Damian's Treble [Rescue for Hire 3] (Siren Publishing Classic ManLove)
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Rescue for Hire 3
Damian’s Treble
Welcome to the world of Rescue for Hire. Meet the team members that make up a company that form a family of heroes.
Damian White has been observing Treble Walker for months, trying to find a way to catch the dangerous lethal little man, but Damian wants a forever. Somehow he has to get around Treb’s motto, "Keep it short and simple. I don’t do messy, whiney, emotional stuff."
Treble Walker is a corner observer who sees everything. He knows the new pilot has been watching him, but when he asked him if he wants to hook up he gets turned down. Why does that intrigue him?
Damian does catch his Treble, but after multiple people go after Treb for revenge, Damian has to keep not only Treble alive but also the hospital staff, as well. There is nothing more dangerous than Treble with a head injury.
Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Contemporary
Length: 21,783 words
DAMIAN’S TREBLE
Rescue for Hire 3
Bellann Summer
EROTIC ROMANCE
MANLOVE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance ManLove
DAMIAN’S TREBLE
Copyright © 2014 by Bellann Summer
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62741-430-2
First E-book Publication: March 2014
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
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Regarding E-book Piracy
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The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.
This is Bellann Summer’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Summer’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
www.SirenPublishing.com
www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
This one is for my baby girl, who has as much fun as I do when we take a “road trip,” usually getting lost and laughing until tears are running down our cheeks.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Epilogue
About the Author
DAMIAN’S TREBLE
Rescue for Hire 3
BELLANN SUMMER
Copyright © 2014
Chapter One
“Help me! Someone please help me!” the woman pleaded, but nobody was there to help her. She didn’t have the strength to stand anymore, having taken too many blows to the head and back.
Thank goodness the children were sleeping in the bedroom on the other side of the house, away from the man they called their father. She didn’t know how she was going to get them out safely. Once he was done with her, she knew he would go after them.
Right now he was pacing back and forth across the living room, lost in the throes of a war he no longer had to fight. She hadn’t known he had stopped taking his medicine. The voices in his head must have grown louder than the doctor’s reasoning.
Her only hope was if someone had heard her screams and called for help. There was no way to tell because the windows were blocked by heavy curtains preventing anyone from seeing in or out. That had been one of her husband’s requirements when they had moved in. He couldn’t tolerate the feeling of vulnerability at being exposed to anyone outside the house. Lying there in her own blood, she said a silent prayer for her children.
Treble Michael Walker slipped into the living room, taking cover behind a huge wardrobe-like piece of furniture. He didn’t really know what it was, didn’t really care. It hid him from the sweating, wild-eyed man who was shuffling back and forth on the other side of the room. As far as he was concerned, that was all that counted at this point.
Treble and his team had flown into Colorado after being hired by a family who’d lost five members in the nearby national park. As they had started putting their gear into a vehicle to drive from the airport to the park, the local authorities had contacted the boss about this hostage situation just two miles away. So Cade, Treble’s boss, had ordered him and Jack, the second-in-command, to split from the rest. Their job was to get the woman and her children out of a domestic hostage situation.
Each member of the team had a specialty. Just by the glimpse he had of the woman, Jack’s expertise as a field medic and paramedic was going to be needed. Treble’s specialty was being a spook, as he was able to slip in and out of tight places unseen. He was also an expert at weapons and hand-to-hand combat. In his opinion, his skills were the woman’s only chance of getting out of this situation without any more injuries.
Earlier he’d found the bedroom with three children sleeping inside. The oldest, from what he could tell, was about four years old. The youngest looked about the same age as Jack’s twins, who had just accomplished the feat of sitting by themselves, whatever that age was. Carefully, he had handed each now wide-eyed child out of the window to Jack. None of the children had made a sound at the fact that two strange men dressed all in black were taking them out of their beds and home. This troubled him the most.
Too many times in the past Treb had rescued traumatized children out of abusive situations. It just plain pissed hi
m off when those kids became so used to the way they were treated, they didn’t even object anymore. To his way of thinking, children were a gift that you guided and nurtured into being a solid adult.
