Hard Charger

by Meghan March

  Copyright © 2015 by Meghan March LLC

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design: © by Hang Le, www.byhangle.com

  Photo: © VJ Dunraven Productions

  Photo: © Shutterstock

  Graphics: © Freepik.com

  Editor: Madison Seidler, www.madisonseidler.com

  Interior Design: Shirley Quinones, LeAnn's Designs,

  www.shirleyfrancesbooksandmore.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Visit my website at www.meghanmarch.com

  About Hard Charger

  Lia has known true darkness—and not just because of the power grid failure nine months ago. She has faced evil and emerged a survivor. Now if she could just make the two men she wants see her as whole and not broken … maybe she’d have a chance at the future she’s determined to claim.

  Cam and Travis have been brothers-in-arms since their days as Force Recon Marines, and there’s nothing Cam wouldn’t do for his best friend—except let him have the woman Cam’s been patiently waiting for. But when Lia shocks him by saying she wants them both, he has the decision of a lifetime to make. Lose the girl, or lose his best friend.

  In a world where nothing is certain, can three people find their way to love?

  *Warning: This book includes two sexy as hell Marines, one strong woman determined to have them both, and a whole lot of sex—the dirty kind. Proceed at your own risk.

  Hard Charger is a novella set in the Flash Bang world.

  Flash Bang is available on all major retailers.

  Darkness.

  The world knew darkness the day the lights went out, but Lia didn’t know the true meaning of the word until three days later. That was when those who preyed on the weak had stolen the life she’d known. And since that time, Lia was the first to admit she was weak.

  “You’re gonna be okay. What’s your name, sweetheart?” The voice penetrated the haze that had settled over Lia like a protective blanket. She didn’t want to break through the barrier that protected her from reality. Then she’d have to feel. She wanted to stay numb.

  “You with me, sweetheart? You’re going to be okay. We’re the good guys.”

  The good guys. The words floated through her brain. Are there any of those left?

  Lia didn’t believe him, but she didn’t have time to focus on that. He kept asking for her name, disrupting her self-imposed exile from reality. As awareness filtered through, so did the ache that throbbed all the way down to her bones. With every word, the pain intensified. Her face throbbed, and her scalp felt like it’d been torn off in chunks.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Lia,” she murmured, just to get him to shut up and leave her alone.

  He didn’t ask again … at least not before the blessed darkness claimed her once more.

  Lia surfaced against her will, but every time, she dragged herself back into the darkness; however, not before realizing she was no longer chained. She no longer smelled as her own filth. Crisp, white cotton sheets were tucked up around her body. She didn’t know who’d done it, but the white hurt her eyes after spending so much time in the dark.

  The door opened, and a man stepped inside the dimly lit room. Lia slammed her eyes shut, not wanting him to know she was awake. Not that pretending to be asleep had saved her before; only banishing her consciousnessto that tiny corner of her mind had offered protection from them.

  “I know you’re awake, sweetheart. I can tell by your breathing.”

  Lia froze.

  His voice was quiet, but the rumble reminded Lia of a thunderhead rolling in across the lake with a summer storm.

  “No one’s going to hurt you. I know it’s going to take a long time before you believe that, but it’s true.”

  She couldn’t stop the huff of disbelief that shifted her chest. Shit. He’ll know for sure I’m awake. Lia’s eyes snapped open, wanting awareness for the first time since her world was destroyed beyond recognition. She told herself it was because she wanted to see this new threat, but part of it was that voice. How could a voice that deep and masculine carry the promise of safety?

  It couldn’t.

  Lia shook off the crazy thoughts and bared her teeth. Yes, I’ve become an animal. Come at me, motherfucker, and I will tear you to shreds. Or at least go down swinging.

  He didn’t smile. Didn’t laugh at her impossibly ridiculous display of courage. He came closer—but slowly.

  “You’re gonna be okay. No need to get all worked up. I’m just here to check on you and see how you’re doing.”

  That goddamn voice. It wrapped around her, and the comfort was even warmer and stronger than what the darkness had offered. He was the light.

  “You saved me,” she breathed.

  A short nod. “We got you out of there.”

  Lia shook her head. “No. You saved me. You took me away from them.”

  Another short nod. “You weren’t up to walking out under your own steam. We just helped you out. Sure you’d do the same.”

  A showdown with crazy inbred rednecks who were armed better than the Michigan Militia for some bedraggled stranger? Ummm ... not likely.

  Then again, Lia wasn’t built like this guy either. She catalogued his every trait: six-four if he was an inch, with a chest so dang wide it threatened to split the seams of his T-shirt. He didn’t look like a body-builder though. He was solid muscle, but it seemed like the kind of muscle a man developed because he used his body as a tool. A weapon.

  In that moment, Lia knew this man was dangerous. And judging by the fact he’d carried her out of her worst nightmare—he was more dangerous than the crazy inbred and well-armed rednecks.

  “Who are you?”

