Protected: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella

by Lexi Blake

  And god, he wasn’t even sure how to describe that moment when she’d flown across the room, rage and fear in her eyes. He’d been around enough PTSD to know it when he saw it.

  She’d made a terrible choice, but it looked like she’d paid far more than he could have guessed, and it was time to stop being angry with her. She’d been his first love. She’d given him her virginity and spent endless hours knocking math into his head so he could graduate.

  He did owe her. He owed the dumbass kids they’d been.

  “Let me get you a blanket,” he said.

  She didn’t look up. “I’m not cold.”

  He could easily see that wasn’t true. “Baby, you’re shaking.”

  “Don’t call me that. I’m not your baby.” She turned to Clint, who was walking back into the room, a bottle of Scotch and three glasses in his hand. He’d taken off his tuxedo jacket and chucked his tie. “Clint, I should go. I need to get back to Asher. I’m going to call someone to pick me up.”

  Why did she need someone to pick her up? She hadn’t had much to drink.

  Clint frowned her way. “You’re not going anywhere. You wanted to talk to him for a reason. That reason hasn’t changed.”

  “No, but he has,” she replied.

  He hated the fact that it felt like they were having a whole conversation he didn’t understand. But the truth was he’d acted like a complete jackass and he was starting to think he would regret it if he kept it up.

  Clint shook his head as he poured out the Scotch. “He hasn’t. Not really. After all these years, he’s still jealous and that’s what making him behave atrociously.”

  He would only take it so far. “I’m not jealous.”

  His brother passed him a glass after handing one to Genny. “Sure you aren’t.”

  “I’m not,” he insisted. “I got over this a very long time ago.” Probably a lie but he couldn’t admit the truth. She’d walked out on him. He wasn’t the bad guy here. She’d chosen money and power and a nice house over love. Maybe it was time to truly put the past in the past. He could be civil to her. It seemed she’d suffered a lot. He could feel pity for her. What he wouldn’t allow himself to feel was attraction. Not that his dick was listening. His dick had nearly jumped off his body the minute he’d gotten close to her. “I’m sorry if I offended you tonight. I apologize. Now, could you explain what you need from me?”

  “I don’t need anything from you,” she replied, her eyes on the glass in her hands. She took a sip and then another. And then drained it dry.

  So she’d taken to drinking. Maybe she did need a ride home. It wasn’t terribly surprising. Living with that asshole Brock had to make a woman crazy.

  “She does need something from you. Something I can’t provide,” Clint replied.

  “My question is why are you providing her with anything at all?” He couldn’t seem to help himself. Why couldn’t he watch his damn words around her?

  “But you’re not jealous,” Clint remarked with a deadpan huff. “Genny, he’s still who he was all those years ago and he owes you.”

  She stood up, her face pale. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to do this. I’ll find another way.”

  Clint turned to him. “Fifteen years ago the Howard family bought the loan on our ranch and immediately called it in. Brock Howard came out to the house the day before you left for boot camp and explained that if we didn’t come up with fifty thousand, he would foreclose.”

  “What?” He’d never heard a word of that. As far as he’d known they’d never had real trouble. He’d known the ranch hadn’t paid well until the year before, but he hadn’t heard a damn thing about them almost losing it.

  Genny had sat back down, her spine straight as she stared out the window at the party still going on. Her face was set in mulish lines as though she was angry Clint was talking.

  Why would she be angry? She wouldn’t have had anything to do with a foreclosure. Her father had been an accountant, but he’d worked for the Howard family’s private business. Maybe he’d advised them, but that wouldn’t have been Genny’s fault. The only thing that connected Genny to a possible foreclosure would be the fact that Brock Howard had been obsessed with her and she’d made the decision to…

  The truth hit him squarely in the gut and reframed the past fifteen years in a way that made him sick. He was the one downing the Scotch now. He swallowed it. All of it. With shaky hands, he poured himself another. “Brock didn’t want the money. He wanted Genny. He traded the ranch for Genny.”

  “Yes.” With one word Clint affirmed his fear. “He told our mother if you walked away with Genny, he would foreclose and see everyone out of our home.”

  “And Mom let it happen.” He stood. He couldn’t sit. His skin felt too tight. What had she done? His mother had put this on the slender shoulders of an eighteen-year-old girl? “She went to Genny? She asked her to do this?”

  The world felt like it was spinning, and he was quite certain he wouldn’t be happy where it stopped.

  “Don’t blame her,” Genny said, the words dull coming from her mouth. “She’d recently lost her husband. Your mom was left with six boys to provide for, and the ranch was in bad shape at the time. What was she supposed to do?”

  “Dad was stubborn. He wouldn’t change, just kept raging at the machine,” Clint said. “When he died, the ranch was damn near bankrupt, but it was all we had. Honestly, I thought if we just had a year or two we could turn it around. I pushed Dad to look into organic cattle. He wanted to keep going the way we had, but we couldn’t compete with corporate ranches or bigger ones.”

