Guardian

by Brook Wilder

  Part of it was because I enjoyed eating, the other part… Well, I enjoyed eating.

  Pushing the cover aside, I climbed in the bed, keeping my body from touching Derrek the best I could.

  “It feels weird going to bed in the middle of the day.”

  “Well. when you’ve been up as long as we have, it could be damn near perfect outside and I would be right here,” he said in a tired voice.

  I felt sorry for him.

  “I’m sorry you are caught up in this.”

  Derrek laughed.

  “Darling, there’s no other place I would rather be than all-up in the middle of something, trust me. If I wasn’t here, I would be doing something not exactly legal.”

  “Still,” I continued. “Thank you for what you have done.”

  I didn’t have to elaborate. He had taken care of me, a complete stranger, my cat, and he was being kind to my mother.

  “You’re welcome,” he said after a moment.

  I removed my glasses and set them on the bedside table, expecting to feel the lull of sleep right away. I was exhausted, from the combination of the meds still in my system and the overall lack of sleep.

  But I couldn’t relax. Not with Derrek right beside me, half naked and not making a sound.

  “You’re not asleep, are you?”

  He chuckled.

  “We just laid down Alice.”

  “I know,” I said, staring up at the blurry ceiling. “Tell me about your bar.”

  “It’s not my bar,” he said.

  I couldn’t help but look over at him, surprised.

  “I thought it was.”

  He shook his head, his eyes on the ceiling.

  “It’s the Legion’s bar. I just keep the peace and make them a ton of money in the process.”

  Curious, I flipped over on my side, tucking my arm behind my head.

  “If you could do anything, what would it be?”

  He looked over, a slight grin on his face.

  “Are you serious?”

  I gave him a shrug.

  “Are you scared to answer the question?”

  Derrek flipped onto his side, tucking the pillow under his head. There were mere inches between us, so close that I could have reached out and touched his strong jaw if I had wanted to.

  But that would have caused something that I wasn’t quite ready for yet.

  “Of course not,” he said, his eyes on me. “I would own a string of strip joints.”

  I burst into laughter, knowing he was joking.

  “Come on. Answer it seriously.”

  “What would you do, Alice?” he asked instead.

  “I would open up my own Alzheimer’s assisted-living facility,” I answered immediately.

  After going through what I had with my mom, I knew there was a shortage of places that could provide that level of care for the debilitating disease.

  “Wow!” he said, surprise flickering in his eyes. “That’s… Wow! I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Your turn,” I said, not really wanting to go into any details. I wasn’t going to give up on that dream.

  He blew out a breath.

  “I guess I would go home to Ireland, open up a little pub there.”

  “Have you ever been?” I asked lightly.

  Derrek shook his head.

  “My da and I never had enough money to get there. I would have liked to have got him there, before he died.”

  My heart caught in my throat. There was obvious pain on Derrek’s face as he spoke.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s fine,” he said, clearing his throat. “Maybe I will take his ashes one day soon.”

  Silence stretched between us, and I felt my lids growing heavy, thinking about Derrek’s dream. Perhaps, after all this was over with, I would ask my newly found father to give him some time off, to let him achieve what he wanted to do for his father. Surely Jack Carry would allow that to happen.

  That was my last thought before sleep overtook me and I drifted off.

  Chapter Nine

  Derrek

  She was in my arms again.

  I tried not to move, tried barely to breathe, so that I wouldn’t wake her up. Her hair was tickling my nose, and my arm was starting to go to sleep, but I couldn’t let her wake up yet.

  Because once she did, we would be back to this awkward thing between us, both fighting something that we knew was gonna happen eventually.

  She murmured in her sleep, and I tightened my grip on her, soothing whatever it was that was bothering her.

  When I had woke to find her next to me, I had known that I wasn’t about to turn down this chance to be near Alice. After she had fallen asleep during our conversation, I had watched her for a few minutes, taking in the outline of her face when she was relaxed. Now that her features were not hidden behind her thick glasses, she was gorgeous, even in the worst possible clothes imaginable.

  But it was more than that. I felt a calm around her, holding back when I could really let myself tell her anything she wanted to know about my life.

  And I hadn’t lied to her. The bar wasn’t mine, never had been. I was just another lackey in the Legion, doing what they wanted me to do, so that they would stay the fuck out of my way.