  “I believe I asked you the same question several times, and I only got a little slip of a name. You up for a trade?”

  A trade. He asked. Didn’t take. This was new and different in Lia’s reset world—one resembling more of a horror movie than reality.

  She could do this. There was nothing harmful in giving him her name anyway. “I’m Lia.”

  “You got a last name?” he asked.

  “McLaren.”

  “Lia McLaren. It’s a pleasure.” The way his voice wrapped around the syllables again unleashed a tide of warmth within her. She could listen to him read the phone book and it would chase away the monsters … even better than the darkness.

  “I’m Cam.” He stepped forward and offered his hand, and Lia couldn’t control her instinctive flinch. He froze.

  Only weeks ago—or maybe only days—Lia had never known the jaw-cracking pain of a man’s closed fist connecting with her face. But that was before she found the darkness. Once she did, she never felt anything again. God only knew what other horrors she would’ve witnessed. Still, she couldn’t control the urge to shrink away as he advanced.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you, sweetheart. Just want to shake your hand and wrap up these introductions properly.”

  He held his hand out to her, but there was so much more than his hand hanging in the air between them. A shining thought bloomed in Lia’s mind. This hand was an opportunity. An anchor. A chance at safety again. It was irrational—crazy, even—but that’s what she saw when she looked at it.

  Did she dare?

  Lia closed her
eyes for a beat, and the darkness called her back to its sweet oblivion. She snapped them open. Enough darkness.

  She pulled her hand out from beneath the sheet and reached out until her palm slid against his. She expected to want to yank it back immediately, but the urge never came.

  His voice was amazing.

  His touch was better.

  He was the light.

  She’d had enough darkness.

  She curled her fingers around his and clung.

  Cam stood outside the clinic and stared at the camp, trying to erase the haunting images from his brain—the woman he’d just left inside, but covered in mud and filth, chained to a pipe like an animal; the way she’d laid limp in his arms as he’d carried her mile after mile through the woods; and the bruises that still covered nearly every inch of her exposed skin. There was still no guarantee she’d pull through, but he liked to think she was a fighter, a hard charger—much like Rowan Callahan, the woman who had alerted them to her existence and the reason the rescue mission had been launched. Rowan was a feisty brunette who was keeping two of his former Force Recon teammates, Graham and Zach, on their toes because of her relentless determination to get home to her family. She was too reckless and stubborn to realize that even though she’d made it this far, the world outside the walls of Castle Creek Whitetail Ranch was nothing like it had been only seven days earlier. Although, Ro should’ve been aware considering the trek she’d made all the way from Chicago. Her journey—which was her own crazy-ass story—had been fairly uneventful until she’d heard a woman screaming and followed the sound to a camp of rednecks in the woods. That screaming woman had been Lia. Ro had almost ended up their next victim, but her sprint away from danger had sent her right into the fence line of the ranch. Cam shuddered to think what would’ve happened to Lia if Ro hadn’t demanded they save the pitiful woman she’d seen dragged on her knees through the dirt.

  Firebombing the camp hadn’t been enough. He wanted every single one of them dead—but they’d only gotten two of them.

  And the fact that they could firebomb a camp just showed how much the world had changed in the last week—because seven days earlier, he and the entire crew of former Jar Heads had been running a successful and exclusive deer hunting operation in rural Michigan. Six days ago, the entire world had gone dark in what they were assuming was a complete power grid failure. Due to Graham’s foresight and their general mistrust of the government after seeing way the fuck too much over the last decade of their military careers, Castle Creek Whitetail Ranch was also probably the most intense doomsday prepper compound in the entire state. They’d left nothing to chance. From impeccable defenses to stores of food, weapons, supplies, alternative sources of power and beyond—they had everything needed to carry on in the face of a complete collapse of modern society. If the TV show Doomsday Preppers had ever heard of them, they would’ve put the rest of those wannabes to shame.

  Given that operational security was the first step of successful prepping, no one knew what they were hiding in the bunkers beneath these buildings. The walled compound was surrounded by hundreds of fenced acres and some of the finest whitetail that could be hunted in the Midwest. If the grid had gone down even a few days later, they would’ve had a camp full of early season hunters, but as it stood, the only residents of Castle Creek Whitetail Ranch were ten former Force Recon Marines, one wife, one five year old daughter, and now Rowan and Lia. They all thanked God that Jonah, the only married member of their crew, had had the brilliant luck of falling in love with, and marrying, a former Mennonite. Part of the reason they were set up to run so efficiently without a steady supply of electricity was Allison’s unique upbringing. So if their solar, wind, or microhydro power systems ever died, they’d still be fine, albeit a little less comfortable. As it stood, they were ready to ride out the apocalypse in style.

  “How’s she doing?” Travis asked.

  Cam stared at his friend for a few moments before answering, “Only time will tell.”

  After eight months, Cam hadn’t made his move.

  “Thanks for walking me back,” she said, standing at the door of the cabin she shared with Erica Callahan. Erica was Rowan’s spitfire of a sister who’d come to live at the ranch shortly after Ro.

