ONE
KANE
“You wantme to do what? With your sister?” I’d been and done a lot of things in my forty-two years, but being responsible for the safety of just one person was not something I’d ever expected, or wanted, to deal with. Heck, just the thought of caring for a goldfish gave me hives.
“Look, I’m not asking you to marry her. I know your feelings on that front. Besides, you’re not Chassie’s type. I don’t think she even has one based on her dating history, but that will not be a problem, right? Just keep her safe at your place. Besides, you owe me.” Finn’s unspoken but fully understood warning landed like a lead weight in my gut.
Nodding, because at this very moment my cock and my head were not sure I could voice the reassurance Finn was looking for. And he was half right; I owed him, but this? This was beyond the almost decade-old favor he’d conned me out of before I was sent home on a medical discharge from the Army.
I’d never met said sister, who’d just arrived and was sending all my internal systems into overdrive. Finn was like a brotherto me, as all my fellow Rangers were, but this was a big ask. Chassie had some creepy fan messaging her, but the vision I was keeping a low-key lock on looked perfectly capable of handling anything life dished out as she unknowingly dazzled me with her smile, her laugh directed not at me but her sister-in-law and baby nephew.
The last fifteen minutes had been an effing awakening, and I wasn’t sure I’d even fully heard Finn correctly. He was here on vacation, and because he promised West he’d run a session on writing for the client-guests who wanted to learn and to see from someone like them that there was a path after the service. A way out from under the nightmares, the trauma.
That’s what they did here at the Triple R. And I guess what I’d signed up for too, although I was still figuring out what in my background as a newly retired stuntman I could use to help. Instead, in the last few months I had become more student than teacher as I followed Lars around and learned everything I could about carpentry and woodworking. To my surprise, my need to always be active, living for the next adrenaline hit had lessened, and I’d found something I’d never experienced. Peace.
And yet, there’d still been an itch I couldn’t quite reach. Yeah, something was still missing, but maybe….
“Kane, you got this, right?” Finn’s sharp tone snapped me back to the moment.
“Roger that. No one’s going to touch her. You have my word.” My word given, I’d do my best to bury whatever his sister had unknowingly stirred up inside me. Otherwise, Finn’s fist would connect with my twice-broken nose.
Sure, he was now a bestselling author of military suspense novels, but his sister meant more to him than being able to punch letters on a laptop, and he wouldn’t think twice about busting his hand on my face.
But before he stepped off the porch to deliver the news to his sister, Finn’s steely glare reminded me of the man I’d served with all those years ago. He’d been the most accurate sniper in our division, and I’d do well to remember all the times his aim saved our asses.
Outside of having the backs of my fellow Rangers when I was active duty, it had never been about just one soldier. Save one, save all. But this time was different. It was family. But it sure as heck was never a female I wanted to take to bed. So, now I’d made a commitment to ensure Chassie’s safety, and if he knew I’d been silently lusting after her since she’d stepped out of her car, well, fist meet face. And that would only be the beginning.
In that moment, I felt like a damn lurker, like the “super fan” that had Chassie running to Pineville Mountain looking for refuge as I hid in the shadows and ate up her curves, her bright smile and pink hair.
Yeah, pink. And wavy. It looked so soft as the wind lifted the long waves off her shoulders.Shit.My gaze had strayed again as Finn and I talked. Okay, he continued to talk, and I pretended to listen while Chassie cuddled her nephew with Sami, Finn’s wife, looking on, concern marring her features.
Finn and Sami had met, fallen in love, married and got pregnant all within the last year, not unlike the rest of our tight group now coupled up at the Triple R. The only difference was Finn and his family were still living in Misty Mountain, Colorado, but after visiting for the last week, there’d been discussions of moving back to Pineville where he and his sisters had grown up.
I knew it was a tough choice for him since their childhood had been rough and he hadn’t been back much since he joined the service, but both Chassie still lived here, and their younger sister was off somewhere in the south, but you’d have to be blindnot to see how tight the siblings were. I could appreciate that feeling. I had two brothers myself.
When I woke up this morning, I had no clue my foundation would be rocked, and now I had this persistent drumbeat in my head, its volume increasing with every passing second. It was as if I were back in the service and I’d been handed another impossible mission.
But an equally insistent thought — the one about brotherhood — matched it beat for beat. So, how the hell was I going to keep my unspoken "no touching" oath when everything inside me screamed,she—is—the—one?
TWO
CHASSIE
Rolling onto the long driveway of the Triple R oddly felt like coming home. I had never experienced that feeling. Not as a child, or even as an adult. I was always looking out for my younger sister, with no time to focus on the dysfunctional parenting since it was the only kind we’d known. Finn raised himself, and was out of the house at eighteen, but seeing him now with Sami and their son made me wish for a moment my life had played out differently.
But that feeling vanished because I am who I am today because of every experience, no matter how painful, how trivial or brief the interaction was worth everything. I’d become a nurse because someone told me they made great money, especially if you specialized. So that’s what I did.
Looking back, I think I became a nurse for more than the natural empathy I possessed. I now realized I’d become a nurse because I’d suffered and wanted to fix myself when I was disappointed over and over by well-meaning but unwilling to buck the norm doctors who labeled my symptoms as “being born female.”
Well, I proved them wrong. Finally, and emphatically and it had become my life’s mission, no, my passion, to educate all women who were underserved, patted on the hand and told to live “with it” when it came to their body’s signals that something was wrong.
I am woman, hear me roar, and all that jazz. But a few months ago, a couple years into my crusade, more commonly known as a women’s health influencer, I started getting creepy texts from someone who claimed to be my “super fan.”
The bigger my audience grew, the more content I put out. The more my confidence and connection with other influencers in the same space grew, so did the number of messages. First, they were in the comments section of my TikTok and insta accounts. But somehow this person got ahold of my personal cell number, and that’s when the anxiety spiked. I went to the local police, the FBI, any agency that I thought could help me. They took my phone and told me to lie low and be happy they hadn’t figured out where I lived. Or so they think.
Thank God all of this came to a head when my big brother was in town, and Finn said he knew just the person to help me out, but I needed to leave my house. I packed as many bags as I could carry, bought a new pay as you go cell at the local drugstore and sped off to Pineville Mountain.
Running wasn’t my style. But the texts were getting bolder, next level creepy, and as competent as I felt the Pineville PD was, I knew Finn was my best bet at protection. He and the man he’d chosen to be my “bodyguard” now stood, discussing me no doubt, on the wrap-around porch of the lodge renovated by their buddies from the Ranger unit they’d all been in.