  And the thing about my da… That had been true too. I had wanted to take him to Ireland, even started up a fund with a significant amount of money in it before he had gotten sick. Then, the money went to the treatments that had failed him in the end, making him so sick he couldn’t even get out of the bed, much less take a plane across the world.

  He had died before we could follow through with any plans. We did not even get the chance to say goodbye properly.

  My chest started to hurt, and I pushed the memory away, hating the fact that I had decided to run a job for the club that night and hadn’t been at my father’s side at the hospital. The call I had received had torn my world apart, robbing me of the chance to be there for him when he passed. It had been quick, the nurse had told me, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

  My da had died alone.

  No one deserved to die alone. While I had never thought about it until that moment, I realized that even now no one would be at my bedside, holding my hand when I died. I was a loner, one that liked to keep to himself, in the hope that no one would hurt me in the end.

  Hell, Andrew was the only reason that I even talked to people outside of the bar scene, and he was the last person that would be there when I died.

  More than likely, he would be robbing me blind in the process.

  I looked at the woman in my arms, letting down my bounds and simply enjoying the way she felt in my arms. Someone like Alice… That was who a man should have beside him when he went to that great light in the sky. Capturing someone like Alice would not be something to be regretted, but cherished as the last bright thing that a man would remember.

  But I couldn’t be that man. I had nothing to offer her. Hell, I was an Irish bastard that shouldn’t even be touching her like this. She was special, with something special to give that right person one day. Out of all the women that I had met, slept with, or pissed off in my life, she was the only one that had me laying here, attempting not to move so that the moment wouldn’t be ruined.

  I just needed it a little while longer.

  Lightly, I trailed my hand down her spine and was rewarded with her scooting closer toward me.

  I had to protect her. Just the mere thought of something happening to this woman in my arms, not even a woman I had fucked yet, nearly tore me up inside. With every conversation, I felt like I was drawing closer to her, and it scared the shit out of me. My da had been the only person I had cared about in my life, and when he had died, it had left a gaping hole in my chest where my heart used to be.

  But Alice… Hell, if I lost her, I imagined that hole would get bigger. How the hell had this happened? How had she wormed her way in, without me even seeing it coming?

  She was to
o good for the likes of me. I could flirt, I could kiss her, but I sure as hell wasn’t gonna be the bloke that took her virginity.

  My throat tightened, and I eased my arms from around her carefully, sliding off the bed. This was fucking wrong. I shouldn’t even be in her presence.

  Throwing on my clothes, I walked out of the bedroom, noting that the sun was already setting on another day. Well, hell! We had slept the afternoon away.

  Sneaking past the closed door of her mom’s room, I pulled out my cell and dialed Fox’s number.

  “What’s up, fucker?” he asked.

  “What’s the news?” I asked. “Anything happen?”

  “While you were catching up on your beauty sleep, princess?” he added, though there was no laughter in his voice. “Three more marks hit, all taken this time. We are searching for them now.”

  “Shit!” I said, running a hand through my hair roughly. “Who?”

  “Dodge’s wife and kid,” Fox said with a sigh. “One of the young guns we had just initiated.”

  “Shit!” I repeated.

  Dodge was one of the mechanics for the Legion, a nice family guy who loved his family. I had served him a time or two at the bar, though he wasn’t the type to partake in the women that hung around there. He must be out of his mind with worry.

  “What can I do?”

  “As much as I hate to admit this,” Fox said with a heavy sigh. “I need your fucking help, McMurray. You should have three guards outside the house. You think you can step out for an hour or so?”

  “What would Jack say?” I asked hesitantly.

  His entire world, or one that he used to belong to anyway, was right inside this house, and I was solely responsible for them.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Fox finally said. “Stay there, keep them safe. Jack would cut the balls off both of us if anything happened to them. We will make do with what we have.”

  I was torn. Never before had Fox asked for my fucking help like this and I wanted to help him, help the Legion that I had truly never been a part of.

  But Jack had given me a very specific job to do and I couldn’t shirk it now, not when Alice was involved.

  “Keep me posted.”

  “Ten-four,” he said before clicking off.

  Closing my eyes, I tapped the cell phone to my forehead for a moment. We were truly at war. The Cazadores weren’t going to stop until we were all dead, or they were, and whether I liked it or not, I was gonna have to help the Legion win this damn thing.

  “Are you alight?”

  I looked up to see Cheryl watching me, a cautious look on her face.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, softening my expression. “I’m fine. How did you sleep?”

  She continued to look at me, clasping her hands in front of her.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot your name.”

