheeled her cart-with-the-cockeyed-wheel toward the door. No small feat, she thought, suppressing an irritated grunt. Trying to sound as though she wasn’t the least bit inconvenienced, she said, “Sure, Gramps. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m sending a guy to you who’s in need of special attention.”

  Her grandfather referring someone to Unwind—her camp for the stressed-out from all walks of life, whether it was high-powered executives who’d logged in too many hours and consumed too many antidepressants, or strung-out mothers who’d doled out too many juice boxes and covered car-pool one time too many—wasn’t the least bit unusual. She’d had many a weary soldier through her camp, many an overwhelmed officer’s wife ensconced in one of her little lakeside cottages.

  But this was the first time he’d ever asked her to give anyone special attention. Clearly, this was no ordinary person. Whoever this guy was, given her grandfather’s line of work, he’d most likely been through hell. Her heart inexplicably squeezed for both the unknown man and his unknown pain.

  Empathy, dammit. Her biggest weakness.

  Four years into a high-powered job on Wall Street as a commodities broker, Audrey had had the ultimate wake-up call—at the ripe old age of twenty-six, she’d had a heart attack. A small one, but still a heart attack nonetheless. She’d been healthy—a regular at the gym—with no prior history of any cardiovascular problems.