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Guarding Aurora
Beyond Valor 6
A Brotherhood Protectors Kindle Worlds/
Eagle Security & Protection Agency Novella
Lynne St. James
Books by Lynne St. James
Beyond Valor
A Soldier’s Gift
A Soldier’s Surprise – A Barefoot Bay Kindle World Novella
A Soldier’s Triumph
Protecting Faith – A Special Forces: Operation Delta Kindle World Novella
A Soldier’s Pledge
Guarding Aurora – A Brotherhood Protectors Kindle World Novella
A Soldier’s Redemption (Coming soon!)
A Soldier’s Homecoming (Winter 2017)
Protecting Ariana – A Special Forces: Operation Delta Kindle World Novella (January 2018)
Anamchara
Embracing Her Desires
Embracing Her Surrender
Embracing Her Love
Raining Chaos
Taming Chaos
Seducing Wrath
Music under the Mistletoe – A Raining Chaos Christmas (Novella)
Tempting Flame
The Vampires of Eternity
Twice Bitten Not Shy
Twice Bitten to Paradise
Twice Bitten and Bewitched
Want to be one of the first to learn about Lynne St. James’ new releases? Sign up for her VIP newsletter filled with exclusive news and contests but never spam! http://eepurl.com/bT99Fj
Guarding Aurora
He saved her once and had to walk away.
Now he has a second chance, and he’s not going anywhere!
Delta Force Team member, Jasper “Raptor” Ramsey was in the wrong place at the right time when he pulled an injured woman from the carnage on the streets of Paris. But before he could find out her name, his unit was activated, and he had to walk away without knowing her fate.
When terrorists rip apart her life and dreams one fateful night, Aurora “Rori” Prince abandons Paris and returns home to Eagle Rock, Montana. As she tries to put the past behind her, her bakery becomes a target. When Sadie Patterson and her baby barely escape injury in the latest attempt against Prince’s Patisserie, Hank Patterson of the Brotherhood Protectors arranges security for Rori and the bakery.
When Raptor’s latest assignment for Eagle Security & Protection Services takes him to Montana to assist Hank, the last thing he expects when he arrives is the woman he’d all but given up hope to find. With a second chance to protect her, can he keep her safe and win her heart?
Dedication
For all those who have suffered at the hands of terrorists at home and abroad.
For T.S., my protector.
Acknowledgments
First, I want to thank Elle James for writing such wonderful characters and allowing my characters to “play” with them. I loved writing in her Kindle World, and I hope you all enjoy this visit.
Then I need to thank the #coffeecrew for their constant support and encouragement. This book was even harder to finish since I lost my writing buddy, Chloe, in the middle of the story, but their support kept me on track.
I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I did writing it. Remember, the best way to thank an author is to leave a review.
Lynne
xoxo
Table of Contents
Books by Lynne St. James
Guarding Aurora
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
Paris, France – November 13, 2015
It was a relief to hear laughter and chatter, even if he couldn’t figure out what most of it meant. The last place he’d expected to be was in Paris on a Friday evening. Exhausted from the last mission, he was glad for the respite of the eight-hour layover on his way back to the states.
The growling of his stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since they’d finished the mission twelve hours ago. The flight attendant said he’d love the food at La Belle Équipe. Just the thought of sitting down at a table for food instead of the MREs of the last four weeks was heaven. Now, if he could just find the damn restaurant he’d be set.
Rat a tat tat rat at tat tat.
Machine gun fire?
Instantly on alert, Jasper “Raptor” Ramsey checked his six. The blast of rapid fire echoed in his ear. At first, he thought it was a flashback, but the laughter of moments ago turned to screams as they ran. Chaos.
What the hell was going on?
Without thinking, Raptor ran toward the gunfire. It was what he did. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t on a mission, just that someone might need his help.
As he rounded the corner onto the rue de Chaconne, he found the source of the shooting. Bodies were strewn across the terrace of the restaurant. Moans and screams echoed in his ears as he made his way through the hysterical crowds trying to get away.
The police arrived as he did, and as they exchanged fire with the gunmen, Raptor maneuvered onto the terrace to check for survivors. It was as bad as any mission he and his team had been on. What he’d give to have them there now. But the Deltas rarely traveled together, to say they were secretive would be an understatement. Even most their families didn’t realize they served on the elite team. And for now, he was on his own.
Moving from body to body, he checked for a pulse, after checking three people to find them already gone, he heard a faint sound to his left.
“Aidez-moi, s'il vous plaît.”
Turning toward the sound, he stepped over the debris remaining from the diners enjoying their evening. The plea was from a woman, half-pinned beneath a table in the corner of the terrace and covered in blood, but he wasn’t sure if it was hers or those she was trying to help. Lifting the table from her lower body, he made a quick determination of her condition. Broken ankle and two bullet wounds in her leg.