  “Derrek,” I answered smoothly. “Alice’s boyfriend.”

  Her face lit up.

  “Oh, yes! Derrek! I apologize. I seemed to have forgotten your name for a moment.”

  I gave her my best grin.

  “I was just going to make a cup of coffee. Would you like to join me?”

  “Oh, such a charmer,” she said, waving a hand at me. “No wonder my daughter loves you. I would love to.”

  I maintained my grin, though her words touched my very soul. She thought Alice loved me. She thought that we were this happy couple, that her daughter was happy.

  With me.

  I couldn’t be that man. I wouldn’t make her happy. I was an asshole, a love-and-leave-them type of guy.

  I wasn’t the relationship type.

  We walked into the kitchen, and Cheryl started to pull down three mugs.

  “I tell you, there was a time that I thought Alice would never find a boyfriend. While her friends were out with their boyfriends, she was on that couch, watching mindless TV.”

  “Sometimes that’s the best way to stay out of trouble,” I added, pulling the coffee from the basket.

  It was hard to remember that Cheryl had her condition, just talking with her like that.

  “She’s just like her father,” Cheryl continued with a sigh. “Quiet, reserved, not good with people.”

  I nearly burst into laughter. Jack was far from those three things now; more like crass and yelling more than he actually talked. She must have been remembering a different time, one that none of us knew had existed before early that morning.

  “But all I ever wanted was for her to be happy,” she finished as I dumped the coffee grounds into the filter, flipping the switch for it to start brewing. “And she has found that.”

  I swallowed hard, unable to force out the words. Whatever Cheryl was seeing through her rose-colored glasses just wasn’t true. Alice and I were like oil and water, completely wrong for each other.

  Hell, I wasn’t even looking for someone, and neither was she. I needed this shit to be over with, so I could get away from Alice. While at one time I had been enjoying our time together, now I was worried that I would taint her goodness somehow or, worse, make her think this was something other than what it was.

  And what this was, was nothing more than two people who had been shoved together in the unlikeliest of scenarios.

  I would be better off keeping my distance, like Jack wanted me to do.

  Because if I didn’t, I was going to be in some deep shit.

  Chapter Ten

  Alice

  I shouldered the book bag as I walked down the hall, turmoil in my veins. I had awoken this morning hoping that the last two days had been nothing but some crazy nightmare, that I hadn’t nearly been kidnapped, and that I didn’t know who my father was.

  But finding Derrek on my mom’s couch had jolted me back to reality, a reality I didn’t know how to handle.

  That, and I didn’t understand why he had suddenly decided to treat me like I had some kind of disease.

  Blowing out a breath, I thought about last night and how he had explained that he needed to be readily available in case someone attempted to break into the house.

  “I can’t protect you and your mom from that bedroom,” he had said, no emotion on his handsome face. “It’s best that I’m out here.”

  I didn’t argue. How could I? It had been wrong for us to sleep in that bed together in the first place. I should never have let him kiss me.

  Because that I was all I could think about. Even throughout my classes today, which I’d had to beg him to let me attend so that I could prepare for my exams, I had thought about Derrek. We had fought this morning when I had demanded to come to my classes, to the point where I thought he was going to lock me in that bedroom so that he wouldn’t have to bother with me. I didn’t want this new revelation about who my father was to ruin my life and any sense of normalcy helped me keep the calm in my own mind.

  And that of my mom’s.

  So finally, Derrek had relented, with the concession that he would come to the campus with me and two other guys from the club, leaving two more behind to protect my mom. Luckily, today was my short class-day, when I would spend the rest of the afternoon in the library, after which we would be heading back to the house.

  Since he had given me this much, I was willing to relent on that part at least.

  But I wasn’t ready to face Derrek. Something had changed in him, and though he reserved the teasing grins for my mom, he hadn’t so much as given me any.

  I hadn’t known I would miss them as much I did.

  “Dear God,” I muttered to myself as I reached the glass doors that would lead to the outside, to Derrek.

  I was being pathetic. Derrek was my bodyguard, not boyfriend material; nor was he someone that would even be interested in the likes of me.

  I would be fair-warned to remember that.

  Straightening my shoulders, I walked outside into the cloudy day. Memories of the kidnapping swamped me for a moment, and I started to feel my throat close up. No, no, not now. I couldn’t go through this right now.
<
br />   “Alice.”

  Gulping air into my lungs, I turned to see Derrek striding toward me, his brow knitted with concern.