by Jenna Jacob
Everything began to move in slow motion.
Tucking her behind him, Sawyer slammed his leg out straight, pinning the scary Russian to the wall with the front door. Ozzie raced under Sawyer’s legs and inside. The dog barked viciously at the drug lord before leaping into the air and sinking his sharp teeth into the man’s arm that held the gun. A shot rang out and Brea screamed.
“Sawyer?”
“I’m fine baby. I’m fine,” he assured before bellowing encouragement to the dog. “Rip his arm off, Ozzie. Good boy! Bite him. Sink those big teeth into him!”
The Russian’s high-pitched wails filled the air. The badass drug lord was screaming like a bitch. Sawyer pressed his back against the doorjamb and lifted his other leg, ensuring the would-be assassin remained firmly wedged in place. Ozzie didn’t relent as his low, menacing growls joined the cacophony. But no amount of noise masked the thud when the Russian dropped his gun to the floor.
“Get that gun, love,” Sawyer instructed with a grunt.
As Brea crawled beneath his leg and plucked the gun off the floor, a loud explosion rang out from the back of the house. She jumped to her feet and snapped her head toward the kitchen as Detective Estes raced into the living room. Blinking in shock, she zipped around to see Sawyer lower his legs as dozens of officers—with guns drawn—swarmed in through the front door.
“Call off the dog,” Estes yelled above the screams and growls.
“Ozzie! Leave it,” Brea commanded. With a snarl, the fuzzy hero let go.
Brea took a step back. The dog followed and sat at her feet like a sentinel, poised and ready to protect her again. She turned her head to see Sawyer handing his gun over to one of the cops before he lifted his chin and looked her way. He appeared shell-shocked. No doubt she was wearing the same combo of terror and relief. Sawyer was right there, clutching her to his chest in a death hold. She clung to him, trembling. Determined not to fall apart, she blinked back tears and simply held him.
“Christ, baby. I thought I was going to lose you,” he said, his voice cracking.
Sawyer buried his face in the crook of her neck.
“Look at you, Yuri,” Estes chided with an icy smile. “Big, bad Russian crime boss, drug lord, pimp, and all ’round social deviant…you just got taken down by a man, a woman, and a dog. Guess you kinda underestimated all three, now didn’t you?”
The man began spitting in a language she didn’t understand, but the hatred in his eyes told her Yuri wasn’t rattling off his family recipe for chicken Kiev.
“Are you all right?” Sawyer’s voice was stronger, but his breathing was harsh, like hers, and his body continued to tremble, like hers.
There was no way she could keep her emotions in check and talk, so Brea simply nodded.
“Guess you shouldn’t have left your comrades sitting with their thumbs up their asses in that Hummer down the street, huh?” Estes continued goading the man. “Don’t worry, your buddies are cuffed and ready for transport with their new friends…the DEA, ATF, and FBI. But I bet they’re going to love the shit out of hearing how we found you…crying like a little boy.”
Yuri’s face turned red before unleashing a new string of foreign words in the same vicious tone. Estes dismissed the man with a wave of his hand before nodding to one of the officers. “Cuff him and get him out of here. The FBI can decide how or if they want to deal with his arm.”
Brea had managed to keep her shit wired tight until she heard the snick of handcuffs. Knowing the monster could no longer hurt her, she felt a wave of emotions careening through her and sucking her down into an inky-black abyss.
She was shivering like a naked Floridian in Alaska as tears spilled from her eyes and mournful wails bubbled up from deep in her throat. Sawyer swept her up into his arms before cradling her like a baby on the couch. She buried her head against his chest, gripped his shirt in her fists, and fell completely apart.
“It’s okay, my love. I’ve got you. You’re safe. It’s all over,” he cooed as he gently rocked her back and forth.