  Outrage pierced through him. “That wasn’t her responsibility.” His anger had shifted from Genny to his mom and oldest brother. How could they have done this? How could they have put this on her? They’d lied to him. “I got a Dear John letter from Genny. Did you tell her what to say to get me angry? Now that I think about it, that letter was completely out of character. Did you write it for her?”

  “What were they supposed to do, Wade?” She looked beyond tired, her voice low. “Was she supposed to give up her home and make her sons live on the streets for your high school crush?”

  How could she say that? “Don’t make this less than it was. I loved you. I was ready to marry you.”

  Her eyes stared through him. “And when I wrote you a letter that was completely out of character, that ran utterly counter to everything you knew about me, what did you do? Did you call me to find out what was going on? Did you rush home to work it out? Or did you take the first chance you had to get out of our relationship?”

  He stopped, not wanting to think about what she was saying. His life had ended that day. Or at least it had felt that way at the time. “That’s not true. I was sick to death for months after that damn letter. I did call home. I called and talked to Clint when I could use the phone. Of course, Clint told me all about the wedding you were planning. I didn’t come home after that.”

  “Fifteen years, Wade. You say you loved me but the first time I made you angry, you left and didn’t come back for fifteen years. You say I was the woman you loved, but you didn’t even try to call me. You called Clint and told your brother I’d saved you from making a terrible mistake and moved on with your life, and do you know what I did? I married Brock anyway. I saved your family anyway because that was how much I loved you.”

  He had to take a deep breath because he felt sick. He couldn’t be sick. It was weakness and it appeared he’d been weak enough. “I lied. I didn’t want Clint to see how much I was hurting, but I…” What could he say? He hadn’t gone after her. He’d been in the middle of boot camp. He’d chosen to stay in South Carolina. Even when he’d had the chance to go home, he’d spent that first free weekend with his buddies getting drunk and chasing skirts.

  It had been the first time he’d been with another woman after Genny. He’d been faithful the whole time they’d been together. He’d forced himself to do it, told himself she was having a grand ol
d time with her fiancé.

  “What did Brock do to you?” He asked the question, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. What had been happening to her while he’d been drinking and fucking and cursing her name? He turned to his brother, emotion making him twist and turn. “How could you not tell me?”

  “I made him promise he wouldn’t.” Her shoulders had relaxed, and she took a step toward him, her hand coming out before she stopped. She kept the distance between them. “I thought I knew what I was doing. And Wade, you didn’t really want me. Like I said, if you loved me, you would have done something, anything. You wouldn’t have sat back and let it happen. I know you. At least I knew the you back then. You were a fighter. I waited my whole wedding day. I knew you would show up and I would have to find a way to stop you from stopping me. I had it all planned out, but you didn’t show. You didn’t come for me.”

  He was the villain in the piece. “I was angry with you.”

  “Wade, she needs your help,” his brother said.

  “Get out.” He couldn’t stand to look at Clint right now.

  “Hey,” Clint began.

  He shook his head. “No. You go. Maybe in a couple of years I’ll be able to forgive you but damn straight not on the day when you’re marrying your dream woman and you’re the reason I lost mine.”

  Clint looked ashen. “What was I supposed to do?”

  “You were supposed to tell me,” Wade shot back. “You were supposed to give me a chance to figure it out. You were not supposed to put an innocent girl through hell. She wasn’t yours to use. Damn it. Even if she hadn’t been mine, she wasn’t yours.”

  “And what would you have done?” Clint asked. “Would you have let your momma get kicked to the curb?”

  “It wasn’t Genny’s responsibility. So yes. If that was the choice, yes, I would have made it. We had relatives who would have taken us in. We had choices, and you took hers away. Tell me, brother, tell me if you would have done the same thing to Lori. Tell me if you would have sent her to be raped by another man to save your fucking ranch.” He couldn’t breathe in here. He looked to Genny and did what he should have done a long time before. He took control. “Get your things. We’re leaving. We can talk about what you need from me on our way to your son.”

  He held his hand out and was shocked to see it shaking. But he wouldn’t pull it back. He’d failed her once and it had cost them years. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. The minute he’d realized she hadn’t betrayed him, something deep inside him had opened, a place he hadn’t felt in fifteen years. Some spark he’d lost shot back to life again.

  He’d never stopped wanting her. Maybe he didn’t deserve her after what his family had done, but he couldn’t walk away. Between the divorce and her…he couldn’t think of that man as her husband…Brock going to jail, she’d lost everything. The factory had closed, and it appeared she didn’t even have the money for a car.

  Another thing he laid at his brother’s feet.

  What would he do if she wouldn’t come with him?

  She stood and stared at his outstretched hand for one long moment. If she walked out, he would follow her. He wouldn’t force her to come with him, but he would watch over her. He would figure out what her problem was and try to find a way to solve it for her. He would find out where she lived and anonymously send her the things she needed to be comfortable.

  She and her son. God, she had a son. She’d had Brock’s son.

  Her hand came out and covered his. “It’s okay, Wade.”

  A flash of their past together burned through him.

  It’s okay, Wade. It’s all going to be okay. I’ll be with you for everything. We’ll get through the funeral and we’ll go from there. Hold on to me.

  He saw her through watery eyes. “It’s not okay. Tell me what you need.”