Not sure if she was French or not, he struggled to recall his high school lessons. A bad joke for sure. It wasn’t his strength, and he left that up to Wolfman.
“Madame, vows okay?”
“I can’t feel my leg,” she answered in English. Thank God.
“Your ankle is broken, and you’ve taken two bullets in your leg.” Taking off his belt as he spoke, he applied it as a tourniquet to slow the bleeding. The wounds themselves weren’t kill shots, but he didn’t want her to bleed out while waiting for help.
“I’m fine, it’s my parents who need help. Please, can you help them? I don’t think my mom is breathing. My dad’s over there, I think? He’s not moving either. And I can’t find Jim.”
Two fingers to the woman’s neck told him she was already gone. There would be no bringing her
back after seeing the bloom of blood in the center of her chest. The older male on her other side had taken a bullet to the head. There was nothing Raptor could do for her parents, but he was determined to make sure she survived.
Her blue eyes were filled with desperation, and he eased the older woman out of her arms. The pain in her eyes forced him to look away. He couldn’t imagine what she and all the other injured were feeling at that moment. They weren’t used to this, shouldn’t have to be, it’s why the teams put themselves in harm’s way—to keep attacks like this from happening.
“No…please, help them. They can’t be dead.” Her heart wrenching plea was like a stab in Raptor’s chest. But there was nothing he could do.
“I’m so sorry.” He was, he didn’t know her or any of the dead or injured lying on that terrace, but it didn’t stop him from caring. He kept his feelings hidden, even his team didn’t know that his hard shell protected a marshmallow center.
With the gunmen dead, the police were trying to clear the area of civilians who weren’t injured. The bleating sirens of the ambulances were getting closer.
“Sir, please. Jim? He was… OMG.” Her face crumpled in horror as she caught sight of the other person she’d been trying to find as the police moved the adjacent table. Half of the man’s head was missing, one eye open and staring, but it would never see anything again.
Raptor moved to block the sight. She didn’t need that to be her final memory of him, whoever he was. Boyfriend, brother, it didn’t matter. “They’re going to take you to the hospital.”
A small blood-covered hand reached out, and he took it in his. It was so tiny. “Thank you for helping me,” her voice breaking as she tried to hold back her tears. Even as the ambulance crew lifted her onto the gurney, he didn’t want to let go. There was something that drew him to her. It made no sense. There were others who needed his help. But as she was wheeled away, a sense of loss almost took his breath away, and he wanted to kick himself for not getting her name. To check on her was his excuse, but deep inside it felt like something more.
“Es-tu blessé?” one of the officers asked as he grabbed his arm.
The question took him by surprise until he looked down at his bloodied shirt. “No, it’s not my blood,” he answered in English. No sense in trying to use his piss-poor French.
“Bien, good.
As he continued to check for survivors and helped to triage the wounded, his phone buzzed in his pocket indicating a text message.
Report in asap. We’ve got new orders.
It didn’t surprise him, especially when he’d heard from the locals that the restaurant wasn’t the only attack in Paris that evening.
Chapter One
Eagle Rock, Montana – Present Day
6:00 a.m. Time to open. With a quick swipe, Aurora “Rori” Prince, flipped the sign on the front door of Prince’s Patisserie from closed to open. The bakery had been open for a little over a year. It wasn’t how she’d expected to use her culinary certificates from the Cordon Bleu, but that one night in Paris had changed everything.
Everything.
Rori thought that Paris would be her home after she’d graduated. She’d had grand plans of opening a little shop and spending the rest of her life there growing old with Jim. The only reason to come back would have been to visit her parents. But in mere moments on that horror-filled evening, she had lost everyone she loved. Devastated. Alone. Broken mentally and physically. As soon as she’d recovered enough to travel she’d gone home to Montana.
The comfort she’d sought in the familiar surroundings of her childhood home wasn’t there. It was too painful to know she’d never see her parents again, never feel their hugs, never listen to their quiet laughter about some joke they’d shared. Nope, they were gone, and so was Jim, her fiancé. The loss was even more devastating. They’d been planning their future, he’d proposed only minutes before the gunfire started. And then he too was gone. All of them stolen by fanatical terrorists who’d wreaked havoc all over that evening.
The chime over the bakery door pulled her from her reverie.
“Morning, Rori.”
“Bonjour, Sadie. Aww, and you brought the little one. It’s amazing how big she’s gotten already.”
“I know, and when she smiled at me… I’d give her the world if I could.”
Little Emma was a beautiful baby. It wasn’t a surprise though, since her mother was one of the most beautiful and famous stars in Hollywood, or had been. Her husband, Hank, wasn’t half bad either. “I think all parents must feel that way. So, is there something special you came in to pick up?”
