by Casey Winter
I Hate to Stand Alone
CASEY WINTER
Copyright © 2020 Casey Winter
All rights reserved. Except as permitted, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. Luke
2. Hannah
3. Luke
4. Hannah
5. Luke
6. Hannah
7. Luke
8. Hannah
9. Luke
10. Hannah
11. Luke
12. Hannah
13. Luke
14. Hannah
15. Luke
16. Hannah
17. Luke
18. Hannah
19. Luke
20. Hannah
21. Luke
22. Hannah
23. Luke
24. Hannah
25. Luke
Epilogue
Author’s note
Chapter One of Never Her Protector: A Small Town Bodyguard to Lovers Romance (A Little Fall Story)
——Available for preorder now
I Hate to Stand Alone
A Little Fall Story
Casey Winter
Prologue
He was her boyfriend’s older brother, the one she had a crush on once upon a time, the cool bad boy that was always off-limits, the alpha who left Little Fall to become a decorated Navy SEAL.
Hannah can’t believe it when he kisses her. She thinks about Noah, her childhood sweetheart. She wonders what he would say if he could see them now.
But he’s gone.
He died overseas, a hero, and nobody knows what really happened between them.
People think she broke his heart. They don’t know it’s the other way around. He broke her heart. She’s kissing Luke, and his little brother broke her heart into a million tiny pieces.
Their families hate each other. She’s supposed to hate him, too. She’s supposed to hate his penetrating green eyes, his strong hands smoothing down her body, his growling breath as they groan and moan for more.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispers.
“I know,” he growls.
But then he kisses her again, harder.
Chapter One
Luke
As usual, the past chases me awake.
I know that maybe a doctor would call it PTSD, aftershocks from my time as a Navy SEAL, a result of being part of one of the most messed up missions imaginable. All I know is that I wake ice-cold and sweaty at four in the morning about one hundred miles outside Little Fall, the town I grew up in, the town I rarely come back to.
I sit up in the motel room, letting out a growling sigh, the last remnants of the nightmare clinging to me.
Pounding bullets, screaming soldiers, air tinged with gun smoke …
I push it deep down where I bury all my darkest emotions, if you can even call the detritus in my hollow chest emotions.
I jump out of bed, wander over to the window, and peel back the curtain, thinking about the crazy reason I’m even back in Maine. My boss at Sun-Disk Security—one of the most elite, if not the most elite security firm on the east coast—could hardly believe it when I told him.
Oliver Franklin is a tall man, sometimes a little too flashy for my liking. Touching his gold watch, flashing his white actor’s teeth, he said, “You’ve gotta be kidding me, Luke.”
I shrugged. “It was in his will,” I told him. “What’d you expect me to do? He was my brother.”
“It’s a fool’s errand,” he snapped, just about keeping his voice level. In the next room, I knew his two assistants would be exchanging eye-rolls. Oliver is the sort of man who thinks bluster makes him tough. “I get it—I really do—but we need you. You’re our top operative, Luke. You pretty much singlehandedly handled that Cartel job. Without you, we’re—dammit, Luke—you’re putting me in a real awkward position here …”
He trailed off, words apparently failing him. I didn’t point out that he’d said that he understood it and that it was a fool’s errand, which seemed confusing, nor that I’d had good Mexican agents helping me with the Cartel. He was just trying to convince me, but I’d already made up my mind. This was for Noah, my little brother and, as crazy as it was, I’d see it through.
“There’s really nothing I can do?” he said after a long pause.
I shook my head.
“I’ll double your salary,” he yelled.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” I told him. “This isn’t about money.”
He muttered under his breath. I didn’t hear the words, but I guessed it was something about wishing that I was under contract.
I’ve always insisted that I’m treated as a free agent at Sun-Disk: no contract, no notice period. After what happened overseas, the idea of being tied down terrifies me.
And I don’t scare easy.
—
Now, in the motel room, I turn away from the window—from the dry June night—and pace around the bare room. I drove nonstop last night. When I got to bed, I was so tired I thought I was just going to collapse. And I did, but only for a few hours. As usual, my memories didn’t let me rest.
I feel like I’ve just woken up for a mission, my body alive with buzzing energy. With a deep grunt, I collapse to the floor, catching myself with my hands as I bend into my first set of pushups.
I pump the pushups, landing on my fists, and then punish my chest until sweat coats my body. Bare-chested, I roll onto my back and do sit-ups until my belly hurts. My body is hard, muscled, but tonight my mind feels anything but. I feel exposed and vulnerable from the nightmare, from the idea of being back in my hometown again.
Why? Nothing bad happened to me in Little Fall. I grew up, we were happy enough, I left for the Navy. I joined the SEALs and I made a career for myself. Is it Mom’s death? Is it seeing Dad’s grumpy ass again? Is it Noah’s ghost?
Is it my insane mission?
I leap to my feet, jabbing the air, ducking and slipping against imaginary opponents. It feels good to move, to know that my body’ll do what I tell it to. I just wish my mind would do the same.