It was just his opinion, but he didn’t understand why a person had to have a permit to burn a pile of garbage but didn’t need any knowledge or anything else to raise a little person.
Treb watched the husband pace back and forth one more time. Then the man turned like he was going to leave the room. Treb could tell by the vacant look in his eyes that the guy wasn’t really coherent at the moment. Unfortunately he had a gun stuffed in the waistband of his jeans and a knife in one hand, making him very dangerous.
The lady on the floor was very still right now. Treb hoped that was because she knew enough not to bring any attention to herself, and not that she was unconscious or worse. Her husband walked right past her, not paying her any attention. He was muttering and clearly lost in his own mind somewhere.
Treb always found that simple was the best way to handle most situations. Rising to his full height, he waited silently. As the man passed by his hiding spot, he lifted his leg in a move his old Jiu-Jitsu teacher would have been proud of and executed a kick to the man’s head. The man dropped like a sack of potatoes. Treb took his knife and gun away, pulled his hands behind his back, and secured them with a zip tie.
Treb spoke into the cordless mike at his mouth. “We’re clear, Jack. We need medical.”
“Is the guy still alive?” Jack asked. Treb would have been offended if his record with taking down bad guys wasn’t about fifty-fifty.
“Yeah, he’s alive. Hurry your ass in here. The lady needs you, and not in a good way.” See, he could have a sense of humor. Sort of.
The next moment the room was filled with Jack and the police. Jack immediately ran to the woman to start administering first aid while one cop placed handcuffs on the husband, cutting the zip tie. The guy was already coming to, whining about his head. When the paramedics brought in the stretcher, and with Jack’s help, loaded the lady onto it, Treb knew it was time to get out of the house. They still had missing members of a family to find.
An hour later found Treb and Jack back on the road. As he waited for their truck to reach the team’s base camp in the park, Treb thought about the day’s mission. The lady would be sore for a few days, but nothing seemed to be broken and she was going to heal. When Treb had left, family and counsellors were being called to meet the woman at the hospital to give her the support she would need to turn around her life and the lives of her children.
As for the husband, Treb hoped he went to jail. Again, keep it simple, it was just the way Treb felt. Part of him would never trust head doctors, drugs that suppressed emotions, and most of all, people poking at him and asking how this, that, and the other thing made him feel. Life wasn’t fair and neither was Treb.
There was a reason people said he was as mean as a snake. He had lost a lot of his humanity in his prior job as a mercenary for an unmentionable affiliate of the government. If he made it a habit to dwell on the places he had been and the things he had seen or done, he would be just like the guy he had left on the floor an hour before. He chose to go on with life, even if it was a bit jaded.
Besides, the boss would be proud of the restraint he had used this time. He hadn’t slit the man’s throat, after all. Maybe all these years of the boss’s lectures on rescuing and not killing people were sinking in.
Although Treb wondered why the face of the pilot, the boss had hired just popped into his head. The guy, after all, had no influence on his actions.
Treb knew Damian had been watching him over the last few months. Hell, he had been watching back. But when Treb point blank asked him if he wanted to fuck, the guy had turned him down. Oh well, his loss. Treb was not going to dwell on it, even though it might have bothered him just a little.
* * * *
Damian White was guiding the airplane smoothly through the clear blue skies. It would take about two hours to return home from Colorado, where his team had completed a missing persons’ search. The rescue itself, to find the whole group, had taken about twenty-four solid hours. Apparently they had thought it would be a good idea to split up. Alex, the expert tracker of the team, had found the first three relatively quick. But the last two had given them a run for their money. He had flown a couple of rangers out as lookouts over the area in a grid pattern. They eventually spotted and guided the rescue team to the fourth. Finally Alex, with meticulous precision, had followed the faint path no one else had seen and found the last member safe, although dehydrated and hungry. This rescue had overall gone well.
Finally, after years of hard work, life was pretty good for Damian. He was at a place where he was doing what he wanted to do and had what he wanted to have. His beloved grandfather had left him with a good sized inheritance years ago, telling him to follow his dreams. And he had, right into the sky.