“No not really, I was in town, and I couldn’t resist stopping to see what your special is today. You’ve really spoiled all of us with these treats. I swear I have to work out an extra hour to make up for the calories.”
“I doubt that. You’re beautiful and perfect, just like in high school. I still can’t believe you came back here instead of living the movie star life in LA.”
“Well, that’s not much different than your return from Paris.” Except that it was, totally. Sadie had come back to get away from a stalker and then reconnected with her high school sweetheart. Rori came back to lick her wounds and try to figure out how to go on after losing everything that mattered.
“Oh man, I’m sorry. That was a dumb thing to say.”
“No worries. Seriously, we all have our own trials to overcome, right?”
As Rori grabbed a few of the croissants that had just come out of the oven, she could feel Sadie’s eyes following her.
“I really am sorry.”
Gathering her emotions and packing them up like she did the pastries, Rori turned with a smile plastered on her face. She would keep it together, it’s what she did, what she’d done since that evening. When she’d gotten back her friends had been so supportive, the last thing she wanted to do was make Sadie feel bad.
“I just took some croissants out of the oven.”
“You’re definitely spoiling us.”
“And I threw in a couple of eclairs for later,” Rori said with a wink as she handed over the little pink cardboard box tied with a black bow. Pink and black were the signature colors of Prince’s. It reminded her of happier times in Paris, and she needed to hold on to those. It would be too easy to let that night turn her into a bitter person, but her parents and Jim wouldn’t have wanted that.
“I guess it will be extra treadmill time for me,” Sadie said with a huge smile.
It was almost like the next few minutes were in slow motion. As Sadie turned to leave the large plate glass window at the front of the store shattered. Shards of glass flew directly at her and the baby. Without a second thought, Rori pushed Sadie and Emma behind her to block them from injury.
***
Willow Haven, Florida – Present Day
“Dammit, Raptor. You can’t deck the client because he’s wrong. They hire us to protect them not put them in the hospital.”
“He had it coming, Chase. He’s lucky I didn’t take his head off.”
“No, you’re lucky. If you don’t chill out, you’re going to find yourself stuck behind a desk. Do you hear me? Anger management classes, dude. I’m not kidding.”
If Raptor heard he needed to “chill out” one more time, he really was going to kill someone. Why couldn’t anyone see that being on the teams was his whole life? What he’d been born to do, trained for, lived for. Now that he’d had to take a medical discharge he didn’t know what to do with himself, and babysitting a bunch of pansy-assed rich people was not a satisfying career choice.
The last mission had been a huge clusterfuck, and his team sustained heavy casualties. Two dead and three injured out of ten; in a location they couldn’t name as part of a mission that didn’t exist. Even with all of that, they’d successfully completed the rescue.
None of it should have happened though. Bad intel happened more times than not, but it had gone south as soon as they’d reached the rendezvous poin
t. It hadn’t helped that ever since that night in Paris whenever he heard machine gun fire he’d flash back to the woman and her haunting blue eyes pleading with him to save her parents.
It might not have been why he was injured, but in his heart, he knew it was. The damage to his leg made it impossible to return to the Deltas. His focus had deserted him. Always calm, cold and calculating. His lack of emotion had earned him the nickname Raptor. It was part of him or had been, for as long as he could remember. Until Paris. And that brought him to where he was now wondering if he’d ever get his head out of his ass. After two years of searching with no luck, he needed to admit he’d never find her and move on.
“Raptor, dammit, are you listening to me?” Chase Brennan demanded. Nope, that was a negative. He’d been too busy reminiscing about a past that didn’t matter anymore. He was losing it. Maybe he did need to talk to someone.
“I am now.”
Chase shook his head and cursed under his breath. Raptor was saved from whatever scathing retort was coming by the ringing of his cell phone.
“Brennan.”
It was his chance to escape the butt kicking, and Raptor didn’t waste a second. Except as soon as he stood to leave, Chase held up his hand signaling he wanted him to stay. So much for a clean getaway.
While he waited for Chase to finish his call, his mind wandered to the mystery woman he’d saved in Paris. At least that’s what he told himself. She’d probably have been found in time by the paramedics. She haunted his dreams, and her face would pop into his mind at the worst possible moment, and had ruined his concentration more than once. He’d tried to find out who she was when he’d returned from his mission but it was like she’d never existed. At times, he wondered if she was real, but the bloody t-shirt he had was proof of that night. Why he’d saved it, God only knew because he sure as hell didn’t. Every time he went to toss it in the trash something stopped him. And now, two years later it was stuffed into the back of his dresser drawer. It lived there until he felt the need to feel her presence.
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