Table of Contents
Jackson - NAC & The Holly Group
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Dalton - NAC & The Holly Group
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
Wyatt - NAC & The Holly Group
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Sebastian - NAC & The Holly Group
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Ethan - NAC & The Holly Group
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Cash - NAC & The Holly Group
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Jackson
Alpha Team
NAC & The Holly Group
Author: Chelsea Handcock
www.chelseahandcock.com
Copyright © 2017, Chelsea Handcock
First electronic publication: January 2017
Second electronic publication: July 2017 – re-edited.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted works is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
Note from the Author:
This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to person, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third party websites or their content.
Re-edited version by Sandy Ebel, Personal Touch Editing, July 2017.
Published in the United States of America.
Jackson Thorp believes in tangible facts, military precision and having a good time. Never forming attachments to females and never letting them attach themselves to him. His policy is love em’ and leave em’. It works and he wouldn’t have it any other way. At least that was what the thought. The fates seem to have a different plan and one little red head seems to have blasted the top off his world. He starts to questions everything his sanity, his history and the legends of the past. Could she really be the answer?
Ryleigh Quinn has her life all planned out: work, work and more work. Save as many lives as possible and fill her heart with the good she helped come into the world. She has never been normal and doesn’t even want to be. When a mission brings up memories from her childhood she if forced to confront the one man she thought would never lie to her. The events that follow also forced her to realize that maybe all work and no play isn’t what she really wants ou
t of life. Fate has a way of making a person change their minds. Her fate just happens to come in the form of a delicious, infuriating, dominating bear shifter. Who would have thought?
**Content Warning: Explicit love scenes, naughty language, and lots of sexy secrets. Intended for mature audiences.
Chapter 1
Declan “Senior” Quinn sat at his desk looking at his daughter, Ryleigh, standing in front of his corner window looking out into the New York City skyline like it held all the answers. She was chewing her thumbnail, a habit he hadn’t seen her do since she was a child. He regretted the choices of his past which made her feel so apprehensive today. Unfortunately, even if he had the choice, he wouldn’t change anything. Too much was at stake.
She was his greatest treasure, pure at heart and strong. He could still see her face when she came to him several weeks ago, distrusting and confused. He had promised to never hurt her, and although he kept his promise to the best of his ability, he had still withheld crucial information, not entirely lying, yet not explaining everything. At least that was how he justified it to himself.
Her distrust hurt the most, he never wanted to see that look on her face again. Declan hadn’t wanted to keep such important things from her but for the greater good he’d had to make a choice and that choice was to keep his daughter in the dark. Whether he liked it or not, there was more at stake than just his discomfort over his daughter’s feelings. An entire race depended upon keeping secrets. He never once thought his two worlds would collide the way they had such a short time ago.
Help her forget the atrocities of the past and move on, that had been his first goal, and until today, he had thought he had done that. He wanted her to continue believing his motives for helping her as a child were altruistic and loving. However, in reality they weren’t. He was tasked with getting the child and keeping her creation under wraps. That didn’t change his feelings for her, but in the beginning, she was simply a job. The shame would haunt him until his dying days.
All his hard work was for naught. In reality, her memories surfaced and she started to put the puzzle pieces together with the help of her team. It only took one little piece of information to undo years of work. Never before had Declan wished he hadn’t encouraged her to follow in his footsteps. If she had stayed with one of the many career fields that she had chosen over the years, then neither of them would be in the position that they were in today. But that wasn’t the case. He had to make some very hard decisions, revealing parts of himself and her past, while keeping his real motives of the past safely hidden away. He hoped his choices never backfired on him again.
Finding Ryleigh seventeen years ago, changed him and what he wanted out of life. Before that day, he was sure that he would spend the rest of his days serving his country until his last breath, following orders and working toward someone else’s greater good. Ryleigh gave him back his humanity, not to mention humility. That was something his military career had basically drained from his soul. Declan laughed to himself. Raising a child had a way of humbling a person. Ryleigh didn’t care who he was to the outside world or even who his teams knew him as. To her he was just a dad and at times he cherished that, but others times he hated it.
He was still manipulating her and that wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. He didn’t have a choice because some things needed to be hidden. He wanted to be a good parent to her, not someone to be feared or even someone to obey and follow like he was to the men that worked for him. His team might call him Senior, but Ryleigh called him Dad. That one word was enough to squeeze his battered heart. His work life or early career rarely interfered with his and Ryleigh’s relationship. However, they were now going to collide like two freight trains during the night. The explosion would either bring them together or tear them apart. He hoped for the former and feared the latter.
Declan’s goal since finding Ryleigh all those years ago, was to maintain her safety and keep the ugliness of his world and everything else away from her. She had suffered greatly and he didn’t want her to endure a second of pain again, but he’d failed on both accounts. His girl was tenacious and dove right in where she needed to stay away. She now knew things weren’t as they seemed, and the nightmares that he had hoped were gone from her childhood were rearing their ugly heads once again. This time he couldn’t keep them away like he had done when she was a child. She was a grown woman, and although he was very proud, he had moments that he wished that she was one of those flighty entitled brats who his teams were consistently getting called in to save from their own stupidity. But that wasn’t his girl, not even close. She was smart, observant, vigilant, and had proved herself within his circles of the of the Security, Search, and Rescue community. Her own team had already made a name for themselves in a very short time and were quickly rivaling NAC for cases. All that didn’t matter now because everything was going to change. His daughter’s life would never be the same after this meeting.