Heart pounding like a herd of wild horses, she sobbed inconsolably against Sawyer as bits and pieces of conversations going on around her flitted through her head. Yuri Orlov, FBI’s most wanted, methamphetamines, duffle bags, prison, Weed, Colton, Jade. The bits and pieces plucked from the air confused her even more. Brea pushed them away until the words melded to indecipherable static. Encased in the steely heat of Sawyer’s protection, she closed her eyes and let his reassuring whispers carry her mind away.
When she lifted her eyelids again, Jade and Colton—wearing worried expressions—were kneeling on the floor in front of her.
Officers and plain-clothed detectives paraded through the house, sending a sickly déjà vu to crawl beneath her flesh.
“There’s our girl.” Colton sent her a weak smile.
“Welcome back, darlin’,” Sawyer drawled, pressing a kiss to her head. “I’m glad you decided to come back to me.”
As her terror-induced fugue began to clear, Brea lifted her head and frantically searched the room for Yuri.
“He’s gone, on his way to Denton, then to a federal holding facility in Houston.”
She found a wealth of comfort in the information Sawyer imparted, but a million times more simply wrapped in his rugged arms.
“Bingo! Found it, boss. They were hidden in a false bottom.” The announcement came from a suited detective standing in the kitchen, next to the table that held Brea’s duffle bags. With a knife in one hand, the man plucked packets of white powder from the totes with the other.
A strangled cry slid from her lips. Weed had hidden drugs in her bags. But worse, he’d sent a Russian drug lord to retrieve them. Her ex didn’t give two shits whether Brea died or not. The miserable sack of shit had set her up.
She felt beyond stupid and totally used.
Suddenly, Sawyer’s soothing arms were as painful as thousands of knives cutting into her skin. Logically, she knew he was nothing like her ex and probably never would be…
Probably.
That was the kicker. She wasn’t positive, because she’d lost faith in her own judgment and didn’t have a clue how to regain her confidence again. Brea wanted to crawl inside a hole and give up. Not on life but on finding her happy ever after. Trusting men with your heart was dangerous, but they never bothered to tell girls that…at least not in fairy tales.
CHAPTER NINE
The morning sun warmed Sawyer’s back as he stood on Barbara’s deck sipping coffee. Brea and Jade were still inside sleeping. Colton had taken off before dawn to care for his cattle but promised to return as soon as possible. The three of them had kept an all-night vigil in Brea’s room, watching her sleep and gently waking her when numerous nightmares came calling.
Now, as Ozzie ran and marked several trees in the backyard, Sawyer’s heart tightened. If it hadn’t been for the smart mutt, Brea might have…
Stop! You’ve ripped your guts out thinking the same thing all night. Give it a rest.
But he couldn’t.
The realization of what might have happened had he not spotted Ozzie running free and called him back to take him inside Barbara’s had played in his head for hours. Sawyer’s stomach knotted. His heart raced at the memory of seeing that Russian prick holding a gun to Brea’s head. Seeing the blood on her lip and the bright red handprint where he’d slapped her blazing across her porcelain face. He’d wanted to raze the fucking house with his bare hands to save her.
Thank god, Weed—the prick-assed bastard—had decided to grow a conscience and call Estes after telling Yuri where to find Brea and his drugs. The fact that her ex had been tracking her via her cell phone fueled Sawyer’s anger to a bloodthirsty level. Though he and Ozzie had managed to save her, the cavalry showing up when they had was a relief. Not because he wasn’t planning to put a bullet through Yuri’s head; he was, but now he didn’t have to clean the man’s gray matter off Barbara’s walls.
When the danger was over, her
soulful eyes filling with tears had told him she was sliding down into a bleak chasm. The only thing he could do was hold her and promise that everything would be okay.
Thankfully, it’d played out the way it had, but Sawyer couldn’t stop thinking about what might have happened, had it all backfired and…
Again. Knock it off, asshole.
Yuri Orlov was now sitting at the Federal Detention Center in Houston awaiting trial. Brea was safe…or at least Sawyer hoped so. Weed was now out on bail, but God help the fuck-knuckle if he ever showed his face in Haven. It would be his last mistake, because Sawyer would make sure the prick’s body was never found.