  “You don’t have to thank me every night, Lia,” Cam replied.

  “You don’t have to walk me every night either, but you do.”

  He studied her face, and she knew what he was thinking: I do have to, because you still jump if most any man in this place catches you off guard in the dark.

  Even after all these months, she still dropped her eyes when confronted with the direct gaze of the giant, alpha males inhabiting the compound. But, to her credit, she’d come a long way in that time. She might jump, but at least she was no longer looking for potential weapons and cataloging all available exits every time she entered a building.

  That was something, at least.

  And besides, not all of the men set her on edge in a negative way. No, there were two who set her on edge in the most frustrating, but delicious way possible.

  And there was the problem.

  She shouldn’t want them both.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Rowan’s voice carrying across the camp.

  “You don’t need to carry me everywhere, Conan.”

  Lia and Cam both looked toward the mess hall that sat about fifty yards away—their previous destination—and the glow of the solar light that revealed Graham holding a very pregnant Rowan in his arms. One problem with living in a compound was that privacy was the scarcest of resources.

  The door to the big, low building opened again, and Zach stepped outside. Lia knew she should look away, but she couldn’t.

  “You know arguing isn’t going to help at all, don’t you?” he asked her.

  “I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”

  “Hush, woman. This baby is coming any day now. Don’t expect me to let you do a damn thing,” Graham replied.

  The reason she couldn’t look away? That. And that was also why Lia couldn’t get the idea of two men out of her mind. Because she saw it every day.

  Their protectiveness. Their care. Graham and Zach’s absolute devotion to Rowan.

  Lia wanted that.

  She just wasn’t gutsy enough like Ro to go after it.

  For months she’d waited for Cam to make a move, but he continued to handle her with kid gloves, as if every time he touched her he was waiting for her to flinch like she had the first time he’d come toward her.

  What did she have to do to show him she was ready?

  If she couldn’t even figure that out, how the heck was she going to figure out how to ask for both of them?

  “You sure you don’t want to climb one of the watch stations, drink, and watch for shooting stars instead of heading to bed?” Travis asked.

  The invitation came out of the dark from behind her … and from the man responsible for the other half of her confusion. He’d been absent at dinner because he was on watch duty. Lia only knew this because she had both Cam and Travis’s watch schedules committed to memory. She’d also been expecting him to knock on her door—like he did most nights—to make sure she was all settled in and to find some way to make her laugh.

  Cam’s head swung around, and his hand settled on Lia’s lower back. The heat from his palm burned through her shirt, and she wondered if the gesture was instinctive … or possessive.

  A girl could only hope.

  “No way in hell is she climbing a damn tree, drinking, and then falling out,” Cam shot back.

  Travis lifted his chin, and his eyes left trails of shivers down her body as he surveyed her.

  “I’d never let her fall. You know that, don’t you, babe?”

  The words hit her with a surge of warmth. Combined with the heat flaring off Cam, she was surrounded.

  The feeling faded when the awkward silence rose up between them. Oh yeah, they’re waiting for me to answer.

 
“I—I … of course I know that.” Lia cleared her throat and fumbled for the door handle. “But … I’m … tired. So I’m … going to bed.” She yanked open the door and ducked inside. As soon as it slammed shut behind her, she sagged against the wood.

  “What are you running from now, girl?” Erica asked.

  Lia jerked at the voice of her cabin mate.

  “Sorry,” she hurriedly apologized. “I didn’t know you were in here. I wouldn’t have slammed the door.”

  Erica was reclined on her bed, a rechargeable light hooked to the top of her book. She raised her eyebrows. “Considering I’m reading The Art of War for the zillionth time, I’m not too bothered by the interruption. How did these guys not think that romance novels deserved a place in the bunkers? What do I have to do to get some good old fashioned smut in here?”

  She tossed the book on the bed and leaned over to turn up the wick on the oil lamp. A soft yellow glow filled the room.

  “So what gives, chica?”

  Lia pushed off the door and kicked off her shoes before crossing to her bed and plopping down in the middle.

  “Nothing.”

  “Lie.”

  Lia cut her eyes to Erica. “It’s not a lie. There’s absolutely nothing up right now. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  The other girl’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, honey, it’s going to take years before you can bullshit the bullshitter. I’m a master, and you, grasshopper, are a novice.”

  “Maybe you should lay off the Sun Tzu … your metaphors are getting … weird.”

  “And maybe you should cut the crap and just tell me what’s bugging you.” She held up a hand. “Unless you want me to tell you what I think it is.”

  Oh God.

  Lia froze. If Erica knew…

  “No—not necessary—”

  But Erica had already crossed her arms. “So here’s the deal as seen by yours truly.”

  She paused for what had to be effect, and it was working. Lia’s nerves were climbing the charts.

  “You want to bang Cam, but you’re not sure how to go from the friend zone into the fuck zone.”