  When he threaded their fingers together, she didn’t pull away. “I need a ride back to my place. I can explain it to you on the way.”

  Her hand was in his and that seemed to quell the rage that had threatened to burst forth. He was able to somewhat calmly look to his brother. “Who else knew? Besides you and Momma? The twins didn’t seem to understand why you spent so much time with her.”

  “Besides my wife, Clay is the only one who knows,” Clint replied. “I didn’t tell Heath or the twins. They didn’t need to know how close we came to losing everything.”

  “So you let them hate her, too.” Wade couldn’t believe how far his brothers had been willing to go.

  Her hand squeezed his and he looked down at her. Those big blue eyes of hers pleaded with him to let it go. She used to give him the same look when he would get into it with Brock. If he’d done as she’d asked back then, would the man have gotten as dangerously obsessed with her? At the time he’d been arrogant and thought he could handle anything, but she’d been the one to pay. He nodded and turned, not releasing her hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Wade,” his brother called out.

  “Enjoy your honeymoon.” He walked back to the hall, hefting his duffel with his free hand.

  He led her out of the house where they’d become friends, kissed for the first time, cuddled together, made love. Where they should have been married, brought their babies home to visit.

  With the sound of the party drifting across the lawn, he walked away from his home and didn’t look back.

  Chapter Three

  Genny couldn’t quite believe she was sitting in his truck. It felt surreal.

  Somehow all these years later, she’d suspected he’d known. Even though Clint had told her he didn’t, in the back of her mind she’d convinced herself that he’d known.

  “Why?” He turned out of the long driveway onto the highway that led into town.

  “Because I was a stupid kid and I thought love meant sacrifice,” she replied, staring out the window. In the distance she could see the lights of the party. “You shouldn’t be hard on Clint. He was a kid, too. A kid trying to take his father’s place. He always tried to help me when he could.”

  “He should have told me the truth.”

  “I don’t know. I think you would have lost your home and we still would have split up. We were too young to get married.” She thought about it all the time. It had been foolish to think it could have worked. “Besides, I’d been willing to give up a lot for you. I don’t know why this surprises you. I was a very naïve girl.”

  “You were still going to go to college,” he said, his hands gripping the steering wheel with none of his usual grace. “I wasn’t taking that away from you.”

  “I had a full ride to UT Austin,” she pointed out. “I was walking away from that for you.”

  “We were going to build something special. We were going to have a family. I wouldn’t have stopped you from getting your degree.”

  Something would have come along. She would have gotten pregnant or he would have been deployed or moved to another base. Now that she looked back, she wished she could shake some sense into her younger self. “It doesn’t matter. When you get into town, take a right. I’m in the trailer park outside of town.”

  “You’re living in that rattrap trailer park?”

  She sighed. “It’s all I could afford. My dad died and he didn’t leave us much except for the information I used to take down Brock. Dad had kept the books for the factory for years. He knew where all the secrets were buried. After Brock went to jail, the factory closed. There wasn’t anything left. They sold it all off to pay Brock’s debts. I’d signed a prenup so most of our personal assets are his. He made sure to hide the money we had left. Rattrap trailer park has to do until I can move and find a job. There’s nothing for me here.”

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I’m going to kill my brother.”

  Somehow she hadn’t expected that reaction. “He tried to help. I wouldn’t take more from him than I absolutely had to. I’m trying to get back into the workforce. Well, I’m trying to get into the workforce. I don’t have a
degree. I don’t have experience. Working summers at a factory that shut down for corruption probably doesn’t count.”

  “I’ll get you a job.”

  She should have known that if he decided to say yes to her, he would take over. It was what he did. That cool competence had been one of the things that attracted her to him. At the time, she’d been young and unsure. Wade had seemed to know how to do everything, how to get the things he wanted. She’d followed. Now she couldn’t follow. She had to take charge and save her son. “That’s not what I need you to do. I need your professional services.”

  “You have them,” he replied. “Can I ask the nature of the threat? Brock’s in jail, correct?”

  “Yes, but that hasn’t stopped him.” She shivered even though the cab was warm enough. “He blames me for going to jail.”

  “So he didn’t embezzle a bunch of money?” Wade sounded like he knew the answer to that question.

  “Oh, he did. He stole millions and gambled it all away. But he’s right about me being the reason he went to jail. I gave the feds all the evidence I’d documented over the years. I was careful and I waited. I knew I had to get him on a federal level because he owned the county judges. He couldn’t buy off the one in Houston.”

  “How many years had you been planning?”

  “Since my son was born. I thought once the ranch was safely paid off, I would divorce him and get on with my life. He switched out my birth control pills. He says he didn’t, but I’m almost sure that’s how it happened. Once I had Asher, I couldn’t leave without risking losing my son.” She couldn’t imagine what would have happened if her sweet boy had been raised by her monstrous mother-in-law. Brock hadn’t cared about the child except as a control measure for her, but Emily Howard had wanted to twist Ash into her perfect grandchild.

  It wasn’t kind of her, but she’d been grateful when the old bat had a heart attack. Of course, then the leash had been off her husband, but at least Ash had been spared.