Of course, the only way he could truly keep Brea safe would be to keep her joined at his hip, or preferably, his cock. But he’d play hell convincing her of that. Especially after the heart-to-heart he and Colton had in the wee hours of this morning. Sawyer finally understood the reason for her bizarre questions the night Emmett had blown out the window.
That had only been two nights ago…when he’d sworn he wasn’t in love with her. He couldn’t make that claim today—he’d uncovered that morsel of honesty around four this morning. Knowing she might never share more with him than a one-night stand shredded his soul. It was either irony or Murphy’s Law that he’d finally found a woman he’d risk waking up with every day only to discover a major roadblock in the way—Brea’s journey of self-discovery was just beginning.
Somehow…someway, Sawyer had managed to piss the royal fuck out of Karma.
“Mind if I join you?”
Brea’s soft voice surrounded him like a blanket of cotton. When he turned, she stood near the door, mug of coffee in hand as the morning breeze stirred her long, dark hair.
The woman was a fucking goddess.
A temptress.
And sadly, a lost soul so thoroughly broken he didn’t know how to put her back together. But Sawyer would find a way. Yes sirree. Even if it took super glue, duct tape, and a soldering iron, he’d repair every splintered shard of her delicate soul. Because she was worth it…worth every painstaking, frustrating, perplexing, sassy-assed moment he shared with her.
Sawyer held out his hand. Brea hesitated and finally took it before he led her to a padded chair at the table. Ozzie, who’d been sniffing out every square inch of lawn, leapt to the deck and sat down by her feet. Brea reached out and rubbed his ears, praising the courageous Doberman once more for how brave he was and how proud he should be.
Tiny frown lines lay at her mouth and between her brows. She had something on her mind…something he suspected he wouldn’t want to hear. Taking a seat across from her, he patiently waited for her to speak.
“I appreciate everything you, Colton, and Jade have done for me. Last night was rough. I’m not going to lie. It meant a lot having you all upstairs with me. Today is a new day, and I’m putting the events of last night and years of mistakes behind me. I’m ready to move on. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you all can go back to your regularly scheduled lives. I’m going to be just fine.”
She was obviously trying to convince herself that, after one fitful night of sleep, she’d miraculously bounced back. That she could sweep her harrowing ordeal yesterday and every shitting game the fuckers before him had played on her right under the rug.
Sawyer certainly wasn’t buying any of it.
“Is that so?” Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he let the question hang in the air and took a sip of coffee.
Brea grew nervous at his pointed silence. “Yes. You all have lives and can’t hang around day and night watching Barbara’s gardens grow, now can you?”
“That’s not what we’re doing, and you know it.”
She ducked her head. “No. You’re babysitting a grown woman whose perpetual reckless decisions finally came back and bit her in the ass.”
“You had nothing to do with Wee—that fuck-monkey setting you up.” Sawyer slammed his fist on the table.
Brea recoiled in her chair, causing Ozzie to jump to his feet and bare his teeth at Sawyer in warning.
“Easy, boy. He’s not going to hurt me.”
“That’s the first honest thing I’ve heard you say since I met you.”
Her incredulous look morphed into a glare meant to incinerate him on the spot.
“Name one time I’ve ever lied to you.”
“It’s not me you’re lying to, darlin’… it’s yourself.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She tossed her nose in the air and studied the cloudless sky. Thank fuck Weed and Yuri hadn’t destroyed her stubborn spirit…the one Sawyer loved bantering with. He couldn’t help but inwardly smile.
“You think giving up men is going to automatically make your life nothing but rainbows and kittens.” She opened her mouth to argue, but Sawyer simply held up his hand. “Let me finish. Men aren’t the problem…the caliber of men you associate with is…excluding me, of course.”
She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Is that so? I wasn’t aware you were a shrink.”