After the shadowboxing, I punish my legs with a squat workout, and then one-legged squats, lunges, and finally pullups in the doorframe, gripping it so hard the veins on my forearms pop and bulge.
When I glance at the red numbers on the bedside clock, I see that it’s almost five fifteen. The sun has started to rise, a soft yellow glow through the thin curtains. I could go back to bed and try and get some sleep, but I know what’d happen. I’d just lie there, thoughts drifting places I don’t want them to go.
Screw it.
I grab my duffel bag, the only thing I brought on this trip except for my ’67 Chevy, a demon of a vehicle if ever there was one, and head out to the main desk to checkout.
“Looks to be a beautiful day,” the man behind the desk says, grinning from ear to ear.
I do my best to give him a smile in return. “Yep,” I say, walking across the lot to the car. I dump the duffel and get behind the wheel, enjoying the growl of the engine as I pull out and head down the country road toward Little Fall Forest.
Maybe it’s beautiful, the forest, the town appearing among the trees. Maybe I should think about how the sun kisses the evergreens and all that poetic stuff, but mostly I just think about the letter Noah left me in h
is will, the most ridiculous letter a man could leave his brother. I almost laughed the first time I read it. By the fifth time, though, I was grim-faced.
Now, I have it memorized.
Dear big bro,
This is going to seem really strange, but I think you’ll understand when you remember how much Mom loved it. The Corps have been good to me and I’ve never been a big spender. I’ve managed to put a nest egg aside and, if I happen to die overseas (we both know that’s a risk worth taking, oorah), I want you to take my nest egg back to Little Fall and reopen Mom’s old roller rink. She loved that place. I’ll always remember the look on her face when she had to sell up. It was one of the worst memories of my childhood. The way she died, skidding on that icy road, it’s not fair. I just think she’d be happy to know that Family Roller was up and running again. I’m not much of a wordsmith so, yeah, that’s it. I’m asking you, my kick-ass SEAL brother, to go and … Get. It. Done.
Time to get some, soldier.
Noah out.
Sure enough, Noah had left his entire life savings to me.
What the hell was I supposed to do with a request like that?
For two days, I tried to convince myself I could ignore it. I got blackout drunk at night and, in the day, worked out like a devil. I only even got the damn letter when I returned from Mexico, since I’d been busy with the Cartel contract for almost six months. By that time, I’d even missed Noah’s funeral, just one more tick in the Piece of Shit column.
But, in the end, Noah was right. Mom loved Family Roller. Her face lit up brighter than the neon lights every time she was in there. It was never my thing, but that doesn’t matter. It was my brother’s last wish. So I’ll make it happen.
As I drive through the trees that lead to the town proper—a tight cluster of buildings around Main Street and then, scattered through the forest, houses and the Mini ’Burbs and the newer apartment buildings—I wonder what Noah was thinking about when he died. He was helping with Somali Pirates, I know, but I couldn’t get any more information than that.
Was it a stray bullet, or was he looking into his killer’s eyes?
I shake my head, dislodging the question. It can’t do any good anyway. I’m oddly glad to see that the diner is still called the Fork-N-Spoon, even if the N is faded now, and the green paint on the wooden front could do with repainting. A couple of old-timers eye my Chevy as I climb out.
“That thing’s as black as the night,” one man says, nodding a greeting with his baseball cap “You get it recently sprayed or somethin’?”
“Last week, sir,” I say.
“Well-I-never.” He makes it all one long word, whistling as he appraises it. “You have a good’un, now.”
“And you, sir.”
I nod politely and walk into the diner. I like the sort of simple old folks who say stuff like that, just making small talk to pass the time. It’s easier than talking about real stuff. I think that confuses women sometimes, how men can just sit around and talk without really saying anything, and yet still seem content.
I’ve been away most of my life, so I don’t recognize anybody in the Fork. I order a coffee and choose the most tactically-sound spot I can find, right in the corner with a solid wall behind me and the kitchen area off to the right. The only downside is the window to my left. I find myself glancing at the peaceful Maine road as though enemy soldiers are going to come storming through.
To relax myself, I study the place.
The customers who filter in for breakfast are just like the people who lived here when I was a kid, even if I don’t know them and they don’t know me. I’m thirty one now, and I left for the Navy when I was just shy of seventeen, so that makes it fourteen years ago. Yet they’re still just good, simple people, talking quietly about the game last night and the latest scandal as they pass the time until it’s time to go to work.
I sip my black coffee, liking the burn of the caffeine in my belly.
I know what I’m doing: delaying going to see Dad. It’s been a long time. We spoke on the phone, briefly, when I got word that Noah was dead, but by then the funeral was over and he didn’t seem like he wanted to talk. Russel Nelson has always been a taciturn man.
“Refill, hon?” the waitress asks, a young open-faced woman with her eyebrow raised, casually moving a piece of gum around her mouth. She eyes me in that way women do sometimes, that sort of if-you-want-it way, as though, if I started flirting, she might flirt back. Not anything serious … I’m not saying she’ll bend over right here in the diner and go at it. But there’s a look there.