He could still imagine Ryleigh the day he found her. She was looking up at him from a tiny cage, battered but not broken. Bright green eyes that seemed to have a knowledge and maturity well above her age, full of hope, but also apprehension. Her body was skinny, malnourished, and mistreated. The assholes had left her with tattered clothes and no shoes. In the 10x10 cage, she had a bed intended for dogs and a single bowl filled with water. There weren’t even the core amenities provided for her. His heart went out to her, but she never asked for a thing. Not help, not to get her out of her confinement, no, not Ryleigh. She just watched and waited for what was to come, expecting the worst, but hoping for the best. She was chewing her little thumbnail like it would solve all her problems. That was his girl, and he only hoped her perseverance lasted through what was to come, now. Everything that she had learned threatened her life and future, and Declan didn’t like it.
To him, Ryleigh represented innocence and strength, but maybe that was just a parent’s dream. Ryleigh had gone through and witnessed things in her life that would make even the most seasoned cringe. As the years went by, and he watched her grow, his admiration only grew. His goal in life was to protect, cherish, and love Ryleigh, the child who was once a job, but now a part of his heart. What he was doing now went against all that. He knew his teams would never hurt her physically, but he couldn’t guarantee she would come out of this emotionally unscathed, and that rankled him to his core. All of them were about to be tested.
After retiring from military service, Declan formed NAC (Not Another Child). His agency’s mission was to rescue children in peril and to do it significantly faster without the hindrance and bureaucracy constraints of the standard law enforcement system. His team’s mantra was “no stone left unturned.” They investigated every rumor, innuendo, or feeling, anything required to save a woman or child from one more minute of pain and suffering. He would never understand why evil people would want to destroy, consume, and harm such innocents. He wasn’t a naïve man, he had spent his life exposed to some of the most heinous acts human beings could perpetrate. It had hardened him to some degree, but it also helped him keep his focus and drove him to make the world a better place. He strove to do this not only for his daughter, but also for others who were lost but not forgotten, at least not forgotten to him and his teams.
Shaking his head, he watched his daughter gather her strength. She had stopped chewing her thumbnail and was now holding herself close. He wanted to go to Ryleigh, wrap his arms around her, and assure her that everything would be okay, but he couldn’t. She needed to do this on her own, and he needed to let her. He would always have her back; he really hoped she knew that.
He hated what was about to go down, but he also knew that he didn’t have any other choice. The cat was already out of the bag, so to speak. There was no sense in trying to shove the thing back in. His daughter would always come first for him, but his team and clansman were equally important. The guys needed the information Ryleigh had; it changed all of their lives significantly. Conversely, his need to
protect his daughter was riding him hard.
His sweet girl was about to shake up the lives of very powerful and potentially harmful people by blowing their perceived secrecy and security right out the door and in some way, divulging his betrayal not only to Ryleigh, but to his people. He didn’t care about that; if any of them had a problem, they could take it up with him. The next couple of hours would be hard. Ryleigh would have to expose some of her deepest and darkest secrets to a room full of predators, and he would have to watch. Only to let them have the final blow; she and a handful of others could be the answer to what they have all been hoping and looking to find for well over a century.
He remembered the day she came to him, eyes red-rimmed and swollen from crying. His first instinct was to go to her, but she wasn’t acting like the child of his heart. She was mad, standoffish, and hurt, not making eye contact with him, and guarding her tiny body with her arms clenched around her waist. Declan didn’t like the combination at all.
“Dad,” Ryleigh croaked, “we need to talk.”
Declan’s first inclination was to kill anything that caused her harm or discomfort. He abruptly stood from his desk, pushing his chair into the wall, ready for anything.
she had a folder in her hand, and as she held it out to him, her next words gutted him, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Confused, Declan didn’t know what was going on. There were so many things he had kept from his daughter; missions, contacts, how he came to find her, and even his race. Deciding to tread carefully, he asked cautiously, “What do you mean honey?” She looked so forlorn and alone at that moment. Declan wanted to cry with her, tell her whatever it was they would work through it, and it would be okay, but he held his tongue. Whatever was in that folder was about to change both of their lives, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t for the better.
Ryleigh was so mad and hurt. This was her Dad, the man she valued above all others, and he was keeping things from her, important things. They weren’t mission secrets, which she understood the need for confidentiality or even mundane secrets like what he was planning on getting her for Christmas, but life changing secrets. Secrets that could change them both irrevocably.
He looked like the same man who rocked her back to sleep when she had a nightmare or cheered in the crowd when she achieved every one of her degrees. Declan “Senior” Quinn was a handsome man. He was tall and maintained his physique even at his age. He was forty-eight, but could pass for a man in his early thirties. The only indication of age was a little graying on the temples of his blonde hair and the tiny crow’s feet next to his unusual eyes. With his experience and career, some would expect a weathered and aged man, but he wasn’t either of those things. She often wondered why he never dated or maybe even had a woman on the side, but to Ryleigh’s knowledge he didn’t and that always puzzled her. He was a catch by anyone’s standards. She had always wanted him to be happy, but never questioned him. Maybe now she knew why.
NAC & The Holly Group - Box set: Alpha Team Page 1