“I’m not. But in the short time I’ve known you, I’ve seen a million different sides of you. Brea, you’re like a diamond. I’ve never met a more multi-faceted, frustrating, and fascinating woman than you. And any man who can’t see you in all your glory and beauty is either blind or brain-dead. Trust me, darlin’. I’m neither.”
“I think that’s the most backhanded compliment—well, I’m assuming it’s a compliment—that I’ve ever heard.”
“Let me put it another way. I was wrong to try and get in your pants, not because I don’t ache for you…lord knows I do, night and day. But I want more than your body. I want to crawl inside your mind…until I know everything about you. Because when I get you beneath me, and I will have you beneath me, we are going to share the same air…body…and heart. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Her little gasp was barely audible, but he heard it. Taking her breath away filled him with pleasure almost as much as the timid nod she gave him.
“Good. I have a little proposition for you.” Sawyer leaned in and rested his elbows on the table. “I’d like you and Ozzie to come and spend a few weeks at the ranch with my folks.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I have to take care of Barbara’s place…her gardens. Besides, your parents have enough on their plate with the kids. They don’t need another woman and a dog under foot. No. I can’t.” She adamantly shook her head.
“They’re the ones who suggested it.”
“When?”
“Last night. Mom texted me. She was worried about—”
“Wait. How did your mom find out… Never mind, I know. Haven is an ISP all its own.”
“Yes, it is. In fact, before they’d finished reading that scum-fuck, Yuri, his rights, half the town had gathered outside the house.”
“Oh, god,” she moaned. “I wasn’t paying attention to—”
“Anything but what you needed to be…the sound of my voice.”
A flicker of recollection lit her eyes briefly before she snuffed it out.
“Thank you for that. I don’t remember if I told you last night, but I’m grateful that you and Ozzie saved my life.”
Her phrases were beginning to sound more and more like a kiss-off. Sawyer wasn’t about to sit idly by and let her shove him out the door. It was time to change things up a bit.
He flashed her his most dazzling smile. “All in a day’s work for a superhero.”
When the corners of her mouth kicked up, it was worth the price of such a cheese-dick line.
“So you secretly wear a cape and tights?”
“Cape yes, but no tights…they chafe my balls.”
A throaty laugh rolled off her lips and sent his pulse skipping like a five-year-old down an uneven sidewalk. God, he wished he were still as guileless as a kid, especially where Brea was concerned. But life had left him with skinned elbows and knees. Sawyer had learned to tread more carefully now
.
“So what do you think about packing a bag and letting my family put you to work? Ozzie will come with us and we’ll drive back each night and water the gardens.”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she cocked her head and stared at him intently. “What does working on the ranch have to do with you crawling inside my head?”
Ah, she was a perceptive little wench.
“Well, if you come to the ranch, we’ll be working together. Not only do I get to keep you safe but we can spend time together.” He didn’t want to mention yet that he’d be staying the nights there as well. “It’ll give us the chance to do what we’re doing now—get to know one another before we move on to bumpin’ bellies.”
There it was again, that sultry laugh that sent his testosterone surging.
“I’ve never done that…started a relationship off as friends, I mean,” she shyly confessed.
Sawyer stood and circled the table. Taking her hand, he helped her to her feet as that crazy current she always roused zapped him clear down to his boots. In time, he planned to do more than bump bellies with this woman. He planned to rock her world clean off its foundation.
He pulled her against him and drank in the warmth of his freshly wakened kitten. “No time like the present to start. I aim to teach you what no man ever has before… how to love yourself.”
And hopefully…eventually, how to love me back.
“I love myself,” she protested. “I just make really bad decisions.”
“Not anymore.”
“Are you always so sure of yourself?”
“Most times.”
Liar.
“Well, some of the time,” he amended. “Mostly, I just do what everyone else does…muddle through this thing called life.”
She nibbled her bottom lip for long seconds, then sent him a mischievous smile. “Only if you promise to wear the cape and the tights for me from time to time.”
She stole the rest of his heart then and there. If she never loved him back, Sawyer was totally fucked.