I’m not in the mood, though, and I just shake my head with the best smile I can offer. I don’t let myself get involved with women these days. Women want emotion, depth, and that’s something I can’t offer them. I’m broken, that’s the dirty truth. “No, thank you. I’ll be heading out soon.”
“You let me know if you need anything.”
“Will do, thanks.”
I’m about to get going—can’t put this off forever—when my first genuine smile in days spreads across my face. I sit back down, studying the sheriff as he walks over to the counter, tipping his hat to people.
He still has that wrestlers’ swagger, though I see that he walks with a slight limp now. Sheriff Leonard Fuller was my high school wrestling coach, a broad, tall African American man with a kind face and sharp eyes. When I knew him, he was clean-shaven, but now he has a light dusting of grey-black beard. He’s ordering a coffee when he happens to look my way.
He squints, actually bends at the hip as though his eyes are playing a trick on him. Then a smile spreads across his face, too, and he paces over, hand already extended.
“Luke Nelson,” he booms, so loudly the whole diner snaps around to look at him. But he doesn’t care. He pumps my hand in a tight fist so hard my shoulder twinges. “I thought I’d gone crazy, looking over here and seeing you. As if a bum hip isn’t enough to worry about, I was thinking, now I’ve gotta put up with bum eyes, too?”
“Coach,” I say. “It’s real good to see you.”
“And you, Luke. And you. Mind if an old man imposes?”
I nod at the seat opposite and we both drop down. Leonard places his sheriff’s hat on the table with care, and then reaches across and slaps me on the shoulder like he used to before wrestling matches. “Not missing any meals, then, eh? How much you weigh these days?”
I grin banteringly. “I thought you were done with coaching?”
“I guess old habits die hard.”
I tell him: I’m six foot and one-ninety pounds of pure muscle. I’m not freakishly big, not like my friend Morgan who works at Sun-Disk Security, but very few men want to pick a fight with me. And those that do regret it pretty damn quickly.
“It’s mostly fat these days,” I joke.
“Yeah,” Coach scoffs sarcastically. “You look obese. Thank you, Mary.” He takes his coffee and leans back, studying me in disbelief. “I keep waiting for you to disappear in a puff of smoke. Luke Nelson back in Little Fall.”
I nod at his sheriff’s hat. “Congratulations. I heard you made sheriff. I can’t think of a better man.”
“You heard? How?”
“I swung through here a couple of years back on my way to Quebec. Didn’t stop long, though, just an hour or so. I saw you in Memorial Park with your sheriff’s badge. I’m happy for you, Coach.”
He pats the hat like it’s a loyal pet. “It’s a hard job, but some poor sap’s gotta do it, right? But don’t worry about me. Queenie’s doing just fine, before you ask, still feeding the high school kids her meatloaf even though I’m not the coach no more. This hip, you see. What else? Yes, our boy’s still over in England … doing his banking business, whatever that means.” He takes a sip of coffee, and then slams it down. “Tell me about you, Luke.”
So I do. I tell him a little about my work with Sun-Disk, even if I can’t go into too much detail. “We mostly run security for high-profile clients,” I say. “But, sometimes,
we have more, ah … covert business to take care of.”
Coach nods matter-of-factly. “Say no more, Luke. I don’t want to put you in an awkward position. I heard you retired from the SEALs. I’m sorry for what happened over there. I heard they gave you a medal for it.”
I don’t know what to say to this, the memories are so sharp, so I just sip my coffee. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just a topic of conversation I’d rather not steer into. Luckily, Coach senses this and moves on.
“The big question, though. Why are you here?”
I feel ridiculous as I tell him about Noah’s letter, his final wish about the roller rink. Coach grins mischievously. “The world works in mysterious ways, don’t it?” he says. “He’s right, you know. That place was Evelyn’s pride and joy. You know one of the girls she used to train, that Hannah Coleman-Ortiz—Teresa’s girl, she has cancer now, poor woman—you know she’s some international rollerskating champion or something?”
I clench my fist under the table when he mentions Hannah.
Hannah and Noah were inseparable growing up, two peas in a lovey-dovey pod … until Hannah ended things with him and broke Noah’s heart, sending him into a year-long depression.
The kid was so beat up about it, he still talked about it right up until the end.
When we met up and got drunk, she always came up in conversation. “We could’ve had a family,” he’d say. “We could’ve been something, bro.”
Those meetings never came as often as I liked, because we were both busy with our work. But when we did finally get the chance, I was always surprised by how much my little brother had grown up, which I guess I shouldn’t have been. When I walked into whatever bar we were meeting at and saw him sitting there, his brown hair cut Marine-short, his posture military-erect, I was so proud. I’d always try and sneak up behind him and bear-hug the little prick, but more often than not, he sensed that I was there and spun on me.
The drinks would flow. And, at least half the time, Hannah’s name would soon follow. Noah had loved her. He’d loved her so damn much, he’d dedicated so many years of his childhood to the idea that they were sweethearts and would get married, that it ruined relationships for him. He became cold.