Signing up with the Air Force in the military right after high school had given him the discipline to get control of his wild side. Damian was a consequent adrenaline junky and knew even at a young age if he didn’t get a handle on it, he wouldn’t make it to the age of twenty-five. He gave Uncle Sam eight years of his skills behind the instrument panel of planes and helicopters. Uncle Sam had taught him how to take the time to observe a situation and strategize the steps to gain the outcome he wanted. Having gotten what he wanted and needed from the military, he got out, leaving to build the life he really wanted.
The first thing he did was to buy a small plane and give flying lessons. He also gave air tours around the state, showing people magnificent views to take pictures of. After a while he went bigger and he bought the plane he was now flying. It had enough room to hold ten people and equipment. At that point he decided to switch his clientele to the local businessmen and women needing to be flown to corporate headquarters and various meetings in different states.
One evening he had gone to the local hotel to have dinner. Sitting at the bar, finishing an after dinner drink, he felt a man come up beside him and signal the bartender. Glancing over Damian was struck by the man’s sheer size. He had to be at least six foot six and his muscle mass was phenomenal. Damian himself was no slouch at six foot two. He kept fit rock climbing, hang gliding, and other physically demanding sports that fed his need to be on the edge. But clearly the slightly older man was an alpha in size and personality.
“Aren’t you the pilot that has that airstrip behind his house over on Hazelwood Road?” the man asked.
“Yeah, the name’s Damian White.” He held out his hand in greeting.
“Nice to meet you, Damian. I’m Cade Miller and I actually live on Hazelwood, about three miles south of you.” Cade returned Damian’s handshake.
“Let’s see, there’s a newer log house off the road a ways in the woods and a huge house with a pool in the back. Would any of those be yours?”
“Mine would be the log house. The house with the pool belongs to Jack Woods. He’s my second-in-command for a company I own called Rescue for Hire.”
“Really, what kind of company it that?”
“Municipalities and even private families call us in when there is a missing person or a weather disaster. There are five of us all together and we go in and rescue people in trouble. We’ve even been called in on a few hostage situations.”
“Wow, how the heck do you find skilled people like that?” Damian was fascinated and very intrigued by the idea.
“Most are ex-military, who specialized in the areas I need.”
“Got to love the military for drilling knowledge into us.”
“Were you in the military?”
“Oh yeah, Air Force. Tactical helicopter evacuation,” Damian answered.
“I’ve heard and seen airplanes and helicopters going in and out down your way. Are they yours?” Cade had a speculative look in his eye.
“Yes, I’ve managed to acquire a few different planes and my baby is my helicopter. A
re you looking to fly somewhere?”
“Actually, I’m looking for someone who can be ready to fly me and my team out fast. I can even see using that helicopter in a few rescue situations. Would any of that interest you?”
“I would like to know more about what your company does and what you actually are looking for, but I have to say, I’m very interested.” Damian was starting to get really excited by this opportunity.
“Good, here’s my card. Call me tomorrow and we can set up a meeting.” Cade handed Damian a business card and shook his hand.
Just then a small handsome blond, with a cane, squeezed in next to Cade. Cade introduced his partner Bret to Damian. After sharing greetings and a few pleasantries, Damian left.
A few days later, after their meeting at Cade’s house, Damian started flying the team to rescues.
Damian hadn’t completely given up flying business managers out once in a while, but mostly he left that to his assistant Pete. At different times, working with Cade’s team, he had also found himself carrying victims or helping to apply first aid in the field right alongside the other guys. In essence, even though he owned his own company, he was a member of the Rescue for Hire team.
Glancing at a small mirror angled so he could view the cabin behind him, he saw everyone was pretty much sleeping. Earlier in the flight the boss and Jack quietly had a lengthy discussion. He assumed they had been going over the two rescues, how to improve, etc. Or they could have been talking about Jack’s twins. When the group went out on a rescue, Bret went over to Jack’s house to help Jack’s partner Pip take care of their gorgeous twin baby girls.